LITMIR.BIZ

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The youngster compressed his lips, said nothing and made no move. Petersen sighed.

      ‘Surely you recognize a silencer? I can just as easily take the papers off your body. Nobody will know a thing. What’s more to the point, neither will you.’

      The youngster reached inside his tunic and handed over a wallet. Petersen flicked it open.

      ‘Hans Wintermann,’ he read. ‘Born August 24, 1924. Just nineteen. And a lieutenant. You must be a bright young man.’ Petersen folded and pocketed the wallet. ‘You’ve been following me around tonight. And most of yesterday. And the evening before that. I find such persistence tedious, especially when it’s so obvious. Why do you follow me?’

      ‘You have my name, rank, regiment—’

      Petersen waved him to silence. ‘Spare me. Well, I’m left with no option.’

      ‘You’re going to shoot me?’ The truculence had left the youngster’s face.

      ‘Don’t be stupid.’

      The Hotel Splendide was anything but: but its dingy anonymity suited Petersen well enough. Peering through the cracked and stained glass of the front door he noted, with mild surprise, that the concierge, fat, unshaven and well stricken in years, was, for once, not asleep or, at least, wide enough awake to be able to tilt a bottle to his head. Petersen circled to the rear of the hotel, climbed the fire escape, let himself in to the third-floor passage, moved along this, turned into a left-hand corridor and let himself into his room with a skeleton key. He quickly checked cupboards and drawers, seemed satisfied, shrugged into a heavy coat, left and took up position on the fire escape. Despite the added protection of the coat his exposed position was considerably colder than it had been in the comparative shelter of the streets below and he hoped he would not have to wait too long.

      The wait was even shorter than he had expected. Less than five minutes had passed when a German officer strode briskly along the corridor, turned left, knocked on a door, knocked again, this time peremptorily, rattled the handle then reappeared, frowning heavily. There came the creaking and clanking of the ancient elevator, a silence, more creaking and clanking, then the officer again hove into sight this time with the concierge, who had a key in his hand.

      When ten minutes had passed with no sign of either man Petersen went inside, eased his way along the passage and peered round the corner to his left. Halfway along the corridor stood the concierge, obviously on guard. Just as obviously, he was an experienced campaigner prepared for any contingency for, as Petersen watched, he produced a hip flask from his pocket and was still savouring the contents, his eyes closed in bliss, when Petersen clapped him heartily on the shoulder.

      ‘You keep a good watch, my friend.’

      The concierge coughed, choked, spluttered and tried to speak but his larynx wasn’t having any of it. Petersen looked past him and through the doorway.

      ‘And good evening to you, Colonel Lunz. Everything is in order, I trust?’

      ‘Ah, good evening.’ Lunz was almost a look-alike for Petersen himself, medium height, broad shoulders, aquiline features, grey eyes and thin black hair: an older version, admittedly, but nevertheless the resemblance was startling. He didn’t seem in any way put out. ‘I’ve just this moment arrived and—’

      ‘Ah, ah, Colonel.’ Petersen wagged a finger. ‘Officers, whatever their nationality, are officers and gentlemen the world over. Gentlemen don’t tell lies. You’ve been here for exactly eleven minutes. I’ve timed you.’ He turned to the still red-faced and gasping concierge who was making valiant efforts to communicate with them and clapped him encouragingly on the back. ‘You were trying to say something?’

      ‘You were out.’ The convulsions were easing. ‘I mean, you were in, but I saw you go out. Eleven minutes, you said? I didn’t see—I mean, your key—’

      ‘You were drunk at the time,’ Petersen said kindly. He bent, sniffed and wrinkled his nose. ‘You still are. Be off. Send us a bottle of brandy. Not that tearful rot-gut you drink: the French cognac you keep for the Gestapo. And two glasses—clean glasses.’ He turned to Lunz. ‘You will, of course, join me, my dear Colonel?’

      ‘Naturally.’ The Colonel was a hard man to knock off balance. He watched Petersen calmly as he took off his coat and threw it on the bed, lifted an eyebrow and said: ‘A sudden chill snap outside, yes?’

      ‘Rome? January? No time to take chances with one’s health. It’s no joke hanging about those fire escapes, I can tell you.’

      ‘So that’s where you were. I should have exercised more care, perhaps.’

      ‘No perhaps about your choice of lookout.’

      ‘True.’ The Colonel brought out a briar pipe and began to fill it. ‘I hadn’t much choice.’

      ‘You sadden me, Colonel, you really do. You obtain my key, which is illegal. You post a guard so that you won’t be discovered breaking the law yet again. You ransack my belongings—’

      ‘Ransack?’

      ‘Carefully examine. I don’t know what kind of incriminating evidence you were expecting to find.’

      ‘None, really. You don’t strike me as the kind of man who would leave—’

      ‘And you had me watched earlier tonight. You must have done, otherwise you wouldn’t have known that I had been out earlier without a coat. Saddens? It shocks. Where is this mutual trust that should exist between allies?’

      ‘Allies?’ He struck a match. ‘I hadn’t thought about it very much in that way.’ Judging by his expression, he still wasn’t thinking very much about it in that way.

      ‘And more evidence of mutual trust.’ Petersen handed over the wallet he had taken from the young lieutenant, together with a revolver. ‘I’m sure you know him. He was waving his gun around in a very dangerous fashion.’

      ‘Ah!’ Lunz looked up from the papers. ‘The impetuous young Lieutenant Wintermann. You were right to take this gun from him, he might have done himself an injury. From what I know of you I assume he’s not resting at the bottom of the Tiber?’

      ‘I don’t treat allies that way. He’s locked up in a jeweller’s shop.’

      ‘Of course.’ Lunz spoke as if he had expected nothing else. ‘Locked up. But surely he can—’

      ‘Not the way I tied him up. You not only sadden me, Colonel, you insult me. Why didn’t you give him a red flag to wave or a drum to beat? Something that would really attract my attention.’

      Lunz sighed. ‘Young Hans is well enough in a tank but subtlety is not really his métier. I did not, by the way, insult you. Following you was entirely his own idea. I knew what he was up to, of course, but I didn’t try to stop him. For hardly won experience a sore head is little enough to pay.’

      ‘He hasn’t even got that. An ally, you see.’

      ‘Pity. It might have reinforced the lesson.’ He broke off as a knock came to the door and the concierge entered bearing brandy and glasses. Petersen poured and lifted his glass.

      ‘To Operation Weiss.’

      ‘Prosit.’ Lunz sipped appreciatively. ‘Not all Gestapo officers are barbarians. Operation Weiss? So you know? You’re not supposed to.’ Lunz didn’t seem at all put out.

      ‘I know lots of things that I’m not supposed to.’

      ‘You surprise me.’ Lunz’s tone was dry. He sipped some more brandy. ‘Excellent, excellent. Yes, you do have a penchant for picking up unconsidered—and classified—trifles. Which leads to your repeated use of the world “ally”. Which leads, in turn, to what you possibly regard as our undue interest in you.’

      ‘You don’t trust me?’

      ‘You’ll have to improve on that injured

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