by Mike Ripley
‘Well, you know what they say about secrets,’ said Lugg, concentrating on a futile attempt to make his napkin stretch over his stomach.
‘Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead? That was Benjamin Franklin, wasn’t it?’
Lugg was nonplussed. ‘And as he’s dead now, his secret’s really safe; but that’s probably sound advice. Best way to deal with secrets is to not ’ave ’em in the first place.’
‘I am told …’ Precious paused for a dramatic effect she was sure would be lost on her audience, ‘… that Campion isn’t Albert’s real name; it isn’t even Albert!’
Lugg concentrated on the empty table space in front of him, as if trying to conjure up his dessert by telepathic osmosis, or whatever it was young Master Longfox had invented. With the tips of his fingers he carefully rearranged his fork and spoon into what he had assured Precious was called ‘the starting grid’ position, and only when he was completely satisfied with their positioning did he reply.
‘There’s no secret there, my lass, or if there is it’s a secret known to all the high and mighty in the land, plus quite a few of the lower orders, and even them that don’t know they’ve got the vote yet, by which I mean mostly the Picts and Scots north of Hadrian’s Wall.’
‘I didn’t know!’ Precious objected. ‘So, what is Albert Campion? Is it some sort of nom de guerre?’
‘I’ve heard his Nibs refer to it as his nom de plume, but I can’t say my French is up to much.’
‘Then what’s his real John Hancock?’
‘It’s certainly not John Hancock, whoever he is, it’s …’
A shiny black, dress-suited shoulder interposed itself between the two of them and then a head, slick and pungent with Brylcreem, lowered itself in parallel with Mr Lugg’s giant orb, the effect produced being that of a solar eclipse.
‘Mr Lugg, sir,’ said the waiter. ‘Sorry to disturb, you being off-duty, so to speak, but would you mind accompanying me to the kitchens? There’s a bit of a problem you could p’rhaps help us with.’
Snorting like a horse refusing a fence and shaking his head at the unfairness of life, Mr Lugg rose majestically to his feet and reluctantly took command.
TEN
Bouillabaisse
Marseilles, 1942
I had found myself up to my neck in a cauldron of simmering stew, almost certainly a fish stew, this being Marseilles, and I thought it imperative that I knew what was going on before I jumped out of the pot and felt the flames nipping at my toes. Part of my problem was that Robert, who superbly combined the roles of old and distinguished friend with that of mortal enemy, clearly thought I was as clever as he was. I therefore asked him to confirm the situation so that a bear of very little brain, to cite one of my heroes, could understand it.
There was a cabal – I could think of no better word – made up of serving officers of the SD, with easy access to ‘appropriated assets’ (mostly appropriated from Jewish sources), corrupt Vichy politicians making personal profits out of government supply contracts, and the well-established Marseilles underworld with all their traditional ways of raising funds. The cabal was moving its ill-gotten gains from both the Occupied Zone and Vichy into fake bank accounts in French banks in colonial North Africa, which not only ‘washed’ the cash to disguise its origin, but would also prove a sound financial investment if the invading Americans turned it into dollars rather than if the invading Nazis converted their deposits into Reichsmarks.
This was a criminal conspiracy, not a political operation nor a military stratagem, but in the current climate the forces of law and order seemed thin on the ground. The Marseilles underworld was a law unto itself; no one in Vichy government circles had the stomach for an investigation (as politicians rarely enthuse about turning over stones to see what corruption lies beneath), and any accusations against officers of the SD by officers of the Abwehr would be put down to inter-service rivalry and jealousy, possibly even treason. The criminals and the profiteers who made up this cabal were powerful and anonymous. Apprehending them would be as difficult as trying to handcuff an octopus, but I felt that Robert, with his web of contacts, must surely be able to identify the individuals involved, or at least have an idea of some ‘usual suspects’ – a group of people, as I understood it, the Vichy police were very fond of rounding up. But he protested that he was as much in the dark as I was.
‘My Nazi overlords are skilled at covering their tracks when it comes to money. Our beloved Führer publicly rejects worldly goods and advocates the simple life, yet his deputy in the party, Martin Bormann, collects millions of Reichsmarks from the royalties on Mein Kampf and from putting Hitler’s head on postage stamps, and the SS have a whole network of bank accounts under the name Max Heiliger, which contain loot and cash from Jewish homes. This cabal is even cleverer. Money is flowing from fake bank accounts in France to new, fake accounts in Tunis, Algiers, Oran and Rabat. The only person who knows the names of those accounts, and the real names behind them, is the man who opened them: Nathan Lunel.’
Given M. Lunel’s current indisposition in a concentration camp, this did not bode well for us; nor indeed for him. But if Lunel had vital, and valuable, information locked away in his filing-cabinet banker’s brain, why was he not using it as leverage to negotiate his release?
‘You have to understand,’ Robert told me, ‘Lunel is a Jew. An SD or an SS officer could not be seen to negotiate with a Jew, and Vichy officials would see no reason to risk showing sympathy for one, especially one who has clearly collaborated with Germans in the Occupied Zone. The gangsters of Marseilles would certainly like to protect their investments, but even they cannot influence proceedings in a concentration camp, not now that the Final Solution is under way.’
I had not heard that sinister phrase before and, to my eternal shame, I did not pause to consider the full horror of its meaning, but instead gabbled on about the first thing that came into my head.
‘Does the Abwehr not have the authority to interview a prisoner in a concentration camp – without arousing suspicion, that is?’
‘It could have, but so could a Canadian diplomat researching for, say, the Red Cross …’
‘I see,’ I said, ‘so I take it that Jean-Baptiste Hamelin, despite being assaulted and robbed, still has a role to play?’
‘I think so,’ said Robert, who clearly had thought about it, ‘and he will need his stolen wallet, so we to have recover that, or rather Didier Ducret will.’
‘And who, pray, is Didier Ducret?’
I might have guessed.
‘You, of course, just as soon as you get your new identity card and work permit tomorrow. Didier Ducret is one of my most trusted employees, as a warehouseman and occasionally a driver; though as we are an important German import/export firm, that does not necessarily make him popular with his fellow Frenchmen. We shall make him come from Poitiers or Bordeaux, somewhere like that, which will explain why he does not have the local Marseilles accent and why he has to ask stupid questions to find his way around the city. Of course, the Ducret identity is only if you are challenged by the police or Vichy officials. Everyone has to have papers, and yours will be top quality, certainly good enough to fool the locals. In the evening, back at your hotel, you can be a Canadian diplomat. During the working day you will be Didier Ducret, scouring the back streets of the Old Port for a man with a flesh wound in his shoulder.’
‘That shouldn’t take him long,’ I observed. ‘How will he fill his time after lunch?’
Robert scowled at me. It was a scowl perfected long ago by disappointed schoolmasters and sergeant majors.
‘I am sure you did not tell your colleagues in London that you were nipping over to France for a holiday with an old chum who just happens to be an officer in the Abwehr. You will have a contingency plan – some contacts here in Marseilles …’ he held up a hand to forestall an interruption I had no intention of making, ‘… which I would not expect you to divulge. I have told you, I am not interested
in making you reveal secrets, only obtaining your help.’
My immediate future prospects began to dawn on me and they were far from rosy. Here was I deep in hostile, if not technically enemy, territory, a lone British agent – oh, very well then, a spy – posing as a Canadian diplomat, who was being asked to pose as a part-time Frenchman using identity papers forged by German military intelligence. Such was my predicament, my starting point, my launching pad. I was to be no more than a bullet; but where was Robert aiming the gun?
‘I get the distinct impression that I might be seen as doing your dirty work,’ I told him.
‘Then do not be seen doing it,’ he replied with frighteningly Teutonic logic. ‘If we meet on the street, we are enemies or, at best, strangers. In private, we must be allies if this conspiracy – this criminal conspiracy – is to be foiled. I hope you agree that it is worth foiling.’
‘As a fencer, your weapon of choice was always the sabre rather than the foil, but perhaps that’s just me being flippant.’
‘It is; and it is a habit you must get out of. The people you will deal with in this matter do not have our famous German sense of humour.’
I was suitably chastised, or at least tried to look as if I was. I agreed that the cause, as outlined by Robert, was just, and that the cabal of thieves had to be exposed or their plans disrupted, but I was still not sure what I could do that the Abwehr could not.
‘You will go into places I dare not visit, or at least not without a company of well-armed men to guard my back. You will find the contacts you have no doubt been given, those with Free French sympathies – I do not wish to know the details – and ask for their help in finding the man who took your wallet. That, of course, is your cover story.’
‘My dear chap, I now have so many cover stories I feel positively smothered! Why do I need another?’
‘Perhaps you do not,’ Robert explained with the patience of a saint. ‘Perhaps you have contingency plans in place; but if you followed the trail of crumbs I laid, London assumes you are here to gather information on the experiments in underwater diving being conducted by the French navy, correct?’
‘Something like that,’ I said, concentrating on not giving too much away and thinking how difficult this spying business was.
‘In which case,’ he continued, ‘whatever plan you had for getting home to England – and again I do not need to know the details – was for you and you alone. Now you need to make contact with your networks here in Marseilles because you will need their help to get you and Nathan Lunel out of Vichy. It is vital to get the information he carries in his head to the Allies who will invade North Africa and take over the Vichy banks. I cannot do that, because I would not be trusted by the Gaullists and certainly suspected by the SD. You are not the only one surrounded by enemies, Albert.’
‘Yet you managed to get Étienne Fleurey out of Vichy, through the Occupied Zone and across the Channel.’
‘That was one man; though he is a quite charming fellow, I have to say he was a man of little importance. Nathan Lunel is important – to the powerful and dangerous people whose secrets he holds. They do not want him to fall into the wrong hands and would rather see him dead. It is a great irony that Nathan Lunel is, at the moment, in the safest place he could be: a concentration camp.’
I was getting the picture, slowly and fuzzily, but yet it was not quite the full picture and I decided to press Robert further. I never did know when to leave well enough alone.
‘I still don’t understand why Lunel has not traded what he knows about those bank accounts for his freedom, or why he hasn’t just taken off on his own. If he has access to unlimited funds which officially don’t exist, then money would not be a problem. He could have bought a new identity and a passage to Spain or Switzerland and travelled in style, I suspect.’
Robert vented his frustration by grinding the stub of his cigarillo into his ashtray with far more violence than was necessary.
‘The problem is that Nathan Lunel will not leave France,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Not without his wife.’
I let that sink in and was about to ask Robert if there was any other minor detail it might be worth me knowing, but as usual he was thinking ahead of me.
‘And the wife,’ he said calmly, ‘is missing.’
I hate to say it, but I slept like a baby under the roof provided by the Abwehr, though for nowhere near as long as I would have liked. I was gently shaken awake by a member of the Libéria’s day shift, a muscular young man who looked as if he would rather be holding a machine pistol than a metal tray with a bowl of steaming coffee and a plate containing a round bread roll (stale), a smear of unidentifiable jam (possibly fruit-based) and a square of grease that could have been margarine, which, after all, was a French invention.
We had agreed that I should return to the Hôtel Moderne as soon as possible, before my absence was reported to the local police, and though my suit had been, remarkably, cleaned, brushed and pressed overnight, I still appeared as a complete scruff who had enjoyed a night out on the tiles. That was exactly the look I was going for, as my excuse for not using my room would be that I had fallen into bad company; the company in question being female, which would hopefully garner some sympathy from the toad-like French receptionist.
As it turned out, it was a harassed young man behind the desk at the Moderne who handed me my room key, though from his amphibian features, I suspected a family connection to the previous day’s incumbent. He was not the slightest bit interested in my night-time activities, no matter how much I spiced up the story of my imaginary tryst with a lady of the Marseilles night, not even when I made it two ladies of the night.
I resisted the urge to shave and brush my hair, and changed into the clothes Robert had supplied for ‘Didier Ducret’, which I had smuggled into my room at the Moderne by the cunning ruse of carrying them, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string, under my arm. It was as Didier Ducret that I shuffled down to the harbour as the morning got under way, thinking myself into the character. Where Canadian Jean-Baptiste Hamelin would have strolled in all innocence, Didier Ducret was the sort who shuffled, and furtively at that.
I had a deadline to work to, having agreed to take lunch at the café on Joliette station, not on Robert’s recommendation but at Robert’s insistence, but apart from that I had been left to my own devices. As I made my way down to the Quai des Belges, I realized why Robert had specified a station buffet bar: that would be far more in character for Didier Ducret. The dashing Jean-Baptiste Hamelin, a sophisticated and intelligent man-of-the-world (as I saw him) would surely be more attracted to the establishments Ducret was shuffling past as he made his way off La Canebière and on to the Quai des Belges. On the corner stood the impressive brasserie Le Mont Ventoux, and next door to it – under a garish striped awning – the Café au Brûleur de Loups – the restaurant of the wolf-burner, for some bizarre reason. Both, I knew, were hotbeds of intellectuals and artists arguing about art and politics in a dozen or more different languages, thanks to the influx of refugees. It was very fortunate that there were two such establishments, as it was well known that communists and surrealists did not mix well.
No, Didier Ducret would not feel at home there. His natural hunting ground was further round the harbour in the dank narrow streets of the Vieux Port quarter, which led through to the cathedral and the big dock ‘basins’ of Joliette, Lazaret and Arenc.
If I had been the inquisitive Canadian tourist showing initiative, I might have followed the tram lines along the quay and around Fort St Jean which guarded the northern side of the entrance to the old port. But a working man such as Didier Ducret would surely be able to find his way through the backstreets. It would probably not have taken him over an hour, getting lost at least three times, but he would have emerged from that claustrophobic maze of stone, brick and wooden shutters into the shadow of the cathedral, relatively confident that he had not been followed.
Whether a real Didier D
ucret would have paused to admire the towers and domes of the cathedral, the Byzantine-Romanesque style giving the building something of a Moorish feel, for as long as I did was a moot point. It was an impressive building, as cathedrals are supposed to be, and belied the fact that it had been completely rebuilt only fifty or so years before. Ducret’s perhaps uncharacteristic interest in religious architecture did, however, have a reward on Earth as well as Heaven, as it showed him that he had been guilty of pride and overconfidence when he realized he had been followed after all.
Having made sure I had a handful of coins for the offertory box or collection plate – whichever confronted me first – I screwed up my eyes to get them used to the lower light level and plunged into the cool of the cathedral to seek sanctuary.
The young – frighteningly young – girl who had been stalking me so successfully had paused only long enough to produce a headscarf from somewhere to cover her hair (no good Catholic girl was ever without one) and was hot on my heels.
In her enthusiasm, she walked straight by the pew where I was kneeling, head bowed, inhaling a heady mix of dust and stale incense, her wooden-soled sandals clip-clopping down the nave. Fortunately, at that time of the morning, there was no service in progress, no priests or nuns, and only a few scattered devotees to be disturbed when I coughed loudly and indiscreetly.
The girl turned as if stung and let forth an expletive which she would certainly have to confess later; I estimated that particular expletive to be worth at least several hundred Hail Marys, with a few dozen more added because she had made no attempt at a theatrical hand-over-the-mouth reflex or looked remotely contrite.
‘You think you are so clever,’ she hissed as she approached my pew, ‘but you have the luck of the fool.’
‘I am told it is the best kind of luck to have, mademoiselle,’ I said politely, moving along the pew penitentially to offer her space, ‘but I admit I was told that by a fool. Will you not join me in quiet reflection and contemplation?’ I deliberately avoided the word ‘prayer’ as, although in God’s house, we were certainly not about his business.
