‘Very well, since you put it like that. But what makes you think I have a thousand pounds right here in Belgium?’
The forger smiled tolerantly, as one who knows all the answers but has no rooted objections to exposing them to satisfy the whims of a close friend.
‘Monsieur, you are an English gentleman. It is clear to all. Yet you wish to pass for a middle-aged French working man. Your French is fluent and almost without accent. That is why I put the birthplace of André Martin as Colmar. You know, Alsatians speak French with a trace of accent like your own. You pass through France disguised as André Martin. Perfect, a stroke of genius. Who would ever think of searching an old man like Martin. So whatever you are carrying on you must be valuable. Drugs perhaps? Very fashionable in certain smart English circles these days. And Marseilles is one of the main supply centres. Or diamonds? I do not know. But the business you are in is profitable. English milords do not waste their time with picking pockets on racecourses. Please, monsieur, we stop playing games, hein? You telephone your friends in London and ask them to cable a thousand pounds to you at the bank here. Then tomorrow night we exchange packages and—hop—you are on your way, not so?’
The Englishman nodded several times, as if in rueful contemplation of a past life full of errors. Suddenly he raised his head and smiled engagingly at the Belgian. It was the first time the forger had seen him smile, and he felt enormously relieved that this quiet Englishman had taken the matter so calmly. The usual twisting around to seek an outlet. But in the long run no problems. The man had come round. He felt the tension drain out of him.
‘Very well,’ said the Englishman, ‘you win. I can have a thousand pounds here by noon tomorrow. But there is one condition.’
‘Condition?’ At once the Belgian was wary again.
‘We do not meet here.’
The forger was baffled. ‘There is nothing wrong with this place. It is quiet, private …’
‘There is everything wrong with this place from my point of view. You have just told me that you took a clandestine picture of me here. I do not wish our little ceremony of handing over our respective packages to be interrupted by the quiet click of a camera from some concealed point where one of your friends has thoughtfully hidden himself …’
The Belgian’s relief was visible. He laughed aloud.
‘You need have no fears of that, cher ami. This place is mine, very discreet, and nobody comes in here unless they are invited in by me. One has to be discreet, you understand, for I make a sideline from here in taking pictures for the tourists, you know; very popular but not quite the kind of work one does in a studio on the Grande Place …’
He held up his left hand, the forefinger and thumb forming the letter O, and ran the extended forefinger of the right hand through the circular aperture several times to indicate the sex act in progress.
The Englishman’s eyes twinkled. He grinned wide, then started to laugh. The Belgian laughed too at the joke. The Englishman clapped his hands against the Belgian’s upper arms, and the fingers tightened on the biceps muscles, holding the forger steady, his hands still going through their erotic gestures. The Belgian was still laughing when he got the impression his private parts had been hit by an express train.
The head jerked forward, the hands discontinued their mime and dropped downwards to the crushed testicles from which the man who held him had withdrawn his right knee, and the laugh turned to a screech, and a gurgle, a retch. Half unconscious, he slithered to his knees, then tried to roll forwards and sideways to lie on the floor and nurse himself.
The Jackal let him slip quite gently to his knees. Then he stepped round and over the fallen figure, straddling the exposed back of the Belgian. His right hand slipped round the Belgian’s neck and out the other side, and with it he gripped his own left bicep. The left hand was placed against the back of the forger’s head. He gave one short vicious twist to the neck, backwards, upwards and sideways.
The crack as the cervical column snapped was probably not very loud, but in the quiet of the studio it sounded like a small pistol going off. The forger’s body gave one last contraction, then slumped as limp as a rag doll. The Jackal held on for a moment longer before letting the body fall face down on the floor. The dead face twisted sideways, hands buried beneath the hips still clutching the privates, tongue protruding slightly between the clenched teeth, half bitten through, eyes open and staring at the faded pattern of the linoleum.
The Englishman walked quickly across to the curtains to make sure they were closed completely, then went back to the body. He turned it over and patted the pockets, finding the keys eventually in the left-hand side of the trousers. In the far corner of the studio stood the large trunk of ‘props’ and make-up trays. The fourth key he tried opened the lid, and he spent ten minutes removing the contents and piling them in untidy heaps on the floor.
When the trunk was quite empty, the killer lifted the body of the forger by the armpits and hefted it over to the trunk. It went in quite easily, the limp limbs buckling to conform with the contours of the interior of the trunk. Within a few hours rigor mortis would set in, jamming the corpse into its adopted position at the bottom of the case. The Jackal then started replacing the articles that had come out. Wigs, women’s underwear, toupees and anything else that was small and soft were stuffed into the crevices between the limbs. On top went the several trays of make-up brushes and tubes of grease. Finally the jumble of remaining pots of cream, two negligees, some assorted sweaters and jeans, a dressing-gown and several pairs of black fishnet stockings were placed on top of the body, completely covering it and filling the trunk to the brim. It took a bit of pressure to make the lid close, but then the hasp went home and the padlock was shut.
Throughout the operation the Englishman had handled the pots and jars by wrapping his hand in a piece of cloth from inside the case. Using his own handkerchief he now wiped off the lock and all outer surfaces of the trunk, pocketed the bundle of five-pound notes that still lay on the table, wiped that too and replaced it against the wall where it had stood when he came in. Finally he put out the light, took a seat on one of the occasional chairs against the wall, and settled down to wait until darkness fell. After a few minutes he took out his box of cigarettes, emptied the remaining ten into one of the side pockets of his jacket, and smoked one of them, using the empty box as the ashtray and carefully preserving the used stub by putting it into the box when it was finished.
He had few illusions that the disappearance of the forger could remain undetected for ever, but thought there was a likelihood that a man like that would probably have to go underground or travel out of town at periodic intervals. If any of his friends remarked on his sudden failure to appear at his normal haunts they would probably put the fact down to that. After a while a search would start, first of all among the people connected with the forging or pornographic-photo business. Some of these might know about the studio and visit it, but most would be deterred by the locked door. Anyone who did penetrate into the studio would have to ransack the place, force the lock on the trunk and empty it before finding the body.
A member of the underworld, doing this, would probably not report the matter to the police, he reasoned, thinking the forger had fallen foul of a gangland boss. No maniac customer interested in pornography alone would have bothered to hide the body so meticulously after a killing in passion. But eventually the police would have to know. At that point a photograph would doubtless be published, and the barman would probably remember the departure of the forger from his bar on the evening of August 1st in company with a tall blond man in a check suit and dark glasses.
But it was an extremely long shot that anyone would for months to come examine the dead man’s deed-box, even if he had registered it under his own name. He had exchanged no words with the barman, and the order for drinks he had given to the waiter in the same bar had been two weeks earlier. The waiter would have to have a phenomenal memory to recall the slight trace
of foreign accent in the order for two beers. The police would launch a perfunctory search for a tall blond man, but even if the enquiry got as far as Alexander Duggan, the Belgian police would still have to go a long way to find the Jackal. On balance, he felt he had at least a month, which was what he needed. The killing of the forger was as mechanical as stamping on a cockroach. The Jackal relaxed, finished a second cigarette, and looked outside. It was 9.30 and a deep dusk had descended over the narrow street. He left the studio quietly, locking the outer door behind him. No one passed him as he went quietly down the street. Half a mile away he dropped the unidentifiable keys down a large drain set into the pavement and heard them splosh into the water several feet down in the sewer beneath the street. He returned to his hotel in time for a late supper.
The next day, Friday, he spent shopping in one of the working-class suburbs of Brussels. From a shop specialising in camping equipment he bought a pair of hiking boots, long woollen socks, denim trousers, check woollen shirt and a haversack. Among his other purchases were several sheets of thin foam rubber, a string shopping bag, a ball of twine, a hunting knife, two thin paint brushes, a tin of pink paint and another of brown. He thought of buying a large Honeydew melon from an open fruit stall, but decided not to, as it would probably go rotten over the weekend.
Back at the hotel he used his new driving licence, now matching his passport in the name of Alexander Duggan, to order a self-drive hire car for the following morning, and prevailed on the head reception clerk to book him a single room with a shower/bath for the weekend at one of the resorts along the sea coast. Despite the lack of accommodation available in August, the clerk managed to find him a room in a small hotel overlooking the picturesque fishing harbour of Zeebrugge, and wished him a pleasant weekend by the sea.
7
WHILE THE JACKAL was doing his shopping in Brussels, Viktor Kowalski was wrestling with the intricacies of international telephone enquiries from Rome’s main post office.
Not speaking Italian, he had sought the aid of the counter clerks, and eventually one of them had agreed that he spoke a little French. Laboriously Kowalski explained to him that he wished to telephone a man in Marseilles, France, but that he did not know the man’s telephone number.
Yes, he knew the name and address. The name was Grzybowski. That baffled the Italian, who asked Kowalski to write it down. This Kowalski did, but the Italian, unable to believe that any name could start ‘Grzyb …’ spelt it out to the operator at the international exchange as ‘Grib …’ thinking that Kowalski’s written ‘z’ had to be an ‘i’. No name Josef Gribowski existed in the Marseilles telephone directory, the operator informed the Italian at the other end of the phone. The clerk turned to Kowalski and explained that there was no such person.
Purely by chance, because he was a conscientious man anxious to please a foreigner, the clerk spelt the name out to underline that he had got it right.
‘Il n’existe pas, monsieur. Voyons … jay, air, eee….’
‘Non, jay, air, zed …’ cut in Kowalski.
The clerk looked perplexed.
‘Excusez moi, monsieur. Jay, air, Zed?? Jay, air, zed, igrec, bay?’
‘Oui,’ insisted Kowalski, ‘G.R.Z.Y.B.O.W.S.K.I.’
The Italian shrugged and presented himself to the switchboard operator once again.
‘Get me international enquiries, please.’
Within ten minutes Kowalski had JoJo’s telephone number and half an hour later he was through. At the end of the line the ex-legionnaire’s voice was distorted by crackling and he seemed hesitant to confirm the bad news in Kovac’s letter. Yes, he was glad Kowalski had rung, he had been trying to trace him for three months.
Unfortunately, yes, it was true about the illness of little Sylvie. She had been getting weaker and thinner, and when finally a doctor had diagnosed the illness, it had already been time to put her to bed. She was in the next bedroom at the flat from which JoJo was speaking. No it was not the same flat, they had taken a newer and larger one. What? The address? JoJo gave it slowly, while Kowalski, tongue between pursed lips, slowly wrote it down.
‘How long do the quacks give her?’ he roared down the line. He got his meaning over to JoJo at the fourth time of trying. There was a long pause.
‘Allo? Allo?’ he shouted when there was no reply. JoJo’s voice came back.
‘It could be a week, maybe two or three,’ said JoJo.
Disbelievingly, Kowalski stared at the mouthpiece in his hand. Without a word he replaced it on the cradle and blundered out of the cabin. After paying the cost of the call he collected the mail, snapped the steel case on his wrist tight shut, and walked back to the hotel. For the first time in many years his thoughts were in a turmoil and there was no one to whom he could turn for orders how to solve the problem by violence.
In his flat in Marseilles, the same one he had always lived in, JoJo also put down the receiver when he realised Kowalski had hung up. He turned to find the two men from the Action Service still where they had been, each with his Colt .45 Police Special in his hand. One was trained on JoJo, the other on his wife who sat ashen-faced in the corner of the sofa. ‘Bastards,’ said JoJo with venom. ‘Shits.’
‘Is he coming?’ asked one of the men.
‘He didn’t say. He just hung up on me,’ said the Pole.
The black flat eyes of the Corsican stared back at him.
‘He must come. Those are the orders.’
‘Well, you heard me, I said what you wanted. He must have been shocked. He just hung up. I couldn’t prevent him doing that.’
‘He had better come, for your sake JoJo,’ repeated the Corsican.
‘He will come,’ said JoJo resignedly. ‘If he can, he will come. For the girl’s sake.’
‘Good. Then your part is done.’
‘Then get out of here,’ shouted JoJo. ‘Leave us alone.’
The Corsican rose, the gun still in his hand. The other man remained seated, looking at the woman.
‘We’ll be going,’ said the Corsican, ‘but you two will come with us. We can’t have you talking around the place, or ringing Rome, now can we, JoJo?’
‘Where are you taking us?’
‘A little holiday. A nice pleasant hotel in the mountains. Plenty of sun and fresh air. Good for you JoJo.’
‘For how long?’ asked the Pole dully.
‘For as long as it takes.’
The Pole stared out of the window at the tangle of alleys and fish stalls that crouch behind the picture postcard frontage of the Old Port.
‘It is the height of the tourist season. The trains are full these days. In August we make more than all the winter. It will ruin us for several years.’
The Corsican laughed as if the idea amused him.
‘You must consider it rather a gain than a loss, JoJo. After all, it is for France, your adopted country.’
The Pole spun round. ‘I don’t give a shit about politics. I don’t care who is in power, what party wants to make a balls-up of everything. But I know people like you. I have been meeting them all my life. You would serve Hitler, your type. Or Mussolini, or the OAS if it suited you. Or anybody. Regimes may change, but bastards like you never change …’ He was shouting limping towards the man with the gun whose snout had not quivered a millimetre in the hand that held it.
‘JoJo,’ screamed the woman from the sofa. ‘JoJo, je t’en prie. Laisse-le.’
The Pole stopped and stared at his wife as if he had forgotten she were there. He looked round the room and at the figures in it one by one. They all looked back at him, his wife imploring, the two Secret Service toughs without noticeable expression. They were used to reproaches which had no effect on the inevitable. The leader of the pair nodded towards the bedroom.
‘Get packed. You first, then the wife.’
‘What about Sylvie? She will be home from school at four. There will be no one to meet her,’ said the woman.
The Corsican still stared at her husband.
‘She will be picked up by us on the way past the school. Arrangements have been made. The headmistress has been told her granny is dying and the whole family has been summoned to her death-bed. It’s all very discreet. Now move.’
JoJo shrugged, gave a last glance at his wife and went into the bedroom to pack, followed by the Corsican. His wife continued to twist her handkerchief between her hands. After a while she looked up at the other agent on the end of the sofa. He was younger than the Corsican, a Gascon.
‘What … what will they do to him?’
‘Kowalski?’
‘Viktor.’
‘Some gentlemen want to talk to him. That is all.’
An hour later the family were in the back seat of a big Citroën, the two agents in the front, speeding towards a very private hotel high in the Vercors.
The Jackal spent the weekend at the seaside. He bought a pair of swimming trunks and spent the Saturday sunning himself on the beach at Zeebrugge, bathed several times in the North Sea, and wandered round the little harbour town and along the mole where British sailors and soldiers had once fought and died in a welter of blood and bullets. Some of the walrus-moustached old men who sat along the mole and threw for sea bass might have remembered forty-six years before, had he asked them, but he did not. The English present that day were a few families scattered along the beach enjoying the sunshine and watching their children play in the surf.
On Sunday morning he packed his bags and drove leisurely through the Flemish countryside, strolling through the narrow streets of Ghent and Bruges. He lunched off the unmatchable steaks broiled over a timber fire served by the Siphon restaurant at Damm and in the mid-afternoon turned the car back towards Brussels. Before turning in for the night he asked for an early call with breakfast in bed and a packed lunch, explaining that he wished to drive into the Ardennes the following day and visit the grave of his elder brother who had died in the Battle of the Bulge between Bastogne and Malmedy. The desk clerk was most solicitous, promising that he would be called without fail for his pilgrimage.
The Day of the Jackal Page 14