CHAPTER 14
Anna had seen Monsieur Pol almost as soon as she entered the main foyer of the Ritz. He had greeted her with a little cooing cry, stumbling awkwardly to his feet and pulling out a gilt-backed chair for her. He had a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, its neck wrapped in a white napkin, and three glasses. He poured her a glass and said: ‘So the good Doktor was not so lazy after all?’
‘It was you following us?’
Pol spread his hands. ‘I regret, ma chère mademoiselle, but I had a man watching the American Express. A simple precaution. I wanted to protect you from any difficulties,’ he added ambiguously.
She wanted to ask him what difficulties, then changed her mind. ‘Tom will be here soon.’
‘He has the documents?’
‘No.’ She looked quickly around the elaborate room.
‘Then you have them?’
‘No, I do not.’
There was a pause. Pol sat very still, without expression, except that he had begun to sweat rather more than usual. The hotel was pleasantly air-conditioned. ‘Mademoiselle, I ask you not to play the comedy with me.’
‘This is no comedy, Monsieur Pol. We’re the ones who’ve been doing all the work, taking all the risks.’
‘With my money.’
‘Tom said we were being followed, so we took a few simple precautions.’ She went on to give him a brief description of their subterfuge, including the posting of the letter.
Pol watched her, his fat comic face turned solemn, thoughtful. ‘They were following Monsieur Hawn, you say? They were not following you.’
‘Perhaps you know more about that than I do, Monsieur Pol?’
He ignored this. ‘You arrived here without trouble. If you did not trust me with the original documents, you could have made a photocopy of them. There is a machine here in the hotel.’
‘I didn’t know that. The most important thing is that the documents should be safe.’
Pol sighed; mopped his face with his silk bandanna: then wearily poured two glasses of champagne. Anna did not really want any: she had drunk enough already that morning.
‘Monsieur Hawn speaks German, does he not? He will have read the documents?’
‘If you were having us watched, you would know that.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He gave her a sad smile: though she now detected a tiny gleam of anger in his eyes. She guessed that he could be dangerous when he became angry. ‘As I told you, I had you watched at the American Express,’ he said at last. ‘But I did not have you followed here. Why should I? We trust each other, do we not?’
‘Then why did you bother to have us watched at all? Did you think we were going to take the documents and use them for our own profit? They would be very interesting to a lot of people.’
‘Only if they were handled correctly, by the correct people. They would need authenticating. That is something that you and Monsieur Hawn cannot do alone. That is why you need me.’
Anna had left her champagne untouched. She said, ‘You still haven’t told me why — if you trust us so much — you had us watched this morning. And all the other mornings, presumably.’
Pol reached again for his bandanna; the sweat was glistening on the tip of his goatee beard and he was breathing heavily; he drank his glass of champagne. ‘You must forgive me, Mademoiselle — but an old dog never forgets its tricks. My life is very complicated — I never know when friends will turn enemies, when trusted colleagues will turn traitors. You ask me to make exceptions — but in this game you can only make one exception too many, and you are lost.’
‘Then who was following us today?’
He shook his head and a drip of sweat fell into his massive lap. ‘You and Monsieur Hawn have decided to combat the largest, the richest, the most powerful industrial organization in the world. To have received their attention this morning in an unsuccessful attempt to divest you of those documents is surely no trivial matter. You were lucky. We all were.’ He looked at his watch. It was almost 1.15. ‘Now what has happened to our friend, Monsieur Hawn? I was hoping to offer him lunch, and I’m getting hungry.’
As he spoke, one of the huissiers arrived at his elbow, whispered something to him and passed him a note. Pol frowned, nodded to Anna, and said, ‘Mademoiselle, a small problem. Your beloved is enjoying the hospitality of the Spanish Security Police — Special Section. They deal with counter-espionage and external threats to the State.’
She stared at him. ‘Does he want to speak to me?’
‘There will be plenty of time for him to speak to you. Let me speak to him first. I can be of more help.’
Pol was gone for nearly twenty minutes. Anna prided herself on being a practical girl who was good in crisis: but it was with immense relief that she saw Pol’s huge figure waddling back towards her. He sat down on the little gilt chair, which Anna was surprised could sustain his weight.
‘Eh bien, ma chère, our friend has some problems. It appears that someone with considerable influence has denounced him to the authorities, claiming that he is in possession of classified documents of interest to the State. Fortunately for him — as you told me — he has already got rid of those documents. The Security Police are therefore somewhat embarrassed by his presence. To release him would be an affront to his denunciators, who, as I said, are men of influence. The
