(2013) Collateral Damage

by Colin Smith

  When he had finished explaining why he had come to this conclusion Fitchett said: 'Do you mind if we come round and take a statement?'

  'Not at all. To tell you the truth, Inspector (it is Inspector isn't it?), I'm surprised you're not already here. In the circumstances I thought that the first people you would suspect would be me and my friends. That's why I'm telling you this. I rather like living in London.'

  'Very pleased to hear it, sir. Are you at your home address? We'll be round in about twenty minutes.'

  'Smooth bastard, wasn't he,' said the Sergeant, who had been listening on an extension.

  'By your standards, son, he was practically the Pope.'

  The Sergeant coloured. The old fart was always telling him what a bonehead he was. If he was so clever why wasn't he more senior?

  Fitchett was back on the telephone, asking the operator to connect him with the head of West Midlands Special Branch at his office in Sutton Coldfield. He told him about Dove. Then he and the Sergeant went downstairs where a car was waiting.

  The publisher repeated to the policeman what he had told them on the telephone. He didn't tell them of the addresses in Beirut he had given the schoolteacher. He simply wanted to cover himself; he had no particular interest in seeing him caught. When Fitchett returned there was a telex message waiting for him from the West Midlands office. It confirmed that Dove had taken leave of absence and told friends he was taking an extended holiday which would probably include a tour of the Middle East. 'For Christ's sake, why didn't somebody stop him?', Fitchett asked.

  A check on airline offices revealed that an S. Dove had been a passenger on a flight to Paris on the evening of the attack on the cabinet minister's daughter. A cross-check with Immigration at Heathrow, who had a note of his passport number, confirmed that this was the same Stephen Dove. Further investigation showed that he had caught an Air France flight from Charles de Gaulle to Beirut that morning. The policeman looked at his watch. If the flight was on schedule he had landed half an hour ago. They checked again. It was. Interpol was informed and, because he always suspected that years of Parisian lunches had slowed down those bureaucrats, Fitchett also asked the Lebanese embassy in London and the British embassy in Beirut to encourage the Lebanese police to find Mr Dove as quickly as possible. He didn't really hold out much hope. After the civil war a gendarmerie as such had practically ceased to exist in Lebanon.

  When they had finished doing all this it was early evening and Fitchett was lost behind a smoke-screen of his own making, his jacket over the back of a chair, his sleeves rolled up, a full ashtray by the telephone. Like most Special Branch officers, he had spent most of his career in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan police and had never taken a bribe although he had frequently heard of them being taken and kept his mouth shut. He had first served in the Branch some twelve years before, recruited mostly on the grounds that he had learned German as a Military Policeman in occupied Germany, but he had to go back to the CID or he would have missed a promotion. When the Branch expanded as a result of the Irish troubles and a general increase in terrorism, there was a job waiting for him. He accepted immediately and hoped to stay with them until retirement. He was different from most of his contemporaries in that he preferred pitting his wits against well-educated politicos - he had left school at fifteen himself - than against the 'ordinary decent criminals' some of them pined for. And thanks to Koller and people like him, the Branch had far more scope than it had when he first served in it.

  In those days, its main function was to be the executive arm for the mysterious gentlemen in MIS, the security service, who would tell them to follow people about or arrest them. To a certain extent they still worked for the 'Funnies', as Fitchett called them. But nowadays they had more autonomy. They initiated far more of their own investigations and had the funds for a much larger network of informers than they ever had before. They had even taken onto the payroll a member of the central committee of the Pure Earth Republican People's Party, though Fitchett thought it was the biggest waste of public money since they started keeping murderers alive.

  The Sergeant brought in two plastic cups of steaming tea. He was feeling quite pleased with himself. It wasn't the Palestinians. It was a lone nutter. The old fart was wrong.

  'It seems the Dove has flown, then,' he said. He had been rehearsing the line.

  'I was hoping, I was really hoping,' sighed Fitchett, 'that you weren't going to say that.'

  The schoolteacher's photograph arrived on his desk. Copies of it were to be wired to Interpol and Beirut. A note came down from the head of the Branch directing that nothing should be released to the press for the time being. T'he Commander thought there would be considerable public sympathy for a bereaved husband and it could get in the way of the investigation. 'Some hope,' thought Fitchett. Every popular newspaper in Fleet Street had a paid informer at the Yard.

  The detective held Dove's photograph, it was a blow-up of his passport picture, in his two hands and studied it carefully. 'You silly bugger,' he thought. 'You poor silly bugger. If you get anywhere near Koller he'll spit you out in bits.'

  He looked again. 'He won't be expecting you though, will he, lad,' he said aloud. 'He won't be expecting you.'

  PART TWO

  1. A Meeting

  Graham Le Poidevin, the waiter used as the cut-out, lived some distance from his place of work in a grey, highrise block in one of Paris's newer suburbs. It was, thought Koller, of the we-knowwhat's-best-for-you school of architecture: the middle class deciding how the workers should live.

  It had not been difficult to follow the waiter home on the Metro at the end of his day-shift. The fat man was relaxed, unsuspicious. He rightly regarded his involvement in Koller's demi-monde as peripheral and didn't want to know what the coded messages he passed on were about. This attitude left him with a certain peace of mind; he did not feel the need to look over his shoulder.

  The tailing went very smoothly for the terrorist until he entered the stained lobby of the apartment block just in time to see the waiter squeeze himself between the closing doors of the lift. There were ten floors and as Koller watched, hands jammed into the pockets of a zippered leather jerkin, the lights on the floor indicator showed that the lift was stopping at every one.

  Koller was very cross with himself. He should have closed up over the last two hundred yards. He estimated that there were at least one hundred apartments in this particular rabbits' hutch. Across the lobby, with its faint smell of disinfectant and municipal indifference, there were row upon row of scratched green metal mail-boxes with the name and flat number of a tenant on every one. The trouble was he didn't know the waiter's name.

  Koller retraced his steps to a bar he remembered seeing almost opposite the exit of the local Metro station. Inside it was dark and furnished in the half-hearted mid-Adantic style typical of the Fifth Republic. There was a long bar along which were a row of stools on stainless steel stems. There were also round, formica-topped tables and in a corner an illuminated juke-box playing a country-and-western weepie. Around the juke-box were seated three youths, more or less identically dressed in olive-green anoraks and jeans, drinking beer. The biggest had his feet up on a chair and was practising blowing cigarette smoke down his nose. They gave the German a hard look when he first came in, but seemed to think better of it and concentrated again on their manly props. They were the only other customers. He ordered a large cognac from the Algerian barman, who surfaced reluctantly from the Simenon he was reading, asked for the telephone directory and looked up the cafe where the waiter worked. There was a pay-phone on the wall at the end of the bar and the Algerian gave him a couple of jetons.

  It was a long time before anyone bothered to answer Koller's call and then he had to shout over the buzz from the evening's trade at the other end of the line. 'One of your waiters lent me his lighter this afternoon,' he said in his accented French. 'Yes, that's right, a lighter. A gold one - a Dunhill. I'm afraid wh
en I left I rather absent-mindedly picked it up with my cigarettes. Look, I'm leaving Paris tomorrow, but I'll post it back to him. Yes, I'll post the lighter back to him.'

  There was no sound-proofing around the telephone. He was conscious that the music had stopped and that the yobos in the corner and the Algerian behind the bar were listening to his unlikely story.

  'Could you tell me his name, please? Yes, I'll tell you what he looks like. He's a big man, a bit fat, about fifty I suppose. Combs his hair straight back. Who? Le Poidevin? An Englishman? Oh, I see. A Channel Islander. Is he there now? Well, please tell him it'll be in the post. Thanks.'

  He put the receiver down, took another sip of his brandy and pulled a packet of cigarettes out. The Algerian proffered a light from a packet of book-matches. 'No Dunhills here,' he grinned. 'Very wise,' said Koller, controlling his temper and taking the light. The mini-thugs in the corner were still staring at him. He could see they were thinking they had misjudged him. Anyone soft enough to return a gold lighter to a complete stranger was probably worth taking on.

  Ordinarily Koller would have enjoyed it. He would have loved to see the pain and surprise come over their mean little faces as he taught them a thing or two about unarmed combat. But this evening he had work to do and he had already attracted enough attention. He finished his brandy and turned to the barman. 'Where's the nearest Metro?'

  The Algerian looked surprised. 'Across the road.'

  'Of course. Seems to be my day for forgetting things.'

  He paid for the drink and walked towards the door, trying not to make any eye contact with the trio in the corner. He noticed that the biggest one, the one with his boots on the chair, was now drinking his beer from the bottle.

  Outside, Koller hesitated for a moment and then walked alongside the bar window in the direction of the Metro. Next door to the bar there was a recessed shop doorway that went back about six feet. He went in there and waited with his back against the glass door of the shop, which he noticed was a men's boutique called Carnaby. From it he could look through the shop, behind the clothes in the window display to the door of the bar. Presently the smallest and, judging from cheeks that looked as if they had never felt a razor, the youngest of the teenagers emerged. He stood with his thumbs hooked over the waistband of his jeans and a fresh kingsize smouldering between his lips.

  Koller was carrying two weapons. The .44 snub-nosed Magnum in the waist and of his trousers, the butt barely concealed by the bottom of his jerkin, and a flick-knife in his trouser pocket. It was the knife he brought out now, but he didn't open it. If it came to it he hoped that the click and the flash of a genuine switchblade might be enough to frighten these children away. After all, this wasn't Marseilles. Koller watched the boy, thinking how it was always the smallest or weakest who wanted to fight, wanted to prove he was as good as they were.

  The boy stood there smoking and looking in the direction of the Metro entrance. Behind him the bar door must have been open, for Koller could hear his friends calling to him. Another record started on the juke-box. The youth seemed to regard this as a signal that he had been out-voted and with the cigarette still in his mouth sauntered back into the bar. The terrorist heaved a sigh of relief, and pocketed the knife. The older boys had obviously decided their beer was more interesting than a wild-goosechase down the Metro. He waited a few seconds and then started walking back towards the block where the man he now knew was called Le Poidevin lived. When he got there he checked the mail-boxes. Le Poidevin was on the ninth floor.

  The waiter was wearing a maroon velvet smoking-jacket when he came to the door and an open-necked white frilly evening shirt. A gold medallion on a gold chain nested in the greying hairs of his chest. In his arms he carried a Siamese cat with a red collar about its neck which stared at Koller with evil blue eyes. For a moment the two men looked at each other in mutual astonishment. Then Koller said: 'Are you two alone? I'd like a few words.'

  Le Poidevin motioned him inside and closed the door behind him. The Siamese sprang out of his arms and ran off somewhere. The sitting room which he ushered the German into had a white fitted carpet and was furnished in stripe-upholstered reproduction Louis Quinze. There were several statues and paintings of golden youths about the place which, together with his off-duty costume, left little doubt as to their owner's sexual preference.

  Koller sat on the edge of an armchair; the waiter spread himself on a chaise-longue. 'Why are you here?' The accent was basically Parisian. Only a hint of foreignness remained.

  'I'd like you to tell me one or two things, M'sieu Le Poidevin.'

  'I can't tell you anything. You should know that. You'll get yourself into trouble coming here.'

  'Trouble from whom?'

  'Don't be silly.'

  Nevertheless, the fat man's attitude was one of benign curiosity. Poor confused boy, he thought, how on earth did he come to be involved? Not that he was really a boy; tough-looking, too. They had both lit up cigarettes. Le Poidevin went to a sideboard and produced a bottle of Calvados and two glasses. 'Do you like this stuff?'

  The German nodded.

  'How did you find out where I live, my name?'

  'I followed you.'

  'But my name. How did you ...'

  'I think I'd better ask the questions.'

  Le Poidevin, who had just returned his bulk to the chaise longue, stood up. 'Look here. I think if you're going to be rude I must ask you to leave.'

  Koller stared up at him, his hands resting lightly on his knees. 'Sit down. I said, sit down.'

  The waiter hesitated for a moment, then sat down and drained most of his glass. Somehow it failed to warm him. 'Who are you? Some kind of policeman? Your accent isn't French. It sounds...'

  'I said I'll ask the questions,' said Koller, helping himself to a glass of the apple brandy. He sipped at his drink for a moment, then rose and walked across to the window. It was the sliding sort in an aluminium frame. Koller opened it and looked out. Across the street was a similar block, with rooms made furtive by the blue glow from television screens. Below, street-lights illuminated a small lawn, a low wall and cars parked either side of the street.

  'Hot, isn't it?' said Koller pleasantly.

  The waiter didn't reply, just sat on the couch trying to fight down the waves of fear that had already turned his palms moist. 'Come and have a look at the view,' said Koller, gently. He was standing side on to the window so that the fat man was always in vision.

  'I've already seen it,' said Le Poidevin, failing to keep the fear out of his voice.

  'Please, I would like you to have another look.'

  The waiter pulled himself to his feet, eyed the door, calculated correctly that he would never be quick enough and walked slowly towards the window. This was ridiculous, he thought. He had never done this fellow any harm. All he had done was pass him messages, coded messages that he couldn't make head or tail of. He'd never even taken as much as a tip from him, not as much as a sou. He tried to compose his fleshy features. 'If you insist,' he said.

  Koller put an avuncular arm around the waiter and they stood there for a moment peering into the night. In the middle distance they could see the lights of a plane coming in to land. 'Do you like flying?', asked the German, still at his most anodyne. 'Not particularly. I don't do it much.'

  'That's a pity,' said Koller, 'a great pity, because if you don't tell me precisely what I want to know I'm going to throw you out of this window.'

  Le Poidevin looked at his tormentor, the fair hair, the crazy, pale blue eyes, and knew he had been right to be frightened.

  'Please, let's sit down.'

  'Not before you tell me who gives you the messages you pass onto me.'

  With his hand still on his shoulder Koller could feel Le Poidevin tense and he sensed that he was about to make a run for it. He pulled the fat little .44 from his waistband and caressed the fat man's cheek with it. Le Poidevin gasped.

  'His name is Fouche-Larimand - Comte Christian FoucheLar
imand.'

  Koller motioned the waiter back to the chaise-longue and again sat opposite him in the easy chair, the pistol resting lightly on his lap.

  'Who the hell,' said Koller, 'is Comte Christian Fouche-Larimand?'

  'You don't know him?'

  The German shook his head.

  'It's a long story. Can I have a drink?'

  'As much as you like.'

  2. A Sad Tale

  Le Poidevin refilled both glasses and began his story. It was really quite a simple tale of blackmail and treachery, but the waiter was often discursive, sometimes, especially when the Calvados began to bite, tearful and a couple of times downright evasive until Koller forced him back to the point.

  The gist of the story, as later relayed by Koller to his masters in Beirut and elsewhere, was this. The waiter was born in Guernsey. His father had been killed on the Somme with most of the local regiment, and he had been brought up by his widowed mother, who doted on him. They lived in a parish where, in the twenties and the thirties, the native French patois was still strong, and he had never really been comfortable in English.

  By his late teens Le Poidevin realised that he was, as he put it, different from other men. He took to hanging around those pubs in St Peter Port patronized by the old sweats from the local garrison or the crews off visiting Royal Navy ships. He was eighteen when the war started and had wanted to enlist in the Navy, but his mother kicked up a dreadful fuss at being left alone so he stayed at home while many of the boys he had been to school with were doing their basic training in England. Eventually, he could stand it no longer, and in the early spring of 1940 he went into town and took his medical at the Navy recruiting office there. He passed, but there was awaiting period before the next local intake were sent to Portsmouth. He was still waiting for his RN travel warrant when France collapsed and the Germans arrived.