‘That’s where the taps are, aren’t they? In any case, there are always sealed compartments. Isn’t that the usual trick?’
Robak allowed himself a second smile. ‘You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?’
‘Some of it. I’m just working on it, as I go along.’
‘Fine. So why don’t you talk to your Royal Navy boys? Talk to the RAF chiefs, to our guys in Washington. Talk to retired chiefs of Strategic Air Command, the guys who ran the blockade, guys whose job it was to go through the Nazi archives at the end of the war. Talk to the experts. Get your facts. It’s no good just walking into a bar and shooting your mouth off, accusing us of helping the Nazis. That’s tantamount to accusing us of mass murder. Now I’m thick-skinned — I don’t give a damn what you think personally of ABCO, or of its methods of business. But I don’t like being called a murderer. I like it even less when it’s done by a stranger, and in front of other people. Logan may be a buddy of yours, but that Frenchman Pol’s in the business. OK, he looks like a clown, but he’s got a lot of funny-money tucked away in Liechtenstein and he wants to do business with ABCO, and ABCO’s business is to do business.
‘So I say it again — I don’t like guys come butting in and making wild accusations that can’t be substantiated. I hear you’re a good newspaper man? Well, that’s not the kind of conduct I expect from any kind of newspaper man. So get your facts. Get all the facts, and get ’em straight.’ He stood up. ‘I’ve enjoyed talking to you, Mr Hawn. I just hope I’ve made myself clear?’
‘Thank you. You’ve made yourself admirably clear, on a number of points.’ Hawn stood up and was about to shake hands, when he said, ‘You heard, did you, that that Prince fellow — Grotti Savoia, the one who’s been making himself rather tiresome for you lot in the last few days — he was found dead early this morning, drowned in one of the canals? Pure coincidence, no doubt.’
‘I’d say so. Or maybe you don’t believe in coincidences, Mr Hawn?’
‘Sometimes. Don’t you?’
‘I prefer to call them Acts of God — like the insurance companies do. Might also be a kind of moral in it all — a tragic lesson to silly people who spread lies and try to make trouble.’
‘Sentimental, aren’t you?’
‘Good morning, Mr Hawn. It’s been a pleasure talking to you.’
They shook hands, and Hawn left.
CHAPTER 4
The fat man ate with his fingers, with neither grace nor deference. And he talked as he ate: ‘I fought in Spain as an anarchist. I am not ashamed of it. We had the most superb ideals. We wanted to burn down the banks, abolish money, run public restaurants for everyone, rich or poor. I was a happy man then. I believed. I was even happier when that water rat, Franco, invaded. I kidnapped one of his generals and ransomed him for three hundred rifles. We asked for a thousand but they wouldn’t pay. I assume he wasn’t much of a general. Then they captured me near Salamanca and I only just escaped, disguised as a priest.’
‘When the war came, it was not quite so easy to choose sides. I hated the Nazis, and I hated the Communists because they had a pact with the Nazis. But I also hated the French bourgeois establishment. If there hadn’t been a war, I suppose I might well have become an urban terrorist. I’m quite skilled in some of their practices.’
Grease dripped from his fingers, down his chin, to become matted like succulent seaweed in his little goatee beard.
‘Unhappily, the war did not end well for me. In 1944 I was caught by the Gestapo. I was rather important at that time, and they wanted to ask me some questions. I didn’t want to answer them. They didn’t kill me. They castrated me instead. So when the war finished, I found myself not a war hero, but a eunuch. I don’t know which was the more embarrassing! I took refuge in starting a shop for women’s undergarments behind the Gare St Lazare. The enterprise has been remarkably successful. It has now expanded into a supermarket!’ He giggled and broke off to order another bottle of wine.
‘My last reputable role was in Algeria, helping Long-Nose de Gaulle sell two million Europeans to the Arabs. Of course, I had no great sympathy with the European cause — except for one thing. It was a popular movement. I have great sympathy with popular movements — but on one condition. They must have a chance of winning. Today, for instance, if the Whites in Africa had just one chance in a million of winning, perhaps I would support them. But they don’t even have that.’
He had a second helping of Ossobuco and recounted various escapades in South-East Asia — where he had hijacked a plane-load of American money to Hanoi — and in Russia, where he had double-crossed both the KGB and the British Intelligence Service, over the disappearance of one of Britain’s most notorious traitors — and later in an ill-fated attempt to assassinate the then Shah of Iran.
Hawn and Anna listened to him, neither believing nor disbelieving. Most people live dull lives, and some try to make them sound exciting by inventing outrageous escapades. A few have had remarkable lives, and are usually wary of discussing them, least of all with a stranger. But on balance Hawn inclined to the view that Pol was telling the truth. The crucial question was of motive: for one thing was sure. The fat man was not merely being sociable.
He was
