Yesterday's Spy (21 page)

‘And the special hand-dipped chocolates,' remarked Ercole approvingly, after Louis had sat down with us again. ‘She'll gobble her way through them, just watch. Did you notice her ask for a second portion of the
profiteroles
?'

‘Are you going to the football match on Sunday morning?' Louis undid the lace of one shoe and rubbed his foot. He lacked the stamina of the professional waiter.

‘He's staying out at Champion's house,' said Ercole.

‘Yes, I know,' said the boy. I saw contempt in the glance he gave the old man.

‘I think I might have a morning in bed,' I said.

‘No Mass for these heathens,' said Ercole.

‘It's just a friendly match for charity,' said the boy. ‘Really not worth the journey. But next month it will be a good one.'

‘Perhaps I'll come next month, then,' I said.

‘I'll send you tickets,' said the boy, and seemed strangely pleased at my decision.

Compliant with Schlegel's prediction, the next few days brought perfect spring weather. When Sunday morning came, there was a clear blue sky and hot sun. I went into Nice with Champion, and Billy decided that he would come too. The chauffeur stopped outside St François de Paule. Billy asked why I wasn't going with them to Mass, and I hesitated, searching for a reply.

‘Uncle has an important meeting,' said Champion.

‘Can I go too?' said Billy.

‘It's a private meeting,' Champion explained. He smiled at me.

‘I'll leave my coat,' I said, anxious to change the subject. ‘The sun is warm.'

‘See you later,' said Champion.

‘See you later,' said Billy, but his voice was almost lost in the pealing of church bells.

There was a rehearsal in progress at the opera house across the road. A few bars from Verdi's ‘Requiem' were repeated over and over. The red carpet was laid for the ‘Caisse', but in the shabby doorway marked ‘Paradis', a policeman barred the way.

I cut through the market. It was crowded with shoppers, and with country people in their well-brushed black suits, black dresses and shawls, arguing over cages of rabbits and chickens and snails and brandishing brown eggs.

Out at sea, a yachtsman hopefully hauled upon an orange-striped spinnaker as he was passed by a ketch. The sea still had the milkiness of winter, but the surface was calm. The waves lapped the shingle with no more than a gentle slap, and disappeared with a deep sigh of despair.

There is always a blustery wind around the great hillock of rock under which the port of Nice shelters. There was everything there, from a sailing dinghy to tramp steamers moored close to the cranes. The quayside was piled high with pale-yellow timber, and on the far side of the water I saw the
Giulietta
tied up along with half a dozen yachts and cruisers. There was no sign of Schlegel on its deck.

The main port of Nice is not the sort of place where you see the fancy yachts double-parked, with film stars dining
al fresco
on the poop deck, and borrowing a cup of caviare from the tycoon next door. This is a strictly business-only mooring, the Club Nautique is another call. But for a Sunday morning, it was unusually crowded: a dozen men stood around a Peugeot van, and watched two frogmen having their equipment checked. The metal barriers that divide the car-parking area had now been rearranged to cordon off the quay, and a uniformed policeman guarded the only gap in it.

‘Where are you going?'

‘A little walk,' I said.

‘Little walk somewhere else,' said the cop.

‘What's happening?' I said.

‘Did you hear me? Get going!'

I walked, but kept to the other side of the fence until I came to some other spectators. ‘What's happening?' I asked.

‘A body, I should think,' said a woman with a shopping bag. She didn't look round to see who'd asked, in case she missed something.

‘A suicide?'

‘Off one of the yachts,' said another man. He was dressed in an orange-and-yellow yachtsman's wind-cheater, with a heavy-duty zip in bright red.

‘Some millionaire, or his fancy piece,' said the woman. ‘On drugs, probably – an orgy, perhaps.'

‘I'll bet they are Germans,' said the man in the wind-cheater, anxious lest the woman's fancies should be so elaborate as to eliminate his own prejudices. ‘Germans can't hold their drink.'

The officious policeman came back to where we were standing. ‘Move on,' he said.

‘Move on yourself, you dirty pig,' said the woman.

‘I'll put you into the van,' said the policeman.

‘You ponce,' said the woman. ‘What could you do with me in the back of the van?' She let out a cackle of dirty laughter and looked round at the rest of us. We all joined in, and the policeman went back to the barrier.

The unity of our gathering thus demonstrated, a hitherto silent member of the crowd was encouraged to speak. ‘They think it's a tourist,' he said. ‘Tangled in the anchor ropes of one of the boats – the
Giulietta
or the
Manxman
there – they think he went in during the night. The frogmen will soon get him.'

‘It will take them an hour,' said the man in the yachting-jacket.

Yes, I thought, it will take them an hour. I moved away from the spectators, and walked slowly up the steep connecting street to the Boulevard de Stalingrad.

Everywhere seemed closed, except for the bakers across the street and a large café, its name, ‘Longchamps', in white plastic letters on a hand-painted acid-green background. The floor was cleared, as if for dancing, or a bout of bare-fist fighting. There were a dozen or more customers, all men, and none of them dressed well enough for Mass. In a far corner, a man in a booth accepted bets, and all the while the customers were prodding the racing papers, writing out slips and drinking pastis.

I ordered a cognac, and drank it before the girl behind the bar replaced the cap on the bottle.

‘That's an expensive way to satisfy a thirst,' she said. I nodded, and she poured a second one. This one I took more slowly. The radio music came to an end and a weather forecaster started a lot of double talk about areas of high pressure. The woman switched it off. I sipped my brandy.

A man came up, put a one-franc coin into the machine on the counter and got a handful of olives. ‘Have one,' he offered. It was Schlegel.

I took one without comment but my eyes must have popped.

‘Thought they were untangling me from an anchor chain, did you?'

‘Something like that,' I said.

Schlegel was wearing native costume: stone-coloured golf-jacket, dark pants and canvas shoes. ‘Well, you started celebrating too soon, blue-eyes.'

‘Did you ever think of wearing a black beret with that outfit?' I asked.

We took our time before moving to the quietest corner of the café, alongside a broken juke-box.

‘Here's what you asked for,' said Schlegel. ‘The contacts that Melodie Page made with her “running officer” and the report dated six weeks before her death.'

I opened the brown envelope and looked inside.

‘She stuck with Champion – very close,' said Schlegel. ‘She went with him to stamp exhibitions in Zürich and Rome. The last three cards have special exhibition cancellations, you'll notice.'

I looked at the postcards that Melodie Page had sent to her cut-out. They were the sort of thing that several aerophilately firms sell: picture postcards of the
Graf Zeppelin
airship anchored at some place in South America, the
Hindenburg
airship flying over New York and a grim one that showed the same airship exploding in flames in Lakehurst in 1937. The last card was a picture of an American airship,
Macon
, sent after her return to London.

‘Nothing complicated about the code,' explained Schlegel. ‘She met her contact five days after the postmark date. Seven days after if the postcard was coloured.'

I went through the cards again.

Schlegel said, ‘Why did she suddenly become interested in aerophilately?'

I said, ‘The cards were easy to obtain. Champion likes using them to send to his collector friends. And if she's at these stamp shows, what could be more natural?'

‘This couldn't be a big stamp racket, could it?' said Schlegel.

‘Champion might transfer money that way. A stamp is a bit like a bearer-bond but it's not much of an investment. After all, the value has got to go up at least thirty per cent before you've covered the dealer's mark-up.'

‘What about forgeries or stolen stuff?'

‘No,' I said.

‘How can you be sure?'

‘On the scale we're talking about, it would be impossible. The word gets around. A stamp crook has to nibble a mouthful at a time. Making a half way decent forgery of a stamp is a long expensive business. And you can't recoup by suddenly putting a hundred forged rare stamps on the market, or prices would slump to nothing. Even with genuine stamps they would. And what kind of dough are we talking about? Even in the swish Bond Street auctions you won't find many single stamps fetching more than fifty pounds sterling. That kind of swindle isn't going to meet Champion's wine bill!'

He opened his case and brought out the five-page report that the London office had sent. It was an analysis of Champion's movements, and the spending and activities of his companies, during the previous six months. Or as much as London knew of them. ‘Not to be taken away,' said Schlegel, as I opened it hurriedly. He went to the counter and brought two espresso coffees. By the time he'd returned, I'd scanned it.

‘Nothing there, is there?' He tapped the coffee with his spoon. ‘You'd better drink that. Two brandies under is no way to face that boy, even if he's half of what you say he is.'

I drank the hot coffee, folded up his sheets of typing, and handed them back to him.

‘And the trucks in Marseille?'

‘They are being loaded. The manifest says engine parts, chemicals and heavy-duty plastics and fabrics. It's a diplomatic load, just as we were warned it would be.'

‘Did you find out anything about the Topaz girl?'

Schlegel studied me carefully before replying. ‘She's twenty-five. British subject, born in London. Only child. Doting parents to whom she writes each week. Her father is a retired research chemist, living on a small pension in Portsmouth, England. She hasn't lived at home since she first went to college in London. She graduated with honours in thermo-chemistry but she's never had a proper job. She's worked as a waitress and gas-pump attendant … you know the kind of thing. Seems like she's hooked on kids. Her last three jobs have been as a children's nurse. She's not a qualified nurse, of course.'

‘No,' I said. ‘She's a qualified thermo-chemist.'

‘Oh, Jesus!' said Schlegel. ‘I knew this was going to start you shovelling that Serge Frankel shit all over me. Thermo-chemists don't manufacture nukes.'

‘No,' I said patiently. ‘Thermo-chemists don't manufacture nukes. But thermo-chemistry does relate to the explosion of nukes.' I opened the manila envelope he'd given me, and I found the photo postcard of the
Hindenburg
disaster. ‘And the conversion of hydrogen into helium also relates to the explosion of nukes.' I stabbed my finger at the great boiling mass of flame erupting out of the airship.

Schlegel took it from me and bent close to look at the photo, as if he might discover more there. He was still looking at it when I left.

The cars of Nice are mostly white, so Champion's black Mercedes was easily spotted on the Place Massena. The driver was in the car, but Champion and his son were sitting outside a café-bar under the stone arcades. Champion was drinking an apéritif, and Billy was arranging sweet-wrappers on the circular metal table-top. Billy waved when he saw me. He'd saved me two cubes of chocolate, which by now were soft, misshapen and coated with pocket-fluff.

Champion got to his feet too. They'd clearly had long enough sitting there, and he didn't offer me a drink. The chauffeur had the door open as we reached the car, and there was a discussion about whether Billy was permitted to sit in front. Billy lost and was seated between us in the back.

Champion opened the window. The sun had heated the interior enough to explain why most cars were white.

‘Now don't get chocolate all over the upholstery,' said Champion. He got a handkerchief from his top pocket.

‘I'll be careful,' I said.

‘Not you, stupid,' said Champion. He grinned, and wiped Billy's hands and mouth.

‘You can't always be sure, these days,' I said.

‘Don't say that, Charlie.' He seemed genuinely hurt. ‘Have I changed so much?'

‘You're a tough cookie, Steve,' I told him.

‘Welcome to the club,' he said. He looked to Billy to see if he was listening to us.

Billy looked up at me. ‘I'm a tough cookie, too,' he told me.

‘That's what I said: Billy is a tough cookie, Steve!'

Billy looked to his father to check me out. Steve smiled. ‘We don't want too many tough cookies in the family,' he said, and straightened Billy's tie.

By this time we'd reached the airport turn-off. The chauffeur was overtaking the Sunday drivers creeping along the promenade. An Air France Caravelle came down alongside us, to land on the runway that runs parallel to the road. There was a roar, and a scream of rubber as its jets reversed.

Billy watched the Caravelle until it disappeared from sight behind the airport buildings. ‘When will we go in an aeroplane again, Daddy?'

‘One of these days,' said Champion.

‘Soon?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘For my birthday?'

‘We'll see, Billy.'

‘Will Uncle Charles come too?'

‘I hope so, Billy. I'm counting on it.'