CHAPTER NINE

“‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ Martins said to me.”—Major Callaway, The Third Man. 

            Katie got good news from her editor that he was very happy with the hospital corruption story and only had a few questions he wanted cleared up. Wouldn’t take much of her time. A few phone calls to nail down allegations, then the fact checking by a copy editor would begin immediately, the photos collected and taken, illustrations ordered up. Dobell wasn’t sure it was a cover story, as Katie’s Capone and Vermeer stories had been, but it would be given all the pages it needed.
            “I’m sure you’ll ruffle a lot of feathers on this one,” said Dobell.
            “Isn’t that my job?” asked Katie.
            “Yes, it is, as long as you never massage the facts. By the way, you still working on that Harry Lime thing?”
            Katie hated that he called it a “thing.”
             “When I have a little time, yeah.”
            “Getting anywhere with it?”
            “I’ll certainly let you know if I do,” she replied, not telling him she and David would be leaving for London as soon as the copy editor was finished with her hospital story, probably by the end of the week.
            “I have some vacation time coming, thinking of going to London.”
            “Great city,” said Dobell. “I spent three years there with Newsweek back in the eighties, with that generous expense account. We used to compete with the Time magazine guys to see who could get away with spending the most money. But those days are over.”
           Katie took that as a cue that Dobell was not going to be throwing money at her to go on a wild goose chase to London.
            “I should say, Katie, that I’ve footed a lot of expenses for you that I wouldn’t for other reporters.”
            “For which I’m grateful, but look at the stories I gave you. One won a Pulitzer, the other sold more copies than any issue since the Oklahoma City bombing. When was that ’94?”
            “Ninety-five. We did do a bang-up job on that one. Great photos. But, hey, I have no complaints. Have a good vacation. Send me a postcard.”

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            Katie and David got a cheap flight on American Airlines to London’s Heathrow Airport and booked rooms in a small hotel in Knightsbridge on Brompton Road named the Beaufort (right), just a block from the Sloane Street Underground station with a curry house next door.
            “I forgot to ask,” said Katie. “Do you like Indian food?”
            “I don’t think I’ve ever had it.”
            “Wanna try the place next door on our first night in town? It looks nice.”
            “It’s up to you.”
            After a day of nominal sightseeing, jetlagged and very hungry at six o’clock, they found Noor Jahan almost empty and the menu full of many dishes in which chicken, pork or lamb was offered in the same sauces, with a note that “Our food can be made spicy if you like.” The décor was sacrosanct Indian curry house—travel posters of India on the walls, bronze vessels and figures of Buddha and Hindu gods, and Indian printed fabrics pinned to the ceiling. The waitress wore a beautiful sari.
            “Why don’t we just order a bunch of stuff and see how it turns out?” asked Katie.
            “Okay with me,” said David.
            The dinner began with some fried onion pakoras and went on from there to a platter of chicken from the searing tandoor open pit oven and two or three curries and side dishes of vegetables, with rice and breads that came steaming to the table.
            “Whaddaya think?” asked Katie.
            “Well, most of it looks pretty brown, but I like the flavors, and these breads are terrific,” said David, enjoying the Kingfisher Indian beer he’d ordered.
            “So, are you going to the archives tomorrow?” she asked.
            “Yeah, I’ve got the permission and plan to spend the day there, thanks to Professor Mundt. What about you?”
            “I’ve got a meeting with a novelist who knew Greene. See what he might know about our friend Harry. The book editor at McClure’s gave me the contact. His name is Evelyn Dawes.”
            “Why do so many of these British guys have girl’s first names? Carol, Evelyn?” asked David.
            “I have no idea. Maybe they’re like the Johnny Cash song ‘A Boy Named Sue.’ Their fathers want them to grow up tough.”
            “That I doubt,” David said.

            The British National Archives were in Kew Gardens, just nine stops from Sloane Square on the Underground. Having never been to London, David had boned up on how to use the Tube, poring over the famous Mondrian-like map of route lines, each its own color, a small miracle of concision and graphic impact. He ran his finger along the map on the Green District line, a branch of which went south to Kew Gardens.
            He descended into the station and was struck by the different smell of it compared with New York City subway stations. Both smelled old—London’s opened in 1863, New York’s fifty years later—but he was amazed how much less noisy the Underground was. The cars were more tubular and seemed more modern than the amalgam of new and old equipment that plagued New York subway riders. London’s cars clattered into view, New York’s screeched in as if about to go off the rails. He was surprised to find there were no express trains on the lines.
          David took a while to get used to the British monetary units, the one- and two-pound coins, the five- and ten-pound notes, so he went straight to the manned ticket window, rather than try to figure out the listed fares to Kew Gardens. In New York you could ride anywhere all day on one fare, a buck fifty.
             Once on the packed train, he found it clean and relatively quiet, with a mixed ridership of every class and tourists with backpacks and unfolded maps of the city.  As in New York, almost no one spoke to anyone, instead reading or staring off into space, and, at least on this one trip, no nut jobs chanting something indecipherable. David hated when that happened on the New York subways because, as a cop, he knew he would be the one who had to intervene if someone really got out of line, and he never knew if the guy was just semi-crazy or truly insane, maybe carrying a knife. He’d had to disarm more than one guy in his years on the force, and he was grateful he’d never been a Transit officer.  But here on the London Tube he felt pleasantly far away from all that.
            The stops clicked by—South Kensington, Turnham Green, then the train turned south to Kew Gardens, just across the Thames River. It was a fine morning and the cityscape was stunning, so David decided to walk the short distance to the National Archives Building, which was a brutally modern—as of its construction in 1977—structure, looking like a concrete pagoda, set behind formidable gates at which David, with the letter of intro from Professor Mundt, presented the pass he’d obtained in advance to meet with an archivist who would give him direction for his research.
            That person was a young woman in her late twenties, stout, brown-haired, wearing granny glasses, a beige printed blouse and brown skirt.
            “Mr. Greco?” she said, coming towards him. “Jenny Hurley,” and without further niceties said, “I understand you’re interested in looking at archives that cover the post-war military occupation of, is it, Vienna?”
            “Yes,” said David. “Specifically records of criminal activities under the jurisdiction of the British military police,” then, trying to be friendly, “Did you ever see the movie The Third Man? Came out in 1949?”
            Jenny Hurley shook her head. “No, doesn’t ring a bell. It was about that period?”
            Knowing it was not worth the effort to explain, David merely said yes and let it go.
            She asked him to follow her through the main hallway, then to the left, where they had to be buzzed in, and finally stopping at a large, very quiet room set with long oak library tables surrounded by bookshelves. 
            “According to the request you sent, the staff has recommended you begin with the Military Agency Records. They are pretty large, but I’ll see if I can narrow it down a bit. You said 1945 to 1950 in Vienna alone, correct? We’ve pulled much of what we have, and then there is a whole section of books written about the period. May I ask, are you writing a book, Mr. Greco?”
            “No, doing research for a reporter who’s writing a story about the period.”
            “Give me about fifteen minutes. I’ll be back.”
            David took out his own files and notepad and waited in the stillness of the room, brightly lighted from above, with its door shut so that he could see but not hear staff in the hallways. Less than a quarter of an hour went by and Ms. Hurley was back, wheeling in a cart of files in upright boxes, all of them meticulously labeled.
            “Well, this should get you started,” she said.
            “Is there a lot more?” asked David, staring at the amount of them.
            “I suspect there is as much as you have time for. Just let me know if you need any further assistance.  And, if you will, please, once you look at a document, put it to the side. Don’t put it back in the folder. Things get misplaced that way. We’ll gather them all up later. As you can see, you’ve plenty of space to spread things out in. And if you should take a book off the shelf, please pull it by its covers, not by the spine. And, also, no pens, please.  Pencils only. Do you have one?” David nodded that he did.
            “Right,” said Ms. Hurley, “then I’ll be around.” She left him alone and shut the door after her.
            The room smelled of archives, faintly musty but not as bad as the NYPD files he’d worked with in very dank rooms with lousy lighting.