Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

Paulsen keypad and he is still, looking at it.

‘Now are things beginning to take shape?’

He sits back down again, heavily. His expression is unchanged.

‘My career’s taught me the benefit of careful research. I’ve an

inkling you tend to do a once- over- lightly and then leave it at that.

It’s all there, you know. My work and my life, more or less. Available to all- comers, or at least most of it, if you’d cared to look at it in 252

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depth. Gerald couldn’t credit it. But I knew you. I knew your arro-

gance. I recognized you as soon as I met you in that awful pub. The photographs were helpful. But when I met you in the flesh, it was

so clear. Even I thought it was a bit risky at that point. We all did.

But we didn’t account for your obliviousness. Your single- minded

pursuit of the mark. It had been some years, I suppose. And I was

somewhat at an advantage. But still.’

She smiles sweetly.

‘What are you trying to tell me? That you’ve been trying to con

me? If so –’

‘I think on reflection we’ll start somewhere near the beginning.

With a little boy – rather a large boy actually. Hans Taub.’

He looks up quickly. There is the minutest pause of less than a

half- beat before he says, ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Hmm. I was expecting you to say that. But you are Hans, aren’t

you?’ She looks at him questioningly.

‘No, of course not. Come on, Betty. I’m Roy. You know that. I’m

not any, what was it, Hans?’

‘So you don’t know of a Hans Taub?’

‘I never said that. As it happens a German I worked with straight

after the war was called Hans. He was my translator. Taub was his

second name, I think. When I was stationed in Hannover. He met a

tragic end, though.’

She is nodding. ‘Yes. Killed in the line of duty by a fugitive, I

believe.’

He looks astonished. ‘That’s right. I was with him at the time.’

‘You were, weren’t you? So very much so. It was a strange affair,

wasn’t it? You and he were so alike, all the contemporaneous state-

ments say. We’ve been able to track down a couple of the old staff

from the Hannover office. They’re almost as old as we are now.

They talk fondly of the Gruesome Twosome. And what I love about

official records is that they’re so, well, official. One delights in seeing the emotion behind the officialese. The British account is patently designed simply to placate the Russians and put the whole incident

behind them. It’s so transparent. I’d have loved to see the Russian report, to compare and contrast. But of course that would be

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impossible. We had to make do with second- best, which was good

enough. The old East German records. We only began looking in

2001 and it had all been lying there for more than ten years since the Wall came down. At first it didn’t occur to us to look there. I use

“us” in the liberal sense of course. I really mean Gerald and his help-mates. He’s the researcher whose services I paid for. Stephen’s boss.

He pretended to be my son, Michael. But no doubt we’ll come to

that later. Am I taking this too quickly for you, Hans?’

He looks at her and glares.

‘Where was I? Oh yes. One of Gerald’s people was doing a

research project on the Stasi and thought she’d just have a quick

look. By quick look, I of course mean a matter of weeks going

through the 1950s records. We academics love that sort of thing –

you know, needles in haystacks. And there it was. A joint approach

by the East German espionage agency and the Soviets to the aide of

a junior defence minister in 1957. Unsuccessful, it seems, and the

aide disappears from view. To a casual observer it’d mean very little.

Just one of those Cold War pranks. But to us . . .’

‘What does this have to do with me?’ he asks with a note of

petulance.

‘Everything, of course. The approach was made to a certain Roy

Courtnay. And Courtnay is such an uncommon name. There were

several things that were important in that report. One of them was

a reference to that incident in 1946 where Hans Taub was allegedly

killed. In the little dossier was a summary of the Russian officer’s report from the time. He was under the distinct impression the survivor was Hans Taub. But he let it pass.’

‘We only met Karovsky for an afternoon. He was very

unhelpful.’

‘Yes. Karovsky was the name. You’ve a good memory for names.

He was convinced enough that it was Hans Taub to track the man

down later in London and to attempt to blackmail him. Shall we

move on?’

‘Do what you want.’ He shrugs his shoulders.

‘Am I boring you? The other interesting thing was that Hans Taub

was apparently instrumental in denouncing a wealthy family to the

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SS in 1938. The Schröders. The parents were executed and the chil-

dren sent to the camps. Taub’s father fled Germany with his son.

His mother wasn’t so fortunate. So the East Germans were keen to

talk to Taub. Or is it Courtnay? Which shall we settle on?’

He looks up at her, wary. ‘Please yourself. It’s all Greek to me. He was a nasty piece of work, then, this Taub. I didn’t know any of this when he was working for me.’

‘Yes. He was only fourteen in 1938. Which raises a point of what

I suppose you’d call academic interest.’

‘Yes?’

‘At what age can we take true responsibility for our actions? The

legal age of responsibility in this country is ten. Do you think you had responsibility for your actions when you were fourteen, Hans?’

He grunts.

‘Personally, I think Hans was well in charge of his own thoughts

and actions. He was disgusted with the Schröders, he was disgusted

with his liberal parents, but most of all he was disgusted with himself. So he flailed out. He even had a written contract with the

Gestapo. Karovsky was going to confront him with it in 1957. I think Hans knew full well what he was doing to Albert and Magda

Schröder, and to Hannelore, Charlotte, Anneliese and Lili.’

‘This is nonsense. I’m Roy Courtnay. I grew up in Dorset. I went

to war. I’ve lived a life. So what?’

‘Indeed you have. We’ve been through it all. The convalescence,

Lord Stanbrook – his personal archive, to which Gerald gained

access, gave us a lot of detail – London and all those adventures

afterwards. You were quite elusive, but then Gerald is very good at his job. As were his assistants.’

‘This is nonsense. Where’s your proof for any of this?’

‘Proof ? Well, Gerald’s done a pretty through job. History gener-

ally isn’t about proof. It’s about the truth, or as close to it as we can get.’

‘There’s nothing, is there? What’s this got to do with you any-

way?’ He is red in the face.

Andrew starts moving towards the living room, but Betty says,

‘It’s all right. Hans isn’t going to do anything rash. Are you, Hans?’

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‘My name is not Hans,’ he says through gritted teeth.

‘No. I thought you wouldn’t be satisfied,’ she continues blithely,

as if he has not spoken. ‘I anticipated you might require something more compelling than mere historical commentary. Do you remember our trip to Berlin?’