by Peter May
The clinic had been in darkness for some time now. The others would be asleep. The doctors, the nurses, the other children. Strange mirror-images of herself. Prisoners within themselves, prisoners in this house with bars on the windows.
She gave a slight start as a door slammed somewhere in the depths of the building. Not everyone was asleep. A light came on downstairs, throwing a broad wedge of light out across the snow on the terrace. Something was moving down there, something dark and huddled that froze as it was caught in the sudden light. The shadow of a man fell away from the house, long and thin. A face turned up towards the window, sickly pale, whiter than snow. Tania did not move. It was a face she knew, a face in which she saw a reflection of her own fear. Eyes in which she recognized the same hunted look she had seen in the Rue de Pavie. Then the light went out and she could no longer see him, but knew he was still there. And knew, too, that he had come for her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The night was empty and yet still young. Bannerman had dropped Sally outside a block of tenement flats in the old part of town. She had not asked him up, returning alone to an empty apartment. He had sat for a few minutes in the car watching her light go on three floors up. She was so unpredictable. Someone must have hurt her very badly.
He remembered the girl from telesales, the night that he had finally taken her to bed. Clumsy and inexperienced. A moment spoiled by youth, ignorance and fear. The final disillusionment of the angry years. Nothing in his life had been sacred since. It was a night when he should have grown up. But that was not to come until six weeks later, when she came to him one night after work and told him that she was carrying his child.
Though even then he had failed to learn. It was ironic that she was the one who would teach him, that it was she who grew up in that time much more quickly than he.
Bannerman turned the car away from the kerb. A curtain on the third floor fluttered and a face appeared momentarily at the window. But he did not see it. He glanced at the time. It was not yet nine, and he recalled the crumpled card in his pocket and took it out. He stopped the car under a lamp post and held it in the light. Her Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs extends an invitation . . . Nine o’clock at the Restaurant Noir in Rue des Bouchers. He rummaged in the glove compartment and found an indexed street map. The Rue des Bouchers was about a hundred metres from the Grande Place where he had sat that morning under the yellow awning enjoying the winter sunshine. He allowed himself a grim smile and slammed the glove compartment shut. It was about time he began stirring things.
*
The Restaurant Noir was set back from the street. In the window, thick red curtains hung on rings from a polished brass rail. Menus were displayed outside beneath elaborate imitation gas lamps. Expensive fare. You did not eat here unless you had a fat wallet. And HMG had plenty of taxpayers’ money at their disposal. It was in a good cause, after all. Wasn’t it? What price the goodwill of the press? A commissionaire in maroon uniform and gold-braided cap held the door open for Bannerman and he stepped inside.
The muted sound of voices, of knives and forks on plates, of bottles kissing the rims of glasses, drifted softly from a dining room set behind stained-glass screens of medieval knights and gracious ladies. Less muted voices came from an adjoining bar.
A face hovered darkly behind a cloakroom counter away to his left and a flunky in a black suit and white starched collar approached on tiptoe. He smiled with the ease of a professional smiler.
‘Monsieur?’ Bannerman held out the battered invitation card which the flunky took between thumb and forefinger as though it might somehow be contaminated. ‘Ah, bien. May I take your coat?’
The newspapermen were in the bar with the Minister, a junior member of the Foreign Office staff and a government press officer. There was a distinct lull in the conversation as Bannerman came in. Without exception every face turned in his direction. But it was a moment that passed quickly, and afterwards everyone pretended not to have noticed him. All except for the press officer who pushed forward to shake his hand in greeting. ‘Neil Bannerman, isn’t it?’ His well-practised smile widened and his dimples threatened to swallow the rest of his face.
‘I’ll have a whisky,’ Bannerman said.
‘Of course.’ The PR man scuttled off to the bar.
A few of the faces in here were familiar to Bannerman. Others were not.
‘Here you are.’ The press officer handed him his whisky. ‘My name’s Holt, Harold Holt.’ He was young, with thinning mouse-brown hair. No more than twenty-five, Bannerman thought. He oozed confidence and the ersatz camaraderie that was the hallmark of his profession.
‘Well, Harold, how would you like to tell the Minister I’d like a word with him?’
Holt’s face darkened, though his smile never wavered. ‘I don’t think the Minister will want to discuss . . .’
‘Just a chat, that’s all. Off the record, of course.’
He watched the reluctant Holt approach the Minister, touch him lightly on the shoulder and utter a few words close to his ear. The Minister half-turned and smiled in Bannerman’s direction, raising one finger to indicate that an audience would be granted in just a few moments. Holt scurried off to the bar to fetch more drinks. Bannerman took a mouthful of whisky, swilling it slowly before swallowing.
‘Well, Mr Bannerman. I don’t believe we’ve met before.’ The Minister approached with an outstretched hand. ‘You have quite a reputation. It seems such a pity that you spend most of your time buried away up there in Scotland.’
Bannerman smiled. ‘Maybe you ought to put it on your list of countries to visit. I’m sure it wouldn’t be beyond a man of your capability to reopen diplomatic relations.’
‘Very amusing, Mr Bannerman. Another drink?’
Bannerman shook his head. ‘No thanks. I’d like to talk.’
‘Depends what you want to talk about.’ He smiled easily. A man who had shaken the hands of presidents and prime ministers could take someone like Bannerman in his stride any day of the week. He was a good sixty years old, and not a man to use words carelessly. Gryffe was being groomed to succeed him. Which is why, perhaps, the two men had never got on. Or so the gossip columnists had hinted.
He had a good head of steel-grey hair and shrewd brown eyes that held you in their wryly condescending gaze. A man of gentle but firm persuasion, the ultimate diplomat. He had a reputation as a hard man, but fair, and good at his job. At a glance you could see why, and Bannerman thought, there was no point in staying for the meal.
‘I’d like to talk about Robert Gryffe and Tim Slater.’
The Minister smiled patiently. ‘Off limits I’m afraid, Neil. Unfortunate, of course, the whole affair. After the meal I shall be releasing details of our plans for having Robert’s body flown back to England. And the memorial service.’ He put a friendly arm around Bannerman’s shoulders and steered him gently towards the bar. ‘Of course, after the election, when’ – he smiled – ‘when my party is returned to office, we can perhaps have lunch together.’
Bannerman shook his head and returned the Minister’s smile. ‘Not really good enough, sir. Of course, I understand your reluctance to say too much before the election. A nasty business. Can’t have the voters getting the wrong idea. All the same, I’m sure many people would like to know why the assassinations of Gryffe and Slater have been hushed up by the Belgian authorities.’ He paused. ‘And whether or not Her Majesty’s government had any hand in it.’
The diplomatic smile was becoming a little frayed around the edges. ‘Oh, come now, Mr Bannerman.’ Gone was the friendly ‘Neil’. ‘There is no evidence to suggest that either man was assassinated. A quarrel . . .’
‘With all due respect, Foreign Secretary, you know as well as I do that is bullshit! All the evidence points quite clearly to murder by a third party.’
The Minister began steering Bannerman away again from
the bar.
Bannerman said, ‘The trouble is that most of that evidence hasn’t been made public. Yet. But you and I both know, don’t we? The left-handed Slater with the gun in his right hand. The quarter of a million dollars in the suitcase. Slater’s air tickets to the States. The break-in at Slater’s apartment within half an hour of the murders. Perhaps you forget that I was there.’
The Minister dropped his voice, and his smile had vanished. ‘You have no evidence to support any of this, Bannerman . . . It’s just journalistic fantasy.’ Gone too, now, was the ‘mister’. ‘You’d do well to be very careful what you put in print.’
Bannerman almost laughed. ‘Or what? You’ll sue me? For writing the truth? Last thing you’d want to do is wash all that dirty linen in public, surely?’
It was Bannerman’s turn now to place a friendly arm around the shoulder of the Minister. He steered him ever further from the bar and spoke in hushed tones. ‘You know what I think, Foreign Secretary? I think that Robert Gryffe was up to something that might have proved very embarrassing to the government. I think Timothy Slater knew what that was. And to put it bluntly, was blackmailing him.’
The Minister was frowning, but superficially he had lost none of his composure. He had donned his mask of sincerity and now adopted a different tack. ‘Just how good is your information, Neil?’ He looked searchingly at the reporter.
‘Good enough.’
‘Because if what you say is true then it may well be that we shall have to take another look at the whole thing. It may be that the Belgian authorities have kept vital information from us. We should get together, you and I, and discuss the source of your information.’
Bannerman smiled. ‘Now, Minister, you know I would never discuss my sources. And if you are really so misinformed, then you will be of little help to me.’ Pause. ‘But I’ll tell you what. When I’ve got my story together I’ll call you and you can give me your on-the-record reaction. Hopefully I will have things tied up and out of the way before the election. Either way, I promise, you’ll be the first to know.’
Bannerman almost admired the Minister’s ability to prevent his facial expressions from betraying what lay behind them, particularly after the somersaults he had been forced to make in the last few minutes.
The journalist leaned over to lay his glass on a table. ‘By the way, I must apologize,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be able to stay for dinner. I do hope it goes well, though.’ He extended a hand to shake the Minister’s. ‘Goodbye, sir.’ And he headed out to the cloakroom to retrieve his coat.
Before stepping outside once more into the snow he glanced back towards the bar. Everyone in there knew something had passed between Bannerman and the Minister, though no one knew what. In the competitive world of newspapers, the cardinal sin was not knowing what the story was. None of those pressmen would enjoy their meal tonight. Nor would the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I
The stairwell seemed colder than it had on previous evenings, the landing lights more muted, the stairs darker. Outside the snow was falling ever more thickly. Winter seemed determined to tighten its grip on the city. As Bannerman trudged up the stairs someone coughed on the landing above. A man’s cough. A deep retching cough. Bannerman could smell cigarette smoke. Whoever was there was making no attempt to conceal his presence, and he must have heard Bannerman’s footsteps.
Bannerman climbed the next flight cautiously before he saw Platt’s face, round and fat, peering down at him. ‘Is that you, Bannerman? I’ve been hanging around here for more than half an hour. I’m bloody freezing.’
Platt’s face was blanched white and touched with blue around the eyes. He was wearing a thick coat, a scarf wrapped tightly round his neck. His battered checked hat was pulled down low over his forehead. He made an exaggerated show of stamping his feet for warmth.
‘What do you want?’ Bannerman asked. He turned his back on the other man to unlock the door to the apartment.
‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Platt said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I’ve been knocking my pan in all afternoon trying to get background on Jansen and Lapointe and then most of the night trying to track you down . . .’
‘I told you tomorrow would do.’ Bannerman paused and looked at the pathetic figure on the landing and relented. ‘You’d better come in.’
Platt followed him down the hall to the living room slapping his hands together and blowing into them. Bannerman took a bottle wrapped in brown paper from his pocket and laid it on the table, then threw his coat over the back of the settee. He switched on the fire and saw Platt eyeing the bottle.
‘Malt,’ Bannerman said, but made no effort to open it. ‘Let’s see it.’
‘What?’ Platt looked confused.
‘Your stuff on Jansen and Lapointe.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ Platt struggled out of his coat and draped it over a chair before drawing a large folded envelope from his inside jacket pocket and passing it to Bannerman. He crossed to the electric fire and rubbed his hands together in front of it, before easing himself into a chair. He ran a dry tongue over wet, purple lips and glanced longingly again at the bottle of malt. ‘I got most of what I needed on Jansen from a series the Soir ran on him about six months ago. I’ve done you a précis of the relevant details in English. There was some stuff on Lapointe as well, but not in the same detail. He keeps a much lower profile than Jansen.’
Bannerman sank into the settee and looked at his watch. It was just after ten. He dropped the envelope on to the coffee table without looking inside it. ‘Tell me the salient details. I haven’t time to read this stuff just now. I’m going out again shortly.’
Platt made no attempt to hide his irritation. ‘When are you going to come clean with me, Bannerman?’
‘All in good time, Platt.’ He paused. ‘Did you make your second edition?’
Platt’s lips tightened. ‘Yes, I made it. But the paper was fifteen minutes late going to press and I got a right roasting.’ Bannerman couldn’t resist a smile, which only annoyed Platt further. The old reporter glanced again at the bottle. ‘How about a drink, Bannerman? You owe me that much at least. Take the chill out of my bones.’
Bannerman said, ‘Alcohol accelerates loss of body heat. Help yourself.’
‘Glasses?’
‘In the kitchen.’
When it became clear that Bannerman wasn’t going to go and get them, Platt heaved himself reluctantly out of his chair and went in search of them himself.
Bannerman listened to the sound of Platt clattering noisily in the kitchen and remembered encountering him for the first time all those years before at the weekly paper where he had got his first job.
Platt had been there for years. He knew it all, or thought he did, and breathed whisky and contempt on a succession of keen young news-hounds passing through on their way to better things. He had been a lonely individual even then. A widower. Embittered by all the opportunities in life that had passed him by. At first he had poured his scorn on this newcomer too, but as he had come to recognize that Bannerman was different, and set on a career trajectory that would leave Platt wallowing in his wake, he had done everything he could to make life even more difficult.
Bannerman had hated him for it. And wasn’t it Platt who had mixed things for him with the editor over the business of the girl from telesales? Wasn’t it Platt who had taken such delight in his hurt, and set off a whispering campaign among his colleagues? Bannerman had always suspected that Platt might even have been responsible for him losing his job. Anger at that had lived in him for a long time afterwards. Only the passing of the years had diminished the humiliation of that time before finally dispatching Platt to the mists of a painful and half-forgotten past.
And now, all these years later, here they both were, reluctant collaborators on a murder case in a cold winter city far
from home. Bannerman had no idea what ebbs of fortune had brought Platt to his exile in Brussels, still chasing the dreams that had escaped him in his youth, but his antipathy towards the man remained undiminished.
Platt came out of the kitchen with two cups. ‘I can’t find any glasses.’ He set them down on the coffee table, opened the bottle of malt and poured two large measures. Clutching his own cup he dropped back into his seat and raised it towards Bannerman. ‘Cheers.’
How he detested Bannerman. His success, his arrogance, his self-assurance. He took a gulp of the smooth malt and grimaced as he felt the first twinges of pain in his stomach. Bannerman was watching him.
‘Ulcer,’ he said. ‘First mouthful always gets me that way.’ Still, he thought with some comfort, there are one or two things that I know about you. He grinned. ‘Where should I begin?’
‘At the beginning.’
Platt shifted in his chair and took another gulp of whisky. ‘René Jansen might well be the richest man in Belgium. His pedigree’s spotless. He comes from one of the oldest and most influential Flemish families in the country. An only child. Wealth and privilege lavished freely upon his fair head. Education, breeding, money – he’s got the lot. When his father died he inherited the Jansen empire. But he didn’t just sit back and enjoy it, he built on it, made it more than it ever was when his father was alive. He’s into everything. Owns the biggest private aerospace concern in Europe, supplying not only the bulk of the fleet for the Belgian airforce and the national airline, but also for half the major airlines in the world – and exclusively to a number of smaller Third World airlines.
‘He’s also into construction. His companies are almost single-handedly rebuilding Brussels and some of the bigger provincial towns. Nearly half of that is on government contracts, the other half in the private sector. Those are the two biggies. But he’s got fingers in lots of other pies. Property, department stores. He even owns a couple of provincial newspapers. He’s got interests in a shipping line and owns a brewery.’