Free Floodgate by Alistair MacLean Page A

I go by in Amsterdam.' 'But you really are a Pole?' The elder man's voice, dry and precise, befitted his cast of countenance which could have been that of a moderately successful lawyer or accountant. He also spoke in Polish. 'For my sins.' Van Effen raised an eyebrow. 'Vasco, of course.' 'Yes. Where were you born?'

'Radom.'

'I know it. Not well. A rather provincial town, I thought.' 'So I've heard.'

'You've heard? But you lived there.'

'Four years. When you're four years old a provincial town is the centre of the world. My father - a printer - moved to a better job.' 'Where?'

'Warsaw.'

'Aha!'

'Aha yourself.' Van Effen spoke in some irritation. 'You sound as if you know Warsaw and are now going to find out if I know it. Why, I can't imagine. You're not by any chance a lawyer, Mr - I'm afraid I don't know your name?'

'Paderiwski. I am a lawyer.'

'Paderiwski. Given time, I would have thought you could have come up with a better one than that. And I was right, eh? A lawyer. I wouldn't care to have you acting for my defence. You make a poor interrogator.' Agnelli was smiling but Paderiwski was not. His lips were pursed. He said brusquely: 'You know the Tin-Roofed Palace, of course.' :of course.'

'Where is it?'

'Dear me. What have we here. The Inquisition? Ah. Thank you.' He took a glass from a tray that a waiter, following Vasco, had just brought into the curtained booth and lifted it. 'Your health, gentlemen. The place you're so curious about, Mr - ah - Paderiwiski, is close by the Wista, on the comer of the Wybrzeze Gdanskie and the Slasko-Dabrowski bridge.' He sipped some more beer. 'Unless they've moved it, of course. Some years since I've been there.'

Paderiwski was not amused. 'The Palace of Culture and Science.' 'Parade Square. It's too big.'

'What do you mean?'

'Too big to have been moved, I mean. Two thousand, three hundred rooms are a lot of rooms. A monstrosity. The wedding cake, they call it. But, then, Stalin never did have any taste in architecture.'

'Stalin?' Agnelli said.

'His personal gift to my already long-suffering countrymen.' So Agnelli spoke Polish, too.

'Where's the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw?'

'It's not in Warsaw. Mlociny, ten kilometres to the north.' Van Effen's voice was now as brusque as Paderiwiski's had been. 'Where's the Nike? You don't know? What's the Nike? You don't know? Any citizen of Warsaw knows it's the name given to the "Heroes of Warsaw" monument. What's Zamenhofa Street famous for?' An increasingly uncomfortable Paderiwski made no reply. 'The Ghetto monument. I told you you'd make a lousy lawyer, Paderiwski. Any competent lawyer, for the defence or the prosecution, always prepares his brief. You didn't. You're a fraud. It's my belief that you've never even been in Warsaw and that you just spent an hour or so studying a gazetteer or guide-book.' Van Effen placed his hands on the table as if preparatory to rising. 'I don't think, gentleman, that we need detain each other any longer. Discreet enquiries are one thing, offensive interrogation by an incompetent, another. I see no basis here for mutual trust and, quite honestly, I need neither a job nor money.' He rose. 'Good day, gentlemen.' Agnelli reached out a hand. He didn't touch van Effen, it was just a restraining gesture. 'Please sit down, Mr Danilov. Perhaps Helmut has rather overstepped the mark but have you ever met a lawyer who wasn't burdened with a suspicious, mistrustful mind? Helmut - or we - just happened to choose the wrong suspect. Helmut, in fact, has been in Warsaw but only, as you almost guessed, briefly and as a tourist. I, personally, don't doubt you could find your way about Warsaw blindfolded.' Paderiwski had the look of a man who wished he were in some other place, any place. 'A blunder. We apologize.'

'That's kind.' Van Effen sat down and quaffed some more beer. 'Fair enough.'

Agnelli smiled. Almost certainly a double-dyed villain, van Effen thought, but a charming and persuasive one. 'Now that