The Samurai Inheritance

XIII

‘The officer in charge of the mission in ’thirty-six was a Major Kojima Yoshitaki, of the Imperial Japanese Army,’ Jamie said into the phone. ‘According to the article, he attended a joint Luftwaffe—Wehrmacht exercise while he was in Germany, but if I was laying odds I’d say the real reason he was in Berlin was the Anti-Comintern Pact. He was accompanied by a couple of lieutenants, but if the Nazi foreign ministry was handing out gifts, he was the man receiving them.’

‘What about the Americans you mentioned,’ Keith Devlin demanded.

Jamie flicked through his notebook for the names Magda had provided. ‘Richard Parker and Hal Roberts the Third, two US State department officials who were given the grand tour by Goebbels’ propaganda ministry. The report in the Berliner Morgenpost mentioned museum visits, which makes it interesting.’

‘Agreed,’ the Australian growled. Jamie could imagine him looking out of the office across to Sydney Harbour like Zeus surveying the mortal world from Mount Olympus, aware of, but not part of the world below. ‘Something’s bothering you?’

Jamie blinked. Was the man bloody psychic? ‘Two things, actually.’ He mentioned his theory about a Soviet mission in the wake of the Japanese — Nazi alliance.

‘I have a few friends who may be able to help out with that. Leave it with me. The other thing?’

‘America. Japan. Possibly Russia. Unless I’m mistaken, Mr Devlin, you have people in all those countries who are much better placed than I am to move this search on. They’ll know their patch; they’ll have contacts in all the right places.’ He waited for a reaction, but all he could hear was soft breathing at the other end of the line. ‘What I’m saying is that we know the Bougainville head was still in circulation in nineteen thirty-six and if it still exists it’s likely to be in one of those countries. Maybe this is where my part in this ends?’

‘I hear what you’re saying, Jamie son, and I can understand your point of view. You’re keen to get back to those lovely girls of yours. I’ve no problem with that at all. But maybe I’m in a better position to see things than you are.’ Devlin paused as he considered his next words. ‘You see, it’s not just your talents I need, son. It’s your instincts and that thing that keeps you going when other men would have stopped long ago. The thing that helped you track down the Raphael and in all those other little mysterious shindigs I’m not supposed to know about. Yes, we have proof the head was still around in ’thirty-six, but even if we track it down to one of these people, what are the chances they still have it after sixty-odd years? No, you stick with it. I’ll get back to you on the Soviets and the Yanks, after that it’s up to you. Just let me know what you need and you’ll have it by return.’

Jamie considered telling Devlin his room had been searched, but some instinct decided him against it. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll wait for word. There is one other thing. I’ve had an offer of help. A professor at the museum who’s an expert on the Melanesian islands. They say there’s a possibility of confusion in identifying the head.’ He shrugged. ‘Apparently they all look much the same if you’re not a specialist and they’re known to have been faked in the past.’

‘I can understand that,’ the Australian agreed. ‘We need to be certain of the goods. What’s he offering?’

‘Er, he’s a she, and she’s offering to come along to provide support and expert advice. She also speaks Japanese, which could come in handy if we end up going down that road.’

Now it was Keith Devlin’s turn to let the silence drag. ‘Well, mate, I reckon the final decision has to be up to you. I don’t have a problem with anything that makes it more likely we succeed and I won’t mention it to the lovely Fiona if you won’t.’

‘It’s not that—’

‘Only kidding, son.’ Devlin chuckled. ‘What’s she asking, this … expert?’

Jamie managed to curb an urgent need to tell his client to stick his didgeridoo where the sun doesn’t shine. ‘Nothing yet, but she seems very keen to help out.’

‘Maybe in that case it’s better that you have her close, so you can keep an eye on her. Ask her how much she wants per diem, plus a bonus if she verifies the head as the genuine article, then offer her half and we’ll see how keen she really is.’

‘Of course, Magda, that will be perfectly acceptable, and obviously my client will make a donation to the museum to compensate for your absence. I’ll be in touch once he gets back to me with the details.’

A gentleman doesn’t haggle with a lady and anyway it was Keith Devlin’s money. In all honesty, Jamie had to admit he’d never been comfortable with the haggling side of things, which was a bit of a drawback in the art business. It might even have been one of the symptoms of Saintclair Fine Arts’ glacial cash flow before the lovely people at the Princess Czartoryski Foundation had come up with their Raphael finder’s fee. The thought of all that money now languishing in his bank account just waiting to be splashed out on obscure but interesting works, that might, or more likely might not, be worthy of the investment gave him the warm glow of a gambling addict standing at the entrance to a casino with a hatful of chips. The mood only lasted until he finally listened to the little voice from his left shoulder demanding to know what the hell he thought he was doing. Well, actually, little voice, I’m doing what Jamie Saintclair always does, I’m flying by the seat of my pants. So what if the little voice pointed out that flying by the seat of his pants had almost got him killed several times in the past?

One part of him worried that, subconsciously, he wanted Magda Ross along for reasons that were less than altruistic. Yet it was more than that. Some instinct told him his meeting with Dr Ross, Melanesian expert and authority on shrunken heads, was no accident. The same instinct said she had a part to play somewhere down the road. In any case, she’d made it clear she didn’t get in the way of other people’s relationships. Fiona’s face swam into his head and he swore this would be a professional partnership and nothing more. So why did the image of the gambler return, except this time he was down to his last chip and red was calling him like a siren to a shipwrecked sailor?

Devlin called back the next morning. ‘The US angle is a dead end, and unfortunately for those two diplomats I mean that literally. Seems they hung about in Germany for an extended vacation and eventually stopped off in Frankfurt, where Parker had relatives.’

‘That doesn’t sound as if it would be fatal.’

‘No, but they made a fatal decision when they chose their method of transport to go home. Does Frankfurt, May ’thirty-seven ring any bells with you?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘The Hindenburg?’

‘Ah. So if they took the head back with them it’s gone.’

‘That’s right. Which leaves us with the Japanese delegation …’

‘You’re not going to tell me Major Kojima Yoshitaki lived in Hiroshima?’

‘That’s quite a sense of humour you have there, Saintclair,’ Devlin said after a dangerous pause.

‘All part of my lovable personality, Keith.’

‘Yoshitaki’s dead,’ Devlin continued, ‘but his family still has property in Tokyo. I suggest that’s your next port of call. The Japs are very particular about family heirlooms, so if the major took a liking to the chief’s head, there’s a good chance they’ll still have it.’

Not if they have any taste. ‘Won’t that make it more difficult to get it away from them?’

Devlin laughed. ‘With your charm and my chequebook they don’t stand a chance, mate.’ Behind the faux joviality, Jamie suspected, lay the unspoken assurance he’d discovered in several powerful men. If, by any chance, the Yoshitaki family resisted the combination of charm and chequebook, Keith Devlin would do whatever it took to get his hands on the Bougainville head.

‘There’s an Etihad flight from Tegel to Tokyo tomorrow night,’ he told the Australian. ‘Can you get your people to book two seats on it? Any class will do as long as they’re together.’

‘You’ll be on it. I’ll also have my PA find you a good hotel. One room or two?’

‘I think you know the answer to that perfectly well, Mr Devlin.’

‘Don’t be so touchy, son. Two rooms it is. The Hyatt’s as good as any in central Tokyo if you don’t mind the waiters looking down on you, and local middle management and their hookers.’

‘You haven’t mentioned the Soviets.’

‘There’s nothing yet. If a Russian delegation met Hitler in the spring of ’thirty-seven, it was sent in secret. It’s what you’d expect from Stalin,’ Devlin chuckled admiringly, ‘he was a bloke who liked to keep his cards close to his chest. Finding out will take a little longer than I expected, but if it happened we’ll know about it in the next couple of days.’

Jamie thanked him and rang off. He called Magda Ross’s cell number. ‘We’re going to Tokyo,’ he said. ‘The flight leaves from Tegel tomorrow at six p.m., so if it’s convenient I’ll pick you up around three.’

‘Sounds great,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It will be good to visit Japan again, especially if someone else is picking up the bill. I lived there for two years when I was fourteen, but I haven’t been back since.’

Next morning Jamie rose just after five and fifteen minutes later he was outside the hotel in shorts, T-shirt and trainers. He’d done some research the previous day and discovered a patchwork of walkways by the Spree that would make a good run. If his suspicions about being watched were correct, a phone was ringing somewhere and someone was frantically throwing on some clothes. He waited, doing some stretches in the street, glad that at this ungodly hour there was no one to see him. Sure enough, after a few minutes a car appeared round a corner to his left and drew to a halt a hundred paces away. He smiled.

He’d chosen his route quite deliberately. First through the park opposite the hotel and past an impressive statue of two grim-faced, bearded men that he belatedly realized were Karl Marx and his brother in arms, Frederick Engel. He’d known Berliners were forgiving, but personally he’d have been tempted to melt the fathers of modern Communism down and strike a posthumous medal for the hundreds of men and women who’d perished in the death strip of the Wall trying to flee the ideology they created.

He kept his speed to a gentle jog as he crossed the paved plaza at the centre of the park, knowing that the driver of the car was already facing a dilemma. If he followed on foot he’d stick out like a rose on a dungheap. If he followed in the car he risked losing Jamie down a one-way street or on one of the narrow alleyways that Berlin was provided with in such abundance. What happened next would be revealing. If Jamie’s pursuer was an employee of a major security organization he’d be able to call up further resources: more cars, perhaps another jogger. If he was on his own? Well, that told its own story. Once through the park he crossed a wide road, still keeping a steady pace. The car reappeared at the periphery of his vision and he turned right towards the Spree, giving his watcher a chance to get as close as he liked. Just as he reached the bridge he darted left down a set of concrete stairs that brought him to the riverside path. Now the driver of the car, if he was alone, as Jamie hoped, didn’t have any choice in the matter, as the screech of brakes a few moments later confirmed. The smile turned to a grin and he picked up the pace just a little. It looked like being a good day.

When he returned from his run, Jamie breakfasted at the hotel, studying street maps of central Tokyo on his laptop. Then he set out to enjoy the sights of Berlin. He’d arranged a late checkout and Max picked him up at just before three. As they drove out to the address Magda had given him, Jamie noticed the limo driver’s eyes on him in the rear-view mirror.

‘How’s your day been, Max?’

‘Pretty busy, Herr Saintclair — early start.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Maybe I’m not as young as I used to be, huh?’

‘You should try to get a little more exercise. A man your age can’t afford to take any chances.’ He noticed the eyes narrow in a pained grimace and he sat back with a feeling of contentment: after his hours of jogging first thing, he’d managed to fit in a flurry of museum visiting and a trip to the top of the Fernsehturm TV tower using the stairs — all 926 of them. The tower had been a late addition to the sightseeing schedule. He hoped Devlin had paid Max well for spying on him.

Magda Ross emerged from her apartment block dressed in loose-fitting trousers and a long black coat. Her wheeled suitcase was of modest proportions and confirmed Jamie’s opinion of her: confident, organized and self-reliant. He suspected she’d always have a bag ready with a toothbrush, a passport and a spare change of clothes. His own packing preference tended to be more the ‘Oh Christ I’m late, throw in the first things to hand and then find the passport’s out of date’ variety. He got out of the limousine to greet her with a kiss on the cheek as Max took her luggage and put it in the trunk of the big Mercedes S-Class.

She looked over the car with approval before she slipped into the rear seats. ‘You certainly travel in style, Jamie Saintclair,’ she said with a smile. ‘If I’d known I would have put my rates up.’

‘This is Max,’ he introduced the driver. ‘He may not look it, but he’s a keep-fit fanatic.’

Max muttered something under his breath and put the car in gear, but he acknowledged Magda’s ‘Hello Max’ with what passed for a smile.

‘So, Tokyo.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘What happens when we get there?’

‘Well, if my plan comes to fruition, we visit Major Yoshitaki’s relatives, you identify the head, my client wires a substantial cheque and we spend the rest of our visit wandering around and eating the finest sushi on the planet.’

‘Be serious for once, Jamie.’

‘All right. If I’m honest, there are a few flaws in my plan.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as: a) we have no idea whether Yoshitaki ever had the head; b) if he did, we have no idea whether he passed it on to his family on his death, and c) if they do have it, we have no idea if the family will part with this precious, if rather unsavoury, heirloom even for the kind of cash my client is prepared to pay. The Japanese have an odd sense of honour, just ask anyone who was their prisoner during the war. There are a few more potential flies in the ointment, but those—’

He broke off as the phone chirped in his inside pocket. He studied the number and his first thought was that Keith Devlin didn’t get much sleep: it had to be past midnight in Sydney. ‘Saintclair.’

‘I hope you’re not on the plane, old son,’ Devlin’s gravelly tones were unmistakable, ‘because there’s been a change of plan.’

‘We’re just on the way to the airport. I—’

‘Just tell the driver to turn round and get you to Schönefeld …’

‘Hold on.’ Jamie relayed the instruction to Max, and the driver nodded. Magda Ross witnessed the exchange with a look of alarm. ‘Okay, give me the details.’

‘There’s a flight to Moscow leaving in under an hour,’ Devlin continued, ‘but the security people won’t close the gate till you get there. Someone will be waiting at the Aeroflot baggage desk with your tickets.’ Jamie almost lost the phone as Max performed a tyre-squealing U-turn at the next intersection. ‘The Russkis don’t run to First Class, but there’ll be something to wet your whistle when you get on board.’

‘So the mission …?’

‘That’s right, top secret, direct from Stalin to Hitler on Christmas Eve nineteen thirty-six. We don’t have the details yet, but we’re working on it. One of my blokes will have a file waiting for you when you get to Sheremetyevo. I’ll let you know if I hear any more before your scheduled take-off time. Happy hunting, old son.’

The phone went dead and Jamie took it away from his ear and studied it as if it was some strange artefact from the future.

‘Is there a problem?’ Magda’s voice mirrored his own bemusement.

He turned to her with a wry smile. ‘I’m afraid sushi’s off the menu. I hope you like borscht.’