Innocence To Die For

by Eidinow, John

  That was all. No message, no signature. Only the postcard itself. It was message enough. He put his fingers where she might have held it and conjured her up. Dark eyes with a hint of hazel. A sickle smile. A mass of dark hair.

  He rang the bell and the banker himself reappeared, noiselessly opening and closing the door. ‘I trust the reply was satisfactory.’

  ‘Thank you, yes. I suspect there might be another in the near future. If you could kindly receive that for me.’

  The banker inclined his head. ‘And if I might leave this with you until then?’

  The banker inclined his head again. ‘Is there a further service?’

  ‘Only the small favour of recommending a garage where I might hire a car if need be.’

  ****

  With time to kill, he went to the bookshop and bought a guide to Geneva together with a street map of that city and Céline’s Mort à credit. Then he went to the Minster terrace, found a shady seat under the chestnuts and leafed through the guide before settling down to read the Céline, oblivious of strollers passing back and forth. Below the terrace wall, the wooded valley spread away in the summer haze.

  That evening, in the pension, he looked for La Chaux-de-Fonds on the wall map in the hall, finding it in the lower hills of the Jura, just above Neuchâtel. About 45 minutes by train he guessed, in a country of deep gorges, rocky ravines and steeply rising, wooded hills ringed by the mountains.

  ****

  Back at the legation next day, he was thanked for his reports – ‘you will be interested to know that they have been placed in the Foreign Secretary’s personal box’ – and desired by his government to return to Vichy for a further short period. ‘If, however, you then come to the view that there would be no significant purpose to be served by your remaining, you are at liberty to terminate your mission and return, having made appropriate arrangements for the chargé to take up his duties, expected to occur within four weeks in any event. Handover in situ is not deemed necessary.’ There was no mention of “Sea Lion”.

  ‘Back to Blighty?’ The cipher clerk was getting quite chatty. ‘Short and sweet, wasn’t it? Myself, from what I hear of Jerry’s bombing, I’d rather be in France. Airfields are really catching it. A real pasting.’

  He would be glad to go to Vichy for another look, Peter thought, and then to turn his back on the inward-looking, intolerant, self-justifying, hate-fuelled mysticism that was Pétain’s National Revolution and its adherents. A week or so was about right.

  Chapter Eleven

  Back again in Berne, he went to the main station and telephoned an antiquarian bookseller in Zürich to inquire if he had a copy of Diderot’s Pensées philosophiques.

  ‘Only in an 1880 Dutch reprint.’

  ‘And Jacques le fataliste?’

  ‘The same edition.’

  ‘Would you be interested in 1770 Paris? I believe I can get my hands on mint editions.’

  ‘I have a customer who will be very interested indeed and will pay a good price. Please call again to let me know of your success.’

  ‘I hope to call again in two or three weeks.’

  Then he went to the legation to compose and send his report, in effect amplifying what he had sent earlier, with the addition that the French intelligence services, military and civilian, seemed to be reviving under the new government. Feelers had been put out to him. He ended with his judgment that there was no significant purpose in his remaining in Vichy, though he stood ready to return if so desired and awaited instructions. The presence en poste of the chargé was eagerly anticipated by the French government and all arrangements were in place.

  At the bank, a letter awaited him, postmarked Le Locle. He remembered it from the Glycine map: a small town in the hills above Neuchâtel. Another postcard, this one of the Collégiale Notre-Dame. No signature, no message. He examined it more closely. A figure in a date had been carefully changed: 1155.

  He asked if one more advertisement could be inserted. The banker called in a pale, middle-aged man equipped with pad and pen. Peter dictated:

  ‘Lost: Thursday between La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Locle and Yverdon handbag containing Arpège perfume and toiletries, notebook and travelling chess set.’

  Contact now made, Arpège, he reckoned, was safe to mention, and he hoped it would show he’d got to know Elisabeth.

  The banker gave discreet instructions to the man, who took the text away with him. ‘Might I remind that Lady Lewis also instructed us to satisfy any financial requirements you might have.’

  ‘Against repayment in London. That is kind of her and of you to mention it. Not at this very moment, but I will need your service, perhaps soon. Could I ask the bank to destroy these letters?’

  Before he left the bank, he telephoned Tim Matthews, then stepped out into the streets, now grey and filled with damp Alpine mist – more fine drizzle perhaps than mist – rolling down from mountains completely shrouded from view. He paused to listen, to accustom himself to the subdued comings and goings of the city after the heavy silence of the bank, then walked briskly up the narrow street, struck into the first alley and walked almost to the end before turning and heading with long strides back to the entry. He emerged with a little shake of the head and took the next passage. This led into a street of medieval houses with overhanging roofs, where he lingered, waiting for the hour to strike on a clock famous for its moving figures and carillon. Then he walked on into a wide shopping street where he killed time in a bar.

  ****

  In the square by the government buildings, Tim hailed Peter, who shifted his case from his right hand to his left, going over to shake hands. After a few words, they went into a café out of the chill mist which had closed in even more, isolating the city from the valley below.

  ‘Some of these visa applications are heart-rending.’ Tim was talking about his official duties. ‘The stories the refugees tell. The risks they’ve faced. People the Swiss might expel to their land of origin if they’ve no call to stay indefinitely: back to France, Germany, Austria.’

  ‘What’s British policy?’

  ‘Officially, no go, that is outside the strict national interest in pursuing the war. Check for would-be agents, of course. Unofficially, if refusal is a certain death sentence, we don’t look the other way.’

  ‘What use is a visa if you can’t get out anyway?’

  ‘You can claim you’re in transit, and the Federal Swiss and some cantons can accept that. In fact, if you can pay, you can get out. Official flights may be few but there’s a small number of unofficial if the money’s right. Risky but it can work. You have to know who’s who or you’ll get to the airfield and there’s no plane and no pilot, your money’s down the hole and all you get from the police is a polite shrug for being such a damn fool.’

  They parted near the National Library. Peter said, ‘Could you tell Nick I’m starting up the rigging.’ Tim looked baffled. ‘Up the rigging. As in ship. He’ll understand.’

  He went on into the Library to inquire for railway timetables and local maps. Taking his haul to a desk at the back of the high-ceilinged reading room, he settled down to work out stations and trains to get him to Neuchâtel.

  ****

  From checking at the cipher room for instructions from London, he went straight to a minor railway station on the outskirts of Berne. A cable had been waiting but – he breathed more easily – it desired him only to stand by and await further communication. He took a ticket for Geneva but caught a stopping train and got out at Fribourg. He spent the night in the Terminus, near the railway station. Next morning he took a workman’s train to Lausanne, changing on board into his hunting jacket and Swiss hat. At Lausanne, he let one train to Neuchâtel go, waiting in the buffet for the next and jumping in just before it left. At Neuchâtel station, high above the city, he had time for a second breakfast on the terrace of the railway hotel before finding his way to the steep hill that led up to the château and the Collégiale Notre-Dame. Throughout the jou
rney he’d kept an eye on his fellow passengers, looking for newly familiar faces, and was confident he was alone.

  Just before 11.45, his pulse beating a little faster, he entered the basilica and wandered round for five or six minutes, going into the gloom of the choir to view the monument to the counts of Neuchâtel. It needed an effort to see anything of the medieval original but the 19th-century restoration was itself a work of art, the reds and greens looking as fresh as when applied. Then he went to sit in the nave, first kneeling as if in prayer.

  Visitors to the palace came in, guidebooks in hand, walked round and went. A handful of mostly elderly women in hats and headscarves, dressed in black, were scattered about the nave. Somewhere nearby a choir was being rehearsed in a baroque setting of, he guessed, a psalm. It would have been too good to be true if it had been Jesu, Joy.

  In the quiet of the church, nothing to do but wait, he allowed his thoughts to go back. Back to dark eyes in the crowd outside the Rationalist Hall and her hand under his arm, back to the sight of her talking to Davidson under the portico that rainy day, back to their parting in the little house—

  “I would be lost without you. Without knowing you are there for me. You will always be there, won’t you?”

  “Always. You have my word.”

  Back to the sallow-faced shopman in Whitechapel. Back to his desperation when he realised she had gone.

  He could watch himself in those scenes – as through the wrong end of a telescope, the deliberate innocent, self-consciously the flâneur. What change life had insisted on since. Bringing the section home had brought him face to face with himself – though what he’d done was really no more than to be expected of him. Pornic had been the turning point, the white peignoir patterned with red. He had more to learn, much more; still further to go. But meeting Elisabeth, listening to her, had put him on the way. He’d had good fortune. Was it true you make your own? With preparation and watchfulness, you make your good fortune. A rule of life. Ponsonby would surely agree.

  In another time, Dinah, whom he’d never really known, had left him. For her, too, another time. Now they were to meet. Something irreducibly “of them” would surely bind them still? Love?

  He would return next day at the same hour. He knelt for a moment, then left the church without looking back.

  ****

  He walked around the château, went into the west wing, strolled through the Romanesque arcades, then back to the station to have a sandwich, pick up his bag and, at a leisurely pace, walk to the hotel where he’d booked a room overlooking the lake.

  Through his open windows, the water shimmered in the afternoon sunshine, vast and placid. In the distance, a steamer ploughed a course away from the shore. On one horizon, the mountains of the Jura rose out of vine-covered slopes. On the other, the peaks of the Bernese Oberland stood out. For an even better, a wonderful alpine view, the porter had recommended taking the cable car from the number seven tram terminus to the Chaumont and the best sight of Mont Blanc in the whole of Switzerland. Of course, a young man like Monsieur might prefer to walk the footpath, marked in red for visitors, unless he was saving his energies for another sort of recreation. He raised his eyebrows. Gold teeth glinted in his smile.

  ‘I am, alas, on my own.’

  ‘That could be remedied with little trouble.’ The gold teeth glinted again.

  ‘Surely the ladies of Neuchâtel are too well-brought up.’

  ‘Naturally. However, we have a number of refugees in our city. Some young women among them find it hard to make ends meet and are willing to offer their services. It is sad, but often they have families to support.’

  ‘You are kind enough to assist.’

  ‘I do what I can to help.’

  ****

  By degrees, restlessness took over. He needed to be in the streets. He went along the lake as far as the little port, looking at the steamers and their timetables, then turned away by the Musée des Beaux Arts – the passenger boats at the quayside certainly looked as if they had somewhere to sail to – and walked up to the Jardin Anglais, by the university.

  Away from the main promenade, he found a peaceful bench between beds of immaculately ordered geraniums and roses, a strange idea of an English garden. He would sit outside for a while, enjoying the fragrant warmth; then perhaps go to the café in the Rotonde.

  Suddenly he was on the alert, his restlessness gone, aware of a woman approaching. She sat down on the bench a little away from him, looking ahead, as he was looking ahead, at the garden. He lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke into the flowerbed.

  She took a packet from her bag and addressed him directly in French. ‘Excuse me, sir, could you please give me a light?’

  ‘With pleasure.’ He focused on lighting her cigarette. Then he looked up. Dark eyes engaged his.

  ‘Hello, Mr Peter. Have you been waiting long?’ She spoke in English.

  ‘I wish you would call me Peter.’ He looked beyond her briefly. He spoke in French again. ‘Nearly a year. And since five to twelve.’

  ‘I had to be sure.’

  ‘You were in the church. I felt it.’

  She looked across the garden, drawing on her cigarette. ‘I always believed one day you would come to find me. Walter Thomas warned me you wouldn’t let go.’

  ‘Krivitsky is a far-sighted man.’ He felt detached, as though standing outside the man on the bench – not what he had expected on seeing her again.

  ‘You know of Krivitsky. What else do you know?’ She spoke quietly, half to herself.

  ‘I know you are in great danger.’ But what had he expected? A rush of emotion? Joy? Anger? In reaching this moment, had he moved her into the professional side of his mind?

  ‘And you knew where to find me?’

  ‘You sent two postcards to Nantes.’

  ‘Elisabeth gave them to you?’ She sounded incredulous.

  ‘No. I’m very sorry to tell you this. She is dead, murdered by them, in Pornic. Later, I found the postcards in her apartment over the shop.’

  ‘She is dead?’

  ‘Assassinated. I’m so sorry. We must go somewhere to talk.’

  There was a long pause. ‘What were you doing in her apartment?’

  ‘We must not sit here for too long. I was looking for something about you.’

  ‘And my grandfather? Still safely interned?’

  ‘In my flat, when I saw him last, about a month ago, playing bezique with Madame Duverger and drinking crème de menthe. Would you care for a drink? We could go into the café here.’

  She muttered, ‘Elisabeth dead.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You must tell me. But I can’t stay long. I saw you only by chance.’

  ‘Come.’

  He picked up her shopping bag, full of vegetables, and pointed the way to the Rotonde. She was thin, her eyes larger than before in features which were paler and more drawn, her hair as thick and dark as he remembered, but not as lustrous, under a blue beret. She wore a short jacket over a pale blue blouse and a grey wool skirt. Brown walking shoes. Working clothes. Nothing to stand out.

  ****

  They sat at the back of the café over glasses of wine. She took a sip and spoke English again. ‘You must tell me about yourself. I do not wish to be a Paul Pry but a respectable woman must know who is her escort.’

  ‘Paula Pry.’ He switched to French. ‘We must tell each other. First, though, you have been unwell?’

  She nodded. ‘A little. This life does not suit me. I have not felt myself.’

  ‘For some time?’

  ‘For a while. In America, someone tried to poison me. And you? Have you been well?’

  ‘Someone tried to run over me just after I joined the army, but I recovered. Otherwise, yes.’

  ‘I am truly sorry I involved you, Mr Peter.’

  ‘Peter. Life involved me. Love involved me.’

  ‘You have the right to regret that.’

  ‘I will never regret it
, have never regretted it, not for a single moment.’ That was true. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him till now, in spite of all the untruths, deceptions. Shouldn’t he reproach her – that she’d deceived him, used him, her lover? But wasn’t it for his sake she’d done it?

  She took a handkerchief from her cuff and blew her nose.

  He glanced round the café. ‘You tried to shield me. Now they hope I will lead them to you.’

  ‘First tell me about Elisabeth.’

  He picked his way through. It was not easy. He held back how, later, he came to recognise the encounter in Pornic as his epiphany. He told her of his mission, his order to return with Marie Lagrange. How he had recognised her at once from the encounter at Victoria station – he gave Dinah a moment to react, smile, shrug, nod, but she remained still. He related how they had talked, how she had talked. He spoke of her refusal even to contemplate escaping with him. ‘I failed her. I failed to kill the man that killed her.’ The white peignoir had been patterned with red—but he kept that to himself.

  Dinah was silent, bowing her head. He wanted to touch her hand. Without looking up she said, ‘I never imagined … I would hear you talk of killing. He left you there, the assassin.’

  ‘They had sent me. Somehow. They needed me alive.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you where to find me.’

  ‘She saw I was too innocent, too inexperienced. Not watchful, not relentless enough. Afterwards I went to the flat over the shop and found two postcards, one she had kept, the other had just arrived. And I knew I could find you.’

  ‘It had been her life; she really didn’t want it to be mine too. I insisted.’ She blew her nose again, then took another sip of wine. ‘Now you are here—but how in wartime? They sent you after me?’ She stiffened. ‘They are here?’