Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

Curé says, ‘Wait here. I’ll see if he’s in yet.’

He moves off. A door opens, briefly silhouetting his figure against a purplish oblong gleam; I hear a snatch of noise and music and then he is swallowed up by darkness. A woman baring a large expanse of cleavage, white as gooseflesh in the cold, comes up to me holding an unlit cigarette and asks for a light. Without bothering to think I strike a match. In the yellow flare she is young and pretty. She peers at me short-sightedly. ‘Do I know you, my darling?’

I realise my mistake. ‘I’m sorry. I’m waiting for someone.’ I blow out the flame and walk away.

She calls after me, laughing: ‘Don’t be like that, sweetheart!’

Another woman says: ‘Who is he, anyway?’

And then a man yells drunkenly: ‘He’s just a stuck-up cunt!’

A couple of soldiers turn to stare.

Curé appears in the doorway. He nods and beckons. I walk over to him. ‘I ought to leave,’ I say.

‘One quick look, then go.’ He takes my arm and steers me ahead of him, along a short passage, down a few steps, through a heavy black velvet curtain and into a long room, misty with tobacco smoke, packed with people sitting at small round tables. At the far end a band is playing, while on stage half a dozen girls in corsets and crotchless knickers hoist their skirts and kick their legs listlessly at the clientele. Their feet thump against the bare boards. The place smells of absinthe.

‘That’s him.’

He nods to a table less than twenty paces away, where two couples share a bottle of champagne. One of the women, a redhead, has her back to me; the other, a brunette, is twisted round in her seat looking towards the stage. The men face one another, talking in a desultory way. There is no need for Curé to tell me which it is he has brought me to see. Major Esterhazy reclines with his chair pushed well back from the table, his tunic unbuttoned, his pelvis thrust forward, his arms hanging down either side almost to the floor; in his right hand he holds casually at an angle, as if it is barely worth considering, a glass of champagne. His head in profile is flattish and tapers like a vulture’s to a great beak of a nose. His moustache is large and swept back. He seems to be drunk. His companion notices us standing by the door. He says something, and Esterhazy slowly turns his head in our direction. His eyes are round and protuberant: not natural, but crazy, like glass balls pressed into the skull of a skeleton in a medical school. The overall effect, as Curé warned, is unsettling. My God , I think, he could burn this entire place down and everyone in it, and not care a damn . His glance settles on us briefly, and for a second I detect a hint of curiosity in the tilt of his head and the narrowing of his gaze. Fortunately, he is befuddled by drink, and when one of the women says something his attention wanders vaguely back to her.

Curé touches my elbow. ‘We should go.’ He pulls aside the curtain and ushers me away.

I arrive back in Paris just before noon the following day, a Saturday, and decide against going into the office. It is therefore not until Monday, four days after my last conversation with Lauth, that I return to the section. Even as I am climbing the stairs I can hear Major Henry’s voice, and when I reach the landing I see him along the corridor, just emerging from Lauth’s room. He is wearing a black armband.

‘Colonel Picquart,’ he says, coming up to me and saluting. ‘I am reporting for duty.’

‘It’s good to have you back, Major,’ I reply, returning his salute, ‘although naturally I am very sorry for the circumstances. I do hope your mother’s passing was as peaceful as possible.’

‘There aren’t many easy ways out of this life, Colonel. To be frank, by the end, I was praying for it to be over. From now on I intend to keep hold of my service revolver. I want a good clean bullet when my own time comes.’

‘That’s my intention, too.’

‘The only problem is whether one will still have the strength to pull the trigger.’

‘Oh, I expect there will be plenty around who will be only too happy to oblige us.’

Henry laughs. ‘You’re not wrong there, Colonel!’

I unlock my door and invite him in. The office has the cold, stale feel of a room that has not been used for several days. He takes a seat. The spindly wooden legs creak under his weight.

‘So,’ he says, lighting a cigarette, ‘I hear you’ve been busy while I’ve been away.’

‘You’ve spoken to Lauth?’ Of course, I might have guessed Lauth would have told him: those two are very thick together.

‘Yes, he’s filled me in. May I see the new material?’

I feel a certain irritation as I unlock my safe and hand him the file. I say, conscious of sounding petty, ‘I had assumed I would be the one to brief you first.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Only to the extent that I asked Lauth not to mention it to anyone.’

Henry, with his cigarette clamped between his lips, puts on his spectacles, and holds up the two documents. He squints at them through the smoke. ‘Well,’ he mutters, ‘perhaps he doesn’t regard me as just “anyone”.’ The cigarette wobbles as he speaks, showering ash into his lap.

‘Nobody is suggesting you are.’

‘Have you done anything about this yet?’

‘I haven’t told anyone in the rue Saint-Dominique, if that’s what you mean.’

‘That’s probably wise. They will only start flapping.’

‘I agree. I want us to make our own enquiries first. I’ve already been to Rouen-’

He peers at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘You’ve been to Rouen?’

‘Yes, there’s a major in the Seven-Four — Esterhazy’s regiment — who’s an old friend of mine. He was able to give me some personal information.’

Henry resumes reading. ‘And might I ask what this old friend told you?’

‘He said that Esterhazy is in the habit of asking a lot of suspicious questions. That he’s even paid for himself to go on artillery exercises, and had the firing manuals copied afterwards. Also that he’s desperate for money and isn’t a man of good character.’

‘Really?’ Henry turns the petit bleu over to examine the address. ‘He seemed fine when he worked here.’

I have to give him credit for the aplomb with which he delivers this bombshell. For a moment or two I simply stare at him. ‘Lauth never mentioned that Esterhazy was employed here.’

‘That’s because he didn’t know.’ Henry sets the documents down on my desk and takes off his spectacles. ‘It was long before Lauth’s time. I’d only just been posted here myself.’

‘When was this?’

‘Must be fifteen years ago.’

‘So you know Esterhazy?’

‘I did once, yes — slightly. He wasn’t here long — he worked as a German translator. But I haven’t seen him for years.’

I sit back in my chair. ‘This raises the matter to a whole new level.’

‘Does it?’ Henry shrugs. ‘I’m not sure I follow. Why?’

‘You seem to be taking this very calmly, Major!’ There is something mocking about Henry’s studied indifference; I can feel my anger rising. ‘Obviously it’s more serious if Esterhazy has received some training in our intelligence techniques.’

Henry smiles and shakes his head. ‘If I may offer you some advice, Colonel, I wouldn’t get too dramatic about it. It doesn’t matter how many gunnery courses he’s been on. I don’t see how Esterhazy can have had access to anything important, stuck out in Rouen. And in fact that letter from Schwartzkoppen tells us plainly that he didn’t, because the Germans are threatening to break off relations with him. They wouldn’t do that if they thought they had a valuable spy.