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  “It seems that Arno sold Herr Lauber some shares in a publishing company not long after Hitler came to power, and your husband promised he would return them as soon as the war was over.”

  “Well, of course I would be only too happy to do so,” the old woman said, shivering again. “But sadly I am not in possession of any shares. Perhaps Klaus made a will…”

  “Unfortunately not, Mrs. Lauber,” Armstrong said. “Or if he did, we haven’t been able to find it.”

  “How unlike Klaus,” she said. “He was always so meticulous. But then, perhaps it has disappeared somewhere in the Russian zone. You can’t trust the Russians you know,” she whispered.

  Armstrong nodded his agreement. “That doesn’t present a problem,” he said, taking her hand again. “I am in possession of a document which invests me with the authority to ensure that Arno Schultz, if he is still alive and we can find him, will receive the shares he’s entitled to.”

  Mrs. Lauber smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s a great relief to know that the matter is in the hands of a British officer.”

  Armstrong opened his briefcase and removed the contract. Turning to the last of its four pages, he indicated two penciled crosses, and handed Mrs. Lauber his pen. She placed her spidery signature between the crosses, without having made any attempt to read a single clause or paragraph of the contract. As soon as the ink was dry, Armstrong placed the document back in his Gladstone bag and clipped it shut. He smiled across at Mrs. Lauber.

  “I must return to Berlin now,” he said, rising from his chair, “where I shall make every effort to locate Herr Schultz.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Lauber, who slowly rose to her feet and led him back down the passage to the front door. “Goodbye,” she said, as he stepped out onto the landing, “it was most kind of you to come all this way on my behalf.” She smiled weakly and closed the door without another word.

  “Well?” said Tulpanov when Armstrong rejoined him in the back of the car.

  “She signed the agreement.”

  “I thought she might,” said Tulpanov. The car swung round in a circle and began its journey back to Berlin.

  “So what happens next?” asked Armstrong.

  “Now you have spun the coin,” said the KGB major. “You have won the toss, and decided to bat. Though I must say that what you’ve just done to Mrs. Lauber could hardly be described as cricket.”

  Armstrong looked quizzically at him.

  “Even I thought you’d give her the 40,000 marks,” said Tulpanov. “But no doubt you plan to give Arno—” he paused “—the chess set.”

  * * *

  The following morning, Captain Richard Armstrong registered his ownership of Der Telegraf with the British Control Commission. Although one of the officials raised an eyebrow, and he was kept waiting for over an hour by another, eventually the duty clerk stamped the document authorizing the transaction, and confirmed that Captain Armstrong was now the sole owner of the paper.

  Charlotte tried to disguise her true feelings when she was told the news of her husband’s “coup.” She was certain it could only mean that their departure for England would be postponed yet again. But she was relieved when Dick agreed that she could return to Lyon to be with her parents for the birth of their firstborn, as she was determined that any child of hers would begin its life as a French citizen.

  Arno Schultz was surprised by Armstrong’s sudden renewed commitment to Der Telegraf. He started making contributions at the morning editorial conference, and even took to riding on the delivery vans on their midnight sojourns around the city. Arno assumed that his boss’s new enthusiasm was directly related to Charlotte’s absence in Lyon.

  Within a few weeks they were selling 300,000 copies of the paper a day for the first time, and Arno accepted that the pupil had become the master.

  A month later, Captain Armstrong took ten days’ compassionate leave so he could be in Lyon for the birth of his first child. He was delighted when Charlotte presented him with a boy, whom they christened David. As he sat on the bed holding the child in his arms, he promised Charlotte that it would not be long before they left for England, and the three of them would embark on a new life.

  He arrived back in Berlin a week later, resolved to tell Colonel Oakshott that the time had come for him to resign his commission and return to England.

  He would have done so if Arno Schultz hadn’t held a party to celebrate his sixtieth birthday.

  14.

  Adelaide Gazette

  13 March 1956

  MENZIES STAYS PUT

  The first time Townsend noticed her was on a flight up to Sydney. He was reading the Gazette: the lead story should have been relegated to page three and the headline was weak. The Gazette now had a monopoly in Adelaide, but the paper was becoming increasingly slack. He should have removed Frank Bailey from the editor’s chair after the merger, but he had to satisfy himself with getting rid of Sir Colin first. He frowned.

  “Would you like your coffee topped up, Mr. Townsend?” she asked. Townsend glanced up at the slim girl who was holding a coffee pot, and smiled. She must have been about twenty-five, with curly fair hair and blue eyes which made you go on staring at them.

  “Yes,” he replied, despite not wanting any more. She returned his smile—an air hostess’s smile, a smile that didn’t vary for the fat or the thin, the rich or the poor.

  Townsend put the Gazette to one side and tried to concentrate on the meeting that was about to take place. He had recently purchased, at a cost of half a million pounds, a small print group which specialized in giveaway papers distributed in the western suburbs of Sydney. The deal had done no more than give him a foothold in Australia’s largest city.

  It had been at the Newspapers and Publishers Annual Dinner at the Cook Hotel that a man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, five foot eight, square-jawed with bright red hair and the shoulders of a prop forward, came up to his table after the speeches were over and whispered in his ear, “I’ll see you in the men’s room.” Townsend wasn’t sure whether to laugh or just to ignore the man. But curiosity got the better of him, and a few minutes later he rose from his place and made his way through the tables to the men’s room. The man with the red hair was washing his hands in the corner basin. Townsend walked across, stood at the basin next to him and turned on the tap.

  “What hotel are you staying at?” he asked.

  “The Town House,” Keith replied.

  “And what’s your room number?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I’ll find out. I’ll come to your room around midnight. That is, if you’re interested in getting your hands on the Sydney Chronicle.” The red-headed man turned off the tap, dried his hands and left.

  Townsend learned in the early hours of the morning that the man who had accosted him at the dinner was Bruce Kelly, the Chronicle’s deputy editor. He wasted no time in telling Townsend that Sir Somerset Kenwright was considering selling the paper, as he felt it no longer fitted in with the rest of his group.

  “Was there something wrong with your coffee?” she asked.

  Townsend looked up at her, and then down at his untouched coffee. “No, it was fine, thank you,” he said. “I’m just a little preoccupied at the moment.” She gave him that smile again, before removing the cup and continuing on to the row behind. Once again he tried to concentrate.

  When he had first discussed the idea with his mother, she had told him that it had been his father’s lifelong ambition to own the Chronicle, though her own feelings were ambivalent. The reason he was traveling to Sydney for the third time in as many weeks was for another meeting with Sir Somerset’s top management team, so he could go over the terms of a possible deal. And one of them still owed him a favor.

  Over the past few months Townsend’s lawyers had been working in tandem with Sir Somerset’s, and both sides now felt they were at last coming close to an agreement. “The old man thinks you’re the lesser of two evils,” K