by Alex Gerlis
Mehmet Demir, Head of the National Security Service – Turkish Intelligence – insisted on them conducting their discussions in French, even though he spoke English perfectly well.
He’d buttonholed Demir during a break on the second day of talks in the railway carriage at Yenice station. ‘Could we perhaps have a chat… just the two of us?’
Demir didn’t think this was either the time or the place for a chat.
‘When would suit you, then, Mehmet?’
‘After this meeting, once we have the benefit of knowing its outcome.’ His French was surprisingly good; he spoke with a Parisian accent, and Pearson guessed he must have been based there – he’d better check that out sometime. ‘You shall come to Ankara after we have finished here. There we can discuss matters.’
Sir Roland said he wasn’t sure about that. He didn’t fancy going all the way up to Ankara and he’d rather hoped he could wrap matters up here.
‘Not here, I have business to attend to in Cairo. We’ll meet there next week. Do you know Shepheard’s Hotel?’
‘Of course.’
‘Meet me in the rooftop bar at noon on Thursday.’
He’d rather hoped Winston would veto the trip. He and General Mathers had sat down with the prime minister after the talks concluded on their second day and explained what Demir had proposed. Mathers talked it up; Pearson made it sound rather too quixotic and not a little risky.
Winston thought it was a splendid idea.
The following morning Sir Roland was hauled into the passenger compartment of an RAF Halifax which had travelled with them from Cairo. The plane flew to RAF Gaza where it refuelled before its return journey. Sir Roland Pearson was left at this remote RAF base until he was able to hitch a ride on to Cairo the next day.
As much as he disliked abroad, he could tolerate Cairo – at least for a few days. That was as long as one stayed in the Garden City area, which lay on the east bank of the Nile, just south of Gezira Island. The British embassy compound was in Garden City, as was Shepheard’s Hotel.
It was most agreeable to get up early in the morning before the sun was ready to do its worst and walk by the Nile on the Corniche, stopping to drink strong coffee which was only palatable with a considerable amount of sugar. The Nile was already busy – it never seemed to be quiet as it flowed through Cairo – and as he walked up the Corniche from the embassy compound he headed into a pleasant breeze lifting from the river, the palm trees swaying either side of him, and surrounded by noises and smells so different from London. He’d walk past Shepheard’s and then into Tahrir Square, which despite having something of an edge to it nonetheless fascinated him. He was exhausted now: he walked further in an early morning in Cairo than during an entire month in London.
The chaps at the British embassy compound were helpful enough. The head of station was out of town but his deputy was there, a protégé of Gilbey’s called Mayhew who spoke with the faintest hint of a northern accent but redeemed himself by speaking near fluent Arabic, as far as Pearson could tell. He was rather intense, insisting on lecturing him on what the Arab world would look like after the war and the church he and his wife visited very Sunday.
But they’d made a nice fuss of him, although there was a slight air about it of an elderly uncle being tolerated over Christmas. The ambassador put on a decent dinner – though Pearson wasn’t sure the Chablis was chilled enough – no one asked awkward questions and everyone played dutifully along with the idea that this was nothing more than a pastoral visit, a bishop visiting his grateful flock.
‘Got anything lined up while you’re here that I should know about, Roly?’
The ambassador had also been at school with him: a year below him, a year above Gilbey. Sir Roland seemed to recall he cried an awful lot when he was a junior, wrote poems in ancient Greek and always had an off-games chit, that sort of boy.
Sir Roland assured him there was nothing to be concerned about, but he did have a meeting at Shepheard’s tomorrow and perhaps one or two of his security chaps could accompany him?
‘Of course, Roly.’
‘Discreetly, obviously.’
‘Of course, Roly.’
* * *
The rooftop bar at Shepheard’s resembled a scene from one of those dreadful murder mystery novels his housekeeper would leave lying around and which Sir Roland would occasionally read against his better judgement if he had nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon.
It was an ensemble cast: a few Europeans of uncertain nationality, all the men in light-coloured suits, wearing sunglasses and staring suspiciously at one another; what he took to be a group of local businessmen, loud and very pleased with themselves, drinking whisky with far too much ice, which was simply not done so early in the day; a woman sitting on her own, possibly in her late thirties, looking sad and gazing over the balcony at the Nile; and two men who looked Turkish but were arguing with each other in what sounded like Italian.
But there was no sign of Mehmet Demir. One of the security chaps from the embassy had followed him to the bar and he’d been told the other one would be waiting there – blending in, apparently, which he was evidently doing very well.
Sir Roland Pearson ordered a tonic water with no ice and sat on the balcony in the shade offered by a large awning. He must have dozed off because he suddenly became aware of a man standing over him.
‘I’m sorry to have disturbed your sleep, Monsieur Pearson. Come with me, there’s a better place to talk inside.’
It was an alcove in a small corridor off the terrace, two luxurious leather armchairs facing each other and a wooden fan suspended from the ceiling, the noise of which afforded a degree of privacy. They sat in silence until a waiter appeared and Mehmet spoke to him at length in Arabic. More silence until two cold beers arrived.
‘You wanted to chat, Monsieur Pearson, just the two of us.’ He opened his hands: here we are.
Sir Roland cleared his throat and drank some of the beer, which was very cold and didn’t taste of very much. It was a drink he normally loathed. ‘Leaving aside the specific matter our governments discussed last weekend in Turkey – the question of whether Turkey can be persuaded to join the Allies – there is a further matter which is ancillary to that but to which we nonetheless attach great importance.’
Sir Roland had rehearsed his opening but was concerned his French might sound a bit too formal for Demir. ‘If you prefer to speak in English I—’
‘I prefer French. What is this further matter?’ He glanced at his watch.
‘We are concerned Turkey may be exporting large quantities of chromium to the Germans. As you know chromium is a vital ingredient in the manufacture of stainless steel and armour plating – the Germans require large quantities of it for their armaments industry. Turkey is one of the world’s largest producers of chromium and we consider your supply of it to our enemy as being incompatible with your neutral status.’
Sir Roland could have kicked himself: he’d slipped up and used the informal tu for ‘you’ rather than the vous Demir would have expected. Not one muscle had moved on the Turk’s face. He simply stared at the Englishman, as if he assumed he hadn’t finished.
‘So, um… that is the matter I wanted to raise.’
‘That’s all?’
‘Well, yes…’
‘I thought after all this drama, Monsieur Pearson, we would be discussing a matter of espionage or of state secrets. Instead you want to want to talk about a non-ferrous metal? I’m not sure it is something I can help you with.’
‘Surely you’re aware of what materials you’re exporting to Nazi Germany?’
Mehmet Demir spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘We are a modern industrial nation, Monsieur Pearson, we export a wide range of products and materials to many countries. My job is complicated enough without being expected to be an expert on what we export and to where. For example, we are a major exporter of dates – do you expect me to know who we export dates to and how many of the
m, eh?’
For the first time Mehmet Demir smiled and he raised his glass of beer in a ‘cheers’ gesture.
‘But the thing is, Mehmet, we’re not talking about fruit are we, for heaven’s sake? We’re talking about a raw material which is vital for armament production. I’d be most surprised if you weren’t aware of these exports.’
‘And you have evidence of this Monsieur Pearson?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know full well what I mean. Do you have proof Turkey is exporting chromium to the Germans?’
‘Not as such, but that’s not the point. We know it’s going on and—’
With that Mehmet Demir stood up, the top of his head not too far from the blades of the wooden fan.
‘There may well be the odd businessman who exports a small amount of chromium to different countries, but if you’re asking whether this is done officially or with the knowledge of the Turkish government… no. I’ll tell you what, Monsieur Pearson, when you have evidence of these exports come back to me and then we can discuss the matter. Until then it is hypothetical. It is probably gossip your Mr Bryant and Mr Stone picked up in the spice market. They seem to be very gullible, those two.’
‘Hang on, Mehmet, perhaps if we were to…’
‘I’m busy, Monsieur Pearson, and I consider you’re wasting my time. But let me end with this observation, if I was to ask about your country’s exports I doubt you’d be very forthcoming. I’m surprised you thought I’d be inclined to help you. I’m not one of your colonial servants, you know. Good afternoon.’
* * *
‘And that’s it, Roly? The head of Turkish intelligence gets the better of you and now you want to have a moan about it, what… four months on?’
Tom Gilbey had listened patiently to Sir Roland’s story, avoiding the temptation at times to interrupt with a question.
‘Of course not, Tom – have another glass of the Château Latour. I may well have underestimated Demir but at the same time I’m no fool. In fact, after the meeting I reflected on what he said, especially at the end. I realised he’d avoided specifically denying they’re exporting chromium to the Germans, rather he’d seemed offended that I’d asked him. That seemed significant, so when I got back to London I thought we’d better do something about it. Pass the bottle over here, will you?’
Tom Gilbey waited while Sir Roland poured himself a large glass.
‘I took the view that we were expecting a bit too much of Bryant and Stone. They’re both solid enough chaps, they speak the language, know their way around and all that, and keep Istanbul station ticking over nicely. They work very well with Lamb in Ankara but they’re not terribly productive in terms of producing intelligence, are they?’
‘Possibly not, Roly, but as you know Turkey’s not my part of the world.’
‘Which is why I need your help, Tom. I’m in a spot of bother and need you to help me out of it. Between you and me, I felt Demir had got the better of me – he made me feel very much his junior. This whole business had become rather personal and I felt the urge to rectify the situation myself. I ought to have handed it over to the Service right away of course, but unfortunately I decided to keep my hands firmly on the tiller for this one. I’m ashamed to admit it became personal. I took the view we needed someone to go into Istanbul undercover and see what they could unearth about these exports. It didn’t strike me as too complicated a mission, and I had someone in mind for it. Does the name Tim Cooke mean anything to you?’
Gilbey shook his head.
‘No? Timothy Charles Cooke. He’d worked all over Europe in the Thirties as a salesman for engineering companies. Knew his way around the world of machinery parts, that type of thing – spoke half a dozen languages, terrible smart and affable. SOE snapped him up early on and he went on a couple of very successful missions for N. Section in the Netherlands, and heaven knows we needed some cheering up there.
‘The reports on him were glowing – brave, resourceful, effective… so I snapped him up. I’d had my eyes on him for a while and as soon as I got back from Cairo – that journey’s another story but I won’t bore you with it now – I made a beeline for him. Packed him off pretty quick because I knew he’d be in safe hands with Bryant and Stone, and gave him the cover name of Gilbert and a simple enough brief – get some evidence on the Turkish exports of chromium to Germany. Then I could show the evidence to Demir, thereby forcing him to admit they were exporting chromium to the Germans or at any rate permitting it to be exported. He’d have had to do something about it – nothing would have given me greater pleasure.’
‘You don’t think you rather rushed him out there, Roly?’
‘In hindsight, yes… quite possibly, but in my defence I felt he should get out there sooner rather than later. I thought if I recruited someone and ran them rather than the Service then we could hurry things up – less red tape. I managed to persuade Bryant and Stone to keep details of Cooke to a bare minimum.’
Silence for a while apart from the muffled noise of laughter from the bar. Sir Roland was rearranging his knife and fork on the empty plate.
‘But you still told them, Roly?’
‘Yes – well I had to tell someone, didn’t I?’
‘Not sure, Roly… not if you’re worried about security. So what happened?’
‘That’s a good question, Tom. Not to beat about the bush, Cooke disappeared. Bryant and Stone say he was terribly eager, perhaps too eager – raring to go, acted a bit restless when they tried to brief him and explain the lay of the land. He was given a pretty free hand and plenty of money, but one morning at the end of February – he’d only been there a fortnight or so – he missed his seven o’clock check call. That was the system, Tom – he was to telephone the station at seven o’clock every morning with some kind of code message to indicate everything was in order. The arrangement was if he couldn’t make seven o’clock he was to go for nine o’clock and if he missed that he had one last chance at eleven thirty. If they’d not heard anything from him by then they’d start ringing alarm bells. And that’s what happened – no calls. Bryant and Stone got the consular chaps to make the usual enquiries – police, hospitals et cetera, but nothing. They checked with all their own contacts, pulled in favours, spent a small fortune on bribes, but nothing.
‘But they persevered and got a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. One of their contacts was a taxi driver who told them another taxi driver – chap called Harun, I think it is – wanted to meet them. Turned out this poor chap Harun had gone into hiding, absolutely terrified. He was holed up in the basement of his uncle’s house on the Asian side of the Bosphorus and showed no intentions of leaving there.
‘According to Harun he’d met Cooke – he knew him as Mr Gilbert – on the taxi rank near Cooke’s hotel. He offered to be Cooke’s driver while he was in town. There’s nothing unusual in that, goes on all the time apparently. It suits both parties, according to Bryant and Stone.’
‘Against Service rules of course, Roly. If we’d been able to train him, then—’
‘I know, I know, Tom, but please allow me to continue. On the third day of being Cooke’s personal chauffeur Harun was approached by a man he vaguely knew – they drank in the same bar I believe – called Besim. Besim offered Harun a lot of money if he’d take Cooke to a brothel in the Unkapani district, which is on the European side, just south of the Golden Horn.
‘He thought he was simply being bribed to bring more business to the brothel and says he was very generously paid for doing this. He took him there a few times until Besim visited him at home early one morning. He was told not to pick up Mr Gilbert again, he was not to go anywhere near the hotel and, in fact while he was at it, he wasn’t even to go over to the European side for a week – make that two. When Harun pointed out this would cost him money, Besim gave him an envelope which Harun says contained as much as he’d earn in a month.
‘He didn’t think much more of it, but he’d rather liked our Mr Gilb
ert who he says was very kind and a good listener. So three weeks ago, early May I think, he happened to take a Syrian businessman to the very same brothel in Unkapani, which turns out to be called Kayseri, and while he was there he went in for a drink and asked the owner – a Bulgarian he knows as Vasil – if he knew what had become of Mr Gilbert.
‘Well you or I, Tom – certainly you at any rate, not too sure about me – had we been Vasil we’d have played it very calmly at this stage. You’d have said no and offered Harun another drink, this one on the house. But no, apparently all hell broke loose, poor old Harun was dragged to the back of the building and given a right old beating and it only stopped when a man came in who Harun says was a European, a man the others referred to as Ulrich.
‘This character told them to stop and then took Harun to one side. The gist of what he said was that Harun was to forget he’d ever seen Mr Gilbert, forget he’d ever been here and generally forget everything. Again, one might have left it at that, but then this Ulrich character added a rider – he told Harun that if he didn’t do as he was told he’d end up alongside Mr Gilbert. Harun rather foolishly asked where that was and this Ulrich chap said Mr Gilbert’s body was at the bottom of the Bosphorus, though they weren’t sure where his head was.’
Sir Roland poured what was left of the Château Latour for himself and drank it in one go.
‘I’m afraid I’ve fouled up, Tom. Showed our hand early to the Turks so they know exactly what our concerns are and now it looks as if the agent I sent out there has been killed. Made the mistake of thinking because Turkey’s neutral it would be safe. Christ knows, Tom, I’ve been clutching at straws, but do you think this could have been some kind of local dispute?’
‘I very much doubt it, Roly. I’m afraid this has the Germans written all over it. We’d certainly want to know more about this Ulrich. From what I know, the Turks are unlikely to upset the apple cart too much. They may not like us and they may not want to be on our side, but killing one of our agents – I doubt it. Much more the Germans’ style. If you asked me to hazard a guess, I’d say they caught wind of what Cooke was up to and took him out of the game.’