The Account

‘Of course.’ Valdoni motioned to the maid who knelt before Eberhardt and removed both his shoes and socks. ‘I will have them ready by the time you leave,’ she beamed.

‘Is everything arranged?’

‘As soon as you telephoned. We have someone quite special for you tonight …’

‘Not Genevieve?’ He felt a pang of disappointment.

‘She is away. Her mother is sick. But you will not be disappointed.’

When the maid returned with a glass of chilled white wine, Eberhardt, barefoot, followed Valdoni up the sweeping staircase. At the top she took the can of film he handed her and led him down a hallway to a thickly carpeted dressing room complete with day bed and wardrobe. A door led to an adjacent room.

A young Oriental girl stood there. She was perhaps sixteen years old and so incredibly lovely that Eberhardt was astonished. She was wearing black panties and a black brassiere. She too was barefoot.

‘Jasmine,’ the older woman said, handing her the can of film, ‘this is Dr Weber, one of our special friends. I am relying on you to take care of him.’

The girl nodded. ‘My honour, sir.’ She bowed and retreated into the other room.

Valdoni smiled. ‘Enjoy yourself, dear doctor.’ She went out closing the door.

Eberhardt undressed completely, hanging his clothes in the wardrobe, and stepped into the next room, which was in semi-darkness. Uncarpeted, it contained nothing but a wooden chair with a bell push on one arm, a screen some six feet square, and a film projector on a table at the opposite end.

Eberhardt sat in the chair facing the screen. A moment later Jasmine came in. She was naked now, her body and hands slightly oiled. She was carrying two glasses, one filled with hot water, the other with ice cubes. She put these beside the cushion at the foot of the chair. Reaching for a packet beside the projector she took out a crumpled cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply before passing it to Eberhardt. She watched as he drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He passed the joint back to the girl, who again inhaled. Soon the small room was pungent with the smell of marijuana. Eberhardt began to relax. He stubbed the joint out on the wooden floor.

‘Ready,’ he said.

The girl knelt before him, her tongue flicking across her lips. She took a swallow of hot water and enveloped him with her mouth. His erection swelled. She curled her tongue expertly, making him groan.

Soon she stopped and slipped two ice cubes into her mouth. When she again enveloped him his erection began to subside. He moaned, looking down at her. But with the second mouthful of hot water his erection swelled even more. Three times the girl repeated the process, fingers teasing, tongue flickering, writhing, twisting, hair swaying, each time driving Eberhardt nearer to climax. Finally he pressed the bell push and a beam of light stabbed the gloom. The film began unrolling. Clasping the girl’s head in his hands, pulling her further to him, Eberhardt leaned forward, his eyes fixed upon the screen, reading every word of the German subtitles although he knew them by heart.

The print, old now and scratched in places, never failed to excite him. It was one of many made by the Nazis. The film, much prized, had been given to him by a German friend. ‘Something to warm you on those cold Geneva nights,’ he had joked.

The film depicted a chilling scene. There were four people in a small, cell-like room. One of them, a young dark-haired man, his face and torso bloodied, was in a chair, his hands tied behind him. Two other men, both in black SS uniforms, were taking turns beating him with truncheons.

On a single bed in the background lay a young woman, naked, her hands also tied. She was screaming. When the beating finished the SS men turned the young man’s chair around so that it faced the bed. Removing his tunic and boots one of the SS men dropped his breeches and approached the woman on the bed.

While the Nazi forced himself into her, the young man, struggling violently, tried to look away. He could not. The other captor held his head tightly, forcing him to watch.

Hypnotized by what he was seeing, his pulse throbbing, his breath laboured, the blood pounding in his ears, Eberhardt suddenly groaned and came with such force that he almost slid from the chair. After a moment the girl rose and tiptoed from the room.

When Eberhardt looked at the screen again the other man was on the woman. The prisoner in the chair now sat without moving, apparently in shock. As the SS man climaxed, his body shuddering, the woman beneath him spat in his face. Rearing back, the man struck her savagely causing blood to gush from her nose. He continued striking her.

When his companion finally rose from the moaning woman, the first SS man, dressed now, took out his revolver and fired once into the head of each victim.

Transfixed, Eberhardt watched until the film ran off the spool. He rose shakily. Taking the film he went next door to dress. His shoes and socks, now dry, awaited him. Before leaving he placed an envelope on the day bed.

In an upstairs room Jasmine watched as he accelerated away down the drive. She turned to her employer. ‘That film.’ She shuddered. ‘He’s sick, that man.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Genevieve told me.’

‘He’s a good customer,’ the older woman said.

They stood together watching the lights of the Renault as it reached the end of the drive and turned down the private road.

Madame Valdoni shook her head. ‘And he still thinks we don’t know who he is.’

She laughed softly.

Chapter 2 (#ulink_25db991f-a231-5797-8d46-ef9e10d78157)

Eberhardt arrived early at his office the next morning. He had slept well, relaxed after his visit to Madame Valdoni’s. But he was apprehensive about the meeting he had arranged with his partner, Georges di Marco. Confrontations of any kind were not to his liking.

Sipping the first of the many morning coffees his secretary, Marte, brought him, he let his eyes wander down to the street below.

Even the most chauvinistic citizens of Geneva agreed that the rue de Hesse was an unremarkable thoroughfare. But Eberhardt had loved it ever since he first stood on the corner by the Café des Banques trying to decide whether to move his bank there from its original location in the rue du Rhône. It was that or the rue de la Corraterie, supposedly the most respectable financial address in Geneva. In the end he had opted for the rue de Hesse – already the home of the Banque Privée de Edmond Rothschild – and he had never regretted it. There his bank had grown and prospered to the point where it was now a major player in the world’s money markets. And he, at the age of seventy-seven, was one of the most respected bankers in Europe.

Many foreigners, Eberhardt knew, thought of Switzerland as a land of watches, chocolates and cuckoo clocks. But what made Switzerland work, what gave it its independence and its prestige, were the banks. There were the three great commercial banks, Credit Suisse, Union Bank and the Swiss Bank Corporation. And there were the private banks – Lombard Odier, Pictet, Rothschild, Darier, Hentsch and Eberhardt.

The private bankers of Geneva thought of themselves as an élite group. They belonged to the Groupement, the association of Geneva private bankers, the most exclusive sector in the Swiss financial system. And they had something else in common. They were all, without exception, paranoid about secrecy, fearing rightly that its abolition would lead to a wholesale withdrawal of the trillions in marks, dollars, pounds, lire and yen invested with them. Secrecy, in fact, was the law. Clause 47(b) of the 1934 Banking Act set out stiff penalties – fines and a jail sentence – for any bank director or employee who gave away secrets.

Foreign bankers liked to point out that Swiss bankers had a poor record in forecasting movements in the stock markets. The Swiss argued back that with them the emphasis was on security rather than spectacular performance in portfolio management. And bankers like Eberhardt were quick to reiterate how much more prudent they were than American bankers, who, in his words, ‘seemed intent on throwing away clients’ money’.

But Swiss bankers could no longer afford to be smug. A billion-dollar money laundering racket had resulted in the resignation of Switzerland’s Justice Minister. And the scandal at Credit Suisse, which had written off $700 million after fraud at its branch in Chiasso, had thrown doubt on Switzerland’s reputation for prudence. Then came the jail sentence handed out to Robert Leclerc, whose private bank collapsed. No one was particularly surprised at the judge’s decision; malpractice by a partner in a private bank rated just below murder in the eyes of the Swiss authorities. Eberhardt had no concerns about his own establishment, which was the third most prestigious private bank in Switzerland. His worry was the shadow that lay over the life he had built for himself in Geneva. And the fact that the man on his way up to see him knew what it was.

Georges di Marco had joined the Banque Eberhardt just before the Second World War, leaving the prestigious firm of M. M. Warburg and Co. And he had stayed with the bank as its fortunes rose, despite attractive offers to go elsewhere. He was a good banker with the right attributes: boldness, instinct, judgement and knowledge. And because Swiss law required at least two partners to head a private bank, Eberhardt had eventually elevated him to full partner.

Now this.

When di Marco walked in, Eberhardt rose to greet him. He was a small man with a long mournful face and wispy white hair. Eberhardt had often thought he looked more like an undertaker than a banker.

‘You know why I am here, Paul …’ Di Marco took a chair on the other side of the desk.

‘A friendly talk, I trust.’ Eberhardt forced a smile.

‘Paul, I am due to retire soon. I have been with the bank a long time – almost as long as you. I have served it well –’

‘You have served it brilliantly.’

‘I cannot leave without a clear conscience.’

Eberhardt mustered another bleak smile. ‘Georges, we have been through this so often …’

‘And I have always given in to your wishes.’

‘Come now, Georges.’ Confronted by the frail little man, Eberhardt felt some of his confidence returning. ‘It’s not a question of giving in. We are friends; partners. I respect your position. You know that. But we’re talking about something that happened years ago. It’s dead; forgotten. What you are suggesting would ruin the bank.’

‘We would survive.’