The champagne he had ordered was already opened and the waiter poured three glasses as soon as they sat, the mood immediately spoilt by MCG snapping something at his wife, which brought from her a look of fury. In Greek, it might have been incomprehensible but for the way she downed the wine then glared at him. Clearly he was telling her not to drink too much, so Cal signalled for her glass to be refilled.
‘To business,’ he said as he turned to MCG, forcing his attention away from his wife.
‘My principal doubts you will meet his terms.’
‘I will answer that when you tell me what they are and what I am paying for.’
As MGC took a typed list from his pocket and passed it over, his eyes swivelled to his wife, who was having a third refill, which caused him to frown – clearly she liked a drink – but attention had to be paid to the business and Cal could not fault what he was being offered, for it was a gunrunner’s dream. Everything he wanted and lots of it: 20 mm Flak cannons, Pak 36 anti-tank guns, MG 32 machine guns, machine pistols, Walther PP pistols and K98 rifles, all with ammunition and spares.
‘The price?’
‘Forty million Reichsmarks.’
It was hard not to blink; at the very roughest guess that was at least twice what the price should be, but he had to smile and make light of it.
‘I am glad to see we are no longer pretending where these are coming from. Are you sure they can be delivered?’
‘Herr Moncrief, you would not have come to me unless you knew more than I would wish, therefore I doubt you will need to guess at the power of the person who has agreed that what you have in your hand can be supplied. I, however, need to be sure you can pay.’
‘Shall we order some food? If we do not, I think your wife risks spoiling her appetite.’
‘You mentioned payment in gold. Is that here in Athens?’
‘Not yet, but I do not see a problem, yet I must, as you understand, refer back to the source of funds and get their agreement to the price.’
‘I do not think they have a choice.’
‘There is always a choice, but I think they will accept.’
‘Elena!’
The bark made MCG’s cheeks wobble, but there was no mistaking the fury in the eyes and it got the same response as his earlier admonishment: she simply drained her glass, and that acted like a red rag. What followed was a furious exchange in Greek, not one word of which Cal understood, but he had engaged in enough marital quarrels of his own to be able to discern the gist.
She liked to drink, while he had not even touched his champagne, which indicated that she was a boozer and he was not. Good manners should have kept this under wraps, perhaps in a public space he would have been more circumspect, but with neither of those constraints present, he went right off the deep end and was fully matched in response. For all she was a beauty, Elena also had the ability to look like a very angry crow with a voice to match.
The waiter had disappeared, Cal did not know why, but he had left the bottle in an ice bucket beside the table, which she grabbed by the neck and it looked as though she was about to crown her old man. That she did not was insufficient to calm him down and it was pretty obvious why – the damn thing was empty, which meant, they having had one glass each, she had drunk at least four. Then the waiter came in with another bottle – which Elena must have asked for – and things really took off.
Cal had to sit back; she still had that bottle in her hand and she looked like she was capable of using it on anyone. He had to admire the waiter, who, with what amounted to a full-blooded screaming match in progress, proceeded with his task – perhaps such screaming matches were common in Greece – the loud plop of the cork being ejected, that worldwide sign of celebration, just throwing fuel on an inferno.
MCG stood up and so did she, towering over him, which would have reduced Cal to tears of mirth if he had not worked so hard to keep his face straight; he needed this little twerp badly and, reluctantly, he would take his side if called upon to do so. Just then MCG smashed his fist on the table, spat out a final declaration and stormed out of the room. With a triumphant look, Elena sat down and calmly signalled for her glass to be filled.
With muttered ‘excuse me’s’ Cal went out after him, to find him outside shaking with fury, literally like a jelly, his fists clenched and threatening the heavens with a punch. Sighting Cal, it was clear he had to fight to calm himself and it took several seconds. With a great effort he stilled his wobbly body and said, in a strained voice, ‘I must leave, Herr Moncrief, but I ask for your indulgence.’
‘My dear chap,’ Cal said, lamely.
‘As you will have seen, my wife and I do not see eye to eye. I have asked her to leave with me, and she has refused. I cannot stay, so I will await your response to what I have proposed to you until you are ready. I thank you for the invitation and apologise for spoiling your evening.’
‘But your wife?’
‘Let her have her food …’ his voice rose a fraction ‘… and her drinks. Please oblige me by putting her in a taxi when she has had enough.’
‘But—’
His voice was almost pleading. ‘Please? Oblige me in this.’
‘If you wish.’
‘I shall go to my club tonight. I do not think I could spend tonight under the same roof as her.’
Cal was wondering if this little tub knew the expression ‘all is fair in love and war’.
‘Whatever you wish.’
He returned to another dazzling smile, to a woman who behaved as if nothing untoward had happened, and as well as that there was a bit of a look in her eye that was nothing less than a come-on. Seduction without words is hard but not impossible, and a willingness on both parts eases those inevitable moments of confusion.
MCG was right, his wife did not speak German, but she had maybe two dozen words of English and a few in French. So they ate slowly, they drank wine – in her case somewhat too quickly – and they stumbled through the steps that led inevitably to his room, where, once inside, conversation became redundant.
He did, as promised, put her in a taxi, outside that same magnificent entrance, but the sky was a dull morning grey at the time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next weeks were a whirl of travel and activity, checking with Peter Lanchester in London that what he needed would be in place, dealing with the Greek to ensure both the terms of supply and the transfer of the money, once he had seen it shifted to a bank in Athens, none of that made any easier by events in Spain itself.
As for the war, the Republic was still mostly on the defensive. Franco had again failed to take Madrid in the first months of the year, while the last bastion of Republican resistance in the north-west, the Basque region, was under severe pressure from General Mola, who with the help of the German Condor Legion had ushered in a new phase with the bombing and utter destruction of the small town of Guernica, an act which shocked the world when news of the true number of deaths began to emerge.
For all the international protests it had another effect: it showed the power of aerial bombardment on built-up areas and brought home to many in the democracies what they might face should they engage in another war – in short, it strengthened the hand of the politicians keeping up the pretence of non-intervention, who could now ask those more bellicose if they were prepared to see their own cities reduced to rubble.
Regular Italian troops, in an operation sanctioned personally by Mussolini, with massed tanks, artillery and air support, had sought to capture the Guadalajara mountains which rose to the north of Madrid, their tactical aim to gain the heights and so roll down on the capital in conjunction with the Nationalists. It failed, with the Italians suffering heavy losses, not that the International Brigades fared any better.