by Peter May
‘Where is he?’
‘Who? Monsieur Lapointe?’
‘Yes.’
‘At his office, I imagine. He likes to work on Sundays.’
Bannerman moved towards the door. As he opened it the old woman said, ‘Who is the child you spoke of?’
‘Tim Slater’s daughter. She was shot this morning at the airport. But then, you’ll know all about that.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I know nothing at all about a child. I am sorry.’
‘Of course you are.’
She raised one of her withered hands. ‘Before you go, Mr Bannerman, let me warn you that should you attempt to harm my son I shall fight you.’
‘Then you will lose,’ Bannerman said, and he shut the door behind him.
II
Lapointe dialled the combination with trembling fingers and the door of his safe swung open. There was no money in here, just large Manila folders tied around with red ribbon to contain their bulging contents. These were all his secret records. The companies, the deals, statements of account going back nearly twenty years. It was a large safe, but his records filled it. He had been meticulous, his memory such that he could pinpoint almost any deal, any company, within minutes. It would take someone unfamiliar with his system hours, perhaps days, to make sense of it all. There was nothing here that would convict him in a court, but in the wrong hands they could destroy him.
As he transferred them one by one to the suitcase he had opened on his desk, he felt the sick fear he had lived with for the past fifteen hours turning again in his stomach. Why had Jansen been so feeble? Surely he could have bought Bannerman off. Lapointe blamed the old lady. He conjured an image of her, frail and delicate in her wheelchair. He heard her voice, supercilious and condescending. What power was it she had over them all? She was, after all, just an old woman. But it didn’t matter any more. He would not have to see her again. Or her weak, ineffectual son, who had, as usual, left him to clean up his mess. Now it was all over. When Jansen came back from the Bahamas he would be gone. To live out his last years in comfort and warmth on his farm in Malta, enjoying the fruits of his years of labour. The Jansens would be all right, but to hell with them, he didn’t care any more. He had committed his final act of loyalty, as much for himself as for them, and now he was going.
He was nearly finished packing when the phone rang. ‘What is it?’
‘Security at reception, sir. There is a gentleman here who wants to see you. A foreigner. He says he has a message from Madame Jansen. Shall I send him up?’
‘No. Ask him to leave his message with you and have someone bring it to me.’
‘I’ve already suggested that, sir. But he’s most insistent that the message should be delivered personally.’
What was the old lady up to now? ‘All right, send him up.’ Lapointe was nervous. Surely the fool hadn’t told his mother. He hurriedly finished packing his case and checked the time. His flight was not until late afternoon.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Entrez.’
A stocky, powerful-looking man with a mop of curly dark hair and cold blue eyes stepped into his office.
Bannerman looked quickly around him. The large mahogany writing desk with its three phones and clean blotter. An ashtray stuffed with fat cigar ends. A suitcase packed full of large Manila folders open on the desk. The carpet was thick and soft underfoot and the walls were hung with copies of old Flemish masters. Or perhaps they were originals. The windows, along one side behind the desk, rose from floor to ceiling and looked out on a breathtaking view over the city from this tenth floor.
Lapointe himself was a short, thickset man, probably in his late fifties. A few strands of grey hair were plastered back across his bald pate. His face was flushed and he stared insolently at Bannerman from behind steel-rimmed glasses. He spoke abruptly in French.
‘Well, what is it?’
Bannerman did not reply, but took his time strolling across the office to look out over the damp mist that obscured the distance.
Lapointe’s voice rose with irritation: ‘For God’s sake, man!’
Bannerman turned and looked boldly at the Belgian. ‘You had better speak English. I don’t speak French or Flemish, and I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings between us.’
‘What do you want?’ Lapointe was growing uncomfortable, and regretted now having the man sent to his office. ‘You have a message from the old lady?’
Bannerman drew a folded morning paper from his coat pocket. It was damp from the rain. He threw it on to Lapointe’s desk with a front-page story face up and ringed in red ink. Lapointe glanced at it and felt a stab of fear.
JOURNALIST SHOT DEAD IN CAR.
He looked up abruptly. ‘What has this got to do with me?’
‘Take a look at the name,’ Bannerman said. Lapointe’s hand shook as he lifted the paper to read of the discovery early that morning of a dead man in a car near the Gare du Nord. A journalist called Richard Platt. The paper fell from his hands and he looked up again at Bannerman.
‘Who . . . who are you?’
‘My name is Neil Bannerman.’
The colour drained from Lapointe’s face and he began backing off. ‘It . . . it was Jansen. It was his idea. I swear.’ Then he steadied himself. ‘You can’t prove anything.’ But his defiance was fragile.
Bannerman walked slowly around the desk. ‘Let me tell you something, Monsieur Lapointe,’ he said. ‘I am sick of playing the game according to the rules. Rules that protect rich bastards like you. I am way beyond caring about what happens to me any more, and I’m going to break you into little pieces and feed you to the fucking dogs.’
Lapointe yelped as Bannerman grabbed his lapels and banged him up against the window. The reporter’s face was very close to his. Lapointe could smell his hatred. ‘It’s a long way down. You’re going to make a hell of a mess on the pavement.’ The glass bowed as Bannerman pushed him harder against it.
‘No!’ Lapointe screamed. ‘I’ll tell you. Anything you want to know!’
‘You tried to have me killed last night.’
‘Yes, yes. It was Jansen. He phoned me last night, after you had been to the house. He said we had to get rid of you and I should attend to it. He was going to the Bahamas until things cooled off.’ He broke into French and Bannerman slapped his face.
‘English! Speak in English! Did the old woman know?’
‘No.’
‘She told me her son tells her everything.’
‘She . . . she’s an old fool. He only told her what he wanted her to know. There are lots of things she knows nothing about.’ But he knew that was only half the truth.
‘Who killed Gryffe and Slater?’
‘I don’t know.’ Bannerman pushed harder and the glass creaked. ‘Jesus, God, I don’t know! I swear. We knew nothing about it until we heard it on the news. My God, please believe me.’
‘I don’t!’ Bannerman felt his frustration coiling up inside him. His raised voice seemed to fill the room. He pushed again and the glass cracked from top to bottom. He was within a fraction of an inch of killing this man.
‘I swear!’ Lapointe screamed in terror and was then reduced to a pitiful hysterical sobbing. Bannerman eased off and let him go, and the man slumped to his knees. Bannerman’s voice cracked as he spoke and he felt tears welling in his eyes. He thought about the child lying bleeding on the concourse at the airport, her hand slipping into his in the car. He needed someone to take all that out on. A target for his hate and anger and bitterness. But not even Lapointe could provide that.
‘What about the gunman in Flanders?’
Lapointe’s head came up slowly, tears coursing down his face. It was plain that he had no idea what Bannerman was talking about. ‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed. ‘Please, I’m so sorry.’
The door
opened and Bannerman looked round to see the weary figure of du Maurier standing in the doorway.
‘Madame Jansen said you might be here,’ he said. He looked at Lapointe. ‘What has he told you?’
‘That Jansen got him to arrange to have me killed last night.’
‘And what else?’
‘Nothing!’
The Inspector moved across the room and helped Lapointe to his feet. He turned back to Bannerman. ‘Do you still believe that Jansen was responsible for what happened at the Rue de Pavie?’
There was a long silence. Then Bannerman sighed. ‘No,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I don’t.’
Du Maurier nodded. ‘It is time we talked.’
III
Bannerman sat alone in du Maurier’s office. It was almost exactly a week since he had last sat here, on the same hard seat in front of the same cluttered desk. The same broken umbrella leaned against the wall beside the same pair of mud-spattered gumboots. In this little world, at least, nothing had changed.
Outside it had grown dark. The rain battered against the window. Bannerman was drained. His whole being was numb. The Anglepoise lamp spread its small circle of light in the darkness so that everything on the desk seemed hard and so finely focused that it hurt his eyes to look at it. Just as it hurt inside to think about the child.
The door opened and du Maurier came in, the habitual cigarette hanging from his wet lips. He rounded the desk and sat down, flicking ash carelessly at the ashtray and missing it. He let the cigarette burn in one hand while pulling with the other at the whiskers that grew from his nostrils. He regarded Bannerman for some moments. Then finally he said, ‘They finished operating two hours ago.’
Life flickered briefly in Bannerman’s eyes.
‘And?’
‘They say the next twelve hours will be critical. The surgeon gives her a fifty–fifty chance.’
Bannerman subsided into his gloom.
‘First, Monsieur,’ du Maurier went on, ‘we should deal with Lapointe. He has made a very full statement which has implicated both himself and René Jansen in the murder of Monsieur Platt. We should have the actual gunman in custody before the day is out.’ He lit another cigarette from the end of his old one and drew deeply. ‘I think we can safely rule out either man from involvement in the murders of Gryffe and Slater. I am quite certain that the man hired for that act was the one shot dead at Zaventem this morning. The child’s drawing was uncannily accurate. Unfortunately, one of the few things we do not know is who hired him or why. But I shall return to that.’
He blew smoke at a nicotine-stained ceiling.
‘On the basis of what I have learned from Lapointe I think it can be safely assumed that Slater was indeed blackmailing Gryffe.’
Bannerman leaned forward. ‘How?’
Du Maurier smiled wanly. ‘Lapointe has a daughter. She is divorced and until recently lived with her father before moving into an apartment of her own. They were quite close, father and daughter. She knew about most of his activities. According to Lapointe there were few secrets between them. Then . . . they had a row, she moved out. Her name is Marie-Ange. But she has kept her married name.’
‘Piard.’ Bannerman shook his head. He should have guessed. What was a woman like her ever doing with a man like Tim Slater? ‘Slater’s girlfriend,’ he said, laden with self-recrimination. ‘Why did I not think of her before?’
Du Maurier smiled again. ‘It is something we both overlooked, Monsieur.’
‘So she provided the dirt, Slater made it stick, and they shared the spoils. A very cosy arrangement.’
‘Unfortunately,’ the Inspector sighed, ‘I do not think it is something we can ever prove.’
Bannerman felt anger welling inside him. It rankled that she might be the only one to remain untouched by any of this.
As if he’d read Bannerman’s mind, du Maurier said, ‘In my business there are always the ones who get away. In yours too, no doubt.’
‘Yes, in mine too.’
Du Maurier clasped his hands on the desk in front of him, his mouth set in a grim line. Both men knew there were many things they could never hope to know or understand. The power and influence of old Madame Jansen. She had come as a surprise to them both. How much did she really know? And how had the arrangement between Gryffe, Jansen and Lapointe ever come about? Why had Gryffe risked an outstanding career in politics to deal in illegal arms? Was it really just greed? So many questions that would remain forever unanswered. Why men do the things they do. Bannerman knew they could only ever hope to scratch the surface.
‘It won’t go away, will it?’ du Maurier said at length.
Bannerman looked at him curiously. ‘What?’
‘The question of who had Gryffe and Slater killed – if it wasn’t Jansen.’
‘No, it won’t.’ An ugly little thought had been burrowing into Bannerman’s consciousness since the episode in Flanders. And now it returned. He remembered his conversation with the Foreign Minister the night before he left for Flanders, the sandy-haired man at the Gare du Midi, the professional’s specialist military rifle with the laser sight.
He was hardly surprised when du Maurier said, ‘The man who shot at you in Flanders was an SIS field man. British Secret Intelligence Service. Our own people have him on their files.’
Bannerman could not bring himself to believe the implications. He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He looked up. ‘I find it difficult to accept what you are saying,’ he said. ‘I know that in one sense it seems logical. I agree that the British government stood to lose much more than Jansen and Lapointe. With a general election at the end of the month they would have been annihilated if it had leaked out that the understudy to their Foreign Minister was selling arms to apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia’s Ian Smith. But there’s nothing to suggest that they ever knew. And even if they had, I just can’t accept that they would have had him murdered. I know that governments do questionable things, but to assassinate a Minister of State, and a journalist . . . All they needed to do was remove Gryffe from office, pressure him to resign his seat, even the party. Why kill him?’
Du Maurier looked at him solemnly. ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘I wonder if perhaps I am too old and too cynical. Your reasoning is sound, but I am not convinced. Maybe if it was my own government I would see it your way, be prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. But was it not my own government that forced me to close this case when it was clear two men had been murdered? Why? To protect diplomatic relations? Because of pressure from your government in London? Your people moved too quickly not to have known.’ He paused to consider his next words. ‘For me the only real doubt arises from the fact that they did not kill you in Flanders. That they never meant to. And then, of course, there is the man shot dead at the airport. There appears to be no connection.’
‘Who was he?’
‘An Englishman. William Francis Kale. That, of course, was not the name on his passport. We put out a fingerprint check through Interpol, who tracked him down through his British army record. He served in the armed forces for three years in the early nineteen sixties. Then did nine months in a military prison for assaulting an officer. He had no police record, but he was known to police in England. Suspected of a number of contract killings. Though nothing was ever proved.’
Bannerman felt crushed. He thought about what du Maurier had said. There were so many conflicting bits and pieces, of fact and assumption. All that was clear was that someone had hired a man called Kale to kill Gryffe and Slater, and to make it look like a quarrel. When it became apparent that Tania had witnessed the murders, she had become the next target. But if you eliminated Jansen and Lapointe, and if you ruled out the government in London, who else had a motive? And then, why did the man, Kale, not kill Tania at the clinic when he had the chance? Or at almost any other ti
me? Why choose a busy airport where he had little or no chance of getting away with it?
‘Is there anything among Kale’s belongings . . .?’
Du Maurier shrugged. ‘Nothing that means anything to me.’ He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a large polythene bag full of Kale’s personal effects. ‘He was carrying these about his person. There was nothing in his case but clothes.’ He emptied the contents on to his desk and Bannerman pulled his chair closer.
There was a holster, a wallet with some money and a chequebook. A passport, a pen, keys, some loose change, a pack of cigarettes, a tattered map of England, a lighter and a scrap of paper. Du Maurier lifted the piece of paper and handed it to the reporter. Bannerman read the three words and dropped it on to the desk as if it had burned his fingers. And in that moment he thought perhaps he understood why Kale had not attempted to kill her sooner.
‘We’ve checked it for prints. Clean, except for Kale’s.’
Bannerman surveyed the killer’s personal items with a stultifying hopelessness. He might have carried any of these items himself. Except for the holster. Du Maurier opened out the map and spread it on the desk. ‘You may want to take a look at this.’
It was a large-scale map, well thumbed, tearing at the folds. Bannerman’s eyes were drawn by a red line connecting two circles drawn with a felt pen. The first encircled a small Lancashire town near Southport, from which the red line followed the A565 north past a place called Crossens, before veering off in a short stroke to the west and the second circle. The words ‘big house’ were written in small letters beside it, followed by ‘farm track’ and ‘bridge over water’. In the margin, written in green ink, was the word ‘Lamb’, followed by a large question mark. For a few seconds Bannerman stared at it without understanding. Then suddenly he made the connection. His heart quickened and his face flushed. He looked up at du Maurier, who raised an eyebrow. ‘It means something to you?’