‘The wine we drank at dinner was delicious.’
‘We might be able to do better than that,’ promised the colonel, searching carefully through the ranks of dusty bottles. ‘For an old army buddy we serve only the best.’
Behind the wine there was a storage area where old suitcases were piled. There were some stags’ heads and other hunting trophies there too, tusks and antlers grimy and cobwebbed. Stein remembered when they were the colonel’s pride and joy, but some of the boys from the battalion had made jokes about them at a party back in the late sixties, and the colonel had changed his mind about them. Colonel Pitman set great store by the opinion of his men. Perhaps sometimes he overdid this tendency.
‘Hermitage!’ said the colonel. ‘You’ll enjoy this one, I’m sure. It has the real flavour of the north Rhone and will make an interesting comparison with that Châteauneuf-du-Pape we had at dinner.’ The decision made, Pitman led the way upstairs to his study, negotiating the cellar steps with a care that made Stein concerned for him. ‘I get a little giddy sometimes,’ he explained.
‘Let me take that bottle, Colonel.’
Colonel Pitman held tight to the rail and picked his way up the steep steps. ‘I’ve never fallen,’ he explained, ‘but the light here is deceptive.’
‘All these wine cellars are the same,’ said Stein. “The steps wobble as you go out. You’ll have to cut back on the Evian water, Colonel.’
The colonel chuckled softly, appreciating Stein’s attempt to relieve his embarrassment.
They went to Pitman’s study. It was a small room, decorated like a businessman’s office. There was an oak desk arranged between the windows, two comfortable leather armchairs with a battered foot rest and brass ashtray near them. The walls were filled with photos and certificates and souvenirs of the colonel’s army days and his hunting expeditions. On the shelf near the door were some silver motor-racing trophies.
The light was better in here and Stein was shocked to see how much Colonel Pitman had changed since his last visit just a few short weeks ago. Age seemed to be shrinking him. Pitman sat down and began to remove the cork from the wine bottle. ‘We’re all getting older, Corporal, there’s no denying that. I had some ghastly news the other day, you’d better prepare yourself for a shock. One of our number is gone.’
‘That’s bad news, Colonel.’
‘Master Sergeant Vanelli. Can you believe it, a fine strong man like that?’
‘Yes, sir, you told me about Vanelli,’ said Stein. In fact the colonel had told him on his last two visits to the house.
‘Reach me two of those stem glasses from the case behind you. Yes, Vanelli left a wife and two daughters. The best senior NCO in the battalion, I would have said. Don’t you agree?’ He took a tissue and carefully wiped any trace of sediment from inside the neck of the bottle, then poured wine into the two glasses Stein had set up on the desk. ‘They got the usual cash settlement, of course. We sent it within fourteen days, as we always do. It came to a lot of money, but only because the US dollar is not what it used to be in the old days. It’s not so long ago that we were getting over four Swiss francs to a dollar; now I’m lucky to get one-seventy. You’d be appalled to hear what it’s costing me to run this house. And, with a lot of money tied up in long-term TJS fixed-interest investments, we’ve taken quite a beating over the last few years. I think I’ve shown you the figures, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, Colonel, you have. It was something no one could have foreseen.’ Stein walked over to the window. The sky had cleared. It was a fine spring night, bright enough to keep a few birds fidgeting in the purple sky before settling down. Pitman came across to the window as if to discover what Stein was looking at. ‘No one could have foreseen what would happen to the money markets,’ said Stein.
Clumps of young beech trees and some willows made a pattern upon the oily-looking lake. It was just possible to see the movements of motorcar lights crawling along the road that skirted the far shore. It was Saturday evening and the road was busy. Colonel Pitman was holding two glasses of wine. ‘Taste that, Corporal,’ he said handing it to him.
‘Thank you, Colonel,’ said Stein with a courtesy appropriate between master and man. In deference to both colonel and climate, Stein had changed into a sober, dark, woollen suit.
The two men drank and then Pitman said, ‘MacIver you say his name was?’
‘Military police platoon. He was the lieutenant with them.’ So the colonel had been thinking about Stein’s news all through dinner.
‘I just can’t seem to place him somehow,’ said Pitman. ‘And you went along to the film company and talked?’
‘Like I told you. Colonel. They said that Lustig-the man MacIver had talked about-was away in Europe. I spoke with a guy who calls himself Max Breslow. He says he’s probably going to make the film.’
‘What kind of man is he?’
‘Not the kind of guy I’d want to share a seat with on a hang-glider. I have a feeling they know something. I have a feeling they’re going to give us a lot of trouble.’
‘We already have a lot of trouble,’ said Pitman gravely, ‘I told you on the phone that I was personally checking things at the bank. Well, I’ve checked them and we are facing a disaster.’
‘Disaster?’
‘The bank is in trouble. We’re in conflict with the Creditanstalt. Unless we can get them to change their attitude, it looks as if we stand to lose one hundred million dollars.’
‘One hundred million dollars.’ Stein smiled. ‘You’re kidding, Colonel. Come on now.’
‘I wish I was kidding,’ said Pitman. ‘But I’m afraid we have been the victim of a monumental swindle.’
‘One hundred million dollars,’ said Stein breathlessly. So it was the colonel who had the most surprising news after all. Stein had put his drink down by now and his arms were thrashing about as he drowned in an ocean of dismay. ‘We’ve got a highly trained and highly paid Swiss and German banking staff downtown. How in hell could we be gypped out of one hundred million?’
‘The Creditanstalt is the biggest bank in Austria and it’s state owned. They gave a man named Peter Friedman-and that’s probably a fake name anyway-letters of credit for one hundred million dollars for ten big consignments of pharmaceuticals which were in the Zurich airport free zone. The documents say that Friedman was exporting these drugs from Holland to Yugoslavia, where the deal was to be handled by Interimpex, which is the Yugoslavian international trade corporation. Friedman can’t transfer the Austrian bank’s letters of credit-because they are not transferable-but he can’t be prevented from getting money by assigning the benefit to someone.’
‘How did we get into the act?’
‘Our bank gave Friedman the money, in exchange for that assignment of the benefits of the sale of the pharmaceuticals. A perfectly ordinary trading sequence; and it can be very profitable, as it has been in the past.’
‘OK, Colonel, never mind the commercial. What happened next?’
‘Friedman vanished. We checked the cases in the Zurich airport free zone… ’
‘Aspirin?’
‘Not quite, but nowhere near as described in the shipping documents. Maybe worth two million dollars.’
‘Can’t we still cash the letters of credit with Creditanstalt?’
‘I wish we could, but letters of credit are not negotiable-so we can’t handle it-and become void if any part of an import/export transaction is illegal, or even misdescribed. This was misdescribed: the cases contain the wrong drugs. And today we hear from the Yugoslavs that these pharmaceuticals are not even destined for Yugoslavia. Interimpex are only acting as agents in a deal for someone else.’