by Nick Elliott
‘Sonia, I know this is hard, but was Luka under a lot of pressure? Was he depressed? Did you ever think he might take his own life?’
She looked directly at me, dignified and composed. ‘Not for one second. Luka was just not that type. He was a cheerful man, full of laughter and so confident and positive about everything. I do not believe he took his life. Why? We have … we had a good marriage, and the boys – he lived for them, their future …’ And with mention of her two sons the mask of composure fell, she leaned forward with her face in her hands and sobbed.
If I’d known her better I would have moved over to comfort her, but I didn’t so I sat and waited and within a few moments she regained her poise. She blew her nose and laughed, a bitter laugh. ‘He was murdered. I am convinced of it. Do you know what was happening with Dalmatia Shipping? You know he had shares in the company?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Then I told her what I could disclose of the case.
‘I understand you lifted him down?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
She stared at me waiting for me to go on. When I hesitated she said, ‘You carried him to his bunk, yes? With the padre?’
‘Yes. We laid him there. The padre anointed him.’
‘He did not receive the sacraments?’
‘No, apparently that is only for the living – the last rites. But the padre prayed for his soul. Luka was a Catholic I understand.’
‘Yes. Not so devout, but you know, we can never quite renounce our faith. I am Orthodox of course. Thank you for doing that. And I would like you to thank the padre too. Is that possible?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then he was taken ashore on the tug, and to the morgue in Lisbon I am told. We are still awaiting the results of the post mortem.’
‘That’s right. And Zoe or I will keep you informed.’
Her mother came into the room carrying an ornate silver tray with a large briki from which she poured coffee into two heavily decorated cups.
‘Metrio okay?’
‘Metrio is fine thanks. Sonia, do you know of anyone who might have wished your husband harm?’
‘The company was in trouble, you know that. He joined when the ship called here for bunkers and stores just a few weeks ago; on her way from Trabzon. He was fine. He didn’t know where they were to discharge but …’
‘Did he not mention the cargo they had loaded in Trabzon?’
‘Yes, second-hand trucks he said, maybe for Africa.’
‘He didn’t mention they were military vehicles?’
‘No, not to me. But his death was reported in the media here and I received a call just yesterday from a man we used to do business with in the agency – a lawyer called Carasso.’
‘Benjamin Carasso? I know him. He’s done work for me up here.’
‘Yes, he told me so when I said you were coming to visit me. He said he would be pleased to meet with you.’
‘So what did he say?’
‘Only that he had information that may be of interest to you.’
‘He didn’t tell you what it was?’
‘I told him I didn’t want to know. I rely on you to find out what happened to my Luka. It happened when the ship was in international waters and you know what that means.’
‘Yes, jurisdiction lies with the flag state.’
‘Exactly, some little island in the South Pacific that’s about to disappear under the sea. The Portuguese aren’t interested either. You find out for me, Mr McKinnon. Please.’
Before I could respond there was a commotion in the hall and two small boys came rushing into the room shouting at each other. Their mother rose to calm them and introduced each of them to me in turn: ‘Luka and Nicola. They keep me sane,’ she said.
As I was leaving she picked up a framed family photo from a table in the hall and showed it to me. It showed all four of them in the sea, laughing and fooling around. Both boys were clinging onto their father’s back. ‘That was taken three months ago,’ she said before seeing me to the door.
Chapter 6
‘You alreet the noo, laddie?’ Benny Carasso’s attempt at a Scottish accent, which he affected whenever we met, sounded bizarre considering he was a Sephardic Jew from Thessaloniki who’d spent half his life in New York. And despite the circumstances of our meeting, it made me laugh as it always did, not least because I had difficulty speaking Scots myself.
Benny was old, maybe eighty, but his mind was sharp. He was bent and walked with a silver-topped ebony cane which was now propped against the table we sat at. What was left of his hair was wispy and white. He wore a black suit with a waistcoat. His appearance reminded me of some character from an old black and white movie. But Benny was no cardboard cutout and what kept him young in mind, body and soul was his unfailing sense of fun, often at others’ expense though never meant unkindly.
‘I’m fine, Benny. Keeping well yourself? How’s the leg?’ We were sitting in a little taverna in the Modiano Market, the biggest covered market in the city. Mostly it’s crammed with food stores selling spices, cheese, fish, meat and delicatessen products. Walk through the place and you can feel the spirit and scents of the old city. The whole area evokes its Jewish past. Ninety-six percent of Thessaloniki’s Jewish population perished in the Holocaust, most of them transported direct by rail to the Nazi death camps. Many of the buildings around us had once been the mansions of wealthy Jewish families. Despite their elegant and well cared-for façades it wasn’t hard to imagine ghosts of the past roaming their halls at night. Benny’s family had been lucky – or smart. They’d been descendants of the Sephardic diaspora that had fled from Spain in the late fifteenth century following the Reconquista. But as storm clouds gathered over Europe in the late 1930s, they had abandoned this city that had been home to the family for over five hundred years and settled in New York.
‘Still attached to my hip last time I looked. Never mind that, Angus my boy, I want to talk about the Dalmatia Star and poor Luka Babic. I’m close to the family you know.’ He reached into an ancient leather bag that needed re-stitching round the seams and pulled out a folder.
‘Take a look at these.’
I flicked through the sheaf of papers, then studied them more carefully as I realised the story they were telling. The one that caught my eye was a letter of credit guaranteeing payment for the Dalmatia Star’s Trabzon cargo.
‘Where did you get these, Benny?’
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘You know better than to ask, eh?’
The goods were listed as military equipment, the beneficiary as Trabzon Logistics AS and the buyer as a company in Switzerland, West Africa Development Factoring, an unfamiliar name to me. But it was the issuing bank’s name that caught my attention. Credit Sud of Zurich was one of several banks owned by the Gertch family who had made their fortunes after the war allegedly laundering Nazi loot for members of the ODESSA, the organisation set up to help SS officers escape justice by establishing themselves mostly in South America but in North Africa too. In the Cold War years the Credit Sud continued its nefarious activities, laundering gold looted by the Japanese in the war for the benefit of the United States in its fight against the growing tide of Communism. Except the Gertch brothers siphoned off millions not just for themselves but, on instructions from the CIA, for payments to KGB agents in return for Soviet state and military intelligence secrets.
The receiving bank was just as interesting, though less surprising: Banco Imperio of Lisbon. The letter of credit showed a clear link between the two banks and the military cargo on the Dalmatia Star. What it didn’t show was the cargo’s destination.
‘A nexus?’ he asked.
‘Looks like it. Thanks, Benny. I’m not asking you to reveal your sources, but if you had to guess whether there was a state player behind this, who would you choose?’
He rubbed his chin and leaned forward. ‘Well, you got four choices haven’t you. You got the Portuguese trying to bring about a regime change in one of its former colonies
, which would certainly point to Africa. You got the Chinese, who might be changing their modus operandi from economic to military intervention – again in Africa. Then the Russkies, who we know are getting more active by the day selling arms and training the military in several African states.’
‘And number four?’
‘It’s not impossible is it. Look at Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Angola and the rest.’
‘A CIA black op?’ I said. ‘It’s possible I suppose. There are several African coastal states with offshore energy reserves that Big Oil are already heavily invested in.’
Benny was warming to his theory: ‘So why not?’ he said. ‘Uncle Sam might want to encourage a regime change somewhere if they feel the local government isn’t playing ball with its strategic interests. Covertly of course.’
Of course.
Chapter 7
‘Nice work, Matteo,’ I said as I walked round the car. My old Alfa Romeo had been transformed by Matteo’s workshop on the outskirts of Lucerne. They’d fitted it with a 185 horsepower Twin Spark engine to replace the original Nord. Then they’d tweaked the new engine, the brakes and the suspension. They’d repaired and resprayed the body in its original racing green and replaced the worn plastic seats with tan leather ones. It was still an old car, not a concours classic but the facelift had breathed new life into my treasured possession.
‘How much?’ I asked him. The workshop itself was something to behold: spotlessly clean and every tool in its place around the walls. I spotted a 1950s Maserati and two old Mercedes from the same era, all in varying states of renovation.
‘Don’t ask me. I will let you know. There is no hurry to pay the balance; it was a privilege to work on such a car.’
I didn’t press him. I’d put down a hefty deposit already and was in no hurry to see how much more he wanted. I drove off, enjoying getting used to the different feel that the car had been given.
I’d flown from Thessaloniki to Zurich to follow up on what I’d learned from Pedro and Benny Carasso, and to renew an acquaintance. Only I wasn’t sure where to find her.
First I headed for Helmut Gertch’s estate on the northern shores of the lake just a few miles east of Lucerne, near the district of Meggen. Gertch had departed this life right in front of me and in dramatic style not so long ago and the estate was now on the market. But today it was his personal nurse and companion I wanted to see. Zoe had been unable to track her down and I was having no luck now. The gates to the estate were closed and no one was answering the bell. I contemplated climbing over as I had on that previous occasion but instead returned to town and the office of the estate agent who was handling the sale. They told me Gudrun Sandmeier had moved to Burgenstock and was working in a hotel there. So I drove round the lake as the rain turned to sleet and white horses reared up from its grey waters. One day, I told myself, I’d visit Switzerland when the weather was warm and sunny.
When I got to the hotel I was told Gudrun had left a few weeks earlier.
‘Do you know where she went?’ I asked the receptionist, who was eyeing me with suspicion. ‘Where is her home?’
‘I’m afraid she didn’t leave a forwarding address.’
‘I need to see her urgently. Is there anything you can do to help me find her? She helped me once,’ I added hoping it might make a difference.
The girl sighed. ‘I have a number for her somewhere,’ she said opening a drawer behind the counter. ‘Here.’ She handed me a scrap of paper. ‘She told me not to give this out but I guess it doesn’t do any harm to call her, then she can decide if she wants to see you or not.’
I wrote the number down, handed the note back and thanked her, then stepped outside and called from the lakeside. Looking across from this southern shore, north towards Meggen, I was reminded of that long day and the night that followed when violent death had visited the Gertch home. I shuddered and pulled my collar up against the driving sleet. I was about to give up on the call when a voice answered. ‘Gruetzi wohl?’
‘Gudrun? It’s Angus McKinnon, remember me?’
There was a long pause. ‘What do you want?’
‘Can we meet? It’s about the Credit Sud, the Gertch bank in Zurich. I have some questions.’
Another pause. Then: ‘I don’t want anything to do with those people.’
‘Gudrun, this is important to me but it needn’t worry you. It’s a case I’m working on.’
‘Are you alone? Where are you?’
‘Yes, I’m alone. I’m in Burgenstock.’
‘What is it you want to know?’
‘Nothing that will be of any risk to you, I promise. I just need to get in touch with the bank. I will explain if we can meet.’
‘I see. Alright then, you know Beckenried? I am very close. Come to the Hotel Nidwaldnerhof. It’s on the lake. I will be in the restaurant there in half an hour’s time.’
When I got to the hotel she was sitting in a corner of the empty dining room, a lonely figure gazing out over the windswept waters. Gudrun Sandmeier looked older than when I’d last seen her not that long ago. That is to say she looked like a dowdy, careworn seventy-year-old as opposed to a brusque, well-groomed sixty-year-old. Her actual age must have been somewhere in between.
‘Hello, Gudrun.’
She jumped as I woke her from whatever daydream she’d been having. ‘Mr McKinnon. This is a surprise.’ She spoke slowly, adjusting to English, which she spoke fluently. ‘Shall I order you coffee?’ She hailed the young waitress who was hovering on the other side of the room.
‘I’m sorry to intrude on your privacy like this,’ I said, sitting down opposite her. ‘Are you hiding? At the hotel they were reluctant to give me your number.’
The girl came over to take our order.
‘After Herr Gertch’s death people came: people from his family banking business. They asked so many questions. They wanted me to sign so many papers, and to keep my mouth shut. They threatened me with legal action – I had signed a non-disclosure agreement - but psychologically too. I was afraid. They said I should be afraid. So I agreed to sign their papers. Then I came here. You found me and I’m sure they could if they wished. I didn’t want to see you but it was you and your Japanese friend who put an end to that dreadful business.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, how horrible that was.’
‘Yes, it was. But I appreciate what you did for me that day.’
‘How is your head?’ she asked. And at last she smiled. ‘I thought you would not wake up after they hit you like that.’
‘I’m fine, thanks to your treatment.’
‘I was a registered intensive care nurse you know, before Herr Gertch employed me.’
‘And now? Are you managing?’
‘Yes, I manage. I miss my work. Retirement didn’t suit me so I took work in the hotel where you called from but that didn’t suit me either.’ She laughed bitterly as if she felt her life had been ruined by what had happened. ‘Anyway, what is it you need to know?’
‘Gudrun, do you have any friends at the bank, Credit Sud I mean?’
‘No, no.’ She paused before remembering. ‘Oh, but I know the woman Herr Gertch dealt with there. She used to come to the house sometimes and I would serve her tea. She was a good woman. Herr Gertch thought so too. We both liked her.’
‘Are you in touch with her still?’
‘No, no, but why do you ask?’
I showed her the letter of credit and told her what I wanted.
‘That is all?’
‘Yes. I don’t want to make things difficult for her, or for you.’
‘Tell me why you want to know these things. What is this case of yours?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you more than I already have.’
‘Are you a spy, Mr McKinnon?’
‘No, just an insurance investigator. And I’m on the side of the angels, I promise.’
She looked at me sceptically, but after a while said, ‘I will let you know what I can find out. Give me your telephone number
please.’
‘Better if I call you. I’ll be on the move.’
‘Very well, if you prefer.’
We drank our coffee. ‘Do you manage? Financially I mean.’
‘Oh yes. I do not need to work. Herr Gertch was very generous. He provided for me well.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘He was not a bad man, Mr McKinnon. Perhaps his father and his uncles did some bad things after the war, but Herr Gertch himself? No, he was a good man, not a strong man but not a bad man.’
I offered her a lift but she said she lived nearby and would walk.
‘In this?’ I said looking out over the water. I remembered hiding in the woods nearby observing the comings and goings at the Gertch house across the lake.
‘Oh, I don’t mind this stormy weather,’ she said.
I finished my coffee and left her there, hoping I’d at least relieved some of the monotony in her life. Or had I just given her one more thing to worry about?
***
Before beginning the long drive back to Greece I found a small hotel for the night outside Lugano. I called Claire, then Zoe and had a quiet dinner down the road from the hotel. The raclette was prepared and served with Swiss precision. I washed it down with a bottle of Fendant and turned in early.
Next morning I left at eight and headed north then east, skirting round Lake Como to avoid Milan. From there I would continue eastwards to Venice, catch a ferry down the Adriatic to Igoumenitsa and head down to Athens from there.
I was driving through the Valtellina past Berbenno when they came after me. The winter sun was warmer here and vineyards stretched either side of the road as a reminder that I was moving away from the chill of the Alps. The new audio system Matteo had fitted was playing Puccini. For once I was in no hurry. I had the window down, the scenery was fabulous and I was feeling good about the way the Alfa was handling.
The big Audi SUV appeared in the rear-view mirror. I signalled for him to pass once we reached a straight stretch of road. The car drew alongside. It was black: black paintwork, black wheels and blacked-out windows. He didn’t pass but instead stayed parallel. I looked across to signal him but he stayed where he was. Did he want to race? That happened sometimes in this part of the world. I picked up my speed. Still he was there. Ahead I could see off to my right that the road ran alongside the river. The bank was steep with only a low wall of white-painted breezeblocks serving as a barrier. Beyond, I caught a glimpse of the rapids as the river narrowed into a gorge. Further down the road I could see the entrance to a tunnel. I braked but still he stayed alongside. I could pull up or else face plunging down the bank into the river, or into the wall of the tunnel. Before I could process these disagreeable alternatives, they were decided for me. The SUV suddenly turned and slammed into the side of the Alfa. I turned the wheel hard left towards him in response but an Audi Q7 is twice the size and weight of the Alfa. There was the sound of metal grinding on metal but my manoeuvre had no other effect beyond that. I was going to be driven off the road.