This he immediately began to do with great vigour, and for a young man he showed a remarkable conversance with death, and what he described as its ‘packaging*. Cremation was what he advocated as the cleanest, purest and most ecologically satisfactory way to go and as business prospered he built his own private crematorium. He had to wait rather longer than anticipated for this because the firm contracted to do the business were at that time engaged in building similar, but rather larger, installations in Nazi Germany.
Stromberg became the man whose advice was always sought when there was a bereavement Any man or woman of consequence would expect to be cremated by him and would know that in the manner of their going, the world would see ample evidence of their means. Stromberg specialized in the production of very expensive coffins with very expensive fittings. He argued - though with most of his clientele it was never necessary to argue - that the consecration of so much wealth to the flames was a kind of absolution, a purification of the body physical from the taint of Mammon before it passed into the everlasting twilight. It was the equivalent of the old Norse heroes being burned in their long boats. It also showed the world that one had money to burn.
Most clients, racked by emotion, pressed back a tear and nodded. It was only several weeks later, when the body of the loved one had been consigned to the flames and an enormous bill had arrived, that some of them thought again. But who could query, and who could quibble in such a situation? And anyway, what was there to discuss? Everything had passed into the furnace. In fact, only the corpse had been burnt - usually without any gold fillings that its teeth had contained. The same coffin, which was designed like a Japanese trick box to be capable of a number of subtle variations of shape, was used again and again with a variety of gold-plated handles. Stromberg realized that few people attended so many funeral ceremonies that they would recognize one coffin from another. Some wives even assisted him by expressing a wish to be cremated in the same style of coffin as their departed husband and this instruction he was able to fulfil to the letter.
Once the electrically controlled rollers had carried the coffin through the curtains and the hardened-steel shutter had slid shut, the record of a blast furnace in operation would be turned on and the corpse quickly tipped into a plywood box reinforced with struts. The coffin would be swiftly dismantled and the corpse examined for items of value. Any fingers containing rings that had become moulded into the flesh would be chopped off and the rigid mouth prised open. If it contained any teeth, and they in turn contained gold, these would be wrenched out with a pair of pliers. The ‘funeral assistants' would then withdraw and the true furnace sound would overlay the recorded roar preying on the minds of the mourners as they sped with restrained haste from the ghastly place of death.
It was on this grim fertilizer that the seeds of Stromberg’s fortune had flourished. With the end of the war he moved his business to Hamburg, where the opportunities for expansion were so much greater. But his mind was already on other things. Most of Europe’s merchant fleet had been sunk during the war and Stromberg was swift to see the possibilities as Marshall Aid began to pour in to help the stricken continent to its feet. He moved his money into shipping and was soon on smiling terms with Greeks as his first shabby cargo boats gave way to tankers. By his middle twenties Sigmund Strom- berg was a dollar millionaire.
But this was not enough. As he became richer and more successful and as his net of power and acquaintance extended, Stromberg realized that the world is not controlled by kings or presidents, but by criminals. Kings and presidents are ephemeral; organizations like Cosa Nostra and the Tongs go on for ever.
So Sigmund Stromberg decided that he had to become a criminal. The transition was not going to be too difficult; after all, he was already a swindler, a murderer and a corpse robber.
His opportunity arose when he learned that a number of established criminal interests had agreed a plan to sell ‘insurance’ - based on annual tonnage carried - to one of the richest Greek shipping magnates with whom Stromberg had a bare acquaintance. Stromberg exaggerated the extent of his connection with the Greek and committed himself to convene a meeting at which the proposition was to be discussed by all interested parties. The meeting to take place on the Ingemar, at that stage the largest tanker in the Stromberg fleet.
To keep a respectful distance, Stromberg arranged that the meeting should be under the chairmanship of one Bent Krogh, who had been his right-hand man in the early crematorium days and knew all his secrets.
The decision not to attend was, as it happened, the right one because an explosion ripped apart the stateroom in which the meeting was due to take place, seconds before the arrival of the Greek. Bent Krogh and the leaders of eight of the most important criminal groups in Europe were wiped out and the ship turned into a blazing inferno. It was fortunate for Stromberg that the vessel was well insured.
Those who were in the know believed that the Greek had caught wind of the plan and taken his own retaliatory measures to nip an incipient protection racket in the bud. It therefore came as no great surprise when two months later, his chauffeur started the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and saw his legs passing his eyes as an explosion carried the vehicle, his master and himself to a height of forty-five feet before depositing their mangled remains in a smoking crater half that depth.
Stromberg had sent a wreath to the funeral - his taste in such matters was, of necessity, exemplary - and three months later, by a series of very complicated but very logical deals, had taken over the dead Greek’s shipping interests.
Now, Stromberg’s cold, watery eyes flowed over the two uneasy men before him.
‘Gentlemen, there is a problem.’
Room 4c
Stromberg allowed his words to sink in and stroked a weblike fold of skin that stretched between the smallest finger of his left hand and its neighbour. He had been born with this, and Frun Stromberg had been eager to have it removed. However, even this simple operation had been beyond the family’s means when Sigmund was an infant, and as he grew older and more assertive he had resolutely refused to undergo surgery. He even affected the mannerism of dosing the finger and thumb of the right hand round the translucent curve of flesh and tugging at it ruminatively.
‘Sir, with respect, surely the technical Stromberg silenced Bechmann with a gesture. ‘The problem is not of a technical nature. I have nothing but admiration for the work you have both carried out on the Submarine Tracking System. The first stage of its exploitation has been conspicuously successful.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps too successful. Perhaps it has encouraged thoughts of covetousness and greed.’
Small beads of sweat appeared on Markovitz’s forehead. ‘To put the matter in a nutshell, gentlemen,’ Stromberg continued, ‘I have discovered that we have a traitor in this organization. Somebody who is even at this moment engaged in trying to sell the plans of your Tracking System to competing international governments.’
He raised an arm with a lazy, swimming motion and extended a long, bony finger behind his right shoulder. ‘My assistant will be able to throw more light on the matter. Fetch the evidence, Miss Chapman. From the safe in Room 4c.’
The girl who appeared from the shadows had been sitting, quietly taking notes since the meeting began. She was tall,
dark and slim, and by any standards beautiful; she wore that look of haughty disdain and scarcely veiled contempt which is the hallmark of all secretaries of the rich and successful. Her black dress with the little white collar was so simple that it had to come from one of the more discreet Paris fashion houses, and she moved with the casual, aristocratic grace of a pure-bred Saluki. As she left the room, Stromberg watched her approvingly.