The more he killed, the more Kholtov drank. The vodka or cheap Spanish brandy – whatever he could find in the mayhem of Catalonia – made the bloody work tolerable. The order summoning him home had come from Yagoda in Moscow via Slutsky in Spain. It was early September, the time when the Spanish summer begins to shed its furnace heat and the evenings are pleasant. He was needed to give evidence against traitors at a major trial. ‘Then I will be delighted to do my duty and take the next ship home,’ Kholtov had said to Slutsky, smiling. But he had other ideas. Through the red mist of blood and brandy he knew what the summons meant.
He had sobered up fast. That night, he slept outside town beneath an olive tree. The next morning he took the train to Madrid where he used his influence as a senior Soviet officer and Comintern representative to demand an interview with Negrín, the finance minister of the republic and leader of the Socialist Workers’ Party. It was a time of panic: Franco’s nationalist rebels were advancing on the capital. It was believed the city could fall within weeks or even days. Kholtov had an idea – an idea that might not only save his skin, but help preserve the republican government in Spain.
‘You must remove your gold reserves,’ he told Negrín.
The finance minister had laughed at him. ‘Do you know how much gold we have in the Banco de España? Perhaps seven hundred tonnes. One of the greatest reserves in the world. We cannot just move it.’
‘If you do not do so and Franco takes Madrid, you will have precisely no gold.’
Juan Negrín was a worldly man, but he was also brave and honest and intelligent. Within twenty-four hours he had summoned Kholtov back to his offices. ‘You are right, comrade,’ he said. The gold should be moved, he said. But where?
‘Somewhere on the coast,’ Kholtov said. ‘In case you need to ship it abroad in a hurry.’
‘I will talk with the council of ministers.’
Within days the council and Prime Minister Caballero had authorised the transfer of their country’s total gold reserves, some ten thousand boxes of coin and bullion, to the naval port of Cartagena, on the Mediterranean coast of Murcia. Perhaps the most strongly defended town in republican Spain, it was also a place from which a swift departure by sea would be possible if it became necessary.
On September the fourteenth, a powerful company of militiamen walked into the central bank in Madrid, accompanied by dozens of finance ministry officials, locksmiths and metallurgists, and began the immense task of removing the crates of gold coin and ingots and transferring them to the city’s Atocha railway station where a specially commissioned train was waiting.
All the while, Kholtov watched from the wings. ‘You might do well to send some to France for safekeeping and some to Moscow,’ he suggested. ‘Accounts could be set up – money to be withdrawn to pay for military assistance and war materiel.’ He did not mention that he hoped his initiative might earn him the gratitude of Stalin, and a pardon for whatever crime he was supposed to have committed.
The Council of Ministers was not immediately convinced by this suggestion, but Kholtov was given permission to join the train on its three-hundred-mile journey under heavy guard across vast, empty tracts of republican territory south-eastwards to the coast.
Once in Cartagena, he found a room and waited in the cliff-shrouded city, with its natural harbour and its ancient Roman ruins, enjoying the late summer warmth and barely able to resist the lure of the heady Spanish wines. It was the sort of place he might have happily stayed in forever, but even here he knew he was not safe. Soon, his presence would become known to Slutsky and men with guns would arrive to kill him or put him on a ship home.
There were days when his thirst for brandy was too great and he ended up in some sandy gutter. Why not, he found himself wondering, simply exchange the bottle for the bullet? That would end all his troubles.
And then, out of nowhere, he heard that the Council of Ministers had agreed to his idea; the order came from the finance ministry that the bulk of the coins was to be dispatched to the Soviet Union, for safe-keeping and to pay for armaments and military assistance.
Kholtov began to feel the jagged knives of apprehension tearing at his stomach. Yes, Stalin would be delighted by the arrival of so much gold – but Kholtov’s fond hope that this would save him turned to bitter reality. The arrival of the gold would not mean that Stalin would extend any gratitude to the man who had conceived the operation. He had heard from a Spanish bank official that the Soviet commercial attaché Artur Stashevsky was taking credit for persuading Negrín to ship the gold abroad. It wouldn’t stop there. Slutsky and Yagoda would undoubtedly also take credit for themselves. Stalin would never even hear of Kholtov’s part, and there was no way of getting word to him.
He still needed to find an escape route – and he needed a portion of the gold. He began to plan a way to get it.
The gold was to be loaded on four Soviet ships: the Kine, the Neva, the Volgoles and the Kursk for the journey to Odessa. Almost six hundred tonnes of it. The remaining portion of the gold would be deposited in France. Somewhere, some of it would have to disappear. It had to be a large enough amount for Kholtov’s purposes, but small enough to be easily lost in accounting, and it had to be transferable out of Cartagena in a small trawler.
On the journey from Madrid to Cartagena, Kholtov had got to know the guards and officials escorting the gold. He knew men’s weaknesses, knew how best to make use of such frailties. Bribery, blackmail or murder – or all three – were powerful tools for a man with his training. Assuming he could spirit away a small portion of gold from the fortified naval battery where it was stored, Kholtov would then be left with two major tasks: to find confederates and to devise a means of removing the gold from Cartagena and Spain.
As it turned out, those two problems were solved in one move.
Kholtov had taken lodgings with a man named Juan Ferreira, the skipper of an old trawler named the Gaviota, which plied the waters to the west and south of Cartagena, avoiding the channels used by naval and larger merchant vessels.
Ferreira was a good man, but he was disillusioned. He had supported the republican government and was glad to see the back of King Alfonso, but he was horrified by the destruction wreaked by the communists and anarchists on the Church, and the murder of the priests, monks and nuns. Nor was he alone in this; his mother and wife were devout Roman Catholics and were appalled by the stories of the killings, church plate being looted, relics of the saints being smashed and Bibles burnt in the squares of cities and villages alike.
In the evenings, when Ferreira returned home with his catch, he and Kholtov discussed the war over litres of wine and dishes of rice and seafood. It became clear to Kholtov that Ferreira’s loose tongue would very soon bring death and destruction down on his family. Perhaps he would like a way out?
‘I have an idea, Juan. I need a man like you to help me. If it succeeds, it would make you and your family rich – and enable you to leave this filthy war behind forever.’
Ferreira had needed no persuasion. He understood instantly what was being offered and was sure his two crew members, his young nephew and a tough but elderly uncle, would go along with it; they were all of like minds. His only fear was the fate of the family that remained. Would they suffer reprisals?
Kholtov was reassuring. ‘There will be no reprisals because no one will know that the gold is missing. If anyone in Moscow notices, which I doubt, they will think it an accounting error; the French will think it has gone to Moscow. Your trawler will simply be marked as missing at sea, all hands lost. Even if they believe the gold has been misappropriated, they will shrug their shoulders and put it down to the havoc of war. And when we have sold the gold and we are all wealthy men, your family can join you wherever you wish – France, the United States, Mexico. The choice will be yours. You will be wealthy beyond all imagining.’
The Gaviota was kept a few miles down the coast, away from the naval dockyards. Juan and his two crew members spent three days wor
king on the vessel to fix the compartments in which the gold would be stowed. Once or twice, other fishermen and villagers tried to watch them at work, but they were shooed away. No one asked questions. It was never safe to inquire into one’s neighbour’s activities in this part of the world.
Everything was almost ready. All that was needed was the extraction of a hundred boxes of gold coins. Who would miss a measly hundred boxes out of ten thousand boxes? After that, Kholtov himself needed safe passage to England to find a gold buyer and prepare the way.
And then he heard a strange story in a bar. A story that, at first, seemed improbable, and then possible. It involved a White Russian named Rybakov and a Nazi militia known as the SS Romanov Division.
*
From Cartagena, Kholtov took a series of trains back to Barcelona. Slipping into the city, he was careful to avoid the attentions of Slutsky and his former comrades. For two days, he made inquiries of the men who made a living smuggling intelligence and goods across the lines.
They told him no more than he already knew. Yes, there was a White Russian Nazi outfit near Huesca. They had seen a little fighting. Nothing much. On the third day, he was told the Russians were being moved out. ‘These Germans, they think we are stupid, Comrade Kholtov. Because we are Spanish, they think they can speak in front of us and we will hear nothing. Like servants in the dining rooms of the nobility. But, of course, we hear everything.’
‘And what did you hear, Senor Paez?’
‘I heard that the Russians are to go to England. Crazy, huh?’
*
Scobie, the head porter, was at the door to Wilde’s rooms. ‘Message for you, professor. A Mr Johnson asked if you would call him on the telephone.’
‘Mr Dave Johnson?’
‘I believe so, sir. He called a couple of minutes ago.’ The porter handed Wilde a slip of paper. ‘That’s his number as best I could get it. Says he’ll be in all afternoon. Sounded half-asleep. Couldn’t quite get his name or what he wanted at first.’
‘Thank you, Scobie.’
Ten minutes later, Wilde got through.
‘Dave? It’s Tom Wilde.’
‘Ah, yes. I called you, didn’t I?’ He was doped up. The voice was slow, hazy.
‘Do you want me to come over?’
‘A letter arrived. Second post. I don’t know what to make of it.’
Silence except for laboured breathing.
Wilde waited. ‘You said you received a letter.’
‘You might make more sense of it than me. Be glad of your opinion. Hang on. I’ll just go and get it.’
On the other end of the line, Wilde could hear the sound of retreating footsteps, a clattering of something falling, then a muffled curse. Half a minute later, the laboured breathing again as Johnson picked up the receiver once more.
‘Well?’
‘Here goes. It’s from Nancy. A bit of a mad scribble. “Dave,” she writes. “In haste, but this is important. Might talk to Lydia about it later, too.
‘ “A couple of weeks ago, my father, Sawyer and Slievedonard all went up to the Londonderrys’ place Wynyard Hall. Wonder why I wasn’t invited! The Londonderrys and the Ribbentrops were there. HD says Ribbentrop got the job of German ambassador by poisoning Hoesch. Not Nazi enough for Berlin, apparently. How appalling these people are! But—” ’ Johnson paused, ‘there’s a bit here I can’t quite make out. It’s something like “what’s the line between fighting for a cause and fighting for the enemy?”, but then she goes on to say, “You know what’s been asked of me, don’t you? Anyway, I went to his library, and hidden among the Country Lifes I found a magazine called North Sea, which is the most disgusting fascist publication I have ever seen. I’d think better of him if it had been pictures of naked French tarts.
‘ “And in his desk, I found a sheet of paper headed North Sea. It’s a list of names – big nobs – politicians, a couple of generals, some senior civil servants and at least three KCs. Slievedonard and Sawyer of course. I made a note of them all. What does it mean? It wasn’t what I’d been asked to look for, so it gave me a shock. One name in particular – that’s why I want to talk to you. I think I’ve made a mistake. I think this is serious. Can I come round? N.”
‘She never came. Must have sent it just before, you know. She had tried to talk to me on the telephone but, well, it was one of those days when she wasn’t quite coherent and nor was I.’
‘She said you knew what had been asked of her.’
‘I didn’t know anything had been asked of her.’
‘Can I see the letter? Did it contain the list of names?’ Wilde wanted that letter even if he had to prise it from Johnson’s doped-up fingers.
‘I need to lie down . . .’ Johnson’s voice was beginning to slur again. ‘Thought you should know, that’s all. Perhaps I shouldn’t have called you, but I promised, didn’t I?’
‘I’ll come o—’
The phone was already dead.
CHAPTER 20
There was no answer to his knocks at the front door of the cottage, and the curtains at the small windows were closed. At the back, there was no sign of movement in Johnson’s garden studio. Wilde tried the door. It was open, so he stepped inside. He breathed in the familiar aroma of oil paint and looked about. Nothing but paints and paintings and splatters on walls and floor and dozens of brushes and a few unused canvases. No Dave Johnson, no letter.
He walked back to the house and knocked on the front door again. Still no answer, so he went round to the garden once more and tried the rear door. It was unlocked and clearly had not been closed properly in quite some time; the wood had expanded through damp so that it no longer fitted in the frame. Turning sideways, he shouldered it open and stepped inside.
The house had the unkempt feel of a man who lived alone. The smell of damp, the bare and neglected kitchen, the peeling paint. Wilde called out Johnson’s name as he went through into the house. The front room was anonymous, cold and unlived-in. There was an armchair, a pile of the leaflets Lydia had designed and financed for the Kholtov rally, a telephone on the floor and a desolate hearth, thick with the detritus of long-dead fires. A threadbare rug partially covered the boards, but nothing could disguise the dust and ash and cobwebs that had accumulated over many months. The next room had a commonplace table and three chairs.
Wilde went upstairs. He recalled Lydia’s description of her foreboding as she climbed the stairs in Nancy’s house. But he felt no sense of horror here; only emptiness.
There were four rooms off the landing. One had an old bath, two others were storerooms, mostly for paintings, but also some boxes and trunks. It was as if Johnson had never really moved in. The door to the fourth room was closed. He lifted the latch and looked in.
To his surprise, the room was sumptuous and exotic, full of cushions and carpets and candles. Overwhelmingly red, with some faded yellow. There was a hint of incense in the air.
Johnson lay in the middle, on his back, stretched out on a pile of cushions. His lips were parted, his eyes closed and his burnt and ravaged chin tilted towards the ceiling. His breathing was light and peaceful. Wilde was careful not to wake him as he took the letter that lay at his side.
*
On his way back to his rooms, Wilde spotted Duncan Sawyer on the far side of the new court. He was saying goodbye to a young visitor, a good-looking man in impeccably tailored clothes. The two shook hands, then Sawyer patted his arm and the man walked away towards the main entrance.
Wilde strolled over and graced Sawyer with a smile. ‘Ah, Dr Sawyer, can you spare me a moment?’
‘What is it?’
‘You asked a favour of me. Help me with something and I might yet consider your request.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Never more so. You’ve kept in touch with the old master, Sir Norman, I believe. In fact I saw you briefly when I called at St Wilfred’s Priory.’
Sawyer’s lips curled into something like a smile. ‘You know
about the tragic death of his daughter, I think?’
‘Indeed. In fact that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Both Lydia Morris and Sir Norman have got it into their heads that Nancy was murdered. You’re close to Sir Norman – is he simply distraught or do you think there might be something in it?’
‘Good God, Wilde, what’s it to you? You’re not the bloody police. They say it was an overdose.’
‘I’m merely trying to put Miss Morris’s mind at rest. What do you think? I’d value your opinion.’
Sawyer appeared to weigh up Wilde’s intervention. He nodded slowly. ‘Well, overdose or not, she ran with some damned odd people,’ he said. ‘But you already knew that.’
‘Odd?’
‘Communists, left-wing agitators like Dill. England’s full of them. I despise them. The country is going to hell.’
‘That pretty well echoes Sir Norman’s sentiments.’
‘Well, of course it does! How could a man with brains not be dismayed by the rise of the trade unions? They’re all in the pay of Moscow, you know. How long before the empire drifts away and Britain becomes a small offshore island? Or worse, just another soviet, ruled by Kremlin diktat.’
‘And you think one of these left-wingers killed Nancy Hereward?’
‘Don’t you?’
Wilde shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Then you’d better leave it to the police, hadn’t you. And while we’re about it, I’ll call you in on that favour.’
*
‘That was Herr Dorfen talking to Dr Sawyer,’ Bobby said. After he had parted from Sawyer, Wilde had run into the gyp as he was crossing the court from Hall with a tray of food.
‘The tall fair-haired man? Should the name mean something to me, Bobby?’
Corpus Page 17