by Len Deighton
‘Easy does it, Paul,’ I said. I looked around the whitetiled room but I couldn’t see any obvious signs of hidden microphones. If the observation chamber was not in use they were probably not recording us. Finally I decided not to worry too much about it.
‘I did everything you told me to do, Bernd. Everything.’ He was wearing expensive linen pants and open-neck brown shirt with a scarf tied at the neck. There was a soft brown cashmere jacket thrown carelessly on to one of the chairs. ‘Have you got a cigarette? They even took away my cigarettes. How do you like that.’
I offered him the pack of Atika cigarettes. They were his own cigarettes from the things on Nicol’s desk. He took one and I put the pack on the table. There was a tacit understanding that he’d get them if he was good. I lit his cigarette and he inhaled greedily. ‘Were you carrying all that secret junk I saw upstairs?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘You weren’t carrying it? You never saw it before?’
‘Yes. That is to say, yes and no. I was carrying it. But I don’t know…submarines.’ He laughed briefly. ‘What do I know about submarines?’
‘Sit down. Relax for a moment. Then tell me exactly how you got the papers,’ I said.
He exhaled smoke, and waved it away with his hand as if trying to dispel the smoke in case a guard came and took the cigarette away from him. ‘I always travel light. I was flying to Rome. I have a holiday place on Giglio – that’s an island…’
‘I know where Giglio is,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the papers.’
‘I travel light because a car always collects me at the airport and the only clothes I’ll need will be those that I keep there.’
‘What a life you have, Paul. Is that what they call la dolce vita down there in Giglio.’
He gave me a fleeting smile that was no more than a grimace. ‘So I just carry a little shoulder-bag that is well under regulation size for cabin baggage.’
‘Just clothes inside it?’
‘Hardly anything inside it; shaving stuff and a change of linen in case I get delayed somewhere.’
‘So what about the brown leather case?’
‘I paid off the taxi outside the arrivals hall and went in through the main entrance, and before I got anywhere near the Alitalia desk the taxi driver came running after me. He gave me the brown case and said I’d forgotten it. I said it wasn’t mine but he was already saying that he was illegally parked and he pushed it to me and disappeared – it was very crowded – and so I thought I’d better take it to the police.’
‘You thought it was a genuine mistake? What did the cab driver say when he gave it to you?’
‘He said, I’m the cab driver. Here’s the bag you left behind.’
‘Give it a minute’s thought, Paul. I’d really like to get it right.’
‘That’s what he said. He said, I’m the cab driver. Here’s the bag you left behind.’ Biedermann waited, looking at my face. ‘What’s the matter with that?’
‘It could be all right, I suppose. But if I was a cab driver and someone had just paid me off, I wouldn’t feel the need to say who I was, I’d be egoistical enough to think he’d know who I was. And neither would I be inclined to tell him what the bag was. I’d expect my passenger to recognize it immediately. I’d expect him to fall over with excited appreciation. And I’d hang around long enough for him to manifest that appreciation in the time-honoured way. Right, Paul?’
‘Yeah…It seemed all right at the time. But I was flustered.’
‘Are you quite sure that the man who gave you the case was the man you paid off in the cab?’
Paul Biedermann’s face froze. Then he inhaled again and thought about it. ‘Jesus. You’re right, Bernd. The cab driver was wearing a leather jacket the same colour as one I’ve got, and a dark-blue shirt. I noticed his sleeve while he was driving.’
‘And the one who gave you the case?’
‘He was in shirt-sleeves. I thought my driver had taken his jacket off. But the second man’s shirt was white. Jesus, Bernd, you’re a genius. Some bastard planted that bag on me. I was going to find the police office when they arrested me.’
‘You were near the Alitalia desk,’ I said. ‘Don’t get careless, Paul. Who would have known you would be at the Alitalia desk?’
‘Can you get me out of here?’ he said. His voice had that soft, whispery quality that I’d heard from other desperate men.
‘I’ll try,’ I promised. ‘Who’d know you’d be at the Alitalia desk?’
‘Only the girl in the hotel reception. She phoned them for me. Was it your people who forced the case on me? Is it a way of getting me to work for you?’
‘Don’t be stupid, Paul.’
‘Why would the Russians do it? I mean they could have asked me to take the bloody case and I would have taken it. I’ve taken other things for them, I told you that.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. He had that American habit of stubbing them out half smoked.
‘Yes,’ I said, although he hadn’t told me about carrying packages for them. There was a long silence. Biedermann fidgeted.
‘Why did they do that?’ said Biedermann. ‘Why? Tell me why.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I wish I did know.’ Nervously he reached for another cigarette and I lit it for him. ‘I’ll go and talk to the chief inspector again. London have asked for you. He’s waiting to hear if Paris will release you into my custody.’
‘I hope to God they do. Trying to sort this out in the French courts will take years.’
I unlocked the door with the key Nicol had given me. Biedermann, as if anxious to do me some extra service, for which I might pay in goodwill, said, ‘Watch out for that guy Moskvin. He’s an evil old bastard. The other one is almost human at times, but Moskvin is a fink. He’s really a fink.’
‘I’ll do what I can for you, Paul,’ I promised.
I went out and locked the door. I went back along the corridor to the stairs to speak again with Nicol. I was at the top of the stairs when I almost bumped into a woman in a blue overall coat. She was quite young, about twenty-five, and carrying a tiny plastic tray upon which there was a coffee with froth on it and a dried-up sandwich. ‘With the compliments of Chief Inspector Nicol,’ the woman said in a shrill working-class accent. ‘It’s for the man being held in custody. The inspector said you had the key.’
‘Yes, I have. Do you want it?’
‘Will you take the coffee to him?’ she said nervously. ‘Inspector Nicol wouldn’t approve of you giving the key to anyone – bad security.’
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Don’t be too long. The inspector has to go to a meeting.’
‘I’ll be right with him,’ I promised.
I spent no more than a minute giving Paul Biedermann the coffee and sandwich. ‘They gave me lunch,’ he said looking at the miserable sandwich. ‘But I’d love the coffee.’ It had that bitter smell of the high-roast coffee that the French like so much.
I locked him up again and went upstairs to see Nicol. He was still behind his desk. He was speaking on the phone but he beckoned me inside and ended his conversation abruptly. ‘Did you get anything out of him, Bernard?’ A vase of cut flowers was now on his desk. It was the undefinable Gallic touch; that little je ne sais quoi that the French like to think makes them human.
‘He says the case was planted on him.’ I said. I put the door key on Nicol’s desk. I noticed that the desk had been tidied and the contents of Biedermann’s pockets were now back inside the plastic bag.
‘By a cab driver? He got that taxi cab from a rank in the Rivoli? How would you arrange for him to select that particular cab? Not very convincing, is it?’
‘I think it was another person who gave him the case. I think he might have been set up.’
‘Why would anyone do that? You said he was a small-time agent.’
‘I can’t think why they’d do it,’ I admitted.
‘Paris still hasn’t replied, but they should come through any time
now. Since we’ve got to sit here, can I send out for a drink for you?’
‘A grand crème like the one you just sent to your prisoner would be most acceptable. Do you do that with all the prisoners, or was that just to impress me?’
‘And a brandy with it? That’s what I’m going to have.’
‘You talked me into it. Thanks.’
He reached for the internal phone but before he grasped it said, ‘What coffee that I sent down for him?’
‘You sent a coffee and sandwich down to him, didn’t you?’
‘A coffee? What do you think this is, the Ritz? I don’t send coffee down for prisoners. Not here; not anywhere.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘Are you mad? A prisoner can break a cup and slash his wrists. Don’t they teach you anything in England?’
I stood up. ‘A young woman gave it to me. She was wearing a blue overall coat. She looked like a secretary but she spoke like a truck driver. She had a very strong Paris accent. She said the coffee and sandwich came with your compliments and would I give it to the man in custody. She said you had to go to a meeting…’
‘She wanted to get you out of the way,’ said Nicol. He picked up the key and shouted for the uniformed man who was sitting at a desk in the next room. He took the staircase at one leap and I was right behind him.
It was too late, of course. Paul Biedermann was on his knees in the corner, his forehead on the floor like a Muslim at prayer. But his contorted position was due to the muscular contractions that had twisted his body, put a leer on his face and stopped his heart.
Nicol held Biedermann’s wrist, trying to believe there was a pulse still beating there, but it was obvious that all signs of life had gone. ‘Get the doctor,’ Nicol told his uniformed man. A police officer may presume death but not pronounce it.
Nicol picked up the coffee-cup, sniffed it and put it down again. The sandwich was untouched. It was a miserable, dried-up sandwich. It obviously wasn’t part of the plan that he should eat the sandwich.
‘We’ll be up all night,’ said Nicol. He had gone white with anger. ‘My people will be furious when they hear. When prisoners die in custody it’s always police brutality. Everyone knows that. You told me that yourself, didn’t you? Can you imagine what the communists will make of this? There’ll be hell to pay.’
‘The Russians?’
‘Never mind the Russians,’ said Nicol. ‘I’ve got all the communists I need right here in the National Assembly. I’ve got more than I need, in fact.’
‘It’s my fault,’ I said, once we were back in his office.
‘You’re damned right it is,’ said Nicol, his anger unabated by this appeasement. ‘And that’s the way it’s going to go down on paper. Don’t expect me to cover up for you.’ He got a few sheets of lined paper from the drawer and pushed it across his desk towards me. ‘You’ll have to give me a written statement. I know you’ll say you can’t; but you’ll have to write out something.’
I looked at the blank paper for a long time. Statements are always on lined paper. The police don’t trust anyone to write in straight lines. Nicol uncapped a ball-point pen and banged it down on to the paper to hurry me along.
‘You’re not going to ask me to stay here?’
‘Stay here? Me? Keep you here? And explain to my Minister that I let some foreigner go down and murder my prisoner? Write a statement and get out of here, and stay out. The sooner I’m rid of you, the better pleased I’ll be. Go and explain it all to your people in London. Although how the hell you will explain it I can’t begin to guess.’
The curious rigmarole with the phoney taxi driver began to make sense. The KGB were determined to frame me. It would look as if I put a ‘sacred’ tag on Biedermann, when there was no real investigation in progress, to help him work as a KGB courier. And then, they’d say, the murder was done to silence him.
Now the big conundrum was finally answered. Now I knew what Stinnes had been doing in Mexico City. He’d been sent there to set up Biedermann, and Biedermann was being made ready for this murder for which I’d be blamed. Of course they’d not let Stinnes know the whole plan; that was not the KGB way. Communism has never escaped that conspiratorial climate in which it was born, and in the field even senior KGB officers are kept to their individual tasks. But what care and attention they put into their tasks. Even while I was sitting there frozen with anxiety, and twisted up with indecision, I had to admire the scheme that had trapped me. The KGB were not noted for their brilliant ideas, but their dogged planning, determination and attention to detail could often make something out of a lousy idea.
Well, the mouse was nearing the end of the maze. Now I knew what trap faced me. But surely to God no one in London Central would believe that I could be a KGB agent, and certainly not one who’d murder Biedermann or MacKenzie in cold blood. But then I remembered the way that Frank had wrung out his conscience to give me a chance to run off to Moscow. There could be nothing more sincere than that; Frank had risked his job, his chances of a K and his pension for me. Even Frank believed I might be guilty, and he’d known me since I was in my cradle. I wouldn’t get the benefit of the doubt from those stoney-faced Oxbridge men in London Central.
20
And when finally I got back to London I was surprised to find a woman in my bed. Well, that’s not precisely true. The woman was Tessa my sister-in-law, and she wasn’t exactly in my bed; she was sleeping in the spare room. And I wasn’t surprised either; there was a note on the hall-stand telling me she was sleeping there.
It was early in the morning. She came downstairs in her magnificent floral dressing gown to find me in the front room. Her long blonde hair was dishevelled and her eyelids were still heavy with sleepiness. There is a curious intimacy about seeing a woman’s face without make-up. Tessa looked pale, especially round her eyes where there was usually shadow and darkened eyebrows and blackened lashes. It was the face of a sleepy child but no less attractive for that. I’d never before realized how beautiful she was; George was a lucky man, but there were too many other men equally lucky.
‘Bernard. We thought you were never coming back. The children keep asking me…’
‘I’m sorry, Tessa. I’ve come straight from the airport.’
‘Nanny gets nervous here on her own, then the children recognize that, and they get frightened too. It’s stupid, but she’s such a good girl with the children. She doesn’t get much time to herself. I moved into the boxroom. You said that I could use it.’
‘Of course I did. Any time. Thanks for looking after them,’ I said. I took off my hat and coat and threw them on to an armchair. Then I sat down on the sofa.
‘Did they give you breakfast on the plane?’
‘Nothing fit for human consumption.’
‘Do you want coffee?’ She fiddled with her hair as if suddenly aware that it was disarrayed.
‘Desperately.’
‘And orange juice? It will take time for the coffee to drip through.’
‘Does David know I’m away so much?’
‘He was furious. He threatened to come here and take the children. That was another reason why I stayed here. Nanny wouldn’t be able to stand up to him.’ Furtively she looked at herself in the mirror and straightened the dressing gown. ‘I’m planning to take the children to my cousin’s house on Friday…perhaps you’d prefer that I didn’t, now that you’re home.’ Hastily she added, ‘She has three children, big garden, lots of toys. We were going to stay there over the school holiday.’
‘I have to go back to Mexico,’ I said. ‘Don’t change your plans.’
She bent over me and touched my face in a gesture of great affection. ‘I know you love the children. They know it too. You have to do your work, Bernard. Don’t worry.’ She went into the kitchen and rattled bottles and glasses and cups and saucers. When she came back she was holding a tray with a half-filled bottle of champagne. There was also a jug containing water into which a can-shaped slug of frozen orange juice
was trying to melt. ‘How do you like your orange juice?’ she said. ‘Diluted with champagne or straight?’
‘Champagne? At this time in the morning I thought they served it in ladies’ slippers.’
‘It was in the fridge, left over from last night. I split a bottle with nanny but we didn’t finish it. The bubbles stay if you put it straight back into the fridge after pouring. I brought a case with me when I came. I had a big bust-up with George and I thought, why leave all the champers there?’
‘A permanent bust-up?’
‘Who knows? George was shouting. He doesn’t often shout.’
‘Did he go to South Africa?’
She poured some champagne for both of us. ‘I told you all that, didn’t I?…Phoning the hotel in Italy and asking for Mrs Kozinski. Was it terribly tiresome of me to burden you with all that?’
‘Did he go?’ I stirred the frozen juice and poured some into both glasses. I was too damned puritanical to drink champagne so early in the morning, but adding the orange juice made it seem permissible.
‘No, he sent his general manager instead. It shows that there must have been another woman.’
‘I don’t follow the logic of that,’ I said. I tasted the champagne mixture.
‘The other woman would have been furious had he turned her down and taken his wife instead. His only way out of trouble was not to go at all.’
‘I wish I could help,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure that you could, Bernard.’ She looked at her watch. ‘The coffee will only take a moment or so.’
‘I’ll speak to George.’
‘I’m sure you’ve got all sorts of worries of your own.’
‘No,’ I said resolutely. Good old Bernard, always has time to help his fellow humans no matter what threatens. Or was I just trying to convince myself?