She wound her arms around his waist and with her head on his chest, closed her eyes tight. She wanted to believe him—and half did so.

The bottom line, though, was that they wouldn’t be marrying in three weeks’ time in Little Ridding’s village church and her Christmas present from him wasn’t going to be an engagement ring—at least, it wasn’t going to be so this year. And unless the political climate in Berlin changed drastically in the way he had predicted, it was unlikely to be so next year either.

Chapter Fourteen

London, Yorkshire and Berlin, June 1934

From where he was seated Max had a bird’s-eye view of the far side of Whitehall and the Cenotaph. The man facing him across the giant expanse of a mahogany Biedermeier desk, said courteously, ‘Cigar, Remer?’

Max shook his head. ‘No, thanks. I don’t.’ He withdrew a cigarette case from his inside pocket and quirked an eyebrow for permission to take one.

‘By all means,’ his Controller said, leaning back a little more comfortably in his leather-padded swivel chair. ‘Now, what’s the state of play with regard to what the Nazis describe as “mild reform centres” and Röhm? Is he likely to soon find himself visiting one of them?’

‘My cousin thinks so. He sees Röhm’s Brownshirts as having become a handicap to Hitler. In numbers, they now exceed the number of men in the German army—and a paramilitary organization of that strength is liable to become as much of a danger as it is of an asset. That’s one side of the coin. The other—and this is Claus’s take on things—is that the street violence which served Hitler so well before he became Chancellor is now an embarrassment to him. He believes Hitler wants to be perceived as being respectable. Which means he’ll have to get rid of Röhm, before Röhm decides it’s time to get rid of him.’

‘When he gets rid of Röhm, he’ll have to get rid of all high-ranking Brownshirts at the same time. It will be a bloodbath.’

‘Yes, sir. It will.’

His Controller swivelled his chair around so that he too had a view of the Cenotaph. ‘And what do you think will be the outcome of such a purge? Are we going to see Hitler become more tractable?’

‘There’s a section of German society that believes once Röhm is gone, and the men he organized and trained are disbanded, things will change for the better. The view I’ve heard expressed is that street violence will de-escalate and Hitler will begin paying more attention to mainstream political matters, and put anti-Semitism on a back burner.’

His Controller swung back to face him. ‘And what do you think, Remer? Do you think it likely?’

‘That anti-Semitism will cease to be the driving force behind National Socialism? No, sir. I don’t.’

‘Good. Because neither do I.’ He took a cigar from the box on his desk and cut the end from it. ‘Tell me about the camps. Are we to believe the propaganda being put out? Are they only for the imprisonment in protective custody of all communists and other members of outlawed political parties?’