by Jon King
Right now I was feeling all three.
According to Lacey, Thierry was a middle-aged down-and-out who’d resorted to the bottle when his career as a Whitehall civil servant had ended prematurely. Despite his name, it seemed, Thierry was English, having worked most of his life for some or other government department before ‘retiring’ to Paris (although, as Lacey had made a point of explaining, Thierry’s ‘retirement’ had been more the decision of the department he’d worked for than his own). In any event, Lacey had assured us that Thierry remained well-connected. If there was anything – or anyone – worth knowing that hadn’t yet surfaced in the media, anything at all, Thierry was the man to talk to. And so here we were, on our way to talk to him.
As the cab pulled up in the grimy, run-down back street we now found ourselves in I immediately realized why we’d received such strange looks from the cab driver when we’d told him our destination. He still wore the same bemused look on his face now as he peered back at us across his shoulder and motioned across the street towards what looked like a derelict rail yard. On closer inspection we could see that the yard was populated by around thirty raggedly dressed and unwashed denizens, most of them male, most sleeping under fetid blankets and cardboard: all of them homeless. I presumed Thierry was among them.
“Voila,” the driver said, fidgeting nervously in his seat as though anxious to get the hell away from here.
I reached through from the back of the cab and gave him his money. “Merci bien.”
“Bon chance!” he said—Good luck! He obviously believed we would need it.
Somewhat hesitantly we climbed out of the cab and watched the driver disappear back into the warren of backstreets and alleyways before making our way across the street towards Cardboard City. I felt at once conspicuous and edgy as we picked our way mindfully through the debris—the filth, the trash, the makeshift cardboard beds, one of which was empty, we soon discovered, its occupant already up and rummaging for cigarette butts.
I called to him. “Pardon, Monsieur? Hello? Bonjour?”
The guy looked over at me like I’d just arrived from another planet, then mumbled something under his breath and carried on rummaging for nicotine.
I tried again. “Bonjour Monsieur. Thierry est ici? Uh? Thierry?”
Still no response.
Had he understood me? I wondered. I didn’t know, but I figured I knew a way to find out. “Monsieur?” I said again, taking a cigarette pack out of my pocket and offering it to him. “Thierry? Est-il ici?”
The way the fellow’s eyes suddenly lit up at the sight of the cigarettes told me that, if he hadn’t understood me before, he understood me now, clearly enough. Wiping the palms of his hands on his grubby coat he crossed the few yards between us without uttering so much as a grunt and took the cigarettes from my hand. Having opened them up he checked inside the pack, presumably to make sure it wasn’t empty. Then, satisfied with his prize, he pointed to a heap of rag and cardboard perhaps twenty yards away.
“Thierry,” he said, and no more.
I looked over at the makeshift bed, laid out beside the remains of a small fire above which thin strands of smoke still hung.
“Merci,” I said, but I don’t think he heard me. Or if he did, he took no notice. He’d already turned his back on us, and was busy scraping a match on the remains of a ripped up matchbox in an attempt to light the cigarette he’d just pulled from the pack. We left him to it.
And made our over towards the inanimate heap of rags and cardboard the guy had pointed out. Sure enough, as we drew closer, the shape of a male face – craggy, unshaven, florid with too much alcohol – became visible beneath the rags. It appeared far older than its fifty-two years.
“Thierry? Hello?”
Thierry didn’t reply, so I nudged his boot with my foot. Still no response.
I tried again. “Thierry? Lacey said you might be able to help. He said you were English, so I know you can understand me.”
“He also said you like whisky,” JB added, and from his jacket pocket produced the brand new bottle of Teacher’s we’d purchased in the duty-free store on the way over from England. We’d actually purchased two, but we didn’t want Thierry to know that, not yet.
A beat later Thierry’s weathered features emerged from beneath the rags. “Lacey sent you?” he said, finally, in the plumiest Queen’s English.
“Yes. He said we’d find you here.”
“And you are?”
“My name’s Jon King. And this is my colleague, John Beveridge. We’re investigating the death of Princess Diana. Lacey said you’d be able to answer some questions.”
“Did he?” Thierry pushed himself up into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes, then stoked the remains of last night’s fire with a length of charred wood. “You’re treading on hot coals, gentlemen. If Lacey sent you here, others will know you came. I take it that’s for me?” he said, flashing a hopeful glance at the whisky bottle in JB’s hand.
“In exchange for information, yes.”
“Then let’s talk. I have nothing better to do, after all.”
JB handed him the whisky, and immediately he unscrewed the bottle and started drinking from it, guzzling its contents as though the whisky was neat water. It was shocking to witness. I couldn’t help but wonder how such a quintessentially English civil servant had ended up living here, in Cardboard City, Paris. Though part of me felt sorry for him, the greater part of me remained for some reason slightly suspicious of the man. While I had no evident reason to doubt his story – that he was a former government official who’d been ‘retired’ and had since fallen on hard times – even so it seemed an unlikely tale, it has to be said, one I couldn’t help but treat with some scepticism. For all I knew his life here as a hobo could have been a cover; he could still have been working for the government, an MI6 deep-cover agent tasked with overseeing the clean-up operation still very much under way here in Paris in the aftermath of Diana’s death. My paranoia surfacing again, I knew that. But apart from those closest to me I just didn’t know who was who anymore—who I could trust, and who I should be wary of. So I’d chosen to be wary of everyone.
Thierry made a face that said the whisky had burned on its way down.
“We’re interested to find out more about the driver of the Fiat Uno,” I said. “The one involved in the crash.”
“What about him?”
“They say he was a paparazzo, that he owned a Fiat Uno identical to the one that hit the Mercedes. Lacey said you’d know him.”
“Everyone knows him.”
“Everyone?”
“He’s well known in town. But it wasn’t his car in the tunnel.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Would you use your own car in an operation of that kind?”
“No,” I conceded. “But we’d still like to talk to him. Do you know his name?”
“Perhaps.” Thierry took another mouthful of whisky, and swallowed. Then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I cast a glance at JB.
“We were also hoping to talk to this man,” JB said, and pulled out a photograph of someone who claimed to have been in the tunnel at the time of the crash. He handed the photograph to Thierry.
A beat, then: “Francois Levistre,” Thierry said.
“You know him?”
“Of course. He says he saw a light in the tunnel. A flash. No big deal.”
“No big deal?” I said.
“Not really.”
“We were told it could have been a strobe gun,” JB put in.
“I suppose it could have been, yes. But in Levistre you’re looking for the wrong man. He won’t tell you anything. Not anymore.”
“What makes you say that?” I said. “Has he been threatened?”
“My God, no. They’ve long since substituted their bully-boy tactics for a far more effective practice. They don’t threaten these days, they lampoon, make you look stupid. No one takes the word of a clo
wn. Discredit the messenger, discredit the message. It’s their new motto.”
“And this is what they’ve done to Levistre—discredited him?”
“If they haven’t yet, they will. Mark my words.” He handed the photograph back to JB.
“Who are they, Thierry?” I said. “Who are they?”
Thierry shrugged. “Who fixed the Mercedes?” he said. “Who switched the blood sample? Who killed the princess and ruined the wedding plans? Answer those questions and you’ll know soon enough who they are.” He took another mouthful of whisky before adding: “But be careful. They have the advantage. They already know who you are.”
They already know who you are…
He was right about that, of course. And I guess in broad terms I knew who they were, too. But right now I needed specifics: I needed a name. As I stooped down on my haunches and watched Thierry slug away at what little remained of his liquid breakfast I felt sure he had more to tell: that he knew the name, the one we’d come to discover.
Figuring the promise of a second bottle of whisky might just loosen his tongue even further I gestured to JB, who sunk his hand inside his jacket pocket, ready.
Then: “I need a name, Thierry,” I said. “The name of the paparazzo.”
“What makes you think I know his name?”
“You said you knew him. You said everyone knows him.”
“Figure of speech.”
“Was he working for MI6?”
“We’ve all done that from time to time. It’s easy money.”
“What about the network, then? What’s the word on the street?”
“The street doesn’t talk to strangers.”
“Not even strangers with whisky?” JB cut in, and pulled out the second bottle from inside his jacket.
“We need a name, Thierry,” I said. “Who’s the street talking about?”
CHAPTER 29
James Andanson was by now a very worried man. His recent conversation with his MI6 handler, Mason, had reminded him what a dangerous game he was playing. Keeping copies of the photographs he’d taken in the Alma Tunnel immediately after the crash – prior to the arrival of the emergency services, when the assassins were still there, on the ground, yet to make their getaway – suddenly felt like the most foolish thing he’d ever done. He was in a panic. He knew he needed to remove the photographs from his office safe and stash them somewhere else before Mason’s bloodhounds found them and then came after him. They knew where to find him, of course; he’d been working for the prestigious SIPA press agency in Paris for almost a year now and his office there was open territory, easily accessible to someone like Mason and his highly trained goons. Had he not feared that Mason might have set a trap he would have removed them immediately after his meeting with the MI6 man in St Tropez. As it was he’d decided to wait, play it cool so as not to arouse suspicions by rushing back to his office in Paris straight from St Tropez. His next scheduled trip to Paris would be the least conspicuous time to do what had to be done, he’d decided. And now that time had arrived. Now here he was, on this thickly humid Parisian afternoon, making his way to the SIPA press agency to collect the telltale prints before someone else did.
Turning right off Place de la Porte de Saint-Cloud, Andanson’s cab drew up outside the SIPA building on Boulevard Murat in Boulogne-Billancourt, and the paparazzo climbed out.
“Quinze minutes,” he said to the cab driver, instructing him to wait fifteen minutes. The driver nodded, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tipped one in his mouth and lit up. Carrying an empty duffle bag Andanson turned and headed into the building .
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” the receptionist said as an anxious looking Andanson entered the main reception area and made his way hurriedly through to the elevator. He did not speak, not to the receptionist, not to anyone. His mind was so focused on the task facing him he scarcely even noticed the sound of the woman’s voice, much less the surprised expression on her face as he strode obliviously past her. Clearly put out by the paparazzo’s poor manners she made a face that showed her displeasure, then turned her head and continued to paint her nails.
Less than two minutes later Andanson stepped from the elevator and made his way hurriedly along the short corridor to his office. Once inside he closed the door and locked it, then headed straight for the safe where his photographic archive – or a good deal of it, at least – was stored safely away. Many of his prints were of high value, after all, and storing them in his office safe, away from prying eyes and gloved hands, had become routine priority. Even more so now that his name – James Andanson – was synonymous with success. Dialling in the safe’s combination he opened it up and took out the neat bundles of prints and rolls of photographic negative it contained, then sat himself at his desk and started flicking through the material, sifting the innocent from the incriminating.
At one point he paused as he pulled out what appeared on the face of it to be a regular photographic album, though the title scrawled on its inside cover gave it away as something far more prized than that. Rapport sur le Voyage de Lady Di the title read—‘Report on the Voyage of Lady Di’. It was a photographic record of Andanson’s pursuit of Diana and Dodi the previous summer, during the days and weeks leading up to their deaths. As he thumbed through its pages now he was reminded of just how revealing its contents were; some of the world’s most familiar photographs of Diana and Dodi were contained in the album, many of which had already made the front pages of Britain’s tabloids. Others were still yet to do so. Each had notes scrawled beneath them, like captions in a scrapbook.
But there were other photographs in the album, too, less familiar photographs, more dangerous. These were the images Andanson had come to remove—photographs of MI6 agents on the ground in Paris on the night of Diana’s death, agents known to Andanson, their faces dotted among the swarm of paparazzi outside the Ritz Hotel, in the afternoon and in the evening; and then again around midnight as they waited for the couple to depart on their fateful journey. There were even photographs of Mason himself, at the rear of the Ritz Hotel, outside Dodi’s apartment, in the Alma Tunnel immediately after the crash. Again, beneath each of the images were scrawled notes, giving the album the appearance of a scrapbook.
Carefully sifting out the incriminating prints Andanson stuffed them in his duffle bag and placed the remainder of the material back in the safe, locked it.
He then left the room, smugly content in his belief that he’d outpaced MI6 and could now stash the material safely away until the French Inquiry was done and he could publish his planned book without fear of reprisals.
But of course, he was wrong. As he exited the building and climbed back in his cab on Boulevard Murat in Boulogne-Billancourt, two miles away in Mason’s office at the British Embassy on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the phone rang.
MI6 chief Richard Mason picked it up.
“He’s just left, sir,” the voice reported, referring to Andanson’s departure from the SIPA press agency offices.
“Did he take the entire archive?” Mason wanted to know.
“We don’t know that, sir, not yet. We’ll need to take a look around his office ourselves.”
“Negative. The climate is still too sticky. I’ll organize a black bag, have someone do it for us.”
“Sir.”
“Stay on his tail, though. We need to know where he deposits the backup. Once we have it in our possession we can tell Wilkinson Montpellier’s go.”
“Should we close the contract on site, sir?”
“Affirmative. But wait for the green light. I’ll arrange things through the embassy.”
That said, Mason put the phone down and closed the photograph album laying open on his desk in front of him. Its cover was titled Rapport sur le Voyage de lady Di’—‘Report on the Voyage of Lady Di’. Beneath the title the name of the album’s author: James Andanson. He slid the album back in his desk drawer and locked it.
Twenty-four minutes later Richard Mason arrived a
t 7 rue Nélaton, headquarters of the DST.
Half an hour after arriving at his hotel from Charles de Gaulle Airport, Richard Tomlinson was seated at the dark, apple-wood table in the corner of his room, checking notes on his laptop, when suddenly the door burst open. Two plain-clothes agents accompanied by three gendarmes were on him before he could even spit.
“Aghhh! What the…?”
The searing crack! of a pistol butt brought down on the back of his head and the crunch of someone’s boot slamming into his ribs was the only introduction he received. He couldn’t remember hitting the floor but as he forced open his eyes he found himself at the foot of the apple-wood table, rolled up in a foetal ball, clutching his screaming ribs. They hurt so bad he could scarcely breathe.
“Who are you?” he tried to say to the men ransacking his room. “What do you want? Where’s your ID?”
The plain-clothes agent seemingly in charge of the raid turned to the gendarme whose boot had just cracked Tomlinson’s ribs. “Show him our ID,” he said, and the same boot thudded into Tomlinson’s kidneys, like a sledgehammer.
The high-pitched squeal Tomlinson effused sounded more like a pig being slaughtered than anything human. The horrific sound lasted less than a beat. Then Tomlinson passed out.
“Bring the computer,” the senior agent instructed. “Clothes, attaché case, even his fucking toothbrush. If there’s a reason to prevent this son of a bitch giving evidence at the inquiry, I want it found.”
“What did you get?” Mason asked.
“Everything,” the DST agent replied.
“Let’s hope so.”
The two men were in a minimally furnished office at DST HQ in Paris, Mason poring over papers and studying a list of names on a computer screen set on the table in front of him. The DST agent was standing by the open window, smoking.
“Langman,” Mason muttered, almost to himself, as he scrolled down the list of names on the computer screen. His tone carried a hint of discomfort. “Nicholas Langman … Richard Spearman…”