Outside a neon light of some kind kept smearing washes of red, blue and green about the room. I don’t know what he expected to find in the bathroom but he was not long deciding that it was not there. He came back and stood pensively between the bed and the window. I watched him with half my head under the sheet and through the faintest crack of an eyelid, just the way I used to do it when my old man would come padding into the room to fill my Christmas stocking. I even gave a faint snore just to reassure him. He relaxed in the way my old man used to relax. I was glad about the relaxing because the dark bulk of his right hand was clubrooted, but not with any Christmas stocking.
He half turned to the window and I came out of bed like the wrath of Christmas past, present and future, and with one hand gripping the corner of the hard bolster affair that the French call a pillow. I slung it at him and caught him on the side of the head. Quite a blow when not expected. As he reeled, I jabbed him behind the knees with my foot and he went down and cracked his head against the door of the wardrobe. I picked up his gun and sat on the edge of my bed, groping with my left hand for my slippers. Never walk about in bare feet, a mother maxim, drilled into me.
As he sat up, hunched over his knees and rubbing the back of his head, I said, “They tell me the whole place is soundproof, and I’m not responsible for the tidying-up when I leave.”
With an American accent, he said, “Christ, what a welcome.” He turned and beat his fist against the wardrobe door. “Old-fashioned French colonial stuff, built to last, solid. A modern factory piece and my head would have gone right through. Howard Johnson’s the name. For the time being, that is.” He stood up.
I said, “Go through into the parlour. Light switch on your left.”
He went through, switched on the light and I followed. I waved him to a chair and sat between him and the door and we looked at each other.
“Nice line in pyjamas,” he said, smiling.
I said, “I’m particular about my bedwear. You never know who you’re going to meet.”
He nodded. “I must have been a disappointment. But don’t judge too soon.”
I said, “The floor is all yours.”
He was one of those chunky, pleasant-looking chaps, very American, with close-cropped sandy hair, and a rugged face. I put him at about twenty-five, and he would not have been out of place in a line-up of Olympic athletes. But not on any American team. I don’t know why. It was all perfect. Too perfect, perhaps, the way the bright boys of all the tribes east of the Rhine are always just too perfect when they tell themselves they must not make any mistake. He had a light silk jacket, smart brown trousers, and great boats of perfectly polished brogue shoes with crêpe soles, and a gold tie-clip with the initials HJ crested on it.
“Mind if I smoke?” he asked. His right hand made a move to his jacket pocket.
I waved the gun warningly and he stopped. Then I tossed him a box of matches and my own cigarettes from the table beside me.
“Careful. I like that.” He lit a cigarette.
I said, “Come to the point. I don’t like my sleep broken.”
He was silent for a moment, but not still. There was a slight fidget of the crêpe-soled shoes.
Then he said, “All right, lover-boy – I’ll give it to you straight. You’re in business for money, yes?”
“Yes.”
“We know you’ve got a watching brief for London, and you know that there’s often a gap in the liaison between Washington and London. Sure, of course, you know. Political reasons, heads of staff jealousy ... makes the whole thing a cow’s ass of a nuisance at times. We’d just like to put you on the pay-roll. Whatever you pass to London, you pass to us. We’re both working to the same end. Nothing wrong with double insurance. Of course, it would be confidential, strictly. And you’d make a fat bundle of dollars.”
“You could have put all that in a letter instead of breaking up my sleep.”
“Think so? No. First rule – try your man to check responses, reflex actions and blood pressure. You got an Alpha plus mark with me. I knew you were awake but even so you got me off balance. I should have thought of the pillow. What’s the answer?”
I stood up and stepped back so that he had a free walk to the door.
“Briefly,” I said, “no. Expanding it a little – not bloody likely. What is it about me that makes people think I’ve got a Judas complex?”
“Money,” he said. “Lovely dollars, honey child.”
The longer I was with him, the less I liked this American. I nodded at the door. “Goodnight, Johnson.”
He did not argue. He said, “Okay. Your loss.” And then at the door, he added, “You keeping my gun?”
I said, “It goes in the collection. When I retire I’m presenting it to the South Kensington Science Museum. Also, not that I’m impressed with the security of this place, I’ll have the key you let yourself in with.”
I held out my left hand and kept him covered with the right. After a flicker of hesitation he fished in his trouser pocket and tossed me a key.
I kept the door open and heard him down the stairs. Then I checked him from the window, crossing the street below. Then I went back to bed. Lovely dollars. Sure, and I would have been paid in dollars, too. But somewhere, when the real book-keeping was done, I was pretty sure that it would have been in roubles. Honey child....
CHAPTER SIX
“VOUS VOUS AMUSEZ, NO?”
I phoned Wilkins at Greenwich the next morning early. It was half-past seven and her father answered the phone, roaring down the instrument as though he had been roused by the officer of the watch saying that number two hold was on fire. He shouted for Wilkins and, while she was taking her hair out of curlers or whatever else it was that she felt she had to do to make herself decent to answer the phone, the old man gave me two runners at Longchamp that day and a brief run down on the weather prospects in London.
Wilkins came on, half-awake and disapproving of early calls. I said that I wanted everything she could find on Avraam Malacod phoned to me as soon as possible, and then, as an off-chance, because it had been worrying me a little ever since I had heard it, I asked for the same on Latour-Mesmin.
“Female?”
“Yes. Vérité,” I said. “The old memory box keeps flashing hazy sorts of headlines. Or am I dreaming?”
“At this hour you should be sleeping.”
I did not argue. I gave her the flat number to call back and then made coffee and two poached eggs. I sat over the coffee trying to put some order into things. Malacod through Stebelson wanted me to keep an eye on Katerina and finally let him know where Mrs Vadarci went to ground. Sutcliffe wanted the same. Then there were the two men who had jumped me in London, and lover-boy who had visited me last night ... all on the same tack. And tied to Mrs Vadarci, flying like a gorgeous kite, so that you couldn’t miss her, was Katerina. Stebelson had said that Mrs Vadarci was going to use Katerina. What for? Maybe I ought to pin Katerina down somewhere long enough to make her talk. It would not be easy, but it was worth trying. If everybody was using everybody else, and hoping to make a good thing out of it, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t come in on the game, no matter what Sutcliffe said about men overfilling their wallets.
I waited until nine-thirty and then phoned Balzac 35. 30, a personal call to Katerina. She came on sounding very sleepy and cross, and sounded crosser when she heard that it was me.
“Ring later,” she said, and I could hear the yawn.
“I want to see you today.”
“Ring later.”
I said, “Seven o’clock tonight. The north end of the Solferino bridge.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll come round to the hotel now?”
“Then I don’t see you.”
“You’ll have to. I’ll say I’m from the Ministry of Health and want to see your certificate to practise as a masseuse. Solferino bridge. Seven o’clock.”
“All right.”
“Good girl.”
“How can I tell the north end?”
“Look at the river. If it flows from your right to your left, you’re at the wrong end. Cross over.”
“Mein Gott – how difficult. I stand in the middle. And I wait only two minutes.” She rang off, and I imagined her curling up in bed again. I lingered over the picture for a while.
Then Casalis came in on his own key and said cheerfully, “Morning, Mother Jambo. Sleep well?”
“All but an hour. I had a visitor. The key of this place is compromised. As though you care.”
“Not particularly. Life is one big compromise.” He poured himself what was left of the coffee into the quarter-filled sugar basin and made a relishing noise as he swallowed half of it at one go. “Delicious. You’ve got a touch with coffee.”
“He called himself Howard Johnson, or some such name. Made me an offer on behalf of the C.I.A. and guaranteed fat payment.”
“Snappy dresser? Looks like a college half-back and has a manner so frank you can tell it’s pure man-made fibre from east of the Urals?”
“That’s him.”
“Dear old Howard. He’s what they call an early developer. Bright boy of the class, top marks in everything, and then when his voice broke and all the other signs of adolescence appeared he petered out. Still by that time they had a big investment in him so they keep hoping he’ll get into gear again one day. What about Malacod?”
“I thought you might know about him. He hired me. No questions asked either way.”
“Trusting of you.”
“I liked his smile. It lit up the room.”
“You should have worn sunglasses.”
“He was generous,” I said. “Put his secretary entirely at my disposal. Travelling companion, guide, counsellor and friend. The name is Vérité Latour-Mesmin.”
“What vintage?”
“About 1935, and thin on the palate. But I’m hoping that decanting will improve it. Anyway, she goes with me on the Vadarci trail.”
Casalis made a face and said, “I don’t think we shall like that.”
I knew what he meant by we, but I was not worried.
“You’re stuck with it,” I said. “And so am I. Now, what about this flat? I don’t like visitors.”
“You can handle them. But I’d better keep away. Be in the George V bar each evening between six and six-thirty. Beginning tonight. If there is anything to be passed we’ll do it there. Here, I could be jumped easily.”
“That’s right,” I said, “you look after yourself.”
“Always do.” He gave me a wave and went.
At twelve o’clock Wilkins came through with her material. I sat in front of the window with several sheets of paper on the table before me, and a large glass of gin and campari in my right hand.
Wilkins had dictated to me a three hundred word summary – and Wilkins could summarize Gone with the Wind into three pages if pushed – of the trial of Vérité Latour-Mesmin for the murder of her husband in May, 1957. The account had appeared in the News of the World. It was that which had made my old memory box flicker because, if I could help it, I never missed my couple of glasses of Guinness and the News of the World every Sunday morning in Mrs Meld’s kitchen. Vérité had been acquitted by a French jury at Limoges, and it had been a very juicy case indeed.
On Malacod, it was mostly international banking, shipping, two museum foundations, charity trusts, and research scholarships ... the same kind of set-up that you would find listed under names like Rothschild, Gulbenkian, Ford, Nuffield and so on. Malacod was a Jew, born in Hamburg, and he was unmarried. There was also a summary from an account in the London Times of 16 February, 1947, announcing a new Malacod research fund, and this included a précis of a second leader in The Times of the same day which, I had a feeling, was less than just to Malacod.
After reading it all through, I mixed myself a second drink, a big one, so that I could toast Wilkins and her industry first. The very little that was left in the glass I libated to Vérité Latour-Mesmin. Ice-maidens are made not born.
*
I got to the George V just after six o’clock. In the bar, a large American, with a Countess Mara tie and a matey manner, kept me company and told me a long story about a friend of his. I kept waiting for the point and it never came. I lost interest in him over the second martini. As it was served to me I saw Richard Manston come into the bar.
He was a sight for sore eyes, but I knew at once that he wanted no part of me. He came up to the bar, three yards away from me, and ordered a whisky and soda. He was in tails and wearing a set of miniature medals. He also had a monocle screwed into one eye and his hair was dyed a nice blond. He was so impeccable that I had the feeling that there were crumbs down the back of my collar. He looked right through me, the American next to me, and the wall beyond us, while the barman, serving him, said, “Nice to see you again, Sir Alfred.” I turned my back on him and pretended to take an interest in the American.
Five minutes later Manston left the bar. As he passed me I waited for the touch and could not be sure that I had marked it. When he was out of the place, I dropped my hand idly to my jacket pocket. I had never met any man who could do it better, except one, and he was in Parkhurst, his talent rotting.
I endured the American for ten more minutes and then I strolled out of the bar. In the hotel main lobby I turned my back quickly and started to light a cigarette, hands well up to my face, and watching everything behind me in a wall mirror. Moving towards the main entrance were Mrs Vadarci and Katerina, togged up in full evening fig, and escorted by Sir Alfred. I watched them go out and it didn’t even occur to me to get a taxi to the Solferino bridge. No girl was going to stand on a Seine bridge, even for two minutes, in blue chiffon and white fox, slightly vulgar, oversized diamonds, and a rising violet mist in her blue eyes. This last, I presumed, was for Sir Alfred. It did not even make me jealous because I knew she was wasting her time with Manston.
I went into the men’s room and pulled out the envelope which Manston had slipped into my jacket pocket. There was a hotel key in it, a cigarette, and a letter which read:
Welcome back, old boy. Have a look around Suite 101. No need to be tidy. Smoke cigarette and leave butt. We may meet again but you don’t know me – no matter what. And don’t be tempted. There are no pickings in this one. Repeat no. Bon voyage. R.A.D.I.
The cigarette was tipped and just above the butt was the legend – Beograd Filter. I knew it was going to taste like hell. I tore up the message and flushed it away. Read and destroy immediately. A few moments later I was going up in the lift, pondering the future business. And ponder was the word. Wherever I met him in future I was not to recognize him. No pickings, either. I smiled at that. Resist temptation, here it was again. Then the smile went as I realized that Manston – plenty of others, yes, but not Manston – had never said that to me before. It meant I was in deep, very deep. Suddenly I had a moment’s nostalgia for Guinness and kippers in Mrs Meld’s kitchen.
Suite 101 was the usual modest lay-out you get for fifty guineas a day: a little lobby, a sitting-room, and off either side of the sitting-room a bedroom, each with its bathroom. I started with Mrs Vadarci’s bedroom. She was clearly one of the untidiest women that ever lived. Her stuff was all over the place. I went through everything. She had a wardrobe that would have fitted out half the female cast of My Fair Lady, and enough jewellery to make a fair display in Cartier’s window. I was tempted to take the lot and go into retirement there and then. There were times later when I wished I had. The only thing that made me at all curious – there were no personal papers of any kind to do it – was a long soft leather container. It was at the bottom of a white pigskin case that was half filled with a ghastly collection of archaic underwear that should have been in the V. and A. Inside this long container was a whip. It had a gold grip decorated top and bottom with three ivory bands. The stock or body of the whip was, I guessed, of nicely tempered steel and it was covered with red morocco leather with a s
mall Greek key pattern spiralling round it in gold. There was one thong at the end about four feet long. It was no toy and it made the air wince as I took a couple of practice swings with it.
The sitting-room did not produce anything. There were a few magazines and papers. On a sideboard were drinks, an enormous box of chocolates with liqueur centres, genuine, I found, when I chose a Cointreau. I helped myself to a whisky and soda and smoked half the cigarette and then dropped the rest into a tray. It was not as bad as I had expected.
Katerina’s bedroom was neat, everything in its place. She did not have a lot in the way of clothes, but what she had she treated with care ... folded and pressed, shoes on trees. There was a short nightdress laid out on the bed. It was silk and as light and frothy as meringue, and pale green. In a travelling writing-case on a table was her passport – West German Federal Government. Her name was genuine – Katerina Helga Saxmann. Flipping through it to the visa section I found the big tablet stamp of a Yugoslav visa. It had been issued the previous day at the Paris Embassy. Vazi tri meseca od dana izdavanja – valid for three months from the date of issue. With it were two Air France tickets to Dubrovnik, via Zagreb, for the next day, and a printed slip from the Yugoslav Travel and Tourist Agency, Atlas, confirming reservations for two at the Hotel Argentina, Dubrovnik. I dropped the case and contents on the floor and did not bother to pick them up.
Five minutes later I turned out of the Avenue George V into the Champs-Élysées, found a café, bought a paper, and saw that one of my horses had come up at a good price at Longchamp, and then I telephoned Vérité Latour-Mesmin, and asked her if she would have dinner with me. She said she was just washing her hair, and was going to have supper in her flat and would be happy to have me join her.
As I came out of the café and started to look for a taxi Casalis came up to me and asked for a light. He was wearing blue overalls and a false moustache.
I said, “For Christ’s sake – why the pantomime outfit? Even Howard Johnson could see through it.”
The Whip Hand Page 6