The Odessa File

‘Gor blimey. It could take ages,’ said Koppel.

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sp; He sat Miller in the chair, warning him to keep his string-backed driving gloves on at all times. Taking his bag, Koppel went over to the fireplace, slipped a headband round his head and fixed the pencil-torch into a bracket so that it pointed forward. Inch by inch, he went over the brickwork, feeling with sensitive fingers for bumps or lugs, indentations or hollow areas. Abandoning this when he had covered it all, he started again with a palette knife probing for cracks. He found it at half past three.

The knife blade slipped into a crack between two bricks and there was a low click. A section of bricks, two feet by two feet in size, swung an inch outwards. So skilfully had the work been done that no naked eye could spot the square area among the rest of the surround.

Koppel eased the door open, hinged on the left side by silent steel hinges. The four-square-foot area of brickwork was set in a steel tray that formed a door. Behind the door the thin beam of Koppel’s headlamp picked out the front of a small wall-safe.

He kept the light on, but slipped a stethoscope round his neck and fitted the ear-pieces. After five minutes spent gazing at the four-disc combination lock, he held the listening end where he judged the tumblers would be, and began to ease the first ring through its combinations.

Miller, from his seat ten feet away, gazed at the work and became increasingly nervous. Koppel by contrast was completely calm, absorbed in his work. Apart from this, he knew that both men were unlikely to cause anyone to investigate the study so long as they remained completely immobile. The entry, the moving about and the exit were the danger period.

It took him forty minutes until the last tumbler fell over. Gently he eased the safe door back and turned to Miller, the beam from his head darting over a table containing a pair of silver candlesticks and a heavy old snuff-box.

Without a word Miller rose and went to join Koppel by the safe. He reached up, took the torch from Koppel’s head bracket and used it to probe the interior. There were several bundles of bank notes which he pulled out and passed to the grateful burglar, who uttered a low whistle that carried no more than several feet.

The upper shelf in the safe contained only one object, a buff manila folder. Miller pulled it out, flicked it open and riffled through the sheets inside. There were about forty of them. Each contained a photograph and several lines of type. At the eighteenth he paused and said out loud, ‘Good God.’

‘Quiet,’ muttered Koppel with urgency.

Miller closed the file, handed the torch back to Koppel and said, ‘Close it.’

Koppel slid the door back into place and twirled the dial not merely until the door was locked but until the figures were in the same order in which he had found them. When he was done he eased the brickwork across the area and pressed it firmly home. It gave another click and locked into place.

He had stuffed the bank notes in his pocket, the cash proceeds of Winzer’s last four passports, and he remained only to lay the candlesticks and snuff-box gently into his black leather holdall.

Switching off his light, he led Miller by the arm to the window, slipped the curtains back to right and left, and took a good look out through the glass. The lawn was deserted, and the moon had gone behind cloud. Koppel eased up the window, hopped over the sill, bag and all, and waited for Miller to join him. He pulled the window down and headed for the shrubbery, followed by the reporter, who had stuffed the file inside his polo-necked sweater.

They kept to the bushes until close to the gate, then emerged on to the road. Miller had an urge to run.

‘Walk slowly,’ said Koppel in his normal talking voice. ‘Just walk and talk like we was coming home from a party.’

It was three miles back to the railway station and already it was close to five o’clock. The streets were not wholly deserted, although it was Saturday, for the German working man rises early to go about his business. They made it to the station without being stopped and questioned.

There was no train to Hamburg before seven, but Koppel said he would be glad to wait in the buffet and warm himself with a coffee and a double corn liqueur.

‘A very nice little tickle, Herr Miller,’ he said. ‘I hope you got what you wanted.’

‘Oh, yes, I got it all right,’ said Miller.

The little burglar nodded and strolled towards the station buffet. Miller turned back and crossed the square to the hotel, unaware of the red-rimmed eyes that watched him from the back of a parked Mercedes.

It was too early to make the inquiries Miller needed to make, so he allowed himself three hours of sleep and asked to be woken at nine-thirty.

The phone shrilled at the exact hour, and he ordered coffee and rolls, which arrived just as he had finished a piping hot shower. Over coffee he sat and studied the file of papers, recognising about half a dozen of the faces but none of the names. The names, he had to tell himself, were meaningless.

Sheet eighteen was the one he came back to. The man was older, the hair longer, a sporting moustache covered the upper lip. But the ears were the same, the part of a face that is more individual to each owner than any other feature, yet which are always overlooked. The narrow nostrils were the same, the tilt of the head, the pale eyes.

The name was a common one, what fixed his attention was the address. From the postal district it had to be the centre of the city, and that would probably mean an apartment block.

Just on ten o’clock he rang the telephone directory inquiries department of the city named on the sheet of paper. He asked for the number of the block manager for the apartment block at that address. It was a gamble, and it came off. It was a block of flats, and an expensive one.

He rang the block manager, really a glorified front hall porter, upgraded to manager by the German adoration of titles, and explained that he had repeatedly rung one of the tenants but could get no reply, which was odd because he had specifically been asked to ring the man at that hour. Could the block manager help him? Was the phone out of order?

The man at the other end was most helpful. The Herr Direktor would probably be at the factory, or perhaps at his weekend house in the country.

What factory was that? Why, his own, of course. The radio factory. Oh, yes, of course, how stupid of me, said Miller, and rang off. The directory inquiries gave him the number of the factory. The girl who answered passed him the boss’s secretary, who told the caller the Herr Direktor was spending the weekend at his country house and would be back on Monday morning. The private house number was not to be divulged from the factory. A question of privacy. Miller thanked her and hung up.