The Account

by Roderick Mann

  ‘He went there several times. One day the Reichsmarschall made him a proposition. From time to time he wished to deposit sums of money in this man’s bank in Switzerland. It was not that he feared for the future, he said, but with Europe soon to be plunged into war it paid to be prudent.’

  ‘How did the banker react to that?’ Ravenel asked.

  ‘He was flattered, of course; flattered to be taken into the confidence of the Reichsmarschall. Who wouldn’t have been?’

  ‘Wasn’t this banker worried that someone in his own bank would talk?’

  Linge shook his head. ‘He knew nobody would. The Swiss Banking Act sets down harsh penalties for that.’

  Ravenel nodded. He knew the act. ‘What was the banker’s name?’

  ‘You want a lot for your money,’ Linge said. ‘His name was Eberhardt. He was an admirer of ours. From 1938 until 1942 I and another aide made ten trips to Geneva. We deposited more than $200 million in an account for Goering at his bank.’

  ‘Good God,’ Ravenel said. ‘Dollars? Not Reichsmarks?’

  ‘Dollars,’ Linge repeated. ‘He had his eye on the future. Most of it was money seized from wealthy Jews who had been forced to flee the country or who were sent to the camps.’

  ‘How did you take the money into Switzerland?’

  ‘In suitcases. We wore civilian clothes. We had to be careful, even with passes signed by the Reichsmarschall. Switzerland was full of agents trying to identify German holders of bank accounts. It was against the law, you see. After 1936 holders of undeclared assets abroad could be hanged.’

  ‘What was your reward for doing this?’

  ‘We were simply doing our duty. But we got to spend a week’s leave in Switzerland. Drink some decent coffee. Bring back some of the things we couldn’t get at home.’

  ‘And Eberhardt was happy to do all this?’

  ‘Happy?’ Linge laughed drily. ‘He was overjoyed. Until 1945 the Swiss were convinced that Germany would win the war. Eberhardt welcomed the money. He knew it would ensure him a place in the Reichsmarschall’s good books after the war.’

  ‘Then Goering was hanged at Nuremberg –’

  ‘No. The night before the execution he committed suicide.’

  ‘What happened to the money?’

  ‘What do you think? It stayed in the bank. Unclaimed.’

  ‘You could have gone to the authorities.’

  ‘What authorities? There were no authorities. Germany was in ruins.’

  ‘What about the bank? Did you contact them?’

  ‘I tried. Eberhardt called the police and had me deported.’

  ‘It’s an incredible story,’ Ravenel said. ‘Absolutely incredible. You’ve never told it before?’

  ‘I’ve told it often,’ Linge said testily. ‘Nobody believes me. Why should they? It’s all in the past. And there’s no evidence.’

  Except at the Banque Eberhardt, Ravenel thought. And I have that.

  He glanced again at the photograph of the two young officers on the mantelpiece. He took out the sheaf of $100 bills.

  ‘I have one more question,’ he said.

  Ravenel waited until he got back to Nuremberg before calling Cristiani.

  ‘How’s it going?’ the investigator asked.

  ‘I’ve just had a talk with Heinz Linge.’

  ‘He’s still alive, then? That’s a piece of luck. Was he co-operative?’

  ‘It’s amazing how much co-operation you can get for $10,000,’ Ravenel said.

  There was a snort at the end of the line. ‘You paid him that much?’

  ‘I didn’t want to waste time.’

  ‘I hope it was worth it?’

  ‘It was,’ Ravenel assured him. ‘Can you take shorthand?’

  ‘No,’ Cristiani growled. ‘That’s why I have a secretary.’

  ‘I don’t want to involve her. You’ll have to take it down in long hand,’ Ravenel said. ‘This is a letter I want you to hand deliver to Eberhardt tomorrow morning.’

  Chapter 43

  Paul Eberhardt resisted the impulse to slam down the phone on Grace Brand. But he was determined to give her one last chance to change her mind.

  ‘What developments? What are you talking about?’ Her voice was cold, the line to Mexico very clear.

  ‘I have received a most disturbing letter, Madame Brand. A man named Ravenel, acting for Mademoiselle Lang.’

  ‘I have already made my position clear with regard to this matter. I am not interested in further discussion.’

  ‘But this letter –’

  ‘Some rapacious lawyer. Ignore it.’

  ‘Madame Brand, I cannot do that. He warns that if payment is not made to Mademoiselle Lang he will contact the New York Times. He knows about –’

  ‘He knows nothing. How could he? There was one written note.’

  ‘He has a copy, he claims.’

  ‘Impossible. You still have the original?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then he’s bluffing. Why are you wasting my time?’

  ‘Madame Brand. I cannot take that risk …’

  ‘I will say this one last time, Monsieur Eberhardt. Not one penny is to go to this woman. Now or ever.’

  ‘It was Monsieur Brand’s last wish.’

  ‘He’s dead, you fool. Dead! Can’t you understand that?’ Her voice rose. ‘I control the Brand accounts now.’

  ‘You don’t seem to understand –’

  ‘I will see you in Paris, Monsieur Eberhardt. I advise you not to go against my wishes.’

  She hung up.

  Eberhardt sat slumped at his desk, staring at the phone in his hand. He put it down slowly and picked up the letter that Cristiani had handed him. He read it again. This was no bluff. Guy Ravenel knew everything. And unless the money was paid immediately to Julia Lang he would go straight to the newspapers. The thought horrified Eberhardt. In two days’ time he was due to fly to Paris. How could he do it with this threat hanging over him?

  Grace Brand believed this man Ravenel was bluffing. But bluff could not explain the last, ominous sentence in the letter: I send you best wishes from former Lt Heinz Linge who is sure you will remember him.

  Eberhardt read the sentence again, his hand trembling. How had they found him? He had thought him long dead.

  There was no alternative. He would have to do what Ravenel demanded.

  He toyed briefly with the idea of telephoning Julia Lang. Since his meeting with her he had found himself sympathizing with her more and more. She was up against a dangerous woman – did she realize that? He felt a need to explain his actions to her.

  But that was foolish. She might not even listen to him. He sighed and picked up the phone and authorized payment of $20 million to Julia Lang through the Midland Bank in the Channel Islands.

  The act gave him a feeling of satisfaction. Robert Brand had wanted her to have the money. Now she was getting it. Despite the machinations of that crazed woman in Acapulco.

  Then, taking the black notebook from his pocket, he made his last call of the day.

  For Julia the days dragged slowly. She had heard nothing from Ravenel since he announced he was going to Paris. Now some of the excitement generated by her Geneva adventure had begun to abate. If he had the evidence, what was he waiting for? Why could he not challenge the bank? Each night she awaited his call.

  Some days she felt completely wiped out. She had put her fatigue down to emotional exhaustion but at her last visit to Dr Grierson he had taken her to task.

  ‘You seem to forget, Julia, that you are nearly three months pregnant. Of course you get exhausted. All women carrying a child do. Your whole body is undergoing changes.’ He completed his examination. ‘Everything seems just fine,’ he said. ‘Still feeling nauseous?’

  ‘Not so much.’

  ‘That will pass. Anything else?’

  ‘I get very depressed.’

  ‘Mood swings are quite normal during pregnancy.’ He scribbled something down
in her file. ‘Where do you plan to have the baby?’

  ‘I thought the London Nursing Home.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Better book now, though. They’re busy.’ He got up. ‘Well, see you next month. Watch your diet.’

  She had left his office plagued with feelings of guilt. Grierson had been right. She had been so racked with emotional upsets recently she had not been paying attention to the urgent signals her body was sending her.

  Now she would.

  Later that week she walked into her office to find Emma in tears. Closing the door she sat her down. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’

  Emma looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. ‘I’ve been fired,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Miss Ricci got me fired. She told Mr Moscato I was totally incompetent.’

  Julia’s temper flared. ‘That bitch – who does she think she is? You work for me.’

  ‘She claims there was a mistake in those photographs I gave her for the magazine; the ones of the original townhouse. One was of the old Connaught. It almost got through to the finished magazine apparently. I know I captioned them correctly. I spent hours doing it. She must have mixed them up herself.’

  ‘Wait here.’

  Julia strode along the executive corridor and burst into Moscato’s office without knocking. ‘What’s this about my secretary being fired?’

  Moscato, sitting behind his desk, looked startled for a moment. His face darkened with anger. ‘How dare you walk into my office like this?’

  Julia was trembling with rage. ‘Emma Carswell has been with this hotel for years. She is acknowledged by everyone to be the best secretary here. If you think I’m going to let that woman Ricci fire her you’ve got another think coming.’

  Moscato seemed to recover some of his composure.

  ‘I am not interested in debating the merits of your secretary, Miss Lang. Nor in arguing with you since you are clearly hysterical. The facts are that your secretary made a glaring mistake which would have made us look ridiculous had it not been caught in time. She is fired.’ He paused. ‘And that is the end of this conversation.’

  ‘Oh no it isn’t,’ Julia snapped. She could hardly control herself. ‘First of all, Emma assured me the photographs were captioned correctly. Second, I am the person to fire her if it ever becomes necessary.’

  Moscato’s voice was steely. ‘Are you hard of hearing this morning or have I not made myself clear? Your secretary is fired.’

  ‘I will not stand here and let you fire the best secretary I’ve ever had on the say-so of that woman.’

  Moscato’s face had gone very red. ‘I am well aware of the hostility you have shown towards Miss Ricci since her arrival here. She is conscious of your jealousy but has chosen to ignore it. As editor of our new magazine she takes ultimate responsibility for its contents. When she told me about your secretary’s mistake I agreed immediately that she should be dismissed. I am amazed that you should be standing up for her.’

  ‘I’m standing up for her because I believe she did not make a mistake.’

  ‘This conversation is at an end, Miss Lang. If this is an ego thing and you want to be the one to fire your secretary then go ahead and do it. But you will do it today.’ He rose. ‘I cannot spend any more time on this. I have an important meeting tonight in Rome. I am already late for my flight.’ He wagged a finger at Julia. ‘We have given your secretary a month’s notice. I consider that more than generous.’

  Without another word Julia turned and marched from the room. She knew she had reached another crisis. If she let Moscato fire Emma because Chantal Ricci had slipped up she would forfeit the respect of everyone in the hotel. It would be a shameful act of betrayal to a decent, hard-working woman.

  Seething with anger she returned to her office. When Emma came in she looked so crushed and defeated that Julia put her arms around her. ‘Cheer up,’ she said. ‘I’m not letting you go without a fight.’

  ‘She called me incompetent,’ Emma said. It was almost a wail.

  ‘Didn’t you tell me that Pam Helmore’s sister, Sarah, works at that hotel in Upper Slaughter? The Old Red House?’

  ‘She’s the cashier,’ Emma said.

  ‘Let me talk to her.’

  There was a message on Julia’s answering machine when she got home that night. Ravenel.

  He was at Heathrow en route to Washington. He would be back in a couple of days. She was not to worry. She would get her money. He was convinced of that.

  Ravenel put in a call to Cristiani the moment he arrived in Washington.

  ‘You handed Eberhardt that letter?’

  ‘He didn’t open it immediately. Just nodded. He seemed highly nervous to see me. I told him I’d left the Commission and was now on my own. He relaxed a little then.’

  ‘Anything else new?’

  ‘A lot,’ Cristiani said. ‘I went to Zurich yesterday to see di Marco’s sister. She’d called me. She’s still very bitter about that suicide verdict on her brother. It seems he had a safe deposit box the police didn’t know about. In it she found an old diary he’d kept during the war. She thought it might interest me.’

  ‘Did it?’

  ‘It explains why he was murdered. I’m sure he was going to blow the whistle on Eberhardt.’

  ‘Can I get a look at this diary?’

  ‘I’m having it translated for you now,’ Cristiani said. ‘I’ll express it to you tonight.’

  Chapter 44

  The day Moscato returned from Rome, Julia went in to see him. In her hand she held an envelope.

  ‘What is it?’ He looked coldly at her.

  Julia opened it and produced the copy of his overnight bill at the Old Red House together with three bills from previous stays. ‘These came addressed to my office while you were away.’ She put the bills, all made out to Mr and Mrs Moscato, in front of him. He looked down at them. When he saw the hotel heading he flushed. ‘I was going to call Mrs Moscato to ask what she wanted done with them. My secretary suggested I wait until you returned.’

  Moscato did not look at her. ‘Why were these sent to you?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Obviously if you asked for copies of the bills they should have been sent directly to you. I am on the Old Red House’s mailing list so I suppose there was a slip-up somewhere. Slip-ups do occur, as we both know.’ Julia did not take her eyes from his face. ‘I hope my secretary did the right thing in holding these for your return? She was most adamant they should not be sent on to your wife.’

  Moscato seemed totally deflated. He nodded. ‘She did exactly the right thing. I don’t like to bother my wife with bills. They just confuse her.’

  Julia turned to go. ‘I’m sure these would have,’ she said.

  Later that afternoon Emma burst in to see her. ‘You’ll never guess,’ she said. ‘Mr Moscato has rescinded my notice. He says on reflection he acted too hastily. He even suggested there might be a salary increase for me.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’

  Julia smiled. ‘No more than you deserve, Emma dear. Now let’s get on with some letters …’

  Just as Julia was about to leave that evening the phone rang. It was Michael Chadwick.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call for weeks,’ he said. ‘I was so sorry to hear about your friend.’

  ‘Thank you, Michael.’

  ‘It must have been awful for you.’

  ‘It was a terrible shock.’

  ‘Do you need anything? If there is something I can do for you before I leave?’

  The sympathy in his voice touched her.

  ‘When are you off?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘Will I see you before you go?’

  ‘How about dinner tonight? Are you free? We’ll drink heavily. Tell each other how special we are.’

  ‘I’m free,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’d like that.’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at eight.’

  Michael had booked a table at Fab
io’s, the little Italian restaurant in Soho where they had gone on their first date. It was one of those old-fashioned restaurants with straw Chianti bottles hanging from whitewashed walls and framed posters of Capri and Venice. But the food was good and Fabio, whom they had not seen for some time, gave them a big welcome. He had the knack of remembering the names of almost everyone who had ever been to his restaurant.

  ‘Mr Chadwick, Miss Lang. What a pleasure. How well you both look.’ Beaming with pleasure he led the way to a corner table covered with a check tablecloth and lit by a sputtering candle. He handed them menus and bowed elaborately before disappearing to welcome other customers.

  ‘I really love this place,’ Michael said.

  ‘Me too,’ Julia said. ‘It’s like coming home.’

  After much debate they ordered prosciutto and melon followed by lemon-marinated chicken. Fabio sent over a bottle of Orvieto, compliments of the house.

  Julia had changed clothes three times on returning home, finally settling on a Chanel-style suit. She knew it was now too tight for her and hoped Michael would not notice. She had no intention of telling him she was pregnant.

  He leaned forward. ‘I behaved really badly last time we saw each other. I’m truly sorry.’

  ‘All forgotten.’

  ‘I was jealous, you know. I couldn’t bear to think of you with someone else. But I want you to know I felt terrible afterwards.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how often I’ve walked past your flat and looked up at your windows.’

  ‘You should have buzzed.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure … well, you know.’ He reached across to pour her some wine.

  ‘Just a drop for me,’ Julia said.

  ‘You love this stuff.’

  ‘I know. It’s just … I’m not feeling great.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  She reached out a hand. ‘I wanted to see you, Michael. It’s been such a long time.’

  He poured her half a glass and filled his own. Julia took a sip of the wine and immediately felt queazy. She picked up a slice of bread and chewed it. ‘Maybe some water?’ she said.

  Michael waved his hand for the waiter. ‘How are things at the hotel?’