‘You, ma chère — you look back too, and remember. Your first love. Your first dazzling experience. Perhaps it was exciting, unexpected, unsatisfactory, even absurd. But you will not have forgotten it.’ He took a long drink of whisky. ‘My friends, it is my misfortune that I look back to the day when I lost my manhood. 29 July 1944, to be precise. In a prison cell in Lyon where I was being asked those rather awkward questions which I did not answer. But my interrogators did not even bequeath me the dignity of being able to die for my country. I was merely robbed of my couillons — which was probably no great loss to the flower of French womanhood. And for my silence Old Long-Nose de Gaulle pinned a little medal on my chest. But he could neither restore to me my virility, nor wipe out my hatred for the people who had destroyed it. That is why a certain Doktor Mönch and all his living colleagues are of such intimate interest to me.’
Anna spoke: ‘But it wasn’t that old man on the hill who interrogated you, was it?’
‘Not personally, ma chère.’ Pol smiled indulgently. ‘They used specialists for that kind of work. People like Mönch were more important — and like all pen-pushers, they didn’t like to dirty their own hands.’ He patted his vast thighs. ‘But this is all academic. Let us get down to the business of day — only not here. Here we are merely in danger of drinking too much whisky and attracting attention. Let us meet tonight for dinner. I suggest we drive to a pleasant little spot fifty kilometres from here. It has a bar, which is unprepossessing, and a restaurant which is almost invariably empty and which serves suckling pig and a very pleasing wine. It is called La Busia, on the road to Logrono. We meet there, upstairs, at nine o’clock.’
Without waiting for their agreement, he hauled himself to his feet, drained his whisky and waddled across the floor. Hawn opened the door for him. When he was gone, Hawn said: ‘So he just walked in, like the man from the Pru?’
She nodded. ‘But no briefcase. Just the bottle of whisky.’
‘Didn’t he have any explanation?’
‘He said he would wait for you. Tom, are we being set up?’
‘We’re certainly being paid, and that implies a price. But one thing we can’t hold against Pol — he’s being honest with us, or as reasonably honest as a man like that can ever be. He’s using us to sniff out his quarry. What he then proposes to do about it is something we don’t yet know. But what I do know is that Mönch is obviously scared of him. And at this stage, the last thing we want is Pol, or one of his friends, getting rid of that wretched old German before he’s able to earn his six thousand dollars.
‘Pol told us in Venice that he was following the same path as us — that he wants to expose the Western oil companies who traded with the Nazis. Now I’m not so sure. Mönch talked about an organization called Jacques. We can assume that Pol is part of that organization — that perhaps he even runs it. In which case our paths are not the same — although he’s still picking up the bills. Angel, that fat man could lead us into a lot of trouble. Interesting trouble. The point is, will he be able to get us out of it?’
CHAPTER 13
It was dark and crowded inside, with a smell of tar and old sherry. There were hams hanging from hooks in the ceiling, their cured skins the colour of dull red mahogany. Men were playing dominoes and reading the sports pages of the evening editions. Nobody paid any attention to Hawn and Anna as they made their way up a twisting iron staircase to the restaurant. It was more like the dining-room in a private house: the furniture was heavy, pitch-black, the lighting dim. A pair of swords hung crossed on the wall. The room was empty except for Charles Pol.
As in Venice, their host ate with his fingers. He had three helpings of suckling pig, and ordered copious wine, while the conversation remained evasive, prosaic. He did not invite questions, and skilfully avoided answering them when they were put to him. Anna drank a lot, probably because she was nervous. Pol clapped his hands, and a little boy, pale and dark-eyed, hurried in with cheese and coffee, and a local liqueur that tasted of olives.
Pol wiped his fingers on the tablecloth. ‘Now, my dear Monsieur Hawn, we have eaten well. We have drunk good wine. We are no doubt in the mood for confidences. Let us talk of the German, Mönch. Why has he decided to flee? Using my money to facilitate his escape?’
To Hawn the question seemed rhetorical. ‘Because we both think that you’re a member of an organization called “Justice pour les Anciens Combattants”.’
Pol giggled, as he carved himself a slice of goat’s cheese. ‘Mon chèr, if I am a member of a secret or illegal organization, I do not discuss it, even with my friends. The important thing is, Doktor Mönch has flown — or rather, he hired a taxi this afternoon and drove towards Madrid. I must give the man credit — after so many years, his intelligence network is remarkably good. But then of course, the Nazis were first-rate professionals.’
‘Monsieur Pol, do you have any reason to believe that Mönch was a Nazi — as opposed to someone who served them?’
‘He was a long-standing Party member.’ Pol sucked at a finger that was like a freshly-peeled shrimp. ‘I have no illusions about Hans Dieter Mönch. He was a very superior Nazi. If handled properly, he could be of immense use to us.’
‘He’s no use to us if we chase him away the moment we’ve found him.’
Pol ignored the objection. ‘Have you considered the possibility that Mönch, having taken the money, will invent the information?’
‘Then why hasn’t he done so before?’
‘Because no one has ever asked him to. Mönch is one of those war criminals who lack what we might call “political sex appeal”. He has no glamour, no status, like Albert Speer. Nobody would be normally interested in his memories. And if he decided to cover them with a maquillage of incriminating facts against ABCO and other Western companies during the war, the manuscript would almost certainly be thrown back in his face. No reputable — even disreputable — publisher would touch it. And even if he did find some fly-by-night journal of scandal to print the stuff, they would not pay him the sort of money that would make it worth his while.
‘Mönch and his kind want a quiet life. They have just enough money to live comfortably and in reasonable safety. Why should they rock their own boat? Why should they stand up and shout things to the world that most people would prefer to leave unheard? Above all, why should they make new enemies at their stage of life?’
Anna broke in: ‘So you think we’ve thrown your six thousand dollars into the Nazi Pension Fund?’
‘Not necessarily, ma petite. You forget that Mönch is frightened — frightened of a French organization called Jacques. If I were Mönch, and I had been presented with six thousand dollars, by a stranger, in return for a few hours’ work, I think I would oblige that stranger. Then, if I found that Jacques was getting close to my doorstep, I might try to do a deal. I might come up with a list of names — eminent names, and not just the names of Frenchmen. Veterans, even heroes, who made their money out of the Second World War.
‘That is another reason why Mönch and his friends have not been so quick to divulge all they know. It is a form of insurance. Their best and only insurance.’ He sat back and belched luxuriously. ‘No. My guess is that you will find a letter waiting for you in Madrid.’
‘And what happens to Mönch?’
‘The fate of Doktor Mönch no longer concerns you.’
‘And when I get this letter, and the information in it, how do I contact you?’
‘I will contact you. Do not be embarrassed or annoyed — but I must make it my business to know where you are. I cannot allow you to contact me. I am conspicuous enough. I must permit myself some privacy.’ He turned and smacked his little hands together, and the boy came trotting in. Pol asked for the bill; after he had settled it, he tossed the boy a five-hundred peseta note. ‘The Herr Doktor is already proving a most expensive investment,’ he said. ‘Let us hope he is worth it.’
Hawn and Anna spent the next five days meandering around the wide plain of C
astile, with its barren red earth and broken windmills and paltry furrows of cultivation.
The interlude since Soria, and the encounter with Doktor Hans Dieter Mönch, followed by their reunion with the mercurial, gluttonous Pol, had distanced events enough to give them a disquieting sense of unreality.
To his dismay, Hawn had come to realize that the only event that could be taken as both absolutely serious and relevant was the murder of Norman French. He had twice been able to buy English newspapers, and saw that although French’s death was still mentioned, there were no clues, no suspects. This had at first whetted the subeditors’ appetites, but later, with nothing to report, the story had slid lower down the inside pages; and Hawn saw — both with relief and some curiosity — that his own name had been left out of all the reports. Perhaps the one thing all the newspapers wished to avoid was billing an ex-journalist who might at that very moment be snatching the exclusive.
He was up early on Monday morning, before Anna; and without waking her, and armed with his passport, arrived outside the American Express a few minutes before nine o’clock, to join the lines of brittle, bright-eyed American divorcees waiting to collect their alimony — a dole queue of sexual disaster.
Only today he found the pavement empty, the doors locked. It was a national holiday to commemorate some saint. Hawn cursed the saint and had a coffee, then a few beers, followed by a medicinal Fundador; and returned to the hotel in time to find Anna getting dressed.
He repeated the routine next morning, but this time Anna joined him. They reached the Poste Restante desk and Hawn showed his passport. The clerk checked, but there was nothing for Senor Hawn, Mr Hawn, Herr Hawn.
They returned at noon, just before the place closed; and again at 4.30 when it reopened; and still there was nothing.
That evening they drove out to Segovia and got drunk at dinner.
Next morning, both rather raw-eyed, with Anna wearing dark glasses, they once again joined the grim queue inside the baroque building on the Plaza de las Gorces. When they reached the desk, Hawn again handed over his passport; the clerk checked the rows of pigeon holes, came back and said, as usual, ‘Nada.’ Hawn made him check again; while he was doing it, he himself took a bleary look around the hall, looking for anyone who might be watching. There was an elderly man reading a newspaper, but he seemed almost too much like a private detective to be one. Both Mönch and Pol would use professionals.
The clerk came back, looking bored, and said again, ‘Nada, Senor.’
Hawn thanked him and turned, unwilling to attract further attention. Anna said: ‘Ask him to look under “E”.’
‘“E”?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Mönch knows my name well enough.’
A pair of women behind them were growing impatient. Anna ignored them; instead, she asked the clerk herself to look under E. The man came back to her a moment later with a bulky envelope on which was written, THOMAS HAWN ESQUIRE, and marked PRIVADO.
Hawn kissed her with extravagance, then they walked quickly out, failing to notice that the man with the newspaper had not moved. When they were in the street he kissed her again, messily on the lips, setting her sunglasses askew on her nose, and squeezing both her buttocks. ‘Careful!’ she said: ‘In Franco’s time we’d have been arrested.’
A drunk was watching them, propped against the wall and trying to light a cigarette. Hawn, on an impulse, gave him a box of matches. Mönch’s letter made an uncomfortable bulge in his inside pocket.
‘I want to go back and screw you,’ he said happily.
‘But first, let’s go and get a drink and see what’s inside that envelope.’
It was a stout manila envelope, well-sealed and reinforced with Sellotape. Inside were eleven sheets of quarto bank paper, each covered with single-spaced typing on what had obviously been a cheap and badly maintained machine. It was entirely in German, with a great many errors and corrections — crossings-out, letters elided and words clumsily inserted above others. It was clear that whoever had written it had not been a professional typist, and that this was almost certainly a first and only draft. Whether the author had kept a carbon was another matter.
Hawn looked warily round the cafe and bar. It was still too early for the pre-lunch crowds, and their table was reasonably isolated.
Anna said, ‘Is your German up to it?’
‘It’ll have to be. I’m not going round to the German Consulate to get it translated.’
The first two pages were highly technical and contained a number of commercial names, of which I G Farben and Fischer-Tropsch Werke GmbH featured most prominently. The word ‘Braunkohle’ cropped up several times: ‘brown coal’, which confused him, until Anna guessed that it meant ‘lignite’, the main substance used in the production of synthetic fuel.
The gist of the first few pages was not sensational: by the end of 1943 the fuel crisis had become critical and Himmler had established a secret department within the Ministry of War Production with the sole purpose of producing two million tonnes of crude oil a week.
When he had read this out to her, Anna said: ‘But that’s impossible! I’ve seen the figures myself — they were down to 1.7 million tonnes.’
‘Were those official statistics? German statistics?’
‘No — American. At least, Anglo-American. Post-war figures that were brought out by the Allied Commission — I looked them up in the Petroleum Library.’
A waiter had turned on a television set behind the bar, and a few people in the cafe had moved over to watch it. One was a smartly dressed man in dark glasses, carrying a bull fighting gazette rolled up under his arm.
Hawn said, ‘Of course, Mönch doesn’t say here that they were actually producing two million a week, just that they were aiming at that as a “provisional target”.’
‘Well, unless Mönch is lying, they were being crazily optimistic. I won’t bore you now with comparative figures, but that sort of production and consumption — even for a highly industrialized state at war — is colossal. What date does Mönch say it was?’
Hawn referred back through the notes. ‘End of 1943. Then it seems they had what Mönch calls a “highly secret meeting”, in somewhere called Neustrelitz, near the Polish border. Here it becomes very confused. Mönch starts talking about someone or something called Bettina.’
Anna was looking at the TV screen which was showing a rerun of a bullfight parade. She said, ‘All I know about Bettina is that she was Beethoven’s mistress.’
‘That would figure. Very sentimental people, the Germans — very musical. They had a full-time orchestra playing Strauss and Mozart at the gates of Auschwitz, twelve hours a day.’ He drank some beer and read on. ‘Yes, I thought so. Bettina’s a code word.’ He turned the page, where the typing had become faded, as though the ribbon had come to an end.
Hawn persevered, slowly deciphering the cumbersome German phrases and convoluted sentences, rendered more difficult by Mönch’s pedantic style. He turned a page and there was a roar of excitement from behind the bar. A bull had appeared on the screen, dodging, lurching about, while the first toreadors taunted him with little skipping pirouettes. The man in dark glasses had unfolded his gazette and was watching intently.
Hawn said, ‘Now we’re getting somewhere! Salak. Imin Salak. Bettina’s operations move into the Turkish Strategic Zone — Salak is recruited by Bettina’s agents, totally apart from the Abwehr or the RSHA, the Political Police, which included the Gestapo.’
Anna stopped him. ‘You’re going too fast for me. What’s the particular significance?’
There was another roar, followed by a chorus of whistles and boos as the picadors lumbered on to the screen, astride their wretched horses, watched by everyone in the bar except Hawn and Anna.
He said, ‘Salak was a name MacIntyre gave me just before we left. A wrestler in Istanbul, known member of the local underworld, and recruited as a top British agent. The significance is obvious. Now if Mönch had trott
ed out Doktor Alan Reiss’s name, it might have meant nothing, as he’d already heard it from us. But Mönch could not have possibly known about Salak, except from his own experiences. Nor does he say here that Salak was a British agent. Perhaps he didn’t know — or more likely, he regarded him as a loyal German agent doing a good job double-crossing the British.’
With some difficulty he attracted the waiter’s attention and ordered more beer, careful to keep Mönch’s notes concealed. ‘The rest is a bit diffuse. Salak was working for “Bettina” in Istanbul. Mönch also says that two top British agents were operating in Central America, ensuring the safe transportation of fuel across the Atlantic. Presumably the old fox is holding those two names up his sleeve, waiting to barter them for the balance of four thousand dollars.’
‘How does it end?’
‘Just a note that Reichsminister Himmler, in the name of the Führer and of the whole German People, expressed his deepest gratitude to the operatives of “Bettina”, but on account of the extreme secrecy and delicacy of the operation, no formal or official recognition could be granted.
‘That’s Mönch’s way of signing off and telling us what a wonderful person he was. There’s no signature, no date.’ He paused, then folded the pages up and returned them to the envelope, which he slipped under the table as the barman arrived with their drinks. When the man had gone, Hawn leant further over and tucked the envelope into Anna’s bag, which was hanging under the table from her chair. ‘Angel, when I’m halfway through this beer, I want you to get up and go to the loo. When you get back, the drinks will have been paid for and I’ll be gone. You stay and finish your drink, look a bit impatient, then go up to the barman and ask if he’s seen me.’
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