From a couple of casual remarks, Hawn gathered that Pol’s place of residence was somewhat indeterminate. He had talked of a place overlooking Lac Leman in Switzerland, but it appeared that he had quarrelled with the Swiss authorities and had had to move. Hawn knew that it was difficult to quarrel with the Swiss, providing you had money, and it didn’t usually matter where the money came from. The most heinous crimes one could commit in that scrupulously immoral country were espionage and bankruptcy.
It is not easy to ask effectively whether a man is a spy. If he tells you he is, he is either lying, joking, or a spy of such humble calling that the information seems hardly worth knowing. And if he says he isn’t, you are none the wiser — except for the sure knowledge that he will think you an impertinent fool.
It was already evident that Pol knew quite a lot about Hawn — at least professionally — and was amused that they had shared the experience, although at very different levels, of the traumatic events in Algeria and Indo-China. Of Anna he had only made polite inquiries, and seemed well satisfied that she was a researcher, particularly in economic and political matters.
He now spread his fat little hands on the tablecloth and beamed at them both. ‘As you may have gathered, mes chèrs, I have had many interests in life. At the moment I am dabbling in the oil business. It is not a pretty business, I admit. The people who operate it are mercenaries and scoundrels. It was the great Gulbenkian who said that oil friendships are greasy. However, it is lucrative — and at my age I must have money, in order to indulge the few pleasures that are left to me.
‘But, my friends, I also have another interest — one that is rather less mundane. I hunt Nazi war criminals. There are quite a number of us — quite unofficially, you understand. And none of this must appear in print — or that will be the end of our relationship. I could add that it might even have unfortunate consequences for you.’ There was an edge of menace in his voice which belied his bright smiling eyes. ‘But I know that you are a man of discretion, Monsieur Hawn. No good journalist can afford not to be. So I can speak freely?’
‘You’ve been speaking fairly freely so far. Go on.’
‘This Strega is delicious. A vulgar liqueur, but one of the best ways I know with which to end a meal. Cognac is so often overrated. I was talking about war criminals. You are familiar, of course, with the Statute of Limitations? It was supposed to have expired at the end of last year. I and my colleagues, however, are not concerned with the niceties of international law. We have our own law. When we find these people, we punish them.’
‘You kill them?’ said Anna.
‘Put like that, Mademoiselle, it sounds so indelicate! Yes, if possible, we kill them. Like rats. But that is only incidental to what I want to talk about. I listened to your theory yesterday evening, Monsieur Hawn, with very great interest. You see, I have long entertained ideas along similar lines. We all know that international big business played a leading role in the Nazi war effort. You have only got to look at the structure of German industry before the war to see how intricately involved it was with some of the leading Western companies and corporations. No doubt the war came as a nasty shock to many of them, but that does not mean that all links were broken. I am thinking of the steel industry in particular. I am also thinking of oil.
‘The oil industry is the dirtiest of the lot. Where there’s a market they sell. There is absolutely no reason to believe that when the war came they were inhibited by morals or patriotic scruples. The Germans needed oil, and somehow they got it. I personally believe that the theory you expressed yesterday may well have more than a grain of truth in it. I do not know what oil companies were involved, but I would make an inspired guess that ABCO is the most likely candidate.
‘Even before the war they were by far the biggest organization, with a worldwide network. They had the contacts, the expertise, and above all, the ruthlessness. I go further. I would say that it was immaterial to ABCO whether the Germans or the Allies won. The important thing was that ABCO showed a profit at the end. And with the Germans they’d have had an almost exclusive market.’
Hawn said: ‘How would they have been paid?’
‘Gold. That was one commodity the Germans had plenty of — including many tons of melted down teeth. Most of it’s still sitting in Swiss vaults, gathering interest, and protected by the holy Swiss banking laws.’
‘I’m flattered you think my theory’s serious, Monsieur Pol. But where do we come in?’
‘You will help me. You have several ideal advantages. As you can imagine, I am a rather conspicuous man — not only physically, but by reputation. I need someone competent, experienced, someone I can trust.’
‘How do you know you can trust us?’
‘By my nose, mon chèr. I have a keen sense of smell. Besides, you would hardly be so foolish as to turn down a story like this. And if you follow me, and do exactly as I tell you, you will have a story that will shake the world. Journalists, in my experience, have very special advantages — they are almost immune to certain crises. People also expect them to be curious, to nose around, to ask awkward questions. And the authorities, however much they may fear or hate them, still grant journalists a grudging respect. Am I not correct?’
‘Partially. And what about Anna here?’
Pol turned to her, with his beatific smile. ‘Mademoiselle is an invaluable asset. She is a professional researcher — she knows how to dig for facts, the right facts. What is more important, she will know how to connect those facts, to bring them alive.
‘Besides, in difficult situations a pretty girl can be very useful. You see, I propose that you both play two roles. You can be investigating journalists one day, a happy young couple on holiday the next. Voilà! — those are two things I certainly cannot do.
‘Now this is what I propose. I am a generous man and I have assets. Besides your travelling expenses, it is probable that during your investigations you will interview people who will demand to be paid. Some of these people may cost a lot of money. I will provide that money. I shall not expect you to repay it, but I do make one condition. I expect you to follow my instructions without question. I shall tell you what you need to know, but no more. Is that agreeable to you?’
Hawn took his time answering. He was thinking about Anna — knowing that she would go along with him, would insist on going along with him — yet he had a sudden protective instinct towards her. ‘What are the risks likely to be?’
‘That is impossible to say. They are likely to be commensurate with our success. ABCO is an organization which knows how to protect itself, and its methods are not always conventional. Like most international companies, it operates above the law and beyond the law. There will be risks. But you have taken risks before. Nothing is won in life without risks.’
Hawn now described his meeting with Don Robak that morning. Pol did not look pleased. ‘Mon chèr, if you will permit me to say so, for a journalist that was a most indiscreet thing to do. You were virtually advertising to the enemy.’
‘I wasn’t taking the theory seriously — until now. I just wanted to see what Robak’s reaction would be.’
‘You say he mentioned a number of possible ways in which the Germans might have got oil from the West?’
‘Very possible ways. I think he was testing me. Then he began to turn nasty, without being actually threatening. He told me to keep my mouth shut, or get the facts.’
‘The facts. And when you do get the facts, Robak and his friends will be watching you. Be careful, Monsieur Hawn. Both of you. Above all, be discreet. You will not be playing with fire — you will be playing with vipers. One moment they will be coiled up asleep, the next…’ He sat back and patted his belly, which oozed over the edge of the table. ‘What is the name and address of your bank? I will have ten thousand dollars deposited there immediately. You will receive more when you need it.’ He handed Hawn an embossed card with his name, and that of an obscure bank in Annecy.
They parted fiv
e minutes later, with Pol giving them both a sweaty kiss on each cheek. He had made no arrangements to see them again, but promised to contact them at their flat in London. If they wanted to contact him they could do so through a PO number in Annecy.
As Hawn and Anna walked back through the heavy night, Anna said, ‘So — what do you think? It’s all so fantastic I can’t take it in.’
‘So fantastic that it has to be true.’
‘What about the difficulties?’
‘We haven’t come up against any — yet. Not ourselves, anyway. Remember what Churchill said — “Do not argue the difficulties, they will argue for themselves.”’
‘But what about your dead prince?’
‘Well he’s dead.’
They walked on, listening to the thick green water slapping against the slimy wall of the canal.
CHAPTER 5
It was the second day after they had returned to England. Hawn said, ‘I’m going to go in at the deep end, Anna — or as deep as I can, at this stage. Man called Shanklin — Toby Shanklin. That wretched Prince mentioned him. Ever heard of the man?’
‘I think I know the name. Something big in oil, isn’t he?’
‘He used to be, though he must be getting on a bit now. I’ve checked back on him. Spends most of his time on the Mayfair circuit — champion backgammon player, member of all the in-clubs, including Boodle’s and the Athenaeum when he wants to be respectable. He’s a bit of a rogue elephant. You can look up most of his past in Who’s Who, but not all of it. Nobody seems to know anything about his origins, although his lifestyle implies that he’s well connected. He joined ABCO before the war, as a junior executive. Then in 1940 he turned up in Cairo as one of the hush-hush boys in SOE — Special Operations Executive — Section Z which specialized in the Balkans. Turkey, Bulgaria, then Yugoslavia, where he got wounded, and picked up an MC on the way.’
‘Is this all in Who’s Who?’
‘No. But we’ve got a file on him at the paper. Not everything, but enough. Enough to convince me that Shanklin’s not just an ageing Berkeley Square playboy.
‘Anyway, he was invalided out of SOE in 1943 — at least, officially — and rejoined ABCO, who sent him to Venezuela where his job seems to have been keeping an eye on the Americans and seeing they didn’t muscle in on too much of our share of the action. But as an old Intelligence man — and on the assumption that Intelligence is like the Catholic Church and the CP: they never let you go — we can assume that Shanklin had other duties. The Venezuelan oil fields were being exploited in a big way, and a lot of the stuff was being shipped across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico was not a very stable country — nor was Venezuela. Both were crawling with Germans, mostly under diplomatic cover. Shanklin’s brief might well have been to keep a close eye on those transatlantic convoys.’
‘You mean, he was well placed to have done a deal with the Germans?’
‘I didn’t say that. For a start, Shanklin is too obvious a candidate. But he was certainly involved in some sort of racket out there — as I suspect many people were.’
‘But what makes you think he’ll talk to you? — always assuming he’s got something to tell you?’
‘I don’t know, I’m just taking a chance. But Shanklin’s supposed to be sociable, garrulous, a good high-class gossip, and he’s also said to be on good terms with the Press. Anyway, even if he doesn’t tell me anything, it’ll be interesting to see his reactions.’
Anna said, ‘If he was really involved in any deals with the Nazis, he’ll keep his mouth shut and warn the others.’
‘That’s part of the chance I’ll be taking. And it’s always possible that what he doesn’t tell me will be as useful as what he does. Ask any policeman.’
Toby Marchmont Shanklin, CBE, MC, was less accessible than Tom Hawn expected. Hawn’s reputation and by-line had proved a passport to the highest, the mightiest; but not so to Toby Shanklin, erstwhile executive and chief trouble-shooter for ABCO, the world’s richest and most powerful oil company.
Hawn first wrote, in a private capacity — since he was loath to involve his paper in this escapade — to Shanklin, c/o America-Britannic Consortium, at their London tower block headquarters, where he knew Shanklin still maintained an office as ‘industrial consultant’. He received no reply.
Next he wrote to one of Shanklin’s most exclusive clubs, again privately, and again heard nothing. The man was ex-directory, of course, but Hawn managed to get his address from the office files: a private mews house off South Audley Street. This time Hawn wrote on office notepaper, in his reluctant capacity of senior reporter. Shanklin replied at his leisure — a scrawled message asking Hawn to meet him for lunch at an odiously expensive restaurant in Knightsbridge. But when Hawn arrived, he was informed by the head waiter that Mr Shanklin had phoned to say that he was unavoidably detained. He never turned up.
Hawn tried ringing his home address a couple of times, at respectable hours, but in vain. Finally, at around eleven one evening, he called the Clermont Club. He was informed that Mr Shanklin was dining there. Hawn gave his name and added that it was a matter of some urgency. He hung on for ten minutes; then was told that Mr Shanklin would see him at 12.45, at his home address.
At 12.30 p.m. Hawn drove up to the entrance of the cobbled mews. It was barred with a white pole and a sentry box; the pole had a black and white sign:
PRIVATE THOROUGHFARE
ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING DAY OR NIGHT
OFFENDERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
A uniformed commissionaire came out of the box and said officiously, ‘Who do you want?’ At the name ‘Shanklin’ he became deferential and raised the pole.
Hawn edged his old grey Citroën between the double rank of Rollses, Mercedeses, the occasional Porsche.
Shanklin’s front door was of pale oak in a steep narrow house at the end of the mews. There were no lights in any of the windows. The door was flanked by coaching lamps, and had a lot of brass fittings and several locks. Hawn stared through the Judas eye as he rang the bell. No answer came from within.
He had no idea what Shanklin’s nocturnal habits were: how many backgammon games he played, and whether he then might move on to pursue the amorous delights of the nightclub below. He suspected that this might mean his hanging around here for some hours; and not wanting to be seen loitering, he risked leaving his car and strolled back up the mews to the austere empty streets in the backwaters of Mayfair. He was beginning to feel quite like a junior reporter again on a leg-job.
Shanklin’s bell did not answer until after 2.30. His voice sounded squeaky through the intercom: ‘Yes, who is it?’ Hawn told him. ‘Oh, yes, all right, come in.’ The main bolt clicked and the door snapped ajar.
There were still no lights in the windows. Inside it was very dark. A voice called from a door to his left: ‘This way!’
Hawn entered a pine-panelled room: black leather armchairs, military prints around the walls, a gas ‘log’-fire in an immense mock Adam fireplace. The floor was divided by a long table on which there was a recording machine with a telephone attachment (officially allowed in Britain only under police licence), a battery of more telephones, stacks of paper. A filing cabinet reached to the ceiling. The rest of the wall space was filled with reference books. But the oddest feature in the room was a large television set, with the sound turned off, showing what Hawn vaguely recognized as ‘Sale of the Century’. It was not a programme which he voluntarily watched, but he did know that it came on early in the evening, at weekends.
The man behind the table caught his glance. ‘My new little toy — video-recorder. Wonderful things. I’ve got Citizen Kane, Lavender Hill Mob, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It was a present from Yamani.’
He was in his shirt-sleeves, his tie undone, and it took Hawn a moment to realize — by the light of the green-shaded desk lamp — that his host was kneeling on his chair with his feet stuck through the back. His face was a drinker’s face, heavy, mottled, under a bal
ding pate with tufts of gingery-grey hair sticking out over the temples.
‘Take a pew. Hawn, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet at Freddy Frobisher’s — Lord Danebury’s son? Awfully nice boy — but a bloody bad backgammon player! Won three thou’ off him last week, and he didn’t bat an eyelid.’ He signed some papers, shuffled them as though about to deal a hand, then signed some more. He looked up. ‘Your message said it was something urgent?’
‘It was a tip-off I got this afternoon. There may be nothing in it.’
‘Get yourself a drink. I won’t join you — I’m off the bloody stuff.’ His voice was surprisingly soft, and although abrupt, there was a pervasive hint of intimacy about it that made Hawn faintly uneasy.
He gave himself a Scotch and sat down. On the TV screen the compere was presenting a hideous cocktail cabinet to a giggling woman in a purple dress. Hawn said, ‘It’s rather a delicate matter. I’m not sure how to begin.’
‘I should try the beginning,’ Shanklin said, and scribbled something in a margin.
‘Mr Shanklin, everything I’m about to ask you is in the strictest confidence. I’m doing some research into the oil business during the last war. I gather that after you were wounded, you spent some time in the Caribbean?’
One of the telephones began to bleep by Shanklin’s elbow. He grabbed it. ‘Yes? Yes, yes I know who you are. Well, what’s happened?’ As he listened, his jaw muscles swelled and his face grew pink. His voice, still soft, had taken on an indefinable note of menace: ‘I don’t give a monkey’s what’s happened to him. For all I care they can hang him up and beat his feet till he never walks again. And shut up when I’m talking. You can go whimpering to the FO if you want to, and a lot of bloody good that’ll do you. He’s not their pigeon, and he’s not mine. If Assad can spring him, the best of Jewish luck to him! Otherwise, you’ll have to count him as a write-off. Now I’m busy.’ He put the phone down and grinned evilly at Hawn.
Dead Secret Page 5
