Blue Noon

by Robert Ryan

  The Englishman laughed. ‘A most heinous crime, my son.’ He leant over and read the first paragraph. ‘Gettin’ above your station. What’s a daih fung?’

  ‘A big wind, and you’re right,’ Harry sighed. ‘You’ve got to know your place in this army. No different from civvy street.’

  The Englishman nodded. ‘Yup. The workers get shafted every time. Roll on the revolution, eh?’

  ‘Christ, a couple of Commies,’ muttered the American. ‘I’m glad I’m out of here.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ asked Harry. ‘And how am I meant to win my fags if you leave?’

  ‘You can get your fags anywhere you like, pal,’ he said mincingly. ‘As for the smokes, I’ll leave you a couple of packs. I’m off to Berlin.’

  ‘I hear it looks like the backside of the bleedin’ moon,’ said the Englishman. ‘You can keep it. Me, I’m back home. Warm beer, skittles, Ovaltine, Tommy Handley—all the things you Yanks don’t understand.’

  ‘Hold on, hold on,’ protested Harry. ‘You’re both goin’? What if I get a couple of half-decent card players as night duty replacements? I’ll be scuppered then.’

  The Englishman sighed and produced a pack of cards. ‘Come on then, Harry, put the memoirs down. Let’s play serious. We’ve just been feelin’ sorry for you up to now.’

  An hour later and six packs of cigarettes better off, Harry returned to his cell with his typewriter under his arm. The Englishman dutifully followed and turned the lock in the key as Harry switched on the feeble light. It wasn’t until he had slid the typewriter under the bed that he noticed the small book of matches from a bar on the floor. The Blue Noon. He flipped open the top and squinted at the tiny writing on the lid, frowning as he digested the contents.

  Odile lay in bed, haunted by shadows, from dead Americans in forests to a tiny, unformed soul born prematurely in a Resistance safe house, too weak to survive a single night. What happened to babies who died? Did they go to heaven as infants or toddlers, or did souls not reflect earthly age? She had talked it over with priests, but each had a different answer.

  She wondered if Harry had ever found out about their son. She hadn’t had time to break the news before the whole escape line collapsed, although he may have had his suspicions. He certainly hadn’t noticed the growing bump in Montluc, and the boy had been born and died by the time she had Harry ambushed in Paris. Perhaps she should have told him when he came to her that night, but she had decided she didn’t want to share her baby with Harry, even in death.

  It only took two taps at the door to wake her fully. She felt her stomach contract in fright. Even now, long after they had gone, no French person could hear an early morning knock on the door without thinking of men with little lightning flashes at their throats. She glanced at the green dial of the alarm clock. Five o’clock.

  Another rapping, more urgent this time.

  She slid out of bed, found her slippers and padded across. She put her ear to the door and jumped when a fist hit the other side. Her voice was thin and broken. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me. Let me in.’

  Odile slid back the bolt, and in a blur he was standing in the room with his arms around her. She looked up at him. ‘I thought it was …’

  ‘I know. He hasn’t been here?’

  She stepped back and put a hand to her mouth. ‘He’s free?’

  Neave nodded and she retreated across the room and found her gown, slipping it on, unable to stop shivering.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The bloody idiots had been letting him type his lies in the guard room. New roster on last night, green as you like and Harry said he’d just go to the lavatory on his way back to his cell, put the typewriter under his arm, picked up a US sergeant’s jacket on the way out and walked straight past the guard on the gate …’

  Just like he’d described walking out of Colditz to Harry. Neave realised that back in Marseilles he’d given Harry a three-part primer—uniform, attitude and a prop—in how to escape from prisons, and the man had used it faultlessly at the Paris Detention Centre.

  Neave opened his case and took out the two weapons. One was a Colt .45 OSS automatic with integral suppressor, the other a compact Browning. He handed her the smaller pistol and she instinctively dropped the magazine and checked the action. ‘You think he’ll come here?’

  ‘I don’t know. If he has any sense he’ll get out of the city.’

  ‘I thought he couldn’t touch me any more. I was wrong, wasn’t I?’

  He held her for a long time. ‘Don’t be hard on yourself, Odile. And don’t worry,’ he said softly. ‘Remember what I said about one ordinary bullet?’ Neave held up the Colt. ‘I’ll make sure it’s mine.’

  Harry was sitting in the darkened corner of Billy’s Bar, sipping a beer. His typewriter was at his feet, the US Army jacket turned inside out across his lap, and he was watching the GIs pour the cheap booze down their mouths and pass the girls between them with giddy speed. Most of the floor area was brightly lit, the walls mirrored, the music fast jazz, the dancers moving with heady abandon.

  The proprietress slipped into the alcove beside him and he stiffened, ready to bolt. ‘You’re Harry?’

  Harry was primed for a trap, but there seemed little point in denial. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Madame Herveaux. Pauline. This is my place. You like it?’

  ‘Very nice,’ said Harry cautiously. ‘Very … lively.’

  ‘And this is only Monday. You should see it on the weekend.’ She pointed at a smooth-headed black guy who was leaning on the bar, beaming at his exuberant customers as the small dance floor filled with hot bodies. ‘That’s Billy. I named it after him.’

  Harry flashed his book of matches. ‘The Blue Noon? Where did that come from?’

  ‘That’s the old name. I still have two thousand books of matches with it on. What am I going to do? Throw them away? My husband wanted it to be called The Blue Moon. The printer didn’t speak English … we got Blue Noon. I became rather fond of it.’

  ‘Why did you change it to Billy’s Bar?’

  She lit a cigarette and blew smoke from the corner of her mouth. ‘My husband left me. This place was just a hobby for him. So was I, it seems. Everything changes, Harry. Billy’s Bar sounds more American, most of our customers are American, Billy’s an American … it’s just a name.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Yeah. What’s in a name?’

  She put a hand on his knee. ‘I have a parcel for you.’ She placed a small brown package on the table and asked, ‘You need another drink?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Pauline walked over to the bar, hips swinging. She was well in her forties, but she oozed a lazy sexuality, and Harry began to wonder if she would take to comforting a lonely Englishman. It had been a while.

  He unwrapped the parcel, weighed the roll of francs in his hand and examined the rail ticket. Marseilles, one way. From there, North Africa, he reckoned, well out of harm’s way. Underneath the money, a passport. Irish, made out in the name of Hickey.

  There was no note, but he could guess who had set this up, and the message was clear. Get out of town, don’t darken our door again. He hated being told what to do.

  He rewrapped the stack of papers as Pauline sat down and he took a mouthful of the new beer.

  ‘Cheers.’ Pauline raised her gin. ‘So. What now?’ she asked.

  ‘I was wondering,’ asked Harry slowly, slipping the parcel into his jacket’s side pocket. ‘Do you rent rooms?’

  Harry was lying on the bed in the gathering gloom of a chilly twilight, working on another draft of the letter, cursing the flimsy onion skin paper, so translucent you could only write on one side, when he became aware of someone else breathing in the room. He peered into the dark corner where he could see a figure. He admired the stealth of the man, and wondered if he had entered from the door or window. A Belgian pistol, traded for the typewriter, was within his reach, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t make it. He swung upright. ‘Hello,
King.’

  A match flared, and he saw that it was indeed him.

  ‘Hello, Harry. Why are you still here?’

  Harry pointed at the crumpled balls of paper which littered the floor. ‘I have some unfinished business.’

  King reached down, unfolded one of the sheets and read the letter. It was rambling and unfocused, a long cry of pain. ‘You’ll never get near Odile. While you’re at large, she’s wrapped in cotton wool with barbed wire on the outside. It’s over, Harry.’

  King stepped forward and reached into his jacket. Harry froze, but King produced a copy of the Daily Mail. King showed him a headline on page five: POLICE HUNT TRAITOR. COWARD WHO SERVED IN FOUR ARMIES SOUGHT. The piece was illustrated with an old army photograph, in which he looked very shifty.

  ‘Fame at last,’ said Harry.

  ‘You should have left the city when you had the chance.’

  ‘Now I’m an embarrassment.’

  ‘You’re a bloody fool. I gave you one last opportunity. You were meant to stay here a day at most. It’s been weeks.’

  ‘I wondered why you did it. Why you got me out of Paris Detention Centre. Because of what I might say in court?’

  ‘Bloody hell, man, I’m in deep shit now you’re still here. I said you’d disappear, off like the wind. London wanted a Red Ribbon on you once you were lured outside PDC. Shot dead. Resisting arrest, whatever. You are right, there are those who would rather you didn’t have your day in court. Even in camera, Harry. I stuck my neck out for you …’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared.’

  King ignored him. ‘You’ve got this chap Neave lifting every stone in the city to see if you’re underneath. Oh, he won’t find you, don’t worry. He’s being called to Nuremberg I hear—his new superiors have little sympathy for him chasing a small fry like you, when he’s supposed to be helping hang twenty-odd top Nazis. Even so, they are on alert for you in Lyon and Marseilles and Toulouse, so you’ve closed those doors by leaving it so late. Cigarette?’

  Harry nodded and accepted one. His last, perhaps. ‘Why did you have a change of heart about me?’

  King shrugged. ‘Oh, I haven’t. You’re still trouble, Harry.’ He thought for a moment about the meeting with Dansey in London, the offhand chat about his future in the service once he had taken care of Harry.

  If King had known Philby, been within his cosy circle, he was sure things would be different, but it was made clear he didn’t figure in Kim’s plans for Section IX, the anti-communist desk, shaping up to be the biggest, most powerful and well-funded section of the SIS. He’d been told to request a new posting, but he knew what would happen. King would ask for Berlin or Vienna and get Cairo or Tangiers. Like all the old Z-people, he was B-listed now, being put out to grass with his master. He hadn’t seen why he should oblige those busy stabbing him in the back by dirtying his hands with Harry any more than necessary. His instincts told him that, should a scapegoat be needed somewhere down the line for SIS’s handling of the whole Cole affair, he himself might prove a little too convenient to resist.

  Eventually, King said: ‘I told you in Paris I liked you. It was one thing I wasn’t lying about. I know you did some pretty rum things, Harry, but there are men who did worse than you on the payroll now. You might have even heard of one or two of them. Klaus Barbie?’

  ‘That bastard.’

  King laughed. Harry didn’t know how right he was. Barbie was a genuine bastard, a stigma in German society that could not even be erased by the parents subsequently marrying. According to his SIS file, it was probably that humiliation which drove him into the monstrous family of the SS at such an early stage.

  ‘Barbie is playing tickle his tummy with us,’ said King. ‘You want to find a Nazi who’ll play ball? Ask Klaus. Get a man working in the Russian zone? Ask Klaus. Find the man who designed the V-2 engine?’

  ‘Shouldn’t the Daily Mail be writing about that? Butcher of Lyon now works for His Majesty’s Government?’

  ‘If the press ever found out there’d be a D-notice on them so fast their mastheads would spin. You’re exposed as a villain, Harry. Barbie may be evil, but he’s useful, so he’s a state secret.’

  ‘Can you get me out, King? North? To Belgium? I can pay.’

  ‘No, Harry. Too late. Now the newspapers have you as a big story … they want an ending.’

  ‘So you’re here to kill me.’

  ‘No, Harry. I’m here to ask you to do it for me.’

  Thirty-nine

  THE DAILY MAIL

  ‘For King and Empire’

  January 10, 1946

  BRITISH TRAITOR DIES

  IN GUNFIGHT

  In Paris Flat

  From Walter Parr

  Daily Mail Special Correspondent

  A BURST OF SHOTS from a French police inspector’s pistol in a flat in Paris today ended the life of a London electrician who had an unprecedented career of murder, treachery and espionage during the war. Harold Cole, aged 38, was known all over the Continent by a variety of aliases including ‘Captain Robert Mason’, ‘Sergeant Carpenter’ and ‘Joseph Deram’.

  His death brings to an end a comb-out of western Europe by the civilian and military police of most Allied nations, who circulated an urgent message: ‘This man is a dangerous traitor.’

  Cole began his orgy of crime by deserting from the British Expeditionary Force in France.

  He then posed as a French resistor and delivered to the Germans 150 maquis.

  ESCAPED THEM ALL

  He squandered large amounts of money intended for the Resistance in France, murdered a high German Secret Service official and was arrested in turn by the German, French, American and British Army authorities. But he escaped from them all, his last break-out being from the SHAEF gaol in Paris.

  Cole might still be at liberty but for a love affair with a French woman, Pauline Herveaux, in whose flat he was hiding. Police, who had been searching for him area by area, heard of a man ‘who seemed to be German’.

  A detective called at the block of flats on the Rue de Grenelle. The porter told Cole people had been asking about the flat.

  A FINAL DRINK

  Cole merely said to the porter: ‘Someone is after me, but I shall be gone soon. I take the train in a few hours for Belgium.’ Then, turning to Mdme. Herveaux, he said: ‘Come along, chérie, and have some champagne.’ The delay to have a final drink and a farewell celebration led to his death.

  A few hours later Police Inspectors Cotty and Levy climbed the narrow stairway leading to the flat and entered. Cole, realising he was trapped, pulled a Belgian-type pistol from his breast pocket and opened fire. One bullet wounded Inspector Cotty in the shoulder, but both officers immediately fired, killing Cole instantly.

  [This chapter has been reproduced by kind permission of the Daily Mail.]

  Forty

  Paris, early 1946

  AIREY NEAVE SLID HIS arm through Odile’s as they walked along the gravelled path of the Thiais cemetery and he felt her shudder. It was an icy winter day, the trees stripped bare by the wind, the flowers on the graves sad and wilted. She was underdressed, in a simple black two-piece suit that offered little barrier to the easterly sighing through the monuments. He offered his jacket, but she refused.

  ‘It isn’t the cold,’ she said quietly.

  Neave took her to the plot, which was simply marked by a rectangle of carelessly laid white rocks around freshly turned earth. No cross, no headstone, not a single floral tribute.

  ‘Will there be something to mark it?’ she asked.

  Neave shook his head. ‘It’s a charity burial. Nobody wanted to pay. Eventually the grave will be reclaimed, the remains placed in the ossuary.’

  ‘Why didn’t they ask me to identify the body?’

  ‘Pat O’Leary … or Albert Guérisse as he is once more, he did it.’

  ‘Guérisse? Harry was my husband, Tony. Why get someone else to do it?’

  Neave shrugged. There had been a great s
ense of relief at Cole’s death in London, and matters had been rushed through without consulting him in Nuremberg. This had been the first chance he had had to get away from the endless legal contortions of the war crimes indictments. ‘Nothing about Harry Cole was ever straightforward. You know, if he’d just left Paris immediately after he walked from the gaol, he might have got away with it. Luck gave him that one last chance … and then luck ran out on him.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s him under there.’

  Neave squeezed her arm. ‘You can read too much into things. Maybe Guérisse wanted to make sure his old enemy was really dead. Christ, he’d been promised it enough times. Even Harry Cole had to die sometime.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Can I buy you lunch?’

  ‘That’s very kind but … no. I have another grave to visit, back in the city. It would have been his birthday.’ She quickly brushed a tear away.

  ‘I wish …’ He hesitated. ‘I wish I could have killed Harry for you,’ Neave said at last.

  She touched his face. ‘You English have the strangest ways of showing affection. I’m glad we met, too, Major Neave. I’ll catch a train back, if you don’t mind. I need time to think.’

  She turned and walked away and Neave knew he’d never see her again.

  Later that day, at the second cemetery, she cleared the weeds that were growing through the white marble chips covering the plot where her son lay at rest. Already she was saving for a more substantial headstone than the thin, cheap cross that stood guard now. She wiped away the moss and dirt on the painted wood with her handkerchief; it would be some time before she would be able to afford to replace it. She stared at the long shadow of someone standing behind her for several seconds before she stood.

  It was one of the groundsmen, holding an extravagant bunch of lilies. ‘These were delivered here a few moments ago,’ he said solemnly. ‘I was going to lay them, but perhaps …’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  She took them from him, and placed them on the gravel, stripping away the thick yellow paper to reveal an envelope, taped to the stems. The card inside was pre-printed, with a slightly mawkish verse, but there was something written underneath it. A single letter and an X, a kiss.