The Carabiniere straightened up. ‘Dear God, we must go at once to the Commandants. This man was not just important, he was of the aristocracy! A sacred Prince!’
He left his companion to guard the body, and hurried away in search of his superiors.
Hawn heard the news by chance, on the bedside radio in his hotel while he was shaving. The police authorities were clearly splashing the story as a sign of their efficiency, even in the teeth of riots and disorder. The Prince Grotti Savoia had drowned on his way back sometime late last night. They were appealing for witnesses.
Hawn took the news with superficial calm, and a certain decent professional scepticism. The back canals of Venice late at night were not the place to go wandering and stumbling when you were one over the eight. The Principe had been very drunk. He’d probably got even drunker after Hawn had left him. But he’d also been nervous, almost scared.
Scared in his cups? Hawn knew he should have a conscience about the man — after all, he had contributed in no small measure to his drunkenness. But when Hawn saw a good story — or just a potential story — the last thing he wanted was to get involved with the labyrinthine complications of Italian officialdom.
Besides, he had his date with Robak at the Gritti Hotel.
He had told Anna about his meeting with the Prince, and she now looked shocked. ‘But isn’t he the one who gave you the original idea about the German oil supplies?’
‘Something like that. But there’s probably no connection. If there is, I doubt the Italian police could prove anything — even if they wanted to.’
Hawn arrived at the Gritti Palace Hotel at 10.40. The receptionist rang Suite 104 and after a pause motioned to a uniformed youth to take him up. The door was hung with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice in four languages. After a moment it was opened by a girl with frizzy hair and a large mouth. A voice from inside shouted, ‘Tell him to hang on!’
The main part of the suite was huge, with curtains still half-drawn. The girl said, with a German accent, ‘Mister Robak is in the bathroom. He will not be long.’ She sounded to Hawn like an au pair made good.
He sat down in an armchair, while the girl wandered off into the bedroom. Robak appeared a moment later; he was wearing a short brown towelling gown and bedroom slippers trodden down at the heels. His hair was even more untidy than last night and there was a lump of shaving foam under his ear. ‘Hi — I forgot the name.’
Hawn told him, stood up and shook hands.
‘Coffee?’ Robak said. ‘It should still be warm. Or beer — there’s some in the icebox. I’m off the booze. Damned hepatitis. I’m allowed to drink again at noon on 12 February — I got that date written down big and clear in my book.’
Hawn accepted coffee, and Robak poured two cups from a breakfast tray. He sat down and called towards the bedroom, ‘Hun, would you mind trotting downstairs for a moment?’ He waited until the girl had left. ‘Yeah, Mr Hawn. So you’re the guy who has this theory about the Nazis getting some of their oil from the West?’ He paused to sip his coffee, and winced. ‘God damn it, you’d think in the best hotel in Venice they’d serve better stuff than this. Tastes as though the cat pissed in it. I’ll ring down for more.’
‘Not on my account, please.’
Robak’s bland face broke into a smile. ‘That’s what I like about you British — you always got good manners. Now about this theory of yours, Mr Hawn. What’s the true basis of it?’
Hawn sketched in the facts that he had already computed in his mind, emphasizing the extreme difficulties which the German High Command must have experienced in finding fuel supplies following the Russian capture of the Rumanian oil fields in 1944.
Robak lit a cigarette, tasted it, threw it away and lit another; then as an afterthought offered the packet to Hawn, who declined.
‘Are you an expert on the oil industry, Mr Hawn?’
‘I know something about it.’
‘It’s a hell of a complex industry — there are even some angles that I sometimes think I don’t understand. And you know something about World War Two? So you’ll no doubt know that in a war like that every kind of racket went on. Not just cigarettes and whisky — jeeps, trucks, even planes found themselves on to the black market. And guns, of course. Half your guerrilla wars at the moment are still being fought with the help of World War Two hardware. The Eyties here even dismantled a whole US cruiser in Naples in one night and sold it off for scrap.
‘But you wanna talk about German raw materials? Well, there were plenty of rackets there, too. Mostly through the neutrals — Spain, Sweden, Switzerland.’
‘I know about that,’ said Hawn: ‘Steel and nickel and chrome. Difficult stuff to transport, ’specially with a naval blockade throughout most of the world — at least, towards the end of the war. But oil’s fluid. It can be carried in bulk, or in very small quantities. It can be easily transferred, even easily disguised. Pump a small tanker three-quarters full, then top it up with milk or olive oil.’
Robak sat watching him, very still, unblinking. ‘You got a darn fine imagination. But facts. Where are your facts?’
‘I told you, it was only a theory — and not even twenty-four hours old, at that.’
‘You say you know about the oil industry, Mr Hawn. Well, maybe you do, maybe you don’t. A lot of people know how the internal combustion engine works, but
