Spy hook: a novel (32 page)

“And Weber,” she supplied still grinning at her cleverness and at the joke that was to come. “Yes, that’s the bank, my darling. Guess who owns it.”

“Not Mr. Schneider, Mr. von Schild and Mr. Weber?”

“Your precious Bret Rensselaer, that’s who.”

“What?”

“I knew that would bring you fully awake.”

“I was already fully awake.”

“At least, it belongs to the Rensselaer family.”

“How did you find out?”

“I didn’t have to raid the Yellow Submarine darling. It’s public knowledg6. Even German banks have to make ownership declarations. My teacher at the Economics class got it from an ordinary data-bank listing. He phoned me back in half an hour and had its history.”

“I should have checked that out.”

“Well, you didn’t; I did,” she chuckled like a baby.

“You’re such a clever girl,” I said.

“So you’ve noticed?”

“That you’re a girl? Yes, I’ve noticed.”

“Don’t do that ... at least, don’t do it yet.”

“The Rensselaer family?”

“Are you ready for the details? Hold on to your hat, lover, here goes. Back in 1925 a man named Cyrus Rensselaer bought shares in a California bank group. Bret and his brothers worked for them, I guess they had directorships or something. I can get more details ... Then, sometime in the Second World War, the old man died. Under the terms of his Will the shares went into a trust, of which Bret’s mother was the beneficiary. In a complicated share issue and merger in 1953 the Californian bank became a part of Calibank (International) Serco, which began large-scale buying of other banks. One shareholding they acquired gave them a majority holding in Schneider, von Schild and Weber.”

“Anything else?”

“Anything else, he says! My darling, you’re insatiable. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” I said.

Only desperation would have provoked me to set out on a journey to see Silas Gaunt that Saturday. He’d retired from the Department many years before but he remained one of the most influential individuals in what Dicky Cruyer delicately called “the intelligence community”. Uncle Silas knew everything and knew everyone. He had been close to my father over many years; was distantly related to my mother-in-law, and was Billy’s godfather.

Perhaps I should have visited him more regularly, but he was devoted to my wife Fiona, and her departure had distanced Silas from me. He wasn’t likely to appreciate my arriving arm in arm with Gloria, and yet it was a damned long journey to do alone. Now I was doing it alone, and as I drove through a pale prostrate landscape that had still not loosened the shackles of winter, I had a chance to think about what I might say to him. How did I start? Jim Prettyman was dead and Bret Rensselaer was suddenly alive, but neither metamorphosis was going to help me. Dodo was telling anyone who’d listen that I’d been conspiring with Fiona to swindle the Department; while my prime helper, Cindy Prettyman, was suffering the selective amnesia that valued promotion sometimes brings. “Uncle” Silas lived at “Whitelands” a middle-sized farm in the Cotswolds, a picturesque place of tan-coloured stone with illfitting doors, creaking floorboards and low be4ms that split the skulls of the tall and unwary. Silas must have been exceptionally wary, for he was a giant of a man and so fat that he was scarcely able to squeeze through some of the narrower doors. Some nineteenth-century tycoon had redone the interior to his own taste, so that there was a surfeit of mahogany and ornamental tiles, and a scarcity of bathrooms. But it suited Silas, and somehow it was difficult to imagine him in any other environment.

In the day time he kept busy. There were discussions with his farm manager, and his house-keeper Mrs. Porter, and with the lady from the village who came in to deal with his mail but who seemed unable to deal with any telephone caller without coming downstairs and dragging Silas upstairs to the one and only phone.

I was sitting waiting for Silas to return from upstairs. The narrow stone-framed windows let in only a thin slice of grey afternoon light. The log fire burning brightly in the big stone hearth filled the air with a smoky perfume and provided the light by which to see the drawing room with its battered old sofa and uncomfortable chairs, their shapes only vaguely apparent under the baggy chintz covers. In front of the fire there was a tray with the remains of our tea: silver teapot, the last couple of Mrs. Porter’s freshly made scones and a pot of jam with a handwritten label saying “Whitelands - strawberry”. It might have been a hundred years ago but for the big hi-fi speakers that stood in the far corners of the room. This was where Silas spent his evenings listening to his opera records and drinking his way through his remarkable cellar.

“Sorry about these interruptions,” he said as he fiddled to

close the ancient brass door latch. He clapped his hands and then went to warm them at the fire. “Fresh tea?” “I’ve had enough tea,” I said.

“And it’s too early for a drink,” said Silas.

I didn’t reply.

“You tell me a lot of things,” he said, pouring the last tepid remains of the tea into his cup. “And you want me to make them fit together nicely, like pieces of a jigsaw.” He sipped the cold tea but pulled a face and abandoned it. “But I don’t see any causal connection.” Sniff. “Either it’s much colder today or I’m getting flu ... or maybe both. So this accountant fellow, Prettyman, was killed in Washington by some hooligan, and now his wife has been promoted? Well, jolly good, I say. Why shouldn’t the poor woman be promoted? I’ve always thought we should look after our own people to the best of our ability.” There was a long silent rumination until I helped him remember the rest of it. “And then there was Bret Rensselaer,’I said.

“Yes, poor Bret. An awfully good chap, Bret; injured on duty. An episode in the very best traditions of the service, if I may say so. Yet, you seem indignant that he’s survived.” “I was surprised to see him arise from the dead.” “I can’t see what you’re getting at,” said Uncle Silas. “Aren’t you pleased by that either?” he scratched his crotch unselfconsciously . He was a strange old devil; fat and dishevelled, with a coarse humour and biting wit that was not funny to those who found it directed at them.

“There are too many things happening ... funny things.” “I really don’t follow your reasoning Bernard.” He shook his head. “I really don’t.” Uncle Silas had always been able to twist the facts to suit a hypothesis. “It’s not a bit of good, you sitting there glaring at me, dear boy.” He paused to take out a big red cotton handkerchief and blow his nose violently. “I’m trying to prevent you making a bloody fool of yourself.” “By doing what?”

“By bursting in on poor old Dodo and giving him the third degree.” Old Silas must have been the last living person still using expressions like third degree.

“Did you know him well?”

“Yes, I remember him well,” said Silas, sitting back in his armchair and staring into the fire. Tfis real name was Theodor -Theodor Kiss - so he preferred to be Dodo. A keen worker:

bright as a button. A good science degree at Vienna University and a good administrative knack. Lots of languages and dialects too. Dodo could effortlessly pass himself off as a German. Or as an Austrian. Effortlessly!”

“Amazing,” I said.

“Oh, I know you can do the same thing, Bernard. But it’s quite an unusual feat. Not many Germans can do it, as I know to my cost. Yes, Dodo was a remarkable linguist.” “He worked for Gehlen,” I said, to remind Silas that this paragon was an ex-Nazi.

“Most of the best ones had worked for him. They were the only experienced people available for hire. Of course, I never used any of them,” said Silas, perhaps wanting to deflect my wrath. “Not directly. I stayed clear of Gehlen’s ex-employees.

Lange Koby took him away with the rest of his gang ... What did he call them ... ?”

“Prussians,” I supplied.

“Yes, “Koby’s Prussians”, that’s right. How could I forget that? My memory is going wonky these days.” I said nothing.

“Your father too. He wouldn’t go near any of them. He was upset when you worked for Lange Koby.”

“I teamed up with Max,” I said. “Koby came as part of the deal.”

Silas sniffed. “You should have stayed with your father, Bernard.”

“I know,” I said. He’d touched a nerve.

We sat silent for a few minutes. “Your Dodo is all right,” said Silas, as if he’d been thinking deeply about it. “Perhaps a bit too keen to demonstrate his valour, but so were all the ones who’d changed sides. But Dodo, when he settled down he became a loyal, sensible agent; the sort of fellow I would have expected you to be specially sympathetic towards. A man like that must be excused an indiscretion now and again. What?” He got out his handkerchief and wiped his nose.

“Indiscretion?”

“I’d say the same for you, Bernard,” he added before my indignation boiled over. “Have said it, in fact,” he persisted, to make sure I knew I was indebted to him.

He stopped, perhaps waiting for some gesture of appreciation or agreement. I nodded without putting too much into it. Ever since arriving here I had been considering ways to ask him about the mad allegations about my father. Silas had known my father as well as anyone still alive. They’d served together in Berlin, and in London too. Silas Gaunt could solve just about any mystery that arose out of my father’s service if he wanted to. If he wanted to; there’s the rub. Silas Gaunt was not a man much given to revealing secrets, even to those entitled to know. And this wasn’t the time to ask. That much was clear just from looking at the old man’s face. He was not enjoying my visit, despite all the smiles and nods and pleasantries. Perhaps he was just worried about me. Or about Fiona or about my children.

Or about Dodo. “I know you have, Silas,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

,I want you to promise not to go in there ranting and raving,” said Silas. “I want you to promise to go along there” and talk to him in a conciliatory manner that will make him see your point of view.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

“We all have a lot of old comrades in common: the Gebhart twins, “Baron” Busch who took you to Leipzig, Oscar Rhine who said he could swim across Lfibeck Bay but couldn’t . Silas had tried to make light of his list of departed colleagues but couldn’t maintain the levity. He wiped his nose and tried again. “We all grieve for the same old friends, Bernard: you, me, Dodo ... No sense in quarreffing amongst ourselves.” “No,” I said.

“He’s been in the business even longer than you have,” said Silas, “so don’t start talking down to him.” This was Silas at his avuncular worst. Sometimes I wondered if he ever spoke to the D-G like this, for I knew that Silas regarded all of us as children attempting the man’s job at which he’d excelled. “No, Silas,” I said, and I must have allowed some trace of my scepticism to show, for there was a twitch of the face that I’d learned to recognize as a sign of anger to come.

But the anger didn’t come, or at least it didn’t show. “Tell me again about Bret Rensselaer; is he coming back to work?” “No, chance,” I said. “He’s too sick and too old.”

“They say he wanted Berlin,” said Silas.

“Yes,” I said. “At the time the rumours said Frank would get his K and retire, and Bret would get Berlin.” “And then Bret would get his K and retire,” said Silas, completing the scenario- that everyone had said was inevitable up to the time that things went wrong and Bret got shot. “So what was the long-term plan for Berlin?”

I looked at him and wondered what everyone in the Department must have wondered at some time or other: why Silas Gaunt had never got the knighthood that usually came with such retirements. “Come along, Silas,” I said. “You know more about what goes on in the minds of the men on the top floor than I will ever get to find out. You tell me.”

“Seriously, Bernard. What do you think was the plan? If Frank had been bowler-hatted and replaced by Bret, Bret could only have had that job until his retirement came up. And they could hardly have asked for special dispensation to keep Bret there.”

“I suppose you are nght,’I said. “I never get to thinking about such long-term possibilities.”

“Then that’s a pity,” said Silas, lowering his voice as if saying something confidential and important, a trick he’d developed from his briefing days. “Perhaps if you gave your mind to such things you wouldn’t be getting yourself into such deep water as you are now in.”

“Wouldn’t I”

“Could Dicky Cruyer hold down the Berlin job?” His voice was still soft.

“He wants it,” I said.

“Dicky has no German contacts does he? None that are worth a damn anyway. The Berlin job must have someone with a flair, someone with a feeling for the streets, someone who can smell what’s going on, quite apart from the departmental input.” “Someone like Frank?”

“Frank, like your father, was a protégé of mine. Yes. Frank has done well there. But age slows a man down. Berlin is a job for someone more resilient, someone younger who gets out and about. Frank spends too much time at home playing his damned gramophone records.”

“Yes,” I said, and nodded seriously. Gramophone records? Silas knew about Frank’s extra-marital amours as well as I did but he preferred to tell the story his way. He was always like that.

“I get the idea, Silas,” I said. The idea was that if I was a good little chap, and didn’t keep spreading alarm and despondency with my extra-curricular questions, I might get Berlin. I didn’t believe it.