The Cut-Out

by Jon King

  Again he fingered the pile of papers on the table in front of him, and this time pulled out a photograph of a white Fiat Uno. He flipped it around and slid it across the table so that Andanson could view it.

  “We have evidence that a white Fiat Uno, like this one, was involved in the crash,” he said.

  “And?”

  “You own a white Fiat Uno, Monsieur Andanson.”

  Andanson grinned. “Not anymore,” he said. “I sold it.”

  “Oh?”

  “It was old. I drive a BMW now, and so does my wife. I haven’t used the Uno for more than a year.”

  “And yet only now you decide to sell it? After more than a year?”

  “It is not against the law to sell a car you no longer use, Capitaine.”

  “That depends, Monsieur Andanson—on what the car had been used for.”

  Andanson glared, but made no further reply. Instead he pushed himself upright in his seat and bit his teeth. He was becoming agitated. The Capitaine was taking this line of questioning too far and he didn’t like it. Of course he’d been in Paris to photograph the princess; where else would he have been? Photographing celebrities was his job. The world’s most famous couple in Paris and he at home with his wife? Preposterous. Of course he’d been there—he’d been there at le Bourget Airport to photograph their arrival that afternoon and he’d been there outside the Ritz Hotel to photograph their departure that same evening. He’d also been there in the Alma Tunnel, barely a heartbeat after the crash, to photograph their demise. Not that he was about to confess any of this to the Capitaine, of course. How could he? There was too much at stake—his own life, for one thing. If he so much as breathed a word about his presence in the tunnel that night his cover would be blown, the entire operation would be compromised and he’d be in danger of meeting a similar fate to the princess. He valued his life too much for that. Had he known the operation had been intended to kill her, of course – had he known from the outset that the couple were to be murdered – he would not so readily have agreed to his part in it, certainly not for the amount he’d been paid. He was an informant, after all, not an assassin. He was a go-between, no more: someone who obtained information and passed it back to his handler—for money. Always for money. The sum he’d been paid for keeping his MI6 handler informed of the couple’s movements during that final day in Paris – indeed, throughout the entire summer – was handsome enough. Or at least it would have been, in any other circumstance. But this operation had been destined to culminate in murder from the outset, he now realized, and if he’d known that he would have negotiated a higher fee – demanded a higher fee – before agreeing to do what he did. As it was he’d received the same as he would in any run-of-the-mill, kiss-and-tell operation, a fact that rankled, especially now that he’d been pulled in on suspicion of murder for his trouble.

  Simply put, James Andanson had been suckered. They owed him. He would get his own back.

  As the Capitaine continued to leaf through his notes, one by one, Andanson sat back and chewed on his half-smoked cigar, and thought of better days to come. Though unhappy he’d been duped into playing such a central role in an operation he’d had no foreknowledge of, he was nonetheless content to reap the rewards that operation was now about to bequeath him. That he’d been there, on the ground, in the tunnel, the only paparazzo in France to have photographed the entire event, from the Ritz Hotel to the Alma Tunnel, and had managed to escape the scene with the photographs intact, meant his life was about to change. Copies of the photographs – the copies he’d made for himself before handing the negatives over to his MI6 handler – were now locked safely away. And they would remain locked safely away until the moment was right for him to publish them in the book he’d been planning for the past six months. He’d already spoken to his good friend, Frédéric Dard, one of the world’s most successful authors and France’s most famous crime writer. Dard had readily agreed to write the book’s narrative; indeed, like Andanson, Dard was simply waiting for the dust to settle before embarking on perhaps the most exciting project of his already stellar career. A publisher had already been agreed, as had a seven-figure advance. It would be the biggest-selling, most explosive book ever published, and would afford James Andanson the kind of reward his intelligence bosses had, in effect, cheated him out of.

  Oh yes, he was thinking as he peered smugly across at the imbecile seated opposite him, MI6 would regret the day they made a fool of James Andanson.

  He made a show of checking his wristwatch. Then: “I am a busy man, Capitaine,” he said. “Unless there is anything else…?”

  The Capitaine continued leafing through his notes for a moment or two longer, making a point of letting Andanson know who was in charge. Finally he produced a photograph of Princess Diana aboard the Al Fayed yacht, the Jonikal. It was a photograph Andanson himself had taken.

  “You like to photograph the princess?” he said.

  “I am a photographer, Capitaine. It is my job to photograph celebrities.”

  “But you particularly like to photograph the princess,” the Capitaine said. “Last summer, in the weeks before she died, you followed her to, let me see …” flicking through his notes “… to Saint Tropez, to Monaco, to Sardinia…”

  “I went where she went.”

  “She went to Paris,” the Capitaine reminded him.

  “Yes, but I did not.”

  “Every paparazzo in France followed her to Paris, but you did not? You expect me to believe this, Monsieur Andanson?”

  “I expect you to prove otherwise, or let me go.”

  Just then, the in-house telephone interrupted proceedings. Capitaine Laurent lifted the receiver.

  “Allo? Yes, but … but … surely not…?”

  James Andanson watched as opposite him the Capitaine visibly sunk into himself, his expression turning increasingly incredulous as the conversation progressed. When he finally replaced the receiver Capitaine Laurent was shaking, Andanson could see, his cheeks flushed, his eyes flared. Beside him Lieutenant Gigou seemed bemused.

  Then, through clenched teeth: “It would appear you have powerful friends, Monsieur Andanson,” the Capitaine finally announced. “You are free to go.”

  Andanson stubbed out his cigar. Said nothing. Got up and left the room.

  CHAPTER 21

  It was a little over two weeks since my meeting with Lacey, almost three weeks since Diana’s death. I was driving home from yet another meeting, another source with something to say about how Diana had died, about who had killed her, and why. I was tired. It was early evening and already turning to dusk as I followed the beam of my car’s headlights along the stretch of country road that would, on any regular night, have led me home without event. But this night, it seemed, was different.

  “The government has said it was a miracle no one was killed by the car bomb that exploded in Northern Ireland yesterday…”

  As the evening news came on the car radio I happened to glance in my rear-view mirror and noticed the headlights of a vehicle some way behind me, perhaps two-hundred yards back down the road. Could have been more. At first I thought little of it, but found myself checking the mirror anyway: checking to make sure the headlights remained a safe distance behind me. Which they did, for a mile or so. But then they started to close, rapidly, a fact I noted but again tried not to make too much of. With everything that had happened these past few weeks my senses were heightened, I reminded myself, and I was perhaps prone to make more of a situation than I normally would. I told myself there was a simple explanation: the driver had decided to speed up because he’d suddenly realized he was late, for dinner, for a date, for some other appointment. Or maybe it was a boy racer who got his kicks burning rubber after dark, when there was less traffic on the road and less chance of getting caught. We’d just entered a stretch of dual carriageway, after all, and within the next half-minute or so I fully expected the vehicle’s tail lights to disappear off into the distance ahead of me as the
driver closed me down and overtook me. Nothing untoward about that. I checked my speed – sixty miles an hour – then again narrowed my gaze into the rear-view mirror. The headlights were still there, much closer now. But strangely they were no longer gaining on me. And neither were they moving out into the fast lane to overtake me. Rather, having closed me down at some speed they had now, for some reason, settled in behind me and were just sitting there, on my tail, as though observing me. And they were a little too close for comfort.

  It was something the newsreader said that momentarily snatched my attention away from the rear-view mirror and gave it back to the radio—something to do with landmines.

  “Foreign news now and a treaty banning the use of landmines has been agreed by all the Western world’s leaders, with the exception of one…”

  Still flicking anxious glances at the rear-view mirror – at the headlights still tailing me – I felt for the volume switch and turned the radio up.

  “…In a shock statement earlier today President Clinton revealed that America would not now be signing the treaty. The statement comes despite a recent pledge from the White House to support Princess Diana’s landmines campaign. Critics say the president has bowed to pressure from the Pentagon and America’s military-industrial complex.”

  For a brief moment my mind was back in Hyde Park, my meeting with Lacey, scarcely two weeks earlier.

  “The landmines treaty is due to be signed in Oslo in two weeks time,” he’d told me. “But sometime between now and then Clinton will announce he’s changed his mind and decided not to sign after all.”

  I flicked another glance in the rear-view mirror – headlights still there, even closer now—who the hell was that? – then sent my attention back to the radio, which was now playing a recording of a statement President Clinton had made at a press conference earlier that day.

  “Last month I instructed a US team to join negotiations then under way in Oslo to ban all antipersonnel landmines,” Clinton announced. “Our negotiators worked tirelessly to reach an agreement we could sign. Unfortunately I cannot in good conscience add America’s name to that treaty.”

  I cannot in good conscience add America’s name to that treaty. The phrase bounced around inside my head like some garbled public address announcement. I cannot in good conscience add America’s name to that treaty.

  The newsreader concluded the piece.

  “The shock announcement comes less than three weeks after the death of Princess Diana, and just one day before the treaty is due to be signed. The world can only wonder if the president’s decision would have been the same were Princess Diana still alive.”

  Had I the presence of mind I perhaps would have pulled over at this point and allowed myself to more fully digest the news. I cannot in good conscience… But by now there was a maniac breathing down my neck—literally. The headlights that up until this point had been content to sit on my tail and track me were now on full beam, and so close behind me they were virtually whiting out the inside of my car, glaring off my rear-view mirror in every direction and making it extremely difficult for me to see. Who the hell was this madman? Boy racer? Government agent? As I squeezed my eyes almost shut against the dazzle of the blinding lights my mounting panic came down on the side of government agent. Surely it had to be. Well why would a boy racer – or anyone else, for that matter – have wanted to chase me down and run me off the road? For no apparent reason? I had no answers. Which was why I decided the maniac in the vehicle behind was more likely a government spook than a teenager in search of thrills.

  I knew I had to do something. Terrified though I was, I knew I couldn’t just sit there and allow this creature to bully me into making a fatal driving error. Already my mind was conjuring images of the Alma Tunnel, Henri Paul, the car chase that had resulted in Diana’s assassination. Maybe this was my time, I was thinking. Maybe this guy was out to run me off the road and herd me into the nearest concrete pillar, or telegraph pole, or lamppost. Maybe he’d been sent to silence me, or at least terrify me into dropping my investigation, scare me off so that what I’d been told would never come to light. I didn’t know. And right now I hadn’t the presence of mind to think it through. All I knew was I had to do something to get this maniac off my back.

  By instinct I found myself feeling for the gear lever, sinking the clutch, dropping down a gear and hammering my foot to the floor in an attempt to put distance between us. It worked. Initially. But in no time the maniac was on me again, nose to bumper now, so close I could feel the thunder of his engine rumbling through the floor of my own car, almost smell the rubber he was burning on the road behind me. The smell was acrid, and terrifying.

  And now there was a second factor to consider: a roundabout was looming in my front windscreen, no more than a hundred yards ahead, I estimated, and hurtling towards me at a full seventy miles an hour, seventy-five: eighty. Jesus. My mind was a compound fracture. Half of me was trying to judge the speed, the distance, trying to hold it together. The other half was praying there would be no other cars on the roundabout when I got there.

  I drove it blind. No other way to do it. Hitting the brakes as late as I possibly could I screeched around the roundabout and almost lost control, my steering wheel spinning wildly left then right before finally straightening up as – thank God! – I managed to negotiate the exit and scream off along the road ahead, unscathed. Behind me, the maniac did the same.

  Who the hell is this guy?

  Then, suddenly, with the roundabout disappearing into the distance behind us, the maniac backed off. Suddenly he dimmed his headlights and trimmed his speed, although not completely, sufficiently though that now he was tailing me once again from perhaps twenty yards back, still too close for comfort but at least making no attempt to run me off the road, just the occasional reminder that he was still there as his headlights flashed to full beam, then back to normal again. For the next half-mile or so he simply sat there, on my tail, menacing, a steady twenty or so yards behind me. Even when I varied my speed – sped up, slowed down, deliberately – he kept the same distance between us, like he was fixed to my tail on a tow bar. Whoever it was driving that vehicle, I realized, he was no ordinary driver—a fact that gave me no comfort whatever.

  And then another disquieting fact: up ahead, perhaps 300 yards into the ever darkening distance, I could see traffic lights. And they were red. Again I checked the rear-view mirror. Headlights still there, still twenty yards back, precisely. By now I was shaking, sweating. My heart was beating so hard it bruised, and I was finding more and more difficulty in keeping my thoughts level, my head composed. My mind was a battle field, debating now whether I should stop or just drive on through those fast-approaching traffic lights. I didn’t want to cause an accident, of course. But I didn’t want to stop, either: didn’t want to leave myself vulnerable to the actions of the lunatic behind me. Whether it was the speed-check camera hovering above the lights threatening to film me, or whether it was the thought of causing serious injury to some or other innocent driver if I were to jump the lights and plough head-on into their vehicle, I’m really not sure. Perhaps it was neither of these things. But as I approached the lights I found myself slowing to a stop and pulling up beneath the red light, despite the threat posed by the maniac attached to my rear. And then I just sat there, staring straight ahead, almost too scared to look in my rear-view mirror. It must have been a full ten seconds before I finally plucked up the courage to check behind me, but when I did I was hit with a genuine surprise: the maniac and his headlights had disappeared.

  Where the hell had they gone?

  I was shivered. I just couldn’t figure it. Now he was playing mind games with me. Was he? For the life of me I just couldn’t figure where the maniac could be, where he could have turned off the road without me noticing. It was quite simply impossible—wasn’t it? He’d followed me across the roundabout, I was certain of that. I remembered seeing him in my mirror, fighting his under-steer and sliding broads
ide around the roundabout, just like I did, before straightening up and locking on to me again as I powered along the exit road in a futile attempt to get away. He was there, behind me, no doubt about it. He was there as we’d approached the traffic lights. No doubt about that, either. I was certain we hadn’t driven past a junction or a turning since then, not even a dirt track where he could have turned off the carriageway without me noticing. True, I’d been so preoccupied with trying to stay alive I guess I could have missed his departure. Then again, surely not. Surely I would have seen him turn off, or at least noticed that the headlights were no longer there, tailing me from a menacing twenty yards back. It just didn’t make sense.

  I took a breath. Okay. No matter. He was gone now, and that was the end of it. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, was about to tell myself what a paranoid fool I’d been to think there’d been anything sinister in the fact that I’d been followed by an over-enthusiastic boy racer, that I was just jumpy because of what I found myself involved in, that MI5 had better things to do with their time than harass inconsequential conspiracy theorists like me … when the headlights suddenly reappeared. Seemingly without warning they were on me again, no more than fifty yards back and closing fast. Where the hell did they come from? As I sat there waiting for the traffic lights to change from red to green, watching the headlights approaching at breakneck speed in my rear-view mirror, I remember thinking this was it, that I was bound to die – here and now – or at the very least sustain serious injuries as a result of this maniac slamming into my rear bumper at eighty miles an hour. I thought about wrenching off my seat belt and leaping from the car, but I was frozen to my seat, rooted there, unable to move, think, anything, certain the vehicle bearing down on me was about to plough full throttle into the back of my car … when suddenly I heard the deathly screech of brakes as the maniac skidded to a velocity-defying halt and came to rest no more than a whispered threat from my rear bumper.