Алистер Маклин - Bear Island

‘Why? Why did he do it?’

‘Because his wife and two children were captured at the same time as he was. A good enough reason?’ Smithy nodded. ‘Then when the war was over and the Russians overran Berlin and turned up their espionage records, they found out what Heissman had really been doing and shipped him to Siberia.’

‘I would have thought they would have shot him out of hand.’

‘They would have, too, but for one small point. I told you that Heissman was a very downy bird and that this was a treble deal. Heissman was, in effect and actually, working throughout the war for the Russians. For four years he faithfully sent back his misleading reports to his masters and even though he had the help of the German Intelligence in the preparation of his coded messages, they never once latched on to the fact that Heissman was using his own overlaid code throughout. The Russians simply spirited him away at the end of the war for his own safety and allegedly sent him to Siberia. Our information is that he’s never been to Siberia: we believe that his wife and two married daughters are still living very comfortably in Moscow.’

‘And he has been working for the Russians ever since?’ Smithy was looking just faintly baffled and I had some fellow-feeling for him, Heissman’s masterful duplicity was not for ready comprehension.

‘In his present capacity. During his last eight years in his Siberian prison, Heissman, in a variety of disguises, has been traced in North and South America, South Africa, Israel and, believe it or not, in the Savoy Hotel in London. We know but we cannot prove that all those trips were in some way concerned with the recovery of Nazi treasure for his Russian masters – you have to remember that Heissman had built up the highest connections in the Party, the SS and the Intelligence: he was almost uniquely qualified for the task. Since his “escape” from Siberia he has made two pictures in Europe, one in Piedmont, where an old widow complained that some tattered old paintings had been stolen from the loft of her barn, the other in Provence, where an old country lawyer called in the police about some deed boxes that had been removed from his office. Whether either pictures or deed boxes were of any value we do not know: still less can we connect either disappearance with Heissman.’

‘This is an awful lot to take in all at once,’ Smithy complained.

‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘OK if I smoke?’

‘Five minutes. Then I’ve got to drag you back by the heels.’

‘By the shoulders, if it’s all the same to you.’ Smithy lit his cigarette and thought a bit. ‘So what you’ve got to find out is what Heissman is doing on Bear Island.’

‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘You’ve no idea?’

‘None. Money, it’s got to be money. This would be the last place on earth I’d associate with money and maybe that association would be wrong anyway. Maybe it’s only a means to the money. Johann, as I trust you’ve gathered by this time, is a very devious character indeed.’

‘Would there be a tie-up with the film company? With his old friend Gerran? Or would he just be making use of them?’

‘I’ve simply no idea.’

‘And Mary Stuart? The secret rendezvous girl? What could the possible connection be there?’

‘Same answer. We know very little of her. We know her real name – she’s never made any attempt to conceal that – age, birthplace and that she’s a Latvian – or comes from what used to be Latvia before the Russians took it over. We also know – and this information she hasn’t volunteered – that it was only her mother who was Latvian. Her father was German.’

‘Ah! In the Army perhaps? Intelligence? SS?’

‘That’s the obvious connection to seek. But we don’t know. Her immigration forms say that her parents are dead.’

‘So the department has been checking on her too?’

‘We’ve had a rundown on everyone here connected with Olympus Productions. We may as well have saved ourselves the trouble.’

‘So no facts. Any hunches, feelings?’

‘Hunches aren’t my stock in trade.’

‘I somehow didn’t feel they would be.’ Smithy ground out his cigarette. ‘Before we go, I’d like to mention two very uncomfortable thoughts that have just occurred to me. Number one. Johann Heissman is a very big-time very successful international operative? True?’

‘He’s an international criminal.’

‘A rose by any other name. The point is that those boys avoid violence wherever possible, isn’t that true?’

‘Perfectly true. Apart from anything else, it’s beneath them.’

‘And have you ever heard Heissman’s name being associated with violence?’

‘There’s no record of it.’

‘But there’s been a considerable amount of violence, one way or the other, in the past day or two. So if it isn’t Heissman, who’s behind the strong-arm behaviour?’

‘I don’t say it isn’t Heissman. The leopard can change his spots. He may be finding himself, for God knows what reason, in so highly unusual a situation that he has no option other than to have recourse to violence. He may, for all we know, have violent associates who don’t necessarily represent his attitude. Or it may be someone entirely unconnected with him.’

‘That’s what I like,’ Smithy said. ‘Simple straightforward answers. And there’s the second point that may have escaped your attention. If our friends are on to you the chances are that they’re on to me too. That eavesdropper on the bridge.’

‘The point had not escaped my attention. And not because of the bridge, although that may have given pause for thought, but because you deliberately skipped ship. It doesn’t matter what most of them think, one person or possibly more is going to be convinced that you did it on purpose. You’re a marked man, Smithy.’

‘So that when you drag me back there not everyone is going to feel genuine pangs of sorrow for poor old Smithy? Some may question the bona fides of my injuries?’

‘They won’t question. They’ll damn well know. But we have to act as if.’

‘Maybe you’ll watch my back too? Now and again?’

‘I have a lot on my mind, but I’ll try.’

I had Smithy by the armpits, head lolling, heels and hands trailing in the snow, where two flashlights picked us up less than five yards from the door of the main cabin.

‘You’ve found him then?’ It was Goin, Harbottle by his side. ‘Good man!’ Even to my by now hypersensitive ear Goin’s reaction sounded genuine.

‘Yes. About quarter of a mile away.’ I breathed very quickly and deeply to give them some idea as to what it must have been like to drag a two-hundred-pound dead-weight over uneven snow-covered terrain for such a distance. ‘Found him in the bottom of a gully. Give me a hand, will you?’

They gave me a hand. We hauled him inside, fetched a camp-cot and stretched him out on this.

‘Good God, good God, good God!’ Otto wrung his hands, the anguished expression on his face testimony to the fresh burden now added to the crippling weight of the cross he was already carrying. ‘What’s happened to the poor fellow?’ The only other occupant of the cabin, Judith Haynes, had made no move to leave the oil stove she was monopolizing, unconscious men being borne into her presence might have been so routine an affair as not even to merit the raising of an eyebrow.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said between gasps. ‘Heavy fall, I think, banged his head on a boulder. Looked like.’

‘Concussion?’

‘Maybe.’ I probed through his hair with my fingertips, found a spot on the scalp that felt no different from anywhere else, and said: ‘Ah!’

They looked at me in anxious expectancy.