The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  Not hotel stationery. Scrawled in pencil, a single word: Valfierno.

  Major Valentine Knox, locked in a box, the darkness complete.

  Testing the darkness. Night vision. Ten minutes into his confinement, guessing at cracks of light under the lid.

  Couple of feet wide? He can’t be more than two feet broad at the shoulders, and the slightest shift has his shoulders rubbing the sides. Length: more than six feet. Stretch leg, point toe, still his boot doesn’t touch the end. He tilts his head back; the suggestion of sensation in his hair. Reaches his hand across the opposite shoulder and above his head and immediately his fingers stub against wood. At least six foot six long. Depth: not much. He raises his head – feels the muscles in chest and stomach – can’t be more than an inch or two and his forehead touches the lid.

  Coffin. Hamel’s joke. Funny.

  He exercises his muscles, tensing and relaxing them, limb by limb. P.T. One complete circuit, count to one hundred, repeat.

  Supposed to be a common fear: buried alive. Go off your rocker. He wonders how he would escape; fingers brushing the interior of the crate, feeling the grain. Punch through that? Kick through? Fill up with earth then. A pause; ears checking for sound. Pressure of earth helps crack weakened lid. But then crushed by lid and earth. No sound. Ears like bloody great gramophone horns now, ears like a bat. He had to trust Hamel, of course. Had to trust him to send the box where it was supposed to go.

  Hell of a prank. Breaking out of the box to find it’s on top of the Arc de Triomphe. Leave it on a beach; tide rising. His imagination fires for a moment. Knox bobbing out to sea. He turns it off. Pranks. Memories of school. Petty; vicious. Fighting back until he couldn’t stand and couldn’t feel. Little Val; sneers and giggles. Made him what he is. Adult Knox justifies the child Knox and all his experiences.

  Roll over. Rolling over would mean back protects you – arm round to finish pulling at the lid – also creates pocket of air under face. Hunch up, woodlouse – little Val again – then start to push up. How long would you have to hold your breath? How you’d survive. How you’d win.

  Time passes. He walks the South Downs in his head. Straining for the pattern of fields, the number of stiles.

  He remembers Alfriston High Street. The shops, one by one. Start on the Square, at the Smugglers, round the cross and up.

  The box has ceased to inhabit the world. Major Valentine Knox has ceased to inhabit a box. He floats in a void.

  He remembers the men of his first company. Axley to Young.

  Some time in the second hour he notices the Knox-box gag. His mind wanders for a moment: Knox in a box; Knox in a box that locks; Knox wearings— And he catches himself about to murmur aloud.

  Steady, old chap.

  He visualizes the map of Europe. Focus on each country, one by one. Capital city is. Capital’s main stations are. Embassy contact is. Communication by. Emergency plan. Begin.

  The whisper roars into his head, followed by a tap that hammers through him. ‘Knox!’ Heart thumping. Steady.

  The padlock rattling in Hamel’s haste, and at the last instant Knox thought to close his eyes.

  A single lamp, screaming over his head. Arm up, head twisted aside, he sat up clumsily.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Good shape.’ He matched the whisper.

  ‘Here.’ Hamel pushed a flask into his hand, checked that his fingers gripped it properly. ‘Sneaking you out should be a damn’ sight easier than sneaking you in, anyway.’

  Knox took a swig, and handed it back. ‘Not a bad billet after all.’

  As his eyes began to allow, he looked around the hangar. First the brick floor flickered into view, then the timber walls, a workbench with its tools, and as his arm came down and his vision opened he saw Hamel’s monoplane looming over him.

  ‘Can you move all right?’

  ‘Soon find out.’

  He scrambled up and out of the box. The propellor with which he had shared it gleamed in the straw, varnished and polished to bright stratified amber. He brushed himself down.

  Hamel’s hand on his shoulder, mouth close to his ear. ‘I’ll tinker on the bird here for an hour, till we’re sure the rest of the aerodrome’s quiet. Froggies should all be at their dinner. Both doors are locked, but you’d better duck into that cupboard if anyone comes because I’ll want to look welcoming. Show ’em I’m doing the Lord’s work.’

  ‘Give you a hand if you like.’

  ‘Best not, old chap.’ It was elegant, Hamel’s gift to make everything sound pleasant, even if delivered in a whisper in an aeroplane hangar at night. ‘Less risk of something out of place if someone does stop by, less talk, and less chance of you putting your bloody foot through the kite.’ A form of apology from a British hero for having a Franco-German name.

  So Knox sat on a box and watched Hamel fiddling in his aircraft, an outsize canvas cigar supported on what looked like pram wheels. After a few minutes, he began to list the counties of England in his head.

  An hour later, and with a copy of a key that Hamel had borrowed during his week’s residence on the aerodrome, they were fifty yards away inside another hangar. Hamel’s mouth to Knox’s ear again. ‘Secretive soand-so’s have got the window well covered, but we’ll stick with the torch.’ It began to glow in his hand, creating a weak pool of vision around their boots and across the bricks. On the edge of the pool, between the world of light and the world of darkness, was the gloomy skeleton of a biplane. Hamel locked the door, and came in close again. ‘You speak any German?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Enough to tell the watchman to poke off if he comes calling?’ Knox nodded. ‘If someone actually starts opening the door, it’s the competition rather than the watchman, and we’ll have to knock ’em on the head.’ Another nod. Hamel pulled away, but then leaned in again. ‘I say: would you mind doing the knocking? My face is a bit too well known.’

  Knox looked at him. ‘Perils of working with a celebrity, I suppose.’ Hamel carrying a sack and the torch, Knox a toolbox and a can, they made for the aeroplane. As the pool of light loomed up the fuselage, it revealed a black cross.

  Duval sat in his room, sipping steadily from a brandy and picking at the braiding around the chair-arm and wondering who or what in hell Valfierno was. Smoked a cigarette.

  Was this how London did their business? Hush-hush and hat brim pulled low.

  The braid on the chair was starting to come away. He stood, poured another splash, and drank as he paced.

  ‘Valfierno.’

  To say it was to hear it, and Valfierno became a face and a voice and Duval was across the room pulling visiting cards from his jacket pocket, and there he was. Hector, M. de Valfierno. The courtroom. Some sort of dago, dapper in a grey three-piece, beautifully cut; in his forties, maybe well-oiled fifties; had he mentioned a daughter? The ‘Marquis de’ was a subtle touch, wasn’t it?

  A mouthful of brandy. So what? What did the London greyhairs want? Follow the chap?

  Another mouthful. In years of scrapes and dodges, this was something new.

  He was picking at the braiding again. Keep moving. Either way, he’d have to find him first.

  The clerk was persuaded to jot down the half-dozen hotels in the city where a foreigner of means would stay. Duval scanned the visitors’ register, and fiddled with the heavy fountain pen that lay in its crease. He slept uneasily.

  At eight thirty – coffee gulped and he’d only shaved because the impression would count – Duval was stepping over suitcases to the first hotel reception desk on his list. New collar, handkerchief square, hunt-breakfast accent, and terribly sorry to trouble them but he’d been introduced to a chappie at lunch yesterday and during a bit of business with the bill the chappie had left behind this very smart pen and it seemed the decent thing to try to get it back to the Marquis de – Valfierno, is that how one pronounces it? Here, have a look at the card; and the marquis had mentioned this hotel at one point; think it was this hot
el, anyway.

  At about the same time the clerk in Duval’s hotel was receiving his first guests, sour and impatient from the night train, and missing the fountain pen from the visitors’ book.

  Duval drew four blanks in four hotels – and one irate Frog who had a name similar to Valfierno but wasn’t missing a pen and hadn’t wanted his breakfast interrupted.

  The Marquis de Valfierno had been staying at the fifth hotel, the Porta Rossa. But the marquis had checked out earlier this morning.

  No, he had left no forwarding address. The marquis had come to Firenze for three days to indulge his enthusiasm for ceramics; he was not a regular guest. No, they could not give any information from a cheque, and, besides, the marquis had paid cash. If the signore was such an acquaintance of the marquis, perhaps he would be able to oblige him in the matter of certain oversights: a number of additional items and external purchases that the marquis had charged to the hotel but… forgotten to pay.

  Another hurried exit, another silent curse. Then on the pavement outside the Porta Rossa, a flash of a smile. Pays cash; puts on a high front, visiting cards and a good hotel; and uses it for a spree on credit. The marquis was a bit of a lad, wasn’t he?

  Whoever he was. And why in hell do I care anyway? He was chasing a shadow, on behalf of a shadow, and it was all a bust. He couldn’t just wait all week and hope to bump into the fellow. And so what if he did? Clap him on the shoulder and say, ‘You are the Marquis de Valfierno and I claim my ten shillings’?

  The midday sky opened white above him. The birds wheeling and gathering between the belfries reflected the people scudding across the square. He was hungry.

  Tiles.

  Twenty minutes later Duval was in the office of the curator of the Bargello Museum, dwarfed by floor-to-ceiling shelves of papers and unplaced treasures.

  ‘But of course, Signor…’ – the curator leaned forward to check the card set squarely in front of him – ‘Duval, I should be delighted to accommodate you. To sketch the Brunelleschi designs as well as the Ghiberti, you say?’

  ‘Comparative, you see?’

  ‘And in the same medium. Yes, that’s good. There was a rumour a few years ago that the designs of i Jacopo furioso had been rediscovered but, alas, it was not true.’

  Duval looked up around the encroaching shelves. ‘You inhabit your own paradise here, Signor Direttore.’ Sober. ‘I met a chap the other day – ceramic enthusiast – said he was spending a lot of time here. Valfierno, I think it was. The Marquis of Valfierno.’

  The face opened in interest. ‘Ah yes! The Marquis de Valfierno. Yes, the marquis did me the honour to pay his respects when he visited.’ A flat smile. Duval had the sense of a secret about which he wasn’t in the know.

  Careful. On the shelf behind the curator there was a Roman vase, the handles two spindly swan necks.

  ‘The marquis is a… an acquaintance of yours, Signor’ – a glance again at the card – ‘Duval?’

  Not the time for flannel. Not the time for charm. The conversation, the sentence, each word seemed fragile.

  ‘I’d never met him before.’ Drop it and it smashes. ‘Is he well known?’

  The curator pursed his lips. ‘The marquis expressed great passion for the ceramics; but, to be sincere, I suspected the passion to be…’ – a little smile – ‘glaze and not clay.’

  Duval managed a chuckle. ‘You must become adept at spotting such men.’

  ‘I regret that some men who style themselves connoisseurs are mere dilettantes, and some are much worse.’

  Breathing. ‘Making quite the tour, was he?’ Heartbeats.

  ‘He said so. He had been in Paris. He was dismissive about Rome.’ The curator considered this, torn between loyalties Florentine and Italian. ‘He was going on to Germany.’

  Germany. ‘Can’t think he’d find much in Germany, surely. Not compared to here.’

  ‘Oh, Signore…’ A burst of tutting. ‘We must be fair.’ A flirtatious smile, between men of taste. ‘There are charming collections in some of their provincial cities. The fruits of warfare and greed rather than native genius, perhaps, but they are there, and may a people not learn taste? Do I not invite the schools to bring their children here – one afternoon only, of course – you must tell me if there is any derangement… Perhaps he was only trying to impress me, but the marquis made use of the name of the Director of the Museum of Decorative Arts, in Berlin.’

  Mayhew standing in the office doorway, olive against dust. ‘Duval was staying at something called the Lucchesi.’

  ‘Is that pleasant?’

  ‘For him, very, given that we’re paying for it.’

  ‘I trust he made the most of the amenities.’

  ‘Well, I say we’re paying for it; actually he absconded without getting his bill, so technically I suppose we’re not.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ The fingers flexed over the blotter. ‘Colonel, was there something more pertinent?’

  Mayhew straightened. ‘Of course. Duval was observed catching the night train to Berlin.’

  ‘Not Rome? Mm.’ The fingers drummed once on the blotter. Valfierno? ‘It’s a little soon for him to try to do a bunk, and I doubt he’d go northwards. So we must assume he thinks he’s pursuing some line of interest.’

  Colonel Mayhew seemed to be assuming it grudgingly.

  The old eyes blinked, pale. ‘Colonel, one of my little suggestions, if I may. Get your man Knox to Berlin; immediately.’

  Mayhew digested it. ‘May I ask why you think Duval should be following this chap?’

  ‘Of course, Colonel. Forgive me. The man is small fry in himself, but potentially the link to a bigger fish.’

  ‘I see.’ What was there to see? ‘Well, while Duval’s nothing more particular to do. What… what sort of bigger fish?’

  Hermes, Krug and Morgenthal. One of three men.

  And not a fish. A spider.

  ‘A bit of unfinished business, Colonel. A bit of history.’

  Krug at his desk in Vienna, looking into Europe, peering through the babel of faces and voices; considering individual faces; seeking the hand of one man at work.

  There were hints, and possibilities. Whispers from a distance, tremors at the edge of his network. A telegraph channel reactivated in London. A message to the British Embassy in Berlin. An enquiry in Constantinople.

  Where are you, old fox?

  A cautious, elusive prey. One never seen full face. A blurred photograph.

  One who might be glimpsed from a tangent. He pressed the buzzer, and a secretary was in front of him.

  ‘A request to Colonel Nicolai, please: have German Intelligence had recent word or contact with Duquesne, the Boer?’

  Night train: a heartbeat rattling steadily on an unquestioned path, the blackness erasing ugliness and muffling threat, a womb of light in the dark, of warmth in the cold, companionship and mystery, the breaking of borders and the breaking of habits, no one sleeping in their own bed, always the sensation of possibility, of escape from old constraints, of somewhere new, of tomorrow.

  Duval loved the things.

  He caught his reflection in the window, weird and pale, and turned away into the carriage. Not too much reflection, eh? Best press on. The carriage was cheery enough, warm light and faces that didn’t scowl; all shuddering and swaying in unison when the train went over points. A pleasant company in which to drift off.

  Duval stood – a mime to the man opposite to watch his seat and case – timid smile to the matrons by the door, matronly beams in return – and stumbled into the corridor.

  The marquis would no doubt be travelling first class – Duval hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself that way; a name on too many lists – and dinner should be finishing around now.

  Bull by the horns. No point just following the fellow across Europe. He checked that his suit was neat; being over-dressed for second class did no harm with the matrons, but being under-dressed for first would get trouble from the s
tewards. He lurked until he could see desserts being cleared, then slipped into the dining carriage, head high and focused on an apparent appointment at the far end.

  ‘Why, surely it’s the marquis – do beg your pardon – we met in the, er, the courtroom – Duval – no, please don’t get—’ Clumsy shaking of hands, Valfierno’s tanned sleek face pleasant and careful; a glance and a nod at the woman between him and the window – worth a second look surely, but not now – and a nod to the man sitting across the table, don’t mean to interrupt. A steward’s white coat hovering on the edge of his vision. ‘You’d suggested I call’ – surely he wouldn’t remember whether he had or hadn’t – ‘but I really didn’t want to interfere; can be so tiresome when a fellow’s trying to escape society, don’t you find?’ Quality but humility. ‘Anyway, it was pleasant to meet a fellow sportsman, and I found what you were talking about most intriguing.’ And pray he’s feeling bonhomous not busy.

  The steward in front of him now, waiting for instructions, or just a hint that this was an unwanted guest.

  ‘It was my pleasure; won’t you join us for a drink?’ The English was as punctilious as the dress; the words sounded heavenly to Duval.

  Don’t get carried away. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t dream of interrupting…’ But the steward was pulling out the fourth chair, opposite the marquis, and Duval was settling into it. Brandies and reassurances, an introduction to the chap next to him – Swiss, banking, dull – and now at last it was time for the second look at the woman. Valfierno presented his ‘dear daughter, Maria’, placing his hand on hers and keeping it there, and Duval kept his courtesy brief, his nod formal, and his glance as long as possible.

  She kept silent; watched him. Handsome face and kissable lips and everything swelling where it should. She was perhaps thirty. The eyes, considering him, were amused, knowing. This one’s lived. She pulled her hand away from her father’s.

  ‘Mr Duval, you said – “sportsman”?’

  ‘Indeed, sir. No one particular sport’ – he considered a bit of flattery, but dropped it – ‘more… an attitude to life, let’s say.’