Merlin at War

by Mark Ellis

  The thing to remember, he thought, as Paula began to list the various pressing items at the office, is that change – even traumatic change like the sudden death of a major partner – also created opportunity. This could be an opportunity for Alexander Pulos. If he were to seize it, he would have to take on his English colleagues. There could be no room for sentiment. Arbuthnot had said that his son “would come good” in adversity. Pulos did not want that spoiled youth to have the chance to come good. As for Fleming, he was a smooth operator, whose ingenuity and quicksilver brain Pulos had eventually come to admire. And there would be other obstacles. There was much to consider.

  “That will be all, Paula. We can deal with all that in the office tomorrow.”

  “But, Señor Pulos…”

  “Don’t worry, it can all wait 24 hours. You can leave the file. Now I need to mourn my friend. Off you go!”

  Paula gave her boss an anxious look, advised him to retire early with a hot drink, then left.

  Pulos asked Victor to mix him a Manhattan, lifted his feet on to the stool in front of him, closed his eyes and began to think. He found it difficult to avoid the initial conclusion that it was he who was in the best of all positions – most of the physical assets of Enterprisas Simal were in South America. All except the merchant ships out at sea and the cash remitted to the Sackville Bank in London. Most of the profit-generating assets of the Sackville Group – the land, factories, mines and ranches – were all in Argentina or the neighbouring countries of Chile and Uruguay. He was the man in control of all these assets while all the other players were far away in war-torn Europe or, in the case of the litigation, the United States.

  He tried to remember the English legal maxim that Arbuthnot used to quote frequently. “Ah yes,” he muttered to himself. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” He, Pulos, was in possession of the main physical assets of the business. However, if he were to take his opportunity to the full, there were other things he would have to possess. Tiresome as it was, he would have to make a journey. It was no easy thing to get from South America to Great Britain in June 1941 but he would have to find a way.

  He picked up the file Paula had left with him. One of the papers inside was headed Enterprisas Simal Ship Movements. Listed within were the locations and planned weekly movements of the 32 merchant vessels owned by the company. He moved his finger down the list until it came to rest on the MV Montevideo, currently anchored in the Rio Plata and due to leave on Wednesday for Lisbon with a cargo of 6,500 tons of maize, wheat and flax. If he took passage on that ship, which he remembered had an extremely comfortable stateroom, then connected with an onward flight to London, he could get to England in just over a week, perhaps. Maybe longer. Too long.

  No, he must get to Lisbon by air. He had done the journey that way several times before the war but there were not so many airline options now. He could fly to Rio, where he thought there were still connecting flights to Lisbon via Recife and Dakar. If the connections worked, he might be able to get to London in three or four days. Maybe less. It wouldn’t be anything like as comfortable as the ship but time was of the essence.

  He finished his cocktail. The telephone rang. An actress friend was having an impromptu party that night at a new nightclub in town. Did he want to go? He did. The Manhattan had blown away any lingering symptoms of the morning’s bug. He would have an enjoyable time at the party and company would take his mind off poor Simon’s death. It would not be a late evening, however: he wanted a good night’s sleep. He usually found sleep to be a wise counsellor.

  * * *

  London

  WPC Robinson was having a trying day. It was now after five o’clock and her search for the identity of the abortion victim had been unsuccessful. She had been in touch with forces in Bristol, Cardiff, Norwich, Birmingham, Leicester, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, all to no avail.

  Earlier in the day, her task appeared to have been made a little easier when she finally received the victim’s post-mortem report. Contrary to initial information, the victim did have some useful distinguishing features. She had a small birthmark under her breast and there was a small defect in one of her toes. Unfortunately, while some of the regional forces had missing persons of the girl’s approximate age and general appearance, none were noted as having these particular features. Some of the officers to whom she spoke had offered to contact their missing girls’ relatives in case they had omitted to mention such details. Other officers, who shared the not uncommon provincial feelings of resentment towards their colleagues in ‘the big smoke’, were not so helpful.

  Robinson consulted her list. She had one more regional force to contact – Northern Ireland. The name on her list was that of a Sergeant Callaghan. She rang, and after a long wait, the Belfast switchboard operator put her through. A female voice came on the line and introduced herself as Dorothy Callaghan. She had a bright and cheerful voice with an attractive Ulster lilt. “What can I do for you, Constable?”

  “We have a deceased young lady here in London we are trying to identify, Sergeant. Approximate age 20 to 23, black hair cut short.”

  “As in a bob, do you mean?”

  “Yes. Height five foot one, weight eight stone, one pound. Dark complexion, as if suntanned.”

  “Tanned, Constable? Sure we don’t get much sun over here so you may be wasting your time.”

  Robinson laughed politely. “All her own teeth. Distinguishing marks, a small reddish-purple birthmark below the right breast and the top of the small toe on her left foot missing.”

  “I see. You do realise that we were bombed to hell and back in April and May, don’t you? We’ve got a list of missing persons as long as your arm at the moment, with most of them being buried under rubble we haven’t had time to shift yet.”

  “I appreciate, Sergeant, that every major city in Britain has major war-related problems. We’ve had plenty of our own here.”

  There was a pause on the line before the sergeant spoke again. “Of course you have, my dear. And I know you’re only trying to do your job. How did she die?”

  “A botched abortion.”

  “Ah, the poor lassie. All right, Constable. I’ll have a look at our lists. Try to get back to you by tomorrow afternoon, is that all right?”

  “Thank you very much, Sergeant.” Robinson put down the receiver in a slightly better mood than when she’d picked it up.

  She had one other thing to do before she could leave to prepare herself for the planned evening out with her new boyfriend, Anthony Rutherford, a young up-and-coming Middle Temple barrister. Rutherford had appeared on the scene after Constable Tommy Cole had been transferred out of London at the behest of her uncle. She had been furious with the AC but he had been adamant. “Leaving aside questions of whether the boy is appropriate for you, it is bad for morale and discipline for relationships to be carried on at work.”

  On reflection and despite herself, Robinson had found she agreed with the latter point. There had been a tearful parting with Cole and then, a couple of weeks later, she had been introduced to Rutherford at a dinner party. Robinson had felt guilty but by April they had become something of an item. Rutherford was good-looking in an old-fashioned sort of way. Afflicted with back problems, he had not been fit for military service – to his bitter disappointment – and to compensate had become an eager member of the Kensington Home Guard.

  Tonight he had tickets for a production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola. In truth, Robinson wasn’t looking forward to it that much. Her cinema visits with Cole to see Rebecca and Gone with the Wind had been more to her taste than opera, but then again, Rutherford had agreed to take her to see the new Jimmy Cagney film at the weekend as a quid pro quo. And they were going to the opera with one of Rutherford’s jolly barrister friends and his wife so it wouldn’t be all bad.

  Robinson picked up the Ritz notepaper they had found in Mr White’s pocket. She had meant to get on with chasing this phone number earl
ier, but the missing person checks had taken the whole day. The number was KNI 4897. She had already discovered that the number was unlisted and had rung it a few times with no response. Now she would get on to the exchange and see what they could tell her.

  * * *

  “You’re looking rather cheerful, Sergeant. Something to tell us?” Merlin set down his pen.

  “Found the fellow, sir. A Mr Armand de Metz. I think that’s how it’s pronounced.”

  “Armand de Metz. An intriguing name. Sounds very elegante as my father would have said or ‘posh’ in straight English for you, Sam. I’m not sure what the New York equivalent is, Bernie?”

  “Fancy, I guess. Sounds more German than French to me but what do I know, Sergeant?”

  Merlin spent a moment rummaging in the drawers of his desk in search of a fresh packet of Fisherman’s Friends. Unsuccessful, he looked up to find Goldberg offering him a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum.

  “Don’t mind if I do, Detective. Thanks.”

  Merlin chewed the gum contentedly as Bridges ran over the details of his meeting with Renard. When the sergeant had finished, Merlin wandered thoughtfully over to the window. Rain had fallen in intermittent showers for most of the day but it was dry now and bright sunlight was shining down on the busy river traffic. Merlin could see a section of the Houses of Parliament to his right. Last month, the Parliament buildings had been hit by a number of incendiary bombs. The Commons chamber had been completely destroyed and the roof of Westminster Hall set on fire. The damaged area was just out of sight but knowing it was there was bad enough. “So this fellow Metz must have been pretty well known in the right circles in Paris.”

  “Must have been, sir.”

  “It’s surprising he couldn’t find people to help him in London. One would have thought he would have found a few sympathetic friends or acquaintances among the French exile community.”

  “He was a Jew, Frank. Remember that Jews aren’t so popular in France. There was that whole Dreyfus thing. Guy got dumped in the proverbial because he was a Jew.”

  “That was a long time ago, Bernie. Having said that, you wouldn’t really have to go that far in this country to find anti-Semitism.”

  Goldberg laughed. “Nor in America. You’d just have to stand in my precinct office.”

  “All right, I think we can agree that there is anti-Semitism in all three countries. It still seems strange that a man of such stature could fall so quickly and so steeply without encountering a helping hand.”

  “There was a helping hand in the end. Someone must have helped him get regular abortion work.”

  Merlin returned to his desk. “Do we know that the work was regular, Bernie? Perhaps this was just a one-off? Perhaps a friend just asked him for a favour?”

  “The man had to survive financially for several months. Abortion work might have helped him do so. If not that, what, sir?”

  “Perhaps he did get someone to lend him money, Sergeant. Or maybe he performed a string of abortions. I’m not sure it matters. What does matter is the abortion we are investigating. I think the first thing we should do is revisit those French officers again now that we’ve got our victim’s name. See if that prompts anything. Going back to our other case, any idea how Robinson has been getting on with the identification of our girl? Is she around?”

  “She asked me if it was all right to go just before you got back, sir. Had a date with that barrister fellow. Said she’d made a lot of inquiries today but no hard facts as yet. I said it was all right. Opera tickets or something.”

  “Fine, Sam. We’ll catch up with her in the morning. Fancy a drink, either of you?”

  “Sorry, sir. Promised I’d get home to Iris as soon as I came off duty.”

  “Off you go then. Bernie?”

  “Sorry again. Can’t do tonight, Frank. I’ve been invited to a reception at the Embassy. Apparently there’ll be a number of American notables there so I think I’d better not turn down the opportunity.”

  “Very well then. I’ll be off home, too.” Merlin put his jacket on. “Detective, why are you smirking at me?”

  “As I understand it, you’re not exactly going home to a lonely garret. I gather the young lady is a stunner.”

  Merlin shook his head. “I must remind my officers not to gossip.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tuesday 10 June

  London

  Merlin took the bus to work. He liked buses. He often caught the number 14 on the King’s Road. There had always been a good deal of banter on the bus but it seemed to have increased since the Blitz. The bus was a good place to assess public morale. As he hopped off at Green Park and walked the rest of the way to the Yard, he considered today’s bus chit-chat.

  If he had to grade morale on the back of it, he’d say it was middling. Passengers were generally continuing to take comfort from the lull in the Blitz although there were plenty of doom merchants saying it was only a matter of time before the planes would return. The view on military developments was that things weren’t looking great. The Cretan defeat had shaken many and there was disappointment at the recent lack of positive news coming out of north Africa. Against that, as one regular, an eternally optimistic post-office worker, had cheerily pointed out: “We sunk the Bismarck the other day, didn’t we?” For some reason this morning, no-one had mentioned rationing, which was the usual main bugbear. There had been newspaper reports of further imminent restrictions on egg distribution, while jam, marmalade, treacle and syrup had recently been rationed for the first time, but the subject had not arisen today.

  Just before he reached the Yard, Merlin decided to pop into Tony’s Café in Parliament Square. Fortunately, Tony was somehow continuing to circumvent the shortages and Merlin’s three slices of toast came with a generous helping of butter, marmalade and jam. Sonia had had to leave the flat very early that morning for a stock-taking exercise at Swan & Edgar and Merlin had missed out on his usual home breakfast. Tony’s fare would be a more than adequate substitute.

  Merlin watched the café owner as he bustled around the room. He had lost a lot of weight over the past year. Tony Martini had narrowly escaped being interned a year before when Italy had entered the war on Hitler’s side. All Italians aged between 16 and 70, who had lived in Britain for less than 20 years, had been detained and sent to camps. Tony’s parents had arrived from Naples with their young children in 1919 so the family was apparently exempt. However, the Home Office official who called him in for interview had found there to be some discrepancies in the old immigration paperwork and questioned the exact timing of the family’s arrival in the country. In light of the uncertainty, the official had been minded to detain Tony and his father. Merlin had been asked to put in a word for his desperate friend, which, of course, he had been happy to do. His intervention had swung it and both men had retained their liberty. More trouble had arrived when a belated swell of anti-Italian prejudice had damaged custom in the autumn. This had eventually blown over and the café was thriving again, but Merlin could see that Tony had been changed by his experiences. He was not his old cheerful self and his reduced frame bore witness to a troubled mind.

  “All well, Tony?”

  “For now, Frank, for now. You know how it is.” The café owner shrugged and moved off to take a new order. Merlin turned to his newspaper. A front-page report on the Middle East immediately caught his eye. An Allied army incorporating British, Australian, Indian and Free French forces had invaded the Vichy-controlled countries of Syria and Lebanon on Sunday and had made good progress in their initial advances.

  Merlin remembered reading something about Syria a few months back but he had not really taken in the fact that Syria and Lebanon, as parts of France’s pre-war empire, were now under the control of the French puppet government in Vichy. He was surprised, when he thought about it, that the Syrian and Lebanese people hadn’t taken advantage of events in France to take control of their own countries. The article explained that the invasion was pri
ncipally launched in anticipation of the Vichy government’s plan to make the countries available to the Germans as bases. His mind turned to the French officers at Dorset Square, his first port of call of the morning, and he wondered if the two men he had met were in any way involved with the planning of this operation.

  Merlin polished off his meal and rose, leaving payment on the table. Tony had told him many times, after his help with the Home Office, that his drinks and meals were on the house but Merlin insisted on paying up. His help, he told Tony, had been for friendship, not for grub.

  * * *

  Robinson had thoroughly enjoyed her evening at the opera. Her only previous experience had been a performance of Wagner, to which the AC, an avid Wagnerian, had taken her a year before. It was a strange but admirable British characteristic, she had thought at the time, how little antagonism was directed against the great artistic creations of the enemy, even of Richard Wagner, the great idol of Hitler. There was no banning of the works of Bach, Brahms, Wagner or any great German musicians so far as she was aware. Robinson felt sure that great British artists were unlikely to be treated with such equanimity in the German Reich.

  Brilliant as Wagner might be, however, she had found that he was not her cup of tea. She was delighted to find, therefore, on her second visit to the opera, that Rossini very much was. La Cenerentola was enchanting. She had not been bored for a second, as she had told Rutherford excitedly as they left the theatre. Afterwards the couple had dined with Rutherford’s friends in Soho and then he had dropped her off at the small Pimlico bedsit into which she had moved in January. Standing outside the front door, buzzing with the excitement of the evening, she had allowed her suitor his first brief kiss.