‘My dear fellow, I’m surprised that you should be so naive — that you are under the illusion that the Communists have any morality about anything. The Communists are, and always have been, supremely pragmatic beings. They operate from self-interest — a characteristic which I find rather encouraging. Personally, give me the self-seeking any time, rather than the self-righteous. And in the case of the East Germans, the moment one of our hated multinationals could be an advantage, they happily seize that advantage. As for war crimes, fortunately, as I have said, our fraternal friends in the East do not indulge in self-righteous recriminations, unless it is for a specific purpose.’ Hawn said: ‘But you do admit that a war crime was committed by ABCO?’
‘Look, what is a war crime? Auschwitz — Belsen? So, it’s naughty to kill Jews. What about the bombing of Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden? Were they war crimes?’
‘You sanctimonious shit!’ Anna, sitting very straight and white-faced, had dashed her glass to the floor; and for a moment she seemed about to spring at Shanklin. ‘You loathsome old hypocritical gangster — armchair gangster — gambling club room gangster! You haven’t got the guts to commit crimes yourself! Pol was a hypocrite and a gangster, but at least he took some part in what he was doing — was out there when the shooting started! But people like you…’ She paused, about to cough with rage. ‘You have no conscience, no compassion, no morality. You’re nothing but an ugly, greedy, wicked old man. And as long as ABCO pays your bills, you’ll go on licking their arses!’
‘Tut, tut, my dear lady — such language. I wouldn’t have expected it.’ He was peering at her from under his eyebrows, still the benevolent don rather than the wild bishop. ‘But no matter, sticks and stones, sticks and stones.’ He glanced at Hawn. ‘I’m merely trying to put your minds at rest — by giving you some useful information, which is more than your friend Pol apparently did. If, however, you only wish to indulge in trivial abuse…’
‘All right, Shanklin. How did you get tied up in all this? Apart from having worked as a junior executive with ABCO before the war?’
‘Well, I was drafted into SOE, which made me a lot more than a fly on the wall. Undercover work, with responsibility for the Middle East and the Balkans. Istanbul happened to be slap in the middle. And in Istanbul in those days you didn’t just hear rumours — you could buy them on the street corner like lottery tickets. Some of the numbers came up, most of them didn’t. And the people selling them were usually selling to both sides. There was even an occasion when the desk-wallahs in Cairo bought a piece of information already sold to the SOE in Sofia. Usual Snafu — situation normal, all fucked up. If you’ll pardon the expression, Miss Admiral,’ he added, with a snigger of sarcasm.
‘But there was one rumour that wasn’t sold — it was given to me by that young Englishman, de Vere Frisby, who held a junior post at the Istanbul Consulate, which was his cover for Intelligence operations. He was neurotic and drank too much — which in some ways helped his cover — and when he was sober, he wasn’t at all a bad agent.
‘It was from him that I first heard about Salak, who — as you no doubt know — was also working for us. We knew that oil was getting out of Istanbul and going astray, but because Turkey was doing a nice balancing act by remaining neutral, and because the Allies were desperate to get her in on our side and not to upset her, we had to be very careful how we acted. I put in a tentative report to POE, but it got mysteriously mislaid. At least, it never seems to have reached London — and if it did, somebody sat on it or flushed it down the toilet.’
‘There’s nothing in the Public Record Office.’
Shanklin crossed his legs. ‘I’m sure there isn’t. Anyway I got shot up in Yugoslavia, and at my own request was transferred to the Caribbean. I did more than that — I managed to get de Vere Frisby transferred with me, to Mexico. Frisby hadn’t known about Rice by name, until he saw him face-to-face when Rice was working for ABCO in Vera Cruz. He recognized him at once as a German agent he’d known in Istanbul. Rice almost certainly recognized him, but unfortunately he was not only a good scientist — he was a good agent. He didn’t let on and, stupidly, I didn’t act on the spot. I made the mistake of sitting on Rice and following up further leads.’
‘In what capacity?’ said Hawn. ‘Fearless undercover agent fighting for King and Country? Or as ABCO’s faithful, well-paid lapdog?’
‘Both. The two were the same. The interests of ABCO were part of the interests of Britain. The two were indivisible. They still are. You might both do well to remember that. Anyone who tries to hurt ABCO is trying to hurt this country. And when anyone does that — my God, they have me to answer to. And I’ll smash them — I’ll grind them underfoot. I’ve told you that before. And I mean it.’
Anna blurted out, her voice shuddering with fury: ‘But wasn’t ABCO doing everything it could to hurt this country by giving the Nazis oil?’
‘They had very good reasons. But I’ll come to those in a minute. Let’s go back to Rice and Frisby in the Caribbean. I was, by now, pretty certain that elements
