It had been a pleasant few days. With Albie pouring over all the records he could access and calling in favours from all over the country, Bill had managed a couple of days of, well, almost rest. But, of course, getting a loaded gun pointed at you and someone pulling the trigger doesn’t do much good for your mental well-being, so he had run a few errands, and done a little asking around, but mostly stayed away from trouble.
They dared not confront the fat priest just yet, lest they should scare off Misselwitz. It all hung in the balance. They simply could not let Misselwitz slip the net. It was their sole purpose now to bring him in.
Bill sat in the large open foyer, absorbing the atmosphere of people busying themselves or crossing the carpet to leave and enter, mainly carrying briefcases. One particular man hurried through the grand glass revolving door, crossed the carpeted lobby area and approached the front desk. He spoke briefly to the cute girl on the front desk, then disappeared through the large double doors and down the corridor that Bill knew well.
Bill had arrived too early, and rather than sit in Errington’s office with the old battleaxe of a secretary of his, as she tried to destroy her typewriter with her infernal typing, he had decided to sit in the lobby and have a smoke and a coffee. Despite letting the pressure off in the last two days or so, the investigation was stalling, somewhat. He would need to help Albie hunt the archives, or find him an assistant to get things moving along a bit quicker.
Bill entertained himself with people-watching. Mainly, though, he had just watched the girl on the front desk as she smiled to greet the visitors and afterwards always licked her lips. Occasionally she shifted in her seat. Bill soon realised that he had been watching a bit too much. So instead, he turned his attention to the various visitors and tried to guess why they were there.
The hurrying man had drawn Bill’s attention far more than the others. Not only had he headed down that corridor with the double doors, but even from twenty paces away, his permanent scowl and broad flat face reminded him of a young Orson Welles in Citizen Kane. He even had the slightly too-long side-parted dark hair of the famous actor.
Bill returned his gaze to the receptionist as she stood, turned around and, with one knee on the seat, leaned over the back of her chair to retrieve some documents from the open drawer of a filing cabinet behind. As Bill tilted his head, she turned and sat back down. Not even getting a glimpse of stocking-top, Bill sighed, sipped his coffee and glanced back at the unread newspaper he had on his lap.
After sitting for some time, watching the clock, Bill rose from his seat and made his way through the double doors and down the corridor. Entering the office, he sat down and did his best to ignore the secretary, who, thankfully, seemed oblivious to his presence. The stranger appeared in the doorway a few moments later, laughing and shaking hands with Errington. As they noticed Bill waiting, they composed themselves, and the man who had stolen Orson Welles’ face avoided eye contact with Bill and headed quickly for the exit.
Bill thought little of it, as it was an unwritten rule that you don’t communicate with other agents without good reason, orders or invitation.
Bill’s mind wandered. Don’t communicate. And yet, it had been Errington that had set up Bill with Irene.
“Bill! Thanks for coming in at such short notice. Come through. A drop of whisky?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I’ll come straight to the point. It’s not good news, I’m afraid.”
Bill kept quiet as Errington poured out two whiskies in case interrupting him might make him change his mind about sharing. He placed the glass stopper back into the decanter and handed a glass to Bill, who knocked it back in one hit. Usually, Bill minded his manners around Errington, but today he had a feeling that it wouldn’t matter what he did. The bad news would still be bad news, just the same. Errington smiled as politely as he could in the situation, then refilled Bill’s glass and left the open decanter in front of him.
Returning behind his enormous leather-topped mahogany desk, he sat down and lit a fancy-looking cigarette with a slim gold Dupont lighter. He offered one of the ostentatious black-coloured sticks to Bill from an engraved silver case. Bill summarily dismissed them with a wave of his hand and shake of his head. Errington knew Bill didn’t smoke cigarettes but always offered anyway. Just the way he was raised, Bill supposed.
“Are you going to tell me you couldn’t get any information from Barbie? If so, I’d say you’ve gone too easy on him.”
“Not quite.”
“Well, he can’t be dead because that would be good news, not bad.”
Errington nodded his head and looked down at his untouched whisky. “Bill, we had to release Barbie.”
“You what! What did he have, a get out of jail free card?”
“We had no choice. It was a decision that came from the very top.”
“Who? God?”
“No, more important than him. I got the orders from Attlee himself. The US secretary of state requested Barbie’s release into their custody, and the prime minister is trying to appease them after some deal to sell the Russkies some military hardware left them a sour taste. We all hate the communists, but some hate them more than others.”
“But we only had him a couple of days. So how did they even know? What do they want with him anyway?”
“It was less than twenty-four hours. The top brass seem to know something, but they haven’t told me what. Maybe they want him for war crimes, just like we want Misselwitz?”
“Hmm. Maybe. Perhaps I should have just shot him while I had the chance.”
“Perhaps you should,” Errington said through his glass, taking a small sip and returning it to the table.
“Someone obviously leaked it that he was in custody. But, let’s be frank, he is a murder suspect, on top of everything else.”
“We wouldn’t want the Berlin Police to know that regardless, we’d only lose him to their investigation, then you know where he’d end up next.”
“The Russians.”
“The Russians, indeed. Justice is nice but, at the moment, depriving the Reds of intelligence is far better.”
Bill refilled his glass once more and slumped back in his seat. “So, there is nothing we can do about this then? I risked my backside for nothing?”
“I’m afraid so, Bill. Politics.”
Bill stared into his glass. Then, his cheeks inflated slightly as he exhaled a huff of air. Finally, he shook his head, sank his drink and placed down the empty glass.
“Politics,” he repeated, just to exorcise the word. It was like poison in his mouth.