Hope

‘And where?’ added Dicky. ‘Where has he gone?’

‘Somewhere that gets damned cold; hence the silk underwear. My guess is Poland. He has a lot of relatives there: brothers, uncles, aunts and maybe a still-living grandfather. If he was in trouble, that’s where he might well go.’

‘We can’t depend on a few odds and ends of guesswork, Bernard.’

‘George has been raiding his old photo albums for snapshots to take along. He also took the rosary his mother gave him. It’s a trip to his family. Perhaps that’s all it is. Maybe someone is sick.’

‘That’s not all it is. Someone came here and talked to him. We know the Stasi people came through here.’

‘The girl said no one came to visit,’ I countered. I didn’t want Dicky to condemn George and then start collecting evidence.

Even Dicky could answer that one: ‘So Kosinski went out and met them somewhere else.’

‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t prove that there is anything sinister about his disappearance.’

‘I don’t like it,’ said Dicky. ‘It smells like trouble… with all that Tessa business, we can’t afford to just shrug it off. We must know for certain where he’s gone.’

‘He’s gone home to Poland,’ I said again. ‘It’s only a guess, but I know him well enough to make that kind of guess.’

‘No zlotys from the bank?’

It was a joke but I answered anyway. ‘They are not legally sold; he’d be better off with US dollar bills.’

A long silence. ‘You’re not just a pretty face, Bernard,’ he said, as if it was a joke I’d never heard before.

‘I may be wrong.’

‘Where in Poland?’

‘I got the office to sort out his passport application. His parents were from a village in Masuria, in the north-east. His brother Stefan lives in that same neighbourhood.’

‘What are you holding back, old bean?’ Dicky asked.

‘The Poles in London are a small community. I made a couple of calls from my room… a chap who runs a little chess club knows George well. He says George goes back sometimes and sends his family money on a regular basis.’

‘And?’ he persisted.

‘I can’t think of anything else,’ I said.

‘You’re holding back something.’

‘No, Dicky. Not this time.’

‘Very well then. But if this is simply your devious way of avoiding schlepping round these bloody hotels I’ll kill you, Bernard.’ He looked at me, his brow furrowed with suspicion at the thought I was withholding something. Then with that remarkable intuition that had so often come to his aid, he had it. ‘The wrist-watch,’ said Dicky. ‘Why did he take the wrist-watch for cleaning? And why would you bother to follow it up by going to the jeweller?’

‘A man like George has dozens of flashy watches. He doesn’t take them for cleaning, not when he has other things on his mind.’

‘So why follow it up? Why go to the jeweller then?’

I rubbed my face. I would have to tell him. I said: ‘It was his wife’s engagement ring.’

‘Tessa Kosinski’s engagement ring? Jesus Christ! She’s dead. In the East. You bastard, Bernard. Why didn’t you tell me right away?’

‘It was dirty, muddy, the jeweller said.’

He shook his head, and heaved a sigh that combined anger and content. ‘Never mind whether it was dirty or not. My God, Bernard, you do spring them. You mean some Stasi bastards came here with his wife’s engagement ring? They’re talking to him? Pushing him? Leading him on? Is it something about the burial?’

‘My guess is they are saying she’s still alive.’

‘Alive? Why? What would they want in exchange?’

‘I wish I knew, Dicky.’ Dicky’s phone rang. I looked at my watch, got to my feet and waved goodnight. ‘Shall I see you at breakfast downstairs?’

Dicky, bending low over the phone, twisted his head to scowl at me and held up a warning finger. I waited. ‘Hold it, Bernard,’ he said. ‘It’s London on the line. This is something you might want to stay awake thinking about.’

I waited while Dicky took his call, nodding and grunting as if someone at the other end was reading something out to him. It took a long time, with Dicky doing little but register pained surprise. Then he hung up and turned to me and gave me a canny smile.

‘What is it?’ I asked when it looked as if he would go on smiling all night.

‘The whole bloody stock-market collapsed today. In New York the Dow crashed 508 points, the biggest slump on record. By the time the New York market closed it was 22.6 per cent down. Twenty-two point bloody six! The first day of the ’29 crash only went down 12.8 per cent. This is it, Bernard.’

‘London too?’

‘Tokyo opened first, of course. Selling began with the opening bell. When London opened, everyone began unloading dollar stocks. By the end of the day, London was down more than 10 per cent, the 100-share index dropped 249.6 points.’

‘I don’t follow all that financial mumbo-jumbo,’ I said.

‘It dropped 249.6 to 2,053.3! You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to see what manner of fall that is,’ said Dicky, who was a well-known mathematical genius.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Here in Zurich it fell too. Milan, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Brussels, Frankfurt… it’s a massacre. When New York opened the blood was already running over the floor.’

‘Did they suspend trading?’ I asked in a desperate attempt to sound astute and knowledgeable.

‘The Hong Kong market ceased trading,’ said Dicky, who now seemed to be in his element. ‘There’s panic everywhere tonight. The City is getting ready for another onslaught tomorrow. Last Thursday’s hurricane buggered up the computer and prevented some people getting to work. An upset of this magnitude will spill over into politics, Bernard. It’s impossible to guess the implications. Mrs Thatcher has made a pacifying statement about the strength of the economy, and so has Reagan. Bret Rensselaer is sleeping in the Night Duty Officer’s room. The lights are on in every office in Whitehall they tell me. They are on a war footing. My pal Henry, in the embassy here, says the Americans will declare martial law tomorrow, in case of widespread rioting and runs on the banks.’

‘Did he really?’ I said, knowing that Henry Tiptree, an employee of the Department, a man with whom I’d crossed swords more than once, was even more excitable and unreliable than Dicky. ‘But what’s this got to do with George Kosinski? He left on Saturday.’

‘Yes, Kosinski saw it coming. He sold out everything before coming to live here.’

‘He said he had to do that. It was a necessary part of his changing his tax residence.’

‘He cleared out and gave you his London apartment.’

‘That was in Tessa’s Will; a gift to Fiona,’ I protested. I didn’t like the way that Dicky was implicating me in his theories about George. ‘But why would he run away? These money men like George have all their assets in companies. And George has companies that are registered all over the world. What would he run away from? No one is going to knock on the door and arrest him.’

‘It’s a well-known fact that severe psychological stress often provokes people into physical action. Spontaneous physical action.’