The Nostradamus Traitor: 1 (The Herbie Kruger Novels)

by John Gardner

  George said that he had spoken with Downay at great length, and the Germans repeated that they were protecting their interests. They were answerable to General Frühling and he was answerable to the Reichsminister. So, Herr Thomas would understand they were all under some pressure. Doktor Downay had made certain promises but, so far, there was nothing to show. It took a long time the way they told it.

  They broke for lunch. Cheese, bread, and a good Hock. Apples. All very healthy.

  “We would like to take you into our confidence.” Kuche spoke slowly, a bad amateur actor bent on perfect articulation. “We take a risk, certainly, but there is no other way. You see, we are not certain if we can trust the good Doktor Downay. We would like to trust you, Georges Thomas, and assure ourselves that you understand what it is we have to supply to the Reichsminister.”

  Reichsminister Goebbels, they said, alternately like old women repeating the endings of each other’s sentences. Reichsminister Goebbels needed some firm, solid interpretation of the prophecies—interpretations that would be convincing. You understand? They punctuated each phrase.

  “I’m certain Michel Downay will give you clear interpretations,” George placated. “He knows far more about Nostradamus than I do. I can read some of…”

  Ah, they cut him short. Perhaps Herr Thomas did not fully comprehend their meaning. They realised the Doktor was brilliant—a brilliant occultist—but the Reichsminister already had a brilliant occultist in Berlin. They were quite concerned for that gentleman’s future.

  George reiterated that Michel Downay was a man of honour, a scholar of honour. He would give them the truth.

  This last seemed to make both Kuche and Wald very nervous and Kuche laid a hand on George’s shoulder.

  “We can be of great assistance to you. Understand? We can smooth many paths. Whatever it is you desire—money, status, rank, women. Understand? It is not altogether a question of truth. Understand?” Verstehen?

  Ramilies had spelled it out. So had Downay. They must hear what they want to hear. Now, thought George, he had the SS telling him the same thing.

  Perched on the window sill, his favourite position, Wald laughed, like Pagliacci at the end of Vesti la giubba, but without the tears. “What is truth?” he asked, knowing that it wasn’t original.

  “Truth has a different angle for most people.” George tried to be clever. “One truth can have many viewpoints.”

  “So?” Kuche got to his feet. “So what is it really? Is the Führer truth? Or the oath we take—I swear to thee, Adolf Hitler … Loyalty and Bravery … Obedience unto death. So help me God. Is that truth? What is the truth about Nostradamus?”

  “He possibly means many things to many people. It depends on where you are standing in time—in relation to the prophecies.” He was rather pleased with that.

  They both came back fast. That is what we mean, they said. Nostradamus must mean only one thing for the Reichsminister—the destiny of the Führer as the greatest leader the world has seen; the outcome of the war, assured with victory; the National Socialist Party as the most formidable political system of all time; the Third Reich as the most powerful and dominating factor in world affairs for a thousand years.

  “Does Nostradamus mean that to you?” Kuche threw George a smile, as a dealer might toss you a card. “He’d better mean that to you, Herr Thomas.”

  George did not need any prompting. One could make out a good case, he said, knowing it was time to start dealing the cards back. There were many quatrains which indicated just such matters.

  They both looked very relieved and suggested that Georges Thomas make certain the good Doktor Downay read the prophecies in the same way.

  “Stand at his shoulder. Whisper in his ear.” Wald sounded like an operatic Mephistopheles.

  Kuche said they were glad to have had such a fruitful conversation, and asked how George would explain his absence to Downay. They suggested he should say it had all been a terrible error. That he had been taken in and questioned about his papers. “Questioning over papers can often mean waiting for long periods.” But they, the gallant SS Sturmbannführer Heinrich Kuche and Obersturmführer Joseph Wald, had been summoned (“You would naturally mention our names”). They would have set things right.

  George left with them, the same black Opel, though they were heading for High Command Headquarters. They would leave him there. It would look good.

  Eventually, with relief, George walked out of the lobby of the Hotel Crillon. A free man. It was almost six o’clock and he stood for a few moments in the Place de la Concorde. It had been a long, long day and this was one of Paris’ most incredible vantage points. A staff car drew up, disgorging a pair of high-ranking officers who did not even look at him, let alone the view.

  In the distance, shimmering in a slight haze, like thin smoke, was Notre Dame, down the Seine; he could also see the golden dome of Les Invalides. A massive swastika flag floated above the Eiffel Tower.

  It was a long walk back to Downay’s apartment, but George needed the exercise to clear his head. He needed to be in the open and on the streets. It was almost seven when he finally plodded up the stairs. The elevator was still not working.

  Angelle opened to his ring and threw her arms around his neck, holding him tight, as though this was the most natural thing in the world.

  “Thank God. Thank God. Michel’s been trying to find out what they were doing with you. He’s out now and may not be back until the morning.” Her eyes said that this had nothing to do with him. Probably the girls? His fiction at the Sorbonne? “There is someone here, though.” Her voice dropped. “She’s a friend of Michel’s. He arranged the meeting. Come.”

  George followed her through the vestibule, and there, sitting upright in one of the padded chairs, was Maman, looking more the countess than ever. If the folks down Lockhill Terrace could see her now, George considered, they’d have a fit.

  “We have lunch now, Herbie?” George asked, looking around him as though coming out of a dream.

  Herbie Kruger consulted his watch. It was barely noon. Not yet, he said. Not quite yet. “I want to hear more while you’re into it. Quite a shock seeing your mother sitting there, eh, George?”

  “Not as bad a shock as the one that was to come.” George nodded, signifying he was prepared to go on talking before they stopped for lunch.

  28

  PARIS 1941

  “GEORGES. I KNEW IT was you.” She had usually called him Georges as opposed to George. In Lockhill Terrace it had been Georges; mon petit Georges; Georges. George was reserved for moments of petulance.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded, as though they were back in Didcot and he was home late from school.

  To George she had never changed: small, neat with a superb figure. She was in her late fifties but still exuded sex from fingers to blond hair—natural blond without a trace of grey. Looking at her smoothing her dress over her knees, George knew why men went crazy over her, but still could not fathom why she had married his father.

  A stream of questions were sucked through his mind as he stood gaping. Did Angelle know? How much did Maman know, or guess? Her relationship with Michel Downay? Ramilies had made a point of asking how she was, the day he had gone to the War Office.

  Angelle had her hand on his arm and was repeating Maman’s query, asking what had happened. George said it was his papers. Nothing serious—just took a long time.

  “You have been with the Boche.” Like an accusation, his Maman did not take her cool eyes from his face. Then a hand flipped up and back onto the silk dress. “It’s perfectly safe, Georges. Angelle is aware that I am your mother; and, of course, I know you’ve come from England.”

  He went over and kissed her. She still had that expensive smell which he remembered so well from their last meeting—the weekend leave in Paris before the Blitzkrieg. So she should, married to the owner of three scent factories—managing director of an exclusive house. Madame Roubert. The Countess as they’
d always called her down Lockhill Terrace.

  He asked after his stepfather, Maurice Roubert—sixty years of age, looking fifty; bronzed, fit. They had played tennis on that last weekend, and George remembered that he would not talk politics—reticent about the war.

  Madame Roubert said Maurice was well and looked forward to seeing him.

  “He’s in Paris?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And Michel…?”

  “Won’t be back tonight. Not now.” Angelle gave him a little sad smile which said for certain that Downay was about his extra work at the Sorbonne.

  “And you’re here, Maman. Why?”

  “Because Michel told me you had arrived. I wished to see you. What was wrong with your papers? Do they suspect you?”

  He said that nothing was wrong. It was a muddle. They were quite satisfied and had let him go. Then he repeated that it was good to see his mother again; and looking so well, but really there were things that had to be done. He couldn’t discuss any of it until he had talked with Michel. “You’re sure he won’t be back tonight?”

  Angelle shook her head.

  “Stop play-acting, Georges.” Madame Roubert’s face softened into a dazzling smile. “Always the play-actor, Angelle. Always in fantasy.”

  Oh Christ, George thought, we’re in for childhood reminiscences. All parents do it. Very forcefully he pointed out that there was no fantasy about the present circumstances.

  “No, it is all very grave.” His mother still had the smile in her voice. “Very serious. We know that. But it is men like you they choose to send into the lion’s den. Men with great fantasies. Play-actors.”

  The Rammer had said something similar, about him being a good actor.

  “You know, Angelle”—the smile turned into a laugh—“he was always making up great theatrical events as a child. We had many happy times, you remember, Georges?”

  How could he ever forget? The dream came back at least twice a week—still: himself with a tasselled tablecloth around his shoulders, declaiming.

  “One I always remember. A great fantasy about a king who could not get his crown off. It was stuck there on his head for all time, by a spell. In the first scene, Georges was the wicked magician who cast the spell. He walked on and said, ‘It is I, Hiram the Wizard.’ Hiram the Wizard. Very dramatic. I shall never forget that.”

  George went cold. His mother had caught the dream and brought it into this room in Paris. She had also captured the name he had given as a token to Ramilies.

  The name was to be played back as a clear password by a third person. He was Caspar. He was also Hiram the Wizard, from the depths of childhood fantasy, conjured from memory in Ramilies’ attic, shuttered and barred in the west wing of the Abbey.

  There was a dilemma for him, of course. Was his mother dealing the name back, or was it mere accident? She went on talking. Angelle moved towards him, resting a hand on his arm.

  In mid-flow he stopped his mother. “Maman, there are things… I must speak to Angelle. Alone.”

  She was put out and began a small, very Gallic tirade against sons in general and her own in particular.

  “Wait, Maman. Just wait a few moments.”

  Angelle, taking no sides but looking alarmed, allowed herself to be propelled into the kitchen, where George placed her firmly against the wall, holding her shoulders. Then he began a fast interrogation.

  “What happened after I left?”

  “Nothing. What do you mean, what happened?”

  “What did you do? Did you eat? Make love? Did anyone call? Did Michel go out again?”

  To each of the questions she opened her mouth, as if to complain, and then closed it again. Like a goldfish. A pretty goldfish.

  “He went out. Michel went out. About half an hour after you left, he went out; then came back again, very excited. He said you’d been picked up and he was going to see what he could do.”

  Michell Downay was well informed. Western Union could not have done it faster. Certainly the GPO would not have managed it.

  “Not back since?”

  “Yes, of course. He came back later and stayed here. It is his apartment.” Slightly piqued.

  “Today? What about today?”

  “He went out this morning, for about an hour. When he returned he said they had you at the Avenue Foche…Georges, is that…?”

  “Never mind. Go on.”

  “Nothing. He had lunch and went out. He told me he would not be back.”

  “Was he concerned?”

  “About you? Preoccupied.”

  “Angelle, listen. Did a fat Swiss ever visit Michel here?”

  “The man he got rooms for? The one you went to meet?”

  If she knew about that…

  “You saw him? Know where he lives?”

  “Certainly. He is with one of Michel’s students.” But the way she said it you couldn’t tell what “student” meant. She gave George the address. Somewhere between St. Sulpice and the Luxembourg.

  He patted her shoulders, gently now. She raised her hands, resting them on his shoulders, her eyes watery, like a puppy. “He won’t be back tonight,” she said again, and George told her that he would. First he had to see the fat man. The Swiss. Balthazar.

  “It’ll be curfew in an hour and a half. You’ll have to hurry. Is it wise?”

  No, it wasn’t wise, but there were reasons. Silently George weighed the odds that he would be watched on the street—by Kuche’s and Wald’s men, waiting for a link. Or by others? Put them against the danger of not being certain whether Maman was dealing the name back to him, and the odds were evens. He thought about Balthazar’s warning: London says you have to see everything. At the Abbey they had told him to trust nobody: check, and then even when you’re sure, check again.

  Madame Roubert was quiescent. No arguments. This made him wary. Maman was always a great one for getting her own way. She did not even grumble. Come back tomorrow, he told her—come back and talk with us when Michel is here. She kissed him affectionately and he sent his good wishes to Maurice Roubert. She laughed. “You’ll be seeing him soon. We are a full house. Boche officers billeted on us.” That was all he needed.

  George watched her, from the window, as she walked spryly down the street, and felt concern. He felt it also for Angelle, whose presence behind him was like static. During the night, at the Avenue Foche…

  She had another go at persuading him not to leave and make the trip over to the street near the Luxembourg Gardens, where Balthazar was holed up. The girl’s name was apparently Lucie. Dark, like a gypsy, Angelle said, as if this was a cardinal sin.

  There were only a few people in the streets that George chose. Later, he recalled, it was like looking at an avant-garde film—the alleys slick with rain, and an occasional light breeze juggling with the torn edges of posters; old pieces of newspaper skimming into corners, or the gutter, to lie soggy.

  He remembered the back-doubles which he had known once in the days before the war, on holiday with Maman and rehearsed again at the Abbey, where they’d had him sitting for hours at a bare table with a map, learning the city, testing him like a cab driver.

  Use the back streets as much as possible. The ones they can’t corner you in with a car. If they were using a car now, George made it unrealistic for them. Yet, he knew within five minutes that it was a penny to a pound they had a footpad on the go. At least one; probably two. Very expert; definitely professionals. George spotted one coming towards him on two occasions: the same sallow face, a peaked cap doing nothing to disguise the military haircut.

  He doubled back, retraced streets, crossed abruptly, dodged into doorways, even roused the concierge of one apartment building, asking for a mythical M. Albert Camus. Mythical? By the time he entered the Boul. Mich.—somewhere near the Luxembourg station—the sallow footpad had got himself lost, and George was left with the other probable: big, with a face like an inexpert boxer, the jaw out of alignment, bulbous nose and a nasty right e
ar. He was a standard heavy, flatfooted enough to have served with some police force for a long time, dogged of manner and with enough weight to cause a lot of pain if he took you by surprise.

  George had been certain about the sallow one. The pugilist was an unknown quantity, so he took him for a run around the park: in this instance, the Luxembourg Gardens, where people were thin on the ground because of the rain and lateness of the day—less than an hour to curfew. The palace, George thought, looked as ugly as ever; he’d never taken to it, though pondered now, for a second, on the irony that it had been built by a later de’ Medici—Marie, mother of one of those eternal Louises. The thirteenth, he thought. Good luck.

  There were several soldiers around, replete with cameras. One turn around the main sweep settled things. The pugilist was a leech.

  George led him down out of the Boul. Mich. end of the gardens and, making sure there was a good view, took him into the nearest alley. It was narrow and there was a certain amount of noise coming from high up among the buildings, though few people were actually treading the cobbles. Six hundred yards down, the alley narrowed to a funnel into which two more dark streets emptied. It was all very Victor Hugo. George turned right and waited; nobody about. Then the soft-shoe shuffle of the boxer’s approach.

  He turned the corner and George took him fast, from behind.

  Never hesitate, the leathery little man at the Strength Through Joy camp had said. He also advised against killing while teaching silent kills (Six of them in ’orspital, what with all the paperwork and manpower tied up, is of more value than six of ’em dead). George did not think he’d mind dispensing with the paperwork on this one. It is unwise to leave anybody to talk, particularly if they’re loitering after you with intent.

  As George hit him the first time it crossed his mind that the man might just be doing a spot of minding for Michel Downay. But there was no time for conversation. The edge of his palm caught the boxer on the right side of the neck. He arched his back, just as he was supposed to do under the circumstances. The knee came up, catching him square and hard in the spine. George heard it snap as it made contact. The boxer did not even cry out. Dead before he hit the deck. You’re a dirty fighter, sir. That’s what we want—dirty fighters.