Traitor's Gate Read Free Page A

family there. Of all the cousins, Conrad and Joachim had got on best together. This surprised their parents: Conrad was athletic and a keen shot, while Joachim was pale and had a perennial cold. But Joachim was a voracious reader and had a sharp intellect, and it was this that had interested the younger cousin. Their friendship grew when Joachim came to stay with Conrad’s family in London for a few months after an unexplained difficulty during his last year at his Prussian boarding school.
    Joachim poured Conrad a glass of champagne. ‘What brings you to Berlin? I thought you had dedicated your life to educating the inky-fingered.’
    ‘Not my life, just a term and a half,’ said Conrad. ‘I wanted to come here and see what’s happening. And perhaps write about it.’
    ‘Write about it?’
    ‘Yes. I did a couple of pieces for Mercury when I was in Spain, and they said they would be happy to take some more from Berlin.’ Conrad hesitated. ‘I also thought I’d try a novel.’
    ‘Oh, like that chap Isherwood. I met him once, you know. A charming man.’
    ‘Not exactly like him. It’s about an Englishman in Berlin in 1914. The coming of the last war.’
    ‘The war to end all wars?’
    ‘Yes, that one,’ said Conrad.
    There was the other reason why Conrad was in Berlin, of course. And Joachim picked up on it.
    ‘I was sorry to hear about Veronica.’
    Conrad shrugged.
    ‘It was such a shame I couldn’t come to your wedding. I’d just been posted to Moscow so I couldn’t get away. I would have loved to have met her. At one moment she sounded absolutely wonderful, the next a complete nightmare.’
    Conrad smiled ruefully. ‘I suppose she is both.’ He was grate­ful for Joachim’s sympathy, but he didn’t want to talk about Veronica. At least not quite yet.
    Joachim smiled in understanding. Then something caught his eye. He frowned and leaned forward. ‘Don’t look now, but there is a man behind your right shoulder staring at us. And I don’t think it’s because he wants to pick one of us up.’
    Conrad didn’t look. ‘You think he’s Gestapo or something? I suppose that’s to be expected in Germany these days, isn’t it? I am a foreigner, after all.’
    ‘It’s worse in Russia,’ Joachim said. He stopped a passing waitress. ‘A packet of cigarettes, please.’
    When the waitress returned a moment later, he passed her a generous tip. ‘Do you know that man over there, the one with the rabbit teeth? Is he a regular?’
    The waitress looked up with the barest flick of her eyes. ‘No, he hasn’t been in before.’ Then, understanding, she said: ‘Don’t worry, he can’t overhear you. I have just served him: he’s deaf.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Joachim. ‘That’s nice to know.’
    Conrad looked around the club. The Kakadu was busy. A line of barmaids was frantically working at a large semi-circular bar to keep the customers supplied. Conrad smiled to himself as he noticed that they alternated between blonde and brunette, everything just so, everything in its proper pattern. A stunning blonde woman on the dance floor caught Conrad’s attention. She was wearing a long figure-hugging evening gown with the rear cut away leaving her buttocks bare.
    ‘I’m sure she’d dance with you if you asked her nicely,’ Joachim said with a grin.
    ‘Perhaps not this evening,’ said Conrad. ‘But it is a nice view.’
    ‘I thought you’d like this place,’ said Joachim. ‘I met your friend here a couple of nights ago. Theo von Hertenberg.’
    ‘I didn’t know you were in touch with Theo!’
    ‘I’m not really. That was the trouble. I’ve only met him through you, that time I visited you in Oxford, and then when you came to Berlin a couple of years later.’
    Conrad smiled. ‘I remember the Oxford visit and I’m sure Theo does. I will never forget you declaiming Goethe from my window in Front Quad. It was all I could do to stop you falling out.’
    Joachim smiled. ‘I was a little tight,