Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

The notion that we might try to blackmail the German military attaché for an adulterous liaison with the wife of a senior Dutch diplomat strikes me as far-fetched, but I keep my counsel.

‘And you say this batch came in two nights ago?’

‘Yes, I worked on it at home.’

There is a pause while I weigh what I need to say. ‘My dear Henry,’ I begin carefully, ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I really think that material as sensitive as this should come straight into the office the moment it’s collected. Imagine if the Germans found out what we’re doing!’

‘It never left my sight, Colonel, I assure you.’

‘That’s not the point. It’s sloppy procedure. In future I want all of the Auguste material to come direct to me. I’ll keep it in my safe, and I’ll decide what leads are followed and who handles it.’

Henry’s face flushes. Astonishingly for such a big and hearty fellow, he seems to be close to tears. ‘Colonel Sandherr had no complaint about my methods.’

‘Colonel Sandherr isn’t here any more.’

‘With respect, Colonel, you’re new to this game-’

I hold up my hand. ‘That is enough, Major.’ I know I have to stop him there. I can’t back down. If I don’t take control now, I never shall. ‘I have to remind you that this is a military unit and that your job is to obey my orders.’

He jumps to attention like a wind-up toy soldier. ‘Yes, Colonel.’

As in a cavalry charge, I make use of my momentum. ‘There are several other changes I’d like to make while we’re on the subject. I don’t want informers and other dubious characters hanging around downstairs. They should come in when we summon them, and leave immediately afterwards. We need to introduce a system of passes, and only authorised persons should be allowed upstairs. And Bachir is hopeless.’

‘You want to get rid of Bachir?’ A tone of disbelief.

‘No, not until we’ve found him some other billet. I believe in looking after old comrades. But let’s get an electric bell system fitted that will ring each time the front door is opened, so that if he’s asleep, as he was when I arrived, at least we’ll know someone’s entered the building.’

‘Yes, Colonel. Is that all?’

‘That’s all for now. Gather up the Auguste material and bring it to my office.’

I turn on my heel and leave, without closing the door. That’s another thing I’d like to change, I think, as I march down the passage to my office: this damned culture of furtiveness, with every man skulking in his own room. I try to fling open the doors on either side of me, but they are locked. When I reach my desk I take out a sheet of paper, and write a stern memorandum, for circulation to all my officers, setting out the new rules. I also compose a note to General Gonse requesting that the Statistical Section be given a new set of offices within the main ministry building, or, at the very least, that the existing premises be redecorated. After I have finished, I feel better. It seems to me that finally I have assumed command.

Later that morning, Henry comes to see me as requested, bringing the most recent delivery from Auguste. I am braced for further trouble and resolved not to give way. Despite the fact that his experience is vital to the smooth running of the section, if it comes to it I am even willing to have him transferred to another unit. But to my surprise he is as meek as the shorn lamb. He shows me how much he has already reconstructed and what remains to be done, and politely offers to teach me how the pieces are glued together. To humour him I have a try, but the work is too fiddly and time-consuming for me: besides, although Auguste may be our most important agent, I have the entire section to run. I repeat my position: all I want is to be the first to take a preliminary look at the material; the rest I am content to leave to him and Lauth.

He thanks me for my frankness and in the months that follow there is peace between us. He is cheerful, wise, friendly and dedicated — at least to my face. Occasionally I step out from my office into the corridor and catch him with Lauth and Junck speaking quietly together; there is something about the speed with which they disperse that tells me they have been talking about me. One time I pause outside the door to Gribelin’s archive to rearrange some papers in a file I am returning, and I hear Henry’s voice distinctly from within: ‘It’s the way he thinks he’s so much cleverer than the rest of us that I can’t stand!’ But I don’t know for certain that he’s referring to me — and even if he is, I am willing to ignore it. What chief of any organisation is not complained about behind his back, especially if he is trying to run it with some discipline and efficiency?

Throughout the remainder of that summer and into the autumn and winter of 1895, I make it my business to get the measure of my job. I learn that whenever Agent Auguste has a consignment to drop off, she signals it by placing, first thing in the morning, a particular flowerpot on the balcony of her apartment in the rue Surcouf. This means that she will be at the basilica of Sainte-Clotilde at nine o’clock that evening. I see an opportunity to extend my experience. ‘I’d like to make the collection tonight,’ I announce to Henry one day in October. ‘Just to get a sense of how the process works.’

I watch him literally swallow his objections. ‘Good idea,’ he says.

In the evening I change into civilian clothes, pick up my briefcase and walk to the nearby basilica — that vast twin-spired mock-Gothic factory of superstition. I know it well from the days when César Franck was the organist and I used to attend his recitals. I arrive in plenty of time and follow Henry’s instructions. I go into the deserted side chapel, walk to the third row of chairs from the front, edge along it three places to the left of the aisle, kneel, take out the prayer book positioned there and insert between its pages two hundred francs. Then I retreat to the back row and wait. No one is around to see me, but if there was I would just look like a troubled civil servant on his way home from the office, stopping off to seek advice from his Maker.

Yet although there is absolutely no danger in what I am doing, my heart pounds. Ridiculous! Perhaps it is the flickering candlelight and the smell of incense, or the echo of footsteps and whispered voices from the immense nave. Whatever it is, and even though I have long since lost my faith, I feel there is something sacrilegious about this whole transaction taking place on hallowed ground. I keep checking my watch: ten to nine, nine o’clock, five past nine, twenty past nine. . Perhaps she isn’t coming? I can imagine Henry’s polite commiserations if I have to tell him tomorrow that she didn’t show up.

But then, just before half past, the silence is broken by a clang as the door behind me opens. A squat female figure in a black skirt and shawl walks past. Halfway up the aisle she stops, makes the sign of the cross, curtseys to the altar, and then heads straight to the designated seat. I see her kneel. Less than a minute later she rises and strides back down the aisle towards me. I keep my eyes fixed on her, curious to see what she is like, this Madame Bastian, a commonplace cleaning woman, yet perhaps the most valuable secret agent in France, in Europe. She gives me a long, hard look as she passes — surprised, I suppose, not to see Major Henry in my place — and I note there is absolutely nothing commonplace in her fierce, almost masculine features, and the challenge of her stare. She is a bold one, maybe even reckless; but then she would have to be, to have smuggled secret documents out of the German Embassy for five years under the noses of the guards.