Found Wanting

SEVEN

Eusden was unsure in retrospect how he endured the four-hour journey to Hamburg. The train was old and slow and grubby, the route a grim haul through industrial towns and stretches of countryside veiled in darkness. Most of the passengers looked about as happy to be aboard as he was. They were travelling, like him, because they had to.

Eusden had been sorely tempted to call Gemma and offload some of the concern he felt for Marty and the anger that filled him at being put in such a position. But there was nothing Gemma could do except worry. And it was not her fault that Straub had laid a trap for one of them to walk into. Eusden suspected it might at least partly be Marty’s fault, however, a suspicion he intended to voice once he was sure his friend had come to no harm. All he could do meanwhile was stare out at the night-blanked North German Plain and stifle his frustration.

Hamburg central station was thinly populated at 1.15 in the morning, a deadening chill invading its cavernous, empty spaces. Eusden, drained by sleeplessness and anxiety, tracked down the left-luggage lockers as swiftly as he could and opened number 43.

The keys were there, as Straub had promised. And so was the tag. The address written on it in bold block capitals meant nothing to him. He could only hope a taxi driver would be able to find it.

The night he walked out into was still and numbingly cold. He clambered into the lead cab in a short queue of more or less identical cream Mercedes and proffered the tag to the driver. A glance and a nod was all he received in return. Then they were on the move.

A ten-minute surge through a deserted city centre and they were there: Brunnengasse, a pedestrianized link-route between a main road and a residential side street. Modest but reputable apartment blocks lined the route, prettied up with window-boxes and Juliet balconies. The address on the tag was number six: a single door serving twelve flats, each equipped with electronic bell-pushes, speakerphones, and mailboxes next to the entrance. There was, however, no way of telling which flat belonged to Straub’s mother.

Eusden let himself in with one of the Yale keys and started checking the names displayed alongside the front doors of the flats. He had reached the third floor before he found what he was looking for: FRAU B. STRAUB. He rang the bell. There was no response. He tried again, pressing his ear to the door. Was that a muffled groan he heard? Maybe. Maybe not. He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

The picture on Straub’s phone had prepared him for what he would see. But what he could actually see was very little. The flat was in darkness, a wedge of amber lamplight from the street illuminating only a portion of carpet in a room ahead of him. There was that groan again, apparently emanating from the same room. Eusden groped for the light switch and pushed it down. Nothing happened.

Another groan, louder this time. He headed for the wedge of amber and entered what various hummocked shadows suggested was a lounge, with a pair of windows affording a view of the flats opposite. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, one shadow resolved itself into a figure lying on the floor. It was Marty. He had toppled the chair over at some point, but was still tied to it, slumped on his left side.

‘It’s me, Marty,’ said Eusden, stooping over him. He caught a pungent whiff of stale sweat and urine. Marty turned his head and rolled his eyes. ‘Hold on.’ Eusden located one end of the strip of tape and pulled it free as gently as he could.

‘Good to see you, Coningsby,’ said Marty in a hoarse whisper. The use of Eusden’s college nickname was reassuringly spirited. It was a reference to his family’s supposed descent from the eighteenth-century poet laureate Laurence Eusden, sometime rector of Coningsby, in Lincolnshire. The pair had driven up there from Cambridge one Saturday in pursuit of the poet’s shade, but had only succeeded in becoming so drunk in the village pub that they had had to stay overnight before driving back. ‘Not that… I can actually see you.’

‘The lights don’t work.’

‘Werner turned them off at the mains. Just as well the block’s centrally heated, otherwise I’d have frozen to death. The fuse box is in the hall cupboard.’

‘OK. Hang on.’

Eusden retreated into the hall and opened the cupboard. After collapsing an ironing board on himself, he succeeded in feeling his way to the fuse box. He pushed up all the switches. Overhead lights came on in the hall and lounge. He hurried back.

The scene was stark. Marty lay trussed and crumpled. There was far more grey in his hair than when they had last met. And he had lost weight. He looked like an old man, lying where he had fallen. But he still sounded like the younger version of himself Eusden recalled. ‘If you’re still as good at untying knots as you were in the Scouts, it’d be quicker to fetch a knife from the kitchen.’ A nod pointed Eusden in the right direction.

The kitchen, like the lounge, was fitted out in an old-fashioned style. Frau Straub did not appear to be an enthusiastic modernizer. Eusden discovered several formidably bladed knives in one of the drawers, however. He chose what seemed the sharpest.

‘For Christ’s sake be careful,’ croaked Marty as Eusden set to work. ‘I don’t want to bleed to death after surviving twenty-four hours bound and gagged in this hellhole.’

‘I am being careful. There.’ He released Marty’s wrists and started on his ankles. Once those ropes were also free, he pulled the chair away and watched Marty roll slowly forward, groaning and grimacing as he gradually straightened his arms and legs. ‘How d’you feel?’

‘Oh, tip-bloody-top, thanks.’ Marty gasped as blood coursed back into starved limbs and joints. ‘How do I feel? How do you think I feel?’

‘Sorry.’

‘No need. At least you came. Where would I be if you hadn’t?’

‘What’s this all about, Marty?’

‘Didn’t Werner tell you?’

‘Hardly.’

‘No. I suppose he wouldn’t.’ Marty coughed and sat up gingerly, supporting himself against the chair. ‘Any chance… of a drink of water?’

‘Of course. I should’ve thought.’

Eusden filled a glass from the kitchen tap. Marty gulped the contents down and handed it back for a refill. ‘I’d never have thought German tap water would taste so good.’

‘You shouldn’t drink too much too fast.’

‘OK, nurse. I’ll sip the next one.’ Marty ran a hand along the rope that still fastened the chair to a radiator pipe. ‘Then I might think about standing up.’

Eusden refilled the glass. Obediently, Marty drank slowly this time, the glass shaking in his hand as he did so. He gave Eusden a pained smile. ‘Sorry about the state I’m in, Richard.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’ Eusden sat down in a nearby armchair. ‘We’ll soon get you cleaned up.’

‘Gemma talked you into taking her place, did she?’

‘Yup.’

‘Thought she might.’

‘You did?’

‘I can read her like a book. You too, come to that. You gave the attaché case to Werner, I assume.’

‘I wouldn’t say gave. It was his price for the address of this place. And the keys. I didn’t have much choice.’

‘You could have told him to go to hell. I’m a dying man, Richard. Didn’t Gemma mention that?’

‘She mentioned it.’

‘So, saving my life is… a temporary achievement at best.’ Marty raised a trembling hand. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you came. See what was in the case, did you?’

‘No.’

‘But Werner opened it in front of you?’

‘Yes. He seemed satisfied with what he’d got.’

‘I’ll bet. Was he alone?’

‘Yes. Shouldn’t he have been?’

‘There was a hired heavy waiting when we came here on Sunday night. Ill or not, I might have got the better of Werner on his own. Maybe he took the bloke on for just the one job. You should be grateful he didn’t add roughing you up to the contract. Not that he needed to, of course. I guess he was confident whichever of you and Gemma showed up would cooperate. Leaving Werner in the clear.’

‘We should report what’s happened to the police, Marty. You were assaulted, for God’s sake. And I was robbed.’

‘Forget it.’

‘Forget it?’

‘I mean forget going to the police. Werner knows I can’t do that.’ Marty swallowed some more water. Then he braced himself against the chair and rose unsteadily to his feet.

‘Careful.’

Eusden was at his side. But Marty signalled to be left alone and smiled stubbornly at his success in standing upright. ‘What happened after you handed over the case?’ he asked, rubbing his sandpapery chin.

‘I caught the train here.’

‘I didn’t know there were through trains from Brussels.’

‘We were in Cologne. We travelled that far together. Straub said you were waiting for us at the Hotel Ernst. That’s where he… presented his terms.’

‘Cologne? Well, I guess that makes sense. An hour from Frankfurt airport on the high-speed line. He’ll make an early start.’

‘You think he’s planning to leave the country?’

‘No. He’s planning to meet someone off a flight from the States. Someone I was supposed to be meeting with him. Looks like I’ve been… iced out of the deal.’

‘What is the deal, Marty?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘After the day I’ve had, yes, I do.’

‘Sure about that?’

Eusden nodded emphatically. ‘Absolutely.’

‘OK. Tell you what. I’ll take a shower. The water’ll probably be cold, but at least I’ll smell sweeter. You didn’t bring a change of clothes with you by any chance?’

‘I came straight from the office.’

‘I should’ve guessed from the way you’re dressed. Never mind. Maybe Werner’s mother hasn’t chucked out everything that belonged to his father yet. You could check that while I shower. And see if the old bat left any food in the fridge when she jetted off for her fortnight in the sun.’ Marty set out at a totter across the room. ‘When I’m clean and less hungry, I’ll tell you what you think you want to know.’

EIGHT

Marty’s instinct about Frau Straub’s disposal policy was sound. There was a wardrobe in the main bedroom filled with suits, shirts, sweaters and trousers that could easily have come from a German equivalent of John Collier circa 1970. Eusden laid out a hopeful selection on the bed and headed for the kitchen. The pickings there were thinner: a few rye crackers in a tin, an unopened pack of Emmental and several bottles of Löwenbräu. He opened one of the beers for himself and went back to the lounge.

As he entered the room, the telephone started ringing. At 2.25 a.m. he thought the caller was unlikely to be Frau Straub’s sister in Stuttgart. Maybe it was a wrong number. On balance, he hoped so.

After ten to twelve rings, it stopped. Then, a moment later, it started again. He picked it up.

‘Hello?’

‘Check the mailbox.’

‘What? Who is-’

But the line was already dead. Eusden replaced the receiver and gazed out through the window into the night. Then he crossed to the light switch and flicked it to off, plunging the room into darkness. He returned to the window and peered down into the street. There was no sign of life. After a struggle with the latch, he succeeded in opening the window. He leant out for a wider view. But there was nothing to see.

The shower was still running in the bathroom. Marty could not have heard the telephone ring. Eusden debated with himself what to do. The message could be a trick, devised to lure him or Marty outside, but Straub would surely not have given up his only set of keys. If his ‘hired heavy’ was the caller, he was probably equipped to let himself in. Besides, he could have waylaid Eusden when he arrived if he had wanted to. And they would have to leave sooner or later anyway. Eusden headed for the door.

His confidence had ebbed somewhat by the time he reached the ground floor. Through the window beside the main door he could see nothing beyond an empty stretch of paving, the light of the porch lamp leaching away beyond that into velvety shadows. He took several deep breaths to calm himself. By rights he should be at home in Chiswick, sleeping soundly after an undemanding day in Whitehall. Instead he was in Hamburg, behaving like a Cold War spy making a pick-up from a dead-letter drop in the middle of the night.

He finally tired of his own apprehensiveness and yanked the door open. Nothing moved on the street. No shadow in human form loomed into view. The mailboxes were only a few steps away. He reckoned the smallest key on the bunch would fit the lock on Frau Straub’s box. And so it proved.

Inside was a thickly filled brown envelope. He lifted it out, closed the box and retreated indoors. There was neither name nor address written on the envelope. It had clearly been delivered by hand. It had also been left unsealed. Eusden pulled back the flap. A chunky wad of banknotes met his surprised gaze. The topmost note was €100. So were the next few. He gasped, shoved the envelope into his pocket and started up the stairs.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Marty when Eusden walked back into the flat. ‘I come out of the shower and you’ve vanished into thin air.’ He cut a bizarre figure in white shirt, hound’s-tooth-patterned sweater and twill trousers that finished an inch or two above his trainers. He had a beer in one hand and a hunk of cheese in the other. His hair was still wet and he had a towel looped round his neck to catch the drips. ‘Plus you switched the lights off. Are you trying to spook me?’

‘We had a phone call. Announcing a special delivery.’ Eusden took the envelope out of his pocket. ‘I’ve just been down to collect it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Money. Rather a lot, by the look of it.’ Eusden dropped the envelope on to the coffee table. ‘See for yourself.’

Marty sat down in the armchair and plonked the bottle of beer on the table. He put the cheese in his mouth and devoured it as he fanned the wad of notes, then counted them. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said when he had finished. ‘There’s ten thousand here. What did the caller say?’

‘“Check the mailbox.” Nothing else.’

‘It has to be from Werner.’

‘You think so?’

‘No one else owes me a cent, Richard. This is my pay-off. A pittance compared with the profit he’s hoping to make. But enough, he’s calculated, to persuade me to give up and go home.’

‘And will you?’

Marty took a swig of beer and sat back in the chair. ‘It’d make the time I’ve got left more comfortable than it’s likely to be otherwise. And it’d make my landlord a happy man.’

‘But it wouldn’t pay the Swiss specialist’s bill, would it? Not from-’ Eusden stopped. The incomprehension on Marty’s face told him what he should already have guessed. ‘There is no clinic in Lausanne offering a revolutionary treatment, is there?’

‘’Fraid not. Nice idea, but… no.’

‘Straub said that’s what you needed the money for that you were going to make from selling the contents of the case.’

‘Just as well he was lying, then. Since this is all the money I’m likely to see now.’

‘Are you saying you’ll settle for that?’

‘It’d be the smart move, I guess. What he put me through here was the stick. This is the carrot.’

‘You’re going to let him get away with it?’

‘Sit down, Richard. You look like a man with a mission. It doesn’t suit you.’

Eusden sat down. ‘You promised me an explanation, Marty.’

‘Yeah, but this money… changes everything.’

‘How?’

‘It means I don’t have to go away empty-handed. Terminal illness alters your perspective on life, take my word for it. I could have my own fortnight in the sun now. Several fortnights, in fact.’

‘And that’s enough?’

‘What d’you want me to say? At heart, I’ve always been a hedonist. It makes no sense to put you in the picture if we’re not going to do anything about it.’

‘We?’

‘I can’t go on alone, that’s for sure. All in all, it’s probably best to end it here. Take the air fare back to London out of this lot. You’ll be behind your desk again by Wednesday morning, sipping a coffee freshly brewed by your curvaceous PA, glad your excursion to Hamburg is just a brief, bad memory. Then, in a few weeks, if you feel like it, come over to Amsterdam and we’ll spend some of Werner’s dosh on a pub crawl.’

‘You seem to have forgotten you owe me most of this in bail money.’

‘Ouch.’ Marty’s expression suggested he really had forgotten. ‘OK. It’s a fair cop. You have first call on it, no argument. Help yourself. Don’t worry about me. Dying penniless is a piece of cake.’

‘I’m not interested in the money, Marty. I’m interested in the truth. You surely don’t think you can get away with stonewalling me like this, do you?’

‘Why not? You’re not planning to tie me up again, are you?’

‘I knew Clem almost as well as you did. What did he have that a creep like Straub could sell now for a small fortune?’

‘Not so small, in all likelihood.’ Marty smiled wryly. ‘Sorry. It really is best if I say nothing.’

‘How did you meet Straub?’

‘Our research interests… coincided.’

‘Research into what?’

Marty’s smile assumed a pained fixity. He did not reply.

‘Clem came to Hamburg once, didn’t he?’

‘Did he?’

‘You know he did. While I was on the train, I remembered him talking about it. One of his hush-hush Special Branch missions, some time after the War. We used to think he made them up. I’m guessing he didn’t make this one up.’

‘Guessing? You certainly are.’

‘Tell me I’m wrong, then.’

More silence. Marty’s smile faded into blankness.

‘Why did you come to this flat on Sunday evening?’

‘Werner said there was something here that might interest me. He was lying, naturally.’

‘But why were you taken in?’

‘I’m a gullible guy.’

‘Come on, Marty. You thought it was likely to be true. Why? Something to do with Straub’s father, maybe? What did he do for a living?’

‘Journalist. Worked on the local daily. The Hamburger Abendblatt.’

‘At the time of Clem’s visit?’

‘Probably. If there was a visit.’

‘What was in the case?’

‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Oh God.’ Marty rubbed his face and took another gulp of beer. He gave Eusden a long, studious stare. ‘You’ll regret getting involved in this, y’know, you really will.’

‘I’m already involved.’

‘No. Affected by it. But not involved. There’s a big difference. I’m not chasing a quick buck, as Werner seems to think. I’m chasing… meaning, I suppose. When the doc told me I was on the way out, I considered how I ought to spend the small amount of time I have left. More of the same in Amsterdam. Or something… different. That’s when I remembered Clem’s attaché case.’ (Marty had always referred to his grandfather as Clem, making him seem more of an old friend than a relative.) ‘It ended up with Aunt Lily after he died. When I eventually got round to visiting her, she said I ought to have it. She thought I’d be able to make sense of the contents. I took a look. I couldn’t work out what they amounted to. So, I… asked her to hold on to the case for me. She made a point of locking it and giving me the key. She had an inkling, I think, that it was… important. I couldn’t see how at the time, but I do now. So does Werner.’

‘What did it contain?’

‘It’s a long story. And I’m dog-tired. Neither of us is thinking straight. There might be a way, if you help me, to get at the truth, despite losing the case. I’m just not sure. The Foreign Office would have to do without you for a while, though. You’d have to… make a commitment. So, sleep on it. There’s a single bed in the spare room. As the invalid, I’m claiming old Mother Straub’s double. Let’s get a few hours’ kip. Then, in the morning, if you still feel the same way I’ll tell you everything.’ Marty summoned a weary grin. ‘Every last incredible detail.’

NINE

Eusden woke with a start. Dawn had broken, grey and grudging. Its dusty light revealed the anonymous furnishings of a room he did not immediately recognize. For a moment, he could not even have said where he was. Then the events of the previous day avalanched back into his mind. And the prevailing silence expanded ominously.

He threw on his clothes, calling Marty’s name as he did so. But the call went unanswered. The flat was small. It took only a few seconds to confirm he was alone.

Then he noticed the envelope full of money still lying on the coffee table in the lounge. If Marty had taken any of it, he had certainly not taken much. Was that, Eusden wondered, his idea of an honourable parting? A debt settled. But a secret kept. He could only repeat what he had said when his friend had jumped bail, forfeiting his surety. ‘Fuck you, Marty.’

‘Nice greeting,’ said Marty, coming through the front door just as Eusden spoke. ‘A simple “Good morning” would have sufficed.’ He was wearing a parka and carrying a travel bag. Though pale, gaunt and unshaven, he looked absurdly cheerful and was munching a pretzel. ‘You didn’t think I’d run out on you, did you?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ Eusden responded defensively.

‘What it is to have a reputation.’ Marty hung up his coat and strolled into the lounge.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘The hotel I was supposed to check out of yesterday morning. Werner had paid my bill, considerate fellow that he is, and had them pack my stuff to await collection. So why don’t you make coffee while I put some of my own clothes on? After breakfast you can take second turns with my toothbrush and shaver. Can I say fairer than that?’

A mug of black coffee was ready and waiting for Marty when he entered the kitchen five minutes later, in clean sweatshirt and jeans and eagerly peeling the cellophane off a pack of Camel cigarettes. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, catching Eusden’s wince. ‘I’m not going to die of lung cancer, am I?’ He lit up, sat down at the formica-topped table and took a sip of coffee. ‘Why can’t I smell bacon frying?’

‘Because there’s none to fry. The menu’s cornflakes – without milk.’

‘OK. We’ll breakfast out. Meanwhile-’

‘Meanwhile you’ve got some talking to do.’ Eusden sat down at the other end of the table, theatrically fanning away the cigarette smoke as he blew on his coffee.

‘Does that mean you’re in?’

‘I guess so.’

‘I’m looking for something more definite than that, Richard.’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Phone the office and say you’re taking the rest of the week off. Personal emergency. Compassionate leave. Your budgie’s died. Whatever. Tell the FO to FO.’

‘There won’t be anybody in yet. They’re an hour behind, remember.’

‘Leave a recorded message. All the better. No need to explain.’

‘I’ll have to explain eventually.’ Somewhere deep in Eusden’s brain, a series of calculations was under way. He had to find out what Clem Hewitson’s secret was. He knew himself well enough to understand that he would regret failing to do so for a long time, possibly for ever. Too much of his own past was tied to his memory of the old man for him simply to walk away. He was also aware that part of him had been excited by the intrigue and uncertainty of the previous twenty-four hours. He had felt more alive during them than he had in months – if not years. Creeping back timidly to his desk in Whitehall was in truth not even an option. ‘OK. I’ll make the call.’ He rose and headed for the spare bedroom. ‘My phone’s in my bag.’

‘No.’ Marty grabbed his arm as he passed. ‘Use the land line.’

‘What?’

‘I’m serious. Turn your mobile off and leave it that way. We need to be untraceable from now on.’

Eusden looked at his friend disbelievingly. ‘Come off it, Marty. It can’t be-’

‘But it is.’

‘This had better be good.’

‘Or bad. Oh, yes. It is. One of those. Or both. You can be the judge.’

‘Lorraine, this is Richard. More apologies for you to make on my behalf, I’m afraid. I’m dealing with a… family crisis. I’m going to be away until the end of the week. I have unused leave, so it should be no problem. I’ll call you when the situation’s clearer. ’Bye.’ Eusden put the phone down and returned to the kitchen. ‘It’s done,’ he announced.

‘Unused leave? That sounds sad.’

‘Can we get on with it?’

‘Actually, no. This flat gives me the creeps. I’ve spent far too long staring at its puce-coloured walls. Why don’t we pack up and clear out? There’s a café round the corner that was just opening when I went past in the taxi. We can get some breakfast there and much better coffee than this stuff you scraped out of a jar.’

‘When are you going to stop stringing me along, Marty?’

‘When I’ve lit my first postprandial cigarette. Which, if you shift yourself, won’t be long.’

Eusden washed and shaved in short order. When it came down to it, he had no more wish to linger in the flat than Marty. They made no effort to clear up after themselves. (‘That’s Werner’s problem,’ declared Marty. ‘He’s got a week or more before Mutter gets back from Majorca.’) They slammed the door behind them and strode away without a backward glance, studiously avoiding eye contact with a neighbour walking her dog.

There was a broad, paved square a few minutes away. The Café Sizilien stood in one corner. Assorted Hamburgers bound for work were bracing themselves for the experience with coffee and croissants and certainly the morning was cold enough to warrant a good deal of bracing. Marty opted for two boiled eggs and several thickly jammed and buttered bread rolls. Eusden joined him, surprised by how hungry he felt. The coffee, as Marty had promised, was a vast improvement on Frau Straub’s instant.

‘No sign of Werner’s heavy,’ said Marty, scanning the customers from their window table as he licked raspberry jam off his fingers. ‘He’s betting I’ll take the money and run.’

‘Instead of which… you’re just taking the money.’

‘You’ll get your share.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘No, I guess not. Sorry.’ Marty lit his second Camel of the day. ‘So, where to begin?’

‘How about the beginning?’

‘Easier said than done. But I’ll try.’ Marty pulled out his wallet and fished something small and flimsy from its depths. He laid it in front of Eusden. ‘What do you make of that?’

It was a fragment of an envelope with two stamps stuck to it. The smaller had a king’s head on it beneath the word DANMARK. The larger depicted a ploughman struggling to control his horse as a plane flew overhead. Beneath the ploughman appeared the words DANMARK LUFTPOST. A single postmark covered both: KØBENHAVN LUFTPOST 17.5.27.

‘What am I supposed to make of it?’ Eusden queried.

‘Danish, right?’

‘Obviously.’

‘Twenty-five øre King Christian the Tenth with twenty-five øre airmail supplement. Part of my dad’s collection. I never actually looked through it until he died. I mean, philately? Do me a favour. But ask yourself: where’d he get it from?’

‘No idea.’

‘Yes, you have. Who would a stamp-mad schoolboy cadge something like that off?’

‘His father?’

‘Exactly. Clem.’

‘So, Clem had a letter from Denmark.’

‘Yes. Which he must have hung on to, since Dad was only six years old in 1927. He didn’t get into stamp collecting until his early teens.’

‘OK. But-’

‘Did you know Clem spoke Danish?’

‘What?’

‘Well, spoke might be an exaggeration. But he certainly read it.’

‘You’re having me on.’

‘No. You asked me what’s in the attaché case. The answer is a collection of letters, written to Clem over a period of ten years or more in the nineteen twenties and thirties. In Danish. Now you can see why I couldn’t make head or tail of the contents of the case.’

‘Who were the letters from?’

‘A guy called Hakon Nydahl. Captain – or Kaptajn – Nydahl, as he signed himself. Ever remember Clem mentioning the name?’

‘No.’

‘Nor me. What about Copenhagen? Did he ever admit to going there?’

‘Not sure. There weren’t many European cities he didn’t claim to have visited at some point.’

‘True. But we know he was corresponding with someone in Copenhagen, so it seems a good bet, doesn’t it? As to what they were corresponding about, you’d need a Danish translator to tell you that. Werner’s probably contacting one even as we speak.’

‘Why’s it so important?’

‘Ah, that brings us to Werner’s father: Otto Straub. Thanks to him we know Clem came to Hamburg in the spring of 1960. It’s not something I ever remember my parents talking about. Maybe he didn’t tell them where he was going, or even that he was going. But yes. Clem was here. And why? To testify in a court case Otto was covering for his paper. Clem let us believe he came just after the War, if you remember, before he retired from the police. But that was eyewash. He’d have been seventy-three in 1960.’

‘What was the court case about?’

‘Anastasia.’

‘Sorry?’

Marty chuckled. ‘You heard.’

TEN

Anastasia. A legend in her own death-time. Eusden knew what history said of her. Born 1901, fourth and youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. Murdered by Soviet revolutionaries in 1918, along with her parents and siblings. He also knew of the persistent legend that she had survived the climactic massacre at Ekaterinburg. A woman claiming to be Anastasia popped up in Berlin a few years later and spent the rest of her life convincing many and failing to convince others, notably most of Anastasia’s surviving relatives, that she was indeed Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna. Opinion was still divided when Anna Anderson, as the woman came to be known, died in 1984. But it hardened in the 1990s, when the remains of the imperial family were excavated from their burial site near Ekaterinburg and verified by DNA analysis, a test which Anna Anderson’s remains subsequently failed. Seventy years’ worth of books, films, lawsuits and conspiracy theories foundered on a simple matter of genetics. The claimant to Anastasia’s identity was found to have been a fraud.

This much Eusden remembered, though he was aware there was also much more he had forgotten. He had read a book on the subject, seen a couple of television documentaries purporting to tell the full story, flicked through several magazine articles probing the mystery and scanned various newspaper reports of twists and turns in the affair. He well recalled swapping theories with Marty after they had speed-read a sensationalist work called The File on the Tsar, published while they were at Cambridge, even though he could not recall what those theories were. Their interest had been heightened by Clem’s airy claim to have met Anastasia – the real Anastasia – during his brush with the Russian imperial family in Cowes in August 1909. He had supposedly visited the imperial yacht to receive the thanks of the Tsar and Tsarina for saving their eldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana, from assassination and Anastasia had briefly spoken to him. ‘A forward little girl’, was his later summation. She would have been eight years old at the time, so perhaps it was not surprising he had no more to say about her than that.

But perhaps, Eusden was now forced to consider, Clem’s dismissive attitude was a smokescreen. It was otherwise hard to account for his presence in Hamburg in the spring of 1960 as a witness in Anna Anderson’s civil action for recognition as sole surviving child of the last Tsar of All the Russias.

‘I had no idea trying to find out who Clem’s mysterious Danish pen pal was would lead to Anastasia,’ said Marty as he lit a third Camel from the end of the second. ‘I was just looking for something to take my mind off… well, death, frankly; specifically, my own. Anyway, I went to Copenhagen to get the goods on Hakon Nydahl. He was a Danish naval officer who graduated to a number of confidential court appointments. Gets a shortish write-up in the Danish DNB. Born 1884, which makes him just a few years older than Clem. His bit-part in history comes in 1920, when the Tsar’s mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, arrived back in her native Denmark, where she was known by her original Danish name, Dagmar. She’d been in the Crimea when the Soviets started rounding up royals after the October Revolution and was evacuated on a British warship. Her sister was Edward the Seventh’s widow, Queen Alexandra. After staying with her for a while, Dagmar headed for Copenhagen and moved into a house in the seaside resort of Klampenborg, which she and Alexandra kept as a holiday home. King Christian the Tenth, her nephew, appointed Nydahl to manage her affairs. And that’s what he did, dutifully and diligently, until her death in 1928. Anna Anderson had gone public with her claim to be Anastasia by then, but Dagmar dismissed her as an impostor without even bothering to meet her. There’s not much more to say about Nydahl, if you trust the official accounts. He died a bachelor in 1961, aged seventy-seven.’

‘How come he was in touch with Clem, then?’ asked Eusden, when no explanation was immediately forthcoming.

‘That’s what I wondered, obviously. There’s no apparent connection. But clearly there was one. Why else would Clem go to the bother of learning Danish?’

‘Why would he anyway? A courtier like Nydahl must have spoken English.’

‘Secrecy, maybe? Clem could be sure no one in our family – or in Cowes, come to that – was going to be able to read letters written in Danish.’

‘But what was there to be secret about?’

‘That’s what I tried to find out. I hit a brick wall at first. Then I did what I should have done earlier: look for Nydahl on the Web. He gets a single mention, in one of the hundreds of Anastasia-related sites. Needless to say, there are a lot of people out there in cyberspace convinced she was the genuine article and the DNA results were faked. I put out some feelers and Werner responded. It was my name that did it. He’d been trying to discover who Clem Hewitson was for years because of his father’s account of Clem’s mysterious participation in the Anna Anderson court case. Apparently, the judges wanted to hear testimony from Nydahl about Dagmar’s attitude to the claimant. Nydahl said he was too ill to appear, but suggested Clem could tell them all they needed to know. Otto Straub, like most other observers, couldn’t understand what this retired British police officer had to do with it. And they never found out. Because, when Clem came over, he was heard in camera. To this day, no one has any idea what he said.’

They left the café and, at Marty’s suggestion, walked up to the ring road skirting the city centre, on the other side of which, beyond a stretch of landscaped greenery, stood Hamburg’s courts complex: three mansarded neo-Gothic blocks, with modern extensions. The view was blurred by mist and sleet, dampness deepening the prevailing chill, the stud-tyred traffic rumbling rhythmically past.

‘That’s where it all happened in the Anna Anderson trials,’ said Marty. ‘I expect you’ve forgotten the ins and outs of her story. I certainly had. She burst on to the public stage in 1922 and spent the next ten years or more badgering members of the Romanov family for recognition and living off supporters who were either genuine believers or after what they hoped to get out of her. Berlin, Paris, New York, assorted German Schlosses: she was always on the move, charming and convincing some, offending and alienating others. She also fitted in a lot of physical and mental illness. There were several interludes in hospitals and asylums along the way. Finally, in 1938, she instituted legal proceedings in Berlin to claim any money left by the Tsar in German bank accounts. There was certainly some, possibly a lot. If she’d succeeded, she’d no doubt have moved on to other countries. The Bank of England, for instance, was rumoured to be holding a sizeable sum deposited by the dead but officially merely missing Tsar.’

‘I do remember that,’ said Eusden. ‘The Tsar’s missing millions.’

‘Yeah. Well, pounds in the bank or pie in the sky, we’ll never know now. The case was chucked out. Anna’s lawyers appealed. The appeal was suspended because of the outbreak of war. The court papers ended up in the Soviet sector, which effectively blocked all progress. Her lawyers eventually decided to sue the Romanovs for recognition. The chosen defendant was a great-niece of the Tsarina, Barbara, Duchess of Mecklenburg, who happened to live in Germany, making her a convenient target. Hamburg suited all parties as a venue. The case opened in January 1958 and dragged on, thanks to various delays, adjournments and illnesses, for three years. In the end, Anna’s claim was dismissed. Her lawyers appealed – again. Another three years passed waiting for the appeal to be heard and yet another three actually hearing it. It was finally turned down in February 1967. All this time, Anna had been leading the life of an eccentric recluse in a chalet in the Black Forest with half a dozen dogs and two dozen cats. She never came to court. One of the judges went to question her during the first trial, little good that it did him. A year after losing the appeal, she shoved off to the States and married an oddball well-wisher called Jack Manahan, Professor of East European history at the University of Virginia. She spent the rest of her days as Mrs Manahan in Charlottesville, Virginia. A lot of people, including her husband, went on believing she was Anastasia. But the DNA experts tell us she was actually a Polish factory worker called Franziska Schanzkowska, who exploited a physical resemblance to Anastasia to reinvent herself as a Russian princess – with astonishing success.’

‘Did Clem ever say whether he thought she was genuine or not?’ asked Eusden.

‘Not that I can recall.’

‘Do you think he told the judges what he thought?’

‘Must have, I suppose. If they asked him. But we don’t know what they asked him.’ Marty squinted across at the court building. ‘Or what he said in reply.’

They retreated through the smart shopping streets of the city centre to the Jungfernstieg, on the shores of Hamburg’s answer to Lake Geneva: the Binnenalster. Marty steered Eusden into the imposing Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten for mid-morning coffee and cake. He was still making up for his enforced fast, he explained, as he forked down a gooey slice of torte. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘this is where Anna’s legal team put up prize witnesses and either licked their wounds or toasted their minor triumphs. I don’t know if Clem stayed here. Depends who was paying his bill, I suppose.’

‘And who might’ve been?’ asked Eusden.

‘Good question. According to Werner, his father said Nydahl’s testimony was called for after the Danish government turned down a request from the court for access to a document known as the Zahle Dossier. Herluf Zahle was Danish ambassador to Germany when Anna first came forward. King Christian instructed him to establish whether she really was Anastasia. I imagine he was trying to decide what line to take on his aunt Dagmar’s behalf if there was any substance to the claim. Anyway, Zahle seemed to think Anna was the real deal at first. He covered all her medical expenses – she was seriously ill with TB for several years – and helped her out on numerous occasions. He only backed off when the Schanzkowska allegation surfaced in a Berlin newspaper and even then he made it obvious he didn’t believe it. The dossier contained all his papers relating to the case. Crucial material, which the Danes held back. Who knows why? Nydahl was a friend of Zahle’s and the courtier charged with looking after Dagmar’s interests. He must have known what was in the dossier. Hence the attempt to get him to testify. But he pleaded illness, which may have been genuine, since he died the following year. Clem was his chosen substitute. A bizarre choice on the face of it. Strings must have been pulled somewhere, though, to ensure he was heard in camera. Clem obviously was the natural choice. For reasons you and I can only guess at. Werner, on the other hand, will probably know what those reasons were, as soon as he has the letters translated. Unless he’s done a crash course in Danish on the sly and can read them himself, which I wouldn’t put past him.’

‘Who’s he meeting off the plane at Frankfurt?’

‘An eccentric American millionaire who’s distantly related to Jack Manahan and is prepared to pay through the schnozzle for evidence that Jack’s wife was the true-blue Anastasia.’

‘But she can’t have been. The DNA evidence ruled that out. You said so yourself.’

‘Ah, Richard, you always were too much of a determinist.’ Marty gave him a benignly superior smile. ‘She can be whatever people persuade themselves to believe she was. The DNA technique they used back in the early nineteen nineties has been discredited now, anyway. It produced far too many false positives and false negatives for comfort. Besides, why trust DNA results which you and I, and everyone else bar a couple of boffins in lab coats, haven’t a hope of understanding over hard physical, visible evidence? Anna Anderson was the wrong height, shoe size, ear size, to be Franziska Schanzkowska, but right for Anastasia. She had a scar on her shoulder exactly where Anastasia had a mole removed. She had the same deformity of the big toe as Anastasia and her sisters. Besides, everyone who met her agreed she was an aristocrat, a difficult trick for a Polish factory worker to pull off. And let’s not get into all the things she knew that only Anastasia could know. A graphologist testified at the trial that there was no doubt Anna’s handwriting and Anastasia’s were those of the same person.’

‘Fine. But why didn’t they have the same DNA?’

‘How should I know? The excavation of the remains at Ekaterinburg was a suspect business anyway. The authorities had obviously known where they were for years – if not the whole time since 1918 – before they chose to dig them up. And DNA only proved they were Romanovs. It was down to pathologists to say which Romanovs. The Tsar and his family, obviously. But unfortunately they weren’t all there. The Tsarevich and one of his sisters were missing, almost certainly the youngest sister, Anastasia, despite attempts by the Russians to prove it was Maria. As for Anna Anderson’s DNA, they extracted that from an intestine sample they found at the hospital in Charlottesville where she’d been operated on a few years before her death. Nobody could say it was exactly tamper-proof.’

‘What are you suggesting, Marty? The KGB crept into the hospital and planted a false sample?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. I only got involved in this because…’ Marty broke off. He groaned and pressed one hand to his forehead.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I… get these pains from time to time.’ He grimaced. ‘They’ll get worse, apparently, as the tumour grows. It could affect my vision, hearing, speech. It could trigger fits and God knows what. Oh, there’s a lot to look forward to.’

‘Listen, Marty, I-’

‘It’s all right, Richard. It really is all right. I’m dying. But not today. Or tomorrow. Probably not this week. Or even next.’

‘Even so…’

‘Yes? Even so what?’

‘Why don’t we forget Werner and his machinations? You’ve got your pay-off. Why not spend it… having fun?’

‘It’s spoken for.’ Marty smiled. ‘A debt to a friend.’

‘Forget that too.’

‘OK. If you insist.’

‘I do.’

The smile broadened. ‘We’ll see. But Werner? No. I can’t let that pass.’

‘What can you do?’

‘Try to put a spoke in his wheel.’

‘How?’

‘I’ve got an idea. And you promised to help me, as I recall. It’s time we were moving.’

‘Where’re we going?’

‘A department store, to start with. I can’t be seen with you in that suit, Richard. It’s bad for my image. Besides, I assume you’ll want to put some clean clothes on eventually. After that, the station. We have a train to catch.’

ELEVEN

‘Why Århus?’ asked Eusden, glancing down at his ticket. He and Marty were sitting next to the fruit machine in a small bar above the platforms at Hamburg central station, lunching on beer and bagels in the half-hour at their disposal before they boarded the slow train to Denmark. They had already missed the fast one.

‘You remember they ceremonially reburied the Tsar and his family in St Petersburg after the pathologists and the geneticists had finally finished with them?’

‘Yes.’ Eusden could only assume Marty’s response would ultimately lead to an answer to his question.

‘St Peter and Paul Cathedral, seventeenth July 1998: the eightieth anniversary of the massacre at Ekaterinburg. The priests didn’t refer to the deceased by name during the service, you know. They called them ‘Christian victims of the Revolution’. The Orthodox Church never formally acknowledged that they were burying royalty. And none of the crowned heads of Europe turned up to see them do it. Anyway, last September, they got round to reburying Dagmar there as well. No one doubted who she was and she’d always said she wanted to be buried with her husband, Nicholas the Second’s father, Tsar Alexander the Third. So, she was disinterred from Roskilde Cathedral – traditional resting place for Danish royals – and shipped off to St Petersburg. But there was a strange incident during the disinterment. A man rushed into the crypt and tried to stop it happening. As protests go it was pretty half-baked. He was arrested and later released without charge. It was never clear what he was protesting about. It probably wouldn’t even have been reported in the papers but for the fact that he’s a reasonably well-known artist. In Denmark, at any rate. Lars Aksden.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘No. Nor had I. But Werner had. Lars Aksden, it turns out, is Hakon Nydahl’s great-nephew.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. Nydahl’s sister married into a Jutland farming family: the Aksdens. Lars is her grandson. His elder brother is Tolmar Aksden. Heard of him?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Think again. Mjollnir, the Scandinavian conglomerate. Shipping, timber, hotels, electronics… Ring any bells now?’

‘OK, Marty, you’ve had your fun. Of course I’ve heard of them. Mjollnir buys X; Mjollnir sells Y. It’s difficult to flick through the business pages in the paper without seeing a headline like that sooner or later.’

‘Tolmar Aksden is chairman and chief executive of the company. He owns it. He is Mjollnir.’

‘So, I’m guessing he didn’t appreciate his brother’s antics at Dagmar’s disinterment.’

‘Probably not. No way of knowing for sure. The guy’s notoriously reticent. He lets Mjollnir’s share price do the talking for him.’

‘No good asking him for the lowdown on his great-uncle, then.’

‘None. But other members of his family might prove more… talkative.’

‘Any of them live in Århus?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes. His sister still lives on the family farm, south of Århus. She and her husband run the place. Tolmar’s son, Michael, is a student at the University of Århus. And Lars divides his time between Copenhagen and the farm. Well, farm’s an understatement. More of a country estate, actually. Since his escapade at Roskilde, he’s mostly been lying low there, apparently.’

‘How convenient.’

‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Werner will have his hands full for the next couple of days translating the letters and negotiating a price for them. We can steal a march on him.’

‘If Lars or any of the others know what their great-uncle’s secret was. And if they’re willing to share it.’

‘Don’t be so pessimistic. My bet is Lars is itching to share it.’ Marty grinned. ‘We just have to ask nicely.’

They finished their beers and went out on to the walkway serving the steps down to the platforms. A clamour of PA announcements rose with the rumble of arriving and departing trains towards the station roof. Their train was up on the platform indicator, but had not yet pulled in. Marty lit a cigarette and leant on the railings, gazing down at the comings and goings.

‘I love stations,’ he remarked. ‘Big ones, I mean, like this. Everyone going somewhere. Converging and diverging. North, south, east, west. Endless… possibilities.’

‘How long will it take us to get to Århus?’ Eusden asked.

‘About six hours.’

‘Six hours? Couldn’t we have flown?’

‘You’re forgetting the real advantage of train travel, Richard: anonymity. As long as we don’t stray outside the EU, nobody will ask to see our passports. Set foot in an airport and it’s a different story. I’m not just thinking of my own problems, either. We’re operating incognito now. So, the train makes sense. And stay off your mobile. Any calls you want to make, use a payphone. Better still, don’t make any.’

‘What about Gemma? Shouldn’t we…’

‘Keep her informed? Why would you want to do that?’

‘She might be worried about us.’

‘She should’ve come along, then, shouldn’t she? Between you and me, I’m glad she didn’t. I’m glad she sent you in her place.’ Marty turned to look at Eusden. ‘The question is: are you?’

‘I think so.’

‘Only think?’

‘You are telling me everything, aren’t you, Marty?’

‘Everything I know.’

‘Did Otto Straub have any… pet theory… about what Clem and Nydahl were up to?’

‘According to Werner, he thought Clem must’ve been sent over to Copenhagen at some point in the nineteen twenties as part of a Buck Pal initiative to assist Nydahl in dealing with the fallout from Anna Anderson’s claim to be Anastasia. The Queen Mother, Alexandra, was Dagmar’s sister, remember. It’d be understandable if she wanted to help out.’

‘Why Clem?’

‘Well, Alexandra was in the royal party at Cowes regatta in August 1909. She was the queen then. Maybe she was impressed by how Clem thwarted the assassination attempt and kept his mouth shut about it.’

‘But what was there for Clem – or Nydahl – to do? You said Dagmar wrote off Anna Anderson as an impostor without even meeting her.’

‘Did I?’ Marty looked troubled. ‘That’s not strictly accurate. Blame the tumour. Surprisingly enough, this is one of my good days.’

‘Would you care to be “strictly accurate” before we start rattling cages in Århus?’

‘Cupboards, more like. With skeletons inside. All right. But it’ll have to wait.’ Marty nodded down at a train approaching the platform below them. ‘That’s ours, I think.’

Marty began his explanation as soon as they were settled aboard the train. He looked tired, Eusden noticed in the watery sunlight that angled through the window as they left the station. He was struggling to concentrate. It was easy to forget how ill he really was.

‘OK, where was I? Dagmar. The Dowager Empress. No dope, apparently. She realized that, if she admitted her son and grandson were dead, she’d have to choose an official pretender to the Tsardom from a squabbling bunch of cousins, inevitably causing a split in Romanov ranks. She solved the problem by steadfastly maintaining that the Tsar, Tsarina and all their children were still alive, somewhere in Russia, a convenient fiction that preserved family unity in her lifetime but ruled out the very possibility of acknowledging Anna Anderson as Anastasia. She didn’t exactly ignore her, however. She sent her daughter Olga, who was living with her in Copenhagen, to visit Anna in hospital in Berlin, in the autumn of 1925. Olga seemed to agree the girl was Anastasia, only to change her mind when she got back to Copenhagen. Her trip had coincided with the death in England of Queen Alexandra, which sent Dagmar into a depression from which she never really recovered. It’s hard to say what she might have done if she’d remained fit and well. But she never actually denounced Anastasia as an impostor. The so-called Copenhagen Statement, in which twelve members of the family, including Olga, formally rebutted Anna’s claim to be Anastasia, was only put out after Dagmar’s death. Straight after, as a matter of fact.’

‘Surely Olga wouldn’t have signed such a statement unless she believed it? We’re talking about her own flesh and blood.’

‘We’re also talking about Russian royalty of the nineteenth century. Virtually a separate species of humanity. There was a huge stumbling-block to accepting Anna’s claim, one of Anna’s own making. I don’t mean her obstinate and prickly personality, though that didn’t help, even if it did chime with people’s memories of Anastasia. No, no. The real problem was her story of how she’d escaped the massacre.’

‘They died in a hail of bullets in a cellar, didn’t they? How did she get out of that?’

‘She said she stood behind her sister Tatiana and was knocked out when Tatiana fell on top of her. She woke up in a farm cart being driven by the Tschaikovsky family, mother, daughter and son. The son, Alexander Tschaikovsky, had been a guard at Ekaterinburg and had rescued her from the pile of bodies when he realized she was still alive. They smuggled her out of Russia and took her to Romania. They settled in Bucharest, where she married Alexander shortly before giving birth to a son, in December 1918. The son wasn’t Alexander’s, though. She’d been raped by another guard while in captivity. She let Alexander’s sister adopt the boy. Then, when her husband was killed in a street brawl, she decided to seek help from her family and set off for Berlin, where her aunt Princess Irene lived, accompanied by Alexander’s brother, Serge. After they reached Berlin, Serge inexplicably vanished. She convinced herself he’d been murdered and that she’d be rejected by her family, so she tried to end it all by jumping into a canal. She was rescued, hospitalized, then sent to an asylum suffering from amnesia and referred to as Fräulein Unbekannt – Miss Unknown. Gradually, she revealed who she really was and a fellow patient went public with the story when she was discharged early in 1922. Cue general hysteria and enduring controversy. But it’s worth remembering that the truth, if it was the truth, was completely unacceptable – viscerally intolerable – to any right-thinking Romanov. A daughter of the Tsar couldn’t bear a child to an illiterate peasant turned prison guard. It just couldn’t happen.’

‘But if she was raped?’

‘It didn’t matter. A daughter of the Tsar who told that story was by definition no daughter of the Tsar. She should have died rather than endure such shame. Therefore Anastasia must have died.’

‘But you don’t think she did, do you?’

‘I don’t know what to think. The counter-claim was that she was an uppity Polish factory worker who tried to drown herself when she realized her dream of becoming an actress, which had brought her to Berlin, wasn’t going to be fulfilled. Then, ironically, it was fulfilled, thanks to the role she artfully assumed while in the asylum. That’s what the DNA says. Mrs Manahan’s DNA and that of a great-nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska are a perfect match. Maybe too perfect, since there’s some evidence the great-nephew’s grandmother was only a half-sister of Franziska, which would make such a close match impossible.’

‘Proving the hospital sample was a fake.’

‘It doesn’t prove anything, Richard. Nothing does. I’ve turned myself into a Mastermind specialist on Anastasia these past few weeks and the only thing I know for certain about the case is that there is no certainty and probably never will be.’ Marty yawned and flexed his arms behind his head, as if bored with the subject. Then he chuckled at some humorous thought that had occurred to him. ‘But I did only say “probably”. You never know your luck, do you?’