Palmer waited for a few heartbeats, but when she added nothing more, he said, ‘We need to find some proof of your brother’s contact with the man he was working with. Something tangible — maybe a name. Otherwise we can’t touch him. Was there anything Claus said to you, that you recall? Any details about his movements, how he contacted this man… where the man stayed? We believe he must have travelled across the border, so did Claus ever say where they met?’
Cecile shook her head. ‘No. Nothing like that. He would not have dared, you see.’
Riley leaned forward, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
But Cecile shook her head, and it was Palmer who supplied the answer, speaking softly. ‘Claus knew she was working with the authorities. It was too risky, even among families.’
‘Oh.’ Riley felt suddenly immensely sorry for this woman, and realised the burden she was living with. Her brother must have gone to his grave wondering if it had been his sister who had finally betrayed him.
‘There is something else, is there not?’ Cecile said suddenly, eyeing them both in turn. ‘I do not think you would be here if all he had done was steal art works and ship weapons. That would be for the authorities to deal with.’
Several seconds went by, then Palmer nodded. ‘We think the man we are after told Claus that he would help him cross to the west. But he betrayed him.’
The old woman stared at Palmer, her face undergoing a whole range of emotions she could not contain. ‘‘How? How did he betray him?’
‘We don’t know. But the border guards knew Claus was coming. They were ready for him. I’m very sorry.’ He put his hands on his knees and began to rise.
‘Wait.’ Cecile raised her hand. She had a hint of tears in her eyes, and a look of dawning awareness on her face. She stood and motioned Palmer to stay where he was, then walked out of the conservatory. They listened to her walking upstairs, then came some muffled thumps, as if she was moving boxes, followed by her footsteps coming back down. She returned to the room with a cigar box, which she opened. Inside was a bundle of photographs, some of them pierced through with drawing pins, as if they had been hastily taken down from a wall and not looked at since. She withdrew the photos and knelt down, spreading them across the coffee table in front of her visitors.
‘These are all I have from…that time,’ she said quietly. ‘A few photos of our family which I kept on a board in the kitchen. It is all I managed to bring with me.’ They were a collection of standard family shots, some relaxed, some obviously posed. They could have been of any family group in the world, with a range of nervous half smiles, or tilted squints against a sunny day, save for the drab clothing and surroundings which betrayed their origins. Cecile shuffled them around, then placed her finger on one of the shots and pushed it across the table.
‘They came to our house one day. It was to meet a truck. Claus told me not to show myself, because it was better that way. I did as he asked. But a few days before, I had been given a small gift by a member of the Trade Ministry I had worked with. It had been difficult work with long hours, and he had been very pleased because he was being promoted. He had been given a camera by an American visitor, but he could not be seen to use it in his position, so he gave it to me. I took this photo. Claus never knew, of course. He would have been very angry with me.’
The photo showed a group of three men, all in long coats and hats. The ground around them was covered in snow, and they were standing at the rear of an old army truck with a canvas screen. One of the men was elderly, with a bent back. He appeared to be pulling the screen away from the truck while the other two watched. One of these two was tall and well built, and it was obvious by his features that he was related to Cecile Wachter. The man beside him, apparently smiling at something one of the others had said, was shorter, with darker skin and a thin face. He looked younger than he did now, of course, but there was no mistaking the features.
It was Arthur Radnor.
Chapter 27
Riley and Palmer drove back towards central London in silence, leaving Cecile Wachter staring at the collection of memories spread out on her coffee table. In spite of their requests and promises to take care of it, she had steadfastly refused to let them have the photo of Claus and Radnor, saying it was the last one she had of her brother and could not bear to part with it.
Palmer had relented, suggesting they bring back a portable scanner or copier so the photo wouldn’t have to leave her possession. She had agreed with reluctance, but only if they didn’t come back until tomorrow, as she had some translation work to complete and could not afford to miss her deadline.
‘Did we do the right thing?’ Riley eventually broke the silence, ‘telling her what Radnor did?’
‘She already knew,’ Palmer replied with conviction. ‘She just didn’t want to say it. It meant opening up all the memories.’
‘Maybe.’ Minutes later, she said, ‘One thing puzzles me. Bringing Wachter over would have cut Radnor’s supply-line to the artwork, wouldn’t it?’
‘I doubt it. If Radnor was any good as an agent-runner, he’d have had a standby waiting in the background. It’s how people like him operate. Never put all your eggs, and so forth. His bigger problem was Wachter, who could put him in prison if he ever got to the West.’
‘So he killed him.’
‘Cleverer than that: he allowed the border guards to do it. That way, no involvement, no links back to him. It happened all the time, so who would question it? Not the East Germans; as far as they were concerned, Wachter was a crook and a malcontent, so no great loss. Radnor’s men would have had time to strip the body of any incriminating evidence before we got there, and Radnor possessed the clout to cover it up as an Intelligence matter, so no questions were asked.’
‘Except by Reg Paris.’
‘Yeah. Except by Reg.’
‘It was still very risky, though. What if Wachter had got through somewhere else?’
‘Radnor probably had limited choices. Getting an isolated farmer on the western side of the border out of the way for a couple of days was fairly easy — especially with the promise of a compensation payment. But bribing an East German border guard or trying to co-opt their local military or intelligence hierarchy would have been impossible without blowing his cover. Radnor needed an insurance policy.’
‘The man with the rifle.’
‘Yes. If it looked like Wachter was going to make it across, his man would shoot him and they’d retrieve the body and blame the border guards. It was his way of controlling the situation.’
‘Or so he thought.’
‘Well, it worked. He had the authority to call out the nearest RMPs, to make it look like a military or Intelligence matter, and to keep a tight lid on it. The army weren’t about to argue — they don’t like getting snarled up in intelligence issues, anyway. They’d have treated him like germ warfare and kept him at a safe distance.’
‘Except for Reg.’
‘Reg was suspicious about it from the start. He probably made it a bit too clear what he thought and Radnor realised he’d got the wrong military cop involved. I was too junior and inexperienced, so I didn’t count. But Reg was something else. In the end, Radnor must have decided he couldn’t risk it, because if Reg discovered the farmer had been eased out of the way under a false pretext, he might have blown the whole thing wide open.’
‘So he killed Reg, too.’
‘I’d lay money on it. I don’t know how, but he either arranged for the truck to follow him and wipe him out, or he put something in a drink along the way, timed to take hold along the motorway. Radnor probably bailed out early on some pretext, saying he would meet Reg in Frankfurt.’
‘Wouldn’t Reg have been suspicious?’
‘He hated spooks — he was probably glad to get rid of him. Anyway, on the way to making an official statement, what was there to suspect? It would all have seemed on the level, and there’s no way Reg would have suspected Radnor was going to kill him. They were o
n the same side, for Christ’s sake.’
‘But Radnor never counted on a woman with a camera. Is that photo going to be enough to stand up?’
‘It proves Radnor knew Claus Wachter, and it puts him in East Germany. Where doesn’t matter, because we know Wachter never left until the day he died. Whether Radnor has a story for knowing Wachter that would tie into his Intelligence brief… I’ve no idea. But if I was in Radnor’s shoes, I’d say the photo Cecile took was enough to bury me.’
They were silent for a few more minutes, then Riley said, ‘It would be helpful if we can definitely link Radnor and Michael to Gillivray’s death.’
Palmer shrugged. ‘There’s the tie clip. But if the police didn’t come up with something more positive, I’m not sure we will.’
‘The people in Gillivray’s office might know something. I could go back and give it a try.’
‘Why you?’ Palmer didn’t doubt her abilities or her courage, but was aware of the risks, especially if Radnor or Michael saw her in the building.
‘Because they might open up more easily to me. And I’m not the one who braced him with the papers.’ She smiled artfully, knowing she had the upper hand. ‘And I can change my appearance so they’ll never recognise me. Don’t argue, Palmer — you know it makes sense.’
Michael watched Riley and Palmer drive away from the house where Cecile Wachter lived, and dialled a number on his mobile.
‘Yes?’ Radnor answered, a hum of traffic in the background. He was out looking for other warehouse premises to replace the void left in the wake of Palmer and Riley’s visit, and had tasked Michael to keep an eye on the two investigators. Michael had lost them on the way out of central London, but a chance call to Radnor, who knew of Cecile Wachter’s presence in the area, had led him here.
‘They’ve just left the Wachter woman’s house,’ Michael reported. ‘They were there for twenty minutes, maybe less.’
‘How did they seem?’
‘Neither pleased nor displeased. Perhaps she did not tell them anything.’ He was toying with a small set of binoculars. They had proved useless against Wachter’s net curtains, and there had been too many nosey neighbours to allow him to check the rear of the house. ‘But something tells me they might be back.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Because of who they are… their body language. And I do not think they are the kind to wait for others to call. Do you?’
There was a brief silence, then Radnor said, ‘I agree. Wachter’s no longer in the east, and I don’t trust these people not to get something out of her. I should have thought of this before, when she first came over here.’
Michael did not argue the point, but said, ‘What can she tell them? You said Wachter never spoke of your involvement, because he didn’t trust her. She can hardly implicate you now.’
‘We don’t know if he stuck to that. Claus might have given her something — some documents, maybe, to use if she had to.’ He paused, then asked: ‘Can you get in without being seen?’
‘Of course.’
‘All right. Do it.’
Michael switched off the phone and got out of the car. There was nobody in sight, and traffic was a muted sound in the distance. He walked along the pavement and turned in at the Wachter house. He rang the bell.
Cecile Wachter answered the door with a faint smile, clearly expecting to see Palmer and Riley back again. ‘It is not yet tomorrow-’ The smile dropped from her face and the words died on her lips. She stared at Michael for several seconds, confusion giving way to a kind of recognition. The expression meant she had seen men like him before, and knew what he represented. She moved quickly, driven by desperation and catching him by surprise. She tried to close the door, but only managed to slip the safety chain into place. Then she turned and hurried down the hall towards the rear of the house.
Michael stepped up close to the door and lunged forward with his shoulder. The wood was old and brittle, and the chain parted with a low crack. He strode after her, slamming the door behind him. He knew he might only have a few minutes before someone came to investigate the noise, although experience told him people in most cities were remarkably keen not to get involved with the troubles of others. He caught up with her in a conservatory. She was on her knees by a coffee table, clutching a handful of faded photos and trying frantically to stuff them into a small wooden box. Even when he stood over her, she ignored him and continued with her efforts, mouth set in a stubborn line.
Michael checked the conservatory door, satisfied that she wasn’t going anywhere. It was private and secluded here, with no overlooking windows. But there was a back gate just a few yards away. He nodded in satisfaction and took off his jacket, laying it across the arm of a wicker chair and taking care not to crease the sleeves.
‘Going over old times?’ he asked quietly in German, eyeing the photos. ‘How sentimental.’ One had fallen from her trembling hands, and he bent and retrieved it, craning his neck to study the faded image. It showed three elderly women in heavy, sombre clothing, sitting outside a house and smiling nervously at the camera. The detail told him nothing, as it would tell others who might look. He flicked it away with a hiss of contempt. It clattered off the furniture with a dry sound.
‘What do you want?’ asked Cecile, her voice a whisper. She had given up trying to put the photos away, and was now still, not looking at him. Instead, her eyes were on the garden outside, staring through the window at the ordered shrubs and flower borders as if seeing another country a long, long way off.
Chapter 28
Szulu checked his rear mirror and wondered if he was imagining things. He was sure he’d seen the same car behind him now more than once, ever since collecting Lottie Grossman from her hotel. It kept reappearing, as if the driver was unsure of his route and trying to find shortcuts, but inevitably staying on their tail. Unfortunately, with the level of commuter and other traffic, keeping tabs on one specific car was practically impossible. Szulu shook his head, telling himself not to get paranoid.
‘I need to get out of this place for a while,’ Lottie had told him when he’d called her on the way to the hotel earlier that morning. ‘It’s stifling in here, and those tablets aren’t doing me any good.’ Her voice had taken on a whining quality, adding to the slurring of her words after she’d been taken ill. As for the hotel, it was air-conditioned throughout. Maybe she was having hot flushes, like his gran used to get. He shuddered at the idea of this woman suffering the same ailments as any normal woman.
It had cost him a small fortune to get his arm patched up, but it was better than tangling with the cops. Fortunately, the quack had located the bullet nestling just beneath the skin, and hadn’t had to dig around too much. Even so, the pain had been intense enough to have Szulu yelling like a baby.
‘Fair enough,’ he said, relieved he wasn’t expected to go out and buy an Uzi to blow anyone away. He still hadn’t worked out how to break things off with the old woman without her going ballistic, but he’d have to come up with something sooner or later or he’d do something desperate.
‘So what happened?’ Her voice interrupted his thoughts as they cruised past Runnymede, with the river on the left. ‘Did you deliver the message?’
Szulu nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. He hadn’t told her about being shot, or the addition to the scene of yet another psychotic military type, and hoped the bandages the quack had applied weren’t obvious beneath the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Sure. They didn’t like it. You really have history, don’t you?’
He saw Lottie nodding in the back seat, her eyes half closed. ‘Oh, yes. We have history, all right.’ There was a pause, then: ‘You got hurt, didn’t you?’
Szulu looked in the mirror, surprised she’d noticed. ‘A bit, yeah. Not much. A flesh wound.’
‘A flesh wound? Christ, who shot you — Palmer?’ She cackled dryly. ‘He’s a one, isn’t he? I’m surprised to hear he’s tooled up, though.’
Szulu glanced in the mirror,
surprised at her use of slang. He sighed and decided to tell her everything, in spite of the big guy’s warning. Anyway, what could he do to him that he hadn’t done already? ‘It wasn’t Palmer. There was another bloke turned up. The Gavin woman called him John. Big, a bit posh like, but tough. Seemed to know all about guns.’ He explained that he’d taken the.22 with him for protection, but that it had misfired when he’d been startled by the cat.
For the second time in as many minutes, the old woman laughed, but it was a dry cackling sound with no element of humour. Szulu felt his ears burning with shame at the memory.
‘You aren’t cut out for this game, are you, Mr Szulu?’ said Lottie perceptively, rubbing at her eyes. ‘Scared by a cat, eh? Dear me. Still, you were lucky he only put a shot in your arm. His name’s Mitcheson. Ex-army. He worked for me, once, for a short while. Tough fella, all right… I could have done with more like him. Would’ve made a fortune with him alongside me.’
She fell silent and stared out of the window as if recalling missed opportunities. They entered the outskirts of Egham, Szulu taking the Lexus on a random tour to avoid traffic, with no particular destination in mind. Aimless seemed the best way to go at the moment. After a mile or so, Lottie stirred again.
‘Stop here, Mr Szulu. Anywhere will do.’
Szulu stopped the car as ordered, and looked around. They were in a quiet street bordered by chestnut trees, the kerb on either side lined with cars. Middle class, middle income, nice lives; if they had any worries, the people who lived here, they kept them well hidden behind their neat gardens and smart house fronts. He switched off the ignition and turned to look at Lottie Grossman, wondering what she was going to do next.
‘Now I’ve told you my secrets,’ he said finally, ‘how about yours?’
‘Pardon me?’ Her voice was slurred again, her lips barely moving.
‘Well, you wanted out of the hotel pretty quick, it seemed to me. Why’s that?’
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