Funeral in Berlin (12 page)

Development for its own sake is insufficient. There
must be a keen purpose in every move.

London, Thursday, October 17th

‘It’s no good trying to blame Hallam,’ Dawlish was saying. ‘He’s given you more co-operation and information than you could reasonably ask for. Good Lord, you should have worked with the Home Office people when I was seconded to them.’

‘Let’s not talk about when coppers wore high hats,’ I said. ‘I’ve got my problems
now
—I don’t want to hear your chilling experiences.’

‘And bringing the San Sebastian people into this—it’s a grave error of judgement. Grenade’s people will have listened to the whole thing.’

‘Don’t worry about Grenade,’ I said. ‘I gave him that girl and said she was working from Bonn. That was quite enough to have them all busy for a couple of days.’

‘You don’t have to sit here and sort it all out,’
said Dawlish. ‘You just make a lot of trouble right across Europe and leave it for me to curtsy, kiss your hand, apologize, explain that we all make mistakes sometimes and carry the can for you.’

‘You do it so well,’ I said. I turned to go.

‘Another thing,’ said Dawlish, ‘that young Chillcott-Oakes came up here the other day babbling about books and thistle stamens. Couldn’t understand a word of it except that he’d got it from you.’

‘I just said that you were interested in wild flowers,’ I said. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

Dawlish began to move items off the top of his desk like he was going to climb on it and do a Gopak. It was a sign of deep emotion.

‘Do you know, even the wife likes it now? People have heard about it and they come to see it. They come to scoff. I know they do, but they stay to admire and one or two people have brought me plants. I have cornflowers—I don’t know why I didn’t think of those right from the start. I have some lovely scarlet pimpernel, corn camomile (you may know that better as mayweed)…’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Dawlish was looking into the far, far distance now as his crop paraded slowly before his eyes. ‘Sweet alyssum,
galinsoga,
the yellow ox-eye daisy and some quite remarkable grasses, and wild birds and butterflies.’

‘You aren’t going to encourage pests then. You aren’t going to have wire-worms and Colorado beetles,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Dawlish.

‘What about poisonous plants?’ I said. ‘What about fox-glove and monk’s-hood or deadly nightshade and wild arum or some of that great agaric fungus? Deadly as hell.’

Dawlish shook his head.

He switched his squawk box on and asked Alice for a dossier he needed, then switching the box off for a moment, he said: ‘Whatever else you conclude, right or wrong, don’t make any mistakes about Hallam. He’s a damn good chap; whatever you may feel about him personally, the HO would hardly function without him. Leave him well alone or you will be tackling me—in person.’

I nodded. Dawlish passed me a flimsy message form. ‘I would appreciate it if in future you didn’t request even routine information from field units without permission. You don’t understand…’ He waved the flimsy sheet. ‘These things cost us a fee.’

‘OK,’ I said. Dawlish had a happy knack of indicating when a meeting was at an end, even though he would often feign surprise when one made towards the door.

‘I say,’ he said. ‘All that twaddle about my writing books and meadow flowers.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Dawlish shrugged in embarrassment. ‘Good of you,’ he said and suddenly busied himself with work on his desk top.

Players who relish violence, aggression and movement often depend upon the Spanish Game.

Further to your query. The number plate you mention is that of Dr Ernst Mohr who is under a four-year surveillance. (Future queries should refer to him as Thrush.) Your (London) records will show a detailed account. Briefly: height 6′ 1″/Weight: 12 stone 12 lbs/Eyes: brown/Hair: almost bald. No scars or distinguishing marks. Born Leipzig 1921. Qualified as Dr (of medicine) Leipzig 1941. Entered German Army 1941. Served in base hospitals in Germany 1941-4. Served in
Eastern Front 1944-45. Captured Hamburg 1945. Witness at British Army War Crimes Inquiry Hamburg 1946 (ref: 275/Crime/nn). Released to work British military hospital 1946. Released to work in German civilian hospital 1946. Under contract to Bonn Government (Intelligence, not Gehlen) 1948. Began work as representative radium therapy machinery 1948. Assigned to Northern Spain as radium therapy equipment salesman 1949. Began buying land locally (N Coast Spain) 1951. Resigned radium equipment company 1953. Began forming Spanish companies 1953. Married Spanish citizen 1953. 2 children.

Dr Ernst Mohr is now a Spanish citizen. He continues to submit reports to Bonn but we think that this is known to Madrid with whom he has probably come to an agreement. Bonn has him marked as a very low credulity.

He spent five hours with JV on date you mention and French immigration have since refused him entry. We assume this is your contact point. We have nothing of JV on record here. Trust this is of some help.

CATO 16

Range in chess is measured not by distance
but by the number of squares to which a
legal move can be made.

Thursday, October 17th

I took the message sheet down to my office and read it again twice. I looked quickly through my ‘In’ tray, then the phone rang. The operator said that Hallam had phoned twice in the last half hour. Did I want to be connected? Yes.

‘Hello, Hallam here. Special Import Service.’

‘They tell me that you are after me.’

‘Go along with you,’ said Hallam, ‘I’m not after you.’ We both had a jolly good giggle about that. Then I said, ‘Well, what is it?’

‘Just to tell you that everything is ready.’

‘Every what thing is ready?’

‘Customs, immigration, car will be available for you at Southampton or Dover. We have a guest house near Exeter. He’ll go there for a week or
so.’ Hallam’s voice trailed off.

‘Oh yes,’ I said.

‘That’s why we’d prefer Southampton,’ said Hallam.

‘Well, isn’t that cosy?’ I said. ‘Is he going to bring his own hot-water bottle?’

‘These things have to be attended to,’ said Hallam in his snotty voice. ‘It’s not a bit of use you being upstage about the domestic arrangements. You’d look rather silly standing on the deck of the cross-Channel packet holding the hand of a “refused entry”.’

‘Not half as silly as I’d look holding hands with…’

‘Now now,’ said Hallam sternly and rang off.

I spoke the remainder of the sentence into the dead phone as Jean came in. She said, ‘Hallam?’ and put two cups of coffee on my desk.

‘Right on the button,’ I said.

‘You mustn’t let him get you down,’ she said.

‘He’s so irritating,’ I said.

‘You think he doesn’t know that?’ said Jean. ‘He’s just like you; he takes a perverse delight in irritating people.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘It’s obvious,’ said Jean.

‘Do you know I never realized that? I’ll have to revise my attitude to the chintzy old bastard.’ I passed her the message from Cato 16 and began to drink my Nescafé-flavoured hot water. Jean read the message carefully.

‘It’s interesting,’ she said.

‘In what way?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But it must be interesting because you asked for it. It’s meaningless to me.’

‘I don’t want to destroy your pathetic faith,’ I said, ‘but it’s meaningless to me too.’

‘What did you expect?’ Jean said.

‘I don’t know quite. I suppose I hoped it would exactly fit the description that Gehlen gave me for the Broum documents, or that Vulkan would come into the résumé somewhere.’

‘Perhaps he does,’ said Jean, ‘if you examine it closely enough. This Eastern front section. He and Vulkan were probably stationed in the same concentration camp unit, just as Vulkan says.’

‘I suppose he might,’ I said grudgingly. ‘It’s just that I was hoping for some big dramatic development.’

‘But you are always telling me
not
to hope for some big dramatic development,’ said Jean.

‘You don’t do as I do. Do as I tell you.’

Jean pulled a face at me and read the message through again. ‘Do you want me to check his records through for any mention of Vulkan?’ I hesitated. ‘Things are very quiet just now,’ Jean said. ‘I’m having my hair done twice a week.’

‘If you will find Mohr’s file equally therapeutic, go ahead,’ I said. ‘I’ll be happy to give an authorization for the records clerk.’

‘See how your plant has grown,’ said Jean. ‘All that part there is new leaf.’

I took Jean to lunch at the Trattoria Terrazza where we had lunched the first day we met. We sat in the swish downstairs room and drank Campari sodas and I threw my waistline to the wind and had a vast portion of lasagne and followed it with chicken Kiev. Franco the proprietor brought us grappa with the coffee and we sat and talked about Soho and about Billy Big and Harry the Hanger Man and what the cross-eyed man from the fish shop shouted at the traffic warden. I leaned back and surveyed the empty wine bottles and the full ashtrays and wondered how I could get a job as a Michelin Guide inspector.

‘You wouldn’t like it,’ Franco said.

‘Wouldn’t he?’ said Jean. ‘You don’t know him.’

I just sat there smiling and fighting down the belches. There is not much point in going back to the office at 4.30
P.M.
so I took Jean to see a film that the Sundays said was a poetical experience. All I got out of it was cramp.

Jean was being motherly. She had bought a bag of groceries in Soho and we went back to her flat in Gloucester Road after the pictures and cooked them.

Jean’s flat is as draughty as a lettuce basket. We went into the kitchen and sat there with the oven full on and the oven door open, beating eggs and boiling artichokes while Jean read the directions from a cooking article in the
Observer.
I had just begun to warm up a little when the phone went. Jean answered but it was for me.

‘Been trying to get you since four o’clock this afternoon,’ the Charlotte Street switchboard said petulantly.

‘I was in the toilet,’ I said.

‘It’s the DST
¹
Bordeaux office. You don’t have a scrambler there, I suppose, sir?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is Miss Tonnesson’s private number.’

‘Then when I reconnect with your Bordeaux party I shall have to scramble here and put it through to you in clear.’

‘OK,’ I said, but apparently I wasn’t being appreciative enough.

‘It’s against orders really, sir. You should come to the nearest phone with a scrambler: that’s the instructions. It’s only because I’ve spoken with the Fremantle exchange supervisor and had him handle the call personally that I can risk it.’

‘Well, it’s certainly very kind of you to do that for me. I’ll certainly be most discreet in my conversation.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, sir. I’m only doing my job.’

I said nothing and there was a series of noises as Charlotte Street hooked itself into the official Government cross-Channel phone cable. Suddenly there was a din of unscrambled noise before Charlotte Street switched the scrambler into the circuit, then Grenade’s voice said ‘…lucky to do
it. However you’ll just have to rely on Albert’s memory. You hear me OK?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Go ahead.’

‘If he enters France again we will arrest him,’ said Grenade.

‘The hell you will,’ I said. ‘On what charge?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Grenade. ‘Until we spoke together, your friend was just a name buried deep in our files. Just someone we were interested in; but if he comes back again we will charge him with terrorism and murder and I daresay we will be able to find a few war crimes if we dig around carefully.’

‘Can you be a little more explicit?’ I asked.

‘I’m sending you the usual written sheet,’ said Grenade.

‘But who did he murder?’ I asked, ‘and when?’

‘End of 1942, he murdered a member of the Vichy Government,’ said Grenade.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because he was in the FTP,’
²
said Grenade. ‘It was a political assassination.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

‘Arrested by Vichy militia in Colmar in February 1943. We have the old war-time docket here, I’ll send you a photostat of it. Claimed to be a German citizen and was sent for trial to Germany. We have no record of any of that, of course. Albert’s got a
hell of a memory, he says he got off with a prison term.’

‘Albert would have to have a hell of a memory,’ I said. ‘It must have all happened when Albert was about five.’

‘Albert used to be downstairs in the archives. He has a memory for documents. You know what I meant,’ said Grenade and chuckled.

‘I’m staggered,’ I said. ‘You mean to tell me that John Vulkan was a communist and killed a member of the Vichy Government. I just can’t believe it.’

‘I’m not talking about Vulkan,’ said Grenade. ‘We all know what Vulkan is. He is one of your riot squad, eh? I’m talking about Broum.’

‘Broum?’ I said in amazement.

‘We were all surprised. I thought this man Broum was another figment of your over-active imagination. I told Albert so.’

‘Oh no,’ I said.

The operator cut in and said were we finished as the line was in great demand and I told her to wait. There was a buzz and Grenade was saying ‘…complaining that his girlfriend was missing. Ha. We knew that he was one of your boys but he kept his mouth shut, I can tell you.’ There was a pause. Then Grenade said, ‘We know perfectly well that Vulkan works for you.’

I grunted. Then Grenade said, ‘Admit it, my friend. Tell the truth for once. You will find it an invigorating experience.’

‘We pay his wages,’ I said guardedly.

Grenade gave a triumphant little hoot of laughter. ‘Very good, my friend. A subtle distinction and in the case of your friend Vulkan a necessary distinction.’ He laughed again.

‘Where is Broum now?’ I asked.

‘No trace,’ said Grenade. ‘Why don’t you start doing a little work for yourself? Routine inquiries. Get your weight down a little.’

‘Thank you, operator,’ I said. ‘You can disconnect us now.’

Grenade shouted, ‘Albert drinks Dimple Haig.’

‘Don’t tell me your staff problems,’ I said.

‘You are a hard man,’ said Grenade.

‘Inside that layer of fatty tissue,’ I said. Then the operator disconnected us.

Jean flung a clean tablecloth to me and brought supper. I told her the contents of Grenade’s call.

‘Why does it make any difference who this man Broum is or what he did in the war? Our task is just to move one man named Semitsa from East Berlin to London.’

‘You oversimplify things as always,’ I said. ‘If it was as simple as that Carter Paterson would be doing it. The reason we are involved is because we want to learn as much about Karlshorst in general and Stok in particular as we can. Secondly, I have to know to what extent Vulkan is reliable, to what extent we can trust him if something really serious blows up. Thirdly, we don’t know nearly enough about the Gehlen set-up; what’s its allegiance to Bonn; to the State Department; to the US Army…’

‘To us,’ Jean said.

‘Even to us,’ I agreed. ‘And then there’s Semitsa, the crux of the whole problem. When he crosses Zimmerstrasse he will be Paul Louis Broum and armed with enough evidence to defy anyone to disprove it. That’s why I want to know who Broum was and why Semitsa should be so desperately anxious to become him.’

‘How are you going to start?’ Jean asked.

‘“Begin at the beginning,” as the Queen said to Alice, “go on to the end. Then stop.”’ Paul Louis Broum was born in Prague.