by Peter May
‘Is it true?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why in God’s name did you not tell me?’
Bannerman shook his head sadly. ‘I would have. Probably today. I only found out yesterday. I had a deal with Platt, but it looks as if he meant to jump the gun. Screw me over.’
‘My God, you are a fool, Monsieur! Who else knew about this?’
‘Only Platt, myself, my editor, and the man in Switzerland who did the company searches. Oh, and Jansen, of course.’
‘Jansen?’
‘I confronted him with it last night.’
Bannerman heard the air escape from between du Maurier’s clenched teeth.
‘And who knew about your deal with Platt?’
‘No one, as far as I know.’
The Inspector lit another cigarette. ‘Then it is you that they meant to kill.’
Bannerman closed his eyes. Still drunk, still in shock. ‘Yes.’
‘You’re taking it very calmly.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ Bannerman was right on the edge. He could not remember having felt this bad at any time in his life. He had failed. Failed in everything. ‘Will you arrest Jansen?’
‘How can I arrest him?’
‘Because who else could be responsible?’ He was thinking how easily he had been taken in by Jansen, how easily he had been led to doubt Jansen’s involvement in the killings of Gryffe and Slater.
Du Maurier shook his head. ‘There is no proof. Not yet, anyway. One thing is clear, though. Whoever pulled the trigger on Monsieur Platt, it was not the same man who killed Gryffe and Slater.’
Bannerman turned to look at the policeman. His face seemed pale, almost yellow, in the light of the streetlamps. ‘How can you know that?’
‘Because the man at the Rue de Pavie was a professional. Meticulous in every way. Monsieur Platt was killed by some underworld hoodlum. A hired gun. Effective, but crude. Messy, not a pro. We have a better chance of catching him and so we have a better chance of finding out who hired him. We do not know that it is Jansen. Besides, I think your obsession with that man is perhaps blinding you to other possibilities.’
Bannerman shivered. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I am very tired, Monsieur.’ Du Maurier sighed. ‘I should like to be home in my bed. You will be required to come to my office later today to make an official statement. Perhaps we can discuss it then.’
Bannerman folded Platt’s story and held it out to the Inspector.
‘No, you keep it. It is better that we never found it. I shall wait until you have published. You see, Monsieur, public pressure will have a greater influence on my superiors to reopen the case than an uncorroborated story found on the body of a dead journalist. And we would not want to give them advance warning, would we?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sunday. The change in the weather overnight was marked. It had rained steadily for some hours before dawn, and when the first light misted the rain-sodden air much of the snow had gone.
In the taxi that swept east through the city along the Boulevard Leopold III to the airport at Zaventem, Bannerman and the child sat in silence. He had barely been able to speak to her and saw the hurt in her eyes. She had been expecting him yesterday, and now he had come to put her on a plane that would take her away from him. He had not even tried to explain it, except to say that a lady and gentleman from America would be with her on the plane, and that he would come and see her when his business in Brussels was finished.
She was wondering what it was she had done to offend him, and she felt that ache inside her that was the seed of frustration. A bubble that was growing. She was afraid of it, afraid that it would take control and that when finally it burst he would not understand. She slipped her hand into his. It felt warm and big and it responded with a little squeeze. Please let me control it, she was saying inside. Please let me control it.
Bannerman gazed out at the same buildings he had passed on his arrival ten days before, and thought how ten days can change your life.
*
At the Hotel Regent the Schumachers had risen early and Mrs Schumacher had fussed and gushed with excitement. ‘Which dress should I wear, Henry?’ She had held up two dresses, one cotton print with a colourful pattern, the other plain blue wool.
‘I don’t know, dear. You look good in both.’
‘Oh, Henry, don’t be so infuriating.’
‘Perhaps the print dress, then.’
She looked at it and then the other. ‘I think I’ll wear the blue. More sombre for the occasion. Poor child. Oh, but isn’t this exciting, Henry?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘No, no, don’t wear that tie, Henry, it clashes with your suit. Yes, that one. Now that looks so much better.’ She struggled breathlessly into the blue dress. ‘Zip me up, please, Henry. Do you think maybe we could stay on in Edinburgh an extra day?’
‘Well, I do have to be back in Washington . . .’
‘Yes, yes. Of course, you’re right.’ Pause. ‘I wonder what she’s like. I certainly hope she won’t throw one of her tantrums on the plane. That, I could do without.’ Then she added, ‘Poor thing. We must do what we can, Henry.’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Hurry now, or we’ll miss breakfast.’
But as the car sped them towards Zaventem she was curiously quiet. Henry Schumacher stared morosely from the rear passenger window, and his wife wondered why she felt so nervous. A touch of indigestion, perhaps. She had eaten breakfast much too quickly. Or it might be the change in the weather. The weather could do that to you. Tomorrow the damp would bring that rheumatic stiffness back to her joints.
*
Kale felt a lightness in his heart. He liked the rain. It reminded him of London. He liked the feel of it on his face and the dampness in the air where people gathered for a drink with their steamy wet coats and hats. For him this was the day of release, the day when the nightmare of the past week would end. All the questions about his future remained unanswered, but they could wait. The prison sentence of his past was drawing to a close. The only conscious reminder was the weight of the gun in the holster strapped across his back and over his left shoulder. He had decided not to leave it at the hotel, though he could not take it with him – it would never pass the security checks at the airport. But it was at the airport, he had decided, he would dispose of it. In one of the flush tanks in the toilets, after he had wiped it clean of prints.
His taxi drew up outside the terminal building and he stepped out into the bluster of wind and rain. Through sliding doors, head down as he passed the security policemen with their hip holsters and machine guns. Rows of airline desks, and people with cases milling around, a mechanical voice announcing flights over the tannoy. Kale breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at his watch. He had half an hour before his flight would be called.
He checked in at the BA desk and left his case, and then looked for the Toilet signs. They led him up a flight of steps on to a concourse on an upper level. He saw the toilets at the far side, brushed past a group of travellers sharing a joke, and stopped with a feeling like death inside him.
The child was not looking his way, but he saw her head turning. Perhaps she sensed that he was there. Beside her stood the man he had followed to the clinic, and an elderly couple. He could hear the woman’s voice. An American.
‘Well, Mr Bannerman, I don’t think you need have any fears about leaving little Tania in our custody for the flight. She is such a darling girl. I know we’re going to get on just great . . .’ Her voice trailed away sharply as the scream tore from the child’s lips.
Heads all around them turned. Bannerman looked at Tania, at the terror on her face, and followed her eyes. He saw a man in a shabby coat, a man in a drawing without a face.
Kale panicked. Suddenly the prison door had slammed shut and
he was still on the inside. The screaming went on and on, and yet it must only have been seconds. Everything was happening in slow motion. It wasn’t a conscious decision to draw the gun from his holster, but the instincts that had kept him alive all these years. He was aware of the gun trembling in his hand as he raised it with the speed and efficiency of training and practice. And for just one more second there was an enormous battle between will and instinct, before he squeezed the trigger and saw the child thrown backwards.
Now there was screaming all around him and he glanced to either side, still unable to move. The elderly American was advancing slowly towards him, his wife yelling at him hysterically. ‘Henry . . .!’
‘Okay, son, give me the gun,’ the American was saying. ‘You’ve done what you came to do. No need for anyone else to get hurt now. Just give me the gun.’ The voice was soothing, relaxing, its effect almost hypnotic. Kale felt his gun hand dropping.
Then there was a voice shouting at him above the noise of all the others. He looked round and saw the dark uniform of a security policeman. He looked back helplessly at the American, and for a second Schumacher thought he saw the hint of a tear in the man’s eye.
Kale ran, bodies scurrying to either side, squealing like rats in a panic. Again he heard the voice of the security officer and he seemed to be running into a vast emptiness. The guard levelled his pistol and fired one, two, three times.
Kale’s head hit the tiles with a smack and his body slithered on for several metres across their shiny surface, carried by its own momentum, spraying blood in its wake. He came to rest, twisted and ugly, with a pool of blood spreading rapidly around him. His eyes were open and staring through the walls of glass across the runway. But he saw nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I
The sound of voices echoed mechanically along the corridor, footsteps on a hard floor, unseen doors opening and closing. They seemed remote, disconnected. A nurse in white uniform wheeling a trolley from one ward to the next, the sound of an orderly laughing, cut short by doors swinging shut.
Bannerman stood in the emptiness of the glass-walled reception hall. The lights above reflected off the polished floor. He glanced across at the bowed head of Henry Schumacher sitting on one of the red vinyl seats, and thought of the man’s courage in stepping forward to face the gunman. He thought, too, of the child’s blood on his own hands, and he glanced at them now. They were pale and white, the blood all washed away.
He looked at his watch. Anything to stop him from thinking. It was only a little over an hour since it had all happened. Still Sunday morning, still grey and wet outside.
He looked again at Schumacher and scuffed his feet. ‘I’m sorry I got you involved in all this,’ he said. ‘I hope everything will be all right with your wife.’
Schumacher waved his hand carelessly. ‘She’s all right. Just shock. It’s the child . . .’
A doctor pushed through swing doors. He looked tired. ‘She is in the operating theatre.’ His accent was thick and clumsy. He glanced at Schumacher and then back to Bannerman. ‘It could be hours. And even if the operation is successful, there is no guarantee she will survive it. You can wait if you like.’ He paused, awkward and embarrassed, before disappearing again behind the doors. They swung back and forth for some moments before coming to a standstill.
‘I’ll be back,’ Bannerman said and set off towards the elevator.
Schumacher looked at him in surprise. ‘But the police . . .’
‘Tell the Inspector when he gets back that I’ll be in touch with him.’ He pressed the down button.
‘Where are you going?’
Bannerman hesitated. He was trembling. ‘To get the bastards.’
*
Even in daylight you could not see Jansen’s mansion from the road. The rain was falling steadily as Bannerman’s taxi drew up at the gates. Bannerman got out and crossed to the gatepost. He pressed the button and spoke into the grille. ‘Neil Bannerman for René Jansen.’ Silence. He pressed the buzzer again and kept his finger on it for several seconds. Then repeated his message.
The speaker grille crackled and a voice said, ‘Herr Jansen is not at home.’
‘Like hell he’s not!’
The gates were nearly seven feet high and spiked. The taxi driver watched Bannerman with astonishment as he scaled them, wobbled unsteadily as he straddled the spikes, and then dropped down to the other side. Somewhere in the grounds a siren began wailing through the trees. Bannerman started running, his feet smacking on the tarmac, the trees locked in around him. All he could think of was Tania. All he could feel was his anger.
The driveway seemed longer than it had the previous night. At last the two squares of lawn opened out before him and he emerged from the damp, dripping tunnel of trees. The wailing of the siren intensified as he reached the house, and now he could hear bells ringing in the building itself. He ran through the slush that lay in patches on the lawn, across the gravel, and glanced up at the rows of arched windows. For a moment he caught the glimpse of a pale face watching him from behind a window-blind on the second floor, but when he looked again it was gone.
The moulded iron knocker on the great door was heavy and thundered against its metal block. He could hear the sound of it echoing away inside the big circular hall behind it. He hammered for a full minute before the door finally opened a crack. The butler who had let him in the previous night peered out.
‘The police will be here any moment,’ he said coldly. ‘I would advise you to leave now.’
Bannerman put his shoulder to the door, pushing the old man backwards into the hall. ‘Where is he?’ The butler’s face was drained of colour.
‘I told you. He is not here.’
Bannerman swept past him and up the marble staircase two at a time. He remembered the face on the second floor and went on up to the second landing. There were nearly a dozen doors leading off it. He opened one after another. A drawing room. A bedroom. A study. A library. Another bedroom. All empty. The sixth door opened into darkness. He was about to move on to the next when he sensed a presence in the room. Perhaps the slightest movement, or a warm scent. He stopped and peered into the gloom. All the blinds were drawn and only a little yellow light crept in around their edges.
Suddenly a light came on to his right. A small table lamp that lit up an old woman in a wheelchair. She stared at him out of a white, bony face with empty grey eyes. Her hair was the purest silver pulled back in a tight bun. She wore a black shawl around her shoulders and a rug draped itself over her knees. Twisted, arthritic hands lay in her lap, clutching a small glass of red wine. The remains of a log fire smouldered in the hearth. She spoke in a high, clear voice. ‘My son is not here.’
Bannerman hesitated for a moment as the door swung shut behind him. He had not expected this.
‘Where is he?’
The old woman sighed and her slight, fragile frame drooped a little. ‘You are Mr Bannerman, are you not? My son has told me about you. But you are quite wrong about him.’
Bannerman felt uncomfortable, caught in the gaze of those pale grey eyes.
‘Where is he?’
‘He left early this morning. For the Bahamas. We have an estate out there. I do not expect to see him for another six months.’ There was a smugness in her tone. The bells and the siren stopped and the awful silence that followed was broken only by the slow tick of an old clock on the mantelpiece. The door opened behind Bannerman and the old butler appeared.
‘The police are here.’
‘Send them away,’ said the old woman. ‘I don’t believe Mr Bannerman will cause any further trouble.’ The old man stood for a second and glared at Bannerman. Then he turned, shutting the door softly behind him. ‘Have a seat, Mr Bannerman.’
‘No thank you.’
‘As you like.’ Her eyes flickered briefly beyond him and then returne
d with that same empty stare. ‘You see, if my son had been involved in the things of which you accuse him, I would have known. There is nothing I do not know about him. He is a good boy. He will do nothing without his mother’s approval. He has never married. For you see, it is me he needs. Me he depends on. My only fear is what will become of him when I have gone.’ She smiled. ‘I’m afraid he will fall prey to vultures like you.’
‘So you are the power behind the Jansen empire?’ Bannerman was sceptical.
Now she chuckled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is the way my husband wanted it. He knew that René would never be the man he was. Of course, René liked to play the part, to pretend. But then, he knows that he must always answer to Mama, as when he was a child. He doesn’t love me, I think. But he fears me. It was I who sent him away.’ She paused. ‘I’d like you to leave too now, please.’
Bannerman shook his head in disbelief. He found that he was still trembling. ‘Well, I don’t really care what you’d like me to do,’ he said. ‘There’s a little girl lying in an operating room in a hospital not very far from here that I care about a great deal more.’ He paused. ‘So you can start by telling me all about Michel Lapointe.’
‘Ah, Michel,’ she said, quite unruffled. ‘He is a genius, Mr Bannerman, but a man of little breeding. My husband trusted him implicitly.’ She took a tiny sip of her wine. ‘He is a man I have never liked. I am afraid I have used him unscrupulously. He has remained loyal only because the rewards are high. And I fear that he does not hold me in as high regard as he held my husband. But perhaps he is just a little afraid of me, as René is. It is unfortunate that he must be sacrificed. A sop to public opinion, you understand. He really did overstep the mark by initiating this distasteful arms business. On his own initiative, it must be said. I cannot, you understand, allow my son to fall victim to any scandal.’