World War 2 Thriller Collection

by Len Deighton

  The wind had dropped. Out at sea, the sailing boats, like neatly folded pocket handkerchiefs, hardly moved. I parked alongside the defunct fountain, and walked up the village’s only street. The houses were shuttered, and the paintwork was peeling and faded except for the bright red façade of the Communist Party’s converted shop.

  It was damned hot and the air was heavy. The cobblestones burned my feet, and the rough stone walls were hot to the touch. An Air Tunis jet passed over, obeying the control pattern of Nice. From up here, I seemed almost close enough to touch the faces of passengers peering from its windows. It turned away over the sea, and its sound was gone. In the quiet, my footsteps echoed between the walls.

  A newly painted sign pointed the way to Ercole’s restaurant. It was tacked to the wall of a roofless slum. From its open door a lean dog came running, followed by a missile and an old man’s curse that ended in a bronchial cough. I hurried on.

  Built with the stone of the mountainside, the village was as colourless as the barren hill upon which it perched. But at the summit, there was Ercole’s restaurant. Its whitewashed walls could be seen through a jungle of shrubs and flowers.

  From somewhere out of sight came the grunts, puffs and smacks of a tennis game. I recognized the voices of Schlegel and Ercole’s grandson. There were kitchen noises, too. Through an open window came steam, and I heard Ercole telling someone that a meal was a conversation between diner and chef. I went in. He stopped suddenly as he caught sight of me. His greeting, his embrace and his welcome were as overwhelming as I feared they would be.

  ‘I had this feeling … all day I had it … that you would come here.’ He laughed and put his arm round my shoulder and clasped me tight. ‘I hate this man!’ he proclaimed to the world in a loud voice. ‘I hate him! That he comes here, and does not come to Ercole straight away … what have I done? This is your home, Charles. You know this is your home.’

  ‘Jesus, Ercole. What’s this goddamned mouthfest?’ It was Schlegel. ‘Oh, there you are, kid. They said you’d phoned. All OK?’

  I didn’t tell him whether or not everything was OK.

  ‘Staying to supper?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should,’ I said. ‘I said I’d be back in the late afternoon.’ But Ercole was going into an encore, and I decided not to get too neurotic about Champion, lest I stir up the very suspicions I was trying to avoid.

  ‘Give us a drink, Ercole. Splice the mainbrace! Right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said, with the sort of enthusiasm I was expected to show for Schlegel’s studied forays into English idiom.

  ‘Sure, sure, sure,’ said Ercole.

  I looked round the empty dining-room. Soon it would be crowded. Ercole was making money, there was little doubt about that. He’d torn down most of the old buildings and built anew, spending additional money to make it all look old again.

  On the far side of the room, two young waiters were setting a table for a party of fifteen diners. The glasses were getting an extra polish, and special flowers and handwritten table d’hôte cards were positioned on the starched cloth.

  Ercole watched them until they’d finished. ‘A drink, a drink, a drink,’ he said suddenly. ‘Apéritif? Whisky? What is the smart thing in London now?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s the smart thing in London now,’ I said. And if I did know, I’d make a special point of not drinking it. ‘But a kir would suit me very well.’

  ‘Two kirs, and an Underberg and soda for the colonel,’ Ercole ordered.

  ‘Bring ours down to the pool,’ said Schlegel. He stabbed me with a finger. ‘And you come and swim.’

  ‘No trunks,’ I said.

  ‘The fellow mending the filter will show you,’ said Ercole. ‘There are all sizes, and plenty of towels.’

  I still hesitated.

  ‘It’s a heated pool,’ said Schlegel. I realized that he’d chosen the pool as a suitable place for us to talk.

  The drinks arrived. Schlegel changed into nylon swimming trunks patterned like leopard’s fur. He timed his activities so that his running-somersault dive off the board coincided with my emergence from the changing-room in a curious pink swimming costume about two sizes too big.

  Schlegel devoted his entire attention to his swimming, just as he gave undivided attention to most of the other things I’d seen him do. For me, the pool merely provided a diversion for my arms and legs, while my mind grappled with Champion. Eventually even Schlegel grew tired, and climbed out of the water. I swam across to where he was sitting. I floated in the water as he sipped his drink.

  ‘It’s a long time since I did any swimming,’ I said.

  ‘Is that what it was?’ said Schlegel. ‘I thought you were perfecting a horizontal form of drowning.’

  ‘Spare me the swimming lesson,’ I said. I wasn’t in the mood for Schlegel’s Catskill comedy. ‘What is it?’

  Schlegel picked up the packet of cheroots that he’d placed ready at the side of the pool. He selected one and took his time lighting it. Then he tossed the dead match into the undergrowth.

  Ercole had planted quick-growing bamboo, but it was not yet tall enough to hide the little village cemetery, with its decorated family tombs, faded photos and fallen flowers. There was a small child there, she was putting flowers into a tin can and singing to herself.

  It was only the middle of the afternoon, but already the mist was piling up in the valleys so that the landscape became just flat washes of colour, with no dimensions at all, like a stage backdrop.

  ‘Cu-nim. We’ll have a whole week of this,’ Schlegel predicted. He sniffed the air with an aviator’s nose and looked respectfully at the clouds.

  I waited.

  Schlegel said, ‘There’s a Panamanian freighter coming in to Marseille from Alexandria tomorrow night. Dangerous cargo wharf. Five articulated trucks will be there to load. Those trucks belong to the Tix outfit – Champion’s trucks, in other words …’ He puffed on the cheroot. ‘Know anything about that?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But if it worries you, get the dock police to turn it all over.’

  He shook his head. ‘Uh-uh-uh! Diplomatic cargo. Going to the embassy in Bonn. It will be sealed. Breaking into that baby and finding anything less than Hitler seated at the Wurlitzer is a sure-fire way to get yourself busted. That cargo has exactly the same protection as a diplomatic bag.’

  I related my conversations with Serge Frankel and with Claude.

  ‘And now you’re going to start telling me that Champion is going to stash a nuclear bomb into those trucks,’ said Schlegel.

  ‘I’m just telling you what Frankel said,’ I told him. ‘Do we know the route the trucks will take?’

  ‘Don’t mastermind me, bubblebrain,’ said Schlegel. ‘We’re checking out all likely targets along the routes. Including airfields where nukes are stored,’ he added. ‘But Champion is not after a nuke.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Nah! If you’d ever seen a nuke, you’d know why. They bring those cookies in on freight cars, shielded with lead, and crawling with guys in protective clothing … and even if Champion got his hands on one, what does he do – take off down the road in an articulated truck?’

  ‘Threatening to detonate it,’ I offered.

  ‘You’ve got a nasty overdose of Serge Frankel,’ he said. ‘For all we know, he’s in this with Champion.’

  ‘Frankel’s a Jew,’ I protested.

  ‘Spare me the schmaltz, buddy: my violin is in my other pants. If your pal Champion was planning to hijack canned pork, I wouldn’t eliminate the chief rabbi.’

  ‘If Champion was planning to hijack tinned pork,’ I said patiently, ‘we wouldn’t have to worry about the Arabs dropping it on Tel Aviv.’

  ‘But how would they move a bomb?’

  ‘Steal a loaded bomber?’

  He stared at me. ‘You are determined to lay this theory on me, aren’t you?’ He kicked the water, very hard, with his heel. It splashed all over me.

 
; ‘It’s the only theory I’ve got,’ I said. I wiped the splashes from my face.

  ‘Bombers loaded with atomic weapons are guarded like …’ Unable to find a comparison, Schlegel shook his head. ‘I’ll do the necessary,’ he promised. ‘The people who guard nukes scare easily.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ I said.

  Schlegel nodded. ‘Come into town Sunday morning, when Champion goes to Mass. I’ll see you at the port – Ercole’s cabin-cruiser: the Guilietta. Right?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘Let’s hope the smoke’s clearing by then,’ he said. He wrapped his sunglasses and cigars in his towel and gave them to me. ‘You want to take my stuff round the pool while I swim back?’ Schlegel gave orders in the American style, as if politely inquiring about certain aspects of obsessional behaviour. I didn’t answer him and I didn’t take his towel.

  ‘There’s something else you want?’ said Schlegel.

  ‘I want Melodie Page’s reports, contacts and sheets – anything, in fact – for the month before she died. I want to look at it for myself.’

  ‘Why? Of course you can have it, but why?’

  ‘Murdering the girl was the only hurried and uncharacteristic move Champion has made so far. Something must have panicked him, and it might be something that the girl discovered.’

  Schlegel nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘See what you can find out about this Topaz kid.’

  ‘OK,’ said Schlegel. He pushed the towel into my hand and dived into the water, leaving barely a ripple. He swam underwater, turning his head only enough to bite air. I envied him. Not only the ability to swim like a basking shark, but also for his jet-jockey readiness to press buttons, pull triggers and dive into the deep end of life, while people like me drown in indecision, imagined loyalties and fear. If Champion was yesterday’s spy, Schlegel was tomorrow’s. I can’t say I looked forward to it.

  By the time I started walking round the pool, Schlegel had taken a fresh towel from the rack and disappeared into a changing-room. I took my time. The sun was moving behind the hill-tops, so that the landscape was turning mauve. But high in the stratosphere, a jetliner caught the sun’s rays and left a contrail of pure gold. In the cemetery the little girl was still singing.

  ‘Did you enjoy the duck?’ said Ercole proudly.

  ‘One of these days,’ said Schlegel, ‘I’m going to fix you one of my special cheeseburgers. With all the trimmings!’

  For a moment Ercole was taken aback. Then he roared, ‘I hate you, I hate you,’ and kissed Schlegel on the cheek.

  ‘That’ll learn you, Colonel,’ I said softly.

  Schlegel smiled bravely while Ercole placed a large piece of goat’s cheese on a crust of bread, but stopped smiling when Ercole put an arm-lock on him and forced it into his mouth. ‘It’s not possible that a man won’t eat a fine cheese like this,’ shouted Ercole. ‘I make it myself – with my own hands.’

  It was in Schlegel’s mouth by now, and he pulled a face as he tasted its sharp flavour.

  Louis – Ercole’s grandson – watched the cameo, disapproval showing clearly on his face. He was in his late teens, dressed in the dark well-cut suit that befitted the heir to a gastronomic mecca, but it was difficult to imagine him presiding over it with the sort of passion that his Falstaffian grandpa never failed to show.

  Ercole leaned back in his chair and sipped a little of the vintage Burgundy. He turned to Schlegel. ‘Good?’ he asked Schlegel finally.

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Schlegel, without conviction.

  Ercole nodded. It was enough.

  We dined that night in Ercole’s office. It was large enough to hold a table and half a dozen chairs, as well as the tiny desk at which he did his paperwork. The office was a glass-sided box situated between the dining-room and kitchen, and providing a clear view of both. Such a ‘cash-control booth’ was not unusual in large restaurants, but perhaps only Ercole’s was walled with the mirrored-glass exterior that provided such privacy.

  We could see the whole dining-room and kitchen, but the clients and staff saw only their own reflections. We watched a bearded boy walk from table to table, holding aloft carefully drawn landscape sketches. He said nothing, nor did his expression change. Few people for whom he displayed his work granted him more than a casual glance before continuing their meal and their conversation. He moved on. It was a sad society, in which all these property salesmen, plastics executives and car rental tycoons could not only humiliate this boy, but inure him to it.

  I asked Louis to purchase a drawing for me. It cost no more than a bottle of Ercole’s very cheapest wine.

  ‘Have you gone off your trolley?’ asked Schlegel, with no more than passing interest.

  ‘It’s a good drawing,’ I said.

  ‘At least you can tell which way up it’s supposed to be,’ said Schlegel. He took it from me and examined it, and then looked through the mirror-glass to see the artist. ‘Well, now he’ll be able to buy himself some soap,’ he said.

  ‘What’s so special about soap?’ I said. ‘Why can’t he buy himself some food and wine?’

  Schlegel didn’t answer, but Louis smiled approvingly and was emboldened to ask me a question. ‘Is that Ferrari yours?’ His voice was almost a whisper, but it was not so quiet that Ercole didn’t hear. He’d moved his chair so that he could watch the restaurant. He answered without turning his head.

  ‘Table twenty-one,’ he said. ‘The flashy fellow with the open-neck shirt. He arrived in the Ferrari. I wish now I’d made him put the tie on. They both had the hundred-franc menu. He owns a handbag factory near Turin – she’s his secretary, I should think.’ He took a long look at her, sniffed, and jerked a thumb at Louis. ‘Cars and football: that’s all this one thinks about.’

  ‘But you said Louis prepared the duck,’ I protested.

  Ercole reached forward and ruffled his grandson’s hair. ‘He’s not a bad boy, just a bit wild, that’s all.’

  We were all too polite to remark that the boy’s conservatively tailored suit, and deferential whispers, made it difficult to believe. But already Ercole’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Table nineteen have been waiting hours for their coffee. Tell that fool Bernard to pull himself together.’ As Louis slipped quietly away, Ercole said, ‘Or you do it.’ He didn’t take his eyes from the restless people at table nineteen for more than a few seconds at a time but he was able to continue talking as if using some different part of his brain. ‘You know what the theory of relativity is?’

  ‘You tell me,’ Schlegel invited.

  ‘Bernard’s let those two tables in the corner get to the fish course at the same time. They all want it off the bone. Now, for Bernard, the minutes fly like seconds. While for those people who asked for coffee three, perhaps four, minutes ago each minute seems like an hour.’

  ‘So that’s the theory of relativity?’ said Schlegel.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Ercole. ‘It’s a miracle that Einstein discovered it, when you remember that he wasn’t even a restaurateur.’

  Schlegel turned to follow Ercole’s gaze. ‘That guy’s impatience is nothing to do with Einstein,’ he argued. ‘With a plug-ugly broad like that facing you, every minute seems like an hour.’

  It was Louis who served the coffee to them. He did it well, but he didn’t once look at the people he served.

  ‘And the special hand-dipped chocolates,’ remarked Ercole approvingly, after Louis had sat down with us again. ‘She’ll gobble her way through them, just watch. Did you notice her ask for a second portion of the profiteroles?’

  ‘Are you going to the football match on Sunday morning?’ Louis undid the lace of one shoe and rubbed his foot. He lacked the stamina of the professional waiter.

  ‘He’s staying out at Champion’s house,’ said Ercole.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said the boy. I saw contempt in the glance he gave the old man.

  ‘I think I might have a morning in bed,’ I said.

  ‘No Mass for th
ese heathens,’ said Ercole.

  ‘It’s just a friendly match for charity,’ said the boy. ‘Really not worth the journey. But next month it will be a good one.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll come next month, then,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll send you tickets,’ said the boy, and seemed strangely pleased at my decision.

  19

  Compliant with Schlegel’s prediction, the next few days brought perfect spring weather. When Sunday morning came, there was a clear blue sky and hot sun. I went into Nice with Champion, and Billy decided that he would come too. The chauffeur stopped outside St François de Paule. Billy asked why I wasn’t going with them to Mass, and I hesitated, searching for a reply.

  ‘Uncle has an important meeting,’ said Champion.

  ‘Can I go too?’ said Billy.

  ‘It’s a private meeting,’ Champion explained. He smiled at me.

  ‘I’ll leave my coat,’ I said, anxious to change the subject. ‘The sun is warm.’

  ‘See you later,’ said Champion.

  ‘See you later,’ said Billy, but his voice was almost lost in the pealing of church bells.

  There was a rehearsal in progress at the opera house across the road. A few bars from Verdi’s ‘Requiem’ were repeated over and over. The red carpet was laid for the ‘Caisse’, but in the shabby doorway marked ‘Paradis’, a policeman barred the way.

  I cut through the market. It was crowded with shoppers, and with country people in their well-brushed black suits, black dresses and shawls, arguing over cages of rabbits and chickens and snails and brandishing brown eggs.

  Out at sea, a yachtsman hopefully hauled upon an orange-striped spinnaker as he was passed by a ketch. The sea still had the milkiness of winter, but the surface was calm. The waves lapped the shingle with no more than a gentle slap, and disappeared with a deep sigh of despair.

  There is always a blustery wind around the great hillock of rock under which the port of Nice shelters. There was everything there, from a sailing dinghy to tramp steamers moored close to the cranes. The quayside was piled high with pale-yellow timber, and on the far side of the water I saw the Giulietta tied up along with half a dozen yachts and cruisers. There was no sign of Schlegel on its deck.