The Labyrinth Makers (23 page)

Shapiro consulted a little dog-eared address book, and then dialled a number on the shiny telephone.

He put his hand over the mouthpiece.

'You know Howard's only real claim to fame? Hullo there–could I have a word with Howard Morris … ? He isn't? No matter. I'll try again later.'

He replaced the receiver, consulted the little address book again and dialled another number.

'When he was in Korea he was one of the select band of brothers who accidentally bombed the main Russian base outside Vladivostock. Hullo! Is Howard Morris being overcharged at your bar … ? Yes, it's me … He is? Well tell him I've come to collect on my last loan. Thanks … Where was I? Yes, they bombed the living daylights out of it –thought they were still over North Korea. And the Russkis never said a word. They thought it was deliberate.'

Jake's thesaurus of cautionary scandal was unsurpassed on either side of the Atlantic.

'And the moral of the story–or one of the morals–is that the burglar is in a poor position to complain about burglary. I commend that thought to you, David–Hullo, Howard, old friend … You are … ? So am I! Look, Howard, I have our mutual friend, David Audley, with me. I know you're busy Kremlin-watching these days. I'd count it a favour if you'd lend an ear to him for a minute or two–a real favour … You will–splendid!'

He passed the beery receiver to Audley. 'He's all yours. Make the most of him.'

'Hullo, Howard.' Audley was uneasily conscious that he was too ignorant even to ask the right questions, never mind understand the answers.

'Hi, David. I know your job forces you to consort with that horse-thief Shapiro, but don't tell me you're both moving into my territory.'

'Just me, Howard. And only temporarily, I hope. But I need someone to fill me in on the current situation over there. Is there a big row on, or anything like that?'

'What's wrong with your boys Latimer and Ridley? No, those were the Oxford Martyrs, weren't they! That's a Freudian slip if ever there was one. Latimer and Rogers?'

'You come well recommended.'

Jake grinned hugely, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger with one hand while giving the thumbs-up sign with the other. The effect was obscene.

'I do?' There was a mixture of resignation and uneasiness in the American's voice, and Audley knew exactly how he felt. Jake always took twenty shillings in the pound.

'Well, there's nothing special–except Round Sixteen in the Conservatives-Progressive fight. At the moment the Progressives are on the canvas, because that bastard Shelepin's got the Army on his side as well as the Young Communist League. And of course the KGB is playing its own game. But the Army's been acting up ever since Czechoslovakia showed how efficient they were–they don't think they're getting the appropriation they need. Or the respect they deserve. And they'd like to bomb the hell out of China, too.'

He paused for a moment. 'European liberals get worried about our generals. If they had one good look at some of the Soviet top brass they'd head for the hills, I reckon! You stick to the Middle East, David: you'll sleep sounder than I do.'

'Which corner is Nikolai Panin behind?'

Howard did not reply, even interrogatively. If Jake knew about Panin's visit, then it was certain that the American did. And Panin would be very much his concern, which meant that Audley himself might soon have something of potential value to contribute to the Anglo-Saxon conspiracy.

'I might be able to help you concerning Panin, Howard –always providing you can help me.'

Howard took a deep breath. 'Panin's behind all four corners as far as I can see. He's the sort of character who has subscriptions to
Ogonyek
and
Novy Mir
, and leaves 'em both lying around for everyone to see. The day you tell me which side he's on I'll get you a Congressional reception. What in the name of heaven and hell is he coming to England for, David?'

'You tell me, Howard. You've got a nice fat file on him, I've no doubt.'

'You must be joking. I've just been reading it; we've got a few pages of hearsay and Kremlin scuttlebut, but we've hardly got one solid thing on him since '45.'

'Nineteen-forty-five?' Gently now. 'He was just a line captain in '45.'

'He was a major when we met him. We'd picked up some Forschungsamt files–Research Office stuff–in an AA Barracks in Stefanskirchen. Perfectly innocent stuff. But he wanted to see it and we let him have a look. We didn't get another make on him until after Stalin's death. I tell you, David, if you want a line on Panin I'm not your man, and I don't know who is. I wish I did!'

Audley wondered what the Forschungsamt was. He had never heard of it, so it could be highly secret or, more probably, highly unimportant. Jake's Berlin man, Bamm, would certainly know, but that would mean more favours, and Jake was too interested already. Besides, there wasn't time.

But Theodore Freisler would know, of course–it was exactly the sort of thing he would know. He had been meaning to phone the old man for twenty-four hours without taking the trouble to do it. Now he had an adequate selfish reason for doing the right thing.

He thanked Howard Morris as sincerely as he was able to with the grinning Shapiro at his elbow, carefully deprecating his association with the Israeli. Apart from being a pleasant fellow, the American would be a useful contact in the future; the sort of man with whom the nuances between the lines of indigestible Soviet journals could be enjoyably discussed. He thought nostalgically of his old, quiet life, which had ended a thousand years before, just last Thursday.

Sincerity was not required for his farewell to Jake. That was the one real virtue of their relationship–it was founded on naked and unashamed self-interest on both sides, needing no false protestations of friendship. He was going to miss Jake.

He was tempted to phone Theodore from the first call box as he had done before, but his guilt drove him to search out the grimy house behind the vast complex of the British Museum and to climb the interminable and even grimier stairs.

The huge, brutal face at once creased into a happy smile which hinted at the nature concealed behind it. One of the things that kept Audley from visiting more often was the undeserved welcome he always received. Theodore would stop whatever he was doing, no matter how important, and give him hours of his time.

'David, you arrive most opportunely! I have just made myself some of this excellent new tinned coffee. A big tin of it I bought at a specially reduced price last Friday, and already I have nearly finished it! And you and Professor Tolkien are to blame.'

'Professor Tolkien, Theodore? Who's he?'

Theodore heaped spoonfuls of evil-looking brown powder into a large mug and stirred it vigorously.

'He is the author of
The Lord of the Rings
and I'm most surprised you haven't heard of him.' Theodore tapped three substantial volumes with a heavy finger. 'A writer of fairy stories for grown-ups. My friends have been telling me to read him for years, and I was too stupid to take their advice. Now I have done nothing but read him for three whole days–except to wrestle with your puzzle.'

'I have heard of him, actually, Theodore. But fairy stories really aren't my line.'

'Your puzzle is a fairy story, my dear David. I have thought and I have telephoned friends of mine in Berlin, and I tell you there is nothing, nothing, that fits your puzzle. Time cancels out the value of things: what would be valuable to a thief then would not be valuable to
them
now. Not worth their trouble.'

'We had a tip that it might be the Schliemann collection from the Staatliche Museum.'

'The Trojan treasures? No, David, the psychology is wrong. Worth stealing–yes. After all, the Russians stole it and it was stolen from them, I know the story. But it was not theirs in the first place, so they would not pursue it. If it had been the amber from the Winter Palace, that would be different. That was
theirs
. But that was never brought beyond East Prussia.'

'Never mind, Theodore. It was good of you to take time from Tolkien to try.'

Audley sipped his coffee. It was surprisingly drinkable.

The old man was shaking his head. 'No, I have failed you. But even if your thief had catholic tastes and took a thing here and a thing there I find it hard to imagine a collection of objects which would tempt them now.'

'Tell me about the Forschungsamt instead, then.'

The great bullet-head stopped shaking. 'What do you wish to know about the Forschungsamt, Dr Audley?'

'Anything, Theodore. I don't know the first thing about it.'

Freisler pondered the question for a time.

'The most interesting thing, of course, is that it illustrates the relationship of the old German bureaucracy to the Nazi Party. If you have time to read the relevant chapter in my book on the civil service between the wars I think that will become apparent to you.'

Before he could get up Audley managed to restrain him.

'I haven't really got the time. Just tell me what it was.'

Freisler looked at him pityingly. 'What it was? Why, it was the office that grew out of the old Chiffre und Horchleitstelle, Cypher and Monitoring. What I believe you would call "passive intelligence". I knew a number of people who worked in it–good Germans, too, not Nazis. That was the remarkable thing about the Research Office: the Nazis were always trying to take it over, but they never really managed to do so.'

He smiled. 'I think it was partly because they all wanted it that they failed. Goering was nominally in charge, but all he knew was that he wasn't going to give it up. Let me see –Himmler tried, and Kaltenbrunner tried. And Diels.' He counted them off on his fingers. 'The only one who got close was Heydrich. He managed to move some of his prewar Sicherheitsdienst files into its headquarters on the Schillerstrasse. But then he was killed by the Czechs in '42, and the office was bombed out by your air force in '43. After that nobody really knew what was happening. The records were spread all over the place, and many of them were destroyed in the end to stop the Russians getting them.'

He looked up at Audley. 'But your clever thief wouldn't have wanted any of them. They had no great value then, and they'd have less than none today, except to the historians. As I recollect, the Forschungsamt officials were considered so innocent that they weren't even called to the de-nazification trials!'

He rose and picked his way between piles of journals and manuscripts to his bookcase.

Audley rose too, but in alarm. Once Theodore gave him the book he would be honour bound to wade through it, or he would never be able to face the old German again.

'Theodore, I really ought to be going.' He looked at his watch. 'I'm lunching with my fiancee and I mustn't be late.'

But Theodore was already thumbing through a thick volume, as unstoppable and incapable of changing direction as a rhinoceros.

'Schimpf–Schimpf was the first director. He committed suicide. Then came Prince Christophe of Hesse. He was killed on the Italian front. Then Schnapper, I think … Ah! Here we have it! The office went to Klettersdorf after the 1943 air raid. Then back to Berlin when the Russians were approaching. And then to the four winds!'

He tapped the book with his finger, staring owlishly at Audley, who had reached the door.

'Some of the documents I saw in England in 1957, at Whaddon Hall. But there was nothing of interest to you in them. They would have been from the section captured at, let me think now–at Glucksberg, of course.'

Audley made his way slowly down the staircase. Once Theodore had mentioned passive intelligence he had known that any further research into the Forschungsamt was likely to be a journey up a blind alley. It had been a wasted trip. But as he reached the street doorway he heard Theodore bellowing unintelligibly from above. He stopped guiltily and waited impatiently as the heavy footsteps thumped after him from landing to landing.

The old German was breathing heavily when he finally appeared. 'David, forgive me! My mind was not listening to you properly. A fiancee, you said–and for a fiancee there must be a gift!'

Audley's heart sank as he saw the square, untidy parcel, a battered carrier bag lashed down with scotch tape. The famous two-decker history of the German civil service, through all the convulsions of the Empire, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, had cornered him at last.

'Theodore, it isn't necessary.'

The great hands thrust the parcel into his and waved his protest aside. It was necessary. It was a small token of deep esteem. It humbly marked a great occasion.

It was also coals of fire on Audley's head, coals which glowed as Theodore beamed and shook his hand and became increasingly guttural, as he always did on the rare occasions when his emotions outran his vocabulary. Audley had fled in cavalier fashion from an unselfish and undemanding friend. His punishment was just and appropriate.

As he drove away to meet Faith he resolved to invite Theodore down into the country for a week. Faith would approve of Theodore; not only because of his grave courtesy, but also because they could meet on the common ground of their own high sense of moral responsibility.

But in the event Audley did not so easily extinguish the coals of fire. They glowed again even more brightly some hours later when Faith was excitedly unpacking her mountain of shopping in the bridal suite at the Bull.

'David, what on earth is this extraordinary parcel?'

She held up the carrier bag.

'It's our first present, from a very good and honourable man, my love.' He hoped desperately that she wouldn't laugh at it, and he couldn't bear to watch her undo it.

She ripped away the covering.

'How lovely! But I've read it, of course. Still, it's something you can read again and again.'

Audley looked in the mirror at his astonished face, half of it covered with shaving soap.

'It has written in it "
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn -
but may you never be sad". What does that mean?'