End of Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ‘Too early to say, Tom: he’s hardly had time to unpack his overnight bag. Looks a bit like Trotsky, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think you may mean Lenin.’

  ‘You’re quite right: let’s hope that’s the only similarity, eh? He had me out of Downing Street soon enough.’ There was a distinctly resentful tone to Pearson’s voice.

  ‘Well he would do, wouldn’t he, Roly? You were Winston’s appointment as his personal intelligence coordinator or whatever your title was. You can hardly blame Attlee for that.’

  ‘Nonetheless, one does feel rather cast out – nearly six years I worked for Winston, hardly a day off, and then just to be sent packing… but hey ho. This is where one rather realises being married would help. They tend to push you, do they not, Tom?’

  ‘In what sense, Roly?’

  ‘Well, you’re married, so you’d know better than me, but from what one gathers, wives are rather ambitious for their husbands – they don’t like them to become complacent, eh: not keen on them sitting around and moaning.’

  Gilbey nodded and muttered, ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Winston asked me if I’d like an embassy after the war – he even went so far as offering me Brussels, and I foolishly turned it down. A wife would have made sure I took it.’

  ‘I remember, Roly: you asked me if I’d be interested.’

  ‘Flemish rather put me off. It’s like having to speak backwards, like that funny made-up language we used in prep school. By the time the war ended and Winston lost the election, I was exhausted and complacent, which a wife would have soon seen to. Hadn’t given much thought to what I’d do after it. So now I spend my days here at the club drinking malt and getting emotional over books.’

  ‘Something in the City, maybe?’

  Pearson scowled at him.

  ‘How is Winston these days?’

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Licking his wounds at Chartwell – they’ve bought a rather nice place in Hyde Park Gate, though. He’s talking about writing a history of the war: I told him he needed a decent agent.’

  ‘I understand he has one already. So you do see him?’

  ‘Went down last weekend. Hardly saw Winston, as he was busy painting clouds or something, but I did have lunch with them. He barely said a word; just sat there brooding. I think it was Clemmie who really wanted to see me.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘A cousin of hers – second or third, something rather distant in any case – was killed in Munich in August. She wanted to know if I knew of anyone who might know something about it. Whole thing’s shrouded in mystery and is rather hush-hush, but then she told me he was SOE and I thought, well, yes, of course it’s shrouded in bloody mystery. Didn’t say that to her, of course. Promised I’d ask a few questions. Didn’t realise the SOE was still going.’

  ‘They’re tying up loose ends. Is the cousin Christopher Stephens?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the chap: he must be one of the loose ends.’

  ‘F Section?’

  ‘So I believe.’

  Gilbey turned round to check the door was closed, then leaned forward. ‘Actually, Roly, it’s in connection with that case that I wanted to talk to you.’

  The other man’s eyebrows lifted, and for the first time a hint of smile crossed his face. ‘Really, Tom?’

  ‘Yes, Roly. I have a job that may be just up your street. It will get you out of this place, at any rate.’

  * * *

  A few days before Tom Gilbey met with Sir Roland Pearson, he’d had an awkward session with Prince and Hanne in his office in St James’s.

  ‘And are you both well?’

  They’d looked at him somewhat incredulously. Prince gingerly held up his arm, which was still in a sling. ‘Well, if you discount being shot in the shoulder, sir, and everything else…’

  ‘I’m told it’s barely more than a graze?’

  ‘I’d hardly describe it like that, sir: the doctor said it was just inches from an artery.’

  ‘One doesn’t want to play down the fact that you were shot, Prince, and I’m no anatomist, but surely anywhere in the human body is just inches from an artery?’

  In the silence that followed, he clapped his hands and mumbled something along the lines of ‘but well done anyway’, then came round from his desk to sit in an easy chair close to theirs.

  ‘Apologies if I appear to be flippant. I understand Frankfurt had mixed results.’

  Prince shifted in his chair and his wife coughed. Gilbey gestured for her to speak. She explained patiently how they’d been getting nowhere in Frankfurt until a British officer there told them about the Englishman who’d been caught with a bundle of cash, and the fact that he was due to give it to someone in exchange for a painting of a kestrel.

  ‘Fluchtweg Falke.’

  ‘Exactly, the Kestrel Line. His account was confused: he’d initially told the Americans the he was meeting a man called the Kestrel, but he told us that the painting he was to buy was of a kestrel – no doubt he was nervous, hence the confusion. But as you know, Tom, we felt this was a lead – we know there’s a link between Friedrich Steiner’s father and the Kestrel Line, and Charles Falmer appeared to be something to do with Kestrel too.’

  ‘Remind me how much cash he had on him?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds, sir, along with a thousand American dollars.’

  ‘Good Lord… to buy a painting that may or not be of a kestrel at a street market in Frankfurt? Was it painted by Rembrandt?’

  ‘We believed that if the money was returned to Falmer, there was a chance he could lead us to the Kestrel Line, and we are grateful for your help with getting the Americans to agree to that.’

  ‘But it didn’t quite work out?’

  ‘Yes and no.’ Prince leaned forward as he spoke, wincing with pain. ‘Charles Falmer was followed by the Americans and he appeared to have headed to a fall-back rendezvous point, which we hoped he would do. When he left this place – a potato stall – he was followed to the station. The Americans also spotted a man with one arm, whom they followed to a small spa town just outside Frankfurt called Königstein. We went up there with an American officer called Sorensen. I’m afraid the Americans didn’t handle matters terribly well.’

  ‘So I hear: the Germans escaped?’

  ‘Turns out the cellar of the guest house was linked to the cellars of neighbouring houses, and they got out that way. They must have made a telephone call, because they escaped in a stolen American army jeep.’

  ‘And one of them shot you, Prince?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do we know whether one of the two was Friedrich Steiner?’

  ‘We know one of them was definitely the one-armed man who was followed from Frankfurt – Sorensen’s team had a good view of him. Hanne saw the other chap better than I did, sir.’

  ‘I spotted them when they emerged from the other house. They were across the road, so all I can say is that one of the men had one arm and the other was quite young, possibly late twenties or early thirties.’

  ‘Similar age to Steiner.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I had to look after Richard because I didn’t know how badly injured he was, and also I didn’t have a gun. If I had, I could have got closer to them.’

  ‘So it’s a fair assumption it was Friedrich Steiner?’

  ‘In so far as we established a link to the Kestrel Line, yes, sir. It’s not proven, of course, but if I were investigating this as a crime, I’d say he was a likely suspect.’

  ‘And he got away?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m afraid so. The jeep was found abandoned the following day in a town called Bad Kissingen, which is about fifty miles due east of Königstein. No sign of them after that.’

  ‘The Americans let stolen jeeps drive around their zone, do they?’ Tom Gilbey shook his head and then let it rest in his hands as he closed his eyes in thought, before standing up and walking over to the window, looking out of it as he spoke.

  ‘The proble
m I have is whether we can afford to carry on with what may well be a wild goose chase.’ He paused and turned round to face them, looking down at the carpet, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets. ‘I fully appreciate that I told you hunting down the Ferret was regarded as a debt of honour by my friend Charles Lean, and that I had assumed the obligation on his behalf, and you have done terribly well to establish that the Ferret is this Friedrich Steiner. But whether it is right to have you two continuing to run round Europe looking for him, I’m not sure…’

  ‘But he’s a war criminal, sir, surely?’

  ‘He is indeed, but I’m afraid Europe is teeming with them. There are literally thousands of former SS and Gestapo officers who did the most dreadful things, many if not most of them far more senior than Friedrich Steiner. Now, my superior, Roland Bentley, has caught wind of this, and while he fully understands my involvement, he does wonder if…’ He trailed off and turned back to the window.

  ‘Are you suggesting we drop the case?’

  ‘We have Friedrich Steiner’s name. It’s on our watch lists. Sooner or later we’re bound to find him. I’d love to get stuck into these Nazi escape lines, but I fear it’s not a priority at the moment.’

  Prince nodded, but Hanne shook her head angrily.

  ‘You’re forgetting a possible British connection – what about Charles Falmer? I know he was murdered on the train and the money wasn’t with him, but surely that all points to something going on here.’

  ‘That would be a matter for the Security Service or Special Branch.’ Gilbey had returned to his seat alongside theirs. ‘Richard knows all about that – your last case involved Nazi sympathisers in this country.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and I have to say I believe Hanne is right, actually. There certainly seems to be a very strong case to be made for saying that Falmer was probably a courier, bringing money from London to help fund the Kestrel Line. If that’s true, then surely there’s an obligation to investigate further – after all, we know about this art gallery, don’t we? If we find out what’s going on here, it could open up the Kestrel Line for us.’

  ‘I suppose I could argue that as we came across this intelligence while on an operation overseas, we can justify continuing the investigation here. After all, we don’t want to be presenting gifts to the Security Service after we’ve done all the hard work, do we?’

  Hanne and Prince both said they agreed.

  ‘We’d better keep you chaps out of it at this end – Prince, you’re known from your last investigation, and in any case it’s possible that word about you may have got back here from Germany, you never know. You go back to Lincoln; I imagine you’ll be wanting to see your boy, won’t you? If anything crops up and it’s worth reopening the case, I’ll be in touch. You have my word.’

  He leaned forward and shook hands with both of them rather formally.

  ‘And who will investigate matters here, sir?’

  ‘I have just the man in mind.’

  * * *

  There was a certain confidence in Sir Roland Pearson’s step as he turned from Old Bond Street into Burlington Gardens. For the first time in weeks, the fog of lethargy that had hung over him was lifted.

  Sir Roland took the view that his life was unquestionably made up of more achievements than setbacks, though he was aware that one of his failings was to dwell far too much on the latter, and he’d certainly been doing plenty of that recently.

  Early in 1940, Winston Churchill had appointed him to his staff at Downing Street, where his role was to coordinate the activities of the various intelligence and security agencies. It was a job that was hard to define and even harder to get right, but he very quickly proved to be indispensable. He was in many ways an invisible man: no one outside Whitehall and the intelligence agencies knew of him, but for those who did, he was all-powerful. He had, as people would say, ‘Winston’s ear’.

  But when Winston lost the election, he had nowhere to go other than his apartment overlooking Birdcage Walk, and his club. It was from Boodle’s that Tom Gilbey had rescued him with the offer of the mission he was now embarking on. He had done his homework and it all sounded rather fun.

  From Burlington Gardens he turned into Cork Street. He made sure he took his time, strolling along without any apparent care in the world and visiting at least three other galleries before finally coming to Bourne and Sons. Only two days previously, one of Gilbey’s men – something of a know-all on art by all accounts – had visited the gallery and written a most helpful brief for him.

  A bell rang uncertainly at the back of the small gallery as he entered. It was darker inside than he’d have expected, though there were lights above some of the paintings. His shoes echoed loudly on the wooden floor and the room had a musty smell. For a moment or two he was alone, though he did hear some movement at the back. He soon spotted what he was looking for and made sure he was studying it when a figure appeared at his side.

  ‘May I be of assistance, sir?’ What Sir Roland noticed wasn’t so much the accent, more the tone of voice, the keen-to-oblige, very slightly servile tone, one that wanted to assure the listener that the speaker was of a certain class.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I was wondering if I could help you, sir?’

  Sir Roland Pearson was now Anthony Hawke – Hawke being his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. He’d decided that Hawke should be not nearly as clubbable as Pearson, so he muttered something unintelligible and continued to stare at the painting as he removed his spectacles and put them on again. Then, without looking at the other man, he pointed at it and nodded approvingly.

  ‘A Richard Wilson, I see.’

  ‘Indeed, sir: the father of English landscape painting.’

  Hawke shot him a questioning look. ‘Wilson was Welsh.’

  ‘Indeed, sir, but very much the father of the early English school of landscape artists.’

  ‘If one disregards Gainsborough,’ said Hawke. He laughed and the other man gratefully joined in, then asked his visitor’s name.

  ‘Anthony Hawke: Hawke with an “e”.’

  ‘You certainly are most knowledgeable, Mr Hawke. One does so appreciate meeting a connoisseur.’

  ‘And may I ask your name?’

  ‘It’s Ridgeway, Donald Ridgeway. Are you by any chance interested in the Wilson?’ Ridgeway was fidgeting with his cuffs and clasping and unclasping his hands in a hopeful manner.

  Hawke didn’t reply, but moved deeper into the gallery, where he spotted the painting Gilbey’s man had briefed him about.

  ‘I say, is this a Joseph Wright of Derby, by any chance?’

  ‘It is indeed, sir, very well spotted if I may say so. The signature is hard to decipher, but we do have full provenance, I can assure you.’

  ‘I do so admire Wright’s bold use of light and dark: his landscapes are quite exquisite. This is a fine example – the hills almost seem to move. May I ask…?’

  ‘The price, sir? Yes, of course: it is two hundred and thirty guineas, but I’m sure…’

  His voice tailed off as Hawke nodded in a manner to suggest disappointment. ‘My brother-in-law paid a hundred guineas for a Wright of Derby landscape before the war.’

  ‘Before the war indeed, as you say, sir, and if I may mention, quite a number of landscapes are attributed to Wright of Derby rather than being certified as having been painted by him.’

  Anthony Hawke said he quite understood and went back to look at the Wilson. After a few minutes, he asked Ridgeway if he had any George Lamberts.

  ‘No, sir, but I may be able to find one if you’re interested. You are an admirer of landscapes, I see.’

  Anthony Hawke said that indeed he had a weakness for English landscapes, and Ridgeway said yes, but did he have the wallet for them, and chuckled before apologising, but Hawke said no, not at all.

  He paused and moved back to the Joseph Wright and decided now was the time. It was a small oration Sir Roland Pearson had very much enjoyed prepa
ring, and he spoke quietly with just the slightest catch of emotion in his voice as he told Ridgeway how English landscapes in particular evoked for him the true essence of England, of a country and a time fast fading like a watercolour, along with its traditional values and its… morals. He apologised for being sentimental and said he wondered what on earth we’d just wasted the best part of six years fighting a war for when… then hesitated before adding, ‘Can you really call it a victory?’

  Ridgeway had moved closer to him, shuffling from foot to foot but remaining silent.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry; I’m probably speaking out of turn,’ Hawke continued. ‘My wife does warn me to bite my lip, but when one sees what is happening in Europe and one is told by those who are running matters to accept what is going on, one does really question the outcome.’

  He coughed and walked over to a portrait of a man in eighteenth-century dress. Ridgeway had dutifully followed.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you have nothing by the likes of Pissarro.’ He phrased it as a question and looked at Ridgeway for an answer.

  Ridgeway shook his head. ‘We make a point of not selling paintings by Jewish artists – nor indeed Soviet ones, not that there are any!’

  Sir Roland smiled but didn’t reply: he’d gone as far as he dared. Ridgeway came uncomfortably close and grasped Hawke’s hand in his own, which was bony and slightly moist. He shook it enthusiastically, taking too long to let go.

  ‘It’s a great honour, Mr Hawke, to meet someone of your standing with whom one so clearly agrees. I too feel that maybe…’ He stopped and looked at the door and then towards the back of the gallery. It was clear that he wanted to be certain they were alone and was unsure whether to continue.

  ‘You feel what, Ridgeway? I’m sure we can be frank with each other, eh?’

  ‘There are like-minded people I’m sure you would enjoy meeting: people who view the world in the way you and I do and who endeavour to do something about it.’

  Anthony Hawke stepped back. ‘I say, Ridgeway, I hope you don’t think I’m some kind of collaborator?’