Siege at the Villa Lipp (21 page)

When Carlo had told me to ‘phase out’ the Paris operation he had meant that he wanted every possible paper trail cleaned up; and when he had emphasized ‘entire’ he had been referring to something that not even the couriers knew about. This was that we rented a furnished two-room
garçonnière
in Paris. The object had been to enable me to come and go without registering in hotels. The place was rented on a year-to-year basis so that no question of residence arose. The
gérant,
who handled the apartment concerned was a crook, naturally, and I
dare say that if he could have found out who the mistress was for whom I kept the place, there would have been a little gentle blackmail. She didn’t exist, though, except as a phantom presence represented by half-used make-up containers and scent bottles, some clothing, and a passion for the works of Simone de Beauvoir evidenced by a whole shelf of them, mostly falling to pieces from much re-reading. Melanie had done an excellent job in that case too.

The reason for Carlo’s decision to close down the apartment as well as cutting off our accommodation service contacts was clearly based on the fact that all the clients monitored by Kramer had been dealt with through Paris, coupled with the conclusion arrived at by Carlo that everything even remotely to do with Kramer had become a threat to our security and must, therefore, instantly be discarded or neutralized. Why he should have come to that conclusion I did not then know, but it was not the sort of matter one could discuss at length over an open international telephone circuit.

The immediate difficulty was the weekend.

The accommodation service was relatively easy to cut off, because that was paid for quarterly in advance and all I had to do was write them an Oberholzer letter terminating the agreement on the last day of the year. Any communications received henceforth should be reported or forwarded to our Rome office - another accommodation service which relayed correspondence to Frankfurt.

Getting rid of the apartment was not so easy, because the
gérant
headed for the country on Friday morning and was not to reached again until Monday afternoon. It was no use my just walking out, leaving everything and hoping for the best. A new tenant, or a policeman, or a forensic expert, must be able to walk into that place when I, and my true love, had vacated it and find no trace whatsoever there of any identifiable human beings. In addition, the
gérant
must be utterly convinced not only that he knew all, but also that he was going to have to forgo the kick-backs he had once received from the now grief-stricken Oberholzer and look around promptly for a replacement sucker.

During the weekend all I could to was enlist the sympathy of the concierge’s wife, who had used to keep the apartment clean for me, and get her to pick up the belongings of the woman who had betrayed me by going back to her husband, as I could not bear to touch them. Quite an affecting moment it was when I took the suitcases down and put them in the taxi.

I got rid of them by going to the air terminal and buying a one-way ticket to Toulouse. I can’t recall the name I used - something like Souchet, I think - but I remember that I had to pay excess when I checked the bags in because of the weight of Simone de Beauvoir; but with one lot of baggage on its way to Toulouse and limbo, all I had to do then was pack up the spare suit and other things I had kept there for my own use, and wait for Monday afternoon.

It was Tuesday before I reached Milan.

Carlo looked down as he listened to my report, and after I had finished he was silent for a while.

Finally, he stirred, heaved a sigh and said bleakly: ‘I think we are in trouble, Paul.’

‘We’ve been put to some inconvenience and expense, yes. We may also consider it necessary and advisable to abandon some profitable clients. The Oberholzer cover will have to go, of course. But we’ve had these spots of bother before, Carlo. No doubt we’ll have others in the future. This is a nuisance, yes. Trouble? I don’t think so.’

‘We have been lucky,’ he said contemptuously. Luck was something he had always despised. ‘But you miss the point, Paul. I say that
we
are in trouble.’

‘You mean our partnership?’

‘As it exists now, yes.’

‘Carlo,
I
didn’t kill Kramer.’

‘Did you take steps to enquire into the circumstances of the death?’

‘No point. He was dead and his wife and daughter were making it clear that the less they saw of me the better.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting that you should have enquired from them. I myself enquired through Lugano.’

‘And?’

‘Kramer was taken ill in his office. He had a heart attack, as you heard. But, an hour earlier he had been questioned at length by men from the police section concerned with offences against the banking laws. The strain on him must have been considerable, don’t you think?’

‘Yes.’

‘What would you have done if you had known whet I have just told you?’

‘I’d have got out.’

‘Exactly. Lugano also reports that, after you had been identified and photographed at the funeral, police visited the hotel where you had stayed overnight. What had you done, Paul? Registered as Oberholzer?’

‘Of course not. And there was never any chance of their finding me at the hotel. I
paid the bill before I
went to the funeral. All I
lost by not going back there was some dirty laundry.’

‘And the chance of meeting the men who had brought on Kramer’s heart attack, surely. How did they know where to go? A few quick phone calls? Nonsense! Zürich is too big a city for that. How did they know?’

I thought back. ‘The flowers,’ I said slowly; ‘it must have been the flowers.’

‘What flowers?’

I told him the truth. Telling lies to one another was something we had never done.

‘The police must have checked all the cards that came with the flowers,’ he said morosely. ‘When they found yours they checked the shop that had sent them. That must have narrowed their field of search considerably.’

I could have remarked that it had in fact pinpointed the hotel because I told the girl where I was staying when she had asked me; but enough was enough.

‘So,’ he went on, ‘in addition to your photograph they now have a specimen of your handwriting and almost certainly your fingerprints as well. And you object when I use the word trouble? You amaze me. You have become soft through having so much money, Paul, and I fear, something of a liability.’

‘What do you want us to do? Split up?’

‘Obviously you can see the difficulties in that course as well as I
can. We both need time to think. Meanwhile, though, you must make yourself scarce. I think you should go to the island for a bit.’

The island he had bought was in the Bahamas. He said his wife loved it, my wife adored it, I loathed it.

‘Anna will like that,’ I said.

‘Your wife will stay where she is,’ he said curtly, ‘where a wife should be, in the home looking after your child while you are away on business.’

‘Very well.’

‘I will come over next week perhaps. Then we can discuss the future, without emotion, like sensible men.’

‘All right.’

It was a month before he turned up. I was being punished. And it
was
punishment, from the start. You went to New York or Miami and thence to Nassau. Then you took an island-hopping plane almost to Caicos. Finally, you headed back north again in a stinking little tub that did a grocery round of ten or twelve of the ‘Out islands’ delivering mail, gasoline, kerosene and bottled gas along with canned meat, powdered milk, bottled water and other necessities. At one of them, Carlo’s cabin-cruiser picked you up and took you still farther off the map.

Anyone who holds the belief that a West Indies island all to yourself except for some servants, is bliss, has to be crazy about sun-bathing, spear-fishing, underwater photography, or re-reading mite-infested paperbacks. If he does not enjoy any of those things, the boredom is deadly and complete. In November and December on that particular island it usually rains heavily, too.

Carlo’s house was comfortable, I admit; but I had noticed on previous visits that it was still more comfortable when he was there to chivvy the cook and tell her exactly what he wanted done. Even on the day he arrived and was too tired from the journey to do much chivvying, the standard of cooking rose perceptibly. That evening the food was eatable.

Afterwards, he asked me whether I had given any thoughts to my future role in our partnership.

‘My only thought has been that I seem no longer to have a role.’

‘I don’t agree. I have been observing the progress of the trends in tax-avoidance, not evasion mark you, avoidance. A few years ago, when you said that word, certain names came automatically into mind as tax havens. What were they?’

‘Monaco, Liechtenstein, the Channel Islands, Bermuda, Curaçao perhaps, Panama, possibly Switzerland.’

‘And now? What names would you add?’

‘The Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, the Caymans, the New Hebrides, all sort of odd places. You need a geographical dictionary to find some of them.’

‘Yes, and what are we doing about it? Nothing.’

‘What would you like done, Carlo?’

‘I would like a survey made by someone upon whose judgement I can rely. I cannot go myself because there is too much going on in Europe that I must attend to personally -’ he was at the time preparing the butter-train caper - ‘but you will know what to look for and be able to assess the prospects. We should consider investing where it is necessary to safeguard our position against later competition.’

We discussed it for four days, and then left the island; he to go back to Milan, I to scout the Caribbean before flying west to the Pacific.

I
never saw Carlo again.

Krom was fidgeting with the file in his hand and I knew that he couldn’t wait to get at it.

‘I have a suggestion, Professor,’ I said.

He looked at me suspiciously. Was I about to play some last-minute trick?

‘Yes, Mr Firman?’

‘I suggest that we now adjourn this gathering until tomorrow morning. Naturally, when you have read what I have written there, you will have questions to ask arising out of it. Would eight-thirty here be too early for a breakfast meeting?’

I looked at the other two to see how they felt about it, but Krom was not consulting them.

‘I agree,’ he said firmly. ‘Eight-thirty.’ He got to his feet a bit unsteadily, pulled himself together and remembered his manners. ‘I must thank you for an excellent dinner. Good night, Mr Firman.’

Adroit use of the backs of the rest of the terrace chairs enabled him to steer a reasonably straight course into the house. Connell gave me a sly look.

‘What was there about that white wine, Mr Firman?’

‘Nothing, except that it was served too cold.’ I stood up.

They took the hint and also said good night.

Yves and I finished our wine. Melanie said that she was going for a walk.

After ten minutes or so, Yves and I went up to the loft over the garage. There was silence from Krom and Henson; they were reading to themselves. Connell was making sure that his copy of the material was going to remain available for future use by reading it to his tape-recorder. Only an occasional grunt of surprise or doubt showed that this was the first time he had been through it. It was interesting to hear it all being read out - truth, rubbish, and half-truth - all as if it were some sort of Holy Writ.

I was listening, fascinated, when he was interrupted by a knock on his door. He switched off the recorder and went to answer the knock.

Dr Henson’s voice said: ‘Sorry to bother you. I’ve just had this note from Krom shoved under my door. Have you had one?’

‘Wanting a pre-breakfast meeting in his room at seven-thirty? Yes. I’ve had one.’

‘Do we accept?’

‘If our lord and master wants to make sure in advance that he asks all the questions and leads for the prosecution, why not? He’ll take charge anyway.’

‘I suppose so. I heard you talking. What were you doing? Recording it all on that thing?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Since you’ve been allowed to get away with it, how about giving me a copy of the transcript?’

There was a pause, then: ‘Dr Henson, may I call you Geraldine?’

He made it sound like a joke and that was the way she treated it. ‘Don’t be a fool, Connell.’

‘Gerry?’

‘My friends call me Hennie, and I assure you that, as a nickname, it’s quite appropriate. Good night again.’

‘Good night.’ The door closed and he went back to his dictation.

It was at that moment that we heard stumbling footsteps on the bare, wooden stairs up to the loft.

It was Melanie and she was looking flustered. She was also out of breath.

I signalled to Yves to turn the sound down. ‘What is it, Melanie?’

‘I went for a walk you know, and I
think
- only think mind, Paul - that this place may be under surveillance. Cars stationary on both upper and lower roads. It’s difficult to be certain at night, but I thought you’d better know.’

All three of us had a bad night, but at least Melanie and I got some sleep. Yves had none.

About an hour after Melanie’s warning, he returned to the listening post over the garage to report his preliminary findings. Since he had spent most of the hour crawling between bushes and being bitten by insects, he locked a mess.

He borrowed my handkerchief and dabbed at some large scratches on his hands and arms while he explained how he had got them. There had been parked cars on both roads, as Melanie had said. He had seen one on the lower road by the garden gate and two, one on each side at distances of about a hundred and fifty metres from the entrance. It had been in the oleander thickets along the upper boundary fence, where he had gone to take a closer look at the two cars outside, that he had run into trouble. At some time, the chain-link boundary fence had been damaged by a car or truck going off the road after taking the bend too fast. Concrete posts had been put up to prevent a repetition of that particular accident, but the gap in the fence had been temporarily blocked with a barbed-wire entanglement which no one had bothered to remove after the fence had been repaired.