«Send them to me.»
«I’d rather not.»
«I’ll tell them you’re a faggot in drag who uses whips and bicycle chains. They’ll run at the sight of you.»
«That’s very sweet.» She kissed him. «You’re warm and gentle and you laugh easily. I’m terribly fond of you, Noel Holcroft, and I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.»
«Why?»
«Because we’ll say good-bye and I’ll think of you.»
Noel reached up and held the hand that still touched his face; he was suddenly alarmed. «We just said hello. Why good-bye?»
«You have things to do. I have things to do.»
«We both have Zurich.»
«You have Zurich. I have my life in Paris.»
«They’re not mutually exclusive.»
«You don’t know that, my darling. You don’t know anything about me. Where I live, how I live.»
«I know about a little girl who had a room to herself and saw The Wizard of Oz dozens of times.»
«Think kindly of her. She will of you. Always.»
Holcroft took her hand from his face. «What the hell are you trying to say? Thanks for a lovely evening, now good-bye?»
«No, my darling. Not like that. Not now.»
«Then what are you saying?»
«I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m just thinking out loud… We have days, weeks, if you wish them.»
«I wish them.»
«But promise me you’ll never try to find where I live, never try to reach me. I’ll find you.»
«You’re married!»
Helden laughed. «No.»
«Then, living with someone.»
«Yes, but not in the way you think.»
Noel watched her closely. «What am I supposed to say to that?»
«Say that you’ll promise.»
«Let me understand you. Outside of where you work, there’s no place I can reach you. I can’t know where you live, or how to get in touch with you?»
«I’ll leave a number of a friend. In an emergency she’ll reach me.»
«I thought I was a friend.»
«You are. But in a different way. Please, don’t be angry. It’s for your own protection.»
Holcroft remembered three nights ago. In the midst of her own anxieties, Helden had been worried about him, worried that he had been sent by the wrong people. «You said in the car that Zurich was the solution to so much. Is it the answer for you? Could Zurich change the way you live?»
She hesitated. «It’s possible. There’s so much to do…»
«And so little time,» completed Holcroft. He touched her cheek, forcing her to look at him. «But before the money’s released, there’s the bank in Geneva and specific conditions that have to be met.»
«I understand. You’ve explained them, and I’m sure Johann knows about them.»
«I’m not so sure. He’s laid himself open to a lot of speculation that could knock him out of the box.»
«Knock him where?»
«Disqualify him. Frighten the men in Geneva; make them close the vaults. We’ll get to him in a minute. I want to talk about Beaumont. I think I know what he is, but I need your help to confirm it.»
«How can I help?»
«When Beaumont was in Rio, did he have any connection with Maurice Graff?»
«I have no idea.»
«Can we find out? Are there people in Rio who would know?»
«Not that I know.»
«God damn it, we’ve got to learn. Learn everything we can about him.»
Helden frowned. «That will be difficult.»
«Why?»
«Three years ago, when Gretchen said she was going to marry Beaumont, I was shocked; I told you that. I was working at the time for a small research firm off Leicester Square—you know, one of those dreadful places that you send five pounds to and they get you all the information you want on a subject. Or a person. They’re superficial, but they do know how to use sources.» Helden paused.
«You checked on Beaumont?» asked Noel.
«I tried to. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I tried. I went back to his university records, got all the available information about his naval career. Everything was filled with approvals and recommendations, awards and advancements. Why, I can’t tell you—except that there seemed to me to be an inconsistency. I went farther back to find out what I could about his family in Scotland.»
«What was the inconsistency?»
«Well, according to the naval records, his parents were quite ordinary. I got the impression they were rather poor. Owners of a greengrocery or a florist shop in a town called Dunheath, south of Aberdeen, on the North Sea. Yet, when he was at university—Cambridge, by the way—he was a regular student.»
«Regular?… What should he have been?»
«On scholarship, I would think. There was need, and he was qualified, yet there were no applications for a scholarship. It seemed odd.»
«So you went back to the family in Scotland. What did you learn?»
«That’s the point. Next to nothing. It was as if they had disappeared. There was no address, no way to reach them. I sent off several inquiries to the town clerk and the postal service—obvious places people never think of. The Beaumonts were apparently an English family who simply arrived in Scotland one day shortly after the war, stayed for a few years, then left the country.»
«Could they have died?»
«Not according to the records. The navy always keeps them up to date in case of injury or loss of life. They were still listed as living in Dunheath, but they had left. The postal service had no information at all.»
It was Holcroft’s turn to frown. «That sounds crazy.»
«There’s something more.» Helden pushed herself up against the curve of the chaise. «At Gretchen’s wedding, there was an officer from Beaumont’s ship. His second-in-command, I think. The man was a year or two younger than Beaumont, and obviously his subordinate, but there was a give-and-take between them that went beyond friendship, beyond that of officer to officer.»
«What do you mean, ‘give-and-take’?»
«It was as if they were always thinking exactly alike. One would start a sentence, the other might finish it. One would turn in a particular direction, the other would comment on what the first was looking at. Do you know what I mean? Haven’t you seen people like that? Men like that?»
«Sure. Brothers who are close, or lovers. And often military men who’ve served a long time together. What did you do?»
«I checked on that man. I used the same sources, sent out the same inquiries, as I had with Beaumont. What came back was extraordinary. They were alike; only the names were different. Their academic and military records were almost identical, superior in every way. They both came from obscure towns, their parents undistinguished and certainly not well off. Yet each had gone to a major university without financial aid. And each had become an officer without any prior indication that he was seeking a military career.»
«What about the family of Beaumont’s friend? Were you able to locate them?»
«No. They were listed as living in a mining town in Wales, but they weren’t. They hadn’t been there in years, and no one had any information about them.»
What Helden had learned was consistent with Noel’s theory that Anthony Beaumont was an ODESSA agent. What was important now was to take Beaumont—and any «associates»—out of the picture. They could not be allowed to interfere further with Geneva. Perhaps he and Helden were wrong: Perhaps they should reach Payton-Jones and let Beaumont become his problem. But there were side issues to consider, among which was the danger of British Intelligence’s reopening the Peter Baldwin file, going back to Code Wolfsschanze.
«What you’ve told me fits in with what I’ve been thinking,» Noel said. «Let’s go back to your brother. I have an idea what happened in Rio. Will you talk about it now?»