This morning I had a meeting with Herr Feuerstein. I asked him, assuming I was found guilty, what sentence I could expect. ‘Eight to ten years, if you’re lucky,’ he said. Then added: ‘But you’re not going to be found guilty, Herr Rief. The case will fall apart the minute you give your evidence.’ He flourished his dossier. ‘I’ve got everything. The hotels in Vienna, in Linz, in Salzburg. Testimonials from the staff. How do you say it in English? A “cakewalk”.’ He allowed himself a rare smile. I thought – if Feuerstein is that confident then it’s all over for Hettie. ‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ Feuerstein added. ‘May 17th can’t come quickly enough.’
Now I’m waiting for Munro and Fyfe-Miller to come for a meeting, here in the summerhouse. I’m going to tell them there’s only one thing I can do. This case must never come to trial.
23. A New Brass Key
Lysander sat in his octagonal sitting room facing Alwyn Munro and Jack Fyfe-Miller. Snow flurries swooped softly against the French windows and the fire in the grate struggled against the cold of the day. For some reason Fyfe-Miller was in his naval uniform – a row of medal ribbons on his chest – that had the effect of making him more serious and noteworthy, a serving officer of the line. Munro was in a three-piece, heavy tweed suit as if he were off for a shooting weekend in Perthshire.
‘I’ve been thinking, over these last few days,’ Lysander said carefully. ‘And one thing has become absolutely clear to me. I can’t risk going to trial.’
‘Feuerstein tells me your defence is impregnable,’ Munro said.
‘We all know how easy it is for things to go wrong.’
‘So you want to run for it,’ Fyfe-Miller said, lighting a cigarette. Once again Lysander saw how the bland exterior concealed a quick mind.
‘Yes. In a word.’
The two looked at each other. Munro smiled.
‘We had a private bet about how long it would take you to arrive at this conclusion.’
‘It’s the only way, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘There are real problems,’ Munro said, and proceeded to outline them. The British Embassy, like every embassy in Vienna, was riddled with informers. One in three of the Austrian staff, he reckoned, was in the pay of the Interior Ministry. He added that this was completely normal and only to be expected – the same conditions applied in London.
‘Therefore,’ he added, ‘if you left us you would be missed very swiftly. You’re being watched all the time, even though it doesn’t seem like it. Someone would alert the police.’
Fyfe-Miller spoke up. ‘Also, as your gaolers, as it were, we would be honour-bound to report your absence to the authorities. And, of course, your bail would be forfeit.’
Lysander decided to ignore this last point. ‘But what if I slipped away in the middle of the night? It’d be hours before I was noticed.’
‘Not so. The middle of the night would be the worst possible time. The watchmen, the police at the gate, the night staff – everyone’s more alert at night. I’m pretty sure there are a couple of police plainclothesmen out there, sitting in a motor, twenty-four hours, waiting, watching. The middle of a working day is far more discreet.’ Munro smiled. ‘Paradoxically.’
‘If you left,’ Fyfe-Miller said, speculatively, ‘you’d have the maximum of an hour’s start, I’d say. If no one else had reported you then we would have to – after an hour.’
‘Better to assume a fifteen-minute start,’ Munro said. ‘They’re not fools.’
‘Where would you head for, Alwyn?’ Fyfe-Miller asked, disingenuously.
‘Trieste. It’s practically Italian anyway – they hate the Austro-Hungarians. Head for Trieste, take a steamer to Italy. That’s what I’d do.’
Lysander picked up the sub-textual message. He was by now fully aware of what was taking place here; Munro and Fyfe-Miller were laying out a course of action, almost a set of instructions for him to follow. Do what we tell you, they were saying, and you will be safe.
‘What station serves Trieste, by the way?’ Lysander asked in the same spirit of innocent enquiry.
‘The Südbahnhof. Change at Graz. Ten-, twelve-hour journey,’ Fyfe-Miller said.
‘I’d go straight to the Lloyds office in Trieste and buy a steamer ticket to . . .’ Munro frowned, thinking.
‘Not Venice.’
‘No. Too obvious. Maybe Bari – somewhere much further south than anyone would expect.’
Lysander said nothing, content to listen, aware of what was going on in this duologue.
Munro held up a warning finger. ‘You’d have to assume that the police would go straight to every station.’
‘Yes. So you might need some form of disguise. Of course, they’d also presume you’d be heading north, back to England. So heading south would be the right option.’
‘You’d need money,’ Munro said, taking out his wallet and counting out 200 crowns, laying the notes on the table in a fan. ‘What’s today? Tuesday. Tomorrow afternoon, I’d say. Be in Trieste by dawn on Thursday.’
‘Bob’s your uncle.’
The two men looked at Lysander candidly, no hint of conspiracy or collusion in their eyes. Their pointed absence of guile carried its own message – we’ve been having a conversation here, pure and simple. A conversation about a hypothetical journey – read nothing more into it. We take no responsibility.
‘The risks are grave,’ Munro said, as if to underline this last fact.
‘If you were caught it would rather look like an admission of guilt,’ Fyfe-Miller added.
‘You’d need to be clever. Think ahead. Imagine what it would be like – what to do in any eventuality.‘
‘Use your ingenuity.’
Munro stood and headed for the door, Fyfe-Miller following. The money was left lying on the table.
Lysander went to the door and opened it for them. He knew exactly what was expected of him, now.
‘Most interesting,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ Munro said. Fyfe-Miller gave a smart salute and Lysander watched them stride briskly back to the consulate through the falling snow.
At the end of the afternoon, the snow having abated, leaving the low box-hedges of the parterre with an inch of white icing, Lysander went for a stroll around the garden, thinking hard. He had the money in his pocket, Munro and Fyfe-Miller had outlined the best route out of Austria. Once he was in Trieste he would be safe – Italians outnumbered Austrians there twenty-to-one. Some tramp-steamer or cargo ship would take him to Italy for a few crowns. Then his eye was caught by something unfamiliar – a glint, a gleam of light. He wandered over.
In the lock of the small door in the back wall was a new brass key, bright and untarnished, shining in the weak afternoon sun. Lysander slipped it in his pocket. So, that was it – tomorrow afternoon, after lunch, he thought. The dash for freedom.
24. Ingenuity
Lysander deliberately left half his lunch – stewed pork with horseradish – uneaten. He told the surly fellow with buck teeth who came to take it away that he wasn’t feeling well and was going to bed. As soon as he was alone again he slipped on his coat, gathered up a few essential belongings that could be distributed amongst his various pockets, lifted his hat off the hook on the back of the door and stepped outside.
It was a breezy day of scudding clouds and almost all the snow had melted. He took a turn around the garden to make it seem he was on his usual post-prandial walk and, as he reached the small door in the back wall, unlocked it and was through in a second, pulling it to and locking it again from the outside. He threw the key back over the wall into the garden. He looked around him – an anonymous side street in the Landstrasse district, not a part of Vienna he was familiar with. He walked up to a main road and saw that it was named Rennweg – now his bearings returned. He was about five minutes walk from the South Railway Station where he could catch his train to Trieste – but he knew he had to use his ingenuity, first. He saw two cabs waiting outside the State Printing Works and ran across Rennweg to hail one.