The Memory Trap

by Anthony Price

  He shook his head at his reflection and dried his hands on the dirty scrap of towel. Daddy Higgs was long-dead. And General Raffaele Montuori was five years’ dead, alas! But Oleg Filipovitch Kulik and Edward Sinclair and one as-yet-unidentified assassin were very newly-deceased. And—

  Damn! Daddy Higgs’s theory, behind his admonishment to his youngest and greenest (and most stupid?) subaltern, had been that the dead always had a majority vote; so, by thinking of them, you invited them to vote you into their club—

  Damn!

  But he had to think of the newly-dead, all the same, while he could, with both Elizabeth and Mitchell somewhere out there, waiting for him under the tattered canvas awning at the stern, and the politely-suspicious senior Italian intelligence officer whom he’d so briefly just met also expecting an invitation—damn!

  He scowled at himself. There could be very little doubt that his own invitation had been given, in Berlin. Kulik, all alone but no doubt sweating with relief now that he’d crossed the Wall safely, had in fact been comprehensively betrayed: date, time and place-betrayed, from the inside. But, with such exact information, all that bloodbath in the restaurant could have so easily been avoided that it must have been intended.

  He shook his head at himself. Because all that, while it was enough to give Butler and Mitchell the frights, equally didn’t make sense, either. So he was back to old Wimpy’s despairing anger, when any of his pupils (but, it had always seemed, most of all one David Audley!) had bogged up the logic of the crystal-clear Latin language: “This is nonsense, boy! And nonsense must be wrong!”

  There they were, waiting for him.

  ‘Elizabeth.’ He had already nodded to her, embarrassed that his most urgent need wasn’t information, but a lavatory. But now he could come to the point. ‘Tell me about Berlin.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell, David.’ Her chin came up. ‘I’m afraid I made a hash of it.’

  ‘She didn’t make a hash of it, actually,’ said Mitchell. ‘Henry Jaggard and our Jack mixed the hash. Lizzie never had a chance.’

  Elizabeth gave Mitchell a wooden glance, and then dismissed him without bothering to react. ‘It was supposed to be routine. But the Germans weren’t happy with Kulik coming across under his own steam: they wanted to pick him up straightaway.’

  ‘But you didn’t know how he was coming across.’ Mitchell again came to her defence. ‘No one even knew what he looked like, for God’s sake!’

  He should have foreseen that Mitchell would be a problem, thought Audley: there had been the beginnings of something between the two of them, Mitchell and Elizabeth, once. But now it was very much a one-sided thing. ‘Go on, Elizabeth, please.’

  ‘Yes.’ The jaw came up again, more determined than before: the Loftus jaw which, on her famous naval ancestors, must have struck terror into friend and foe alike. ‘As Dr Mitchell says, we weren’t able to supply them with any information, except as regards the RV. So … maybe I should have expected trouble. But I didn’t.’

  ‘It was … “just routine”, they told her,’ supplemented Mitchell.

  Audley coughed diplomatically. ‘I take it you weren’t armed?’

  ‘The Verfassungsschutz was covering the place, David,’ said Mitchell. ‘They’re always armed to the teeth. And they get uptight if anyone else is. They’re always rowing with the Americans about it.’

  ‘Uh-huh—‘ As the cruiser rocked in the gentle Mediterranean swell Audley pretended to reach for one of the supports of the awning, but missed it and caught Mitchell’s arm instead.

  ‘Not like the Italians, fortunately—ouch!’ Pain cut Mitchell off.

  ‘Sorry.’ Audley kept his grip. ‘So neither of you was armed … How did you identify Kulik?’

  ‘We didn’t. Not for certain. He was there alone. And there was also an Arab, sitting alone, but we discounted him. So … Ted—I sent Ted over, David.’

  Babes and innocents! And now she was blaming herself—and quite rightly. Except that Henry Jaggard and Jack Butler had even more to answer for between them. ‘Uh-huh?’ That was all he could say.

  ‘It happened very quickly.’

  When it happened, it always happened very quickly.

  ‘Ted reached his table. It was three tables away from where we were sitting. Kulik looked up at him.’ She stared through him. It wasn’t happening quickly now: it was happening frame-by-frame on slow advance, and she couldn’t stop looking at it. ‘I think Ted said something.’

  ‘And the Arab?’

  ‘He was by the steps.’ She continued to stare. ‘He’d got up. At least … he must have got up … when Ted Sinclair got up.’

  She hadn’t been watching the Arab: it had been a routine pick-up, and Arabs hadn’t featured in it. But now he was in the frame at last. And by then it had been too late.

  ‘I saw the gun then.’ She focused on him suddenly. ‘He’d had it behind his newspaper as he walked—he was holding the paper across his chest when I first saw him by the steps.’ She frowned at him. “Then … he simply pointed it.’

  ‘What sort of gun?’

  ‘What sort of gun?’ She blinked at him.

  ‘7.65 Browning—North Korean copy. Short silencer.’ Mitchell murmured the information. ‘A pro’s gun, David.’

  ‘Yes?’ Mitchell knew about guns. But to know so much about this one he must have been in contact with the Berlin security police on his own account. Or perhaps, in giving him his minder’s job, Butler had obliged him helpfully. ‘Go on, Miss Loftus … You saw the gun—?’

  ‘Yes.’ She drew another deep breath. ‘As I saw it … he dropped the paper and held the gun two-handed. And he shot Ted Sinclair with it first, David.’

  So that was why they were all so worried for him. ‘And then he shot Kulik?’

  ‘Yes—‘

  ‘No!’ Mitchell had moved out of reach. ‘You’re not telling it how it was now, Lizzie, damn it!’

  ‘Mitchell—‘ Audley began angrily ‘—for God’s sake!’

  ‘No! He’s right, David.’ Elizabeth shook her head, blinking again. ‘I saw the gun … and I don’t know … I knew it was already too late, then … But there was this bottle on the table, the waiter had just brought—‘ After the hesitations the words suddenly tumbled out ‘—so I picked it up and threw it at him, David. At the Arab, I mean.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’ Mitchell nodded. ‘And she bloody hit him too, by God, what’s more: that’s the way it was! She’s not an ex-games mistress for nothing, by golly—cricket as well as hockey was it, Lizzie?’

  Audley held up his hand quickly before Elizabeth exploded. ‘All right! You threw the bottle, Elizabeth—‘

  Elizabeth breathed out. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it hit him.’ He kept his hand in Mitchell’s view.

  ‘Not really.’ Her anger didn’t subside, but she controlled it. ‘I don’t know—I’m not really sure. Because … everything was happening at once. And there were tables in between, with people, David. They started to scatter and scream when I threw the bottle, before they knew what was happening.’

  ‘And Kulik—?’

  ‘He was trying to duck under the table, I think.’ Her lips tightened. The Arab shot him in the back—I saw him recover, and then aim again, slightly downwards … He—it was as though he shrugged the bottle off, and steadied himself again before he fired.’ She gave Audley a single decisive nod. ‘But I couldn’t see Kulik by then, not properly. And that was when the German police marksman on the roof also fired—I heard the thump of the Arab’s first shot, but not the second one: I only heard the rifle-shot. And it knocked the Arab down the steps—I wasn’t even sure that he had fired, that second time—not right then.’

  ‘No, of course.’ It wasn’t simply the bitter cocktail of professional misjudgement and personal guilt that was bugging her now: it was the imprecision of her own eyewitness recollections, which her training and her honesty were both requiring her to admit as he forced her to drain the cup—and in
front of Paul Mitchell, too, of all people.

  And Mitchell was just about to open his big mouth again, too—

  ‘So what happened then?’ The very last thing she wanted would be sympathy and understanding from Mitchell.

  ‘I went to Kulik.’

  Good girl! If there had been two compressed seconds of consternation after she had hurled a full bottle of wine across a peaceful Berlin restaurant, it would have been nothing compared with the chaos after that rifle-shot. There would have been just one milli-second of silence, in which the meaning of the sound registered. And then it would have been pure panic. But she had kept her head, nevertheless. Good Girl!

  Only she wouldn’t thank him for saying as much. ‘You went to Kulik—?’

  ‘He was in a bad way. I thought he was dead, actually. Or as good as.’

  ‘Which he was.’ Mitchell nodded. ‘As good as.’ He nodded again. ‘7.65 soft-nosed dum-dum: pro-gun, pro-bullet—went diagonally through him, upwards and then in all directions, David.’ Final nod. ‘He damn-well should have been dead—like Ted Sinclair already was.’

  Elizabeth was looking at Mitchell now. But she didn’t seem to see him. ‘Yes.’

  Then she returned to Audley. ‘He opened his eyes. And he looked at me.’

  In surprise, it would have been. Whatever natural death might be like, unnatural and violent death always came as a surprise, even in war, where it had been neither surprising nor unnatural, Audley remembered: even those who had claimed to be resigned to the inevitable the night before, regardless of Daddy Higgs’s superstitious outrage, hadn’t believed that it was actually happening to them.

  ‘He said something in Russian.’

  Yes. And, for choice, that would be “Mother”. Even William Shakespeare, who was usually right about everything, had been wrong about that, in imagining that the dying thought about their wives and children, let alone their unpaid debts. Although, to be strictly accurate about what he could recall, it was the younger ones who had remembered their mothers, while the older—or the relatively older, anyway—had used words which Elizabeth might not have known in English, never mind in Russian.

  ‘Yes?’ He realized that as he remembered Normandy he had been looking through her. And that had disconcerted her. ‘Yes, Elizabeth?’

  She still looked at him strangely, frowning.

  ‘Yes, Miss Loftus?’ He felt the wind on his face, and the boat rolling under him in the swell: they were far out into the bay now, and he felt time at his back with Capri looming ahead somewhere. But together they sharpened his voice, from a gentle question to an order.

  Still she frowned at him. ‘I said … “You’re going to be all right”, David.’

  Good girl, again! (But perhaps it hadn’t been him she’d really been looking at, by God!) ‘Yes—?’ (But she was looking at him now.)

  ‘He didn’t seem to hear me.’ But looking at him seemed to steel her. ‘So I thought … first, I thought he was dead. But then he opened his eyes again—he’d closed them … But then he opened them again.’

  Audley waited. This, after all, was the important bit. ‘Yes—?’

  ‘I thought … no, I knew he was dying, then … ‘ She trailed off, almost as though ashamed.

  If he’d been there he would have been dead by then. But then, again, he might not have been. Because he would never have just sat there in the open, waiting for Kulik to make contact, just because Henry Jaggard had pronounced the occasion to be mere ‘routine’, with Kulik making all the running, when he knew nothing about either the man or what he was bringing out. Only, Elizabeth hadn’t known any better—and Henry Jaggard and Jack Butler had made their respective errors of judgement. So now he was here—in the bloody-middle of the Bay of Naples, and without the faintest idea what he was doing, as a result. (Except that he did know slightly more about Peter Richardson than about Oleg Filipovitch Kulik … which was almost nothing. So now he was damn-well boxed in by that, and would have to let Richardson make the running this time, whatever the risk, damn it. Damn it!)

  So now he was angry, because he was having to wait again. ‘Go on—‘ He caught his anger in that instant as it jolted him with a sudden insight: this was Elizabeth Loftus, and she was one tough lady—a real “shield-maiden”, if ever there was one. So by then, in the midst of that Berlin chaos, she would have been angry too … with all the shame-of-failure and guilt-for-Ted-Sinclair still in the future. ‘That was when he dropped my name … and Peter Richardson’s, did he?’

  The Loftus-jaw again. ‘I shouted at him.’ (Those Loftus-ancestors had hanged men on the yard-arm at the Nore, back in ‘98—1798!) ‘And he said, “Tell Audley”, David.’ (And the ones they hadn’t hanged, they’d flogged.) ‘Then he said, “Tell him Piotr Richardson knows.” And he tried to say more, but then he haemorrhaged—he coughed up blood all over me … And then he died.’

  Audley nodded. That was near enough what Butler had indicated: that Elizabeth Loftus would spell out what had actually happened.

  ‘Famous last words,’ murmured Mitchell. ‘”Tell Audley”! So what is it that you know, David? What’s the little shared secret you have with our elusive Major?’

  Audley shook his head irritably. ‘What happened then, Elizabeth?’

  ‘But that’s the problem of course, Lizzie.’ Mitchell nodded to himself. ‘His problem—our problem … everyone’s problem, eh? For once you don’t know, do you David? Or you don’t know what it is you’re supposed to know, rather … all those years ago—uh-huh? Otherwise he wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Shut up, Paul.’ Elizabeth transferred her anger for an instant. ‘What do you want to know, David?’

  What did he want to know? ‘What did the Germans do? Are they holding anyone? What sort of statement have they put out?’

  ‘They haven’t got any leads.’ She paused for a moment, marshalling her answers. ‘Only the Arab’s passport. Which doesn’t actually prove anything for sure … except that it looks like one of a PFLP batch, according to the Israelis.’ She didn’t quite look at Mitchell for confirmation. ‘But … they grilled everyone who was there. Only that didn’t produce anything. Because most of them were regulars. And the rest were cleared easily, Colonel Schneider said.’

  ‘And the restaurant staff?’

  ‘They were clear too. Except a new waiter, who was a Turk.’ She closed her eyes for an instant. “They held him for questioning. Because … they thought maybe he’d caused a diversion, before the shooting started.’

  ‘A diversion?’

  ‘He didn’t. He dropped his tray.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘But that was after the shooting, not before, I was able to tell them. But … they’re still holding him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That was to do with their official statement. Because … what they’re putting out—at least for the time being, David—is that it was a gangster shoot-out, involving Turks and drugs.’ She gave him a clear-eyed look. ‘The Germans were extremely helpful, David. But Colonel Schneider said he didn’t think the statement would stick for long.’

  ‘Extremely embarrassed, more like.’ Mitchell sniffed derisively.

  ‘Do be quiet, Mitchell.’ Audley silenced Mitchell, and then nodded encouragingly at Elizabeth. (They were both right, of course: Schneider was a damn good man. So he would have been hugely embarrassed by such a monumental fuck-up on his patch.) ‘How … “helpful”, Elizabeth?’

  She studied him for a second. ‘I talked to Colonel Schneider. And then he contacted Jack in London. And they concocted a holding story between them, to which I agreed … after I’d talked to Jack—Sir Jack.’ The look was now clear-eyed. ‘Sir Jack told Colonel Schneider that I had been standing in for you, David. And … the Colonel knows you, doesn’t he?’

  That was an understatement. But it was none of anyone’s business right now. ‘What story?’

  ‘It’s chiefly to do with Ted Sinclair.’ The mention of Sinclair hurt her. ‘Officially, they haven’t put out any names, as ye
t—just that it was a criminal police matter, with no politics involved.’ Elizabeth blinked. ‘But Colonel Schneider has arranged for one of the Berlin papers to pick up a leak that an innocent foreigner was unfortunately killed in the cross-fire. And they’ve put out that he was a British Council officer who’d just arrived in Berlin from Frankfurt, who was lunching a … a visitor, David.’

  ‘A visitor?’ Mitchell snapped the question. ‘With three people dead, Lizzie—? And the Berlin papers chasing everyone who was there?’

  ‘The visitor was me.’ Elizabeth threw Mitchell off. ‘And I was representing the British Ladies’ Hockey Federation, to arrange an exhibition match in the spring. And, if they check up on that, the BLHF will confirm they sent a committee member to Berlin, to examine the condition of the playing-fields.’ She tossed her head. ‘But that isn’t important … even if they could trace me … I am a BLHF committee member because I’m a Ladybird—‘

  ‘A what?

  ’

  exclaimed Mitchell.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mitchell—‘ Audley joined her. ‘Yes, Elizabeth—?’

  ‘Yes.’ Elizabeth dismissed Mitchell. ‘The name Colonel Schneider did leak was for you, David: Ted Sinclair has become “David Ordway”. And the British Council in Frankfurt has been told that their office and the BLHF were sending two people to Berlin. Do you see?’

  ‘That won’t hold for long.’ Mitchell shook his head at Elizabeth. ‘If we’re lucky … maybe another day. But no more.’

  But Audley saw. And, although Jack Butler hadn’t quite told him everything, he saw even more clearly.

  Because Butler and Schneider between them had conspired to buy him time, as Mitchell had emphasized. But, as neither of them was certain that they’d done that in spite of all their best efforts, they were letting him decide how much those efforts might be worth: that, either if he failed to elicit this information … or, even if he did, and he judged the risk too great, and played it accordingly “ … then he would act accordingly anyway … with Elizabeth and Mitchell beside him, and the Italians breathing down his neck.