Sunstroke

by Madge Swindells

  ‘I forgot to tell you about Wolf’s obsession with pedigrees and titles. I can’t imagine how I missed this.’

  ‘Three years of living with a man can lead to a lot of conversations.’ Father was only half listening, his mind on carving the meat. ‘You’re bound to miss some things.’

  ‘Wolf cringed when I wanted to keep a stray dog. It was lovely, too, but a mongrel. Later he told me that mongrels should be put down at birth. For Wolf, animals and people were divided into two camps, those with pedigrees, if not titles, and the common herd whom he despised. When he explained this to me, I accused him of being a neo-Nazi, which horrified him. You can’t imagine my astonishment when I was told by Wolf that my own acceptance stemmed from the ancient earls of Angus. Believe it or not, he had studied the Ogilvie pedigree.’

  ‘Perhaps as a boy he had only that to hang on to,’ Father mused. ‘If Wolf has a genuine title that narrows our search. Barons and counts were two a penny in that part of Europe, but the point is that they were all documented.

  I’ll keep this avenue of exploration for myself. It’s ideal for computer work.

  ‘I haven’t been idle while you were away, Nina. I’ve pieced together a picture of the boy and the man. From the lies and the truths that Wolf inadvertently let fall, we can make an assumption that he was born into an old, landowning family somewhere in Eastern Europe. His father was probably a patriot in the Second World War, later returned home and eventually married. His son, Wolf, was born around 1954, at the time when Soviet purges were quashing all remaining resistance in the outlying Soviet states. It seems likely that his entire family was transported to Siberia, where his father died or was killed. Perhaps the latter, which would give him the anger he needed. From then on he was reared on tales of former greatness, the land they had once owned, the fabulous home, jewels and paintings they had once possessed. Probably he was taken from his home at puberty, or maybe younger, and sent to a military camp to be trained as a soldier. He must have suffered bitterly, but later his flair for languages, his looks and his friendly manner led to ready acceptance from his superiors, while his intellect opened the gates to university, where he might have been recruited by the KGB to be trained as an agent. Later he learned to combine spying with freelance conning.

  ‘It’s only conjecture, I know, but the image fits Wolf far better than that of a German baron, which he claimed to be. It also matches all that you had learned about him.’

  ‘Which leaves us only half the world to search,’ I acknowledged wryly.

  ‘Come on, eat something, Nina. You’re far too thin. Now,’ he went on, as I reluctantly pecked at my plate, ‘let’s suppose that our young Wolf, recently banished to Siberia, was heir to a title. Perhaps that’s why he added a baron to his alias. Most of the families dispossessed by the Soviets vanished into obscurity, but Wolf fought back and he fought dirty. No doubt he was strengthened by the conviction that the world owed him a fortune. Does this theory make sense to you, knowing him as you do?’

  ‘It’s him. The cap fits perfectly.’ I laughed triumphantly, and reached across the table to hold my father’s hand. Remembering how he hated emotion I pulled back, but he held on tightly.

  ‘We’re winning, Nina. Take courage. I have the utmost faith in you. Now, eat your supper.’ He grasped at normality.

  A warm glow spread through me. It began in the tips of my toes and moved upwards. ‘And I in you,’ I muttered. I looked up and our eyes locked as we silently exchanged our mutual trust and acceptance.

  Chapter 39

  The days became jumbled and interlinked. I seemed to have been sitting behind the spotlights for ever. My eyes were even more swollen, my throat more sore and my voice came out in a croak, but there was no letting up.

  Father had his methods for dealing with rebellious daughters. ‘Bear with me, Nina,’ he would say. ‘I’m pretty sure that your subconscious mind had understood Wolf by the time you were married, but not for anything would you allow your conscious mind to ruin your happiness. So you covered up the truth. The evidence you didn’t want to acknowledge was thrust down out of sight, but the data we need is still there, of course, and we must try to recover it.’

  On 15 June, I returned to Edinburgh to have the stitches taken out of my arm. I didn’t have to wait long. I was shown into the surgery where the nurse took over. Within five minutes the bandages and stitches were gone. The nurse set about rubbing my skin clean with surgical spirits. ‘The doctor will see you shortly. Please wait here,’ she said.

  ‘Beautiful,’ the doctor said, running his index finger down my arm. ‘Really lovely. In a year’s time you’ll hardly see the scar. Don’t get into any more fights, will you?’

  *

  Father was not alone when I returned, which was unusual.

  I was disappointed for I was longing to gauge his reaction.

  ‘They said you should go straight in,’ Mrs Peters told me.

  The first thing I noticed was a sense of intimacy between the two men, so I guessed that our guest was from the Department. He was short and square, and his head jutted forward so that he had to twist it at an impossible angle to look round, like a parrot. The resemblance did not stop there. His nose was more of a beak, his brown eyes were deeply hooded, but they gleamed with lively curiosity as he glanced briefly at my arm. So I was right about their close relationship. Father had never been the confiding type.

  The man stood up and took my hand as we were introduced. ‘We met when you were so high, Nina. Of course, you don’t remember.’

  ‘Commander Clive Wattling heads my old department, Nina. Once he was my “gopher”. I never told you this, my dear, but I have retained a loose connection with the Department. Only because they need my know-how or I’d have been turfed out long ago.’

  ‘I’m very impressed with the facts you have uncovered regarding Wolf Moller,’ Wattling said ponderously. ‘I’m inclined to agree with the early profile you have accessed. He wasn’t Russian, but his connections were good. As an industrial spy he worked for whoever paid him and from time to time the Russians paid him handsomely. He was very well versed in military hardware and he had a degree in geology. A very clever man, I’m afraid. Difficult to track. He saw sanctions against South Africa as the necessary cover to sell US research to Russia and China. I have no doubt the South Africans covered his expenses. That’s all we know about him. When the Communist system broke down he found himself without buyers and at risk. That’s when he got out of the country fast.

  ‘As for the man who broke into your home, we think he might be Boris Borovoi, a long-time member of the KGB and once Wolf’s controller. He appeared to have hung on to his connections with the Russian secret police after the Soviet system crumbled. Can you identify him?’ Wattling took a photograph out of his file.

  ‘Yes! That’s the bastard who shot my dog.’

  ‘Good!’ He put the picture back in the file. ‘We, and our American colleagues, of course, want Moller badly, and that’s why we’re prepared to lend a hand to your search, be it ever so subtly, my dear,’ he went on, in a kindly way. ‘I wish you the greatest possible success. I would bend over backwards to help you in any personal capacity. Officially speaking, the connection is very loose.’

  ‘I haven’t told her yet, Clive,’ Father said. ‘Nina, you have been admitted into the holy precincts of Naval Intelligence, in a roundabout sort of way. You are my official agent and informer.’

  ‘A spy?’ Heavens!’

  ‘Welcome aboard. It’s a quid pro quo liaison,’ my father went on. ‘We pass on all we learn about Wolf Moller. In return, they give us a semi-official back-up, mainly research, should we need it.’

  ‘More to the point,’ Clive Wattling said, in his deep, grating voice, ‘we have provided you with a false identity, which you badly need. You can’t go around as Nina Ogilvie. Someone might link you to your married name or to your father. He’s still well known in intelligence circles. There’s no pay, nothing like that,
and we won’t be bailing you out if you break the law, although we’ll do whatever we can to smooth your passage. This mission could prove very dangerous for you.’

  I took a deep breath. Lately, I had managed to avoid thinking about any danger involved in my search. Suddenly Wattling had brought it into sharp focus, but I could not turn back. My son needed me.

  ‘Have a look through that, my dear.’ Wattling passed me a slim folder.

  On top was a passport in the name of Naomi Hunter. I opened it curiously. She was thirty-one years old, two years younger than I, and she was described as an accountant, five feet six inches tall, my height, with blue-green eyes, brown hair and no distinguishing marks. I gazed long and hard at the picture. She did not resemble me at all.

  ‘Don’t worry about the picture,’ Wattling said, as if he was reading my thoughts. ‘Yours will go there. Get some passport pictures taken and I’ll get this back to you within twenty-four hours. You should darken your hair to match the description.’

  Mrs Peters brought some coffee and biscuits, which gave me time to glance through the file.

  Naomi Hunter had been sentenced to five years in June 1988 for embezzling funds from the building society where she worked. She had committed suicide while serving her sentence. She had no close relatives and by now she would have been released. Her crime had been kept under wraps by the building society and almost no one knew about the fraud.

  Poor Naomi, I thought, gazing at the picture. She had paid her debt to society and she could have begun her life again. But can one ever break free of one’s own condemnation?

  Father broke into my thoughts. ‘More coffee, Nina?’

  ‘Mm, please.’ I pushed my cup towards him.

  ‘Now, listen to this,’ Wattling said, fumbling through a file. ‘The CIA, the FBI, Interpol and Goldbrick, which is a conglomerate created to combat an epidemic of mineral frauds in the US, have sent us a list of scams that occurred worldwide during the past eighteen months.’ He took out a thick file and placed it on the desk. ‘Go through it. You may find something that rings a bell and makes you feel that Wolf Moller might have been involved.’

  ‘I’ll be burning the midnight oil,’ I said, feeling the weight of the folder.

  ‘Enough said.’ Father stood up. ‘Would you drive us round the fields, Nina? I’d like to show Clive our latest progeny. Unbelievable what modern science can do for the herd. How about you meeting us in front in half an hour? I just need to wangle a few more concessions out of my friend.’

  Chapter 40

  After Clive Wattling had left, Father and I spent half the night going through the files. I was amazed at how gullible some investors were.

  ‘The con-artist usually catches his victims through their greed,’ Father said. ‘Yet our Wolf always shows a flair for the unexpected.’

  ‘He’s bright and versatile. I always considered him a genius.’

  ‘A bent genius.’

  Around two a.m. we both came to the same conclusion. The Friends of Unita fund was right up Wolf’s street.

  ‘Look at the initials. FOU!’ I smiled at my father. ‘Wolf always had a sense of humour.’ I picked up the file and read: ‘A man claiming to be Dr Andres Anselmo, a well-known Portuguese surgeon, formerly resident in Angola, initiated a fund to assist Unita in its drive to bring democracy to Angola. A successful fund-raising drive was launched in the States to buy military and medical equipment. Subsequently, the man impersonating Dr Anselmo disappeared with four million dollars.’

  British Intelligence had typed a note stating that the real Dr Anselmo had returned to Angola to set up a mission for war casualties, but he had died of a new and virulent strain of malaria in a remote local mission station.

  ‘Wolf’s a natural for this one,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘He was often in Angola buying illicit diamonds. He could easily have found out about the doctor’s illness.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What does this sentence mean: “The merchant banker concerned, David Bernstein, refused to hand over the sucker list”?’

  ‘It means a list of those people, or suckers, who were caught by the con. A sucker list is a highly valuable commodity for any crook. Invariably the con will use this list for future scams. Some of them will probably bite again.’

  Father glanced doubtfully at me. ‘We need this list, Nina. David Bernstein can’t release it because of the confidentiality banking laws in the States. You’ll have to get out there and take it. Once we have it, we’ll contact every one of them, asking them to pass on any new approaches that come their way. Whoever this con-artist is, he was working against time. He must have been concerned that the news of the real Dr Anselmo’s death would reach the American press. For cons, timing means survival. That’s how we’ll catch up with him eventually. How about booking your flight? Be ready to leave on Monday. That gives you enough time to fix your hair and get the passport pictures to Wattling. Check out Bernstein on the Internet. See what you can find. I’ll think up a reason for you to be there.’

  David Bernstein’s CV was daunting, I learned later that evening. He had graduated brilliantly from Yale, only to enter the Israeli Army where he slogged in the ranks for a year before being hoisted off to Military Intelligence and awarded the rank of captain. After five years, he had returned to enter his family bank, for he was the sole surviving heir. He was thirty-four years of age, a millionaire, and last year a woman’s magazine had voted him the fourth most eligible bachelor in the States. And I was supposed to outwit him. What a hope.

  *

  By the weekend, I was packed and ready to leave. I would be travelling as Naomi Hunter, an Australian-born accountant, currently employed as an insurance-claims investigator, following up claims made by the country’s biggest arms manufacturers. Several contracts for armoured vehicles had been awarded to them by the bogus Dr Anselmo. It was an excellent alibi and I blessed Father. I knew the country and the business well enough to carry it off.

  ‘We’re on the way, Nina,’ Father said, as I left on Monday morning. ‘You look quite different with your hair so dark, but it suits you. Good luck.’

  As our driver took me to the airport, I thought about Father and how he had changed. His eyes twinkled, his voice had taken on a happy lilt, he smiled often and even called me by childhood pet names I had thought were long forgotten. ‘Ninja the Terrible’ was one of them.

  I could not help thinking that I had been entirely confused about him. He was a philosopher and a thinker. I doubt he had ever been the bluff, outdoor squire, or the derring-do intelligence agent I had imagined. I had always loved him but, unbelievably, I was getting to like him, too.

  *

  I had five hours to kill in London, and I decided to take the plunge and do something I had been wanting to do since returning to Britain. I walked into Bertram’s Bank and asked to see Eli Bertram. He could always refuse, I comforted myself, but he didn’t.

  It was a journey into the past that brought a lump to my throat as I walked past Mary, his secretary, to Eli’s office. Nothing had changed and neither had Eli. Maybe his white hair was a little longer, his clothes slightly more flamboyant. But his burning, youthful brown eyes had not changed at all.

  ‘Nina, my dear, what a terrible experience. I was hoping you would come and see me. I’ve missed you. Come and sit down. I want to hear everything.’

  While he spoke, he was holding my hand and squeezing it, and I was wondering if he would ever let go of it. A surge of warmth and a flood of memories led me to hug him tightly.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said.

  ‘I have the time to spare, Eli, but have you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll make the time.’ He called through to his secretary. ‘No interruptions. And send for two coffees, please. And biscuits.’ He looked up. ‘You’re far too thin, Nina. And why have you changed your hair? I don’t think it suits you. Now, begin at the beginning.’

  I was amazed that I could describe four and a half years of my lif
e in an hour. I had always been straight with Eli. I found that I could even tell him about prison. Strangely, some of the load seemed to lift as I poured out my story. Finally I took out my most precious picture of Nicky. It was crumpled and worn from prison days.

  ‘This is Nicky,’ I said, proudly. ‘I intend to find him and take him home. So for a while I’m Naomi Hunter, and I’m dark-haired because she was. To be honest, I’m a little scared about the coming encounter. Can you tell me anything to help me?’ I could not bear to put away the picture, but sat there smoothing it with my fingers.

  ‘I can tell you a hell of a lot that won’t help, Nina. David’s one of the most astute bankers I’ve ever met. He excelled in Israeli Intelligence. I don’t believe that it was he who was caught by this basic fraud. I think he’s shouldering the responsibility for his father. Naturally so. His father’s been hanging in there, but longing to retire for years. One of the old man’s favourite hobby-horses has always been pushing democracy in Third World countries. He backed this particular scheme eighteen months ago. I know because he told me. David’s only been there for a year.’

  ‘So the two of you are friends.’

  ‘Relatives, through marriage. We don’t see each other often.’

  ‘Please don’t—’

  Eli held up one hand. ‘Wouldn’t dream of letting you down, Nina. I heard that David was reluctant to leave the Mossad, but his father put moral pressure on him to start taking over the bank. David’s very liberal. His father’s ultra right-wing. They have clashed a great deal.’

  Eli chatted on until I had to leave to catch my plane. ‘Don’t underestimate the danger, Nina,’ he said, as we shook hands. ‘You’ll be up against the world’s intelligence agents and organized crime. Both are ruthless and very astute. Remember that.’

  Despite Eli’s warning, I left feeling optimistic.