Dateline Haifa

by D A Kent

  ‘This is one of the few things I know how to cook’ she told him after the meal, washed down with a decent red from the cellar. She drew the heavy brocade curtains across.

  ‘Never thought you were just a pretty face, Sylv,’ he replied, unzipping her dress. ‘You know the way to my heart anyway.’

  Gunn was in a playful mood at the end of what, in years to come, they would remember as a magical day. He had brought some champagne up from the cellar, which they

  were drinking out of cut glass champagne saucers.

  ‘It’s not vintage,’ he said. ‘Won’t keep forever. Needs drinking.’

  ‘These are beautiful.’ Sylvia ran a finger along the rim of her glass. Aunt Hortense had glasses of a similar pattern, locked away in a dusty cupboard. She looked at him.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’

  ‘Just got a feeling, that’s all. Something is brewing.’

  ‘Do you often get feelings like that?’

  ‘No, only when someone is making some kind of trouble.’ Gunn was serious. ‘Someone is stepping where they shouldn’t.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ he added, zipping her back into her dress. ‘We’ll call Sol. He gave you the number of where he was staying, didn’t he? If I’m wrong, all well and good; best to be prepared though.’

  ‘I’ll come with you. We’ll call him from the bar Jones used to go to. I fancy a walk.’

  At the bar, Sylvia sipped a glass of wine while Gunn spoke to Sol. She thought about Jonathan and his daily visit here, with his newspaper. She wondered if the same people were

  running it.

  Sol confirmed that the pipeline was operating; there had been an escape from an American prison camp in Bavaria a few days ago. There didn’t seem to be an immediate link to them; at the moment the focus seemed to be on getting assets out. But Gunn was right in his suppositions; it was only a matter of time before the connection was made.

  ‘They’ll use someone reasonably smart, I think. Maybe someone young. You’re all right for now, though,’ he confirmed. ‘They’ll be some way behind; they’ll have other fish to fry for now. Give me the address of the demeure, just in case. And I’ll see you both on Wednesday. And you had better be fit for work. Give my regards to Sylvia. Lucky bastard.’

  They walked back, hand in hand. Sylvia perched on the sofa with her champagne glass, bathed in soft lamplight.

  ‘I’m glad we rang him,’ she ventured.

  ‘I am too, sweetheart,’ he said. She didn’t ever complain, he thought to himself. One of the reasons he loved her to distraction. ‘Now, where were we?’

  Sol set down the receiver and considered, and then went and stood at the entrance to the hotel. He lit a cigarette and watched the demi monde of the quartier wander past on their business of the night. He smiled to himself and murmured: ‘the children of the night, how sweetly do they sing.’

  He crushed the cigarette under his heel and went for a walk. His old injury ached. Fresh air and a clearing head seemed to be the only cure. Weighing up the logic, it seemed wise to assume that someone was taking Mueller’s place or at least being primed to do so. He had read other articles about Mueller’s suicide and distinguished medical career. His face darkened. Today, he had visited his aunt and uncle. They had settled back in the Marais, although he was trying to persuade them to come out to Israel. They had been lucky to survive. The stories they had told him were all too familiar. It would be good to have Gunn on board.

  At the Gunn House Hotel, Inspector Gunn put another pint carefully down in front of his old colleague. They had been happily reminiscing about their days on the beat on the streets of Paddington in the twenties. Both could have written a book.

  ‘Been a while,’ he remarked. ‘A lot of water under the bridge.’

  ‘Certainly has,’ Collins responded. ‘So what happened to the nippers? And Annette?’

  ‘We lost Genevieve, back in Paris. She was five. Complications from measles. Annette never got over it. That’s why she wanted to go for another baby. Not a good idea at her age. Lost the baby and it killed her.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Dom.’ Collins paused. ‘What about Mark?’

  ‘You’ve got a good memory,’ Inspector Gunn narrowed his eyes. ‘Mark’s a partner in a firm of enquiry agents in the West End. Doing well for himself. Saw him the other day.’

  His instincts were kicking in, fast. Why would a serving police officer come all the way to Brighton, just to look him up? It had to be something to do with what Mark and this girl had got themselves into. Mark had said he was picking her up off the boat train. He hoped they were somewhere safe. Something had changed in Mark; he seemed happy and at peace with himself for the first time in years. He was glad about that. Well, Collins was going to be disappointed. He would get nothing out of him.

  ‘Whatever happened,’ he asked, selecting a bottle of whisky from behind the bar and steering the conversation into less controversial waters ‘to DCI Crawford? He was a tartar, wasn’t he? Had us working day and night.’

  At the demeure, Sylvia wandered back into the bedroom and slid under the sheets. Gunn was sitting up in bed, reading something. She saw, to her horror, that it was her notebook. She dived for it, but he was too quick.

  ‘No you don’t, madam,’ he told her firmly, grinning broadly. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  Sylvia was never one to turn down a challenge.

  ‘Why didn’t we get together before, Sylv?’ he asked afterwards, holding her close.

  ‘I didn’t know you thought about me in that way.’

  ‘For such a clever girl, you are remarkably unobservant sometimes. Mind you, first time I saw you, in the bookshop in Charing Cross Road, you were miles away. Took you ages to look up and notice me. You were going from shelf to shelf, looking for books.’

  ‘Poetry, if I recall correctly’ she said. ‘We were both fragile. Probably just as well, we’d never have built the business up to this level. We’re together now, darling. Nothing else matters.’

  ‘Sylv, you know I won’t go to Israel if you don’t want me to,’ he began.

  ‘You’ve got to go, Gunn. I hate the thought of being without you. I’ll get myself a calendar and cross the days off. But I think the contacts you’re going to make are going to be great for us. They’ll fit in with the long-term plans I was going to tell you about.’

  ‘Oh yes, I was reading about those,’ he smiled. ‘I like what you’ve written. We’ll work on all of it when I’m back. Let’s see what Sol has to say when we meet him.’

  Chapter 22

  Dieter Fischer was cooling his heels in the Botanical Gardens just outside Munich, waiting for his appointment. It was quiet here on a week day; he supposed that was why this location had been chosen. He had discovered it himself soon after his arrival in the city. He had a lot of work to get on with in the office. Hopefully, Wirth would not be too much longer. As he studied a display of Alpine plants, Wirth appeared, dressed with expensive discretion. Once again, Dieter could not help wondering how the curator of a small country museum could afford such style, something out of his reach even as a lawyer. Wirth shook his hand, taking in his appraisal.

  ‘Oh, I have other means which permit this little indulgence.’ He indicated a small café down the path. ‘Shall we adjourn in there? We have some significant matters to discuss.’

  Wirth ordered them a coffee each, noting the little flirtation between the young lawyer, who was clearly not unaware of his attractiveness to women, and the waitress. ‘I was the same at his age,’ he thought, indulgently. He studied Dieter, observing the blonde hair and blue eyes. Good. He noted that Dieter’s smile met his eyes. ‘Wears his heart on his sleeve, this one; he’s young, he’ll learn. It’s what is inside his head that matters.’

  To Dieter’s surprise, Wirth opened with a personal line of questioning.

  ‘Tell me about your early life, your family. You are from the Sudetenland, yes?’

  Somebody has done his res
earch, thought Dieter. He probably already knows what I am going to say. He confirmed that he was born in a small village there in 1924. His parents ran a hotel. He was the youngest of three boys. His brothers and his father had ended up on the eastern front. He was the only one to survive. His mother had been thrown out of the area in 1945, where her family had lived for generations. A shadow crossed over his face. An old neighbour had told him that all their belongings had been loaded onto a cart. She seemed to have lost the will to live, with her husband and two of the boys gone and Dieter’s whereabouts unknown. She had died while they were travelling through the forests.

  ‘I don’t suppose she even knew where she was going,’ he told Wirth.

  ‘A crime against humanity,’ Wirth put in, sympathetically. ‘And your family lost everything they had worked for.’

  Dieter did not respond. He had been a member of Hitler Youth; he still remembered the excitement in 1938, when the Fuhrer had visited their town. Then he had joined the army. At the time when his mother had been cast out of their home town, he had been living in a cellar in a bombed-out house in Berlin with some other youngsters. The Red Army was outside the city. Bombs were falling everywhere. Their orders were to fight to the death.

  He was still surprised today that he had survived. By some fluke, he had made his way to Munich and enrolled at the university to study Law. He preferred to draw a veil over his earlier years, he told Wirth, and look to the future. It was easier that way.

  ‘Ah, my young friend, don’t be so quick to draw a veil over such times when, with people such as I...’ Wirth opened the door to his world. ‘We have much in common and much to rebuild and fight for, by quiet means if necessary.’

  Dieter was not convinced about what he and Wirth could have in common, but he was not that scrupulous. He came from a deeply religious background and did sometimes think back to the simple truths of his childhood. But a commission was a commission. For now, he would listen carefully and divulge as little as possible. Wirth would expect that of a lawyer.

  In the bar in Chartrettes, Sylvia and Gunn had been talking over their plans for Clements. Attempts at their usual weekly briefing meeting had collapsed, back at the demeure.

  ‘Good thing we’re not on our own in the office any more,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Yes, I’d be taking you across the desk all the time. The accountants downstairs would have something to say, I’m sure. Anyway, about staff...I think you’re right. We need to bring Kiwi on board full time. I’ll ring him. I don’t think he has any plans to go back to New Zealand. I’d feel happier if he was around more.’

  ‘Ask him if he’s done that report for Vera yet. Just go through it with him; I’m sure it will be fine. Joan’s very good. I had a look at the ledgers the other day. With all this work coming in, do we need to recruit? I mean we’d probably have to lease the middle floor as well.’

  ‘You’ll have to be the judge of that, sweetheart,’ said Gunn.

  His sixth sense was troubling him again. He worried about Sylvia on her own back in London, although it would be reassuring to have Kiwi in place. The report for Vera sounded fine, he told Kiwi to send it off with the invoice. He rang his father after he’d spoken to Kiwi, to tell him he and Sylvia were in their new house in France, (he couldn’t resist that) and that he would be off to Israel soon.

  ‘I’m glad about that, son,’ came the response. That car and now a house; you had to hand it to the boy, he was ambitious. ‘Got an old pal from my police days propping up the bar right now, asking about you. He’s based in Wapping now. Inspector Collins.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Inspector Gunn continued. ‘He’ll get nothing out of me. We go back a long way, when I was in Paddington and you were knee high to a grasshopper. What’s that young lady of yours going to do now? Lie low for a while?’

  ‘Everything all right?’ Sylvia asked, as Gunn came back over, looking thoughtful.

  ‘Everything’s fine, sweetheart,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Sylv, if you need anything, you know, while I’m away, you can always talk to my Dad. I’ve told him about us.’

  Dad was right, thought Gunn. Israel was the safer option for him. He was pretty sure that this Collins chap was simply marking Dad’s card for old time’s sake. That was decent of him but also carried weight and intent. He reached across the table for a cigarette. That tasted good, he considered and shrugged. There would be some good tobacco in Israel at least. Sol would see to that.

  Sylvia was his main concern now. They were secure in their love for each other; separation would not be an issue. They were both used to that. But he needed to put a structure around her, to keep her safe. He thought about how calm and content she had been, since they left Dover. That was what he wanted for her. He took her hand.

  ‘Let’s go home. Do some more exploring.’

  In the Botanical Gardens, Wirth leaned across the table towards Dieter, checking first that nobody was listening. Dieter noticed for the first time the duelling scars on his face.

  ‘Can I take it then that you are interested in helping with our work?’

  ‘If the price is right,’ responded Dieter. He wondered whether Wirth was a little disappointed by his answer. His own feelings towards his country’s past were ambivalent; he had no particular axe to grind. He was young, ambitious and his eye was to the future. He could see that from Wirth’s perspective, this ambivalence could be an advantage. Nobody would be looking for somebody like him as a pipeline engineer.

  ‘Come to the hunting lodge tomorrow,’ Wirth said. ‘There are a few people I would like you to meet.’

  In Cairo, Alaikum stood at the office window, watching the faithful make their way to the mosque for lunchtime prayer.

  ‘Who’s this new client then?’ he asked Otto. ‘Yet another of your lot?

  ‘Chap by the name of Ernst Wirth,’ replied Otto. ‘A museum curator in Bavaria apparently. What the hell would a museum curator want with our services? I’m sure I recognise that name. I’ll ask around.’

  ‘Stick him on the generic list for now,’ advised Alaikum. ‘Usual guff. See if you can find anything out about him. Someone will remember something. Now, how about a spot of lunch, old chap, and then a siesta?’

  Sylvia and Gunn had made their way through the orchard, helping themselves to perfectly ripe greengages and plums, to the lake. After a glorious swim, they were sunning themselves on what they were already describing as ‘their beach.’ They recognised it straightaway from Jonathan’s private photo collection of Louise.

  ‘Now, this is what worries me slightly, Sylv. Gunn gestured towards a long, low branch. ‘All this buggering vegetation. The roof is one thing, and the painting inside, but how will we cope with all these trees? And a lake as well. I mean...’

  Sylvia was sitting astride him.

  ‘Don’t worry about that, darling.’ She leaned forward to give him a kiss. ‘I already told you, we’ll get a tenant and then all that will be up to them while we are away. I can manage a few fruit trees. Aunt Hortense used to make me do the garden. I’ll take care of everything, I promise. You concentrate on coming home safely and making lots of money for us. Anyway,’ she added. ‘Mermaids need water. The lake will look after itself.’

  ‘You,’ Gunn sighed, ‘are such a little minx.’

  Back at the house, Gunn had started jotting down some questions to run through with Sol. He hadn’t particularly thought about the financial side of the assignment in Israel; she was quite right to raise it. His attention was caught by Sylvia wearing nothing but a pair of knickers, making greengage jam. She had found a preserving pan in the scullery, some jars and a bag of sugar.

  ‘Needs using up,’ she explained. ‘The wasps will eat all the fruit otherwise. Seems a terrible waste. I love making jam. It’s therapeutic.’

  ‘I don’t want today to end,’ he told her, drawing her onto his lap, when the jam had set and was inside the jars.

  ‘We’ve still got lots of today left,’ she pointed out. ‘A
nd more exploring to do.’

  At an establishment in Berlin, known to cognoscenti simply as ‘Trudl’s,’ Elise had just finished servicing a client, helping him to explore his darkest fantasies. She was already proving to be a great asset to her friend’s team. Business was brisk, despite the blockade. Venereal disease was rife in the aftermath of the war, after various armies had swept through. Trudl’s had a reputation for being scrupulously clean. It had been a particularly energetic session. She had already been through three riding crops; maybe they needed a new charging structure. After a shower, she went downstairs to the bar, for a cigarette and a break before her next appointment.

  Her attention was caught by a conversation between two American servicemen. They paid no heed to her; few people realised how fluent her English was. They were talking about Joachim Mecklenburg, who had been ‘sprung’ a few days ago from a military prison in the American zone. Elise knew Mecklenburg; he had been a friend of Friedrich’s. If he had been sprung within the last few days, somebody must already have taken up the reins at the pipeline. She knew Lothar, or Cumberland or whatever he called himself now was dead; she still kept in touch with Hans at Bad Kaltenbrun. She had read the obituary. She had never liked him; his family had always treated Friedrich like some sort of poor relation. She had always suspected that that was exactly what he was without the ‘poor’ part, though that was thanks to his endeavour.

  She let her thoughts stray, as they often did, to the handsome young English Captain who had got rid of Friedrich for her. If only she had been younger! She had always had a thing for Englishmen, since she had lost her virginity to the young master of the house in Hereford where she had been a nanny. She wondered how he was enjoying the Horch. Reluctantly, she finished her cigarette and went to greet her next client.