Estocada

  ‘May I?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Up there,’ he raised his eyes to the sky, ‘how do you feel?’

  ‘Free.’

  ‘Free how? Like a bird? Like a cloud? Like a puff of wind?’ He bent towards Dieter, a hint of concern in his deep brown eyes. He wanted an answer. He wanted to know. Very Jewish, Dieter thought. And very charming.

  ‘Flying takes you places you least expect,’ Dieter told him. ‘It’s always full of surprises.’

  ‘And the soul?’ Fiedler’s hand closed softly on his chest. ‘What does it do for the soul?’

  ‘I wish I could tell you. You should come up one day. It would be a pleasure.’

  ‘For you, maybe. That’s kind. But me? I get nervous on a ladder. As my friend Beata knows. Doing what you do? Way up there? I die even thinking about it. Let’s drink to Beata. Long life and no aeroplanes. Prosit…’ He clinked glasses, said he was very happy to make Dieter’s acquaintance. A real flier. Mein Gott.

  Dieter was curious about the KWI. He wanted to know what was happening there, what the regime’s sharpest brains were getting up to, but so far Beata had proved less than helpful. The first time he’d asked she’d mumbled something about taking apart the smallest particles of life. When he’d tried to raise the subject again, she’d quickly changed the subject.

  Now, he put the same question to Sol. What gets you people excited over at the Institute? What makes it a pleasure to go to work?

  Sol responded at once. He loved the directness of the question. And, more to the point, he appeared to take it seriously.

  ‘We’re kids in the playground,’ he said. ‘We’re kids in the classroom of your dreams. There are no limits. We can ask any question, take ourselves in any direction. You wake up with a crazy idea? Like a woodpecker inside your head? Something going tap-tap in the very middle of your brain? Then go with it, run with it, explore it, see where it fits, see what might be possible. Most times it doesn’t work out, it’s a dead end. But the beautiful thing is no one minds.’ He circled Beata with his thin arm. ‘We’re kids, ja? And very spoiled.’

  ‘You’ve told me nothing.’ Dieter was grinning. ‘That’s a talent I admire.’

  ‘But what do you want to know? You want to know exactly what I did yesterday? What Beata did the day before? That would be very boring. That would be pages and pages of calculations, of sums, of figures and symbols and mumbo jumbo that would mean nothing. Better I tell you that it matters and it works and it makes us very happy. You know something? I haven’t seen champagne for years. Let’s celebrate.’

  The approaching figure carrying a tray of glasses turned out to be Beata’s father. His affection for Sol Fiedler was obvious. He seemed to treat him like a child.

  ‘I put your jacket over there,’ he told Fiedler, ‘out of the way.’ He nodded towards a bicycle propped beside the fence. Folded over the crossbar was a grey jacket.

  ‘You cycled here?’ Dieter turned back to Fiedler. Beata’s father had moved on.

  ‘Of course. I cycle everywhere.’

  ‘You’ve come far?’

  ‘Prenzlauer Berg.’ PB was on the other side of the city, a working-class area of factories, cheap walk-up apartments and noisy bars much favoured by students.

  ‘You live there?’

  ‘We do. My wife loves it. The woman at the end of the street makes strudel you’ve never tasted in your life and there’s a park round the corner for the dog.’

  ‘Is your wife here?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t go out much. Apart from the strudel and the dog.’

  ‘Is there a reason for that?’

  ‘Of course there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason for everything. That’s what people like us do for a living. Cause and effect. Why things happen the way they happen. How dangerous and exciting things might get if you gave them a little push. Isn’t that true, Beata?’

  How dangerous and exciting things might get if you gave them a little push. This was more code and all three of them knew it. Fiedler’s wife was probably Jewish as well. Life in any city if you were a Jew was getting increasingly difficult. Numberless laws prohibiting the smallest pleasures. Restrictions on where you shopped or where you stood on the tram. Brutal house searches and random confiscations. For a Jew to hang on at somewhere as prestigious as the KWI was highly unusual, doubtless a tribute to Fiedler’s ability, but a decent job and a bicycle, Dieter suspected, would only take him only so far.

  ‘Your wife is happy here?’

  ‘My wife is safe. She eats well. Most nights she sleeps OK. Happiness is an absurd proposition. Unless you happen to work with someone as wonderful as this lady.’

  ‘Enough.’ Beata had stepped in, her hand on Fiedler’s arm. Her father was about to make a speech. He clapped his hands, called for attention, then summoned Beata and Georg to his side. Heads turned. Conversations died. Georg, to Dieter’s relief, appeared to have sobered up.

  The speech was brief. Beata’s father had been a widower for years after the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Hanni, he said, would have loved her new son-in-law but for all the wrong reasons. The boy was taller than his father-in-law. More handsome than his father-in-law. And a great deal more sensible. But his little baby girl had always had a gift for choosing the perfect present and in the shape of Georg Messner, she’d done it again. According to Beata, her new husband also knew a thing or two about cooking. This, he said, was truly excellent news because the years to come were going to offer all kinds of surprises. Not just the patter of tiny feet. Not only the chance of male company and a proper conversation. But even – from time to time – a new presence in the kitchen.

  ‘To Beata and Georg,’ he raised his glass, ‘and the prospect of a decent meal.’

  With the laughter and applause came the echoed toast. Georg stepped forward to respond. Dieter watched him for a moment, then his attention was caught by a figure making his way around the edges of the crowd on the lawn. It was Ribbentrop. He was heading for Sol Fiedler. Fiedler, alone now, saw him coming. There followed the briefest conversation, Ribbentrop doing all the talking. Then he broke off and pointed towards the bicycle.

  By now Georg had the guests in the palm of his hand. He was telling a story about Beata’s cooking. It involved a jelly that refused to set and a quart of thick cream, and the crowd were still awaiting the punchline when Fiedler got to his bicycle.

  Dieter was already edging around the crowd, trying to intercept him. Fiedler’s grey jacket still lay folded over the crossbar. Without a backward look at the watching Ribbentrop, Fiedler shook out the creases and slipped it on. The yellow star on the left-hand side carried the single letter: J.

  ‘You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to leave.’ Dieter was outraged.

  ‘I do, my friend. But I appreciate your concern.’

  ‘Stay. It’s not his party. It’s none of his fucking business.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. But it’s not my job to make a scene. Beata says you fly people like him.’

  ‘That’s Georg. That’s what he does. Me? I’m the entertainment.’

  There was a roar and then applause from the crowd. Georg had finished his story. Dieter made one last attempt to head Fiedler off.

  ‘This is what these people do all the time.’ He nodded towards Ribbentrop. ‘They want you gone. They want you out. Why make it so easy for him?’

  ‘Easy?’ The word seemed to amuse Fiedler. ‘You think any of this is easy? A confidence, my friend. A secret, if you like.’ He bent towards Dieter, a finger to his lips. ‘Quantum physics will turn the world upside down. You have my absolute guarantee.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Ribbentrop?’

  ‘Nothing. Everything. Quantum physics will fry him alive. And probably us, too. A deep pleasure, my friend.’ He extended a hand and then mounted the bicycle. ‘Kiss Beata for me. And tell her thank you.’

  He rode off without a backward glance, a
thin figure wobbling into the gathering dusk. Dieter felt a presence at his elbow. It was Keiko. He studied her for a moment, still fighting his anger.

  ‘Your friend Joachim belongs in the zoo,’ Dieter said at length. ‘One day you might tell him that.’

  14

  PARIS, 20 MAY 1938

  Le Café des Capuches lay in the 14th arrondissement, a rundown bar that served imported Belgian lager in German steins and had a decade-long reputation amongst the rougher elements of the French extreme right. Blackshirted paramilitaries from the Croix-de-Feu and Le Faisceau had flocked here for years and if you were after somewhere reliable for bellowing thugs, fascist anthems, and the near-guarantee of violence in the street afterwards then the Café des Capuches was well worth the price of the metro ticket. The quickest way from the nearest station happened to pass one of the city’s biggest hospitals, a geographical irony not lost on Tam Moncrieff.

  He’d arrived on the instructions of Ballentyne, having spent much of his second day at the British embassy sharing the spoils of his Czech outing with a series of carefully chosen French politicians. Mainly men of the Left, these were voices raised in defence of the Czechs and most of them were only too eager to seize on Tam’s report to bolster the internal fight against the appeasers. In Ballentyne’s phrase, these seasoned politicians had no illusions about Hitler’s direction of travel. First, Prague. Then Warsaw. And finally, in all probability, Paris.

  Tam was more than happy to table his impressions of the beleagured Czechs, not least because it made him feel that his days in Prague and the Sudetenland had been well spent. Still numbed by the news about Renata and Edvard, Tam had sought reassurances from Ballentyne about the safety of other Czechs who’d featured in his report but none had been forthcoming. For the likes of Renata and Edvard, Ballentyne seemed to be suggesting, the war had started early. People would continue to get hurt, some badly. Renata had been a credit to the infant democracy she so obviously cherished. Best not to dwell too much on the smaller details of what might have happened.

  The woman’s dead, Tam thought. Abused, beaten, scared half out of her life and then driven to some nameless destination and finally killed. Curled in the boot, knees to her battered face, she’d have lost all control, all dignity. No one deserved an end like that, least of all someone as committed and vividly alive as the woman he’d so briefly got to know. Was it Edvard’s fault for putting her in bad company in Jáchymov? Or was it his own in abetting the fantasy that mere amateurs, bit-part players, could somehow head off the coming conflagration? If he was honest, there was no way he’d ever know for sure but what he recognised in his heart was a deep anger fuelled by his own undoubted guilt. They’d been a team. He’d been there to keep her safe. And he’d failed.

  Le Café des Capuches was packed, drinkers spilling out into the street. Tam spoke a little French, enough for his immediate purposes. Two men were stationed at the door. Tam chose the one with the leather shirt and the Croix-de-Feu tattoo.

  ‘Wilhelm Schultz? A German? You know him?’

  The man looked Tam up and down. His eyes were bloodshot and the remains of a cigarette still hung from a corner of his mouth.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A friend of his. From London.’

  ‘You’re English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The man spat on the pavement. He wanted to know about the Czechs. He wanted to know whether the English were ready to march.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I doubt it.’

  ‘That makes you a wise man. The Germans will kick your arse.’ A jerk of his head directed Tam into the café. ‘Stocky little mec in the corner. If you’re a friend he’ll know you.’

  The closest Tam had ever got to Wilhelm Friedrich Schultz was the photo he’d seen in the embassy just hours before. The likeness with the face in the photo was poor.

  Tam squeezed himself into a space between Schultz and a hatstand. The atmosphere in the bar was heavy with sweat and cigarette smoke. Schultz had lost weight but the folklore that attended him – the teenage soldier in the last war, the twenties street brawler who knew no fear – was still evident in the look he shot Tam. He had a good face – strong jaw, steady eyes – and when he swung round on the bar stool Tam glimpsed the butt of an automatic thrust into the waistband of his leather trousers.

  ‘You’re who?’

  ‘Moncrieff. From London. Does the name Ballentyne mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve got something for me?’

  Tam handed over an envelope. It was full of money, American dollars. Schultz counted out the notes, licking his finger and thumb, keeping score under his breath.

  ‘Five hundred,’ he grunted. ‘We agreed six.’

  ‘I know nothing about that.’

  ‘Ballentyne’s a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell him he owes me. A hundred today. Two hundred by next week. Three hundred by June. That’s called inflation, by the way. We’re experts because we invented it. You can tell him that, too.’

  Tam nodded, said nothing. This conversation was going nowhere. At the other end of the bar, three men were arguing about yesterday’s peace march. Tam picked up enough to realise that one of them might have killed somebody.

  ‘You want to go somewhere else? Somewhere quieter?’ He was back with Schultz.

  ‘You’re going to feed me? Pour wine down my throat? Find me someone clean to fuck? Ja? You can do that?’

  Tam studied him a moment, realising he’d been put to the test. Ballentyne, after all, had some knowledge of this man. Never take him at face value, he’d warned. He’ll be coarse. He’ll play the hooligan. He’ll try to wrong-foot you. But don’t be fooled. Schultz hasn’t made it to the top by accident. He’s razor-sharp. His connections back home are second to none. And without him, we’re dead in the water.

  ‘Let’s go and find something to eat,’ Tam said. ‘Mr Ballentyne will pay.’

  *

  The hotel was a ten-minute walk away, a small, discreet establishment half-hidden behind a line of plane trees. The man on the door told him the table was ready any time he wanted it. Schultz checked in his leather coat at reception and asked for his gun to be stored in the hotel safe. The receptionist, who obviously knew him, produced a handful of mail and a key.

  ‘You’re staying here?’ Tam was eyeing the key.

  ‘Yes. They keep an excellent table and they know how to leave a man in peace. These days, believe me, that’s rare.’

  They were halfway along a corridor in the depths of the hotel. Schultz paused at a door near the end and used the key to unlock it. Ballentyne had been right. The man was an actor. Back in the bar, Tam had walked into a charade.

  ‘You’d like a drink?’

  The room served as a private dining suite. Prints of eighteenth-century Paris lined the walls and the big antique table was laid for two. Tam lingered for a moment by the window, which offered a view of a tiny courtyard. A child was squatting in the dust, making pictures with the end of a twig.

  ‘Pernod, please. With just a splash of water.’

  Tam was still at the window. The child had been joined by a woman who seemed to be his mother. She studied the cartoon face in the dust and then bent to the child, easing the twig from his pudgy little hand.

  ‘You’re sure that’s enough?’

  Tam turned to take the drink. Schultz had already poured himself a glass of something amber from the array of bottles on the trolley behind the door.

  ‘I knew another Scotsman once.’ Schultz raised his glass. ‘I was with him in Spain. He came from Glasgow. He was the toughest little man I ever met. Drank this stuff neat. Even the Communists were terrified of him.’

  ‘You were fighting with the Republicans?’

  ‘No. I met him after he was captured. He never told us anything.’

  Outside, the child was howling but Schultz took no notice. Tam remembered Ballentyne’s last word of advice. Let him settle down, he’d sai
d. He’ll take a look at you. He’ll make a judgement. If he doesn’t like what he sees, too bad. But don’t rush the man.

  ‘You come to Paris often?’ Tam enquired.

  ‘Only on business. This city can be a man’s worst enemy. If I spent any real time in this place I’d never leave. Why fight for a better world when it’s here already?’

  Schultz gestured him into a seat at the table. A buzzer on the wall summoned a waiter. He gave Schultz two menus in soft leather bindings and left.

  ‘We have all evening,’ Schultz said. ‘Tell me about your Czechs.’

  ‘You know about my Czechs?’

  ‘A little. Enough. What happened to that woman of yours was regrettable. The Sudetens need a lesson in manners. They’re primitive. They’re out of control. Henlein thinks he can control them and it turns out he’s wrong. Murder is the least of their sins.’

  ‘You’ve seen the body?’

  ‘I’ve seen photos. They even botched the post-mortem.’ He got to his feet and fetched a bottle from the trolley. Scotch. Tam watched him pouring himself a refill. ‘You were close to her? This woman?’

  ‘I spent time with her. She had a boyfriend, Edvard. But you’d know that.’

  ‘Edvard’s a good man. They tried to kill him, too.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He gave them the slip.’

  ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he safe?’

  ‘Yes. You know about Kreisky? The American? The man’s a snake. If anyone deserves a dose of Sudeten justice, it’s him. One day it will happen. He’s like all kikes. He thinks wealth will spare him. Happily, he’s wrong. I’m sorry about the woman. It should never have happened.’