The Ways of the World Page 11

  ‘You’re trying to let me down lightly, aren’t you, sir?’ Sam murmured as he put the telegram away again. He sensed the flying school he had set his sights on slipping fast from his future. And without it that future looked bleak. Ill-advisedly, as he now saw, he had paid Miller a deposit on the planes he had persuaded Max they should buy and would forfeit it if they did not conclude the purchase within ten days. It was money he could not afford to spend. But that was not the worst of it, not by a long way. If Max abandoned his plans for a flying school, Sam would be condemned to a lick-spittle role in his father’s bakery business. The prospect appalled him. To avoid it he found it hard to imagine what he would not be willing to do.

  And that was not his only concern. Delayed in Paris for indefinite period was a message that said more than it was intended to. It sounded to him as if Max was in trouble – or soon would be. He needed Sam’s help whether he knew it or not. That had often been the case in the war. Apparently, it still was.

  ‘Flying solo’s no good without a mechanic you can rely on, sir,’ Sam mused. ‘You should know that.’

  Also at the same moment, two hundred miles away, in Paris, Corinne Dombreux was walking along Rue du Verger, on her way home from an evening shift at the ticket office at the Gare Montparnasse. She was tired and in low spirits. The shock of Henry’s death had faded, but the grief of losing him was an ache she could not ease. She was relying on Max to discover who had murdered his father and why, but she did not know when she would next hear from him or whether he would be able to achieve anything. It might only make her life more difficult if he did. The authorities regarded her with acute suspicion. They could move against her at any time. Nothing about her existence was secure. Pierre had bequeathed her only adversity and notoriety. And she did not know how much longer she could face both of them down.

  As she approached number 8, a massive figure suddenly detached itself from the deep shadow of a doorway opposite and lurched across the street towards her. ‘Corinne,’ Spataro called. ‘Attends un peu.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she responded, quickening her pace.

  But he was too fast for her. To her surprise, she realized that he was, for once, stone-cold sober. He did not sway as he blocked her path. There was no brandy on his breath. And he did not slur his words.

  ‘Ecoutes-moi, Corinne. I beg you.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘What I have done. It gives me … a bad conscience.’

  ‘So it should.’

  ‘I want to put it right.’ He grasped her by the arm. ‘Tu capisci? I want to put it right.’

  THE MEETING HAD been arranged at short notice and at an hour the expressions of several people round the table suggested was unreasonably early. Appleby was not one of them. The older he grew, the less sleep he needed. He suspected the same was true of C, who surveyed the select gathering from the head of the table. He had the advantage of living on the premises, of course. Secret Service Headquarters was C’s home as well as his place of work. Appleby was far from sure he envied him such an arrangement, difficult though the journey to Whitehall Court had been from his sister’s home in Eltham.

  The war – and the work rate it had committed him to – had taken its toll on C, who looked frailer and older than when Appleby had last seen him. Rumour had it that he had never recovered from the death of his son. It might be so, Appleby conceded. He too had lost a son in the conflict and did not delude himself that he was unmarked by the tragedy. But neither he nor C was the sort of man to dwell on such matters. Stoicism was their philosophy of choice.

  ‘Be so good as to remind everyone of the evidence that Lemmer may be in Paris, would you, Appleby?’ C prompted, fixing a beady eye on him over the rim of his teacup.

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ He risked a glance at the grim-set faces of the others: four of them, of varying degrees of seniority, representing the Military, Aviation, Naval and Political sections. None appeared either overtly hostile or supportive. But that counted for little in a service where overtness was actively discouraged. The search for Fritz Lemmer, fugitive head of the German Secret Service’s spy network, had involved them all at various stages since the end of the war. They were likely to resent the credit for tracking him down devolving upon Appleby – if indeed he had tracked him down. ‘The evidence stems from material relating to the late Sir Henry Maxted. Murdered, we believe, though officially his death’s to be treated as an accident.’

  ‘The PM won’t want to hear that a member of our delegation has been murdered,’ remarked Political.

  ‘Which is why he won’t hear it,’ Appleby continued. ‘But there’s no doubt in my mind Sir Henry was murdered.’

  ‘We’ll take that as read,’ said C. ‘Proceed with the Lemmer dimension.’

  ‘Very good, sir. The first point to bear in mind is that Sir Henry knew Lemmer from his time in Japan. He was a second secretary in Tokyo while Lemmer was a naval attaché at the German Embassy. It’s certain they’d have met at receptions and the like. Lemmer cut his teeth in Tokyo, of course, with the attempted assassination of the Tsarevich. I’ve been able to examine Sir Henry’s pocket-diary for the period he spent in Paris. Most of the entries are routine appointments. But on the nineteenth of February there’s a circled set of initials: F.L.’

  ‘Could mean anything,’ growled Naval.

  ‘Or it could mean Fritz Lemmer.’

  ‘Thin. Very thin.’

  ‘Rather like the air the fellow disappeared into last November,’ remarked Aviation.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Appleby. ‘He has to have gone somewhere. Why not Paris?’

  ‘Never mind why not,’ said C. ‘Why?’

  ‘In my submission, sir,’ Appleby replied, ‘because that’s where the people he recruited are.’

  ‘What can they do for him now?’

  ‘Who can say? I think we’d all agree Lemmer’s a master strategist.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ groaned Military.

  ‘But the show’s over,’ said Naval. ‘The government he worked for has ceased to exist.’

  ‘They lost the war, but maybe Lemmer thinks they can still win the peace.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean?’ asked C.

  ‘I’m not sure, sir. But I am sure Sir Henry Maxted’s murder is crucial. The initials F.L. also crop up on a list he made, apparently of sources of money. He valued F.L. at five thousand pounds.’

  Naval scowled. ‘Could Maxted have been one of Lemmer’s people?’

  ‘It’s possible. But—’

  ‘You made no mention of this list in your report,’ C cut in.

  ‘No, sir. I only learnt of it yesterday, from Sir Ashley Maxted, Sir Henry’s eldest son.’

  ‘What else was on the list?’

  ‘The Trust.’

  There was a quiver of disquiet round the table. ‘The Tsarists and Lemmer?’ Political winced. ‘A toxic mixture.’

  ‘Sir Henry’s last posting was in Petrograd.’

  ‘And you say the woman he was involved with is the widow of the French turncoat, Dombreux?’ C shook his head. ‘This is potentially very serious.’

  ‘I can only agree, sir. Whether Sir Henry was receiving payments from Lemmer and the Trust, or hoping to profit from them in some other way, is unclear.’ Even less clear to Appleby were the meaning and significance of other items on the list. He was reluctant to mention them for fear of being drawn into unwise conjecture. Fortunately, no one seemed inclined to press him on the point.

  ‘What view is the Deuxième Bureau taking of Maxted’s death?’ enquired Military.

  ‘A cautious one. They’d prefer to believe it wasn’t murder. Even to admit the possibility would raise unwelcome questions about the security and integrity of the conference.’

  ‘Show the Frogs a sand dune and they’ll stick their heads in it,’ complained Aviation.

  ‘Aren’t you confusing frogs with ostriches?’ Political asked, smiling faintly.

  But Aviation was not
smiling. ‘Shouldn’t your section have forewarned us of this? There must have been rumours about Lemmer’s whereabouts.’

  ‘None pointing to Paris.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘Switzerland, since you ask.’

  ‘Never mind that for now,’ said C firmly. ‘We will proceed on the assumption that Lemmer is in Paris. He’s not a man I want on the loose any longer than I can help it. His detention is a high priority, not least because of the rotten apples he may enable us to identify. We cannot be seen to be turning Paris upside down in search of him, however. I want nothing to be done that will bring our inquiries to the attention of the French, or, worse still, the Americans. Nor do I wish to trouble the PM with this, until we know we’re on firm ground. Everything we do must be discreet and deniable.’

  ‘A tall order,’ said Political.

  ‘Indeed. But Appleby has a suggestion.’

  All eyes turned on Appleby. He did not flinch. ‘Sir Henry’s younger son, James Maxted. Twenty-seven-year-old former pilot. Cool-headed and courageous, according to his RFC CO. Served two years on the Western Front and spent a year in a POW camp after being shot down. I’ve met him and I’d rate him A for nerve and pluck. He believes his father was murdered and left me in no doubt he means to bring the murderer to justice.’

  Political looked askance. ‘You’re proposing to use an amateur?’

  ‘Use is the operative word. We steer him towards Lemmer and see what he turns up. If he lands himself in trouble with the French authorities, we disown him.’

  ‘He’s more likely to end up dead in a back alley,’ said Military.

  ‘Then disowning him won’t be difficult. He’s going to try his damnedest to uncover the truth, regardless of the consequences. I’ve tried warning him off. It had no effect. I conclude our best course of action is to give him a scent to follow and see where it leads.’

  ‘Riskier for him than for us,’ said Naval.

  ‘Keeping track of him will be the trickiest part,’ observed Political.

  ‘I will need a few extra men,’ Appleby admitted. ‘Purely for surveillance.’

  ‘An important point,’ said C. ‘You can have your extra men, but it must be an exclusively eyes-and-ears operation – apart from yourself – unless and until we have a confirmed sighting of Lemmer.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘I rather think this is the best we can do in the circumstances, gentlemen.’ C glanced round the table. ‘Any suggestions, reservations or objections?’

  There were none. Appleby was not surprised. This was an assignment he could either make a success of, in which case it would be taken over by others, along with the credit, or a howling flop of, in which case the blame would be his to wallow in. Such were the rules he was bound to play by.

  ‘Very well,’ C declared. ‘You have conditional approval, Appleby.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Though whether he had anything to be grateful for, Appleby was far from sure.

  OVER A SOLITARY breakfast in the gloomy dining-room of the Mazarin, Max contemplated what he had achieved so far in his search for the truth. It did not amount to much. He had a conditional promise of illuminating information from Travis Ireton, but the condition was the running of an errand that evening that might prove less straightforward than Ireton had claimed. Max had held back from contacting Sir Henry’s Brazilian acquaintance, Ribeiro, in case Ireton told him something he should know before speaking to the man, but he was not prepared to let another day slip by without doing so. As for Sir Henry’s Japanese acquaintance, Max had hoped Ireton would be able to identify him. Frustrating though it was, he reckoned he should wait on that possibility.

  He had just lit a cigarette to accompany his coffee and begun to consider the question of how early he could reasonably present himself at the Brazilians’ hotel when a waistcoated porter entered the dining-room and steered a direct course to his table.

  He inclined himself by Max’s elbow for a discreet word. ‘Monsieur Maxted, there is a lady wishing to see you. She says the matter is urgent.’

  ‘Her name?’

  The porter’s voice sank to a whisper, as if he well knew whose widow the lady was. ‘Madame Dombreux.’

  She was waiting for him in the lobby, anonymously dressed, eyes downcast, doing her best to attract as little attention as possible. Max suggested they step outside and she agreed with no more than a nod.

  The morning was cold and bright, the slanting sunlight blurred by traffic fumes. They walked slowly away from the hotel, until they had covered enough distance to speak freely.

  ‘Have you found anything out yet, Max?’

  ‘No. You’d have heard from me if I had.’

  ‘What about Ireton?’

  ‘I’m in the process of winning his confidence.’ He did not think she needed to know how that was to be done.

  ‘Perhaps you don’t need to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I may have some good news.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Really.’

  ‘Why don’t we step in here?’ Max indicated the café they were passing. Custom looked to be thin enough to afford them some privacy and he was feeling cold without his coat.

  They went in and settled at a table near the door. ‘So,’ he prompted her. ‘The good news is?’

  ‘Spataro says he will recant.’

  Max knew he must have looked as he felt: surprised and dubious in equal measures. ‘When did he say this?’

  ‘Last night. He stopped me on my way home and told me his conscience wouldn’t allow him to continue lying about me.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had a conscience.’

  ‘Neither did I. But apparently he does, buried under all that bombast, vanity and drunkenness. He seemed genuinely ashamed of himself.’

  ‘This is—’ Max broke off at the approach of the waiter. They ordered coffee. ‘This is unexpected, to put it mildly.’

  Corinne smiled and looked more relaxed than Max had so far seen her. The loveliness that had drawn his father to her blossomed before him. ‘You see what this means, Max? The police will have to accept Henry didn’t go on to the roof to spy on me. Which means they’ll have to accept he was murdered.’

  Max was not confident the police would be willing to go that far. But without Spataro’s evidence they might eventually be forced to. ‘When will he tell them he’s changing his story?’

  ‘Today. He promised me he’ll see Zamaron as soon as possible.’

  ‘And how will he explain himself?’

  ‘He was blackmailed into claiming I was with him. He wouldn’t reveal what grubby secret from his past had caught up with him. I imagine there are quite a few. He wouldn’t name his blackmailer either. He said it would be dangerous for me to know.’

  ‘So it might. But we have to find out who it was, Corinne. The police will certainly press him on the point.’

  ‘They won’t welcome his change of heart, will they?’

  ‘No. They won’t.’ Their coffees arrived. Max stared down at his pensively.

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  He saw in her eyes the disappointment with his reaction. She wanted him to share her optimism. And he would have liked to be able to. But he did not trust Spataro or the police. ‘I’ll be pleased when Spataro formally withdraws his statement and Zamaron admits he’s dealing with a murder.’

  ‘I honestly think we can rely on Spataro, Max. I’ve never known him to be as … well, as earnest as he was last night.’

  ‘Maybe I should go and make sure his earnestness is still intact.’

  ‘Don’t do that.’ She touched his hand. ‘You’ll offend him even if you don’t mean to. Absurd as it might seem, he regards himself as a man of honour. I’m confident he’ll do as he promised. But it must be on his own terms.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ On balance, he supposed she was. Let Spataro make his grand gesture of contrition. Then, when it was safely on
the record, would be the time to demand more from him.

  ‘You won’t go to see him, then?’

  ‘You have my word.’ He patted her forearm. The reassurance he intended to convey was met by something profoundly disquieting: a sense also of his susceptibility. His father’s ghost hovered benignly behind her. ‘I’ll leave well alone.’

  ‘Good.’ Corinne moved her arm away from him in order to drink her coffee. Max wondered whether that was the only reason. She glanced up at the clock over the counter. ‘I must go,’ she said, draining her cup.

  ‘Duty calls?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How will you get to Montparnasse?’

  ‘Métro. There’s a Ligne Cinq station just round the corner.’

  ‘I’ll walk you there.’

  They were at Boissière station within minutes, delayed only by a mendicant not-so-old soldier into whose feebly clutched biscuit-tin Corinne dropped several coins. The act reminded Max how swiftly he had come to ignore the human flotsam of the war washed up on the city’s streets.

  ‘Every time I see a man like that I realize how trifling my troubles really are,’ said Corinne as they moved on. ‘It must strike you too: how easily you could have been killed in the war.’

  ‘It struck me every day I returned from a mission in one piece. One of my squadron leaders, Fred Collins, used to say to me, “You’re lucky to be alive, Maxted. Make it count.”’

  ‘It’s a good philosophy.’

  ‘I try to live by it.’

  ‘We all should. What does Mr Collins do now?’

  Max remembered then, in all its clarity, the day Collins had died. But he had no wish to speak of it. ‘I don’t know. Something he enjoys, I hope.’

  They had crossed Avenue Kléber and were standing at the head of the stairs leading down into the Métro station. Corinne turned and looked at him. ‘Zamaron will be in no hurry to tell me I’ve been vindicated. I suspect you’ll hear from him before I do.’