The Spider of Sarajevo

by Robert Wilton

  The words came with a rush. ‘I think that would be too much, Mr Cade. I fear I have said too much.’ He examined the remains of their lunch, then looked up. ‘You must please excuse me now.’ And he was gone.

  Damnit.

  Damnit to hell and back on the rail, steam-powered and over-stoked and screaming.

  Cade’s fist was thumping softly on the tablecloth, as he stared at the empty chair opposite.

  Shelagh Macrae, the tea-shop in Penicuik, wide-eyed. It’s just a little too fast, Jimmy.

  Deliberately over-tipping the waiter, just like the last time; trying to put a bit of grace back into his world.

  As he was leaving, before the door, there was a man suddenly at his elbow. ‘Mr James Cade?’

  ‘What?’ What further nonsense…? ‘I mean… yes.’ Another forgotten face from another reception. Scrawny sort of chap. Clothes a bit flash.

  ‘Radek, Mr Cade. Of the Russian Trade Legation in Constantinople.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry; I didn’t—’

  ‘Oh, we’ve not been introduced, Mr Cade. But I’m an admirer, sir. Aware of your reputation. Will you permit me to send you a gift, sir? A token?’

  There were times it felt he’d never understand how they did business. ‘That’s… most kind. Surely not necessary.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Cade. I wish you good day.’

  And the fellow was gone, slipping through when the doorman opened the door for two German officers.

  The Balkan night; shadows and noises from the edge of civilization, the edge of dreams. Ballentyne woke and did not know why, waited to remember where he was, waited for the shapes in the room to resolve themselves and their relation to each other. The sound of the river was rushing beneath him. Or perhaps the sewer channel in the alley. Or perhaps it was behind him, in sleep. From far off, shouting. He stood, and padded naked over the floorboards, feeling the shape of his feet on the wood.

  From the window, nothing. The crumbling brick of the building opposite, two blank yards away; the alley beneath him ink. He pulled on his clothes in the darkness, a habit of camps and mountain villages, and slipped out.

  The hotel was asleep, but he could hear the noises of its slumber. Water in pipes; wood creaking; somewhere, someone cried out into the night; a door was banging, irregularly, softly.

  He stood in the shadow of the veranda, watching, adjusting to the night. From one end of the street, there came the shouting again. It was briefly comforting; confirmation that the sounds of his half-sleep had reality. A moment of self-awareness – why am I doing this? Is this the rebellion? If I can’t get back to the hotel, do I have what I need? – and then he set off into the gloom, hands to pockets – wallet, penknife, pipe – and mind remapping the town.

  Didn’t fancy being alone in the main street if it was some kind of mob. He turned down an alley and then onto a side street running parallel. Durrës at night was grey-yellow, shadows swallowing lamplight, the whisper of water in the gutters, stench, the yelp of a stray dog in sleep, something rustling. From ahead, like a rushing river, the voices.

  Eyes fixed on the light of the street ahead, his chest slammed into something solid, which shuddered and sighed and shifted. His hands found flesh, hair – a mule. He muttered an apology and walked on.

  Around a townhouse on the main street, a crowd had gathered. Not a mob, not a riot: a crowd, spectators, singly and in clumps, watching the house. A few wore coats over nightshirts. Those who were dressed were dressed poorly: dirty clothes, torn, unmatched; broken shoes or bare feet; beggars, vagrants and thieves distracted from their normal pursuits. The faces were greasy and rough, staring wilder in the hand-held lantern light. The inhabitants of night, gathering around a strange intrusion of day to their domain.

  From the front of the crowd, a raised voice: measured, but the words straining in the attempt at volume. From the shadows, Ballentyne could glimpse a uniform hat. Looking more closely through the waving shining faces: there was a line of the king’s gendarmerie at the front, bayonets golden stabs in the light, and their officer was calling up at the house.

  On the first-floor balcony of the house – it was a grand affair, three storeys in the Italian style, ground-floor windows protected with grilles – a shutter opened and a head appeared. Cries of appreciation and merriment from some of the idlers. The head peered around at the street, and then focused on the officer. He shouted down something Ballentyne couldn’t hear – petulant, dismissive – and there were more yells of amusement. The head looked at the crowd again, and in more colloquial Albanian called out: ‘Long live the King! Long live Albania! Now bugger off!’ Cheers and boisterous laughter from the crowd, and scattered applause, and the head disappeared and the shutter slammed closed.

  In shadow, from where his complexion couldn’t reinforce any doubts about his accent, Ballentyne muttered a question at a man slouched nearby.

  The man didn’t take his eyes from the house. ‘Essad is being arrested.’ He was enjoying it, but it wasn’t clear if it was Essad’s predicament or the entertainment on offer.

  Essad: the king’s minister of war, and the king’s rival; the man who’d armed troops to go south and then apparently lost control of them. ‘Doesn’t sound like he wants to be arrested.’

  The man cackled happily. He was looking forward to some indiscriminate shooting and shouting; it was a night for boys, for irresponsibility. Ballentyne drifted away in the shadows.

  He followed a rough loop of streets and alleys, all asleep, that brought him out on the other side of Essad’s house. The crowd was still there and, fifty yards off, he watched for a few minutes more. The sky was starting to pale at the suggestion of morning, and the faces were looking colder and more wretched.

  A little behind Ballentyne, back where it was still night, a hand pulled a knife from a belt, and held it up. A face considered it, and looked at the Englishman outlined against the street ahead, and then back at the owner of the knife. And shook his head. The knife disappeared into the depths.

  Ballentyne’s erratic tour of the gloom, of the sins and decay behind the scenery of the capital, took him through the diplomatic quarter. The royal palace was all lights; presumably they’d ordered the arrest and were waiting for news of their gendarmerie. Ballentyne wondered if the officer was still pacing under the balcony, between the crowd and his bayonets and the mighty front gate of the minister of war. The British Legation was silent; the others much the same, just an occasional light peeking through a shutter to show someone who, for some reason or other, did not sleep. Finally the Italian Legation, and as he approached its outline the shadow of a balcony suddenly lit up, as a door opened and two figures stepped out onto it. The light revealed a staircase down from the balcony and, as he watched, one of the figures dropped from sight and then reappeared as legs lengthening on the steps. The figure on the balcony, staring out and then turning away into the building, looked like the man Castoldi, the new man, the self-declared senior diplomat on the king’s council. The figure now reaching the bottom of the staircase, looking around himself and then dwindling into the gloom, had distinctive moustaches and a pistol tucked in against his spine.

  With dawn, the pop and chatter of rifle fire. Ballentyne listened from the hotel balcony; common sense said half-trained men with guns were poor companions for another foray through the streets. Then, as if ignited by the sun coming over the mountains, the single thump of a cannon.

  Then silence; morning and the end of dreams, and everyone went to breakfast.

  Another slip of paper; the old man set it on the table in front of him.

  There had been a time of action; of hard riding across African early mornings, of meetings in shadows across Europe. Now he seemed to live only through paper.

  This time it was Major Valentine Knox’s report of his meeting in Berlin with David Duval; received via Mayhew.

  The old man tried to imagine the conversation between the soldier and the student of architecture. But it wouldn’t c
rystallize quite; they weren’t natural companions. Knox and Ballentyne might find things to respect in each other; both were restless, questing sorts of fellow. There was a competence about James Cade that might appeal. Even, strangely, Knox and Miss Hathaway: so utterly unalike that they could be imagined to form a wary modus vivendi. But Knox with poor rootless mercurial Duval…

  The report was brisk about Duval’s tracking and losing of Valfierno, the sham marquis. Then the story of the telegraph office, and the old man knew that that would have surprised Knox. He wondered if he could read in the words a readjustment of the major’s tone, smiled faintly; good for you, lad. The summary of the messages that Valfierno might have sent – credit to the major here, for thoroughness; most men would not have passed on the messages they themselves discounted.

  But not thorough, implacable Valentine Knox. Which turned out to be a good thing, because the major’s thoroughness was stronger than were his deductions.

  Three hypotheses. First, and most likely: Valfierno’s telegram had nothing to do with Duval or the Spider; second, it was addressed to the Spider, some routine maintenance of contact, but not to do with Duval; third, it was a reference to Duval.

  Any of the messages could be made to mean something; and most of the destinations.

  He doubted that the Spider would allow a telegraph address to reveal his true location. Most likely messages were routed through intermediate offices in his network, allowing him to travel and dramatically limiting the number of people who knew where he was.

  Any of the Berlin or German addresses could… but somehow that seemed too partial. As his interests aligned ever more closely with those of Germany, the Spider would be the more careful about distancing himself. Could still be intermediates. London would be bold, and the address would have to be checked, but surely it was too much of a risk to run a front there. The Dresden swans were presumably porcelain, of course.

  Geneva. The old man felt something glowing in his chest; then scolded himself for the indiscipline of responding to such a set of contingent hypotheses. But just supposing that the message was to the Spider, and just supposing that it was referring to the appearance of Duval in Valfierno’s life, then the message to Geneva about infection was plausible. And Geneva… Good place for a façade: in Switzerland but close to France and Italy; cosmopolitan, commercial, and discreet. And if by chance it was Geneva, then Hermes was immediately less likely, and the Spider would be one of two men: Krug or Morgenthal. And the restless spirit of David Duval would have happened upon something of real value.

  Sir, I have now made discreet contact with diverse members Irish nationalist movement. Our successful import of rifles to so-called loyalists as expected caused great alarm. With my support, plans now advancing for similar purchase of weapons by nationalists. Expect enquiries by CASEMENT, CHILDERS, FIGGIS to usual representatives in Brussels and/ or Hamburg. Codewords FITZGERALD and/or BORNA.

  [SS I/3/102 AND SS X/72/150 (APPARENTLY A DECRYPTION AND TRANSLATION, PROBABLY OF AN INTERCEPTED WIRELESS COMMUNICATION)]

  With impressive reflexes, the owner of the Hotel Roma had turned his lobby into a café within a week of the arrival in Durrës of the king and his entourage. This he had achieved with nothing more than a few pots of whitewash, a pair of folding screens, and the transformation of the reception desk into a bar. Against all odds the result had a kind of tatty elegance, although the occasional appearance of one of the hotel’s guests – a merchant in from Shkodra or Tirana, or a prostitute, emerging from behind one of the screens and looking around and retreating in alarm – betrayed the transition.

  Sitting in the far left corner of the café, from where he could watch the bar and both entrances, was Major Valentine Knox.

  He was wearing European travelling clothes, and the white felt hat of the Albanians. He looked at Ballentyne as the latter entered, and didn’t break the look.

  Ballentyne took this to mean that he could approach without subterfuge. He sat. ‘I got a message to meet a Monsieur Ali here.’ He ordered coffees from the orbiting waiter.

  ‘No such chap.’

  A silent ‘ah’ from Ballentyne, and then he winced. ‘Knox: the hat, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Local style, I understand.’

  ‘In the villages more than the towns, especially for men of status.’

  ‘Blend in a bit.’

  ‘You look like an Englishman wearing a villager’s hat. And like an idiot.’

  Knox’s mouth twisted, and with two hands he removed the hat and placed it on the chair next to him. ‘Present for the old girl, perhaps. Likes these mementoes of my doings.’

  Ballentyne looked at him. ‘There’s a… a Mrs Major Knox?’

  Knox looked even more stuffed. ‘My mother. Since you ask.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Two coffees arrived, small and black and presented with flourishes.

  ‘How is the town, Ballentyne? Changes? Tensions?’

  ‘I’m no expert on the pol—’

  ‘I don’t want political expertise. I want a man who has been here before and who understands something of the rhythms of the place and the people to tell me if he notices anything different.’ He sipped at the coffee. ‘God, that’s foul stuff. It’s barely liquid.’

  ‘Acquired taste. Give yourself a week.’ Ballentyne sat back in his chair, which creaked dangerously, and his gaze wandered emptily around the room. ‘The arrival of the king has changed it, but not as I’d have expected.’

  Knox’s eyebrows rose. He tried another sip of the coffee.

  ‘I’d assumed that – at least in the beginning – it would have settled things a bit. United people; for a while, anyway, until they found that nothing had changed in their lives.’

  ‘And yet…’

  ‘The opposite. It’s as if the tensions – the divisions – had been held in check by the anticipation of his arrival. And the reality has released them.’ He turned to Knox. ‘And that means the foreigners as well as the Albanians.’

  Knox frowned. ‘I thought all the Powers created Albania together.’

  ‘The Albanians were lucky for once. When they declared their independence from the Ottoman Empire, it suited the European Powers to indulge them. Chance for a bit of stability in the middle of the chaos. Not favouring any of the countries that had fought the Balkan wars. For Austria, an independent Albania was a way of blocking Serbia’s access to the sea. And the Italians didn’t mind a new statelet they reckoned they could control. All decided between the Powers, over afternoon tea in London. Botched the job, of course, by leaving some Albanians outside the new borders, but otherwise all very cosy.’ He sipped at the coffee, enjoyed the sweetness and the scald. ‘The Powers aren’t so easy, one year on. In London, and in Berlin, they’ve forgotten about this funny little place they created. And that’s left the Austrians and the Italians room to get back to playing against each other. They’ve each got a man in the king’s entourage – I’ve bumped into the Italian a couple of times – and with no one else giving the poor chap a second’s thought, he’s completely dependent on them. You’ve seen their ships in the harbour.’

  Knox grunted. ‘Hard to miss. But this needn’t mean trouble.’

  ‘Unfortunately, the new king got here just in time for the place to start falling apart. The Albanians are united by blood and nothing else. They all waited to see whether independence would give them what they wanted, and now they’re pushing it or complaining because they haven’t got it. Albania is a line on a map and a fine idea. Inside the line, a series of local squabbles. Most of the participants like the idea, but only because they see it in terms that suit them. The king isn’t really king of anything beyond this town. And the Austrians and the Italians are exploiting the fighting.’

  ‘Fighting?’

  ‘Oh yes, Major. Your war’s started already; didn’t you know?’

  Knox took a long sip at the coffee, and set the cup carefully in the saucer.

  ‘Fighting in the
south, probably stirred up by the Greek government. Remember Miss Durham and the villages? They armed some of the tribesmen in the centre of the country ready to pacify the unrest, except they wouldn’t go, and took the chance to let off some steam. The Minister of War became a kind of scapegoat for the fact that everyone was rattled, and now he’s been sent into exile in Italy. Austrians complain he’s Italy’s man, Italians complain he was kicked out under Austrian pressure. Whoever is behind whomever else, and whatever they’re really doing, Italy and Austria are already fighting their war for control of the western Balkans, and they’re fighting it through these peasants.’

  ‘Mm.’ Knox absorbed it all, face set. The fingers of one hand drummed once. ‘Have you checked your hotel register yet?’

  ‘Have I what?’

  ‘See if anyone interesting’s in town.’

  ‘Knox, do you tend to find that you don’t get second invitations to people’s houses? You’ve checked yours, I gather.’

  ‘Heard of – couple of Italians, I presume – Catania? Belcredi?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Rakick?’

  ‘Rak— No. Oh, Rakić.’ Knox took the correction as neutrally as he’d taken the sarcasm. ‘Think I met a journalist Rakić here once. It’s quite a common name.’

  ‘Those three were here but have left. McKenna?’

  ‘American mining engineer.’ Something was nagging in Ballentyne’s head, something that wouldn’t settle.

  ‘Right. He’s still here. Anyone taken any… unusual interest in you?’

  ‘Not until the non-existent Monsieur Ali turned up looking like Grock the clown.’

  A kind of growl from Knox. ‘A faintly serious question, Ballentyne, if your physical safety is of interest to you.’

  Ballentyne saw his hand starting up towards his cheek, and pushed it down onto the table. ‘Nothing… Difficult to tell; everyone makes a fuss of a foreigner, and I’m known by enough people from previous visits.’ He looked up. ‘No, there was one thing. Might appeal to you. On my first morning I called on an Italian acquaintance; he’d heard I was here because a colleague of his had seen me at breakfast.’