by Colin Forbes
'He's not very bright about women,' she'd explained. 'I didn't like my mother. All she thought about was mixing with so-called high society. My step-mother turned out to be a disaster area as far as I was concerned. Wanted me out of the way.' Lara had mimicked her: 'My dear, the duty of an attractive girl in your position is to find some wealthy young man with prospects. Love doesn't come into it. You can get that elsewhere later. If you must…'
'An absolute bitch,' Lara had continued. 'Having endured a basinful of school, I was packed off to St James's Secretarial College in South Ken. I found the same empty-headed lot there. I passed top of the course and was supposed to get some job as PA to an executive type, preferably a bachelor. I rebelled…'
'You're politically aware?' Klein had asked.
'You must be joking.' She'd blown cigarette smoke into the air between courses. 'I'm aware politics is a bloody bore. Just a pack of self-seeking second-raters trying to ingratiate themselves with the voters – and the people higher up who could lift them into a good position. My grandfather was right.'
'Your grandfather?'
'On my father's side. The brains ran out after that. He used to tell me on the quiet, "Lara, go for the money. Don't marry for it. That way lies misery. Find out what you can do well, be unorthodox, travel, get to know the world outside this tight little island. An opportunity will crop up. Trick is to spot it when it does."'
'Your grandfather was right,' Klein had agreed. 'Maybe one day I'll be able to show you that opportunity. We'll keep in touch. Time to send you home now…'
Lara had asked how she could contact him. He'd drawn back from that one. The other way round, he said. He would contact her one day. She'd given this marvellous man her address in Eaton Square and her phone number. He'd kissed her on the cheek before leaving her at the entrance to her apartment block. No attempt to fondle her.
She'd finished her secretarial course, never ceasing to despise the empty chatter of her fellow pupils. Her coming-out party, insisted on by Lady Windermere, had been pure agony.
'This occasion,' the tall handsome step-mother, had remarked, 'is where you may find the right man. Do put yourself out to attract a few prospects.'
'If you say so…'
Of course, it was Robin, Lady Windermere's son by her previous marriage to Lord Windermere – killed in a car crash – who got all the attention. His mother was very ambitious for Robin, the present Lord Windermere. 'With a lot of luck, a bit of judicious seduction at the right moment, he'll land an American heiress.'
Oh, my God, Lara thought, that went out with Henry James. For a few minutes, in the privacy of her bedroom at Eaton Square, she'd looked critically at herself in the mirror. The image staring back was of a slim girl, five feet seven, a good figure, shapely legs, and her crowning glory – thick shoulder-length auburn hair. A girl who stood erect and with a rather aggressive stance. What does my future hold, she wondered?
Pictures of her appeared in The Tatter at parties she hated, always with some idiot man grinning foolishly. Lady Windermere glowed each time. 'You're getting known. It won't be long now…'
You just want to get rid of me, Lara thought. To sever the last link my simple-minded father has with the past. My presence is a bloody nuisance to her – because I always outshine bloody Robin. I really must get away before this atmosphere suffocates me.
Klein kept in touch with occasional phone calls. 'I'm in Brussels,' he would say. 'Saw your picture in that magazine…' He'd chat on, and always closed with, 'I'm moving on tonight. Don't ask where. Be in touch…'
Two years passed since her first meeting with Klein. She got away from Eaton Square by taking secretarial jobs on the continent in Switzerland and Germany. A small legacy from her grandfather when he died gave her some financial independence, but she was still looking for the big money which would take her away from Eaton Square for ever. Then the call came from Klein, followed by a registered envelope containing an air ticket for Paris and some spending money. The conversation stunned her. 'Like the chance to make a quarter of a million pounds?'
At the Hotel Crillon in Paris Klein explained. He needed a girl above suspicion who could travel. He was going to hijack a ship. There would be no casualties. Tear-gas would be used to put the crew out of action.
'No more details than that,' he told her. 'This envelope contains the equivalent of four thousand pounds in French currency. That's for expenses. It won't be subtracted from the quarter of a million.'
Over dinner they had been speaking in French. Klein was checking her fluency before he put his proposal to her – and was impressed with her command of the language.
'What do you expect me to do for my fee?' she had asked coolly, talking as though it were an everyday occurrence.
Travel to Marseilles. By train. Buy a good camera, learn how to use it, take pictures of the port, check out security. Go there tomorrow,' he had instructed. 'Stay at the Sofitel. I will contact you
…'
After dinner he suggested they went to his room. She had no hesitation in accepting the invitation. They spent the whole night together. By morning Klein had no doubt Lara was his, body and soul.
All this history of her relationship with Klein drifted across Lara's mind as she waited in the inferno of the heat-laden terrace of Notre Dame de la Garde. Waited for five minutes until Klein was well gone.
A large modern liner appeared through the haze, heading for the docks beyond the fishing harbour. One of the big jobs coming in from Oran, Algeria. One of the passenger ships which plied regularly between Marseilles and North Africa.
To give herself something to do, she raised the camera, adjusted the focus, and took a dozen shots as it loomed larger and larger. She realized suddenly she had run out of film, checked her watch, let the looped camera fall alongside the field-glasses also looped round her neck and left the terrace.
Leon Valmy stepped out of the shadows beside the church, walked slowly after her. A small, spare Frenchman, he had a nose like the beak of a parrot. In fact, his colleagues often referred to him as The Parrot behind his back.
Lara started the long walk down the steep road leading back to the city, watching her step on the uneven paving blocks. The last thing she needed now was a sprained ankle. In the blazing heat of the afternoon there was no one she could see as she continued the descent. Marseilles gradually came up to meet her, a solid mass of shabby, red-tiled rooftops.
She passed an old tank complete with a long gun parked where the street widened. Some memorial to the American landing in the south of France in 1944. She passed it without any interest in reading the plaque. The Parrot, making no sound in rubber-soled shoes, followed a hundred metres behind.
Arriving at the harbour at long last, she walked past the landing-stages where a forest of masts rose, climbed the hill to the Sofitel, a concrete block, collected her room key. On the way to the bank of lifts she paused to look at a huge cactus sprouting from a giant pot.
Behind her, The Parrot whipped out his smaller Voigtlander, aimed it, took three shots of the girl. In case she had seen him out of the corner of her eye, he then swivelled the camera and took three more shots of other pots. When he looked again she had vanished inside an elevator. He walked quickly to the bank, checked the lights. She had got off at the second floor. He returned to the reception counter and spoke to the girl behind the counter.
'The manager. It's urgent…'
'Can I help? He's off duty, taking a siesta.'
'I said it was urgent. Wake him up. Do it. Now!'
She stared resentfully at the small man who wore a pair of dark-tinted glasses. Something about the way he stared back bothered her. She picked up the phone, spoke a few words Valmy couldn't catch, then replaced the receiver.
'He will be here in a minute.'
A portly man, wearing a linen suit, brushing back his hair with his hand, appeared from behind a door. The girl gestured at Valmy.
'What is it?' the manager asked.
; 'DST.' The Parrot showed him a folder. Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. Counter-Espionage. 'You have a girl staying here. Early twenties. Auburn hair. With a room on the second floor. I need to see a copy of her registration slip.'
That is Miss Lara Seagrave. An English girl,' the receptionist said.
'Leave this to me,' the manager snapped. 'Go and get a cup of coffee. Come back in five minutes…'
He had been sorting through a card index box. He brought out a printed form and handed it to The Parrot, who noted the details in his book. He handed back the form, staring hard at the manager.
'I have never been here. Warn your girl. If she opens her mouth she'll be charged with an offence against state security.'
The Parrot walked back down the hill and round the harbour to the infamous Canebiere, the street where a German woman had been robbed of thirty thousand francs crossing it the day before on her way from a bank to Cook's. At five in the afternoon the city was like an oven.
The Parrot had taken up station at Noire Dame de la Garde out of pure chance. Rumours were rife about a plot to hijack a ship. And Miss Lara Seagrave had taken an awful lot of pictures of the harbour from the best vantage point in Marseilles. She'd also studied it carefully through her binoculars.
He mused over the idea until he reached his hotel. It would give him something to report to the rue des Saussaies in Paris. They liked reports – it showed their superiors the agents in the field were active. Then it would be filed away. Forever.
After a meal which took ages to serve, Valmy went up to bed. The heat persisted throughout the night. He had trouble sleeping, rolling from side to side, covered in sweat. That girl came back into his mind. Why?
After breakfast he phoned the manager at the Sofitel. It was the same man. Still feeling it could all be a waste of time, he made his request.
'If Lara Seagrave checks out, I'd like to know – here is my phone number…'
'But she is leaving soon, sir. She has called down for the bill to be made up.'
Thank you…'
The Parrot slammed down the phone, grabbed his bag which he kept packed, went down to the lobby, paid his own bill, rushed out of the hotel and jumped into his hired Deux-Chevaux. It was too early yet for heavy traffic and ten minutes later he parked in the drive to the Sofitel. He was just in time. Within minutes he saw her, carrying a suitcase, climbing into a cab. He followed.
She alighted at the Gare St Charles. He walked after her to the ticket counter, queued behind her. He had changed into a lightweight shabby blue suit and no longer wore his tinted glasses. She bought a one-way ticket to Paris and headed for the platform.
Valmy was careful. The Paris express was not due for another fifteen minutes. He bought a ticket for the first place that came into his head. Aix-en-Provence. Then he strolled on to the platform, standing close to a woman with a child.
Lara slipped the ticket into her purse and casually glanced round, checking the other passengers. A family of three, one man and woman with a child, several men carrying brief-cases, four women on their own. No one she had seen before.
The express arrived, people boarded the train. Lara waited, checking her watch. She glanced round again. Valmy was out of sight, standing by the wall of a waiting room, watching her through the window. Just before the express left, he saw Lara leap aboard, slamming the door behind her. Curious.
He was walking back to his car when he saw the phone box and took his decision. He called rue des Saussaies, identified himself, then the stupid operator went off the line. A new and familiar voice answered. Rene Lasalle, Chief of the DST.
'Who is it?'
'Leon Valmy… I didn't ask for you… the girl…'
'Now you've got me, what is it?'
Valmy explained, keeping his story short. Lasalle couldn't stand wafflers. Terse and decisive, the chief believed words were to communicate information. He listened, thinking there wasn't much to all this.
'What made you phone?' he asked eventually.
'A hunch. Nothing more, Chief,' Valmy said apologetically, wishing now he hadn't made the call.
Hunch? Lasalle was instantly alert. It was a hunch of The Parrot's which had elevated him to his present position. He reached for a railway timetable, telling Valmy to hang on, then checked the time by the wall-clock.
'That express arrives in Paris at 1650 hours. Assuming she stays aboard, doesn't get off en route…'
'She did book through to Paris…'
'We'll take a chance. Get to Marignane Airport fast, catch a flight to Paris. You'll beat her to it. We'll have a car waiting at the airport, take you to the Gare de Lyon -you'll be here in time to identify her.'
'I'd better rush…'
'Do that.'
11
Klein was also up early. He had stayed overnight at the Hotel Roi Rene in Aix-en-Provence. Never linger at the same place for more than twenty-four hours. That defeated the system of hotel registration the French employed -with the police calling for their copies of the registration form during the night.
He drove off at six for his appointment in Cassis, the small resort east of Marseilles. He arrived at the iron grille gates of the luxurious villa overlooking the sea at 7.30 a.m. A guard checked his passport, then operated the mechanism which opened the gates. Who would dream that the head of the local Union Corse lived in a place like this?
Emilio Perugini was waiting for him in a lounging chair by the side of the obligatory status symbol, a swimming pool. A large Alsatian swam in the water, heading for a rubber ball the small fat man in the chair had thrown.
'Sit down, Mr Klein. What can I do for you?'
'Find me a specialist with very specific qualifications. For a fee.'
Klein handed the fat envelope containing two hundred thousand French francs to the tanned man with brown hair and a face like that of a cadaver. Perugini opened the envelope, made a quick flip through the banknotes, dropped the envelope on the table as though it were nothing.
'What qualifications, Mr Klein?'
'Someone you can spare for several months. An expert with a hand-gun, an automatic weapon, a knife, also,' he added as though an afterthought, 'a first-rate scuba diver.'
'You don't ask for much, do you?'
'I pay quite a lot. It's a while since we last met – but you will have what I need, I know.'
'The hand-gun, the automatic weapon, the knife. He is a hard man you're wanting?'
Dressed in a white shirt open at the front and shorts, Perugini reached for a bottle of red wine, Klein shook his head and the Union Corse chief refilled his own glass. He patted his fat belly, sprawled short thick legs under the table as the Alsatian dropped the ball by his side.
The animal stared at Klein, bared his teeth and gave a snarl. Klein turned and gazed straight at the animal. He pushed his chair back a few inches. 'Cesar doesn't like you,' Perugini remarked. The dog backed away when Klein half-rose from his chair, gave a low yelp and flopped some distance away.
'Yes, a hard man,' Klein said, sitting down again. 'And he needs to have experience with explosives…'
Perugini threw his bony head back and laughed contemptuously, a weird cackling sound. 'All that for two hundred thousand francs! And my man is out of action for several months? You must be joking…'
Klein took out another fat envelope, tossed it on the table, waited. Perugini regarded it without touching it, drank more wine.
'How much in there?'
'Another two hundred thousand…'
'Double it and I may help…'
'Nonsense time is over.'
Klein's tone was cold, bleak. He reached forward under the low table, wrenched something attached to the under surface and produced a miniature tape recorder. His long fingers tore out the recorded tape reel, he turned to the dog and hurled the reel far out into the pool. Cesar dived in, swam underneath, came up with the mangled tape in his teeth.
'You shouldn't have done that,' Perugini snapped. 'I only have to fl
ick my fingers and a couple of my boys come out that villa.' He waved a hand across the beach. 'The sea is wide and deep. A weighted corpse stays down forever…'
'Except that neither of us would be around for it to happen.'
'What does that mean?' Perugini asked, his eyes hooded.
'See those wooded hills behind your film-star villa?' Klein waved his own hand. 'Four men are up there, two watching us with field-glasses ever since I arrived. The other two have rocket launchers. We'd end up as jelly.'
'You're bluffing.' Perugini sounded uncertain, glanced up at the woods.
'Want to risk it?'
'OK.' Perugini had reached his position of power by taking fast decisions, by never taking unnecessary risks. 'You get your man – for the fee on the table. Louis Chabot. He is based in Marseilles. Here is the address.' He produced a crumpled notebook from his back pocket, scribbled on it, tore out the sheet and handed it to his guest. He was anxious to get rid of Klein. Something about the man's eyes disturbed him. He checked the second envelope, tossed it back on the table.
'Is that it, Klein?'
'Not quite. My fee buys absolute silence. See that rock sticking up out of the sea?'
Klein stood up, raised his right hand, dropped it in a chopping movement. There was a whooshing sound. Then a loud bang. Perugini stared at the rock where the explosion had happened. The top half had vanished, splinters of rock splattered the sea.
'Don't ever threaten me again,' Klein said and left.
Klein climbed the worn stone steps of the evil-smelling tenement building behind the Old Port to the first floor. The plaster was crumbling between the stonework. He paused outside the old heavy wooden door to Number Eleven. No sound from inside.
Using the phone number Perugini had scribbled on the scrap of paper with the address, he'd called Chabot, made an appointment for 11.30 a.m. It was now eleven o'clock. Klein liked to arrive early. You sometimes learned important things about a new recruit by catching them off guard. He rapped loudly on the door.