‘You started to check on Rice. Don’t worry, the Public Record Office is public, remember! I knew you were on to Rice and me and Frisby, and on to the Turkish end, with Salak. It wasn’t a difficult trail to follow. To the average investigator, it wouldn’t have meant much. But it just so happened that it fitted rather neatly into your theory.’
Hawn cut in: ‘There’s a missing file on your activities in the Caribbean.’
‘There are several. Official secrets, hush-hush stuff. Those two Intelligence blokes who flew out to Mexico in ’44 weren’t at all happy about young Frisby’s death — not at all happy, and they said so. Unfortunately it was thought best, in the national interest — which meant the interests of ABCO — that some of their reports should remain classified.
‘Then, my dear Hawn, we find you going to your old chum, Angus MacIntyre. I’d been rather expecting you to do that — that is, if you were at all serious. And when you did, I confess I didn’t like it. The old boy’s a bit past it now, but he knows one hell of a lot. About the only thing he doesn’t know is how to keep his mouth shut. He was always careful enough not to rush into print, but from an old friend like you I don’t suppose he had many secrets. He put you on to Mönch, didn’t he? And Salak?’
He rubbed his hands together, staring at the ceiling, the hair at the back of his balding head sticking out, making him look like an ageing bishop on the rampage.
‘Now Mönch himself would not normally have worried me. He’d been a bureaucrat and an administrator, but strictly second-rank. He’d have only become dangerous if you knew exactly what questions to ask him. You did — at least, you knew some of them. The names of Rice and Salak would become clearer, more isolated. It would have been like the early stages of developing a film — the shapes would no longer be varying shadows, they would have been taking on definite outlines.
‘But here I know what you’re going to ask. What about Pol? Here you must understand that while you were carrying out your preliminary investigations, both Pol and I had you under increasing surveillance — but, unfortunately, independently of each other. Pol trusts no one, and only a fool would trust him. I tried to keep track of him, but he was too clever. When you went to Istanbul, for instance, I suspected that Pol was behind it.
‘Now I have to be careful here — careful not to impute motives to Pol. As I said, the man’s a total scoundrel, a rogue — even in a business like oil which breeds rogues. But fortunately I have some knowledge of Pol, and some insight into how he works. I’d made discreet inquiries at your newspaper, and found out that you were acting strictly freelance — a mixed blessing, since you would not have the resources of your paper behind you, but also because a little pressure applied in the right places would no doubt have dissuaded your editor and his executives from pursuing the story.
‘I also ran a routine check at your bank, and found that your account is not in good shape. I even made similar inquiries about Miss Admiral here. At the last count she was fifty-two pounds in credit, and had two hundred pounds on deposit with a Building Society.’
Shanklin sank his head on to his chest and smiled at Anna from under his thick pale eyebrows. The deranged bishop turned gentle don: ‘Hardly enough, my dear girl, to finance a round-trip to Istanbul — and staying at the old Pera Palace, too! Particularly since Imin Salak was not a man given to disposing of information gratis. It was then that I guessed that Pol was funding you.’
‘Do you still not know what Pol’s motives were?’ said Hawn.
‘Well, let’s say, some of them — not all. Those motives were the same as mine.’
‘You’re not a member of Jacques? Or are you?’
Shanklin sat back and rubbed his hands together. ‘The French Resistance and the SOE had a lot in common, I’ll grant you. I’m tempted to answer in the affirmative — it would be rather a feather in my cap, at my age, even if it wasn’t true. It isn’t. Justice pour les Anciens Combattants is an obscure and distasteful organization whose aims are to eliminate former Nazis. Pol is not a member of that organization. He never has been. He has been using its name purely as a cover.’
‘Then how the hell did your motives coincide with Pol’s?’
‘Simply, to protect ABCO. But in order fully to understand, it is also necessary to understand the full complexities of an organization like ABCO. Simplicity is something they do not understand, even on the most basic level. And in order to protect themselves, they devised at least two alternative scenarios. They could have eliminated you — which was the method preferred by certain executives, including Robak, who was delegated to do the hatchet-work. I was able to overrule that plan. It seemed to me unnecessarily crude, as well as risky. To have got rid of you would have meant getting rid of Miss Admiral too — and if
