‘Salak,’ Hawn continued, ‘seems to have been a pretty easy lead. My old journalist colleague from wartime Intelligence put me on to him. He also put me on to Mönch, and Mönch knew about Salak, too. As I said, it all seems a bit too obvious — almost as though someone had left us a paperchase to follow.’
Pol was watching him through sleepy eyes. ‘I am not sure, mon chèr, that I fully understand what you are implying.’
‘Let me put it another way. All these people I’ve met have been pretty accessible. They’ve been accessible for a long time. What I find odd is why no one had got on to them earlier. In short, why hasn’t the whole story been blown wide open years ago?’
Carefully, and with skill, Pol manoeuvred himself over on to his back, keeping the towel tucked tightly around him to cover whatever pitiful obscenity sprouted from his groin. He settled his great head on his arms.
‘Mon chèr, as I said, it is all a matter of perspective — of the grand perspective. Rice was a scientist. Mönch was an administrator. Rice was technically a traitor, Mönch technically a war criminal. There is nothing interesting about that. There were hundreds of traitors, hundreds of thousands of war criminals. Some were caught, some were not. And the ones who got away usually preferred to keep to themselves. Few of them spill the beans — if they have any to spill — unless they have a special inducement to do so.
‘In Mönch’s case, there was a double incentive. You offered him money, with which he needed to make a quick getaway — and the second incentive was Jacques. Mönch may even have thought that by giving you information — assuming he thought you were connected with Jacques — he would be buying himself time, or what time was left to him. But of course, you had the supreme advantage — you had been blessed with your overall theory — a masterful inspiration, a flight of fancy, perhaps, but nothing more.
‘However, I am straying from the point. You mentioned that unhappy Englishman, Monsieur French? There you had a stroke of luck — a stroke that may have cost the gentleman his life. He happened to know about Rice’s activities in Central America during the war. He also knew about this man Shanklin. He may have known a lot more.’
‘If they killed French, why haven’t they killed me and Anna? Or even you?’
‘Ah, that is one of the riddles that must be solved — although I have my theories.’
‘Which are?’
Pol closed his eyes and belched. ‘Mon chèr, your conduct in this affair has so far been a model of tact and restraint. You have not posed awkward questions, and you have not obstinately sought answers to every problem. You have preferred to pursue events at their own pace, to wait and see how the story unfolds. So please, do not start asking me to divulge my theories — unless I choose to do so, of my own accord. Continue to see yourself as a soldier in the front line, with me as your commanding officer — you do not seek his answer to all your questions.
‘However, I will put your mind at rest on one point. Salak. You are worried that you got on to him too easily. But you forget that Imin Salak was a big wheel in the Istanbul underworld. He was a big wheel during the war. The British made the mistake of trusting him, and he sold out to the Germans. Istanbul in those days was like Lisbon — what one might call a social centre for high-life espionage. Anyone involved in Intelligence work in the Middle East — like your old journalist friend — would have heard of Salak. It would have been highly suspicious if he hadn’t.
‘The fact that he’d also heard of Mönch is because you exposed your theory to him and asked him specifically about the German fuel industry. Mönch had been a powerful man in that industry, and your friend — having specialized, as you say, in economic warfare — knew all about him, too. So you see, you do not have to worry about coincidences there. Again it is the matter of perspective. Unless you have the theory — the overall picture in your mind — that the Western powers, through ARCO, were supplying the Nazis with their fuel — the random names of Rice and Mönch and Salak have no particular significance. Have I put your mind at rest?’
‘Not quite. Rice’s presence in East Germany needs some explaining. Presumably he fled there after the war to avoid arrest by the British? And the Russians, not giving a damn about the British and their ideas of high treason, were only too happy to put him to work again as a top scientist? But how much do the Russians really know? And how much has Rice chosen to tell them? The Communists would surely love to expose the biggest Capitalist multinational enterprise as a gang of master war criminals?’
‘Yes, I have thought about that, too. But the Communists are very devious. They are also very pragmatic and consistent — when it suits their aims. One of the ironies of our time is that the Soviet Union, and the whole Eastern Bloc, depends a great deal on the stability, even prosperity, of the Western economy. Until now they have been short of oil — and it may well be that the hierarchy decided that it was not in their interests to try to topple the major Western oil consortium.
‘Anyway, supposing Rice did tell them all? It would still have been one man’s word against the collective voice of ABCO. It would also not only be a word emanating from behind the Iron Curtain, but that of
