She forced a smile. ‘You sound like a man from UNCLE.’
He smiled in return. ‘And you sound like a girl from Peking. Or should I have said the girl from Peking. We listened to your “link” men.’
Tania fingered her necklet of black pearls and lifted the largest of the beads. For a split second the thought of suicide ran through her mind. ‘Even if it were true you could have heard nothing to my discredit.’
Grant smiled again. ‘Nothing. We only want to know one thing. Do you think that Washington would really react to arguments from Britain or France to switch policy and recognise your country?’
Tania knew that every word would be broadcast, and that somethere or other it would be on record. ‘I am a little tired,’ she said quietly. ‘So please don’t tease me just now. Let me have dinner first and we can meet afterwards.’
‘Where and when?’ Grant guessed that Tania was more dangerous than a black mamba.
‘Vows can sometimes be broken. Tonight I may break a vow. For you,’ she added as she saw a puzzled look cross his face. ‘But for the moment hand me over to my partner and I promise that I won’t leave him except to repair make-up until we meet at one a.m. on the steps by the foyer.’ She held out her hand and encouraged him to help her to her feet. ‘Now let me congratulate you on your decoration. I didn’t see you get it but they say you all did very well.’
Grant bowed. ‘And let me congratulate you on a successful murder. We found your latest victim a short time ago. And of course we know that we’ll never find who did it but you know, and I know, that she was an expert.’
Tania flushed. ‘The only things I have murdered tonight are my feet. These shoes are too tight. The price one pays for being fashionable.’
Grant admired her poise. ‘While another woman paid an even heavier price for being patriotic.’
He watched cynically as she strolled towards the banqueting hall. On balance Tania had won this round. And if Tania was really Jacqueline then the empty headed secretary he had once known had been given a lot of training since the old days. There wasn’t one shred of real evidence against her—evidence which would stand up in court.
His own partner was an ADSAD agent whose invitation had been arranged at the last moment and he met her below a painting of one of the later Louis. ‘Don’t let that woman out of your sight for one single split second of time,’ he drawled. ‘She will go spend a penny or something and that is when something could happen. It is your business to see that it doesn’t.’
Chapter Nine – ‘Pursue Red-herring . . . bed might end in death’
Grant’s partner was still comparatively junior, but her background fitted her for the job, and as daughter of a professional diplomat she had been familiar with the Élysée for years.
Tania was dining less than fifteen metres away from him, and the men on either side were laughing. Her eyes were dancing, and she managed to do the impossible even with asparagus . . . talking, listening, laughing and eating with a nonchalant expertise which Jacqueline had never shown.
It was absolutely impossible for the two women be the same. There was no convincing resemblance. Yet he would have to see the show through to the end. And the end could only be bed. Not even Jacqueline could have altered those little tricks which made her so different, or been trained to control a mass of provocative impulses which were known only to her lovers. Anyhow, the idea of facial plastic surgery on such a scale was impossible! Personalities were also different. This was a self-controlled woman who knew her strength and used it, whereas Jacqueline had been a gamin, a tom-boy who was completely feminine but fundamentally insecure and ready to raise a temperament at the drop of a hat. One was sweet and the other bitter-sweet. One was fire and the other wine. Tania began where Jacqueline left off. And he was prepared to stake even his Maserati that ADSAD’s hunch was wrong.
But Tania was more dangerous than Jacqueline. And, he was positive, more deadly than any other agent he had met. The murder of that woman outside the female place had required an iron nerve. The sort of nerve which had been able to laugh off his own accusation only a few drinks later. He had known the dead woman only slightly. Which had, perhaps, made it easier for him to play things cool. And anyhow what evidence did they have against Tania?
The monitored conversation through Samos proved only that there was a Chinese agent in Paris. A Girl from Peking.
ADSAD had arranged matters with the hotel, using French Counter Intelligence as an intermediary to fix up mirror and microphones. A routine enough matter for any major international hotel which was prepared to co-operate and the bomb proved only that an interested party had rumbled them. The interested party could even be a staff member of the hotel. But as yet there wasn’t one single red chip against Tania Monham. Anyone could have done it, and the only credit item on a miserable balance sheet was the latest bulletin about Miss Sidders. She had come through her operation and recovered consciousness. Fragments of glass, metal and wood had been removed from her body and she would be out of circulation for at least another three weeks. But that still proved nothing against Tania Monham.
The maid in the female dressing-room had identified Tania as the last person to leave the place before the dead woman. But she had heard no struggle, there had been no scream and there was apparently nothing to connect the two.
As for gloves? That had been pure chance on his own part. He had seen her wander into the garden and tracked her to the cluster of bushes. He recalled her lighting a cigarette and remembered seeing her hands reach towards the neckline of her gown. Then there had been a flash of white followed by a surge of flame which had momentarily dazzled him. It was only later that he recalled seeing her with gloves on arrival and put two and two together. But not even he could swear that the white flicker had been gloves, or that she had deliberately tried to burn them.
So on balance she was still in the clear. Dead suspicious—but still in the clear.
They were now serving coffee, and it seemed as though the meal had lasted for hours. Yet Tania’s face showed no strain. The Prime Minister was seemingly at ease beside the President’s wife, and the old man himself was also doing his bit to keep the top table going. He was unbending rather more than usual but Grant thought that the British delegation was beginning to look unhappy. The President was a bad actor, and if he was unbending it meant things were going his way.
An interval of thirty minutes was scheduled before dancing began and Grant knew that before the interval they would have to suffer at least a couple of speeches. He hoped only that they would be brief. The thing was beginning to get on his nerves.
Maybe he was getting too old. They always said a man began to change around forty: lost some of his spunk or something!
He pulled himself together. His trouble was the very opposite. This creature had bewitched him. Okay, she was on the opposite side! Okay, she was a suspect murderess! But she had a body like a pocket Venus and if she broke that vow he guessed that the memory would be unforgettable. This sort of thing was part of the game. If she was really a Chinese agent then she knew the rules as well as he did and would go into anything open eyed. But in any case she was no overprotected innocent, she was a woman of the world who had lived dangerously if even half of her official dossier was accurate. And every day still brought some small item of confirmation from somewhere or other throughout the globe. It was even beginning to seem that her story might be true. A man answering to the description of her husband had flogged jewels and trinkets in several shady places between B.A. and Tokyo. Signatures in the Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank tied up. The French even claimed to have identified the school where she had been educated.
It had all begun to add up, and there remained only one major thing for Tania Monham to explain away. The monitored conversation from Samos.
A thought crossed Grant’s mind. He could understand how and why Samos had picked it up. They would monitor Peking automatically every time the thing crossed within range of the city.
And they would do a lot of switching wavelengths to cover as wide a field as possible. But how did they know that Peking was speaking to Tania Monham? Had they done a voice print? Peking would never use her name. And the Admiral had said only that there was a local agent on the job: that some girl would be at the Élysée to try to cope with the top brass.
His mind was now working overtime while one small part of it continued to make fragmentary conversation with his partner. What proof did C.I.A. have that the girl they were after was Tania Monham? There could be someone else. She might even be a carefully planted red-herring.
He whispered instructions to his partner and watched cynically a few moments later when she pretended a minor faint and was escorted out of the room by an obsequious waiter who was also from ADSAD.
Her instructions were clear. Taxi to the office. A word with the Admiral and precise information as to whether or not C.I.A. had specifically identified Tania as the girl from Peking or whether they were simply jumping to conclusions.
He glanced at his watch and stifled a yawn. Thirty minutes would do the trick given any luck at all, and if the speeches were over by that time he would be surprised.
Already the room was rustling with anticipation and as he sat back to make the best of things a few more thoughts crossed his mind. Voice prints of the two women were definitely different. Handwriting was, apparently, open to doubt, but Grant had a strong hunch that his own opinion was on target. They were different.
His eyes narrowed as the President stood up. A row of medals glinted under the brilliant lighting and he remembered what Miss Sidders had said about Jacqueline’s nickel dermatitis. If Tania was proven allergic to nickel that would also be another pointer that some slick plastic unit was operating somewhere in China. It might even be enough to convince himself that Tania and Jacqueline were the same person.
Broken vows! If she dated him as stated he might find out at least something. One ack emma now looked like being zero hour and he wondered where he would take her, because for sure she would settle only for neutral territory, and it was equally certain that he, himself, was running no risks. In the end it might be better to let her call a taxi and ask the driver to take them to a hotel where they asked no questions. It would be amusing, in fact, to play the old Mr. and Mrs. Smith stuff again: even in a Parisian doss house. And all in all it would be safer for both.
He would also take a bet that she would say nothing until every stitch of clothing, every trinket and every fountain pen, wrist watch, travel clock or shaving apparatus had been stored in a dressing room. And that even then she would speak only in whispers.
He sensed, rather than saw, his partner return. She sat down as the President was bowing to applause and slipped a message into his hand while Tania fanned herself with a triangle of parchment, handpainted in shades of brazen gold with crimson.
He folded the paper into his palm and dropped it into a pocket while he fumbled for a cigarette case. The girl beside him leaned forward provocatively and flicked a non-existent fleck of dirt from the side of his cheek. ‘They don’t know for sure,’ she whispered. ‘Maybe they jump to conclusions. Detail in flimsy.’
He leaned back and inhaled to the limit. Smoke made him think. And when he inhaled he almost felt his brain click into top gear with overdrive. Maybe they had jumped to conclusions! If so where was the real thing? If Tania was one red-herring where was the fish which mattered? And he wriggled impatiently while he forced himself to accept that as from now anything might happen. Peking had pulled a really fast one this time.
He watched the British Prime Minister with more than usual interest. The man was a genius. His television image was far above average, but he was a master actor, a statesman who thought several paces ahead of the gun, and yet Grant knew that some people thought he lacked self-confidence. He wanted to be liked, they said. But if so, was that a crime?
Ripples of laughter had broken the atmosphere of formality and the Premier was being strictly non-controversial. He even told an amusing story about the President’s younger days in London and rounded it off with a compliment to that France which was eternal. His final words were in French, a verse of poetry which went down very well, and his accent was more than passable. Better than most of the public school sort of French used so stiltedly by professional politicians at this sort of do.
The man also had the knack of holding his audience, and Grant saw that even his partner was interested. She turned towards him. ‘Why has he so much sex appeal? All the women seem to like him. And God knows he’s no David McCallum.’
Grant shrugged his shoulders expressively. Women were the eternal mystery.
And then they both noticed the vacant chair. Tania had faded. Several other women had also slipped out and a few others were restless. He nodded to his partner. ‘Get going. But find her. And fast. I’ll give you fifteen minutes.’
They had been placed near the door and Grant knew that Tania’s movements must have been observed by at least a few of the security people planted throughout the building. Even if they were off guard and waiting for the banquet to break up they couldn’t all have slipped up. But trust Tania to judge her time to the last second! The audience was being diverted. Outside guards would be having a last smoke before and barmen would be having a catnap before preparing for the dining hall emptied into the maze of corridors. Waiters action, and even the orchestra would be tuning up.
The Premier had sat down. Applause was more than Grant expected and the President was beaming with satisfaction. A toast master made an announcement and then the ladies began to leave table.
It was impossible for him to move before they had broken up, and like most women they moved slowly. There were continual pauses for repartee or a whispered message, and Grant calculated that over ten minutes passed before the last guest had joined the crowds which now filled the corridors and side rooms.
But, of course, the top table had risen first and already His Excellency had slipped through a nearby door, while Madame with the wife of the Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s exited by another, leaving the Premier with the French Foreign Secretary to stroll through an open French window into the garden.
Grant knew the whereabouts of the President’s personal suite. He also knew that two guards had been positioned to cover it. No one could enter without their knowing, but his partner had now used up her full fifteen minutes and he set out to see for himself.
He disliked the heavy décor of Élysée, but he disliked even more corridors which could be so swiftly jam-packed with guests. They stared at him sourly as he forced his way through a crowded salon and pointed towards the President’s suite. He also got a glimpse of the Premier lighting his pipe in the garden and smiled as he saw a plain clothes man stand obtrusively a few feet away. At a bet there were three different sets of cover agents on the spot, a few standard British plain clothes police, a dozen or so French Counter Intelligence agents, and at least three of ADSAD’s own men . . . one waiter, a barman and a musician in the string orchestra.
The barman shook his head as he passed.
The fiddler stared at him dead-pan and the banquet hall waiter had seen nothing.
The guards were on duty, each in plain clothes and lounging by the door of the President’s retiring rooms as he flashed a badge issued by French Security. ‘I wish to see the President.’
They stared at him coldly. ‘Impossible.’
Grant put an edge to his voice. ‘Or do you wish me to report you to the Minister?’
The taller of the two men slipped a hand towards his right arm pit and Grant knew that he would draw on him at the first suspicious movement. ‘I want to know if he is alone. You might check, if you don’t want me to go inside myself.’
‘He has given orders not to be disturbed.’
Grant had not lived in Paris for something like five years without learning about the mentality of French officials. ‘Perhaps you can tell me if a young lady has been hanging around.’
The small broad man who had said nothing suddenly grinned. ‘There are ladies everywhere. What was this one like?’
Grant whipped a picture from his inside pocket and the taller whistled with admiration. ‘That one hasn’t been here. We wouldn’t have forgotten her.’
‘You saw my badge?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know that it means you must offer every assistance?’
‘It could have been stolen.’
‘And that will be your excuse to the Minister when I report you?’
They hesitated. ‘Exactly what do you want?’
Grant pitched it low. ‘Check that the President is alone. I want to know if he is with a lady.’
The smaller man smiled. ‘If he is we would be fired. The President wouldn’t welcome interruption.’
‘Have you left this place during the past hour?’
There was an exchange of glances which made Grant tauten with expectation. And then the taller of the two men shrugged his shoulders expressively. ‘I visited the messieurs for maybe five minutes, but Gascon covered for me.’
‘And you, M’sieur Gascon. When you were alone? Did you turn your back for even ten seconds of time? Can you convince your Minister that no living person could have gone through that door without being seen by yourself?’ Grant stepped slowly forward. His hands were in his pockets and his voice had dropped to a whisper but his eyes were like frozen blobs of blue black ink. ‘Tell me,’ he snapped. ‘I see it in your eyes. But if you want to keep your pension tell me the truth or so help me I’ll have you dismissed before midnight.’
The short broad man seemed to shrink. Threat of pension loss had rocked him. ‘Tell me,’ said Grant softly. ‘Now. What happened?’
Gascon suddenly made up his mind and pointed towards the garden. ‘Smoke began to appear near the corner of this wing and I thought it might be fire so I left to see what was wrong.’
The Girl From Peking Page 11