Floodgate. Alistair MacLean

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СКАЧАТЬ befitted his cast of countenance which could have been that of a moderately successful lawyer or accountant. He also spoke in Polish.

      ‘For my sins.’ Van Effen raised an eyebrow. ‘Vasco, of course.’

      ‘Yes. Where were you born?’

      ‘Radom.’

      ‘I know it. Not well. A rather provincial town, I thought.’

      ‘So I’ve heard.’

      ‘You’ve heard? But you lived there.’

      ‘Four years. When you’re four years old a provincial town is the centre of the world. My father—a printer—moved to a better job.’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Warsaw.’

      ‘Aha!’

      ‘Aha yourself.’ Van Effen spoke in some irritation. ‘You sound as if you know Warsaw and are now going to find out if I know it. Why, I can’t imagine. You’re not by any chance a lawyer, Mr—I’m afraid I don’t know your name?’

      ‘Paderiwski. I am a lawyer.’

      ‘Paderiwski. Given time, I would have thought you could have come up with a better one than that. And I was right, eh? A lawyer. I wouldn’t care to have you acting for my defence. You make a poor interrogator.’

      Agnelli was smiling but Paderiwski was not. His lips were pursed. He said brusquely: ‘You know the Tin-Roofed Palace, of course.’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Where is it?’

      ‘Dear me. What have we here. The Inquisition? Ah. Thank you.’ He took a glass from a tray that a waiter, following Vasco, had just brought into the curtained booth and lifted it. ‘Your health, gentlemen. The place you’re so curious about, Mr—ah—Paderiwski, is close by the Wista, on the corner of the Wybrzeze Gdanskie and the Slasko-Dabrowski bridge.’ He sipped some more beer. ‘Unless they’ve moved it, of course. Some years since I’ve been there.’

      Paderiwski was not amused. ‘The Palace of Culture and Science.’

      ‘Parade Square. It’s too big.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘Too big to have been moved, I mean. Two thousand, three hundred rooms are a lot of rooms. A monstrosity. The wedding-cake, they call it. But, then, Stalin never did have any taste in architecture.’

      ‘Stalin?’ Agnelli said.

      ‘His personal gift to my already long-suffering countrymen.’ So Agnelli spoke Polish, too.

      ‘Where’s the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw?’

      ‘It’s not in Warsaw. Mlociny, ten kilometres to the north.’ Van Effen’s voice was now as brusque as Paderiwski’s had been. ‘Where’s the Nike?You don’t know? What’s the Nike? You don’t know? Any citizen of Warsaw knows it’s the name given to the “Heroes of Warsaw” monument. What’s Zamenhofa Street famous for?’ An increasingly uncomfortable Paderiwski made no reply. ‘The Ghetto monument. I told you you’d make a lousy lawyer, Paderiwski. Any competent lawyer, for the defence or the prosecution, always prepares his brief. You didn’t. You’re a fraud. It’s my belief that you’ve never even been in Warsaw and that you just spent an hour or so studying a gazetteer or guide-book.’ Van Effen placed his hands on the table as if preparatory to rising. ‘I don’t think, gentleman, that we need detain each other any longer. Discreet enquiries are one thing, offensive interrogation by an incompetent, another. I see no basis here for mutual trust and, quite honestly, I need neither a job nor money.’ He rose. ‘Good day, gentlemen.’

      Agnelli reached out a hand. He didn’t touch van Effen, it was just a restraining gesture. ‘Please sit down, Mr Danilov. Perhaps Helmut has rather overstepped the mark but have you ever met a lawyer who wasn’t burdened with a suspicious, mistrustful mind? Helmut—or we—just happened to choose the wrong suspect. Helmut, in fact, has been in Warsaw but only, as you almost guessed, briefly and as a tourist. I, personally, don’t doubt you could find your way about Warsaw blindfolded.’ Paderiwski had the look of a man who wished he were in some other place, any place. ‘A blunder. We apologize.’

      ‘That’s kind.’ Van Effen sat down and quaffed some more beer. ‘Fair enough.’

      Agnelli smiled. Almost certainly a double-dyed villain, van Effen thought, but a charming and persuasive one. ‘Now that you’ve established a degree of moral ascendancy over us I’ll reinforce that by admitting that we almost certainly need you more than you need us.’

      Not to be outdone, van Effen smiled in turn. ‘You must be in a desperate way.’ He lifted and examined his empty glass. ‘If you’d just poke your head round the corner, Vasco, and make the usual SOS.’

      ‘Of course, Stephan.’ There was an unmistakable expression of relief in his face. He did as asked then settled back in his seat.

      ‘No more interrogation,’ Agnelli said. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. Your friend Vasco tells me that you know a little about explosives.’

      ‘Vasco does me less than justice. I know a great deal about explosives.’ He looked at Vasco in reproof. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you would discuss a friend—that’s me, Vasco, in case you’ve forgotten—with strangers.’

      ‘I didn’t. Well, I did, but I just said it was someone I knew.’

      ‘No harm. Explosives, as I say, I know. Defusing bombs I know. I’m also fairly proficient in capping well-head oil fires but you wouldn’t be approaching me in this fashion if that was your problem. You’d be on the phone to Texas, where I learnt my trade.’

      ‘No oil fires.’ Agnelli smiled again. ‘But defusing bombs—well that’s something else. Where did you learn a dangerous trade like that?’

      ‘Army,’ van Effen said briefly. He didn’t specify which army.

      ‘You’ve actually defused bombs?’ Agnelli’s respect was genuine.

      ‘Quite a number.’

      ‘You must be good.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘You’re here.’

      ‘I am good. I’m also lucky, because no matter how good you are the bomb you’re trying to defuse may be your last one. Peaceful retirement is not the lot of a bomb disposal expert. But as I assume you have no more unexploded bombs than you have oil wells, then it must be explosives. Explosives experts in Holland are not in short supply. You have only to advertise. That I should be approached in a clandestine fashion can only mean that you are engaged in activities that are illegal.’

      ‘We are. Have you never been? Engaged, I mean?’

      ‘All depends upon who defines what is illegal and what is not and how they define it. Some people hold definitions which are different from mine and wish to discuss the matter with me. Very tiresome they can be, those alleged upholders of justice. СКАЧАТЬ