‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Is it Herr Stahl on the line?’
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘My name doesn’t matter, Herr Stahl, not at the moment, anyhow. I’ll tell you when we meet.’ His German was refined and educated, his voice smooth.
‘Why would we meet?’
‘I believe you might be able to help us. We’re trying to resolve a
… trying to resolve certain questions that involve your friend Olga Orlova — the actress. Have you seen her lately?’
‘No. What questions are you talking about?’
‘Mmm, better that we discuss these things in person. Are you planning a visit to Germany any time soon?’
‘I’m not.’
‘No matter, we can meet in Paris. Always a pleasure to be there.’
‘Herr whatever-your-name-is, I don’t think I can help you. My regrets, but I must go now.’
‘Of course. I understand,’ the man said, his voice sympathetic. ‘Perhaps my colleagues in Paris will be in touch with you.’
Stahl handed the receiver back to Renate and she hung up. Shaken, he reached for the cigarette pack in his pocket.
Renate stood there for a moment, silent and uncertain, then said, ‘Were you expecting a telephone call here?’ She was being careful, trying to make the question sound offhand; she didn’t mind, she was just curious. Then she added, ‘From someone who speaks German?’
‘No, it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to you.’
‘Then how did he know where you were?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This is very strange,’ she said. ‘Has it happened before?’
She won’t let it go. So, how much to tell her? With a sigh in his voice he said, ‘I am, unfortunately, of some interest to certain German officials. The worst kind of German officials.’
‘Oh. Well now I understand. German officials of the worst kind who are evidently following you around the city. Will they be joining us for dinner?’
‘Renate, please, if you can find a way to ignore this…’
She cut him off. ‘I’m an emigre, Fredric, a political refugee. I don’t like strange phone calls.’ She was going to continue but something suddenly occurred to her — from her expression, something she’d almost forgotten. ‘Does this have anything to do with that vile little Austrian who appeared on the set? The man in the alpine costume?’
Stahl nodded, and tapped the ash from his cigarette into the Suze ashtray. ‘The same crowd. They’ve been bothering me ever since I came to Paris.’
She thought it over. ‘Is that why you went to Berlin? To appease these people?’
Now he had to lie. He couldn’t reveal what he’d done in Berlin. ‘No, the Warner publicity people liked the idea, so I agreed to go.’
‘You couldn’t refuse?’
‘Let’s say I didn’t, maybe I should have.’
She took off her glasses, her faded blue eyes searching his face, her witchy nose scenting a lie. Finally she said, ‘I want to believe you…’
She didn’t finish the sentence but he knew what came next. He looked at his watch. ‘Maybe we should…’
‘That telephone call scared me, Fredric. I know these people and what they do, I saw it, in Germany, and now it’s here, in this room.’
‘Which is my fault, but I don’t think I can do anything about it, except walk away from the movie and leave France. Is that what I should do?’
‘You’d better not.’
‘Then we have to live with it.’ He rested his cigarette on the ashtray, took her hands in his and held them tight. ‘Can you do that?’
Some of the tension left her, he could see it in her face. She met his eyes, then shook her head in mock despair, a corner of her mouth turned up and she said, ‘Go make love to a sexy man and see what happens.’
Perhaps, he thought, hoped, she wanted him more than peace of mind. ‘Speaking of which…,’ he said, with the playfully evil smile of a movie villain, a villain more than ready to skip dinner.
‘That’s for later.’
‘Then can we go get something good to eat? My dear Renate? My love?’
She liked that, lowered her head and bumped him gently in the chest. ‘Help me on with my coat,’ she said.
19 December. The mache-betterave was superb, what followed on the rue Varlin was even better. Having got the first time out of the way on the previous night, they had truly indulged themselves. Stahl reached the Claridge just after dawn, where the night deskman wished him a tender good morning — the hotel clerks of Paris were pleased when a guest enjoyed the delights of their city. Before Stahl left for work he telephoned Mme Brun and, after listening to a silent phone for a few minutes, was told Wilkinson would see him at 7.15 that evening, and the arrangements for their meeting.
A few minutes early, Stahl got out of a taxi at a river dock on the Quai de Grenelle. A middle-aged couple, apparently waiting for his arrival, greeted him like an old friend. ‘Hi there Fredric, what a night for a cruise, hey?’ said the man in American English. This dock served the tourist boat that went up and down the Seine, and a hand- lettered sign on the shuttered ticket booth said AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CHRISTMAS CRUISE. Stahl chatted with the two Americans — Bob was a vice president at the National City Bank — until the launch arrived, strings of coloured lights shimmering in the icy mist, a band on the foredeck playing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’.
J. J. Wilkinson, in a camel-hair overcoat, was waiting for him in the lounge, a shopping bag from the Au Printemps department store by his side. Holding, Stahl guessed, Christmas presents. ‘I’ve ordered you a scotch,’ Wilkinson said as they shook hands. ‘I hope it’s something you like.’
‘It’ll do me good,’ Stahl said. ‘A long day on the set.’
‘Am I going to be taking notes?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘They never quit, do they.’
‘Well, not yet they haven’t.’
As always, the blunt and beefy Wilkinson was a port in a storm, and a good listener. When Stahl was done describing the phone call at Renate’s apartment, Wilkinson said, ‘Well, another piece of the puzzle anyhow.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They know about Orlova, and they suspect you might have had some secret involvement with her.’
‘The man on the phone certainly sounded confident.’
Wilkinson shrugged. ‘What else? I suspect they were watching the courier, and went chasing after him when he headed for Morocco. And I believe they, the people following him, couldn’t let him do whatever they feared so they killed him. They were on that train, Fredric, and maybe — don’t take this badly — didn’t know who you were.’
Stahl grinned. ‘I thought everybody knew who I was.’
‘Luckily they didn’t. But once they found the money, they started to investigate all the people the courier had contact with. At this point, Orlova’s name came up. Now nobody, anywhere in the world, gets close to a national leader without serious attention from the security services, and that goes double for Hitler. Who is this person? What do they want? Who are their friends? Everything you can think of and some things you’d never imagine. I would guess they have a record, a daily, hourly record, of her life in Berlin. They knew that you spent the night with Orlova at the Adlon, so they took a close look at you, then decided to give you a poke to see what you did next. Now, that’s the optimistic version of…’
