No-one spoke. The chairman glanced at the clock on the wall.
‘The point is that from the extremes of their conceptions both ideologies have been set on course to meet at the apex of a triangle, of which the base was – was, I remind you – inequality and injustice. That meeting is imminent. And that meeting, to quote your parlance gentlemen, will be a merger.’
Paul Kingdon stood up, bowed to the chairman and said: ‘I’m afraid I cannot listen to any more of this drivel, Mr Chairman.’ He walked out of the conference chamber.
Prentice went on: ‘The evidence is all around us. In the West the trade union members – the true Socialists – are beginning to realise that militancy preached by some of their leaders leads only to self-deprivation. Instead, the enlightened are now choosing to accept the benefits of profit sharing.
‘Within the Communist bloc a measure of free enterprise is now permitted. And we have witnessed the visit of a Pope to a Communist country. The Soviet Union has traded with the West and the control of arms has been discussed.’
Prentice held up one hand, anticipating objections. ‘We all know that detente has apparently taken a battering over the past few months. It had to happen – two heavyweight pugilists do not fall into each other’s arms – and it is surely all to the good. The United States has realised that it must be seen to be strong: the Soviet Union has realised that there is a limit to appeasement in the West.
‘Detente, gentlemen, is far from dead but the merger needs a catalyst. It is just possible that we have such an instrument because we have an energy crisis. I said a watershed: a drought might have been more appropriate. Not so long ago, in terms of evolution, Man made a grave mistake: he struck oil and decided that it was his lifeblood. If he had raised his eyes to the heavens and looked at the sun, as his primitive ancestors once did, he might have perceived that salvation lay not beneath the soil but in the sun. I believe that the sun was always intended to be our source of energy and that within a hundred years it will have been harnessed.
‘Meanwhile we shall profit by that mistake; that is the function of mistakes. Do not believe for one second, gentlemen, that the shortage of oil is confined to those countries that we represent here today – even though there are those who would have you believe it. As I have said, the separate ideologies are set to coalesce. The catalyst may well be the co-operative endeavour of the great powers to find the solution to the crisis which threatens to bring the world to a standstill.’
If he had made the address a couple of years ago Prentice would have stopped there. At least he had preached hope.
But now he had to add a clause – to prevent a crime of global proportions being perpetrated. And to safeguard his own future.
He said to the chairman: ‘If you would spare me just one more minute of the conference’s time ….’
The chairman nodded.
Prentice said: ‘I should like to offer you a measure of proof of my optimism which is admittedly idealistic. At the moment the crisis is confined to oil. Can anything be more optimistic than the intelligence that has just reached me?’
He paused. Silence. He had his audience. They knew that George Prentice’s sources were always good.
He waved a sheet of paper and said: ‘I have just learned that the OPEC countries have agreed to lower – yes, lower – the price of oil and continue its uninterrupted flow to the United States of America.’
He sat down and watched as, one by one, those delegates who speculated in currency made their apologies to the chairman and headed for the telephones.
* * *
‘ … allow its uninterrupted flow to the United States of America.’
Suzy said: ‘Three cheers.’ And then: ‘What do you think they’re going to do to us?’
‘God knows,’ Foster said. ‘They can’t release us until they’ve escaped.’
‘I wouldn’t want to hand them over to the police anyway,’ Suzy said.
‘Nor me.’
‘I don’t think they would have killed us in the graveyard.’
‘What I want to know is what the hell they’re up to. It’s got to be blackmail. And yet that doesn’t seem like them. The victims would have to deserve being blackmailed.’ He thought about it. ‘Brossard, yes. Kingdon?’
‘Why not?’ Suzy said. ‘He can afford it. He’s robbed enough people in his time.’
‘What about Mrs Jerome?’
‘Arms,’ Suzy said.
‘So what form does the blackmail take? Brossard, for instance. I suppose we shall never know. If he hadn’t been so bloody mean, he wouldn’t have been shot in the first place. And if he had paid to teletype his column direct to Paris instead of cutting the cost by taping it, I might not have found it.’ He sat up and switched off the tape recorder with his manacled hands. ‘They’re taking a break, we mustn’t waste the tape.’
‘What about Mrs Jerome?’ Suzy said. ‘How would they blackmail her?’
‘Got to be something to do with arms dealing. Double-dealing probably. What about Kingdon?’ staring down into her eyes.
‘I promised.’
‘My guess is diamonds. Something to do with all his lousy diamonds. Am I right ?’
‘You shouldn’t ask me.’
‘You’re right, I shouldn’t.’
‘So let’s assume they’re each being blackmailed for five million dollars. Fifteen million to be split three ways because I’m sure Brossard’s secretary’s in on it. Fifteen million!’ Nicholas whistled.
‘You’ll have quite a story to tell,’ Suzy said.
‘If anyone cares about Bilderberg after Brossard’s published his column.’ Nicholas lay back uncomfortably and stared at the bells. ‘Wait a minute, if Brossard’s right and the dollar crashes, then the fifteen million dollars ransom won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.’
Suzy said: ‘In that case they must be trying to kill his story.’
‘Which will leave me with mine.’
‘Just remember, don’t get too successful.’
‘It’s got the lot,’ Nicholas said, ‘Shooting, blackmail, verbatim transcripts of secret meetings ….’
They heard footsteps on the stairs. It was Prentice. He brought more food and two bottles of wine, one red and one white.
He unlocked the cuffs around their ankles and took them to the rest room in the vestry separately, then he secured their ankles again.
He said: ‘What did you think of my speech?’
‘Great,’ Nicholas said.
‘I meant it, you know. It’s got to happen one day. The game will shortly be up for those who feed off discord. Not necessarily through the energy crisis – I used that for immediacy. But we are merging.’
Nicholas and Suzy nodded.
Prentice poured them some wine. ‘What did you think about the last part?’
‘Getting in before Midas?’ Foster asked.
‘As I said, bright as a button.’
‘If, that is, the Midas column ever appears ….’
‘Too bright,’ Prentice said and closed the door behind him.
XXXV
At 4.15 pm, a quarter of an hour before the Swiss banks closed for the day, Anderson telephoned Zurich. The United Bank had been alerted to expect large deposits in the numbered account but so far none had arrived.
He wandered into the bar where Jules Fromont was lining up his Bilderberg Specials on the bar for the cocktail party. He contemplated drinking one, opted instead for a beer.
He said to Jules: ‘Anything more?’
‘Nothing, m’sieur. Everyone seems convinced that the man who shot Brossard was Nicholas Foster. I did mention to you that he had been to the village with that Chinese girl ….’
Anderson said: ‘Well, it isn’t over yet. Keep your ears open.’
‘Oui, m’sieur.’
Anderson stared through the French windows. The drizzle had thinned to a thick mist. The sky was grey and the gardens were a melancholy place.
The Tanno
y crackled. ‘Will Monsieur Anderson please pick up the nearest telephone.’
It was the hospital: the priest had regained consciousness.
He called Helga Keller, then drove to the hospital ten miles away.
The nurse he had kissed when he knew that the priest wasn’t badly hurt, was standing beside the reception desk. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. He has relapsed into unconsciousness.’
‘Does that mean he’s worse?’
‘We don’t think so. He will drift back and forth for a little while now.’
‘Okay,’ Anderson said, ‘I’ll hang around for a while. Will you call me as soon as he comes round again?’
‘Of course.’ She looked at him warily but not, he decided, without interest; then she walked briskly away.
But it wasn’t until 6.15 that she returned. ‘You can see him now,’ she said. ‘The doctor in charge says it’s all right. But only for a few minutes.’
The priest was propped up against two pillows. His head was swathed in bandages. As before, the sight of him lying there wounded, angered Anderson more than anything else that had happened at Bilderberg.
The priest’s smile spread between the bandages. ‘Good evening, my son.’
‘Good evening, father.’ Anderson sat on the chair beside the bed and spoke urgently. ‘Did you see who did it, father?’
The priest looked at him vaguely. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘he knew I hadn’t seen him. If I had he would have killed me.’
The priest was talking as though he knew the identity of his attacker. ‘Who, father?’ Please God, WHO? The priest closed his eyes but the smile remained.
Anderson sat back; sweat trickled down his chest inside his shirt.
The priest opened his eyes again. ‘Monsieur Anderson, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, father, I’m Anderson. Can you … please … do you know who hit you?’
‘You see,’ said the priest, blinking his eyes, ‘he must have heard my footsteps on the stairs. He was waiting behind the door ….’
‘He? Who is he?’
‘A wonderful scene for a thriller. I was always very fond of Dorothy L. Sayers ….’
Now Anderson was kneeling beside the bed. ‘Did you know who it was?’
‘Know? Of course I know. You see I could smell the rum on his breath.’
Anderson groaned aloud. He whispered into the priest’s ear. ‘Please father, please tell me who it was.’ An inspiration. ‘Tell Maigret ….’
The priest’s eyelids were dropping. He whispered two words.
Anderson snapped up. He gripped the priest’s hand. ‘Thank you, father.’
Then he was in the corridor sprinting towards the admission desk. Holy Shit! They had double-checked every member of the staff that lived in the village. Nothing against any of them. What chance did you have of pinning anything on a madman who kept his madness to himself?
He dodged a stretcher being wheeled along the corridor by two male nurses. He slipped on the polished surface, picked himself up and raced on.
In the lobby visitors arriving to visit patients, parted as he broke through their midst.
At the desk he grabbed the telephone.
He glanced at his wristwatch.
6.25.
He had five minutes in which to stop Jules Fromont poisoning every Bilderberger in the château.
* * *
Engaged.
Shit!
Anderson dialled again.
The desk clerk was protesting. Anderson flung his ID cards at him.
A minute passed.
Engaged.
Once more.
‘Bon soir. The Château Saint-Pierre.’
Anderson said: ‘Get Gaudin. Tell him to stop the cocktail party.’ He was shouting, gabbling.
‘I’m afraid Monsieur Gaudin is attending the cocktail party.’
‘Then call the bar.’
‘I’m afraid ….’
‘Call it!’
* * *
Jules Fromont picked up the telephone receiver on the bar. He spoke into it briefly, then replaced it. He placed cocktails on a silver tray and began to circulate among the few guests who hadn’t yet been given a glass.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, m’sieur, Monsieur Gaudin is not available.’
‘Then Tannoy.’ Anderson tried to control his voice. ‘Tell them the drinks are poisoned.’
‘I’m afraid that I cannot do that,’ indicating with one forefinger to her head, to the girl sitting next to her, that she had a lunatic on the other end of the line.
‘Then get me Monsieur Prentice.’
Two minutes before the toast to Bilderberg.
Prentice answered the phone in his room.
‘George. Jules Fromont is the killer. It’s my guess that he’s about to poison every bastard in the place. Get the fuck down there.’
Anderson replaced the receiver. He sat down, head between his hands. There was nothing more he could do.
* * *
Prentice grabbed the attaché case containing the submachine-gun, burst out of his room and raced down the stairs.
It was 6.29 when he reached the lobby. He sprinted across the marble floor, charged through the swing doors.
Gaudin raised his glass. ‘ … we hope that one day you will consider returning to the Château Saint-Pierre. I give you a toast, Bilderberg.’
Prentice shouted from the doors: ‘Don’t drink!’
Glasses wavered, stopped in front of lips. The French President and the former American Secretary of State stared at him in amazement.
Gaudin said: ‘Monsieur Prentice, what—’
‘They’re poisoned. All those drinks are poisoned.’
Gaudin said: ‘Are you out of your mind?’
No-one drank, everyone stared at him.
Prentice strode through their ranks.
He stood at the bar in front of Jules Fromont. He turned to the guests. ‘I ask one thing. I ask that Jules Fromont, who mixed the Bilderberg Special, has the first drink.’ He turned to the barman. ‘Go on, Jules, pour yourself one.’
The barman’s face was pale, sweat was beading his forehead. ‘I never drink at work,’ he said. ‘And I think you, m’sieur, are drunk.’
Prentice took one of the two remaining glasses on the tray and handed it to Fromont. ‘Drink!’
The barman hesitated for a moment. Stared at the pinkish-coloured drink.
Then he vaulted the bar and ran for the French windows. Behind him drinks crashed to the floor.
In one smooth action, Prentice released the submachine-gun from the attaché case and ran after him, feet crushing broken glass.
Fromont hit the French windows with his shoulder. They burst open and he was in the garden. In front of him in the misty half-light, the entrance to the maze.
When Prentice reached the French windows he had disappeared.
Holding the Uzi in two hands, Prentice entered the maze. He moved cautiously. For all he knew Fromont might be armed.
The hedges were well over six foot tall, jungle thick. Somewhere ahead of him he could hear Fromont running, cannoning against the clipped foliage.
Possibly Fromont knew the formula to get out of the maze. Most of them had one. But first he would have to reach the centre.
Silence. Except for the splashing of the fountains. The light was fading fast. The misty drizzle soaked Prentice’s clothes and the machine-gun was slippery in his hands.
A movement through a gap in one of the hedges. Prentice squeezed the trigger of the machine-gun. It barked and shuddered in his hands.
No answering cry of pain.
He stalked on – and came to a dead end. He swore and retraced his footsteps. Another dead end. He went back and took another turn. And then he was in the centre. Two plane trees and a wooden bench. Fromont was slumped on the bench. Prentice approached, Uzi pointing at the crumpled figure. There was froth on Fromont’s lips. Even in the fading light Prentice could see that already it was tinged with
blood.
Fromont turned his head and stared at him. ‘Filth,’ he whispered. ‘Filth!’
His face contorted.
Prentice bent down and smelled the bitter almond scent of potassium cyanide on his dying breath.
XXXVI
The morning of the day of departure.
A mass exodus. While Rolls-Royces, Cadillacs, Mercedes glided up to the entrance of the chȃteau and departed in a steady stream, Owen Anderson and Inspector Moitry stood in the apartment over the tabac in the village.
They had ransacked the rooms and found a wooden box. It had recently been painted brown. But through the paint they could see letters. When they scratched away the paint, they found that the letters had been indelibly stamped on the wood in black ink. ss PANZERDIVISION ‘HITLERJUGEND’.
‘One of the crack Panzer units in the German army during the last war,’ Moitry said. ‘The Germans had lost the war when these boxes were issued. Potassium cyanide capsules were supposed to be the honourable solution. But few SS men could see any honour in suicide. The Hitlerjugend must have abandoned this as they were being chased out of France.’
‘And Fromont – or Jacques Bertier as he was once known – must have found it as a kid. Either him or his twin brother. A pity we didn’t get the full details on Georges Bertier yesterday. Then we’d have known that he had a twin brother and we’d have known that the description fitted Fromont.’
‘You,’—not we, Anderson noted—‘can’t have been expected to realise that the reason the fingerprints checked out with a dead man’s was because he had a twin. An interesting point of criminology that – identical twins’ fingerprints matching.’
Anderson said: ‘And your men on the gate’—not mine!—‘can’t have been expected to know that all the bottles of liquor the barman brought into the chȃteau yesterday morning in his van, contained booze slugged with potassium cyanide.’
They closed up the apartment where Jacques Bertier had mixed his death cocktails and began to walk towards the chȃteau.
‘Now, of course,’ Anderson went on, ‘I understand Fromont’s obsession with Nicholas Foster. I implied I was interested and he tried to plant the blame. He didn’t see Foster and the girl from the French windows on the day of the shooting: he saw them in the village.’
I, Said the Spy Page 41