“And there you were, asleep,” she concluded, “like a babe.”
“And if they had said they had no passenger called March?”
“I would have come anyway.” She was impatient with his anger. “Listen, I already have most of the story. An art fraud. Two senior officials dead. A third on the run. An attempted defection. A secret Swiss bank account. At worst, alone, I’d have picked up some extra colour in Zurich. At best I might have charmed Herr Zaugg into giving me an interview.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Don’t look so worried, Sturmbannfuhrer- I’ll keep your name out of it.”
Zurich is only twenty kilometres south of the Rhine. They were descending quickly. March finished his Scotch and set the empty container on the stewardess’s outstretched tray.
Charlotte Maguire drained her own glass in one and placed it next to his. “We have whisky in common, Herr March, at least.” She smiled.
He turned to the window. This was her skill, he thought: to make him look stupid, a Teutonic flat-foot. First, she had failed to tell him about Stuckart’s telephone call. Then she had manoeuvred him into letting her join in his search of Stuckart’s apartment. This morning, instead of waiting for him to contact her, she had talked to the American diplomat, Nightingale, about Swiss banks. Now this. It was like having a child forever at your heels — a persistent, intelligent, embarrassing, deceitful, dangerous child. Surreptitiously he felt his pockets again, to check he still had the letter and key. She was not beyond stealing them while he was asleep.
The Junkers was coming in to land. Like a film gradually speeding up, the Swiss countryside began rushing past: a tractor in a field, a road with a few headlights in the smoky dusk, and then — one bounce, two — they were touching down.
Zurich airport was not how he had imagined it. Beyond the aircraft and hangars were wooded hillsides, with no evidence of a city. For a moment, he wondered if Globus had discovered his mission and had arranged for the plane to be diverted. Perhaps they had been set down in some remote airbase in southern Germany? But then he saw Z0RICH on the terminal building.
The instant the plane had taxied to a halt, the passengers — professional commuters, most of them — rose as one. She was on her feet, too, pulling down her case and that ridiculous blue coat. He reached past her.
“Excuse me.”
She shrugged on the coat. “Where now?”
“I am going to my hotel, Fraulein. What you do is your concern.”
He managed to squeeze in front of a fat Swiss who was cramming documents into a leather attache case. The manoeuvre left her trapped some way behind him. He did not look back as they shuffled down the aisle and off the aircraft.
He walked briskly through the arrivals hall to passport control, overtaking most of the other passengers to station himself near the head of the queue. Behind him, he heard a commotion as she tried to catch up.
The Swiss border official, a serious young man with a drooping moustache, leafed through his passport.
“Business or pleasure, Herr March?”
“Business.” Definitely business.
“One moment.”
The young man picked up the telephone, dialled three digits, turned away from March and whispered something into the receiver. He said: “Yes. Yes. Of course.” Then he hung up and returned the passport to March.
THERE were two of them waiting for him by the baggage carousel. He spotted them from fifty metres away: bulky figures with close-cropped hair, wearing stout black shoes and belted fawn raincoats. Policemen — they were the same the world over. He walked past them without a glance and sensed rather than saw them falling in behind him.
He went unchallenged through the green customs channel and out into the main concourse. Taxis. Where were taxis?
Clip-clop, clip-clop. Coming up behind him.
The air outside was several degrees colder than in Berlin. Clip-clop, clip-clop. He wheeled round. There she was, in her coat, clutching her case, balanced on her high heels.
“Go away, Fraulein. Do you understand me? Do you need it in writing? Go back to America and publish your stupid story. I have business to attend to.”
Without waiting for her reply, he opened the rear door of the waiting taxi, threw in his case, climbed in after it. “Baur au Lac,” he said to the driver.
They pulled out of the airport and on to the highway, heading south towards the city. The day had almost gone. Craning his neck to look out of the back window, March could see a taxi tucked in ten metres behind them, with an unmarked white Mercedes following it. Christ, what a comedy this was turning into. Globus was chasing Luther, he was chasing Globus, Charlie Maguire was chasing him, and now the Swiss police were on the tails of both of them. He lit a cigarette.
“Can’t you read?” said the driver. He pointed to a sign:
“Welcome to Switzerland” muttered March. He wound down the window a few centimetres, and the cloud of blue smoke was plucked into the chilly air.
Zurich was more beautiful than he had expected. Its centre reminded him of Hamburg. Old buildings clustered around the edge of the wide lake. Trams in a livery of green and white rattled along the front, past well-lit shops and cafes. The driver was listening to the Voice of America. In Berlin it was a blur of static; here, it was clear. “I wanna hold your hand,” sang a youthful English voice. “I wanna hold your ha-a-and!” A thousand teenage girls screamed.
The Baur au Lac was a street’s-width from the lake. March paid the taxi driver in Reichsmarks — every country on the continent accepted Reichsmarks, it was Europe’s common currency — and went inside. It was as luxurious as Nebe had promised. His room cost him half a month’s salary. “A fine place for a condemned man to spend a night…” As he signed the register he glimpsed a flash of blue at the door, swiftly followed by the fawn raincoats. I am like a movie star, thought March, as he caught the elevator. Everywhere I go, I have two detectives and a brunette in tow.
HE spread a map of the city on the bed and sat down beside it, sinking into the spongy mattress. He had so little time. The broad expanse of the Zurich See thrust up into the complex of streets, like a blue blade. According to his Kripo file, Hermann Zaugg had a place on See Strasse. March found it. See Strasse ran alongside the eastern shore of the lake, about four kilometres south of the hotel.
Someone tapped softly on the door. A man’s voice called his name.
Now what? He strode across the room, flung open the door. A waiter was in the corridor, holding a tray. He looked startled.
“Sorry, sir. With the compliments of the lady in room 277, sir.”
“Yes. Of course.” March stood aside to let him through. The waiter came in hesitantly, as if he thought March might hit him. He set down the tray, lingered fractionally for a tip and then, when none was forthcoming, left. March locked the door behind him.
On the table was a bottle of Glenfiddich, with a one-word note. “Detente?”
HE stood at the window, his tie loosened, sipping the malt whisky, looking out across the Zurich See. Traceries of yellow lanterns were strung around the black water; on the surface, pinpricks of red, green and white bobbed and winked. He lit yet another cigarette, his millionth of the week.
People were laughing in the drive beneath his window. A light moved across the lake. No Great Hall, no marching bands, no uniforms. For the first time in — what was it? — a year, at least — he was away from the iron and granite of Berlin. So. He held up his glass and studied the pale liquid. There were other lives, other cities.