Geneva was cloudy and cool when the jumbo jet brought Stein there on the afternoon of Saturday, 26 May 1979. Erich Loden, Colonel Pitman’s chauffeur, had been permitted to go through the customs and the underground tunnel to wait for Stein at the gate.
‘Your son phoned to say you were coming, Mr Stein. The colonel was resting but I was sure he’d want me to come out and meet you as I usually do. Two pieces of luggage, Mr Stein?’
‘Shiny aluminium.’ Stein handed him the baggage receipts. ‘I’ll step across to change some money at the bank counter, Erich. I’ll see you at the customs – green door. Where’s the car?’
‘Immediately outside – arrivals level.’
Stein nodded. He laid ten 100-dollar notes on the counter and received in return a disappointingly small number of Swiss francs. Stein liked large-denomination money – it simplified his calculations and kept his silk-lined, crocodile-leather wallet from bulging too much.
He followed the driver past the immigration desk and through the crush of people waiting outside the customs hall. There was the white Rolls-Royce, with Swiss registration plates, parked exactly outside the glass doors. The driver was holding the door for him.
‘A new one, Erich?’
‘We just had delivery, sir. The colonel has a new Rolls every five years. Always white, always the same tan upholstery, tinted windows, stereo hi-fi, FM radio and telephone. He still has the Jaguar, of course. He prefers that when he’s driving himself.’ Stein tapped the roof before getting in. ‘When is he going to change over to a Mercedes, Erich?’
‘The colonel would never buy a German car. You know that, Mr Stein. He sent the colour TV back to the shop when he discovered that parts of it were manufactured in Germany.’
Stein laughed. He liked Erich Loden, who had been the colonel’s driver, servant and general factotum for over twenty years and remained devoted to him.
Stein got into the back seat of the Rolls and twiddled with the knobs of the radio, but reception was blocked by the steel-framed airport buildings. He pulled a cassette from the box and plugged it into the player. The music of Django Reinhardt filled the car. He turned the volume down.
The driver slid behind the wheel and started the engine. ‘Any calls downtown, Mr Stein? You want me to go past the cake shop?’
‘Well,’ said Stein as if considering the suggestion for the first time, ‘why don’t I just stop by for a cup of coffee at Madame Mauring’s.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the driver. It was a joke that both men understood. Stein rarely took the trip from the airport to Colonel Pitman’s house without stopping at the well-known Mauring’s Tea Room & Confiserie near the cathedral.
The decision made, Stein leant back and watched the world go by. The modern factories gave way to expensive apartment blocks and tidy lawns, then came the shopping streets, displays of carefully arranged cheeses and sausages, and the scaly glitter of wristwatches, swimming through the windows in endless shoals.
Madame Mauring was an elderly woman with tight, permanently waved grey hair and a ruddy complexion. She made many of the cream cakes herself, as well as some marzipan slices of which Stein was especially fond.
‘I’ve brought you a present,’ said Stein, producing from his flight bag some perfume he had bought on the plane ‘For my favourite girlfriend. “Infini”.’
‘You are a nice man, Mr Stein,’ she said and gave him a swift decorous peck on the cheek. Stein smiled with pleasure. ‘And now I bring for you the new almond cake. It’s still warm but never mind, I will cut it.’ This was a considerable concession. Madame Mauring did not approve of any of her creations being sliced before they were quite cold.
Stein sat down in the little tea room and looked round the bright wallpaper and the old-fashioned cast-iron tables with something of a personal pride. Charles Stein had financed Madame Mauring’s little business venture after tasting the cakes she supplied to a large restaurant on the Rue du Rhône. That was eighteen years ago, and last year he had allowed Madame Mauring to buy him out.
‘Next year, or the year after, I am giving the team room to my daughter. Her husband works at a good restaurant in Zurich. They will both come back here to live.’
‘That will be nice for you, Madame Mauring. But I can’t imagine this place without you. What about all your regular customers?’
‘I will keep my apartment upstairs,’ she said. ‘And your room, too – that will be untouched.’
‘Thank you, Madame Mauring. This is where we began, you know.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She had heard many times the story of how the Americans had started their merchant bank in these rooms above a jewellery shop in the narrow street which wound uphill to the cathedral. Prosperous trading in the immediate post-war period had enabled them to move the bank to more appropriate premises facing the lake on the Quai des Bergues. Every nook and cranny of this place brought back memories to Stein. He had been back and forth across the Atlantic frequently in those days, learning quickly how deals were made in Switzerland, giving the colonel courage enough to fight the competition and calming down irate clients when things went wrong. Madame Mauring had always insisted that one room upstairs was his but Stein had almost forgotten the last time he had used it.
‘Take the rest of the almond cake with you,’ she said. ‘I have a box all ready.’ Stein did not resist the idea. He found it very reassuring to have some food with him, even in such a well-organized house as that of Colonel Pitman.
‘She’s a good woman,’ he told the driver as he settled back into the leather seat of the Rolls and brushed from his lips the last crumbs.
‘The colonel never goes there now,’ said the driver. ‘He says that the cakes and coffee are not good for his digestion. The “nut house” he calls it, did you know that?’
Stein grunted. The truth was that Colonel Pitman was not interested in food. One look at him would tell you that: thin, finickety and abstemious. Most of the West Point officers seemed to be the same. The colonel was always boasting of how he could still fit into his wartime uniform. It was not an achievement by which Stein set large store.
‘There will be a traffic jam downtown. It’s rush hour and with the bottlenecks at the bridges there is just no way to avoid it.’
The car was halted by traffic when the driver spoke again. ‘I wouldn’t want to step out of line, Mr Stein …’ he began hesitantly.
‘What is it?’
‘I thought you should know that the colonel takes a rest every afternoon. That’s why he didn’t come out to the airport. You may not see him until you go down for drinks.’
‘How long has this been?’
‘Some three weeks,’ said the driver. ‘The doctor brought a heart specialist from Lausanne and gave him a check-up last month. He told him he’s got to slow down.’
‘I see.’
‘That didn’t go over well with the colonel, you can probably imagine what he said, but he took the advice just the same.’
‘He’s quite a man, the colonel,’ said Stein.
‘You’ve known him a long time, Mr Stein. It’s just wonderful the way all you men from the same battalion kept up your friendships and put together enough money to finance a business together. It was some idea, Mr Stein! A little private bank, here in Geneva. How did you think of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Stein. ‘One of the boys suggested it in fun, and then we considered it seriously.’
Stein remembered that night when they realized how much gold they had stolen.