His right hand was balled in a manicured fist but he wasn’t the sort to swing a punch — that he would leave to the regulars at the Alex.
‘Your private business,’ he persisted.
‘A small matter…’
‘A small matter of guns?’
Wolff flicked the ash from his cigarette and said nothing.
‘All right.’ Maguerre bent to pick up the briefcase at his feet. ‘The story’s everywhere.’ Taking out a leather- bound file, he opened it and slid a small cutting across the table. ‘From
‘Oh?’ Wolff glanced at it for a few seconds, then pushed it back.
‘Is it you?’ demanded Maguerre.
‘Who?’
‘What are you hoping to gain from this nonsense?’ He was losing his temper. Good interrogators never lost their temper.
‘Are you the man the British are looking for?’
Wolff looked at him coolly. ‘No.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘That isn’t polite.’
‘Please, Herr de Witt…’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘This is foolish. The rifles. They’re your rifles — for your people in South Africa, General Maritz’s forces — the Boers. Your shipping agent in Norway told us everything — for a price, of course. A thousand rifles hidden in a shipment of mining machinery. The M-1891 Westinghouse is making for the Russians. You see?’
‘If you’re right, I don’t believe it’s any of your business,’ replied Wolff belligerently.
‘You know the old saying: “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. We help our friends.’ Maguerre paused and looked down at his hands. Then, lifting his eyes to Wolff’s face again, ‘But perhaps it’s a clever story and you’re a spy.’
Wolff shrugged. ‘I might be. I’m not Germany’s friend or enemy. I’m a businessman.’
‘But you hate the British?’
‘Yes,’ he said under his breath.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said “yes”, damn it. Yes, I hate the British. Satisfied?’
Maguerre gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t understand why…’
‘Why I’m discreet?’ Wolff dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I don’t want to be chased across Europe. I don’t want a reputation for trouble. I don’t want to be a face in a secret policeman’s file.’
‘Too late, you’ve made your choice,’ Maguerre said, lifting the cutting. ‘Isn’t that why you’re here in Germany?’
‘I’m here for my health,’ replied Wolff with a wry smile. ‘When it improves I’ll return to America.’
‘It won’t improve in the Alex, Herr de Witt.’
Wolff sighed.
‘All right.’ Maguerre got to his feet wearily and drifted to the door. ‘Hey,’ he shouted, rapping it with his fist. It was opened by the more solidly built of the
‘Fetch us some coffee, would you,’ demanded Maguerre ungraciously.
The door closed quietly behind the policeman.
‘Why was it necessary to conduct this business in the middle of the night?’ Wolff enquired fiercely, his skin still prickling with sweat. A more observant man than the lieutenant would have noticed his discomfort.
Maguerre scratched his temple thoughtfully. ‘I think you know the answer. But we’ll come to that later,’ he said, easing behind the table again. ‘You’re not an American. Your German is excellent; your Dutch too?’
Wolff nodded.
‘Who are you, Herr de Witt?’
Who? What? Why de Witt? Your life, de Witt, like a babbling stream through the early hours.
‘Who am I? Dutch, I suppose,’ he told Maguerre. ‘My father and mother were Dutch, from Maastricht, but they lived in England with my grandfather for a time.’
The story was as close to his own as he could make it, and he’d rehearsed it until it became his life entirely, first with C, then with Bywater and the old South Africa hand, Landau. Jan Cornelius de Witt, the only child of farmers, religious zealots quick to recognise the Devil in their neighbours and sometimes in their son. School in England and Holland, then the polytechnic college in Delft. It was 1900 and in South Africa the Boers were fighting the British.
‘It was the romance of David and Goliath — farmers fighting an empire for their freedom,’ he explained to Maguerre. ‘And I was bored of narrow streets and flat country, the smallness, the tidiness of everything. Bored with the polytechnic. It wasn’t a difficult choice — I joined the Dutch Volunteers.’
There were others — Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, a few Russians; de Witt had served alongside MacBride’s Irish for a time. The Dutch didn’t see much action. They did see crops and homes burned, the bodies of farmers shot in their fields, their wives and children dying of hunger and disease in concentration camps. That’s when de Witt learnt to hate the British. In the autumn of 1900, he was taken prisoner and sent to a camp in Ceylon. He was twenty-two when he left it, no money, no prospects, no country to speak of, but resolved to make his way in the world, harder and with that ember still glowing inside. No, Lieutenant Maguerre, hatred wasn’t too strong a word; hatred not just for the British but for all empires, and for all who refuse to acknowledge the rights of small nations. With the outbreak of war in Europe, the Boers under General Maritz were fighting again. Westinghouse trusted him, the opportunity to send arms was there and Wolff had taken it even though he was sure this rebellion would fail too. Why he’d decided to risk so much he found it impossible to say.
Did Maguerre believe him? At a little before four o’clock he was joined at the table by a man with a face baked and wrinkled by the sun. He said his name was Cronje and that he’d served in the ‘last war’ and had the honour to be Maritz’s representative in Germany. He looked as if he’d just ridden in from the Highveld in his long tweed waistcoat and jacket, and after a few minutes he slipped into the
‘Don’t take me for another of your farmers,’ Wolff replied curtly in Dutch.
But Cronje wasn’t a simple Boer. He gazed at Wolff with the dispassionate eye of the experienced interrogator, the eye of one who has witnessed the worst a man can be. For an hour he picked at the threads of Wolff’s story, his questions always to the point, probing, probing for the smallest inconsistency to threaten the fabric of the whole. Perhaps he thought he’d found it because he kept returning to the identity of de Witt’s go- between for the arms shipment. A name, he insisted in his tight-lipped South African way, a name.
‘Maritz’s people call him “the Stork”,’ Wolff said at last.
‘And only you know his real identity, Herr de Witt?’
‘That’s right,’ he replied. ‘You know in Holland, Herr Cronje, the stork is…’
‘The bringer of treasure.’
‘Yes.’
‘And who paid for this treasure?’
‘Friends who trust me to keep my mouth shut.’
‘Who has that sort of money?’
‘I’ve told you, I won’t say,’ he snapped.
‘We’re friends here.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, yes,’ interjected Maguerre. He’d been wriggling impatiently for a while, breaking into exchanges to insist they were repeated in German, making no effort to stifle his yawns. It was plain that he had no time for the Boer. ‘We have enough information to speak to the Count,’ he said, rising from the table. ‘If you’ll excuse us, Herr de Witt.’ He gazed down his nose at Cronje for two or three seconds, then turned to the door.
Cronje didn’t move, he didn’t reply. His face was inscrutable, with only a suggestion of colour rising to his cheeks. His dark-brown eyes were fixed on Wolff, his rough hands clasped on the table. Then, slowly, theatrically,
