LeClerc waited for an explanation.
"Some of the royalty payments," Bernier murmured, "are sent direct to a clinic in the Alps."
Like peeling an onion, LeClerc thought, remove one skin and you find another, each so like the one before that it was hard to tell them apart. But where did it get them?
They worked for another hour. Bernier produced a list of the company's customers, amongst them the government departments who had provided Hayes with so much of his business. And behind that list was another - this time the names of the people who ran those government departments. Slowly the files transferred from Bernier's side of the desk to LeClerc's, file after file and list after list. Occasionally the men would pause to discuss a point and back-track to an earlier file - only then to start a new list of unanswered queries. Nine o'clock became half past and that in turn became ten. Bernier had worked for hours without rest and finally LeClerc took pity on him. LeClerc was tired himself, tired and dispirited and, almost to his surprise, hungry. He considered whether to phone Madelaine - perhaps suggest they go out to supper, just the two of them - but he dismissed the idea. His mood was wrong - he was too on edge to enjoy it - dammit, soon he would even feel guilty, knowing that Ross was in England eating his heart out for news. News? There was no news, nothing worth reporting. Bernier had taken the company apart and found nothing - just a well-run business with nothing to hide.
At ten fifteen he sent Bernier home and had one of the detectives drive him to the La Pactole, a little bistro on the left bank where he resigned himself to the prospect of a solitary meal. It was the best way - it gave him time to brood without needing to make conversation. He ordered pastilia and half a bottle of burgundy and settled back in his chair to think about a man called Hayes. The character of the man - that's what was important. What kind of man was he? A man with a partner in the Swiss Alps and racehorses in Ireland and a smart house in England. An international man with a business in the Far East and a girlfriend in Paris. A girlfriend in Paris! Monique Debray! Bernier had never mentioned her, not once had her name cropped up or shown itself on a list or appeared on a file. Bernier had interviewed all of the managers, but had never mentioned the girl. Yet her photograph had stared at them all evening. Monique Debray who was on file at Bampton House. Yet nothing was known about her and the only reason she made the file at all was because she was listed as Hayes's constant companion, which certainly meant mistress. Hayes's mistress! LeClerc cursed himself for being a fool. Hadn't Brand claimed to have introduced them? With Katoul at Henley? As a friend of Katoul's, meeting Hayes for the first time and briefly at that.
He bolted his pigeon pie and finished the wine at a gulp, and hurried back to where the detective waited in the car. He took the Bampton House file from his locked briefcase. Somewhere was her address - somewhere - somewhere. At last he found it. An apartment in a fashionable part of the city. By the time they reached the factory LeClerc had dictated precise instructions to his driver. Go first to the home of Monsieur Bernier to confirm that no contact has been made with the girl Monique Debray. Then take a squad of four men to her apartment and bring her back to the factory for questioning. "And hurry, man - hurry!"
2100 Saturday
They had the nets out and lamps suspended over the side in the traditional manner of night fishermen everywhere. But it was not fish they sought. Big Reilly walked back to the deckhouse on the Aileen Maloney and cursed all Arabs to damnation. For the tenth time in an hour he checked their position against the spot marked on the chart and told himself that he had been tricked. There was no marker. Neither was there the five thousand rounds of ammunition which had been part of the deal. He swore bitterly and told the helmsman to go round again - to "give it one last try." Then he turned on his heel and rejoined the men in the bows as they stared down into the black water.
The Aileen Maloney swung slowly in an arc and retraced her passage through the choppy seas. Reilly had men fore and aft, keen-eyed men used to the ways of the sea, but after searching for the yellow marker buoy for more than an hour they were all tired and depressed. The prospect of turning for Conlaragh and a welcoming woman in a warm bed became more appealing by the minute. "One last time," Reilly encouraged and one last time they agreed it would be. A squall of rain beat down and seagulls screeched low over the water in search of fish drawn by the lights, as the wind howled and the men shivered with the raw cold of the night.
Reilly wondered whether the marker might have broken away from its anchorage and drifted away, dragging its precious consignment with it. But he calculated the weight of the ammunition and thought it unlikely, even though the sea had been running fast for the past few days. He laughed aloud, a bitter laugh, empty of humour. There was no buoy - didn't he know that in his heart? Hadn't he suspected the trick for long enough now? Once more he squinted into the black night and cursed all Arabs - and it was then that he saw it - bobbing aimlessly, barely on the surface, ten yards away and at the very edge of the light. "Stop engines," he roared.
They hooked the buoy with a line at the second attempt, and marker and boat drew alongside each other. The man aft started the motor for the winch and eager hands linked the line to the heavier lifting tackle. The cold was suddenly forgotten. Excited shouts rose to mingle with the screams of the gulls as ten feet of rope disappeared over the side and the winch started hauling back in. The men clustered at the boat's gunnels and willing hands lent power to the winch. Then the black surface of water broke - and Brady's body emerged, feet first. Big Reilly had six men on board - seven counting himself. They laid the bloated and mutilated body carefully out on to the deck. Sight of it made the younger men retch to the pits of their stomachs. Reilly turned the body over - to avoid looking at the decimated face where the fish had been - and then he found the knife wounds which removed any last doubt about how Brady had died. Murdered by the Arabs! Horror turned to burning temper which fused with a hatred so black that Reilly almost lost control of his limbs. He shook with anger and vowed to head straight back to Conlaragh. He would drive through the night to Dublin and pick up their trail from there.
But the winch still turned and another body broke the surface. Reilly knew it would be Liam's. Finding Brady had told him that Liam would follow. Rain and tears wet his cheeks as, with the gentleness typical of big men, Reilly laid his brother's body out on the deck. He forced himself to look into the face and groaned aloud. Oh Liam, did I do that to you? Was it me who sent you to Copenhagen to meet those murdering bastards? Oh Liam - forgive me, forgive me, even though I'll never be able to forgive myself.
But still the winch turned. The oilskin covered crate weighed half a ton it seemed, and all hands were needed to lift it on board. Reilly turned away - no longer concerned about the ammunition - sick with grief for his dead brother. Why, he asked himself, why? Why kill Liam and Brady in the first place? And why arrange for their murdered bodies to be found in so cruel a way as this? Didn't they realise he would come after them? Didn't they realise he would follow them to the ends of the earth to take his revenge? Were they that sure of themselves? That sure? The answer tore at his brain and he swung back to the men crouched round the crate - words of warning already springing to his lips. But he was too late. The oilskin cover had already been stripped away and one of the men already had the metal lid half open.
The explosion tore the Aileen Maloney apart. The deckhouse blew out like matchwood and the hole in the deck broke the back of the boat in two. Most of the men round the crate were killed instantly and part of the metal lid caught Reilly across the throat, severing his neck like a blow from a sword. He reeled drunkenly, the light fading from his eyes, blood covering his chest in gushes, pulsing between his clutching fingers until it reached his elbows. He felt weak, too weak to stand, pitching forward like a novice in a rowing boat. The gulls screeched and the wind roared in his ears, and water rushed into the boat as if through a sieve. Big Reilly lay next to his brother, one arm thrown across the younger man's shoul
ders as if in a final act of protection. All of the men were dead and a minute later the engines fell forward through the collapsing hull, and the Aileen Maloney died too.
2330 Saturday
LeClerc was a pacer. When something perplexed him he would clasp his hands behind his back and pace up and down, with his head inclined forward so that his chin rested on his chest and his gaze fixed just far enough ahead to ensure clear passage for his feet. Rooms were crossed and criss-crossed until he knew every thread of carpet, so that gradually the size of the office registered in his subconscious, the placement of the furniture, the distance from door to windows, the space between the alcoves and the length of each wall. He paced like a caged animal and all the time he thought of the man whose office it once had been and of a girl called Monique Debray.
After half an hour of such exercise the wine consumed earlier reached his bladder and he needed to relieve himself. The physical need annoyed him. Bodily functions were a nuisance, a distraction, they interrupted a line of thought, interfered with the careful piecing together of the jigsaw. The jigsaw of the character of this man Hayes. The man who had furnished this office with such taste - the elegant man who had been murdered in the muddy waters of the Thames - the man who . .. dammit! It was no good, LeClerc had to go in search of le lavabo.
Finding one was harder than anticipated. The office on the other side of the corridor quite clearly belonged to a secretary, and the one next to that was a general typing pool. LeClerc made his way down the corridor, his pace increasing as his need became more urgent. Beyond the typing pool two offices had a smaller room jammed between them in which a secretary would work to serve two masters. On the right-hand side was the boardroom, another lavish affair furnished much in the style of Hayes's own office, beyond that a supply closet and then a small office which was completely unfurnished. LeClerc hurried past two more offices, one on each side of the corridor, until, almost at the head of the stairs, he saw two doors marked Dames and Messieurs. He bolted in with a sigh of relief. After he had washed his hands and dried them on a crisply-starched roller towel, he stepped back into the corridor. Hayes's office was at the very far end. LeClerc sighed, dropped back into his pacing position and shambled back down the corridor - his mind already retracing his earlier thoughts like a finger finding a page in a book.
The character of the man. An international man. A rich man. A busy man - a man used to getting his own way - used to his comforts. LeClerc stopped. It seemed such a preposterous thought - but why would a busy man have the nearest lavabo thirty-five or forty meters away? A man who liked his comfort. A man with power to change such a simple but such a fundamental thing. Why walk forty meters to relieve yourself and stand in the next stall to the office boy? It was out of character.
At first he was disinclined to take his own thoughts seriously. Probably there was another washroom at this end of the corridor, one he had missed in his haste. But when he could find no trace of one - even after checking for a second time - he became increasingly curious. The thought tugged at his mind like a fretful child at a mother's sleeve. It was quite absurd of course . . . but all the same?
He retraced his steps to the washroom at the far end, counting as he went. Thirty-eight meters. Hayes would walk further than any employee. LeClerc began to pace out the other offices, the big one at the end, the empty one, even the stationery store which was no more than a very large cupboard; and with every step he told himself he was wasting his time. But in the boardroom he paused long enough to pick up a scrap of paper on which he jotted the measurements, roughing out a floor layout as he went. He concentrated entirely on the right hand side of the corridor, being the side which housed Hayes's office. And when he finished, the results astounded him. The figures were unbalanced. A corridor thirty-eight meters long and yet the sum total of the interiors of the offices measured only thirty. He calculated the width of the dividing walls - over-allowing just to make sure - just to throw the last bucket of cold water over his rising suspicions. But by no stretch of his imagination could five partitioning walls be eight meters thick. There had to be another room! A hidden room! His suspicions grew to convictions and convictions grew to certainty.
Back in Hayes's office he tapped the paneling like a doctor examining a patient's chest. He stood on a chair to reach the highest points and he sank to his knees to test the skirting board. He removed the Guardi and examined its mountings, unscrewing the picture lights with his nail file before probing the cornice at the ceiling and examining the floorboards at the bottom. He worked for half an hour - and found nothing.
Bleak with disappointment he fell into the chair behind the desk and thought about it. Hayes had been some kind of electronics genius, hadn't he? Whereas LeClerc himself knew next to nothing on the subject. But he was convinced that hidden behind the paneling lay another room. A room with a door which opened electronically? Could that be it? There were such devices - garage doors opened electronically and . . . LeClerc cursed himself for a fool. Electronic security systems accounted for half the factory's turnover. How else would a man like Hayes protect himself from prying eyes?
He began to search the desk - searching for what he couldn't have said. Some kind of switch, a button perhaps, a lever, a key, a laser beam? Something, anything with which to find and open that door. By now it was almost midnight, but he felt wide awake. Dammit - hadn't he been sleeping? Listening to old Bernier droning on about employee records and profit and loss accounts - as if Hayes had been some kind of petty crook.
He found it in the second drawer of the right-hand pedestal. It made sense for it to be in the desk. Hayes would want it close to hand. It was in character. Really it was quite simple. Open the drawer halfway and nothing happened - except that various papers were revealed and enough space was provided for things to be put in and taken out again. But LeClerc wanted more than that. He had already taken every drawer out of the left-hand pedestal to examine their undersides and their backs - just in case a key of some kind had been taped to the surface. But as he pulled this drawer to a point beyond that normally reached in everyday use - he felt and heard the click. He spun in the chair to look at the wall behind him. A gap in the paneling - a gap three meters wide. The door to the hidden room!
He was right, there was a lavatory. Six meters square makes quite a large room. Large enough for a lavatory and sink, and a shelf full of colognes and silver-backed hairbrushes. And large enough for the spiral staircase in the corner.
He sniffed as he climbed the wrought-iron stairs. It was a familiar smell. One he had met all too often in the course of his career. Even the air-conditioning which chilled the whole place to morgue temperature could not disguise the smell of death.
But there was no sign of death in the small sitting room at the top of the stairs. Not amongst the Chinese newspapers on the coffee-table, or in the Chinese books on the shelves. Nor even in the picture of Chairman Mao smiling down from the wall - though he had been dead for at least two years.
In one corner was a radio transmitter which looked powerful enough to beam halfway round the world, but apart from that there was nothing unusual about the furnishings. A couch, two armchairs, a coffee-table, bookshelves and bric-a-brac. All of which so lacked the elegance of the room downstairs that it might have belonged to another man.
As LeClerc turned for the door he caught sight of a framed photograph which had fallen to the floor behind a chair. It was face upwards and as he bent over it he was able to see it without picking it up. Monique Debray smiled back at him from beneath a floppy hat. Dressed in a pretty blue frock, she clung to the man beside her as if afraid of losing him. But Tubby Hayes wasn't going anywhere - at least not now. And on the other side of him stood Suzy Katoul, smiling in that half sneering way which characterised every picture he had seen of her. LeClerc stared for a moment before turning to examine the other man in the photograph. Tall and dark and dressed in a pale grey suit, good-looking in a taunting cruel way which some women found att
ractive. LeClerc had never seen him before - he was sure of that, but whoever he was he certainly was not Harry Brand.
The bathroom was empty. He pushed the door open with his foot and stood in the entrance, fixing the scene in his mind. A bath with a shower attachment, a matching hand basin, lavatory and bidet. So much pink enamel against so many black tiles. A glass-fronted wall cabinet with a razor socket. Black carpet, white ceiling.
He put a handkerchief to his nose and turned slowly to make his way to the bedroom. He was in no hurry and whoever it was in there had waited a few days already. The room was a mess. Discarded clothing lay everywhere on the floor. Mainly women's clothing, but he noticed a man's jacket thrown down beside the bed. Dressing-table drawers had been wrenched from the cabinet and their contents were littered beneath the mirror like a stall at a jumble sale. Something crunched under his foot and, looking down, he found that he had trodden on a woman's watch. Slowly he raised his eyes back to the bed.
Monique Debray was completely naked. She lay spreadeagled across the bed, her wrists tied to the headboard and her ankles secured to the bottom rail. Cigarette burns were still visible on her darkening skin - up the insides of her thighs, low on her stomach and in a blistered rash around her breasts. Her face was badly bruised and her lips were pulled back on her teeth in a grin of frightening viciousness. A syringe lay on the bedside table, next to an ashtray full of discarded cigarettes.
LeClerc studied the body for several minutes. It would have taken her a long time to die, a very long time. Death, when it came, must have been a merciful release. He wondered what secrets had been stored behind those pretty blue eyes that someone should have gone to such lengths to prize them from her. Then he turned and walked slowly back to the sitting room, where he nodded thoughtfully to Chairman Mao and continued on down the spiral staircase - and back into the office that had once belonged to a man called Hayes.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 25