Funeral in Berlin (23 page)

In China, Hungary, India, Korea and Poland
pawns are called ‘foot soldiers’, but in Tibet
they are called ‘children’.

Tuesday, November 5th

The green-shaded lamp in Dawlish’s office is rigged up with a complex series of cords and counterweights. From its present position its light cut the figures round his desk in half and illumined them only from the waist down. Dawlish’s disembodied hands reached into the circle of yellow light. The fingers shuffled and riffed through the thin new unwrinkled paper money like serpents’ tongues.

‘You are probably right,’ he said to me. ‘It’s counterfeit.’

‘I’m only guessing,’ I said. ‘But she gave it to me like she was playing Monopoly.’

Dawlish flipped through it and read that little paragraph that they have on German money that says how they don’t want anybody to feel free to
print their own. Dawlish handed the money to Alice.

‘They’re being very cagey about Newbegin filling the Berlin vacancy,’ said Dawlish. ‘They say you are Americanizing the department in dress, syntax and operation.’

I said: ‘That’s their way of compensating for the orders I get from Washington.’

Dawlish nodded. He said, ‘The Yard have had a cable from the Munich police.’ He watched my face in the darkness. I said nothing. On the other side of the desk Alice was plucking an elastic band that held the money that Sam had given me. The elastic made a loud crack in the still room.

‘A girl was transhipping a coffin at Munich—travelling with it between Berlin and Haifa. There was a dead body in the coffin.’

Dawlish looked at me again, wanting me to speak. I said, ‘Coffins often contain corpses, don’t they?’

Dawlish walked across to the tiny coal fire. He prodded it with a bent bayonet, there was a sudden flicker of flame and a tiny army of red sparks marched across the side of the grate.

‘What do you think we should say?’ he said to the fireplace.

‘We?’ I said. ‘I thought the Munich police were asking the Yard. If you want to get yourself involved with girls going to Haifa with coffins, it’s up to you, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Dawlish gave the largest piece of coal an in-out and on-guard and it split into five small blazing pieces. ‘Just as long as I know,’ he said, putting down the poker and walking back to the desk. ‘It’s no use my saying one thing if your written report says something completely different.’ He nodded like he was trying to convince himself. He didn’t have to convince me.

‘Yes,’ I said. Outside there was a steady noise of starlings fidgeting about on the guttering. Through the window, dawn was revealing crippled roofs, and painting bloody reflections in the dirty glass of the window panes. The senile light above Dawlish’s desk was losing its battle against the daylight with bad grace. Dawlish walked across to a leather chair and sank into it with a sigh. He took off his glasses and produced a crisp handkerchief which he carefully patted over his face. ‘Could you find us a little cup of real coffee?’ he asked in a gentle voice—but Alice had already left to make some. Dawlish read the newspaper clipping I gave him.

FASCIST VICTIMS’ ASSETS WILL BE RELEASED BY SWISS BANKS

B
ERNE,
O
CT
21
ST
(R)

T
HE
S
WISS PARLIAMENT ON
T
HURSDAY APPROVED A
G
OVERNMENT BILL DESIGNED TO RELEASE UNCLAIMED ASSETS OF LONG-DEAD VICTIMS OF FASCISM DEPOSITED IN THE COUNTRY’S BANKS.

T
HE NEW LAW SUPPORTED BY
130
DEPUTIES WITH NO OPPOSITION LIFTS A CORNER OF THE CURTAIN OF
SECRECY WHICH ENSHROUDS MANY A FOREIGN FORTUNE DEPOSITED IN
S
WITZERLAND’S CONFIDENTIAL ACCOUNTS.

T
HE
B
ANK
S
ECRECY
A
CT WILL NOW BE SET ASIDE FOR A TEMPORARY PERIOD OF TEN YEARS SO THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN TAKE OVER THE UNCLAIMED FUNDS.

U
NDER THE NEW LAW, BANKS, INSURANCE COMPANIES OR ANYBODY ELSE ARE OBLIGED TO DECLARE

UNTOUCHED ASSETS BELONGING TO PEOPLE UNTRACED SINCE THE WAR AND WHO ARE RACIALLY, POLITICALLY OR RELIGIOUSLY PERSECUTED FOREIGNERS OR STATELESS PERSONS.

T
HE
G
OVERNMENT’S MOTIVES IN PUSHING THE BILL THROUGH ARE TO REMOVE ANY SUSPICION THAT
S
WITZERLAND WOULD BE PREPARED TO PROFIT FROM THE CASE OF
E
UROPEAN
J
EWRY IN
H
ITLER’S EXTERMINATION CAMPS.

D
ISPOSAL OF THE ASSETS IS TO BE DECIDED BY FEDERAL DECREE, WITH THE STIPULATION THAT THE ORIGIN

OF THE DEAD OWNER WILL BE CONSIDERED.

J
EWISH CHARITIES, OR PERHAPS THE STATE OF
I
SRAEL, ARE EXPECTED TO BENEFIT.

T
HE HEIRS TO THOSE DECLARED MISSING, BELIEVED DEAD, WILL HAVE FIVE YEARS TO CLAIM THE DEPOSITS, BUT
S
WISS AUTHORITIES BELIEVE THAT MOST OF THEM ARE PROBABLY DEAD TOO, AND THERE WILL BE FEW APPLICATIONS.

N
OBODY KNOWS HOW MUCH IS INVOLVED, ALTHOUGH THE
S
WISS
B
ANKING
A
SSOCIATION HAS STATED THAT IT MAY AMOUNT TO LESS THAN ONE MILLION FRANCS.

Dawlish read the newspaper cutting for the fourth time.

‘Money,’ he said, ‘Vulkan was just after money.’

‘It’s highly thought of,’ I said.

‘Money isn’t everything,’ said Dawlish seriously.

‘No,’ I said, ‘but it buys everything.’

Dawlish said, ‘I don’t really understand.’

‘There’s nothing to understand,’ I said. ‘It’s perfectly simple. In a concentration camp there is a very wealthy man named Broum. Broum’s family left him about a quarter of a million pounds in securities in a Swiss bank. Anyone who can prove he is Broum can collect a quarter of a million pounds. It’s not hard to understand; Vulkan wanted those papers to prove that he was Broum. All the other things were incidental. Vulkan made Gehlen’s people ask us for the papers to make it appear more genuine.’

‘What did the girl want?’ said Dawlish.

‘Semitsa,’ I said, ‘for the Israeli scientific programme. She was an Israeli agent.’

‘Um,’ said Dawlish. ‘Vulkan wanted to give Semitsa to the Israeli Government. In exchange for this they would endorse his claim to the Broum fortune. The Swiss banks are very sensitive to the Israeli Government. It was a brilliant touch, that.’

‘Nearly,’ I said to Dawlish, ‘very nearly.’

The system upon which we ran the department was that I took responsibility for all financial
problems, although what might be called ‘accounts’ were seen by Alice and I merely initialled them. It was my special knowledge of finance which had brought me into WOOC(P) and compelled them to put up with me. Dawlish ran through a foolscap sheet of notes that he had prepared. It was comfortable sitting back in Dawlish’s battered armchair in front of the fire, which every now and then exploded a little firework of sparks.

Dawlish’s voice summed up the circumstances of each problem neatly and cogently. There was little for me to say except yes or no, unless Dawlish required an explanation or amplification of my decision. He seldom did.

Suddenly he said, ‘Are you asleep, old boy?’

‘Just closed my eyes,’ I explained. ‘I concentrate better.’

Dawlish said, ‘You look about all in, now one comes to look at you.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I feel like hell.’

‘It’s the business with Vulkan, isn’t it, old lad?’

I didn’t answer and Dawlish said, ‘Of course it is—you’ve been fighting his battles here and down the road for the last eighteen months. It’s a nasty business.’ Dawlish stared into the fire for some time. ‘Are you worried,’ he finally asked, ‘about the written report?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s tricky.’

‘Um,’ said Dawlish, ‘it’s tricky all right.’ He closed the file on his knee. ‘Well, leave this for now—go home and get some sleep.’

‘I think I will,’ I said. I suddenly felt absolutely done in.

Dawlish said, ‘I think I might be able to get you that interest-free loan if you still want it. Was it eight hundred pounds?’

I said, ‘Can we make it a thousand?’

‘I daresay we might,’ said Dawlish, ‘and if you leave that gun here I’ll get one of the messengers to return it to the War Office.’ I gave him the Browning FN pistol and three 13-round magazines. Dawlish put them into a large manilla envelope and wrote ‘gun’ on the flap.

The End-game: this often centres around the
queening of a pawn. Here a sudden threat
can arrive on home ground.

Tuesday, November 5th

I got to my flat at 10
A.M.
The milkman was just delivering next door and I bought two pints of Jersey and a half-pound of butter from him.

‘You’ve got the same trouble I’ve got,’ the milkman said.

‘What’s that?’ I said.

He slapped his belly with a noise that made his horse flinch. ‘You like the cream and butter.’ Then he gave a loud hoot. The horse walked slowly towards the next house. ‘Don’t wear your old clothes tonight,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘They’ll have you on top of the fire.’ Then he laughed again.

I had trouble opening the door, so much mail
had jammed there. Copies of
Times
and
Newsweek,
bills from the electric company, adverts, fly to Paris for £9 17s, the RSPCA needs old clothes, and a sale of fire-damaged carpets gave me a chance to buy them for only ten times what they were worth. Inside the flat was a musty smell of stale air and two pints of penicillin under the sink. I made coffee and took that strange pleasure in handling wellknown implements in a well-known place. I lit the gas poker with a comforting plop, placed a log on the fire and drew a chair up to it. Outside, the dawn sunlight had given way to low dark cloud that was sitting there thinking of some way to unload snow over the city.

The whistling kettle interrupted me. I opened a tin of Blue Mountain coffee and poured a lot of it into the French drip-pot. The heavy aroma scented the air and from the living-room there was a crackle of sound as the log began to catch. I switched on the electric blanket and stood for a moment staring out of the bedroom window. Men were smashing dustbins on to huge council lorries and the publican was having his windows cleaned by Mr Boatwright. Down the road, the milkman was slapping his belly and laughing with the postman. I pulled the curtains close and as suddenly it was all gone. I went back to the kitchen and poured my coffee.

The sun was trying to penetrate the cloud layer and the man five leafless gardens along was setting fire to old garden rubbish and tidying his
hideous little yard for winter’s onslaught. The smoke from the bonfire rose straight up on the windless air. Several of the gardens had huge heaps of inflammable material and the summit of one of them was crowned with a crippled human shape wearing a top hat. November the fifth, I thought. I suppose that’s what the milkman was laughing about. Even as I watched a little boy came out of the house next door and threw an armful of firewood on the heap.

I returned to my bonfire, prodded it with the toe of my boot and sipped at the strong black coffee. There was the third volume of Fuller’s
Decisive Battles of the Western World
on the table. I opened it and removed the marker. For thirty minutes or so I read. A light sleet had begun to fall outside and the streets were deserted. There were a number of bottles on the coffee table. I poured myself a large measure of malt whisky and stared into the fire.

As I caught the rich aroma of the malt it all suddenly came back to me. I was transferred to the dirty little dark garage with its spilt petrol and its dismantled engines. The smell of the whisky clawed at my nostrils and ripped open my memory. Johnnie was lying in a mixture of spilt petrol and pink frothy blood, and as I moved him I was covered in a Faustian nightmare. I sank into a vortex of imaginings in which Walpurgis Night and Vulkan and the smell of petrol and whisky were indissolubly linked. Four hours later I woke up
sweating in front of a cold fireplace. I had just enough strength left to get undressed and go to bed.

Unless one is a master player the Queen’s
Gambit—when a pawn is offered for
sacrifice—is best declined.

Tuesday, November 5th

‘Papers,’ said Hallam. ‘
P-A-P-E-R-S.
’

‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘I’ve only just this moment woken up. I’ve been working all night, hang on.’ I put down the phone and on the way to the bathroom downed half a cup of cold coffee. I splashed lots of cold water on to my face and looked at the time. It was 5.30
P.M.
Already it was dusk. The back-gardens all along the block were a chessboard of lighted windows. The light inside the houses was very yellow in the blue evening of a London winter. I went back to the phone, ‘That’s better,’ I said.

‘There’s been a frenzy here, I’ll have you know,’ said Hallam. ‘It’s about the Broum documents. Where are they?’ Without waiting for a reply, he
went on, ‘We give you full co-operation. Then you don’t…’

‘’Arf a mo, Hallam,’ I said. ‘You told me to clear out of Berlin and leave the documents with Vulkan.’

‘That’s all very well, old boy. Where is he and where are they?’

‘How the hell do I know?’

‘You sure you haven’t got them?’

‘No,’ I lied. I didn’t want the documents but I was fascinated to hear why just about everyone else did.

‘Would you care to come across here for a drink?’ said Hallam, changing his manner abruptly. ‘Fireworks night tonight, you know. Come and have a drink. There are a couple of things I want to ask you.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘What time?’

‘About an hour,’ said Hallam. ‘Do you think you could bring a bottle? You know how these firework parties are. In the dark people sneak off with the booze.’

‘OK.’

‘Jolly good,’ said Hallam. ‘Sorry if I was a little shirty just now. The PUS have been giving me a frightful telling-off about those papers.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘That’s jolly decent,’ said Hallam.

‘Yes,’ I said before I rang off.