Isabelle said calmly, ‘But there may be other sharks swimming with him that we can catch. That’s what you think, Liz, as I understand it. And the Americans too. Is that not correct?’
To Isabelle’s relief, Liz Carlyle broke in, her tone brisk but conciliatory. ‘I have something to propose. But first let me ask our German colleague, are you confident of keeping Milraud under surveillance?’
Isabelle thought, can a fish swim? No intelligence officer worth his salt would say no to that question. Where was Liz going with this?
The German replied stiffly, ‘Of course.’
‘Good,’ said Liz, ‘then I advise the following: we keep tabs on Milraud, and obviously his wife as well. But if he goes off to meet anyone connected with his activities in Paris, it seems to me very unlikely that Annette will go with him. He wouldn’t want to involve her or expose her to the risk. I’m sure she knows exactly how he makes his living, and we know that when he escaped from us in the south of France several years ago, it was with her help. But I can’t believe she’s actively involved in his deals, whatever they are.’
‘So?’ asked Seurat impatiently.
Liz said patiently, ‘So, if he goes out and leaves her in the hotel, then that should be the time for you, Martin, to go in. After all, you know the woman well, don’t you?’
‘I do.’
‘So you can work on her. You can explain that if she tells us who Milraud is working with, and helps us move up the ladder of this deal, then we can see that things don’t go too hard on her. Or her husband.’
‘I’m not prepared to promise that. I want things to go hard for the bastard.’
‘Martin. It’s up to you what you say. We all know you won’t have any influence over what happens to them when they’re arrested.’
There was silence while all the participants considered this. At last Seurat stirred. Leaning towards the speaker on the table he said, ‘All right, Liz. You win – you, and the Americans. But let’s not lose him, OK? Nothing personal, but he’s caused me a lot of trouble. I couldn’t bear it if he had the chance to cause any more.’
Chapter 15
The Schweiber Mansion at the eastern end of Unter den Linden had once housed the private collection of Ernst Schweiber, a German manufacturer who became fabulously wealthy in the late nineteenth century. He and his sons after him had used their wealth to amass an eclectic collection of paintings, furniture and objets d’art from all over the world, which they had housed in their grand baroque mansion. But the mansion had had the misfortune to be in the path of the Red Army when it arrived in Berlin in 1945.
The Schweiber family had by then been long dispersed, some to other parts of Europe, some to their deaths in concentration camps. By the time the Russians arrived, part of the collection had already been removed by the Nazis. What remained was taken as booty by the conquerors, some of it to find its way eventually into galleries and museums in Moscow and Leningrad.
After the Berlin Wall went up, the Schweiber Mansion found itself in East Berlin, no longer grand but grimy, broken-windowed and pocked by shell holes. The house became home to a department of the Stasi and was feared and avoided as far as possible by East Berliners. As part of the restoration of East Berlin, the building had fairly recently been renovated to something of its former grandeur. But now, instead of sitting in an avenue of equally grand mansions, it rested uneasily between two glass-fronted office blocks, surprising the tourists who came to see what was at least a part of the Schweiber Collection, gathered together again from around the world and returned to Berlin after much diplomacy and haggling.
If Hans Anspach had known about the diplomacy and haggling, he would probably not have thought it worthwhile. He was gazing at a rather gruesome painting of someone being flayed alive. But in any case his mind was not on the art, for though the headphones he was wearing looked like those the museum supplied to visitors who wanted a commentary as they toured its collection, what he was hearing through them had nothing to do with art.
‘Still here,’ came from Beckerman, who was a few rooms away. Taking a couple of casual-looking steps, Anspach could see, through an arch, the back of Antoine Milraud’s head. The Frenchman was standing with half a dozen other visitors in front of a Corot which had lately made the news – to the embarrassment of the German authorities, it was now thought not to have been part of the Schweiber collection at all but to have been plundered by Field Marshal Göring from a French aristocrat in Burgundy, whose descendants were threatening to sue for its return. Beckerman added, ‘No movement.’
It had been easy enough to follow Milraud to the gallery. He had left the hotel half an hour ago, dressed in a white roll-neck sweater and a grey tweed jacket. He had walked, without looking around, straight down Unter den Linden, then fifty metres along a side street to the Schweiber Collection. With two teams of three on his tail, there had been no chance of losing him, and with the museum busy but not too crowded, it was simple enough to keep tabs on the man as he wandered through the ground-floor rooms.
He had been in the building over half an hour now, and there had seemed no particular rhyme or reason to his progress. He had looked at paintings and porcelain and classical sculptures. To Anspach’s experienced eye, he seemed to be killing time rather than appreciating the objects.
But the Corot was holding his attention far longer than anything else had. Was he waiting for someone? Was this the meeting point? Anspach edged into the next gallery, from where he could get a wider view of the room where Milraud stood.
He noticed the black man as soon as he walked into Milraud’s gallery. Berlin was full of students from Africa, but this man was no student – he was tall, slim and beautifully dressed in a tailored grey wool suit, a cream silk shirt, and a tie. The fact that he was probably the only man in the gallery wearing a tie would have made it remarkable enough, but this was clearly a designer tie, broad, silky, with a brightly coloured pattern. His figure was elegant but his height and broad shoulders suggested there was strength behind the smooth façade.
The man didn’t glance in Milraud’s direction; he moved towards the far wall, where a group of young Chinese tourists stood giggling in front of a large nude. As Anspach watched, he saw Beckerman stroll in from the other gallery; he had joined the back of a tour group that gathered briefly at the Corot before moving in Anspach’s direction. The group, with Beckerman in tow, walked into the gallery where Anspach stood and gathered at another picture.
Anspach glanced again in Milraud’s direction. The Chinese had moved on from the nude, but where was the black man? Then he spotted him; he had been hidden by another group listening to an English-speaking guide. Now he walked up to the Corot and stood next to Milraud, with only a foot or two of space between them. Both were examining the Corot as if they were experts, and when the Frenchman turned his head slightly Anspach could see the two men were talking.
He drew back until he was out of sight, then looking down he said softly into his microphone: ‘We have contact. Newcomer. Black male. One hundred eighty-five centimetres tall, slim, smart grey suit.’
The two men stayed standing, side by side, until suddenly the black man turned and walked out of the room. Milraud waited a few minutes then left the room too, going quickly towards the museum’s exit. As he left the building he headed off in the direction of his hotel, watched by Anspach, who had joined Dimitz in an unmarked car parked in the car park outside the building. Three spaces away a second car was parked containing two more officers of the BfV; a third team member was busy buying a newspaper from a kiosk outside the entrance of the museum.