The villain. Alice could not see Leo Dreyer among the soldiers but she thought he would be there. She had no idea yet if he knew her real identity, but he had said they were seeking out the families and the associates of Jewish people, and he would certainly relish capturing the infamous baroness…
But they aren’t going to capture me, she thought determinedly, and stepping back from the window she snatched a long dark raincoat from the wardrobe, stuffing the money and the few remaining strands of jewellery into the pockets and thrusting her passport into an inner pocket. She grabbed the suitcase, trying not to gasp at its weight, and went out on to the communal landing, closing the apartment door as softly as possible. But already there was the sound of the gilded-cage lift clanking up from below, and with her heart pounding Alice ran along the landing and through the door that led to the back stairs. She skidded down the stairs, praying not to miss her footing, and reached the bottom safely. As she went out through the side door into the narrow alley that ran alongside the building, she heard the angry shouts of the SS men from above.
Not daring even to glance over her shoulder, she half-ran into the maze of streets beyond.
The frightened lady’s maid of all those years earlier would probably have spent the night huddled miserably in a doorway somewhere, hoping to avoid the soldiers. Lucretia von Wolff, of course, would have sailed imperiously into the largest, plushest hotel she could find, and demanded a suite.
Alice did neither. She walked as far as she could, occasionally putting the suitcase down to rest her arms, and eventually came to a slightly run-down district on the eastern side of the city. The houses had peeling fa?ades, and some of them looked a bit seedy, but several had signs in the windows offering rooms for rent. This was what she had been looking for. After a careful appraisal she chose the one that looked the cleanest, but before approaching it she took from her case a silk headsquare which she tied over her hair. She would not be able to entirely obliterate the baroness, but she could at least disguise her a bit.
Once inside the small room, the incurious owner given a week’s rent, she felt safer, although the panic was still clutching her stomach and she was again aware of agonized fear for Deborah. Was I right to send her away like that? Should I have gone with her?
And abandon Conrad? said her mind at once.
When Alice thought of it like that, she knew she could not have acted in any other way.
Several times in the weeks that followed she considered taking people into her confidence – perhaps one of her friends from the film days, perhaps the lawyer who had drawn up the change of name documents – but she dared not trust anyone. Nazi rule was tightening around Vienna and people were eyeing one another uneasily. There were curfews for Jewish people in the city, and tales of ordinary men and women spying for the SS were rife.
Alice altered her appearance as much as she could. It was impossible to get rid of the baroness’s distinctive black hair – she would have to wait for the last lot of hair-dye to grow out – but she dressed unobtrusively and tied her hair beneath a headscarf when she went out. She changed her lodgings twice, each time going to a different part of the city, each time making casual acquaintances in shops and coffee houses, listening to all they had to say.
But the summer wore stiflingly on, and although she talked to more and more people, and although she hired cabs which took her into the Vienna Woods on the east and almost to the German border on the west, she did not pick up any clue as to where Conrad might be.
There were more soldiers on the streets now – the sharp-eyed men of G?ering’s Gestapo – and people scuttled along without looking to right or left. It grew colder; the leaves turned golden brown. Alice usually loved autumn, but now she found it hateful.