Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

‘All right, let’s get on.’

‘ YOU’RE NOT AN American, Herr de Witt. Who are you, I wonder?’

‘I have an American passport.’

‘Easy for a resourceful man like you.’

‘I can’t imagine what you mean,’ Wolff retorted impatiently.

The officer didn’t explain but stared at Wolff intently as if the past could be read in the lines of his face. Foreign Office or General Staff, Wolff guessed. He had introduced himself as Lieutenant Maguerre; lieutenant of what, he didn’t say. Too well spoken and cultivated for a junior police officer, he was resting his fingertips on the table like a pianist, and his suit was cut in Paris. Mid to late thirties, of slight build, his name and fine Gallic features suggested a family tree that criss-crossed the border. He looked like the sort of fellow who’d have felt at home in any drawing room in Europe — before the war.

‘No one knows you’re here, Herr de Witt,’ he said at last, ‘and would Ambassador Gerard care if he did?’

‘What do you want?’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’m here for Westinghouse, you know that.’

‘Don’t lie to me. I’m not a patient man. If you want to behave like a spy I can arrange for the policemen…’ he enunciated the word contemptuously ‘…who generally carry out their business in this room to treat you like one. You see—’

‘For God’s sake,’ interrupted Wolff. ‘I’m a consulting engineer.’

‘Enough.’ Maguerre’s chair screeched as he pushed it sharply from the table. He stood glaring at Wolff for a few seconds, then turned and walked over to the chimneypiece. Picking the poker from its stand, he began stirring the embers so vigorously that the last of the heat was quickly lost from the fire. It was a bare brick room, stripped of anything that might distract from the pursuit of truth: windowless, timeless, its vaulted ceiling in shadow. ‘They’ll only believe in Herr de Witt if they smoke his story from you,’ C had counselled. In the Alex, only lies were held to be simple and offered freely. The truth was spoken on the edge, mumbled sometimes through cut and swollen lips. Wolff was relieved when Maguerre put the poker down and returned to the table.

‘Well?’

‘I’ve told you,’ said Wolff sulkily. ‘I’m a consulting engineer and sometimes I work for Westinghouse, or I used to.’

‘Our people say no one at Westinghouse knows what you’re doing in Germany.’

Wolff frowned. ‘I don’t suppose it matters. I’ve lost my job,’ he muttered. ‘I was involved in a little private business. It didn’t go…’ he hesitated. ‘It didn’t go quite as I’d hoped and, well, that’s why I’m here.’

‘And what was the nature of this private business?’

‘May I have a cigarette?’

‘Come on, come on.’ Maguerre leant forward, his elbows on the table. ‘Your private business?’

His right hand was balled in a manicured fist but he wasn’t the sort to swing a punch — that he would leave to the regulars at the Alex.

‘Your private business,’ he persisted.

‘A small matter…’

‘A small matter of guns?’

Wolff flicked the ash from his cigarette and said nothing.

‘All right.’ Maguerre bent to pick up the briefcase at his feet. ‘The story’s everywhere.’ Taking out a leather-bound file, he opened it and slid a small cutting across the table. ‘From The Times of London.’

‘Oh?’ Wolff glanced at it for a few seconds, then pushed it back.

‘Is it you?’ demanded Maguerre.

‘Who?’

‘What are you hoping to gain from this nonsense?’ He was losing his temper. Good interrogators never lost their temper.

‘Are you the man the British are looking for?’

Wolff looked at him coolly. ‘No.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘That isn’t polite.’

‘Please, Herr de Witt…’ He shook his head in exasperation. ‘This is foolish. The rifles. They’re your rifles — for your people in South Africa, General Maritz’s forces — the Boers. Your shipping agent in Norway told us everything — for a price, of course. A thousand rifles hidden in a shipment of mining machinery. The M-1891 Westinghouse is making for the Russians. You see?’

‘If you’re right, I don’t believe it’s any of your business,’ replied Wolff belligerently.

‘You know the old saying: “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”. We help our friends.’ Maguerre paused and looked down at his hands. Then, lifting his eyes to Wolff’s face again, ‘But perhaps it’s a clever story and you’re a spy.’

Wolff shrugged. ‘I might be. I’m not Germany’s friend or enemy. I’m a businessman.’

‘But you hate the British?’

‘Yes,’ he said under his breath.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said “yes”, damn it. Yes, I hate the British. Satisfied?’

Maguerre gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t understand why…’

‘Why I’m discreet?’ Wolff dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. ‘I don’t want to be chased across Europe. I don’t want a reputation for trouble. I don’t want to be a face in a secret policeman’s file.’

‘Too late, you’ve made your choice,’ Maguerre said, lifting the cutting. ‘Isn’t that why you’re here in Germany?’

‘I’m here for my health,’ replied Wolff with a wry smile. ‘When it improves I’ll return to America.’

‘It won’t improve in the Alex, Herr de Witt.’

Wolff sighed.

‘All right.’ Maguerre got to his feet wearily and drifted to the door. ‘Hey,’ he shouted, rapping it with his fist. It was opened by the more solidly built of the Unteroffiziere who’d followed Wolff the previous day. Christ, thought Wolff, his body tensing, that ape isn’t necessary, and for a couple of seconds old images, fists, boots, faces, flashed through his mind like a fairground whirligig.

‘Fetch us some coffee, would you,’ demanded Maguerre ungraciously.

The door closed quietly behind the policeman.

‘Why was it necessary to conduct this business in the middle of the night?’ Wolff enquired fiercely, his skin still prickling with sweat. A more observant man than the lieutenant would have noticed his discomfort.

Maguerre scratched his temple thoughtfully. ‘I think you know the answer. But we’ll come to that later,’ he said, easing behind the table again. ‘You’re not an American. Your German is excellent; your Dutch too?’

Wolff nodded.

‘Who are you, Herr de Witt?’

Who? What? Why de Witt? Your life, de Witt, like a babbling stream through the early hours.

‘Who am I? Dutch, I suppose,’ he told Maguerre. ‘My father and mother were Dutch, from Maastricht, but they lived in England with my grandfather for a time.’

The story was as close to his own as he could make it, and he’d rehearsed it until it became his life entirely, first with C, then with Bywater and the old South Africa hand, Landau. Jan Cornelius de Witt, the only child of farmers, religious zealots quick to recognise the Devil in their neighbours and sometimes in their son. School in England and Holland, then the polytechnic college in Delft. It was 1900 and in South Africa the Boers were fighting the British.

‘It was the romance of David and Goliath — farmers fighting an empire for their freedom,’ he explained to Maguerre. ‘And I was bored of narrow streets and flat country, the smallness, the tidiness of everything. Bored with the polytechnic. It wasn’t a difficult choice — I joined the Dutch Volunteers.’

There were others — Germans, Frenchmen, Americans, a few Russians; de Witt had served alongside MacBride’s Irish for a time. The Dutch didn’t see much action. They did see crops and homes burned, the bodies of farmers shot in their fields, their wives and children dying of hunger and disease in concentration camps. That’s when de Witt learnt to hate the British. In the autumn of 1900, he was taken prisoner and sent to a camp in Ceylon. He was twenty-two when he left it, no money, no prospects, no country to speak of, but resolved to make his way in the world, harder and with that ember still glowing inside. No, Lieutenant Maguerre, hatred wasn’t too strong a word; hatred not just for the British but for all empires, and for all who refuse to acknowledge the rights of small nations. With the outbreak of war in Europe, the Boers under General Maritz were fighting again. Westinghouse trusted him, the opportunity to send arms was there and Wolff had taken it even though he was sure this rebellion would fail too. Why he’d decided to risk so much he found it impossible to say.