The Swiss Spy (5 page)

At five o’clock a car pulled up outside the building
and the two men left the office and walked quietly to it. Edgar helped Henry put
his cases in the boot then joined him in the back.

‘I thought you’d like me to see you off.’

***

Henry
Hunter boarded the
SS Worthing
in Southampton before the troops embarked
and was taken straight to a tiny cabin in the officers’ quarters, which had a
bunk and little else. The captain came in and told him he was to remain in the
cabin for the duration of the voyage.

They docked in Cherbourg just after seven the next
morning and at nine o’clock the captain came into his cabin. He was safe to
leave now, all the troops had disembarked. A taxi was waiting on the quay to
take him to the station.

Henry was shocked at how France had changed. Everywhere
there were troops – British as well as French – and people looked pinched,
worried and in a hurry. None of which were characteristics he’d usually
associate with the French. Normally the train journey would have been jolly,
with people chatting. Now, it was quiet. People stared out of the windows and
said little. It was as if a whole nation was wrapped in its own thoughts,
unwilling to share its fears.

The train pulled into Gare Saint-Lazare just before
three o’clock: the journey had taken longer than scheduled due to a lengthy and
unexplained stop outside Caen. If Cherbourg had been quiet and the train
silent, Gare Saint-Lazare was not. Half of Paris seemed to be leaving through
the station and the other half arriving into it. He found the telegram bureau
and sent the message to London. He had little doubt he would be watched at the
station: requiring him to send the telegram was a good way of ensuring that. He
then walked out of the vast concourse of Gare Saint-Lazare and away from Clichy
and its temptations.

The further you walk the harder it is for you to be
followed.

So he headed south then east, down Boulevard
Haussmann where the elegant shops and straight lines afforded him plenty of
opportunity to observe every angle around him. He entered a leatherwear shop to
look at wallets and a
tabac
to buy matches, and in Boulevard St Martin
he joined a long queue in a
patisserie
to buy an almond croissant. The ten-minute
wait allowed him enough time to be certain no-one was following. He decided to
look for somewhere to stay around Republique and found a small hotel by the
Canal Saint Martin, where he took a comfortable room with its own private
bathroom overlooking, as requested, the front of the hotel. He then spent an
hour sitting by the window, behind the half-open shutters, observing the street
below. When he was as certain as he could be that no-one had followed him and
no-one was watching from the street, he closed the shutters and drew the
curtain. After a bath and a rest he left his room at six thirty.

Had anyone checked in since his arrival, he asked
the
patron
at reception? He was not sure if a colleague was joining him
or not. The
patron
shook his head. He understood, he said, with a
knowing and even conspiratorial look. Henry wasn’t sure what it was the
patron
understood, but he slipped him a generous few francs for what he said was an
already excellent service and explained he may be back late, perhaps very late.
Would the
patron
be so good as to let him have a key?
Of course
. And
would he also be able to perhaps slip a note under his door to let him know if
his friend arrived, or indeed if anyone else checked in or even asked for him? Naturally,
said the
patron
.
It would my pleasure.
Henry knew that, this
being Paris, the
patron
would assume that Henry was conducting an
affair: in such circumstances it would be his pleasure, indeed his duty as
patron
to do whatever he could to assist.

Henry walked out into the bitter Parisian night air,
where a wind had swept up the nearby Seine and was settling over the city. He
waited in the entrance of the hotel for ten minutes and, once he was certain he
was alone, he headed south, turning up the collar of his coat as he did so.

The real danger of being a spy is that which you
court yourself.

He headed in a south-easterly direction, away from
his destination. On the Rue de Crussol, just before it crossed Boulevard
Voltaire, he found a telephone kiosk. The call lasted no more than 30 seconds,
much of which was taken up by a pause by the person who had answered the phone.

Very well. You know where to come. Give us one hour.
Be careful.

So he walked down Boulevard Voltaire then found a
tiny café in the Passage Saint-Pierre Amelot. There were four two-seater
tables, crammed into a space where three would have been a tight squeeze. One
of the tables was occupied by a young couple. Henry took a vacant one, making
sure he faced the door. He remained there for half an hour: dinner was a bowl
of soup with bread and an excellent omelette.

It took him 20 minutes to reach his destination from
the café. The Marais was once swampland, then home to the aristocracy and now,
as far as Henry could tell, in an advanced state of decay. It was the kind of
area of which people would say it had known better days, though no-one alive
could remember those better days. But Henry liked the anonymity of the Marais,
with its obvious edge of danger that meant people hurried along and avoided
each other. It wasn’t relaxed and given over to enjoyment of life, like most
other parts of Paris. It had its different groups; the Jews and their
synagogues and little shops around the Rue de Rosiers; those too poor to have
their own place and living with others in large crumbling houses; the
prostitutes who couldn’t make it in Clichy; the gamblers, the drinkers and the
anarchists.

He knew the area very well and picked up his pace,
darting up and down little alleys, doubling back on himself, pausing in
darkened doorways and making it impossible for anyone to follow him. He emerged
into the Rue de Bretagne and slipped into the entrance of a large grey building
with enormous shuttered windows and waited. On the wall inside the entrance was
a series of bells, one for each of the 20 apartments. Under the bells someone
had drawn a small circle in pencil. On the opposite wall they had drawn a
square. It was safe. He pressed a bell and went straight up to the top floor.

***

‘You
look very well. You’ve lost weight.’

‘Yes, thank you Viktor.’ Henry hesitated. He was
about to return the compliment, but realised nothing could be further from the
truth: the other man was bigger than ever, his face heavily lined and his large
nose even redder. Viktor had greeted him with an embrace and had held him in it
for a while, which made Henry feel less than comfortable. As he slowly emerged
from the hug, the man held him at arm’s length by the shoulders – one hand on
each – as if to admire him. For a moment Henry feared the man was about to kiss
him on the cheeks, as he was wont to do. He was always nervous in the Viktor’s presence,
not least after a long gap, as now. Anyone looking at him would have noticed
that, for a brief moment, his thin smile had disappeared.

‘I wasn’t sure we’d ever see you again. Come, sit
down. We have much to talk about.’

They were speaking in French, neither man’s native
language, which added to a formal, even tense air in the room. Two other men
stood either side of the window, keeping watch through half-open shutters. Another
man entered the room and announced it was all clear: no-one had followed him. He
was sure of that.

‘What will you drink? I seem to have everything here.
Whisky?’

‘No, not for me, thank you.’

‘Really? That’s the first time I’ve known you to
turn down a whisky. What have they done to you?’

The man’s look of concern broke into a broad grin as
he poured himself a drink and pulled his chair closer to Henry’s. ‘This really
has been a most unexpected development, most unexpected. And you’re certain
they suspect nothing?’

‘I’m as certain as I can be,’ said Henry.

Viktor shuffled his large frame around in the chair
to make himself comfortable. From a side table he picked up a large notebook,
expensively bound in brown leather. He produced a pencil from his top pocket
and sharpened it with a penknife that came from another pocket, allowing the
shavings to gather on the front of his jacket. He made a few notes before
looking up at Henry and smiling, as if checking on him once again.

‘We have two hours, maybe three. You need to tell me
everything.’

***

Henry
returned to the hotel just before one that morning. There was no note under the
door from the
patron
. Despite his exhaustion, he slept only fitfully and
woke at seven o’clock. He checked out of the hotel an hour later, stopped for a
coffee and croissant nearby then caught a tram on the Boulevard du Temple down
to the Gare de Lyon. He managed to book a good seat on the ten o’clock train to
Geneva where he found himself in a carriage with six other passengers: a
formally dressed Swiss businessman who tutted loudly if anyone came too near
him; an elegantly dressed, elderly French lady who spent most of the journey
smiling wistfully out of the window and did not remove her leather gloves once
during the journey; and a couple with their son and daughter who were, as far
as Henry could tell, a year or two either side of ten. They seemed to be
overburdened with suitcases and other bags, some of which they had to keep in
the corridor. When the children spoke, which was not very often, they did so
with strong Parisian accents. The parents spoke to the children in accented
French, but to each other in what sounded to Henry like Polish and also a strange
version of High German he’d never heard before. From what he could tell, they
were anxious about crossing the border. The wife kept asking the husband if all
the paperwork was in order.
I hope so. Who knows?
Whenever one of the
family spoke, the Swiss businessman looked annoyed. On more than one occasion
he caught Henry’s eye, hoping to share his disapproval with him.

The journey was uneventful until around a quarter to
six when the train pulled into Gare de Bellegarde, the last station in France
before the Swiss border. For around ten minutes, the train just stood still,
with no apparent reason for the delay. The businessman looked at his watch and
shook his head. The French lady continued to look out of the window, smiling. Then
they heard voices, working their way slowly down the train. Through the window Henry
could just make out the shape of gendarmes patrolling along the tracks. The
voices grew nearer and the parents looked even more anxious.
Everything will
be alright?
, the wife asked the husband, in the strange German dialect.
I
have no idea
the husband replied.
Speak in French now: only in French.

Five minutes later, two Swiss border guards and a
French gendarme entered the carriage. ‘Papers please,’ he said. ‘A routine
check: we’ll have you on your way in a minute.’

Henry showed his Swiss passport. One Swiss border
guard showed it to the other and they both nodded. ‘No problem Monsieur Hesse
.
’
Nor was there any problem with the businessman and the elegantly dressed lady. But
for the family, it was different. Both guards looked at the papers in some
detail and shook their heads, passing various documents to the bored-looking
gendarme behind them.

‘These papers are not in order,’ one of them said to
the father.

‘But I was assured there would be no problem.’

‘Well, there is. You have no valid papers here
allowing you to enter Switzerland. It is not possible.’

The husband and wife exchanged glances; the wife
nodded.
Do it.

‘Perhaps I could have a word with you in the
corridor?’ He gestured towards the children.
Away from them, please.

Henry could just make out the man pleading with the
guards, both of whom looked stone-faced. ‘Perhaps I could pay for the visas
now, I have the funds?’ Henry could see the man open his wallet and attempt to
press a wad of banknotes into the hand of one of the guards, who refused to
take it.

‘You are denied entry to Switzerland. You have to
leave the train now,’ he heard one of them say. Henry noticed the other guard
grabbed the banknotes.

‘You are in illegal possession of Swiss currency. We
are confiscating it.’

The gendarme shrugged.
This is not my problem.
The
father came back into the carriage, crestfallen and defeated. His wife was
doing her best not to cry and the children looked frightened, as if they knew
what was happening. The gendarme helped them to remove their cases. The elderly
lady looked shocked and the businessman annoyed as baggage was removed from
around him. A minute or so later, Henry watched as the family emerged onto the
deserted platform and the train slowly began to move again. The businessman
shook his head and muttered the word ‘juifs’
.
The lady had stopped
smiling.

The train pulled into Gare Cornavin just before
seven o’clock. On the short walk home Henry was hit by the icy blast from the
nearby Alps, bouncing into the city from the lake. Despite this and the burdens
he now carried, he had the most unusual sensation of arriving somewhere he
could call home.