Peter May

Hidden Faces

For Bryan

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

Isaiah 11:6

Chapter One

I

Thursday. And it was raining. Not a particularly auspicious day. It had rained yesterday and it would probably rain tomorrow.

Bannerman remembered a cartoon he had seen once in an old Punch magazine. Two crocodiles basking in a jungle swamp, heads facing each other above the muddy waters. And one of them was saying, ‘You know, I keep thinking today is Thursday.’ Bannerman smiled. It had amused him then, as it amused him now. What bloody difference did it make... today, tomorrow, yesterday, Thursday? It was ironic that later he would look back on this day as the day it all began. The day after which nothing would ever be quite the same again.

But at the moment, so far as Bannerman knew, it was just a day like any other. He gazed reflectively from the window a while longer, out across Princes Street, the gardens beyond, and the Castle brooding darkly atop the rain-blackened cliffs. Even when it rained Edinburgh was a beautiful city. Against all the odds it had retained its essential character in the face of twentieth century change. There was something almost mediaeval about it; in the crooked hidden alleyways, the cobbled lanes, the tall leaning tenements. And, of course, the formidable shape of the Castle itself, stark and powerful against the skyline.

In the office the day had barely begun. Reporters sat around reading the morning papers, sipping black coffees and nursing hang-overs.

‘Morning Neil.’

Bannerman turned from the window in time to see the news editor drifting past and heading for the news desk. ‘Morning,’ Bannerman called after him. He watched the retreating figure and felt some sympathy for him. Gorman was a dapper little man, good at his job without being inspired, very nervous under pressure. A nice man, just waiting for the axe to fall.

It had already fallen on a number of his colleagues: John Thompson in features, Alex McGregor in sport. And there had been casualties in the re-shuffle on the subs desk. It had been inevitable really, ever since it was announced that Wilson Tait was being brought up from London to take over as editor.

The Edinburgh Post had never been able to boast a particularly high circulation. For years it had lived off its reputation as a serious newspaper of quality and reliability. It was read by politicians, members of the legal and medical professions, teachers, academics. But their patronage alone was no longer enough to balance the books. Profit was more important than prestige. Hence the appointment of Tait, a hard newspaperman of the old school; a Fleet Street-toughened Scot returning to his old hunting grounds and bringing with him his personal hard core of hatchet men whom he was moving into key editorial positions.

And blood was being spilled. Only the approaching General Election — just three weeks away — had provided a stay of execution for Gorman. When it was over, he would receive a quick sideways promotion to make way for one of Tait’s rising stars. And while Gorman was allowed to vegetate quietly in some out of the way office with an ambiguous brief from the editor, the paper would move slowly, but surely, downmarket where it was easier to pick up new readers.

It was then, Bannerman thought, that he would have to consider very seriously his own future with the paper. Though that, he reflected, was already in doubt. He and Tait had clashed only a week before over Bannerman’s role with the Post. And there had been no love lost between them.

The phone on his desk rang and Bannerman lifted the receiver. ‘Bannerman.’

‘Good morning, Neil. I didn’t really think you’d be in yet.’

Bannerman smiled. ‘What is it, Alison?’

‘The editor wants you.’

‘You mean he’s actually in at this hour?’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Okay. I’ll be right in.’

Alison smiled up at him from her desk when he came into the office. ‘Set your alarm an hour early by mistake did you?’

Bannerman looked at her, amused. She was a good-looking girl, easy going but very efficient. ‘Actually I came in specially early to ask you if you would be free tonight.’

‘Oh, how nice. I am actually. But you’re not.’

Bannerman frowned. ‘Oh? You know something I don’t?’

‘Only that you’ll be too busy packing. I’ve just booked you on the first flight to Brussels tomorrow morning.’ She nodded towards the editor’s door. ‘Orders from his Imperial Highness.’

She watched him go through into Tait’s office and wondered what it was that was attractive about him.

Tait, hunched over his desk in shirt sleeves, glanced up momentarily from his papers as Bannerman knocked and came in. ‘Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

Bannerman sat down and watched the other man patiently. Tait always liked to make it appear that he was seeing you on sufferance, that you were interrupting more important matters. Bannerman was not impressed.

Tait was a small man and had that arrogance and puffed-up sense of self-importance that many small men develop. A compensation for lack of height. He was a man of indeterminate age and could have been anything between forty and sixty. His hair was steely grey, cut short above a squat, ugly face.

He gathered together several printed sheets and slipped them into a folder before looking up again. He surveyed Bannerman with an inner caution. He disliked the man, felt intimidated by him, by his calm, powerful presence, by his obvious self-confidence. Bannerman didn’t jump, as the others did, on Tait’s command. And that annoyed him.

‘I’m sending you to Brussels for a few weeks,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Bannerman showed no surprise.

‘We need some good stuff on the EEC in the couple of weeks after the election. Corruption, fraud, political back-stabbing, that kind of thing. Particularly when Common Market issues have been given such high priority in the election speeches of the major parties.’

Bannerman took out a cigar and lit it slowly. ‘Why so keen to get me out of the way?’ he asked.

Tait leaned back in his seat and eyed Bannerman coldly. ‘Because I need time to consider what I’m going to do with you,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’re a troublesome bastard, Bannerman. A rebel. I want to build a team here and there’s no room for rebels.’

Bannerman took a moment to think about it and Tait watched him closely. Bannerman wasn’t a big man, about five feet nine or ten, but he was stocky, broad, and gave the impression of being a big man. Tait knew from the records that he was thirty-five, but it would have been difficult to judge had he not known. He could have been younger, or older. The man had dark, wiry hair that fell carelessly across his forehead. He was certainly not what Tait would have thought of as good-looking, but he had a certain presence, and there was something compelling in the gaze of his hard, blue eyes.

Bannerman said, ‘Maybe you would rather I got a job elsewhere, Mr. Tait.’ His voice was flat and almost toneless.

Tait grinned maliciously. ‘Trouble is, Bannerman, you’re too bloody good just to ditch. You’re probably the best investigative reporter in Scotland, very highly regarded south of the border, and I’d like to keep you, but on my terms.’

‘Oh, I’m flattered. Maybe I should be asking for a rise.’

‘God, you’re an insolent bastard!’

‘Good,’ Bannerman said. ‘So long as we both know where we stand.’ And he knew that he was going to have to think about his future sooner than he had expected.

What he could not know was that his future was about to follow a course that neither he nor Tait could have foreseen. Nor could he have known that a strange meeting later that day between two men near a small town in the north of England would be instrumental in setting his life on that new course.

II

Kale watched the locomotive through the rain-spattered glass and thought, this time will be the last. But even as the thought formed in his mind it clotted and he knew he would kill again.

He twirled his cigarette nervously between nicotine-stained fingers and sipped the sour dregs of his coffee. The coffee machine on the counter hissed and issued steam, and with the rain beginning to fall outside the window was misting over. The first drops of condensation formed and ran clear lines through it.

An old man sat in the corner making his coffee last so he could remain in the warmth, and a hard-faced woman behind the counter sat smoking a cigarette and watching Kale. She had seen the likes of him before. A place like this was an endless stream of men and women who had seen better days. There was the familiar suit, perhaps expensive once, but now fraying at the cuffs, crumpled, baggy, shiny at the elbows and the seat of the pants. The old blue overcoat, rubbed and coffee-stained down the front, dandruff on the collar. The clothes hung loosely on his lean frame. She had seen worse, but maybe this one was just starting out.

He would be around thirty-nine or forty, hair thinning, greased back. A hollow face with high cheekbones; clear, pale, slightly yellow skin, remarkably unlined. It was his eyes that interested her, if it was possible to say that she was interested in anything. They were dark, deep-sunk eyes, set too close, and they burned with a strange intensity that she had not seen before. There was something sullen in his face, but it was not the face of defeat as was the face of the old man in the corner — as were most of the faces that came in here to stare morosely into endless cups of coffee.

Kale caught her watching him and she looked quickly away, becoming aware for the first time that she was actually afraid of the eyes... almost intimidated by them. You’re letting your imagination run away with itself, Nance, she told herself without conviction.

‘Oi, you!’ she shouted with a voice as hard as her face at the old man in the corner. A Cockney voice, a long way from home. ‘You’ve ’ad yer coffee. Now clear aht!’

The old man looked up with resignation. He had learned to accept these things. You grew used to them, as you grew used to the constant gnawing pain of an ulcer. He pushed back his chair, rising slowly with what might have been an attempt at dignity, and shuffled past the counter and out into the wet. Nance had only done it to take her mind off Kale, but now she realised her folly. She had left herself alone with him. She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette and lit another between thin, painted lips, crossed to the juke box and punched two plays. The noise would make her feel more secure, and still she wished she could have called the old man back.

But she need not have worried, for Kale had barely noticed the old man going and was only mildly irritated when the juke box began belting out a scratchy hit record. And Nance was of no interest to him. He was thinking about his meeting with Swinton in a dingy London tearoom three days before.

Swinton was a small, fat, busy man who had sat in his cheap blue-checked suit across a wooden table from Kale. He was one of those men who perspire constantly and he would dab at his forehead from time to time with a grubby handkerchief.

‘It’s a big one, Kale,’ he had said with an air of confidentiality, leaning across the table and breathing garlic at the other man. ‘Big money this time. You could retire. Where you been anyway? The boys was thinkin’ you was maybe dead or something. The word’s been out for over a week.’

Kale had felt uncomfortable there, surrounded by old ladies drinking tea from china cups. But Swinton had insisted they should not meet in the usual pub. ‘How much and who’s paying?’

Swinton’s smile widened. ‘Oh, come on, Willy boy. You know me. Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you who. But, truth is, this time I don’t even know myself.’ He paused and sat back as a waitress scurried by with a pile of empty cups and saucers clinking on a tray, and then leaned forward again. ‘It’s not the usual form. You’ll deal direct. I’ll get my commission for finding you, but honest to God I don’t know who’s paying.’

‘How much?’

‘It’s ten thousand smackers, Kale. Ten thousand! Jesus, I’d do it myself for a quarter of that, but I’m not in your class. No-one’s in your class, Kale.’

Kale toyed with his cup, the undrunk tea cold now, milk solids forming a scum on the surface. He was not happy. If he had not needed the money... ‘What’s the deal?’

Swinton grinned again. ‘I knew you’d bite. All you got to do is present yourself at the appointed place and time. You’ll be met, and they’ll take you blind somewheres for your instructions. North of England someplace. Here, I’ve written it down.’ He pushed a soiled slip of paper across the table. Kale did not look at it. He picked it up and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, momentarily distracted by the clatter of crockery and the chatter of voices.

‘And?’ he asked.

‘And nought. Honest, Kale, I don’t know nothing more than that. And for that kind of money who’s asking? Whoever it is, they don’t want anyone to know who they are. And no-one does. It’s just sort of filtered through the grapevine without no-one knowing the source.’

Kale didn’t believe him for a moment, but then that was why he trusted him.

‘Hey, you haven’t drunk your tea,’ Swinton had said.

Kale stood up and dropped a pound note on the table. ‘Keep the change.’

Nance was relieved when Kale pulled up his collar and pushed back his chair. She watched him out the door then crossed to his table to collect the empty cup, and found ten-pence under the saucer. Funny, she thought, how some of them never lose the habit. Maybe he wasn’t so bad as he seemed.

Kale crossed the railway yard, asphalt crunching under his feet, the cold January rain stinging his face. The locomotive had shunted three coal trucks into a siding and was chugging back towards the depot. Ahead of him this small industrial township rose up the hillside, a jumble of blackened brick terraces. The tall chimneys of the mills belched smoke into a heavily laden sky away to his right and he could hear children playing somewhere behind a wall that ran alongside the road down to the station. The cobbled street shone in the wet, reflecting the grim poverty of the place. On the station wall a fly-blown poster urged a vote for Labour, its red vivid against the grey, a smile on the candidate’s face above the slogan — FOR A BETTER BRITAIN.

He crossed Church Street to the newsagent’s on the corner and stood looking out across the town square with its black memorial statue, hands sunk deep in the pockets of his coat. For three days he had come to this spot, every morning and every afternoon, checking all the routes away from the square. He knew this town now as well as anyone could who had walked every street. Each road leading from the town was marked in red on the map in his pocket, each identifiable by some feature that could not be seen, but felt or heard. He had been relentlessly thorough, and yet he was still far from satisfied. He shuffled uneasily and watched the traffic carefully. Three days, he told himself, was not enough. The clock on the church tower showed three but did not chime. The minutes ticked past slowly and the rain stopped, leaving only the chill wind to sweep across the square.

He saw the van come in from the north side and watched it as it drove past him, along the top end and back round again. This time it stopped, a small grey 7cwt. van. Kale saw the fresh mud splashed along the side from the front wheels, and took a mental note of the registration, though he doubted if that would prove useful. Still, every scrap of information might help if ever it was necessary. A slight bitter smile curled his lip. Others would not have gone to such lengths.

A short, thick-set man stepped from the van, his crop of white, wiry hair catching in the wind above a brown, leathery face. He wore a heavy tweed coat and was not what Kale had been expecting. He seemed quite inappropriate; honest blue eyes. ‘Kale?’ he asked. Kale nodded. ‘Into the back of the van then, lad.’ He rounded the van and opened the doors for Kale to climb in. ‘Here, stick this over your head. An’ don’t think you can whip it off when we get moving. I’ll be watching you in the mirror.’

Kale pulled the black cotton hood over his head and squatted down on a rug on the floor as the driver shut the doors. There were dog hairs on the rug and there had been fresh mud on the man’s brogues. Despite the good coat and shoes, his hands were those of a working man. Heavy, hard-skinned, calloused hands. His accent was Yorkshire, or Lancashire, and he had that weathered outdoor air about him, uncomfortable in his expensive city gear. Kale adjusted his senses to the darkness, pressing his back up against the side of the van. There was the smell of a dog and stale cigarette smoke.

They seemed to have been driving around the town for an eternity. Several times Kale had lost his bearings, but always he picked up their position again. The hoot of a train as it approached the station, the steep cobbled climb up Cotton Street, the quarter hour chime of the church clock on the edge of the new housing estate — the only chiming clock in the town. They were leaving the town now, he was certain. The roundabout on the north side with roads leading north and west. The sound of a pneumatic drill, and a slight delay at temporary traffic lights erected for road works. They had taken the A road west. Kale had checked the road the first day he arrived.

The driver stuck to the A road for what must have been nearly twenty minutes. That would take the time to around three forty. Kale would check the time when they stopped. Another seven or eight minutes perhaps, and then the van turned off the main road. Kale heard the click, click of the indicator before they slowed to take the corner, tight, the driver forced to crunch into first gear. It would be a narrow road, maybe a farm track. The van bounced and clattered over the uneven surface. Kale heard the splash of mud along the side. Then they stopped, and above the idling engine Kale could hear a man’s voice and the sound of hooves, the lowing of cattle. He strained to catch more. The scraping of a wooden gate, again a man’s voice calling, cattle retreating, and they were moving again, very slowly. Up a sharp incline and then suddenly down. A bridge? Over water? Yes, he could hear the water. The driver had rolled down the window and now they were picking up speed, the surface a little better, the swish, swish, swish of fence posts or perhaps trees along the route. Slowing again, the clatter of a cattle grid, and then the crunch of asphalt beneath the tyres. They stopped, and the driver cut the ignition and climbed out.

‘Just keep yer hood on, lad.’ The back doors opened and Kale felt the working man’s hands help him out. Even in his enclosed darkness he could sense the presence of trees and a building. Stone. Something big, impressive. Up stone steps into a hall, a great sense of space around them. A flagstone floor, or tiles maybe. The man with the white hair and the big rough hands felt the tension in Kale’s arm. ‘Okay, lad. Take it easy.’ Kale was surprised by the close friendliness of the voice, its innocence, its honesty. This man could know nothing of what Kale was about. It is strange, he thought, how a voice can tell you more about a man when you cannot see his face. ‘In ’ere.’ The big hands guided him across the hall and through a doorway. ‘You can take yer hood off when I’ve shut the door. There’s a bell press below the light switch when you’re ready to go.’ The door closed, the key turned in the lock, and the sound of the working man’s heavy tread receded across the hall.

Kale removed the hood and screwed up his eyes against the sudden glare of electric light. It took nearly half a minute for his eyes to adjust fully. He checked his watch. It was just after four. Then he looked around. This was a small room. No windows, no fireplace, cream-painted walls, bare floorboards. A smell of dust and age. Perhaps a storeroom. But there were no clues, the room completely bare save for a wooden bench against the far wall. Kale’s eyes fixed on the bench. Towards one end of it lay a folder, a heavy black phone placed beside it. He was startled by the sudden loud ring of the phone — a short, single ring. He crossed the room and lifted the receiver, checking the dial as he sat. It was not an outside line, but an internal phone with only an extension number. Four.

‘Kale?’ a voice rasped in his ear.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Now understand this...’ The voice seemed without particular accent, but it was an educated voice, mature. Even from the five words Kale had heard he detected a quality of confidence. A man used to speaking, a man used to having others listen. ‘...You and I are the only ones who will ever know the purpose of this meeting. You do not know who I am and so it shall remain. I know very little about you except that you are reputed to be the best.’ The voice paused for effect. Kale let the silence drag out and became aware for the first time that he was cold in this empty room. Then the voice was there again, insistent, demanding of attention.

‘In the folder you will find five thousand pounds in cash, the first half of your fee. You will also find two photographs marked A and B.’

Kale switched the phone to his other ear and opened the folder. The money was there in an unsealed envelope. He did not count it. He took out the photographs and laid them side by side on the bench.

‘Listen carefully to what I tell you because you will receive nothing in writing and you may not take the photographs with you. If you wish me to repeat anything, ask.’

‘Hold on.’ Kale took out a small, dog-eared notebook and a biro pen. ‘Okay.’

‘Photograph A is Robert Gryffe. He is an Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, a Junior Minister.’ Kale had recognised the face but had been unable to place it. So, political assassination. It meant nothing to him. ‘Gryffe has special responsibilities in acting for the Foreign Minister at the European Commission of the EEC in Brussels. He is there at least one week a month, during which he stays at a terraced house he owns in the Rue de Pavie, number twenty-four. Today is Thursday. On Sunday morning Gryffe has an appointment at his Brussels home to meet the man pictured in photograph B. That man’s identity is of no importance to you, just so long as you remember the face. I want both men dead... without a supicion of murder. How you do that is your business.’ The voice paused and Kale waited.

‘You will then proceed to the Rue de Commerce, the top floor flat in the apartment block at number thirty-three. It will be empty. There is always a key below the mat. Let yourself in and go straight to the main living room. On the fireplace wall hangs a painting by Brueghel, behind it a safe set in the wall. The combination is three, zero, five, nine, six, two. Inside you will find a black briefcase...’

‘Burglary is not my line,’ Kale interrupted, his voice flat and cold.

The other hesitated. ‘I have already had the place checked out by a professional. You will simply be required to collect the case and leave.’ Again the hesitation, the reluctance to answer Kale’s unasked question. Kale was only too aware of the power of his silence. ‘The case could not be taken before the... before you have fulfilled your task at the Rue de Pavie.’

‘Go on.’

‘You will take the case straight to the Gare du Midi and deposit it in box thirty-nine at the left luggage lockers. The key is in the same envelope as your money. If you return to the station at midday on Monday you will find a further five thousand pounds in cash in the same locker — assuming, of course, that you have successfully fulfilled the contract. Do you have any questions?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Then I shall allow you five minutes to study the photographs. Should anything occur to you in that time, dial six. Ring the bell by the door when you are ready to leave and remember to replace your hood.’

A click and the line was dead, and Kale replaced the receiver. He lit a cigarette and looked at the two photographs. Gryffe would be around forty. A smooth, prosperous face. The other man was, perhaps, a few years younger. A lean, bearded face below a crop of fair, or perhaps red, hair. Two anonymous faces. Two men whom Kale would kill. There would, he knew, be no satisfaction in it, but neither would there be conscience or remorse. For Kale was the complete killer; cold, efficient, deadly. A man who showed no mercy, a quality he reserved for no-one, including himself.

He sat a while drawing slowly on his cigarette, a small shabby figure in the nakedness of the room. He would find this place again. On the map, or physically if need be. It was always important to know who your employer was. This one had taken elaborate precautions to conceal his identity. You all think you are so clever, Kale thought. But in the end I have always got you, one way or the other. He stood on the last inch of his cigarette and lifted the cotton hood, and his money. He crossed to the door and rang the bell.

Chapter Two

I

Bannerman stared out across the blinding whiteness that lay below like an Arctic landscape. The sky was a clear, deep blue, sunlight flashing on the windows of the jet as it swung east. He sipped his whisky and felt the plane begin its long descent. Somewhere below would be the Belgian coastline. They would be in Brussels in under twenty minutes. He checked his watch. Almost ten thirty, Friday morning. They would lose an hour flying into Central European time, he remembered, and turned his watch on sixty minutes.

The two seats beside him were occupied by an elderly American couple, he a minor cog in the wheels of NATO, she a vigorous, unselfconscious woman who seemed well used to speaking for them both.

‘We’d rather you didn’t smoke, young man,’ she had said shortly after they left Edinburgh. Bannerman had turned, genuinely surprised, the unlit cigar still between his lips.

‘You could always sit elsewhere,’ he said tersely. ‘There are non-smoking seats further down.’

‘Oh, we don’t smoke, neither of us,’ she said. ‘Do we Henry? And it doesn’t really matter where you sit.’

Henry had shaken his head and smiled, a little embarrassed. He stretched out his hand across his wife to Bannerman. ‘Henry Schumacher,’ he offered, his fat amiable face broadening into a grin. ‘And my wife Laura-Lee.’

Bannerman shook the proffered hand. ‘Neil Bannerman,’ he said and lit his cigar.

‘We disapprove of smoking,’ Mrs. Schumacher persisted. ‘We believe in the freedom of the individual, but we also believe that the individual who feels free to smoke is inhibiting the freedom of others to breathe good clean air. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Bannerman?’

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said.

She watched the smoke curl up from his cigar. For a moment there was silence then Bannerman sighed in exasperation and reluctantly stubbed it out. And when the last traces of smoke had been whisked away by the air conditioning, Laura-Lee had begun a monologue, peppered with frequent questions which Bannerman was never allowed time to answer... The Schumachers’ dreary, early married life in Chicago, the unconvincing and undistinguished rise of Henry Schumacher in American politics. The move to Washington, the invitation to a White House social gathering and the firm handshake of the President — ‘The proudest moment of our lives. A great man, Mr. Bannerman, a great man’. The attachment to NATO and the now frequent trips to Brussels — ‘A damned unfriendly place, Mr. Bannerman, unless you know the right people’. Bannerman had listened with a patience that was gradually giving way to irritation. The Schumachers’ bluff harmlessness and good intent, the man’s smiling adoration for his wife, his wife’s misplaced belief in her husband’s importance. They sketched themselves into Bannerman’s consciousness like caricatures, their obvious sincerity being their only saving grace.

The panel at the front of the plane lit up — fasten seat belts: no smoking. They had come down through the clouds and you could see the patchwork fields below.

‘What was it you said you do, Mr Bannerman?’ Mrs. Schumacher asked vaguely, clipping her seat belt in place.

Bannerman sighed. ‘I sell vacuum cleaners.’

Schumacher leaned forward. ‘What company is it you’re with?’

‘The Quick-Clean Vacuum and Brush Company.’

The American nodded as though he was familiar with it. ‘Does it have any ties in the US? I might know someone...’

‘I doubt it,’ Bannerman said.

The plane was curling in above the airport, descending rapidly. ‘I don’t know how you think you’re going to sell anything to the Belgians,’ Mrs. Schumacher said. ‘They are the strangest people. They can’t even make up their minds whether to speak French or Flemish. You’ve never been in Brussels before, you said? You’ll find it very confusing.’ She smoothed down the front of her print dress. ‘Well, it looks like we’re coming in to land, Henry. Have you got the passports ready?’

The terminal building was busy, a great, soulless, modern structure where the traveller is anaesthetised by relentless subliminal piped musack. There were dark-uniformed Belgian policemen patrolling the floor carrying small sub-machine guns and pistols in leather holsters on black belts. A legacy of the terrorists.

Bannerman watched the Schumachers drag a luggage trolley off towards the taxi ranks. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet you again, Mr. Bannerman,’ Mrs. Schumacher had said seriously. ‘It’s been a great pleasure.’

‘Yes indeed, sir, a great pleasure.’ Schumacher had shaken his hand and presented him with his embossed card. ‘Any time you’re in the States...’

You can’t dislike such people, Bannerman thought. He picked up his case and made his way to the telephones, where he had to wait five minutes in a queue and then decipher operating instructions in French and Flemish. He pumped the box full of Belgian francs and dialled.

‘Allô, IPC,’ came a girl’s voice.

‘Extension cinq, zero, cinq.’

‘Ne quittez pas.’

A few seconds of silence and then a receiver lifted. ‘London Herald.’

‘Tim Slater, please.’

‘I’m sorry, you’ve just missed him. He’s left for the twelve o’clock press briefing. Can I help?’

‘Neil Bannerman, Edinburgh Post. I’d arranged to meet him for lunch.’

‘Ah, yes. He said you might call. You’re in Brussels?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then your best bet is to intercept him after the briefing. You know where the Salle de Presse is?’

‘’Fraid not.’

‘Ah. It’s in the Commission building, the Berlaymont, in the Boulevard Charlemagne. Do you have press accreditation?’

‘Is this a third degree?’ Bannerman asked.

The girl laughed. ‘I’m sorry.’

Bannerman relented. ‘Yes, I do have accreditation. The paper fixed it up before I left.’

‘Then you’ll have no problems,’ she said. ‘The Salle de Presse is on the first floor. Just ask when you get there.’

‘Thanks...’

‘Mademoiselle Ricain. I’m just the secretary. Not only do the Post and the Herald share an office, they share me too — secretarially speaking.’

Bannerman laughed. ‘Of course. Thanks, Mademoiselle.’ He hung up and squeezed past a fat Belgian who was anxious to get to his phone.

Outside it was warmer than it had been in Edinburgh, the sky heavy and grey, the first drops of rain beginning to fall. Bannerman felt the first pangs of rootlessness that always came when he arrived in a strange place. The disorientation, the sense of being utterly alone. It was always then that you re-discovered your affection for home. Bannerman thought about the cluttered tenement flat in Edinburgh that for him was home. Somewhere in all its drab familiarity was a sense of belonging. The grey routine of the Post, the close, dark winter streets of the northern city, the parochial insularity of it all; gems of security to be taken out and polished during lonely nights in strange hotel rooms under foreign skies.

The taxi ride from the airport took only twenty minutes, through the industrial outskirts on the north-west fringe of the city, past the Centre Commercial on the Avenue Leopold III, down on to the Boulevard General Wahis and the Boulevard Auguste. Streets where once German tanks had rolled in from the east, defeated Belgians watching from windows and doorways with a quiet hatred. Now the city was being re-built, adapting to a new world. The hammers of the demolition workers smashing down the past — rows of grey terraces and cobbled squares, tall crumbling tenements that had known better days, and worse. Bannerman wondered what kind of future today’s planners were building.

The Berlaymont stood in the heart of the commercial sector of Brussels, a massive building shaped like a star if seen from above, towering over the city skyline, great walls of glass curving inwards. Each office was glass from floor to ceiling, so that looking in from the outside you felt that half the building had been chopped away, like a half-demolished tenement, and you at once had a private view into every room or office where people worked and fought and hatched plots. Out front was the Metro, across the boulevard the lesser white-stone office block that housed the Council of Ministers.

The press briefing was still in progress, five men, the Porte Parole, sitting along a table at the top end of the Salle de Presse addressing a clutch of fifty or more reporters in French across a loud speaker system. The journalists were arranged along five rows of benches set in a semi-circle around the top table, like a mini conference chamber; microphones at each place, headsets linked to translation booths in galleries set high up along either side. They were all empty. The journalists asking questions seemed fluent in French.

Bannerman came in at the back of the room and moved round to a bar on the right side and ordered a beer. A number of reporters were seated along the bar drinking beer or coffee, chatting quietly or reading papers — Le Monde, The Guardian, La Belge Soir, Die Weld, La Stampa, The Times. Very few of the newsmen seated round the benches seemed to be paying much attention. There was an oddly casual atmosphere of informality, or perhaps indifference. Two secretaries moved constantly between the rows delivering press releases in various languages. Bannerman leaned against the bar, sipping his beer, his cigar burning in an ashtray. He had picked out the thin figure of Slater with his distinctive red beard. He had only once met the man, several years before when he worked on the Chronicle. That was before Slater had been sent out to Brussels as the Post’s EEC correspondent. He had aged considerably, Bannerman thought, his face pale and drawn. The long, thin nose seemed more pinched than it had been.

The briefing broke up, and as the journalists gathered into their little nationality cliques, Slater caught sight of Bannerman and made his way over to the bar. He was unsmiling and seemed distracted. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘You can buy me a beer.’ He risked a smile. ‘The prices here are subsidised.’

Bannerman leaned across the counter. ‘Deux bières,’ he said and pushed a fifty franc note at the barman. ‘Much doing?’ he asked Slater, watching the pale freckled face and the green eyes that kept avoiding his.

‘Not this week,’ Slater said. ‘The only real topic of conversation is the British Election. The Germans and French are worried shitless that the Government’s going to lose. If the Opposition get in the opinion here is that progress towards European unity will take yet another backward step — not that it takes many forward anyway.’

Bannerman sensed a great uneasiness between them and a certain hostility in Slater that made him uncomfortable in the man’s presence. And I’ve got to live with you for the next month, he thought. Slater lifted his beer. ‘Cheers.’

They were joined by another two reporters whom Bannerman had seen drifting slowly towards them. One was dark and wrinkled, about sixty, dressed in a neat dark suit. The other was younger, less formal, a shock of fair hair over a cherubic, bland face. This one patted Slater on the back. ‘Waste of time today, Tim. You get anything to interest you?’

Bannerman smiled. It was the old game that reporters played. They always needed the reassurance that they hadn’t missed something. Years ago when Bannerman had been starting out he had very quickly learned that reporters did not compare notes for the sake of accuracy. It was all a matter of confidence, or the lack of it; the instinct being to hunt with the pack rather than rely on your own judgement and ability. As his own self-confidence had developed so he had taken cruel satisfaction in leaving the pack in confusion with a parting, ‘bloody good story’, when they had been busy reassuring each other that there was ‘nothing in it’. Nothing was better designed to ruin their day, even if there had been nothing in it. But Slater just said, ‘Not a thing,’ and then reluctantly made the introductions. ‘This is Neil Bannerman, the Post’s investigative reporter. Jim Willis, Roger Kearney, respectively of the London Standard and the Euro-News Agency.’

Kearney, the fair-haired one, said, ‘Ah, yes. I know you by reputation, Bannerman. What brings you to Brussels?’

‘I’ve come to rake a little muck,’ Bannerman said. ‘If there’s any to be raked.’

Willis laughed. ‘Fertile ground for you, my old son. The place is alive with corruption. You want to take a look at the EEC system of awarding grants to the Third World. Some fantastic rip-offs there. Large backhanders to Commission officials from some of these African dictatorships where about half the country’s gross earnings are spent annually on building royal palaces and luxurious watering holes in the country for fat politicians with delusions of grandeur. It wouldn’t take much to dig something out there.’

Kearney took a slug of beer and pointed a finger at Bannerman. ‘And there’s the allocation of contracts to companies in member countries for building roads and the like. There’s almost certainly fraud involved there. Why, for example, does France get more Community money for road building than any other member country, when a God-forsaken place like Eire gets damn all?’

‘And agriculture’s another minefield of fraud if you care to try and negotiate it,’ Willis added.

Bannerman made no attempt to disguise his contempt. ‘Then why the hell do some of you people not dig it out yourselves?’

Willis frowned. ‘Oh piss off, Bannerman. We got a living to make. Why rock the boat?’

Bannerman gulped down the last of his beer. ‘Because you’re newspaper men. Or are you? You’ve got it pretty cushy here, haven’t you? Everything laid on. Maybe you should try working in the real world.’

Slater was eyeing Bannerman with distaste. What was his game?

‘You can bloody well get stuffed!’ Kearney’s voice rose angrily and some heads turned in their direction. ‘It’s all right for you. You can just float in, fling the mud around and then bugger off. You’ve got no pitch to queer. Smart-assed bastard.’

‘Struck a sore point, have I?’ Bannerman asked.

‘Let’s get out of here.’ Slater took Bannerman firmly by the arm and steered him away from the bar towards the door. In the corridor he stopped him. ‘What the hell are you playing at, Bannerman?’

Bannerman lit another cigar. ‘Just pricking a few reporters to see if they bleed.’ He looked at the distraught Slater, a small man — five feet eight or nine — painfully thin, curly red hair and beard, an open-necked white shirt with the collar out over a faded blue denim jacket. And he relented a little. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m just a bit pissed off at being here at all. How about lunch?’

II

Kale got his holdall down from the rack and pulled on his coat as the train braked coming into the Gare du Nord, drawing up alongside great long trolleys that sat along the platform piled high with mail bags. A sullen youth who had sat smoking Gauloises all the way from Ostend, and a fat ruddy-faced Belgian peasant woman whose knitting lay in a shapeless grey heap on her lap, both watched him curiously. He was a foreigner. They knew that, even though none of them had spoken through the hour and a half to Brussels when dark had fallen over northern Belgium. A wordless communion had passed between the youth and the old woman, two Belgians in a railway carriage with this stranger who carried about him an air that was more than just foreign. Both felt something akin to relief when Kale slid the door open and stepped out into the corridor. A strange tension that had been a presence among them, like the clicking of the old woman’s needles or the impatient tap of the youth’s foot, seemed to blow away with the cold rush of air that swept into the carriage with the opening of the door. The old woman smiled at the youth who shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and lit another Gauloise, turning his sullen stare out of the window.

Kale shivered in the cold night air and walked the length of the platform. He seemed to be the only passenger to alight here. A guard nodded and the railwayman at the barrier waved him through. Down steps into a shopping concourse and out through glass doors into a great empty marble hall, his footsteps echoing back at him. He followed a sign out into the Rue du Progrès and headed north along the dark, cobbled street past tall crumbling tenements with steel-shuttered windows and doors. A tram emerged from an underground tunnel that led to the Pré Metro and rumbled past below the railway line that ran along the top of the embankment. Three scruffy kids on bicycles raced past in the opposite direction.

Along this street one window was lit below a neon BAR sign. A hefty middle-aged woman in a short, low-cut dress from which she bulged at all points, sat in the window looking bored and smoking a cigarette. She raised a semihopeful eyebrow when the figure of Kale passed, but it fell again into its set boredom when he did not stop. At the end of the street the lights from a café spilled out across the pavement. Kale pushed open the door and stepped into the smoky warmth.

Working men in grey jackets and cloth caps looked up from their beers and eyed him suspiciously. He was not a regular and nobody but regulars drank here. Kale drew up a chair at an empty table and dropped his bag on the floorboards. The crude wooden table rocked unsteadily, one leg shorter than the others. The barman came out reluctantly from behind the counter. ‘Monsieur?’

Bloody foreigners, Kale thought. Why can’t they speak English? ‘Bière,’ he growled and lit a cigarette. The barman poured a half litre of draught Stella and sloshed it down on Kale’s table. Kale looked at the beer that had spilled across the wood and then turned his gaze on the barman. The Belgian hesitated a moment. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered. But there was something compelling and slightly sinister in the stranger’s dark eyes. He took a cloth off the counter and lifted the beer to wipe the table and the bottom of the glass before replacing it on a cardboard beer mat.

‘Trente-cinq francs.’

Kale remained impassive and made no move to pay and the barman shifted uncomfortably. Finally he took out a pad and scribbled 35F and tore it off the sheaf, laying it down in front of the stranger. Kale looked at it, nodded, and peeled a one hundred franc note from a wad in his wallet. The barman took it and counted the change from his pocket. The half dozen other clients in the café watched in silence, a silence that became oppressively obvious. A younger man turned his gaze away from Kale and began playing the pinball machine. Subdued conversations were struck up, but the atmosphere was heavy and there were frequent glances across at the stranger.

Kale was oblivious. The beer tasted cool and good after the long eight hour journey from London. It was impossible for him now to fly anywhere on a job. The international airports were all equipped with sophisticated anti-terrorist equipment through which it would be almost impossible to carry his hardware undetected. Damn the hi-jackers, he thought. He could not understand men who would risk their lives for political ends, and they had only made life more difficult for him.

It had been a dreary trip. The ferry from Dover to Ostend had been full of winter tourists heading for ski resorts in Germany and Switzerland and Austria. A girl with long, dark hair and a careless laugh. Perhaps she would spend the cold January nights in some ski lodge drinking Schnapps with friends round a log fire. For she was sure to have friends. A girl like that. She had not noticed him sitting in a corner on a lower deck, listening uncomfortably to the innocent ramblings of an elderly German lady who remembered days in Paris after the War, and the death of her husband nine years before on holiday in Majorca. She did not seem to have felt his sour presence as others always did, as maybe the girl had and pretended not to notice. Kale had gone up on deck to escape the old lady’s innocence. There was no place for innocence in his life. It troubled him.

There had been few people on deck and it suited him better. White paintwork streaked wet with rust, the flaking varnish on the empty rows of wooden deck benches, the lifeboats that had never left their cradles. The cold, clean air had been good to breathe, the wind stiff in his face, the strange warmth of the sun on this unusually mild January day. Seagulls cawed and wheeled overhead against the palest of winter blue skies. The wash of the sea was green in their wake, England having faded from sight, the Belgian coast not yet in view. He had remained there, huddled in his coat, a solitary figure among the empty deck chairs, away from the warmth below where children wailed and ran between the benches, where their parents drank duty-free spirits and smoked duty-free cigarettes, and young people laughed carelessly, like the girl, and talked earnestly about life. His exile from life, their life, was self-imposed, he thought with some satisfaction, and for always. That way he could be almost at peace with himself in his empty existence.

He finished his beer and left the café with all its staring eyes, turned hard left into the Rue Masui, and walked another hundred metres to the dark little hotel where he had booked a room. The streets were as familiar to him as if he had lived there all his life. Every area of operation in the city had been studied carefully on the town-plan map. Each street and alley he might use were painstakingly etched in his memory.

Kale dropped his passport on the reception desk and watched as the clerk took him in and then glanced at the document. It had been carefully forged by a contact in London. A small, bespectacled jeweller near Leicester Square who was one of the few remaining true artists in his profession. Utterly discreet. Kale would have trusted no-one else.

‘Ah, oui, Monsieur Ross,’ the clerk said, studiously avoiding eye contact with the foreigner. ‘Sign here, please.’ Kale signed the form and the clerk copied details from the passport before handing it back with a key. ‘Room twenty-two. Fifth floor.’ Kale crossed the dark hall to the old fashioned elevator and pulled open the wrought-iron gate. The clerk watched him disappear as the cage moved slowly upwards, and he shivered. Perhaps it had been the cold air that had come in with the stranger.

Kale’s room was drab and bare and smelled stale. The short, narrow bed sagged in the middle. He dropped his bag by a cracked porcelain washbasin and lay back on the bed, lighting a cigarette.

He closed his eyes and smelled again the cordite and the dust that had stung his nostrils on that scorching African day so many years ago. The sergeant, a heavy ignorant man, was shouting above the bursting of shells — a vivid image that had recalled itself often. The soldier beside Kale was dead, a man whom he hardly knew. Soon the flies would settle on the body, feed on the wounds in the heat of the sun. Kale was sweating, pricked by fear and by heat. The whitewash walls of the village had been reduced to rubble by the shelling from the rear. And still the rebels refused to move. Dark-skinned men with Russian rifles. Kale crouched in the crater, his eyeline at ground level, trying to pick out the surviving figures in the smoke and dust that billowed out from the destruction. Five men from his unit had already moved a hundred yards out to his left and were trying to circle the north side of the target. The clipped tac, tac, tac of a machine gun came from not too far ahead and Kale saw two of the soldiers fall. This time the shots had not come from the enemy marksman who had so successfully kept them pinned down. Tor Christ’s sake give the bastards cover!’ the sergeant was bawling. Kale moved up, head and shoulders above the crater, his mouth dry. Again the machine gun sounded and this time Kale saw the rebel, moving through a gap in the wall to his right. He sighted quickly and fired. The figure dropped in the dust. The gap had been no more than three feet, maybe two hundred metres distant. Almost immediately a bullet struck the rim of the crater and threw up dust and rock splinters in his face. Kale pulled his head down sharply, blinking furiously as the dust stung his eyes. ‘Get that damned bloody sharpshooter for Christ’s sake!’ the sergeant was shouting further along the line. ‘We can’t move till we get him.’ But he was not firing himself.

Several rifles were cracking around Kale now and the soldier on his left fell suddenly across him, half of his head torn away. Kale kicked the man off him and watched the thick, sticky blood staining the khaki of his shirt. The shelling had stopped to allow the troops to move in, but no-one stirred from his cover. The five men who had moved out earlier were all dead. And now the slightest movement brought the crack of a rifle from somewhere out ahead. Almost without fail the marksman was making a hit. Kale shifted his position slightly and picked up a dead soldier’s helmet out of the dust. He threw it along at the sergeant. ‘Stick that up on your bayonet so he can see it,’ he shouted.

The sergeant glanced grimly at him and saw that there were only the two of them left alive in the crater. The others were sheltering behind a wall away to their left. ‘Who’s giving the mucking orders?’ he growled. Kale said nothing and the sergeant spat and then hooked the helmet over the top of his bayonet and pushed it above the level of the crater. Almost as soon as it appeared a bullet spun it away behind them and the sergeant heard a second shot from only a few feet away as he pulled himself tight into the rim. Kale had caught only the briefest glimpse of the marksman as the man shot at the helmet. But it had been enough. Enough for him to get in his shot and feel a tight satisfaction as the sharpshooter toppled from his cover at the end of what had once been the main street of the village. Two more figures moved in the shadows. His rifle cracked again, twice, and both figures fell. ‘That’s some bloody shooting, Private Kale!’ The Sergeant grinned momentarily and then thought better of it. ‘You can hang in here and give us cover when we move in.’

Kale had been as accurate in practice but it had meant little to him. Strangely, now there was something precious in the skill. When he saw how he could cut men down. The sergeant noticed the slight, humourless smile on Kale’s lips and frowned. What the hell was there to smile about? But in these last minutes Kale had discovered a sense of purpose. In the final event it was the only thing the army gave him. It led him to find in himself the cold, calculated ability to kill men, to hit back. An ability that transmuted all his crippled bitterness into a perfect and tangible expression. Out of all those long, hot days under the relentless African sun, the long, cramped, unsanitary nights among the cockroaches and the sweating bodies, had emerged a vocation, and with it an inner confidence that had finally enabled him to stand apart from a world he despised.

Kale stared up at a crack in the ceiling of the hotel room. He had one day left before the hit. He would use it well.

III

Bannerman looked from the window of this office on the top floor of the IPC building, down into the back courts below. Mean little yards bounded by brick walls that formed geometric patterns between the terraced rows. Beyond them, against the night sky, two cranes rose high above the houses that were being swept away in the redevelopment.

He had spent the afternoon sitting in the press lounge at the Council of Ministers, drinking coffee and watching the curious behaviour of the lobby men. These creatures of strange habit sat about in the lounge among the potted plants, drinking, talking, or working behind a smoked-glass screen where stood rows of desks and typewriters and banks of telephones. From time to time groups of reporters would launch themselves suddenly from their seats as they spotted various officials whom they would follow into little rooms off the lounge, a well-practised ritual that required no signs. In these tiny rooms impromptu press conferences were held. The press relations officials held court. Pens scribbled in sacred silence as the high priests delivered careful words to the scribes. The ceremonies were, without exception, performed in French. Questions were frowned upon, brushed aside. The sermons concluded, the journalists would then drift away, sometimes back to the lounge, sometimes to the press room, dependent upon whether ‘the words’ were relevant to a particular country or reader-ship. It was a strange performance, baffling to the outsider. Only those in the inner sanctum who could read the faces and interpret the words were privy to its secrets.

In one corner, the Italian Minister for Agriculture, making a rare personal appearance, had delivered a diatribe to a group of excitable Italian pressmen whose voices rose and fell; arms waving, frequent laughter. In another, a clutch of British reporters was gathered round a Junior Minister from the Foreign Office; notebooks in pockets, wary eyes on the earnest face of the Minister as he spoke. Bannerman had recognised him: Robert Gryffe, an Under-Secretary of State, earmarked by the Prime Minister for a senior post if the Government won the election — or so it was rumoured. Gryffe was a popular public figure. He had that quality, rare amongst post-war politicians, of charisma. He was an outspoken moderate, a ‘man of the people’. The Party had been using him frequently in recent months in their party political broadcasts. Bannerman watched him with distrust. He had grave suspicions about men of the people.

When he left the Council of Ministers it was dark, and he had walked up the Boulevard Charlemagne, past a bar where disinterested German journalists spent their days, to the IPC building where he had found Slater in his office. It was well after seven now and he turned away from the window to take in the figure of Slater crouched by the open drawer of a filing cabinet. The Herald man had left and the secretary, Mademoiselle Ricain, a blonde unattractive girl, was on her break. ‘I won’t be long,’ Slater said.

Bannerman looked round the cluttered office. Four desks were pushed together to form a square. They were strewn with discarded press releases, overflowing trays of copy blacks, technical journals, wordy reports and empty coffee cups. The walls were plastered with charts and maps and a door led off to an anteroom where the teleprinter shared by the Herald and the Post was set up on a trestle table. The panoramic windows looked out east across the rooftops, a forest of leaning chimneys and television aerials. Bannerman pulled up a chair and sat down, and reached for an open file. It was filled with loose newspaper cuttings from various papers. He saw a grey, smeared picture of Gryffe and he picked up the cutting. He was bored, uninterested already in Brussels and the EEC, depressed at the thought of spending as long as a month in this dreary place. He let his eyes wander over the cutting. ‘Mr. Robert Gryffe, a Junior Minister at the Foreign Office, yesterday warned at a meeting of the EEC Council of Ministers in Brussels of an impending slump...’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Slater snatched the cutting from his hand and lifted the folder from the desk, clutching it protectively. Bannerman looked up, surprised, mildly irritated. Slater eyed him suspiciously, a fragile, ill-looking figure, all his wasted years stretching behind him like chains. He was a man who had started out on his journalistic career full of ambition and enthusiasm, only to have both gradually battered out of him through long, tired years of endless fires and murders, of knocking on doors and carving initials on court benches. There had been the anonymous pubs and reporters, drinks and stories, night shifts and fictitious expenses. And there had been, too, the moves from paper to paper until the faces had all begun to look the same, the conversations predictable, the copy more turgid. The Brussels job had come out of the blue, like suddenly rounding a bend in a long dark tunnel and for the first time seeing light at the end. It had resurrected old hopes and held out great new prospects of a brighter future. But it too had gone sour, as he should have known it would, settling into an old familiar pattern. The Post’s interest in the EEC had been too narrow. They wanted parochial Scottish angles on everything. That had limited his interest, as had the EEC itself.

He saw the Commission as a great, slow-moving machine whose purpose was simply self-perpetuation, self-justification. The Brave New Europe had never emerged and, he believed, never would. All its processes were too tortuous and obscure without ever being fully productive. Thousands of civil servants sat in spacious offices dreaming up ideas for yet more intricate legislation to weave into an already complex tapestry of international rules and regulations. The only purpose they served was to complicate further already difficult relations between member countries. And even then they were no more than ideas, though often they ran into hundreds of pages in fat, incomprehensible reports that had still to go before the Council of Ministers. Then there were the lengthy processes of review and change before some would finally go to the European Parliament, when it sat, in Strasbourg or Luxembourg. And it too, Slater thought bitterly, was an impotent body, even after direct elections.

If he had not met the girl there would have been no hope at all. Now there was the chance of escape from it all — from the crippling cynicism and loneliness of Brussels, from the memory of his wife, from the worry of his daughter. Maybe now the child would have a real chance too. Specialist treatment. But there was Bannerman, damn him. What was he after? Only a few more days and Slater could leave all this behind him. Surely Tait couldn’t know anything, have sent Bannerman to find out. Gryffe wouldn’t have talked. He wouldn’t dare. Slater decided to take a chance. ‘What are you really here for, Bannerman?’

Bannerman frowned. He had sensed Slater’s ill-ease at their first meeting, and now his extraordinary behaviour over the file of cuttings on Gryffe. ‘I already told you,’ he said. ‘What are you so jumpy about?’ He watched Slater carefully. But the reporter turned away and slipped the Gryffe file back in the cabinet and locked it. He turned again, hesitantly, to face Bannerman and seemed to consider what he should say.

‘I’ll tell you,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t like you, Bannerman. Never have. Coming over here, digging around where you’re not wanted, imposing yourself on me for the next month, insulting guys I have to work with.’

‘Hey,’ Bannerman snapped. ‘You know none of this is my idea. The Post owns your flat here, and if Tait reckons he can save the paper money by having me shack up there then that’s up to him. If you have any objections you know where you can take them.’ He lit a cigar and Slater seemed to relent.

‘Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I... I, well this place gets to you after a while.’

‘Really? I thought you people had it easy out here.’ Bannerman’s sarcasm seemed to revive some of Slater’s antagonism.

‘Oh, sure, if you like the idea of quietly vegetating amongst all the decaying political ideals of a generation of squabbling Europeans.’ He hesitated and crossed to the window so that Bannerman could not see his face. ‘This is a cold, lonely city, Bannerman. It’s a God-awful place. There are more than 200,000 temporary or permanent immigrants in Brussels. Thousands of civil servants and politicians and journalists from all over Europe who have never integrated with the local population. Most of us live in the Euro-ghettos.’ He laughed sourly. ‘Sprawling wealthy suburban areas on the edge of the city where life is divided into nationality cliques and private clubs and expensive social functions. All that if you can afford it.’ He turned back to face Bannerman accusingly. ‘You think I can, working for the Post? There’s no way a paper like the Post can compete with the money that’s being earned even by the average EEC official. These guys can get anything upwards of a basic three thousand pounds a month, with all kinds of additional allowances for home entertainment, household, family, school, cost of living.’

Bannerman felt the man’s bitterness as powerfully as if he could touch it. Something about Slater intrigued him. He was more than just a disillusioned newspaper man, more than just bitter. But it was not easy to know what more there was. Bannerman knew that Slater’s wife had died shortly after the move to Brussels, that he had been left to support his autistic daughter — a girl who could not speak, who could barely write, whose terrible mental deficiency was her inability to communicate.

Slater was still talking. ‘The Belgians are okay to work with,’ he was saying. ‘But there is no way you will get to know them socially. A Belgian will never invite you into his home, even if you have known him for months, or years. They are a strange, introverted, suspicious people. I don’t like them.’

‘It seems there are a lot of people you don’t like.’

‘That’s right.’ Slater stared at him, almost defiantly, then turned to lift his coat from the stand. ‘Time we went home.’

Bannerman stood and pulled on his coat, glancing at this odd-looking man with his red hair and beard, pale face, and dark-ringed green eyes. And in that moment he knew what he had sensed in Slater. It was guilt. He had seen before how it could affect men. Perhaps it was something in his past. The death of his wife. Or maybe to do with the child.

Slater locked the door behind them and they walked in silence the length of the hushed corridor to the elevator. There, as they waited for the lift, Slater turned to him. ‘Don’t expect any help from me, Bannerman.’ And, almost as though he knew what Bannerman had been thinking, he added, ‘And keep your nose out of my affairs.’

IV

The child sat alone in the darkened room, the muted light from the street lamps seeping in through net curtains. She had been sitting there for nearly half an hour and her eyes had grown quite accustomed to the dark. She could follow clearly the lines of the old dresser, the book shelves and the desk. She could pick out the faded pattern of the old worn rug, the shape of the fireplace, the armchair opposite, the bed. From the kitchen came the sounds of Sally preparing the evening meal, from the street the occasional passing car.

It had been a bad day for her. Twice she had lost control; the screaming, the flailing arms and legs, the aimless striking out. She had tried, God how she had tried, to control it. But the frustration had been growing, taking hold of her in a way she did not know how to control. There had been the patient faces, the firm hands, and then the angry words. The vacant, staring faces of the other children who knew also how it was, but could not tell it. Sally had talked to her on the way home; silly things, just chatter. But it had helped in a way. Now she was at peace again, or as much at peace as she could be, and control was easier. If she closed her eyes and sat back here in the dark, then she could speak, not aloud, but with some inner voice. She could walk to the window if she wanted and touch the curtain, feel its silkiness in her hand. It meant little, but it was contact with something. It was good when she could touch things, feel things, embrace things; express her love, express herself. But such moments were rare, though they had seemed more frequent recently. Perhaps as she grew older it would improve even more. They always said it would. But, in the past, as it had improved, so her frustration had increased at those times when the improvement was not there and she could not make contact. God gave with one hand and took with the other. Still, there was always the drawing, she thought, and when that came it was like every good thing she knew concentrated in a few furious moments of expression that flowed through her arm, her hand, her fingers, through the pencil and out on to that vast white landscape of fresh, crisp paper. And then afterwards, there was such pleasure in seeing it.

She heard the front door opening and her father’s voice. There was someone else with him. A voice that she did not know. She listened now in the darkness, finding as she always did that the presence of a stranger in the house unsettled her. Routine was something she clung to without knowing why. There was a great security in the familiar, a devastating uncertainty in the unknown or unusual. Always she looked forward to her father’s return from work. She found an odd comfort in it, though she had no love for him. She had long since been aware that he had no love for her. The memory of her mother, a pretty, smiling, caring woman, had faded quickly, leaving her with nothing more than the hollow affection of her father. He went through the motions of love, was almost always gentle. But he spent so little time with her, and she felt his lack of interest with an extraordinary perception. Still, it did not affect the comfort she sought in his presence. If only it was possible to say what she felt, to tell them the things that were in her head.

Her father and the other man were in the living room now and she listened carefully. There was something oddly familiar in the stranger’s voice. He spoke English with an accent like her father, but there was another quality in it that she felt, almost like a hand touching her. She had already detected the hostility in both voices, though neither man was arguing and there were no harsh words. It was simply there, and she sensed it clearly. She pulled her bedroom door gently inwards so that it stood slightly ajar, enough for her to see through into the living room.

Her first sight of Bannerman affected her in the same way as his voice had done. There was something more than just the man she saw; the set, sarcastic face, the hard blue eyes, the relaxed liquidity of his body in the chair. She sensed in him an aggression, perhaps frustration. Yet more, there was a feeling of contact, as though they were touching, the way she had felt his voice touch her. It was important somehow, she knew, though she didn’t know why and she was seized by a sudden foreboding. Everything about him and all she felt about him filled her with a great confusion and uncertainty. It was clouding her mind — thoughts that had not come in words (for she had no real sense of words) but in some inner understanding of things that words could never make as clear. With the clouding, the frustration was returning, and the control was slipping away. She left the door and crossed to the window. Her hands were starting to tremble and then she heard her father’s voice calling her. The door opened and she saw him framed in the doorway against the light.

‘It’s all right, Tania,’ he was saying. ‘There’s a man come to see you. He’ll be staying with us for a while. He wants to meet you.’ All she heard was the false gentleness. He came to the window and took her hand and she allowed herself to be led passively to the door and into the living room. There she stopped and pulled back. The man had risen from his chair and was standing by the fireplace below the big, framed painting. He turned to look at her. All her self control began dissolving under the gaze of those blue eyes and she felt herself pulling her hand from her father’s.

Bannerman was startled by the first shriek and alarmed when this clumsy, unattractive child, who only seconds before had appeared so passive and uninterested, clutched at her hair with both hands and began backing away into the darkness behind her. The screams ripped into the quiet of the flat. Slater became quickly flushed and he tried to pull the child back towards him, coaxing, appealing with soft words that only seemed to increase her distress.

‘It’s all right, Tania. It’s all right, little one. There’s nothing to worry you.’ She lashed out with a tightly clenched fist, catching him a sturdy blow on the side of his face. ‘For Christ’s sake, child!’ he shouted and snatched her arm, half turning towards Bannerman. ‘Damn you! I knew this would happen.’

The girl was struggling and pulling against him, tears streaming down her cheeks, her voice hoarse already with the screaming. Bannerman’s confusion gave way to a strange, stinging embarrassment. He stared numbly, sensing a great inner pain behind the child’s dark eyes. And there came to him the first glimmer of understanding of why Slater was like he was. Father and daughter were grotesquely tangled, the child’s arms still trying to beat on her father who had lifted her and was clutching her to him. And still the screaming went on, filling the room, the dreadful cries of a disturbed mind.

Suddenly Bannerman was aware of another presence in the room. He turned to see a dark-haired young woman, perhaps in her middle twenties standing in the open doorway to the kitchen. She was watching in silence and Bannerman thought she looked tense. She glanced in his direction and smiled, but it was a troubled smile. ‘You never quite get used to it,’ she whispered.

Slater carried the child into the bedroom and closed the door on the screaming. He was quite pale, his lightly freckled face almost grey against the red of his hair and beard. He looked viciously at Bannerman. But the young woman stepped into the room before he could speak. ‘Your dinner’s in the oven, Mr. Slater. It’ll be about fifteen minutes. I have to go.’

Slater plunged a hand into his pocket and threw a bunch of keys to Bannerman. ‘Take my car and run her home, will you?’ he said curtly. ‘And do me a favour. Eat out. I want the child asleep before you get back.’

Bannerman shrugged and nodded. The young woman untied her apron and lifted her coat from over the back of the settee. ‘You still want me for tomorrow night, Mr. Slater?’

Slater nodded distractedly. ‘Yes, yes.’

‘Only I won’t be able to make it on Sunday.’

Slater’s head snapped up. ‘Why the hell not?’ His anger was sudden and unexpected and even she seemed surprised.

‘Personal business,’ she said defensively.

‘Damn!’ he muttered. He opened the door of the child’s room and went in, slamming it behind him, leaving Bannerman and the girl in an embarrassed silence.

She tried a smile which didn’t quite work. ‘Well, it looks like we’re dismissed. I’m Sally Robertson.’

Bannerman picked up his coat. ‘Hello, Sally,’ he said. ‘I’m Neil Bannerman. It seems I’m taking you home.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Or since I’m going to have to eat out maybe I can take you to dinner.’

Sally smiled again, and this time it was her real smile, lips spread wide across a disarmingly open and pretty face. And her green, impish eyes smiled even more than her mouth. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.

Outside the night air was thick, almost humid, great dark clouds clustering overhead, having blown in from the west during the day. There was still a winter edge of cold, but when you walked you were warm and the air felt warm on your face.

‘Leave the car,’ Sally said when they got out of the apartment block. ‘We can walk and then take the Metro. It’s a good night for walking.’

Bannerman allowed her to take his arm and they walked the length of the Rue de Commerce and turned up into the Rue de la Loi. ‘I suppose you must feel pretty bad about the child,’ she said. He gave no sign that he had even heard. ‘They’re all pretty much like that, autistic children,’ she went on. ‘A break in the routine, a stranger, or maybe a pet phobia. Any of these can set them off on a screaming fit. Sometimes it can last an hour, or two hours, or even more. But they always come through.’

Bannerman kept an even pace and did not look at her. Ill-pasted posters flapped on the hoardings, behind which workmen sweated under floodlights on excavations for the foundations of yet another office block. ‘What’s she like?’ he asked. ‘The child.’

Sally swept her hand through a vague gesture. ‘It’s difficult to know,’ she answered. ‘She doesn’t speak, you see. It’s not that she can’t speak, physically I mean. It’s just that... well, she doesn’t. She can write a little when the mood takes her, but she can’t construct sentences. She gets what she needs by gestures. A kind of sign language. But you’ve got to know her pretty well to understand it. The doctors say she understands what is going on around her, but her only positive responses to anything are the fits. She takes it all in, but she can’t seem to communicate what it all means to her.’

Bannerman tried to imagine what it might be like. To be trapped like that. Your body like a cage. The world can come in but you can’t get out. He pictured the child. Shoulder length brown hair cut straight. A small, plain, expressionless face dominated by large, dark eyes. The grey jumper and skirt. Heavy black shoes. The clumsy limbs. ‘But she can draw like I’ve never seen a child draw,’ Sally said. ‘Fantastic living drawings that she makes with a pencil. Drawings that leap out of the page at you. She has this tremendous sense of depth and perspective. They’re worth seeing.’

The streets were poorly lit and quiet here, still in the commercial sector, and they climbed the hill then in silence to the Metro at Schuman below the Berlaymont. There no longer seemed a need to speak, and the lack of words between them was an easy thing. Bannerman felt relaxed in the company of this woman with her hair cropped short like a boy’s, but with a smile and touch and smell that were warm and feminine. But still, he could not shake off his distress, and she seemed to appreciate his distance and disquiet.

The child had touched some inner nerve end, a severed memory, and in his mind he kept replaying the scene in Slater’s flat. Her eyes were always the focal point. Sad, appealing eyes, deceptive in their dark passivity, even at the height of the screaming. Only now, with the short passage of time, were they having their full effect on him. He knew why. Somewhere inside he knew why, but would not or could not admit it.

He remembered the small, gloomy office of the weekly newspaper where he had first got a job as a reporter. A raw young man full of anger at the world. But his cynicism then had not fully blunted the power of his youthful idealism and romanticism. He had always been arrogant, a kind of self protection, and had not endeared himself to the other reporters. They had made it hard for him there, and he had learned the toughest way you can learn — without friends. And it was in this period, the transition from adolescence to adulthood, that the relationship had formed. A relationship that had moulded his future, sealed his insularity.

She had been a timid girl in tele-ads, fresh out of school, impressed by his self-confidence, starry-eyed at what she saw as the romantic world of newspapers and newspaper men. He had embodied all that she, as a young girl, might have dreamed of in a young man. And he had grasped her vision of him, as a lonely man does, and played to it, built on it.

He had allowed her adoration to fill out his ego, and he would lie awake at night in his attic digs overlooking the canal, playing the game, making the rules and breaking them. He felt the way it gave him power to have her love him when he did not love her. Though when you play that kind of game, sometimes the division between fantasy and reality becomes blurred and that is when it can become dangerous.

It had been a small, cold room high up in the roof of the stone terrace, and he had hated it. The dull, damp wallpaper. The miserable view out across the canal, the railway line and the dark empty trees. The dirty, threadbare carpet over the blackened linoleum and the smell of stale cooking that drifted up from the floor below where an old woman lived in a cluttered room. She peed in a bucket, the students in the room below her said. They would wake up at night and hear the squirt of the old lady’s urine against the side of the galvanised bucket. They hoped she had a good aim, they said. And Bannerman had lain in the darkness, hating himself for all the falseness that he needed, remembering how he had made the girl from tele-ads cry, how they had fought and he had made her unhappy. And there had been his own tears in all this unhappiness, there in that room, the tears of a callow eighteen-year-old boy trying to find in himself what others always seemed to find with such ease, but resorting in the end to the hollow pursuit of self-deceit. It had never really occurred to him at the time, in the midst of his own selfish unhappiness, that it was not only himself that he was hurting, but that piece by piece he was also destroying another human being whose trust and love he was betraying.

He had thought of her as a rather foolish, if attractive, girl, and he thought bitterly now how he could not even remember her face, how he had never seen the child she bore him.

They went down into the Metro on escalators, through vast, empty, ersatz marble halls. Sally bought them tickets and they queued on the platform under fluorescent lights. ‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked. ‘We can ride anywhere in the city on these tickets.’

Bannerman looked at her. ‘Somewhere to eat and get a little drunk and talk,’ he said.

A shining new orange carriage whisked them through the new Brussels Metro, through broad lit tunnels to De Brouckere where they changed and caught one of the trams that run on the Pré Metro below the city centre before burrowing upwards like moles to run overground into the suburbs. They ate in a steak house on the Boulevard Adolphe Max; steak au poivre washed down with a strong red wine. Their conversation was desultory, a little awkward, each inhibited by the other’s strangeness and the memory of the scene at Slater’s flat. But Bannerman liked the smell of wine on her breath and the way she wore no make-up except on her fine lips. He found it easier to look at her than to talk. He saw now that she was older than he had first thought. Her thick, short hair was a rich auburn flecked with the first signs of a premature grey. Her eyes, below finely stretched lids, were a deep, solemn green speckled with brown, only the finest of lines etched out from their corners betraying her youthful appearance. Her nose was short, but not too short, and a little pinched around the nostrils. It was a delicately structured face without being beautiful, and you thought you could tell from her smile and her eyes that she knew how to look after herself. She had a bright laugh, and always when she laughed she flicked back her head in a small, careless way, and Bannerman guessed she must recently have worn her hair long. She must have been about thirty, he thought.

They left the steak house a little wanner and a little closer, and walked further down the boulevard towards the Place Rogier where the towering Manhattan Centre of concrete and glass rose powerfully into the night sky. ‘You’re a strange, quiet sort of man,’ Sally said without looking at him, her eyes fixed high up on the Manhattan building on a large Martini neon.

‘Only when I’m strange and quiet,’ he replied.

She smiled wistfully. ‘You still want to get drunk?’

‘Not drunk. Gently... tipsy.’

‘We can go in here.’

The Manhattan was a small, classy café near the end of the Boulevard Adolphe Max, emulating the American bars of Thirties’ movies. A row of tall stools stood along a bar of polished mahogany, below a wooden canopy hung with beaten copper light shades. Small, round tables and chairs stood in clusters in little alcoves. The walls were panelled in the same polished mahogany and along behind the bar, stickers advertised Scotch, American beers and Stella Artois. It was almost empty, and they filled two empty stools along the row. A bored, neat waiter in black waistcoat and pants, white shirt and bow tie, who had been leaning against the end of the bar smoking a cigarette when they came in, snapped to attention and approached them crisply to take their order. They asked for whiskies which were brought in short glasses and placed on mats on the counter in front of them. Bannerman raised his glass. ‘Slainthe.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘It’s Scots for good health.’

She smiled. ‘Slainthe then.’ They took their first sips in silence and Bannerman took out a cigar. He peeled back the cellophane and trimmed the end carefully then lit it with a match, rolling the end until it was well lit and smoking the way he liked it. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said.

‘There’s nothing much to tell.’

He allowed the thick blue smoke to drift lazily out the corners of his mouth. ‘Now why do people always say that?’

‘Maybe because it’s true.’

He shook his head. ‘No. Everyone’s got a story to tell.’ He took another mouthful of whisky and allowed it to slip back easily over his tongue and down his throat so that it left a nice warm sensation in its wake. ‘The editor of a paper I worked for once always said that behind every window there’s a story. Same thing really.’

‘Can I ask a question?’

‘Sure.’

‘Why do reporters always ask questions?’

He grinned at her. ‘It’s their job.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yeah. We’re a nosy breed.’

‘Only you seem quite different from Tim Slater or some of the other reporters I’ve met.’

‘That’s probably because I am.’

She tutted, partly with irritation, partly with amusement. ‘Why do you always have to be so clever?’

‘I don’t. I’m just enjoying breaking the ice on our relationship.’

‘Oh? Do we have a relationship?’

‘I don’t know yet. Maybe.’ He paused while he drew in smoke from his cigar. ‘So tell me something about yourself. We met during a scene, we’ve travelled together across half of Brussels, had a meal together, and all I know about you is that you’re English and you keep house for Slater — or do you?’

She sighed. ‘All right. Yes, I’m English, I’m thirty-two years old and unmarried — and that’s not an invitation. I’ve lived in Brussels for two years and teach English at a private college three days a week. On the other days I keep house for Mr. Slater and take Tania to and from her special school. I look after her on Sundays and sometimes babysit in the evenings when he goes out with his fancy woman. Is that enough, or would you like my life story from day one?’

Bannerman smiled. ‘Quite talkative when you like. Why do you need to work for Slater when you’ve already got a job?’

‘Because I don’t make enough from teaching alone. Brussels is an expensive place to live.’

He paused, then asked, ‘So what’s an attractive young lady like you doing living alone in a place like this?’

‘None of your damned business.’

Her sudden sharpness surprised him. ‘I’m sorry.’ There was an uneasy silence for some moments, then, ‘Tell me about Slater’s fancy woman.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I’m asking.’ He drained his glass and saw that Sally’s was empty too and he signalled the ever watchful waiter and ordered them another two glasses.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘His lady friend is about thirty, a very good-looking woman, plenty of money, or do they call it class nowadays? You get the impression she’s stepped down out of her class. Slumming. Or maybe he’s out of his. Though I’ve nothing against Mr. Slater. He’s all right. It’s just...’

‘What?’

‘They seem a strange couple. Badly matched. She’s not exactly affectionate.’

‘She Belgian?’

‘Uh-huh. Marie-Ange Piard. Divorced.’ She half emptied her glass then looked at him seriously. ‘You know, it occurs to me that I know as little about you as you did about me. How about me asking some of the questions? Like, why don’t you tell me something about yourself?’

Bannerman grinned. ‘There’s nothing much to tell.’ He looked up and saw that she was smiling too.

‘Bastard,’ she said.

Bannerman raised an eyebrow and drained his second glass. ‘I get a lot of people that way.’

Her smile faded slowly and there was a long silence. Then, suddenly self-conscious, she turned her eyes away.

‘Do you want another drink?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She pushed her half-finished glass away from her. ‘I’d like to go home now. It’s late.’

They left the Manhattan and she insisted on taking a tram home on her own. ‘Will I see you again?’ he asked.

She said, ‘Maybe.’ And he watched the tram move off along the tracks, carrying her away into the night.

V

Bannerman rode the Metro over to the east side and found the door of Slater’s flat off the latch. He went in and closed it quietly behind him. Then he walked the length of the hall, feeling the quiet of the house around him, and found Slater sitting in the dark in the living room, his cigarette end glowing red as he drew on it. ‘She’s asleep,’ Slater said, surly and subdued. ‘Your bag’s in your room. Along the hall, the last door on your left.’

Bannerman could not see his face, but he nodded and felt all the disquiet returning through the gentle whisky haze in his head. ‘I’ll find a hotel on Monday,’ he said.

Slater turned towards him, his face half lit by the street lamps outside whose soft light only deepened the shadows in the room. ‘Okay. Thanks. What will you tell Tait?’ Bannerman said nothing, and Slater waited in the silence. Then he said, ‘I’ve got to go out tomorrow night. A social function. A party if you like. EEC officials, some politicians, some people from NATO. A boring affair. But I’ve got contacts to keep up.’ He paused then, ‘They’re my bread and butter,’ he added almost accusingly. ‘I suppose you’d better come with us. I don’t want to leave you here.’

‘Us?’ Bannerman asked.

Slater shifted uncomfortably and said, with something approaching an apology, ‘Three years is a long time for a wife to be dead. A man needs a woman.’

‘Sure.’

Bannerman lay in the bed with a faint grey light creeping in through the shutters. He thought that, after all, he had no right to intrude on the private pains of a man like Slater. Then he thought about Sally, her bright pretty face, her sudden withdrawal just when it seemed they were beginning to make contact. All the loneliness of the first night in a strange bed closed in about him like a fist, before the drowsiness of approaching sleep scattered his thoughts and numbed his depression.

He was not sure how long he had been dozing. It might only have been a matter of minutes, or it might have been hours. And he was not certain at first what had reached into his subconscious and forced him up to break the surface of wakefulness. The moment of waking was one of confusion; the strange room, the unfamiliar bed and the smell of dampness. The room was washed with the same grey light. Then beyond those first seconds of confusion came an awareness, an awareness of a presence in the room. Nothing he could see or smell or hear. He just felt it and there was a momentary flutter of fear in his chest. He jerked up on to one elbow and saw the child standing in a long, shapeless white nightdress, bare feet on the bare linoleum. She was only a couple of feet away, watching him, big dark eyes, that peaceful passive expression resting easy on her face. She seemed small, more fragile, more childlike. His first thought was that she might scream and he felt his body tighten with tension. But she just stood there.

He could hear his own breathing, loudly, clearly, and he could feel the blood pulsing at his temples. Something told him that it would be a mistake to speak and a little of the tension seemed to slip away. And as though the child knew it, she took two small steps forward and reached out to touch his face. The fingers of her hand were icy against his skin and he felt a trembling in them. At first they rested on his cheek and then after a few seconds they began to follow the contours of his face, running along the line of his cheekbone, his nose, his lips, his jaw. He raised his own hand and placed it over hers, stopping it, feeling the coldness of it, and he squeezed it gently. A tiny smile lit her face and the dark eyes stared into his, and he found himself extraordinarily moved. Then the small hand slipped from his and she turned and padded to the door, opening it and closing it behind her without looking back. Bannerman remained motionless for a minute, maybe more. His head swam with the strangest feelings, the sensation that he had experienced something precious. But something he could not explain.

A dog barked somewhere in the courtyards behind the apartment block and broke into his thoughts. He dropped on to his back and stared up at the ceiling, and realised for the first time that he also was cold.

Chapter Three

I

The blinds were drawn and the only light came from a desk lamp bent over on a goose neck, throwing a bright pool of light on the scribbled blotter. Everything on the desk was laid out neatly. A large glass ashtray, empty and clean, a long brass letter opener, a wire tray tidily piled with dogeared reports, a marble pen holder, a phone, two folders and a dish of paper clips. On the wall behind it, a large map of Brussels and a calendar pinned to a walk-in cupboard door. The high-backed leather armchair was set at an angle. A light came on in the next room and spilled more light into the study through the open French windows and the glass in the arched, white-painted wooden framework that partitioned the two rooms. Beyond, a further set of French windows opened out on to the back gardens. But they were shut against the rain and the dark.

Gryffe came through, an expensive camel coat hanging on his substantial frame, the two ends of a white silk scarf dropping down to his waist. He was a large, heavy man, not fat, but powerfully built. He had a face that would be attractive to women, smooth, tanned skin below a good head of thick dark hair neatly cut and swept back. But now he was frowning and it did not suit him. The fine arches of his eyebrows were puckered in towards the bridge of his nose and his upper lip was slightly curled in an expression that might have been one of distaste. His manner was agitated and he strode into the study, making for the desk. Then he stopped, almost as though he had forgotten what it was he had come for. Outside the rain battered down, striking and running down the glass behind the blinds. Gryffe stooped hesitantly over his desk and pulled open the left hand drawer. He seemed satisfied with what he saw and pushed it shut again. He stretched across and took a bunch of keys out of the drawer at the other side, slipped them into his pocket, switched out the desk lamp and went back through to the other room. There he switched out the ceiling light and went out into the hall. The front door slammed shut leaving the place in darkness, the quiet broken only by the sound of falling rain, the scent of his aftershave lingering in the cold, still air.

Kale saw him, from a doorway further along the Rue de Pavie, stepping into the street. He opened the door of his car, parked below one of the naked black trees set along the edge of the cobbled pavement, and slipped in. The exhaust roared and the car pulled away, heading along to the end of the street, turning right into the Square Ambiorix where the Saturday night traffic sped past the edge of a small deserted park. Across the street from Kale a florist’s shop was closing up for the night and a negro with a red woollen hat slouched past with his hands in his pockets, not noticing Kale standing in the shadow of the doorway. He stood there, not feeling the cold, for another thirty minutes or more, watching the street. A row of terraces, doors opening straight on to the pavement, stone and brick-work facades with tiny stone ballustrades and wrought-iron imitation balconies. A profusion of chimney pots leaning at odd angles on the slate roofs. It was a quiet street, most of the terraces converted to offices, a modern block of flats. Residence Ambiorix, casting light from the only lit windows, at the far end of the street. Beyond the square and the park, the boulevard ran down to the Berlaymont about half a mile away.

Finally Kale moved away from the shelter of the doorway and pulled up his collar against the rain. He crossed the street and walked down to Gryffe’s door. He pressed the buzzer and heard it sounding somewhere in the stillness inside. There was no sound of footsteps and no light at the edges of the blinds on the window. He rang again and waited a further few minutes until he was satisfied there was no-one at home. He glanced at his watch. It was nearly eight, and he turned and walked back, away from the lights of the Residence Ambiorix.

This was a part of Brussels that was on the way down. A seedy tobacconist’s was still open on the corner of the Rue de Pavie and the Rue de Gravelines. Through the lit window Kale could see an old man with a face like a lost battle sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a magazine and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. A half-empty bottle of beer sat on the counter. The old man caught only a glimpse of the mean face peering in at him out of the darkness, and he stared back uneasily.

It struck Kale as odd that a man like Gryffe should have chosen to buy a house in an area such as this. He shrugged and took out a cigarette, cupping his hands around the end to light it. He dropped the spent match in the gutter and turned right under a covered stone arch that ran under the end terrace. The cobbles here were dry, and his footsteps echoed back at him off the wall, the light of the street receding behind him. Then he came to the end and back out into the rain, and he turned right again into a long narrow lane that ran along the back of the terraces, bounded by high brick walls on either side, tall wooden gates opening off into the back courts. There were feeble street lamps raised above the wall about every hundred metres along one side. Kale counted off the gates on his right, walking quickly over the asphalt, and stopped at the twelfth. He glanced either way and then opened it and moved into the back court behind Gryffe’s house.

The yard was sunk deep in shadow, a short sodden lawn, a brick shelter for the bins, and an uneven path of cracked slabs leading to the back door. Kale eased the gate shut and then froze as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the lane. He pressed himself hard in against the wall of the bin shelter and waited, tensed, as the steps came nearer. They passed the gate without stopping and faded down the lane. A thin jet of air escaped through Kale’s clenched teeth and he moved back out on to the path. Silently he crossed the yard to the French windows that opened into the back room. They were locked. A lever mechanism worked from a handle on the inside. He crouched down and drew a long thin steel rod from an inside pocket of his raincoat and worked it carefully in between the two doors and slid it up to where the centre bolt ran through the gap, and he checked the length of the rod with the position of the handle inside. It would be possible, he decided, and he withdrew the rod again.

He worked quickly, shaping the end of the rod round his wrist, bending it back on itself so that it formed a hook about the size of a cupped hand. Then he gently curved the rod inwards towards the open end of the hook until it was almost a semi-circle. He slipped it back again between the doors, but it stuck halfway where it had kinked slightly in the shaping. He cursed and pulled it out again and worked the rod minutely backwards and forwards where it had kinked until he was satisfied that it was as straight as he could make it. This time it slipped easily between the doors and he slid it up until the hook was above the handle inside and then he pulled it gently downwards. The hook slid neatly over the handle and there he stopped and let it hang. He stood up and took a pencil torch from his pocket and shone it quickly along the top of the door, standing on tiptoe. Two terminals in the cross-jamb gleamed in the light on either side of the centre gap where they made contact with metal strips at the top corners of each half of the door. Kale smiled to himself and checked with his watch again. Already it was after eight thirty. It had taken longer than he thought, and he did not know how much time he had. But it was still important to do it right. There must be no trace, no false moves. If he had opened the door first, without checking, the contact would have been broken and an alarm would have sounded.

He drew out a rolled black plastic bag from the inside pocket from which he had taken the rod. He unrolled it and searched quickly inside, taking out a small roll of metal tape, sticky on one side, a length of wire rolled tightly and tied round the middle, and a short pair of pincers. For this he slipped off his tight black gloves and worked with nimble, steady fingers, unravelling about a yard of wire, baring it at each end and attaching it to strips of tape about three inches in length. Using a nail-file he attached one of the strips to the right-hand terminal on the cross-jamb and the other to the metal strip running along the top of the right-hand door. There was just enough space between the two to work the nail-file in and stick down the tape. The yard of wire hung in a loop down the door. This next would be the telling move. He pulled his gloves back on and leaned his shoulder gently against the right-hand door, grasping the curve of rod that was still on the outside. It would have to be sharp and sudden to bring the handle down, but he could not afford to let the door swing in too sharply and pull the wire too far or it would break the bridging contact. He felt warm and sticky and was not certain if the wetness on his face was rain or sweat. He braced himself and jerked the rod downwards. The handle on the inside came down with it and the pressure of his shoulder pushed the door in. He let the rod fall and grabbed quickly at the edge of the opening door. He caught it before the wire became taut, and he took several seconds to regain his balance and be sure of it. Then he let go the door and retrieved the bent rod and bent it some more until it slipped into his pocket. He re-rolled the plastic bag and put it away also, and brought out two plastic shoe covers. Quickly he pulled the first one over his right shoe and stepped his right leg just inside the door. He did the same with the left foot so that now he was inside the house and there would be no telltale footsteps on the carpet, nothing that even the forensic people could find.

He ducked under the wire and moved quickly across the room and into the hall. It was a narrow, high-ceilinged hall with a small cloakroom set off just inside the door. He checked by the door first and then in the cloakroom before he found what he was looking for. The electric meter was mounted in a wooden casing on the wall. Kale opened it and shone his pencil torch inside and spotted the alarm switch. He turned it off and hurried through again to the back room, disconnecting the wire on the door and the cross-jamb. Then he locked the French windows as they had been, stuffed the wire back in his pocket and went to re-set the alarm. He stood then for several seconds on the parquet flooring in the hall and listened to the silence in the house.

Outside a car swept past in the direction of the Square Ambiorix. The sound of it broke into Kale’s thoughts, stirring him to action, and he climbed the stairs two at a time. Two thirds of the way up a door led off to the bathroom from a small landing. Up another half dozen steps and there was a small, square landing with two doors leading off. The first one opened into Gryffe’s bedroom. A large, rectangular room, basic and tidy. A double bed, a tall oak wardrobe and a matching dressing table and circular mirror against the window. On a single bedside table there was a brown-shaded lamp and a book by Ernest Hemingway with a marker about half-way through. The thin beam of Kale’s pencil torch picked them all out and then snapped off. Kale moved through to the second, smaller room. It was empty except for a single, unmade bed pushed against one wall. The wallpaper was faded and old-fashioned, brittle at the seams where it was beginning to lift away from the wall. The room smelled fusty and unused. The whole house had an unlived-in feel and smell.

Downstairs, at the end of the hall, there was a small, stone-floored kitchen down two steps. There was a faint odour of stale cooking and damp. The gas stove was black and caked with grease, and a porcelain sink and washtub with a wooden draining board was cracked. In an old dark-wood cupboard there was a half-empty bottle of milk, a packet of cereal, tea, coffee, sugar, cups, saucers and three plates. A wooden door leading to the back yard was bolted shut. Kale guessed that Gryffe would eat out a lot. He moved through into the back room and then through the interior set of French windows into Gryffe’s study. Everything in the house seemed functional, designed for convenience rather than comfort. Again Kale checked his watch. It was nine now. He opened the drawer that Gryffe had opened an hour earlier and found a heavy black handgun. A Colt .32 automatic, eight shot. An old-fashioned gun. He lifted it out and felt its weight in his hand. He sniffed the barrel. It had not been fired recently. Gently, with a dexterous familiarity, he sprang the magazine out and counted the bullets through the small holes in the side. It was fully loaded. He snapped the magazine back in place and slipped the gun carefully into his right-hand coat pocket, and allowed himself a tight, bitter smile. Good fortune smiled on evil. He had a plan.

Swiftly he went through the other drawers and found only stationery and mail, and a drawer filled with pipes and empty tobacco tins. Then he spotted the door behind the desk and tried the handle. It opened into a large walk-in cupboard. Empty wooden shelves ran along the far wall, above head height. A small, battered suitcase lay in the near corner. Three battleship grey filing cabinets were pushed against the door wall to the left of the door. They too were empty. Kale pulled the door shut behind him and felt the darkness and the closeness of the walls around him. He shivered for the first time in the cold, and with his pencil torch picked his way round the filing cabinets and squatted in the corner, back pressed against the wall, thin legs pulled in close to his chest. He leaned his left arm on the battered suitcase, though strangely it never occurred to him to check inside. It should have.

First he took out Gryffe’s gun and laid it on the floor beside him, then he took out another gun from an inside pocket and screwed in the silencer. He laid it on the floor beside the other and let his head rest back against the wall, his eyes closing, blood pulsing softly at his temples.

This was the worst time now. The waiting. Twelve hours, perhaps more. But it was all so familiar. The waiting, the loneliness, the dark room. It had been that way all his life. Even now he could hear his mother in the next room, half-drunk, laughing, entertaining another customer. They came night after night. Sometimes he would recognise a voice. Any one of them might have been his father, though later he doubted it. He had lain on the cot bed in the corner below faded grey curtains, watching the line of light under the door. He had been five, maybe six years old. He never saw the faces that came and went. But he heard them laughing, grunting, cursing. And always his mother’s voice, her pretended enjoyment, the smell of the gin that fuelled her pretence. Then afterwards, she would sometimes come through, to stand over his bed, thinking him asleep, and bend to kiss his cheek with wet, loose lips, the hot, thick smell of gin on her breath. How he loathed it. Her smell, her touch, the stink of men and sex. And how he despised her for her sobbing. Great long sobs of self pity that he could hear through the wall when she had returned to her own room. What right had she to cry?

Finally there had been the night, long silent hours after the raised voices and the scream, when he had gone through and found her naked body. It had been almost a relief. The twist of pain on the fleshy red lips, the wide, staring eyes, the whiteness of her flesh and the sagging of her breasts. They meant an end to it all. No more strange men, no more wet kisses, no more sobbing through dark, lonely nights. But he had not known then, could not have known, that there were greater horrors in life.

II

The house stood discreetly behind a long sweep of lawn, screened from the Avenue de la Grande by a row of poplars. A broad, paved driveway opened off the road and ran up the edge of the lawn, past the side of the house, to a wide double garage. Floodlights were cleverly concealed among the evergreen bushes that bordered the drive and the far side of the lawn, picking out the house against the black of the sky behind. It was a long, single-storey white house with green shutters and a red tiled roof. A place you might buy if you had money and wanted people to know it. Large gleaming limousines lined the avenue for about thirty metres along either side, and Slater pulled his car into the left side beyond the house. He stepped out into the light smirr that was drifting gently across the lawns of the houses on the north side, and opened the passenger door.

Bannerman watched Marie-Ange climb out and wave aside Slater’s offer of help. She was a tall, cool, elegant lady, her long tawny golden hair falling carelessly across the mink stole on her shoulders. She wore a full-length white silk dress that flared out from a band at the waist below a daring neckline. When they had met earlier, at Slater’s flat, Bannerman had known immediately what Sally had meant when she had said Marie-Ange was slumming. She had that air of confidence and aloofness that so often comes from a background of money and good education. There was a brittleness about her, a standing on ceremony that remained a constant presence, even in her relationship with Slater. Bannerman had taken an immediate dislike to her. The condescending smile, the limp hand offered to be shaken that Bannerman had squeezed a little too tightly. But if it had hurt a little, she had not shown it. She was a woman who would not be easily ruffled.

He had to admit, though, that she was a beautiful woman to look at. Large cobalt blue eyes, a fine long aristocratic nose and wide, full lips. A smooth, lightly tanned skin, a distant enigmatic smile. A long slender body. A sexual creature, and aware of it. Bannerman recalled Sally’s words — a strange couple. Her very presence begged the question, why Slater? The man seemed ill at ease in her company, or was it the presence of Bannerman?

Bannerman carried these thoughts with him across the avenue and up the driveway to the door of the white house. Slater and Marie-Ange walked ahead as though they were not with him. The door was opened by a white-jacketed butler and they were shown into a large lit hall. At the far end a staircase rode up to a halfway landing where more stairs branched off to left and right. To their left double doors stood open, leading down two steps into a huge, crowded room, already thick with smoke and the sound of voices and the smell of drink and perfume. The walls in the hall and the room they could see into were oak panelled in a mock nineteenth century English style. They were hung with dark oil portraits of men and women with severe faces and large shiny noses. The butler took their coats and tiptoed away across the thick pile of the rich, dark carpet.

‘How ostentatious,’ Marie-Ange said, looking around with her accustomed disapproval. ‘I hope this will not all be too boring, Timothy.’ Her voice was clear and confident and almost without accent.

Slater smiled patiently, slightly nervous Bannerman thought. ‘Shall we?’ he said and steered her gently towards the doors. He hesitated a moment then turned back to Bannerman who had remained in the centre of the hall lighting a cigar. ‘Bannerman. Would you look after Marie-Ange for a while? About fifteen minutes. I have some business with a contact. I’d like to get it out of the way first.’

Bannerman finished lighting his cigar and glanced at Marie-Ange. She seemed bored, but resigned to her fate. He nodded. ‘Okay.’

Slater squeezed her hand. ‘Soon be over,’ he said and slipped away into the dinner jackets. Bannerman sauntered over to stand beside her and they stood in the doorway looking in on the assembly as they might have watched fish in an aquarium.

‘You might at least try and put a face on it,’ he said, fishing.

‘Oh, might I?’ she replied without looking at him. ‘A face on what?’

‘On you and Slater.’

‘Ah,’ she said, and she worked up a little smile and turned it on him. ‘And what business is that of yours?’

‘None, but I’m a nosy bastard.’

‘So I’m beginning to notice.’

‘Just thought I’d beat you to it.’

‘Indeed.’ Her smile broadened and then she looked away again. ‘You have a very strong handshake, Mr. Bannerman,’

‘I work at it.’

‘And are you as good in bed?’

‘Better.’

She turned her face back towards his, tall in her high heels, their eyes almost on a level. ‘You’re very quick.’

‘I work at that too.’

They moved aside to make way for another group of guests arriving. ‘Shall we go in?’ she said. Bannerman nodded, taking her arm and leading her down the steps into the room. Immediately the sensation of being observers dissolved and gave way to the discomfort of being part of the crowd, the voices that rose and fell in half a dozen different languages, socially consolidating the uneasy political alliances. There were too many people who laughed too easily to be truly at ease. White-jacketed waiters moved among the dinner jackets and lounge suits and daring dresses, offering smoked salmon and whisky from silver platters. The manufactured bonhomie hung sourly in the air like the cigar smoke. Bannerman would have preferred to have remained in the hall.

‘Drink?’ She nodded and he lifted two glasses from a passing platter. ‘So this is how they live in the Euroghettos,’ he said and raised his glass. ‘Bonne Santé.’

She eyed him curiously over her glass. ‘You disapprove?’

‘How observant.’

‘You are a very facetious man, Mr. Bannerman.’

‘So I’ve been told.’ He bowed slightly. ‘What business is it Slater has here?’ He noticed the slightly glazed expression that crossed her face as she turned away to look across the room at nothing in particular.

‘I hate these affairs,’ she said. ‘They are so tedious. Politicians. I have no interest in politics. There is a certain lack of dignity about it all. Men hungry for power like children fighting for pennies thrown at a wedding.’ She turned again to face him, sipping her whisky, the faintest trace of a mocking smile in her eyes. ‘Did you say something, Mr. Bannerman?’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘I don’t believe I did.’ He paused to take a slug of whisky and then draw on his cigar. ‘You speak very good, clear English.’

‘I was educated in England, and latterly in Switzerland.’ She sighed and finished her drink and stared past Bannerman at the faces. He suddenly became aware of the closeness of her body, the light touch of her breast grazing his arm, the smell of perfume and her femininity. ‘I hope you shall not be so boring when we make love.’ Her voice was faintly husky, and still she was looking past him.

He grinned a little grin into his glass and then turned his face towards hers. ‘I wouldn’t sleep with you if you paid me,’ he said and drained his glass. ‘Another drink?’

Her gaze remained cool and steady. ‘I ought to slap your face.’

‘I wouldn’t if I were you. I have a habit of hitting back.’

‘Bannerman, isn’t it? Neil Bannerman?’ The voice destroyed the concentration of the fencing. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’ Bannerman turned to see a small, rotund figure in a dinner suit that was too big for him, hired off the peg. The man was in his late fifties, bald with little tufts of dirty grey hair still clinging round the edges of his head, oiled down but curling slightly at the ends. His fat, unlined face smiled amiably, a faintly familiar smile, below bushy eyebrows. A soiled red handkerchief clutched in short stubby fingers mopped at his forehead and under his chins. His free hand was extended. ‘You remember me, don’t you? Platt. Richard Platt. We worked together on the Weekly Echo. Long time ago now.’

Bannerman experienced a moment of confusion and he heard Marie-Ange tut impatiently beside him. Of course, he remembered Platt, but there was a certain unwillingness to acknowledge it. It was not a time about which he cared to remember. ‘Yes,’ he said and shook the damp hand.

‘Of course, of course,’ Platt said. ‘I knew you’d remember. It must be, what, fifteen years. More. What a coincidence meeting you here in Brussels.’

‘Yes, isn’t it,’ Bannerman said without enthusiasm.

‘I’ve been following your career with great interest. Made quite a name for yourself.’ He paused and beamed at Marie-Ange who glanced at him with distaste and said to Bannerman.

‘I would like another drink.’

‘Oh, allow me,’ Platt broke in and he called a waiter and lifted three glasses. ‘I’m not, am I...? I mean, interrupting anything?’

‘Yes,’ Marie-Ange said.

Bannerman shook his head. ‘No.’

Platt shuffled uncomfortably, his smile becoming forced. ‘I... I’ve been in Belgium nearly ten years now. The evening paper here in Brussels. La Belge Soir. Perhaps we could meet sometime, for a drink. Talk about old times. Next week if you’ll still be here.’ He searched agitatedly through his pockets before producing a grubby business card. ‘You can get me at the office most days. And I’m home most evenings after about ten.’ He grinned. ‘Pubs here are open all hours, but old habits die hard.’ Bannerman took the card and slipped it in his pocket without looking at it. Platt bowed and backed off hesitantly.

‘I’ll call you,’ Bannerman said, knowing that he would not and wondering what a man like Platt was doing at a gathering like this. Platt smiled uncertainly at Marie-Ange and vanished among the dinner jackets.

Marie-Ange said, ‘What an unpleasant little man. I could almost smell him.’

If Bannerman had heard her he gave no indication of it. He was thinking about Platt and how little he seemed to have changed in all the years. The same drinker’s face and nicotine-stained fingers. The nervous tick over the right cheekbone, the bad teeth. His discomfort in the dinner suit had been plain. He would have been more at home, more familiar, in his shabby brown raincoat and felt hat. Still, all that had been a long time ago. He remembered Marie-Ange and felt a sudden surge of annoyance. He turned to her. ‘Do you never tire of playing the rich bitch?’ He brushed past her before she could reply, and pushed through the close bodies, scanning the room for Slater. He would leave and take a taxi back into the city. Find a quiet café someplace and have enough whiskies to take him painlessly into tomorrow. He, too, was out of place in this fish bowl.

Slater was seated at the far side of the room in close conversation with a man whose back was turned to Bannerman. A frown of annoyance crossed Slater’s face as he saw Bannerman approaching, and the other man turned round, running a tanned hand through his thick, dark hair. Slater stood, barely able to conceal his irritation at Bannerman’s intrusion. ‘I’m leaving’, Bannerman said. ‘I’ll get a taxi.’ The other man stood and turned to face Bannerman.

‘Neil Bannerman, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I thought I recognised you. You were at the Council of Ministers yesterday.’

‘This is Robert Gryffe, Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office.’ Slater made the introduction grudgingly.

‘Yes, I know.’ Bannerman shook Gryffe’s hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Minister. I’m flattered that you should have recognised me.’

‘Ah,’ Gryffe smiled, a smile full of hollow confidence. ‘You have a certain reputation, Mr. Bannerman.’

‘So I’m told.’ Bannerman sensed the tension between the two men. In Slater it was obvious. In Gryffe it was more subtle. Gryffe was used to changing masks, as all good politicians are. The easy smile, the strong handshake. A salesman of false sincerity. But Bannerman was attuned to reading the signs, peeling back the masks. He was good at it, as he had to be, as all good newspaper men had to be. It is one reason why newspaper men are so cynical. ‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’ he asked, using Platt’s line, but to greater effect.

‘Not at all,’ Gryffe said. ‘Mr. Slater and I were just chatting. Anyway, it’s time I did some mixing.’ He beamed at Slater whose agitation shone patently through his clumsy attempts to conceal it.

‘Nine thirty,’ Slater said pointedly, indiscreetly. And for a second Gryffe’s mask slipped and his face clouded.

‘Nine thirty,’ he repeated, and then the moment had passed and he was smiling once again. He turned his back on Slater and asked Bannerman, ‘Are you in Brussels for anything special?’

‘Just scratching around,’ Bannerman replied, and beyond Gryffe he saw, with a sinking feeling, the approaching Schumachers. This was not his night.

‘Well, Mr. Bannerman. Isn’t this a surprise? Just fancy meeting you here.’ Mrs. Schumacher, flushed from too many sherries, blustered in on the three men, Henry Schumacher following quietly in tow. He smiled his habitual embarrassed smile. But his wife had no inhibitions. ‘God, I have to admire you, Mr. Bannerman. You’re a real fast mover.’ She paused to take breath and straighten down her dress. ‘Well, are you not going to introduce me to your friends?’

Bannerman smiled awkwardly. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Henry Schumacher, Mr. Robert Gryffe, Under Secretary of State at the British Foreign Office, and Timothy Slater, a journalist.’ Slater looked positively hostile, but Gryffe remained quite unruffled. He shook both their hands.

‘Please to meet you,’ he said.

‘And we are so pleased to meet you, I can assure you, Mr. Gryffe,’ Laura-Lee Schumacher gushed. ‘My husband is with the US Government at NATO. Perhaps you’ll have heard of him?’

‘I’m afraid...’

But Laura-Lee would not let him finish. The pretence must be maintained at all costs. ‘I do so think there should be more contact between the politicians of our two countries. Socially, I mean. Wouldn’t you agree? Perhaps you would lunch with us one day.’

‘I’d be delighted,’ Gryffe lied.

Mrs. Schumacher took his arm confidentially and steered his eyes towards Bannerman. ‘Has this young man been trying to sell you vacuum cleaners?’

Bannerman watched Gryffe’s face with amusement while Schumacher’s embarrassment grew more acute. ‘I think perhaps you should come and sit down, Laura-Lee,’ the American blurted with a painful seif-consciousness.

‘Oh nonsense, Henry. Don’t fuss so. I’m sure Mr. Gryffe doesn’t mind.’

‘Not at all,’ Gryffe said.

Bannerman noticed Platt watching them curiously from a leaning position against the far wall, a glass clutched tightly in his hand. He turned to Mrs. Schumacher. ‘I’m sorry to have to break things up, but I’m afraid I have to leave.’ And to Slater. ‘I’ll see you later.’ Pause. ‘Goodnight.’ He turned abruptly and made his way towards the door.

‘Well, that’s a shame,’ Laura-Lee said. ‘Such a nice young man. He doesn’t really look like a vacuum salesman.’

‘A what?’ Gryffe asked, puzzled for the second time.

‘A vacuum salesman. He works for the... what was it, Henry? The name of the firm?’

‘The Quick-Clean Vacuum and Brush Company, I think he said,’ Henry offered.

Gryffe smiled with genuine amusement. ‘I think our Mr. Bannerman has been pulling your leg,’ he said politely.

‘Oh?’ Mrs. Schumacher glared at him. ‘Who does he work for then?’

‘He’s the investigative reporter of the Edinburgh Post. A man with quite a reputation.’

Mrs. Schumacher let go Gryffe’s arm and he took a relieved step back. ‘You hear that, Henry?’ she barked. ‘A reporter. Why on earth should he tell us he sold vacuum cleaners?’ Henry Schumacher’s face echoed Gryffe’s puzzlement of a few moments earlier.

Platt watched Bannerman leave and thought, I wonder what he’s up to? He drained his glass and peered at the faces of European society through a haze of alcohol and cynicism, wincing slightly as his ulcer issued the first warnings of a troublesome night. He took a tablet from a bottle in his pocket and chewed on its chalky mintness. It was not worth staying much longer, he thought. There was no copy in this. His news desk would be upset in the morning, but they could go to hell. It was not his kind of job anyway. Dinner suits and smoked salmon. Though he knew he could not push his luck too far. It was a long time since he had turned in a good story. But he would show them. Rémy and Clerck and the rest. There was no way he would lose this job too. He was happy in his exile, anonymous safe from the failed years in Scotland, safe from the single end, the endless hard-drinking pubs, the sole milk bottle on the doorstep and the letters of complaint from the woman across the landing. He signalled a waiter and told himself this would be the last whisky tonight. Now he had Bannerman. An arrogant young man, yes, but a bloody good reporter. Something must have brought him to Brussels. Something big. And if Platt played his cards right, maybe he could get a piece of the action, whatever it might be. He chuckled to himself. After all these years he might get some mileage out of Bannerman yet.

Sally sat listening to the slow interminable tick, tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. There was no sound from the child’s room and the apartment was still and quiet. Her book lay open on the table beside the settee. She had been unable to read, unable to watch television. She was thinking about Bannerman ever since last night. He had had an odd effect on her. His quiet, powerful presence, like the taste of a good wine. It was intoxicating. There was something dark and secret about the man, something that she wanted to reach out and touch. But somewhere deep inside her there was that fear of commitment and then betrayal. No man had affected her like that since...

She heard the key in the door and looked at the clock. It was only eleven. They were early. She had not expected them back until around two. But there were no voices, only the quiet closing of the door and soft footsteps in the hall. The door opened into the living room and Bannerman stopped in the doorway. He smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten you’d be here. My mind was on other things.’ He swayed slightly as he closed the door and she saw that he had been drinking. He slipped off his coat and threw it over the back of the settee.

‘You’re drunk,’ she said.

‘No.’ He shook his head again. ‘A little bit drunk, a little bit sad.’ He walked unsteadily past her to the window where he drew back the curtains and stood looking out into the blackness. He could not have seen anything for the light in the room, but she could see his face reflected darkly on the glass. He sunk his hands deep in his pockets and she saw his eyes closing. She said nothing, and the moments of silence dragged out. Then he said unexpectedly, ‘You know, there is no way of escaping the things you regret. They’re always there, shaping the way you are, even when you don’t know it. And then something or someone brings it all back and it seems all the more bitter for the years you have buried it.’ Sally did not know what to say. He would not, she knew, say these things if he had not been drinking. ‘First the child, Tania,’ he went on, ‘and then Platt, and maybe even you in some way.’

She eased herself out of the settee and moved towards him. ‘Don’t say any more.’ She put her hand up to his lips and he kissed it before pulling it gently away.

‘I need someone...’ he whispered.

She shook her head. ‘You should sleep on it.’

‘Alone?’

‘Alone.’ But she felt afraid again. It would be so easy. And it had been so long.

He let her take his hand and lead him out of the living room and into his bedroom. The shutters were open and the light from the streetlamps shone in bright yellow flecks through the drops of rain on the window, like tiny needles of light in the darkness. He let her slip off his jacket and tie and begin undoing the buttons of his shirt, and all the time he watched her green, speckled eyes. He still felt warmed by the drink, and the sadness was still there also. He felt her lips on his chest and he reached out and pressed her head close into him. It felt small and fragile and precious in his hand, her hair soft and silky so that it was almost like touching nothing. He felt the softness of her body pressing against him. All the curves and hollows. She stretched up and he kissed her and they slipped back on to the bed so that he felt all the nakedness of her skin against his — and he could not remember her having undressed.

They lay for some time, wrapped in each other, without having made love, until Bannerman slipped away into a deep alcoholic sleep. Sally looked at the fineness of his features and ran her finger lightly over his face, feeling the roughness of a day’s growth on his jaw. She was glad that they had not made love. It made it easier to pull back, to avoid involvement.

She dressed slowly in the darkness and laid Bannerman’s clothes over the chair by the bed. Something fell from his trouser pocket and landed with a light thud on the carpet. She stooped and searched about and felt a key under her hand. He had forgotten to put the key back under the mat. Quietly she left the room and pulled the door to and slipped down the hall. She opened the front door and replaced the key under the mat and heard footsteps and voices on the stair below. A glance at her watch told her it was nearly two. It had not seemed so long. She shut the door and hurried back into the living room and picked up her book as Slater slipped his key in the lock.

III

The temperature had dropped overnight and the sky was heavy with the threat of snow from the dark clouds that scraped the skyline. The cold, quiet streets were empty in the first light of this Sunday morning, milk bottles standing on doorsteps, Sunday newspapers stuck in letter boxes. The occasional taxi cruised past the grey terraces where the shutters were still closed, curtains still drawn. Brussels was not yet awake. In an hour the first sombre citizens would leave their homes and make their way darkly to early Mass among the flickering candles in ancient churches and the raised incantations of pious voices. A sheet of yesterday’s newspaper fluttered across the Square Ambiorix and in the children’s swing park the swings swayed gently back and forth, a rusted link squeaking erratically.

Slater turned his car into the square from the Chaussée Martel, his daughter seated quietly in the back staring sullenly from the window. She knew her father was nervous, agitated, as he had been so often recently. But this morning she felt more than that. She sensed his fear with a growing trepidation. The pressure of her own unease was building inside her and she became aware that her hands were gripping the edge of the seat so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Slater caught sight of her face in the rearview mirror and thought, thank God she’s at peace. He could not see her hands. Again he cursed Sally. Of all the mornings for her to call off. The last thing he had wanted was to take Tania with him on this of all visits. Nothing had worked out according to plan. The arrival of Bannerman, Sally’s call-off. He had not been able to face breakfast this morning, and now he felt slightly sick. His heart was hammering away at his ribs and his palms were damp with perspiration.

He wiped them one after the other on his trouser legs and swung the car into the Rue de Pavie. There were cars parked below the Residence Ambiorix, but down the length of the street there was only one other car. It was parked outside Gryffe’s block. Slater pulled up in front of it and switched off the engine. He half-turned towards Tania. ‘You’ll have to stay in the car, little one.’ It was foolish to have hoped that she might accept it, and he watched her in the mirror as the scream rose in her, her face tightening. Both hands clutched at the back of his collar as it broke. He twisted himself in the seat and took both her arms and held them firmly. ‘You must,’ he said imploring her. ‘I can’t take you in. Please don’t start.’

The strength that seemed to seize her when she threw a tantrum never ceased to amaze him and he had to hold her arms so tightly that he was certain it must be hurting her. She wriggled down in the seat and forced one leg up, her foot catching him on the shoulder. He struggled to hold her now, hindered by the back of the seat, dreading the screams that followed each series of deep, breath-catching sobs. ‘For Christ’s sake, stop it!’ he shouted, letting go one arm so that he could slap her hard across the face. Immediately he regretted it. It did no good, he knew. And he watched the red weals spring up raw and vicious across the white softness of her cheek. Her free hand clawed at his face, nails drawing blood above his right eye. He grasped the offending hand and twisted it, holding it away from his face. ‘All right, all right, all right! I’ll take you in. Just stop it, please! I’ll take you in. But you’ll have to stay in the hall.’

Almost immediately he felt a relaxation in her arms, but it was several minutes before the screaming stopped and the sobbing subsided and she lay passively in the seat, pale and breathless.

He turned around to face front and dropped his face into trembling hands and wiped away the sweat. He was shaking all over, breathing in short, uneven bursts. He reached for his cigarettes and lit one, glancing at his watch. It was nine thirty. He glanced along the dead street and thought, there is still time to pull out of this. But it had gone too far now. He had passed the point of no return weeks ago. He cursed his own weakness. You have no stomach for this, he thought, and yet he knew that even this was better than the bleak despair of a future without hope. He stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and stepped out of the car into the bitter cold wind that blew down the Rue de Pavie. He opened the rear door for Tania and the child scrambled out clumsily on to the cobbles, clutching at her father’s arm. She sensed something dreadful and clung to the only familiar thing she knew. Slater pressed the buzzer and heard it sound somewhere far off inside. They waited a long time in the cold before they heard footsteps approaching and the door opened.

Gryffe looked dishevelled, worn and weary, as though he had not slept. He stared out of red eyes at Slater and then at the child. ‘God, you’re a callous bastard, Slater, bringing your child.’

Slater mumbled, ‘I had no choice. If it could have been avoided...’ But he stopped. There was no reason why he should make excuses to this man. Where once he may have felt pity for him, he now despised him, though even hatred could not smooth over his troubled conscience. Gryffe moved aside to let them in and closed the door behind them. It was dark in the hall, gloomy, the only light coming from a skylight high up above the stairwell. ‘She’ll wait in the hall,’ Slater said, and he prayed that this time she would accept it.

Gryffe nodded curtly. ‘Through here,’ he said and led the way into the back room. His light suit was crumpled and creased and Slater guessed that he had maybe spent the night on a settee or in a chair. He looked back at the child as he closed the door. She seemed almost oblivious to his leaving her, and she was wandering into the cloakroom, attracted by the smell of coats and their softness to touch.

Kale had been awake throughout the night. He had heard Gryffe return shortly after two. First he had gone upstairs and then come back down, and Kale had heard him moving around, pacing between the study and the back room for nearly an hour. At length the house had fallen silent again, though Kale had not heard Gryffe go back upstairs. He guessed that the politician had probably fallen asleep in a chair or over his desk, and he had remained crouched painfully in the darkness, cold and uncomfortable, behind the filing cabinets.

The sound of the buzzer had woken him out of a light, restless slumber and he had heard Gryffe stirring in the back room and then going out to answer the door. Voices in the hall and now both men were coming through to the study from the back room. Kale eased himself up, straightening his stiff, pained limbs. It was still quite dark in the cupboard, the faintest line of grey light below the door. He shone his pencil torch on his watch. Nine thirty-five. Then he located the two revolvers, grasping Gryffe’s heavier Colt in his gloved right hand and slipping the lighter gun into his left-hand coat pocket. He picked his way carefully to the door, all his mental and physical energies concentrated on doing this thing right.

He could hear the two voices, raised now. They seemed to be arguing. Kale could not make sense of it. Money, it would appear, was the issue in dispute. But that was none of his concern. He tightened his hand around the handle and eased the door open about two inches, screwing his eyes up against the sudden glare of light, holding himself absolutely still until his pupils had contracted and the light no longer pained him. Gryffe was standing behind his desk, his back to Kale, and beyond him, the other moved into Kale’s line of vision; a thin, pale, frightened looking man. Carroty red hair and beard. Perfect, Kale thought, with an almost inhuman detachment from what he was about.

He had no thought for the men he was about to kill, their pains, their loves, all the years they had lived until now; years that he would rub out, so that only the faintest impression of their existence would remain on the pages of history. So it was with most men. What did it matter that they had ever lived? They all died, sooner or later. All the futile years. He took a single step back and levelled the Colt through the opening of the door.

‘Don’t be a fool, Gryffe,’ he heard the red-haired man saying. ‘I can ruin you.’ Gryffe stooped and opened the top right-hand drawer of his desk and stared blankly into its emptiness. Kale squeezed the trigger, gently, fondly, almost as though he were stroking it, and then recoiled from the blast of it in the confined space of the cupboard. The bullet punched a hole in the centre of Slater’s chest, throwing him backwards against the wall, blood spewing from the wound. He was dead even before he struck the wall, and he fell forward heavily onto his face.

Gryffe spun round, a hellish icy fear clutching at him, in time to see a small, mean figure in a dark, shabby coat slip out from the walk-in cupboard behind him. The man’s face betrayed nothing. He held Gryffe’s Colt .32 and was pointing it at him.

‘Don’t move,’ Kale said quietly, almost in a whisper. He moved out from behind the desk and crossed quickly to where Slater lay crumpled in on himself, his blood spreading out rich and dark on the carpet. The gun constantly pointing at Gryffe, Kale bent to check the dead man’s jugular, just to be sure. He stood again, taking out the second gun with his left hand.

Gryffe felt paralysed by a mixture of fear and confusion. He could not believe that he was about to die. There was no need for it now. Not now that Slater was dead. He clutched at straws, struggling to find his voice. ‘Lamb fixed it, didn’t he? It was Lamb. To get me off the hook.’ Kale nodded and lowered the Colt. Gryffe felt an enormous surge of relief so that he almost buckled at the knees. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘Thank God.’

Kale smiled. A curious, mean smile. ‘Here,’ he said and threw Gryffe the Colt. The politician grasped the gun that had been thrown him, a reflex action. He saw Kale switch the second gun to his right hand and level it quickly. The bullet made a small, neat hole in the centre of Gryffe’s forehead. There was not the same force in the second shot and Gryffe staggered back only one step before tilting sideways and striking his face on the edge of the desk as he went down.

Kale hurried over, again to check that the shot had been fatal. The man was quite dead. Then he returned to Slater, crouching to lift the top half of the body up so that he could pull the right arm out from beneath it. He took the hand. First he would need miscellaneous prints on the gun. An index print on the right side of the barrel, a thumbprint on the left side behind the chambers, two fingers on the trigger guard. They would not be totally convincing, but they would be good enough in the confusion there was certain to be. He fitted the gun carefully in the hand and bent the arm back in below the body, allowing the torso to fall over it again, the way it had happened naturally. He stood up and glanced back across at Gryffe. The gun had fallen from his hand. But that would not matter. It was his gun and it had his prints on it. He went back to the cupboard and checked that he had left no tell-tale signs, then carefully he closed the door. It was important now to get away quickly, without being seen. It was unlikely that anyone would have heard the shots. The nearest apartment block was at the end of the street. Kale took a last look round then slipped through into the back room and out into the hall.

It was still and gloomy here and he waited, listening behind the front door, for nearly a minute, before removing his plastic shoe covers, opening it and glancing out. The street was deserted. He pulled the door closed behind him and his footsteps receded hastily down the cobbled pavement.

It was a full five minutes before Tania stirred among the coats and felt confident enough to come out into the hall. She had heard the raised voices, the shots, and then someone moving softly around the study. She had seen the thin, dark figure emerging from the back room. The high cheek-boned face with its deep-sunk eyes and its clear, sallow skin. Now she stood in the hall, the silence of the house pressing around her. She was confused, afraid. She wished she could call out. She took small heavy steps from the hall into the back room. There was a strange burnt smell in here. An empty armchair by an old marble fireplace, a bookcase full of dark, bound books. A heavy, gilt-framed picture on the wall. The French windows into the study stood open, and still there was no sound. Where were they? Her father and the other man. Another few steps and she could see into the study. She stood motionless, staring, the horror of understanding what she saw growing inside with a force and a pain that she thought would choke her before the first cry of anguish ripped into the silence of her consciousness.

Chapter Four

I

Bannerman stirred sluggishly among the sheets, the thickness of sleep still in his head and throat. His mouth felt dry and furry from the drink the night before and he had the faintest pleasurable recollection of having fallen asleep with a woman beside him. But now she was gone.

His immediate inclination was to turn over and pull the sheets tightly around him and slip back into the world of dark, shallow dreams from which he had just emerged. But there was an annoying flicker somewhere in his subconscious that took several seconds to surface. Something had woken him. The sleep had not been broken naturally. He was not quite sure why that should worry him. He pulled himself up on one elbow to look at the clock and felt the cold bedroom air rush in below the covers. It was nearly a quarter to eleven. Slater had had a meeting with Gryffe at nine-thirty, he remembered, and had said he was taking the child with him. Bannerman frowned and listened carefully. There was someone in the living room. Perhaps Slater was back already.

He cleared his throat of phlegm and slipped out of bed, feeling the first pain in his head. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed rubbing his eyes then blinking and looking out of the window across the roofs of the tenements and terraces. He had forgotten to close the shutters the night before. A vague memory of Sally in the dark of the room returned to him, bringing a rush of regret. Had he really slept with her? He had no recollection of it. He stood up and pulled on his dressing gown.

The hall was still in darkness and he padded to the living room door, scratching his head. ‘Hello,’ he called. There was no reply. He pushed open the door and saw that the curtains were still drawn. Above the fireplace a painting of hunters on a snow-covered hillside was swung out from the wall where it was fixed with hinges. A wall safe concealed behind it stood open. He had taken no more than two steps into the room when something struck him hard on the back of his head. The pain shot down his spine and through his head like long needles, and the floor swung crazily towards him, striking him with a sickening force that hammered the breath out of his lungs. The moan that escaped his lips sounded strange in his ears, disembodied, as though it was not he who made the noise. It was far, far away in some other world into whose darkness he was now falling. Darker. Darker.

Kale looked down at the still body on the floor. He was breathless and tense. For just a few seconds it crossed his mind that he should kill this one too. But he quickly dismissed it. There was little point in drawing more attention to the incident than was necessary. Still, it irritated him. It was untidy, the only loose end in the affair. He had been told the flat would be empty, and he had taken that on trust. He was a fool. He should have checked first. He pulled the body over to have a look at the face. It would be as well to remember it. Already the right cheek and temple were bruising where they had struck the floor. It was a wide, hard face that you would remember without difficulty. A little blood was oozing from the mouth where the man had bitten his lip on impact. Kale let the body drop back and kicked the prostrate form viciously in the side. It was unnecessary, but there was a grim satisfaction in it and it released a little of Kale’s tension.

He stepped over the body and crossed to the safe, lifting out the black briefcase and closing the door. He swung the picture back against the wall and pushed his gun into his coat pocket. Then he re-crossed the room and slipped quickly down the hall to the front door. He closed it behind him, carefully replacing the key below the mat.

Bannerman felt the pain of consciousness slowly returning. The dull, hard ache at the back of his head increased to the point where it seemed almost numb. He felt as though he had been kicked in the face and there was the bitter iron taste of blood in his mouth. He forced his eyes open and they hurt sharply even in the half-light. He screwed them shut, opening them again a little more slowly. A light groan came up involuntarily from his throat as he tried to turn himself over. More pain. This time right down one side of his chest. Now it hurt even to breathe.

He lay for several minutes before he tried moving again. This time he gritted his teeth against the pain and pulled himself heavily up onto his knees. Immediately the blood rushed to his head and he felt giddy and sick. He dropped one hand to the floor to give himself support and he swayed slightly back and forth until the sick feeling passed. His breathing was rapid and shallow and everything about his body was, he discovered, stiff and sore to move. What the hell had happened? He fought to remember. Even that seemed to hurt. But it came back slowly. The dark hall, the sounds of movement in the living room. The open safe above the fireplace. He looked over and saw that it was closed now, the painting flush with the wall. He waited yet another few minutes before trying to get to his feet. Then he leaned against the door jamb breathing hard, feeling the pain wash over him time and again. With a slight shock he saw that the clock on the mantel read after twelve. He must have been out for over an hour.

Then he tensed as he heard voices in the landing outside, and a key sounded in the lock. He turned to look down the length of the hall as the door opened. There were three men, one in uniform. The uniformed man pulled a gun clumsily from a black leather holster and raised it towards Bannerman. He shouted a warning in a language that Bannerman did not understand. It could have been Dutch.

II

It was dark now, the wind battering sleet against the window. Inside it was warm and stuffy, insulated against the inhospitable night that had descended over this grey Belgian city. The office was small and cluttered, an anonymous place in a vast building of concrete and glass that men without a sense of history had annexed to the Palais de Justice — a building blackened by the years but still vast and impressive in its brooding grandeur. The annexe housed the police headquarters through which all life passed, under glaring fluorescent lights and through long, drab corridors.

On reflection, Bannerman thought that perhaps this office had a little more character than the others he had been through. A large old oak desk sat at an angle across one corner. Wire trays were piled high with ageing reports, a dog-eared blotter was scribbled with a hundred phone numbers, names, doodles. There were two overflowing heavy glass ashtrays, a fountain pen, a broken pencil. On the wall behind the desk, maps of Belgium and Brussels and charts and a girlie calendar. Beside the door stood a tall, old-fashioned coat stand from which hung two long, dark raincoats that had seen better days, and an old tweed jacket. A broken umbrella leaned against the wall beside a pair of muddy gum boots. Along the door wall and the far wall, filing cabinets of different heights, some wooden, some a grey painted metal, were pushed together, yet more documents piled untidily on top. The room was lit by an anglepoise lamp on the desk.

Bannerman sat waiting on a hard wooden chair in front of the desk. He had been waiting for nearly three hours. The doctor had examined him first, dressing the wound on the back of his head. There were no ribs broken, but they were severely bruised. He would suffer the effects of slight concussion for some time, the doctor had said. He should have plenty of rest, plenty of sleep.

Then he had spent a gruelling half hour in a room with two plain-clothes men who spoke English badly. They had obviously not listened to the doctor’s advice. Who was he? Who did he work for? What was he doing at Slater’s flat? Who had attacked him? What had been taken from the safe? What did he know about Robert Gryffe? Bannerman had answered everything they asked without ever seeming to satisfy them. They, in turn, had told him nothing. His curiosity had been dulled by his own discomfort and he had not pressed for information. He had been brought a meal and a cup of cold coffee then taken to this office where he had sat watching darkness descend on Brussels.

He checked with his watch. It was six thirty. He was hungry, enormously weary, stiff, the pulsing in his head still painful. He ran his tongue over his lips where the blood had dried leaving dark brown rims. Whatever they told him eventually, he thought, would not surprise him, though he had given little conscious thought to what might have happened. There was an unreal quality about it all, dreamlike; a sequence of events through which he had passed without ever feeling that he was an actual participant.

The door opened and a thin man in a baggy brown suit stepped briskly into the office. He was bald across the top, with dark, wiry hair growing in bushy abundance round the sides, and he wore round-rimmed tortoiseshell spectacles over a long, thin nose with flaring nostrils. He would be in his fifties, with a grey, deeply-creased face from which peered two small, very dark eyes behind the spectacles. His suit was well-worn and looked about two sizes too big for him. His waistcoat was open, a thin brown tie hanging from an open-necked white shirt. He carried an air of age and defeat about him, like a schoolmaster who, nearing the end of his career, reeks of chalk-dust and blackboards and thankless years. He closed the door behind him and nodded seriously at Bannerman. It would have been obvious to anyone that this was his office. He rounded the desk and sat down in a round-backed wooden chair, pressing the tips of the fingers of each hand together. Long, thin fingers on big-knuckled hands. He seemed lost in thought and Bannerman noticed the tiny bushes of hair that grew out of each nostril. Finally he swung round and leaned his elbows on the desk and said, ‘Well, monsieur, your story seems to check out.’

The phone on his desk rang and he snatched the receiver. ‘Oui.’ He spoke rapidly in French so that Bannerman could not follow what he said. Then he hung up and studied Bannerman before rising and extending his hand. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘I am Inspector Georges du Maurier of the Judicial Police. Homicide.’ His handshake was dry and firm. He sat down again and considered his next words carefully.’

‘Shortly after ten o’clock this morning,’ he began, ‘a passer-by in the Rue de Pavie heard a child screaming in the house at number twenty-four. He rang the bell several times and knocked repeatedly on the door but no-one came to open it and the child continued screaming. The gentleman concerned called the Gendarmerie from a telephone at the Residence Ambiorix at the end of the street. Two uniformed officers forced entry to the house and found an eleven-year-old girl screaming hysterically in the back room on the ground floor. In the study there were two bodies. Timothy Slater, a journalist, had been shot through the heart. Robert Gryffe, a Junior Minister of the British Government was shot through the forehead. There were two guns. One belonged to Monsieur Gryffe. It was lying beside him and bore his finger prints. We have been unable to trace the origin of the second gun as yet, but it was found in Monsieur Slater’s right hand which was folded in beneath his body. There were no signs of a forced entry into the house, no traces of a third party, except of course for the child. Conclusion?’ He paused and then answered himself. ‘They killed each other. On the surface, everything points to it. Trajectory of the bullets, position of the bodies, prints on the guns.’

Bannerman sat in stunned silence. He had thought himself prepared for anything, but not this. For the first time for many hours he was no longer aware of the places where he hurt. He remembered Slater’s file of cuttings on Gryffe, the tension between the two men at the party the night before. He leaned forward. ‘Then your case is closed?’

For the first time, du Maurier smiled. ‘At present we are treating both as suspicious deaths.’

‘And?’ Du Maurier raised his eyebrows but said nothing, waiting for Bannerman. ‘You said everything points to them killing each other... on the surface.’

The Inspector’s smile broadened. ‘Yes, there are other factors to be considered.’ Now Bannerman waited as du Maurier lit a cigarette. ‘Apart from the three or four clear prints on the gun Monsieur Slater was holding, the gun is clean. There are no other prints, no smudges. But more importantly Monsieur Slater, it would appear, was left-handed. It is very unlikely that he would be able to place a shot so accurately with his right hand.’ The smile was gone now, and he drew distractedly on his cigarette. ‘Also, the bullet that killed Monsieur Slater entered the heart centrally. Monsieur Gryffe, we discover, has owned a gun for many years but has never had any formal training in its use. A remarkable piece of shooting for two untrained men. And we must also consider that each shot would have been instantly fatal, so that unless they were fired at precisely the same instant the man who shot first would have survived. In addition we found a suitcase in a cupboard off the study. It contained two hundred and fifty thousand American dollars in used notes. And, of course, there was the attack of your own person in Monsieur Slater’s flat within an hour of the shooting, and whatever was taken from the safe, if anything.’

Bannerman frowned. ‘Murder?’

‘Ah, well, none of these things, either in themselves, or collectively, is conclusive. But they do raise the question.’

Bannerman tried to sort it all out in his mind through a haze of pain and fatigue. None of it seemed to make sense. ‘What about the child, Tania?’

Du Maurier pulled thoughtfully at the whiskers growing from his nostrils and stared into the darkness beyond the ring of light from the anglepoise. In the silence both men heard the soft slapping of the sleet against the window. At length the policeman turned his gaze on Bannerman and Bannerman wondered at his openness. ‘The child was only brought under control finally by the use of sedatives,’ du Maurier said. ‘We brought in the girl who normally looks after her...’

‘Sally.’

‘Yes, and one of the teachers from the child’s school. We tried to question her, but as you might imagine it was hopeless. She was sufficiently drugged to keep her calm, but she was totally withdrawn. There was no communication. We provided her with a pencil and pad in the hope that she might be able to write something, anything. But she refused even to take the pencil.’ He stopped and fumbled for another cigarette. ‘We left her alone in the room for, I would say, no more than half an hour while we had a brief conference. That was late this afternoon. We discussed the case with our police psychiatrist. He told us there was no hope of ever learning from the girl what had happened. He, in fact, suspected that the trauma of whatever it was she saw will probably have done irreparable damage to her mental state. Set her back years. It was decided that meantime she should be taken to a residential hospital for mentally handicapped children on the outskirts of Brussels, at least until her future is decided. The teacher from her school went back to fetch her and interrupted the child in the middle of this...’ He reached into his pocket and drew out a folded sheet of white paper. He held it out for Bannerman, and the reporter took it and opened it out.

It was a drawing. There was no shading in it. It was a line drawing whose perspective gave it depth. In the foreground the figure of a thin man in a long, heavy coat, was coming through a doorway. There were scribblings on the wall in the foreground that seemed to form a pattern. Perhaps wallpaper. Through the door, and behind the central figure, you could see a large stone or marble fireplace, part of an armchair, a framed picture on the wall with the sketch outline of a head. The drawing was strangely fine and yet distorted as you might see something through a fisheye lens — or a disturbed mind. There was something sinister in the foreground figure. It seemed to be stepping right out of the page. But most striking, was the man’s lack of facial detail. There was only the vague outline of the head and ears. Everything else was so finely observed, detail that you would not have thought a child capable of retaining, never mind reproducing. Bannerman was drawn by it, fascinated, confused. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

Du Maurier lit a third cigarette from his second one and blew a jet of smoke at the anglepoise. ‘The picture on the wall in the background,’ he said, ‘represents a head-and-shoulders portrait, a Rubens copy that hangs above a marble fireplace in Monsieur Gryffe’s house in the Rue de Pavie. If you stand in the cloakroom in the hall and look through the open door into the back room you can see almost exactly what the child has represented in the drawing, including part of the armchair. The scribblings on the foreground wall seem to represent the patterned paper in the hall. The drawing is uncannily accurate. I have just returned from the house after checking on it.’

Bannerman thought about it for a few moments. ‘And the face of the man?’

Du Maurier bowed his head. ‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘If our meeting had lasted only a few minutes longer the child might have had time to complete the face. But she was interrupted before she had finished and nothing would make her go on. As you can see, almost everything else is so detailed. Buttons, pockets, hands. The girl, Sally, told us that the child often begins her drawings with an outline and then works inwards.’

Bannerman looked at the drawing again. It was hard to believe that it had come from the hand of an eleven-year-old. He looked up to find du Maurier watching him. ‘And who does the figure represent?’ he asked.

The Inspector stubbed out his cigarette and lit yet another. He sighed. ‘The man is of too slight a build to be Monsieur Gryffe, and the jawline is clearly drawn in, so it cannot be Monsieur Slater or surely she would have indicated the beard.’

‘So there was a third party.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Who didn’t know the child was there?’

‘Hmmm. I find that difficult to understand.’ Bannerman sat back and dropped the drawing on the desk. ‘Surely you can’t believe there wasn’t another man there? The man the child drew?

‘Then why didn’t he take the money?’

‘He didn’t know it was there.’

‘Then what was the motive?’

Bannerman had no answers, but already he knew he was being sucked into this whole thing, inextricably, whether he wanted to or not. He found it difficult to understand why du Maurier should be telling him all this. But the policeman broke into his thoughts almost as though he had been reading them. ‘You see, Monsieur Bannerman, this is not just a straightforward case of suspicious death. It involves a high-ranking British Government Minister and the affair must embarrass your Government when there is an election less than three weeks away. There could be moves, over my head, at a political level you understand, to close the case and simply let it die its own death.’ He hesitated for a second then took the plunge. ‘You see, there is no doubt in my mind that Monsieur Slater and Monsieur Gryffe were murdered. By whom or for what reason, I do not pretend to know. But I should not like to see the case closed, if you understand me.’ Bannerman watched him carefully. ‘Political expediency, Monsieur Bannerman, is as corrupt as murder. I am a policeman. It is my life. Politics, religion, whatever, are things in which I have no interest. I believe only in the law, the morality of the law, justice.’

Bannerman knew there was more to it than that. The man was being too precise in his reasoning. There was something else, something personal, something bitter in the tightness around du Maurier’s mouth. The policeman seemed to sense that Bannerman might be thinking something of the sort and he said, ‘I have called a press conference for seven thirty, in the conference room downstairs. I shall tell your colleagues most of what I have told you, though not all. I have had copies of the child’s drawing run off and they will be distributed to the press.’

Bannerman raised an eyebrow. ‘What about your bosses upstairs?’

Du Maurier smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The machinery of political connivance grinds slowly. It will be a day, perhaps two, before the men of government step in. Meantime I shall proceed as I think best. I have had no instructions to the contrary.’ He looked at his watch and then stubbed out his cigarette. As he rose to his feet he said, ‘I think we had best go downstairs. Your colleagues await me.’

Bannerman sat at the back of the conference room. It was like a small lecture theatre with rows of fabric-covered seats stepped back in steep tiers. Du Maurier took the conference, accompanied by a younger, plainclothes man, in the glare of the television lights. A bank of microphones was mounted centrally on the rostrum for the dozen different radio and television stations that would give the deaths widespread European coverage. There were more than fifty scribes straining not to miss a word, scribbling their shorthand outlines in tattered notebooks, cigarettes tucked in the corners of mouths, eyes screwed up against the smoke, the occasional cough. Du Maurier delivered his terse statement in French and then English amid the heavy silence. He covered most of what he had told Bannerman, though in less detail, and as yet he had made no mention of the child or the drawing, or made any reference to Bannerman.

Then came the questions, thick and fast, confused in French and English.

‘Are you treating this as a murder case?’ — ‘At the moment we regard both deaths as suspicious.’

‘What was the journalist doing at Gryffe’s house?’ — ‘We do not know.’

‘Do you believe the motive was political or financial?’ — ‘We do not know.’

‘How were the bodies discovered?’ — ‘The alarm was raised when a passer-by heard a child screaming in the house.’

There were a few seconds of stunned silence, then a barrage of voices out of which no one question was distinguishable. Du Maurier raised his hands. ‘Monsieur Slater’s daughter was found in the house.’

‘She saw what happened?’ — ‘We do not know. The child is mentally handicapped. Autistic. She is unable to say.’

The excitement among the scribes had risen like a fever. Seats were being left, newsmen jostling for position, questions fired willy-nilly. They smelled a better story, though, my God, it was good enough. Bannerman imagined how tomorrow’s headlines would read. Already he could see excited reporters battering out copy on well-worn typewriters, dragging out the clichés, dreaming up the colour, the emotive catchlines and intros. Packaged and served up to be digested at breakfast along with the cornflakes.

‘How old is the girl? What’s her name?’ — ‘She is eleven years old. Her name is Tania.’ Du Maurier was impassive. He was making them work for it, orchestrating the conference, leading it in the direction he wished it to go.

‘Where can we get pics of the girl?’ — ‘No photographs.’

‘Oh, come on!’ A chorus of voices was raised in protest. Again du Maurier lifted his hands. ‘The child has been able to tell us nothing.’ He paused. ‘However, as a result of a drawing she made showing a man, clearly in the hall of the house in the Rue de Pavie, we are now working on the assumption that there was a third party involved.’ The silence was absolute. The possibilities were turning over in the minds of the scribes. Du Maurier lifted a folder from the bench and handed it to the young man beside him. ‘Copies of the drawing have been made. Monsieur Lousière will distribute a copy to each of you.’

Lousière fed the hands that reached out like the beaks of chicks stretching for food from their mother’s mouth. Bannerman watched with a vague distaste. There was something undignified about it all, but he was unable to separate himself from it. He was one of them, one of those who fed the ugly millions their daily diet of death, tragedy, sex and intrigue. He checked his bitterness and thought, cynicism is too easy. There is so much more to it than that. But right now, he still hurt in a lot of places and he took the easy option. Two men had died, a child had lost nearly all hope for the future, and all any bastard could think about was what a good story it would make. It didn’t touch any of them. The figures they wrote about were only cardboard clichés, not real people. It is always that way, he thought, when it does not touch you personally. And when you are a reporter it takes even more to pierce your hard shell to protect your human softness. You have no right to blame them. He remembered the years of chapping doors for collect pics — ‘And how do you feel about your son being killed, Mrs. Smith?’ Sometimes you got there before the police and while you broke the news you were searching out and removing every picture of the dead boy so that no other damned newspaper would get one. That was not how you wanted to do your job, but that was the way things were. Either you accepted that or you got out. No, he thought, I have no right to blame them. He took a copy of the drawing from Lousière. After all, he would do a story himself.

‘I am sorry. No more questions,’ du Maurier was saying. He collected his papers and began for the door. Immediately he was surrounded by the radio and television people. They all wanted their pounds of flesh; individual interviews, pics, the hope of more than the others had. ‘Why is there no face in the drawing?’ Bannerman heard a voice asking. Stiffly he pulled on his coat and pushed his way towards the door, a cigar clenched tightly between his teeth.

‘Bannerman, Bannerman!’ There was a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Platt at his back. ‘Good God!’ Platt exclaimed. ‘You look as though you’ve been in the wars. What the hell happened to you?’

Bannerman glared at the small, shabby reporter who beamed at him with such false bonhomie. ‘None of your fucking business,’ he said. But Platt would not be deterred.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We could maybe work out something together on this story. You knew Slater. I know Brussels.’

‘Piss off.’ Bannerman turned to go.

‘I’ve got good contacts,’ Platt shouted after him. But Bannerman was gone. Platt turned away angrily. Cocky bastard, he thought. He’ll come to me yet. He wondered again what Bannerman had been doing in Brussels. He couldn’t have known. And yet... he must know something. It would be a good idea to keep an eye on him. Yes, a good idea.

Outside, the temperature was still falling. The wind blew the wet sleet up the Rue des Quatre Bras into the darkness of the Place Poelaert, swirling around the foot of a tall, black monument. Bannerman stepped out across the cobbles, pulling his collar up, and headed down towards the lights of the Boulevard de Waterloo, crossing the tramlines, past a group of people huddled below a shelter at the tram stop. The cold reached him even through the thickness of his coat. He thought about the child, and felt deeply depressed. He remembered the night, only two days before, when she had come into his room, standing there in her nightdress watching him and then leaning over to touch his face. What horrors were there locked up inside that little head?

Inside a large fashionable restaurant, prosperous people were seated at tables round a huge open fire, drinking wine, laughing, untouched by it all. Bannerman looked in at them through the wide window and saw his drawn white face, patched with bruising, reflected in the glass. He turned away and crossed the boulevard and walked up to the Metro at the Porte de Namur. He rode the underground to Arts Loi and then changed for Schuman where he came out under the shadow of the Berlaymont. For several minutes he stood looking up at the endless rows of darkened windows, wondering if the answers might lie behind them. Then he began with heavy steps down the Rue de la Loi towards the Rue de Commerce.

Slater’s apartment was dark and still when he let himself in, and he half expected to find Slater sitting in the half-light of the living-room as he had two nights earlier. That seemed a long time ago now. The living room was cold and empty. He went into the child’s room and stood in the darkness. An old rag doll lay in the armchair by the dead fire. He bent over and picked it up. It was soft and pliable and he lifted it to hold against his face. Life was so unfair to those who deserved more. He threw the doll back in the chair and returned to the living room. He switched on the light and lifted the phone and began dialling wearily. The number rang three times. It had that distant hollow ring of an international call. ‘Edinburgh Post.’ The voice was polished thin by all the miles in between.

‘Neil Bannerman. Give me the editor.’

‘One moment Mr. Bannerman.’ A phone lifted a few seconds later.

‘Tait.’

‘Neil Bannerman.’

‘Jesus Christ, Bannerman! Why the hell have I not heard from you before now?’

III

Kale opened the shutters on the first light of morning and looked out on the cold, grey mist that hung over the city. He had his coat on already and his bag was packed and sitting on the end of the bed.

It had been a bad night with little sleep. He had dreamt of the long, cold dormitory, the voices of little boys crying huddled under the covers. The harsh discipline, the loneliness of the place; both had left their mark on him. But he had never cried as the others had. He had never bent to the authority of the housemasters. Rather, it had strengthened in him that which set him apart from others. The boys had known it, and so had the masters. He sensed their fear of him. They did not know how to cope with his sullen, silent rebellion against their establishment. The beatings, the solitary confinement, the withdrawal of privileges had all met with the same silent acceptance that so baffled them. The dark eyes that blazed such hatred; a boy who was only nine. Yes, it had all left its mark, and none of it had been without pain. But they would never know it.

He turned away from the window and lifted his bag from the bed. He was unsettled, anxious now to be away. However, there were still four hours to pass before he could collect the remainder of the money from the locker at the Gare du Midi. He left the room and got into a lift that hummed and clattered its way slowly down to reception. The desk clerk looked up as he swung the lift gate open.

‘Your bill, Monsieur?’ Kale nodded and laid his bag on the floor beside the desk. The clerk lifted the bill off a shelf behind him and pushed it across the counter. ‘Are you not having breakfast?’ Kale shook his head and the clerk shuffled uncomfortably as Kale counted out the notes from his wallet. The clerk had seen them come and go in an establishment like this, but this one was different. He created some kind of space around him. Something dark and vaguely sinister. But nothing you could put your finger on. His wallet was amply filled, but the clothes did not suggest money. The clerk noticed these things. When there is so much time in a day to get through, you begin to look for them. The button missing from the coat, the slightly frayed cuff.

Kale lifted his bag and turned away, but stopped as he noticed a rack with the morning papers. ‘How much?’ he asked nodding towards the rack.

‘Fifteen francs, monsieur.’

Kale lifted the top paper off the pile and felt a touch like icy fingers on the back of his neck. He stared numbly at the drawing that filled the top quarter of the front page across four columns. The doorway, the painting, the chair, the figure in the foreground. There was no face, but he recognised himself with a curious dry horror. The bold headline across a further four columns, read: L’HOMME SANS VISAGE — EST-IL L’ASSASSIN? He looked up to see the clerk watching him curiously. He dropped the paper on the desk. ‘Fifteen francs?’ The clerk nodded. Kale fished in his pocket for the money. He was loath to make conversation, but he had to know. ‘What’s the big story?’ he asked.

The clerk seemed surprised. He glanced at the paper and shrugged. ‘Two men were shot here in Brussels yesterday. The police think the man in the drawing may have been involved. It was drawn by a child in the house where it happened. But she is — what would you say — not right in the head. The police are not saying whether they think it was murder or not. But the papers don’t seem to have any doubt.’ He paused. ‘What’s your interest?’

Kale glared at him and dropped the fifteen francs on the counter. ‘None,’ he said. He lifted the paper and crossed the lobby, pushing open the glass doors and vanishing out into the street. The clerk watched him go and frowned as a tiny nagging thought entered his mind. He rounded the desk and lifted another paper, peering closely at the drawing. The figure was suddenly familiar. There was a button missing from the coat. Quite clearly it was intended. The gap was much bigger than the others. The same button that was missing from the Englishman’s coat. But how could the child have noticed such a small detail? The clerk scratched his head and returned to his seat behind the counter, taking the paper with him. He looked at it some more then looked at the card he had filled out with details of the Englishman’s passport. James Ross was the name he had written. A salesman. Again the clerk frowned and scratched his head. But then, he thought, it was none of his business.

The Gare du Midi was busy. Passengers stood around in knots in the big arrival hall watching the boards for arrivals and departures. A thin, metallic voice made announcements alternately in French and Flemish. Neither meant anything to Kale. He was seated on a wooden bench at the foot of a wide pillar from where he could see through glass doors and along a short corridor to the left luggage lockers. It was not yet eleven thirty, but he had sat here for nearly an hour in the hope of seeing whoever it was who would leave the money, if that had not already been done. The time had dragged painfully slowly, so that all the uncertainty of what was in the newspaper had had time to grow in his mind. Over and over again he had thought about the drawing, stared at it. How was it possible there had been a child in the house without his knowing it? He had remembered the cloakroom. She could have been in there. But it seemed too incredible; or perhaps, he thought, it is only that you don’t want to believe it. He felt certain that no-one could recognise him from the drawing. Only the child could know what he looked like, and she was mentally handicapped.

He had struggled through the story in the paper, trying to make sense of it from the little French that he knew. But it was possible. All that he had got from it was the girl’s name; the daughter of the other man he had killed. He swore softly to himself. Things had not gone well at all. The sooner he got out of this damned country the better.

A stream of passengers emerged from platform six, partially obscuring his view of the glass doors. In that moment he saw a figure at the lockers. A figure he recognised. The white hair of a working man in city clothes. He jumped up and pushed his way through the passengers. Someone shouted at him and he stumbled and felt a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged himself free and ran towards the glass doors. The figure was gone. He hurried down the corridor to the lockers. There was no sign of the man. Where the hell could he have gone? He looked back up the corridor towards the bodies that milled past on the other side of the doors. Gone. Breathlessly he took out his key and turned back to the lockers. Number thirty-nine. He fumbled at the lock and pulled open the door. The black case he had left there yesterday was gone. In its place a white envelope that was neither big enough nor fat enough to contain the money he was owed. He ripped it open with trembling fingers and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. There were three words printed across it in a tight, neat hand. KILL THE CHILD.

Chapter Five

I

The telephone woke Bannerman just after eleven. Long, single rings that brought to an end the strange dreams that come just before waking. He slipped from the rumpled bedsheets, still woozy from the restless hours of shallow sleep. He had lain awake almost until dawn, unable to stop his brain from replaying the events of the last forty-eight hours. He was still stiff and his head and face still ached. The air in the flat was cold as ice and he shivered as he went through the hall. He lifted the phone in the living room and sat heavily on the settee.

‘Bannerman.’

He ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw.

‘Tait. That was a good piece you sent us last night, Neil.’

‘That’s what you pay me for.’ Bannerman’s voice was flat and sarcastic. He heard Tait sigh.

‘I’m flying out to Brussels tomorrow,’ Tait said. ‘For the funeral. I’ve been in touch with the Belgian authorities. Slater had no living relatives, so I didn’t see the point in having the body flown back for burial.’

‘Save the paper money, will it?’ Bannerman asked. Tait ignored the remark. He would not be baited.

‘The arrangements are made,’ he said. ‘The funeral will be at the Cimetière de Bruxelles tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock. I want you to stay in Brussels until this whole thing is cleared up. You can stay at the Rue de Commerce. We’ll be making arrangements for the disposal of Slater’s things. Oh, and you’d better pick up his car. I understand it’s been taken to the police car pound.’ He paused, but there was no response from Bannerman. ‘I’ll meet you at the office tomorrow around midday, we can have lunch and then you can drive me out to the cemetery.’

‘What about the child?’

Tait cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s a bit of an unknown quantity. I suppose the paper has some kind of responsibility... Anyway, I’ll see about that after the funeral. Meantime you stick with the story. Give me a call before the five o’clock conference and let me know what’s happening.’

‘Sure.’ Bannerman hung up. It was all over already. He could read between the lines. By tomorrow night the story would be dead and buried along with Slater. The Post was embarrassed by it. There would be echoes of it in the other dailies and in the Sundays, but the Post would want it over and done with as expeditiously as possible. Bannerman heaved himself out of the settee and went into the bathroom to shave.

Hard, blue eyes stared back at him from the mirror as he soaped his battered face. The politicians, too, would be happy to see the whole affair blow over. The Belgians, like the Post would be embarrassed by it, but for different reasons. A British Government Minister shot to death in the Belgian capital. They would not be relishing the publicity. And the British Government would be worried about electoral repercussions. They could not afford a scandal with a General Election less than three weeks away. The perceptiveness of du Maurier’s warning the previous day only now made its full impact on Bannerman. He was right, of course.

Bannerman sluiced his face and neck with cold water and went back through to the bedroom to dress. He eased himself into a dark, crumpled suit and again sifted everything through his mind. He lit a cigar and stared out from the window across the rooftops that shone black from a fine, wetting drizzle.

He began with du Maurier’s certainty that Slater and Gryffe had been murdered. If he was to work from that basic assumption then it was clear that it would be necessary to find either the murderer or the motive. Find one and you would find the other, he told himself, but without much conviction. The difficulty was knowing where to start.

He turned away from the window and sat on the bed. The murderer, apparently, had left no clues, except that the child had seen him, though Bannerman doubted if the child would ever be capable of identifying him. The motive might be easier to unearth. There was the hostile relationship between Slater and Gryffe, the file of cuttings on the Minister that Slater kept in his office, the money in the suitcase.

Bannerman got up and went through to the living room, lifted the phone and put a call through to the Post. He waited uneasily as the number rang distantly. He felt a lack of commitment to the story. Tait, he knew, would not want him to push it, and he felt a disconcerting lack of personal motivation. It worried him.

‘Edinburgh Post.’

‘Give me the library.’ He waited through a series of clicks and then a receiver lifted.

‘Library.’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘Jean, it’s Neil Bannerman.’

‘Hello, Neil. You still in Brussels?’ And without waiting for an answer, ‘Poor Timothy. What a terrible thing to happen.’

‘Yes.’ Bannerman said. ‘Do me a favour, Jean. Look out any cuttings we’ve got on Robert Gryffe, and anything we may have in the obit. file. I want to know everything we know about the guy.’

‘Are you in a hurry for it?’

‘Yes. Just photocopy the stuff, stick it in an envelope and give it to the editor. He’s flying over here tomorrow. He might as well bring it with him.’

‘Okay, Neil.’

He hung up, and drew the curtains open and stared thoughtfully down into the street. Then he turned his gaze round the living room. He might as well make a start with the flat. It took him less than half an hour to go through it room by room, drawer by drawer. There were extraordinarily few personal things. The safe was locked, and most of the drawers were empty. It was not until he had begun his search that he noticed just how tidy the flat was. Slater had not struck him as being such a fastidious man. Of course the place would have gone over by the police, and when a good policeman does his job properly he almost always leaves the searched place tidier than he found it. But still, it was more than just tidy. It was as though the flat had not been lived in. Even the child’s room seemed naked, except for the rag doll lying on the armchair where Bannerman had dropped it the night before. Here, too, the drawers were empty. Bannerman opened the wardrobe. A dozen coat hangers rattled and swung freely. Bannerman frowned as a suspicion grew in his mind. He went through to the kitchen and found the food cupboard. There were a few cans of soup, a tin of spaghetti and a nearly empty coffee jar. The refrigerator had been switched off, and its shelves were bare. Then into Slater’s bedroom, again to find an empty wardrobe, empty drawers in the bedside cabinet.

Bannerman sat on the bed and lit a cigar, letting his eyes wander about the room. They came to rest on three suitcases piled on top of the wardrobe. He took a chair from under the window and placed it below the wardrobe, climbed onto it, cigar clenched between his teeth, and reached up. The cases were heavy and he lifted them carefully, one by one, down to the floor, raising a dusty stoor from the top of the wardrobe. He climbed down and opened each case in turn. Two of them were filled with men’s clothing, underwear, socks, personal odds and ends. A photograph in a frame lay on top of the child’s clothing in the third case. Bannerman turned it over and found himself looking at the face of an attractive young woman. It was a black-and-white photograph. The woman looked to be in her mid-twenties. Bannerman knew the face. He had met her once, not long before she died. She was a good-looking woman, and had a look of her daughter about her. Slater had taken it badly when his wife died, but still Bannerman was surprised to find her photograph packed away for the departure that Slater had obviously planned. Perhaps, even after three years, he had still been taking it badly.

He closed up the cases and pushed them against the wall. Now, at least, he knew why Slater had been so agitated by Bannerman’s arrival. If he had been planning to take his daughter and slip quietly out of the country on the Sunday night or even the Monday morning, after his meeting with Gryffe, then the presence of Bannerman must have made things difficult for him. But why? What did Slater and Gryffe have going? It seemed like such an unlikely alliance. And du Maurier? He must have known about the packed suitcases. Why, when he had told Bannerman so much, had he not spoken of this? Bannerman shook his head, confused, and sat again on the bed, drawing deeply on his cigar.

At length he went through to his own room, lifted his coat and left the flat. In the street he checked his watch. It was a little after midday. He pulled up his collar against the drizzle and brushed past a small, sallow-faced man in a shabby raincoat. He thought nothing of the brief glimpse he got of the mean, dark eyes that turned to watch him after he had passed.

He stopped at the café in the Boulevard Charlemagne where the German pressmen drink, and had a coffee and a couple of croissants before walking across the street to the International Press Centre. A pretty girl at the reception counter smiled at him as he went past to the lift and rode up to the sixth floor.

Mademoiselle Ricain looked up as he walked into the office shared by the Post and the London Herald.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘Neil Bannerman. We spoke on the phone a few days ago and met briefly the other night.’ He saw that her face was pale and she may have been crying.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A pity we couldn’t have met under happier circumstances.’

‘Quite.’ He crossed to Slater’s filing cabinet. It was locked. ‘Keys?’

She hesitated. ‘I don’t know if I...’

‘I’ll be working from here for the next few days,’ Bannerman said. ‘I take it the police have already been?’

‘Yes. They called me out yesterday... I... they said not to re-open the filing cabinet or touch any of Tim’s stuff.’

‘Well, that’s all right,’ Bannerman said. ‘I’ll take full responsibility.’ She had long, fair hair and a thin unattractive face with muddy brown eyes. Again she hesitated, then reluctantly she opened a drawer in her desk and lifted out a small square key.

‘How about the rest of the keys? The door, the desk? As I said, I’ll be working out of here...’

She looked at him icily. ‘Pity,’ she said. It was an effort for her to match his bad manners and he relented a little.

‘Look, I’m sorry if I’m a bit abrupt. It’s the way I feel right now. I didn’t particularly like Slater, but I saw no reason for anyone to kill him. Someone cracked me on the head yesterday and played footsie with my ribs while I couldn’t do anything about it, and I don’t see much reason for that either. An austistic girl who saw murder committed is shut away in some institution somewhere and no-one really gives a damn about her. There’s been a lot of mud slung around in the last couple of days and I’ve got the feeling that the powers that be are planning a whitewash job. There’s no reason why I should give a damn about any of it, but I do, and I don’t know why. So maybe I’d like to find out.’ Bannerman stopped to take stock. He had not meant to say any of this; he had not even known he had felt that way. But the words, without his thinking about them, had given shape and direction to all the muzziness that had been in his head since the phone woke him that morning. He saw that the girl was watching him curiously. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She smiled weakly and took out another two keys from her desk drawer and held them out for him. ‘And I’m sorry, too,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’ll get on okay. Though I think we’re going to disagree about Tim. You didn’t like him. I did.’ She choked a little on that. Bannerman turned to the filing cabinet and unlocked it.

‘What did you like about him?’ he asked.

‘Oh,’ she got up and turned towards the window. ‘He was just a nice sort of man. He was considerate about a lot of the little things that men don’t usually think about. It’s difficult to say what exactly. It’s just the way a man behaves with you. I liked him. I knew him, I think, better than a lot of people did. People are never just what they seem when you only know them a little. Of course he could be irritable or tetchy, and sometimes he would get really down. You know, withdrawn, morose. He had a lot to be down about. You’ve got to understand people.’ She glanced at Bannerman, suddenly self-conscious and a bit of colour rose on her cheeks.

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said lamely, and he thought, she must have loved him. The sadness of it touched him. All those years, working for him, loving him, without ever saying, without ever wanting it to be known. These were the saddest people. The unattractive people, the people with nothing to offer except the love they are afraid to admit, knowing it will not be returned. In a way they had both, Bannerman and the girl, opened their souls a little to one another, without knowing why, without bonds or reason. Sometimes it was easier that way, with strangers. There could be no retributions. The girl knew it too. She came away from the window and lifted her bag from the desk.

‘Excuse me,’ she said and she left the office.

Bannerman leaned for some moments on the cabinet and lit a cigar. He always regretted getting involved, but there was never any way you could avoid it. You had to be involved. He crouched down on his hunkers and pulled open the bottom drawer. There were about a dozen files. He lifted them out and carried them over to Slater’s desk and sat down. Mostly they contained cuttings of stories Slater had done on the EEC, a back reference divided into different groups — agriculture, fisheries, transport, taxation and so on. Two of the folders were unmarked. One of them held the cuttings on Gryffe. Bannerman went through them carefully.

They didn’t seem to fall into any category. Altogether there were about forty cuttings, not stories that Slater had written, but taken from different newspapers. They went back about two years, covering important speeches the politician had made at home and abroad, his appointment eighteen months earlier as a Junior Minister at the Foreign Office, a piece from The Times on his growing importance as a figure of charisma and influence in the Party and the country, and forecasting his probable rise to leadership of the Party within the next ten years.

There were a number of photographs. Gryffe, shaking hands with some African Head of State, Gryffe speaking at the Party’s annual conference, Gryffe relaxing at the side of a swimming pool with a young lady on holiday in Malta. He even appeared in the columns of the society diarists; best dressed man in Britain; the most eligible bachelor; a romance with Royalty (the punters would like that, though some of his Party colleagues would not); a man of the people destined for the top.

Bannerman had not been aware of just how fast this man had become a popular and fashionable figure in British political life. He had known about Gryffe all right, but not as much as this. Working in Scotland you tended to become parochial, insular like the rest of them. It was too easy to lose touch with what was happening in the south. Most of the cuttings, he noticed, were taken from the English papers. He should have known more, but then, you can only know so much about so much.

He crammed the cuttings back in the folder and pulled the second unmarked one open. There were fewer cuttings here. A dozen in all. They were all taken from Belgian newspapers, some in French, others in Flemish. There were two names that emerged, though they didn’t seem to be connected. From a smudged, single column pic Bannerman was able to put a face to one of the names, Michel Lapointe. It was a short, fat face, but the quality of the reproduction was poor and it was a face you would pass in the street without recognising. There was no pic with the cuttings specific to the other name, René Jansen. It was a name that rang a bell somewhere distantly in the back of Bannerman’s mind, without his being able to place it. He slipped the cuttings back in their folder, pushed the two unmarked ones aside and put the remainder back in the cabinet.

He sat for a moment, pulling the last smoke out of his cigar before stubbing it in the ashtray. Then he took out a spiral-bound notebook and took a fresh page. He pulled out a pen and wrote four names, one below the other; Tim Slater, Robert Gryffe, Michel Lapointe and René Jansen.

There had to be a common factor. Something that linked all four. Or did there? Certainly there had been something between Slater and Gryffe. It was possible that Lapointe and Jansen were simply red herrings. Bannerman could waste a lot of time checking them out. He tossed the possibilities around in his mind and looked out through the window at the heavy grey skies. There were times, he thought, when you had to chase red herrings, because there was nothing else to chase. He would need something before Tait got in tomorrow, because Tait would fight it. He would need something.

He became aware suddenly that his head was still hurting. There was a bad taste in his mouth from lack of sleep and his stomach was complaining that it needed more than the coffee and croissants he had fed it earlier. He lit another cigar and thought, I’m smoking too much. He got up and searched about the desks for a telephone directory. He found several and spent three or four minutes searching for the number he wanted.

Mademoiselle Ricain came back in as he lifted the phone. She smiled. ‘Dial zero,’ she said, ‘if you want an outside line,’ Bannerman saw that she had powdered her face and put fresh colour on her eyes and lips. He dialled zero and then dialled his number. A girl’s voice crackled in his ear.

‘Inspecteur du Maurier,’ he said.

‘Ne quittez pas.’ He waited, then the policeman’s voice came across the line.

‘Du Maurier.’

‘Inspector. Neil Bannerman.’

‘Ah, Monsieur, how are you today?’

‘I’d like to talk.’

‘Bon. Good. When?’

‘Whenever it suits.’

‘Hmmmm.’ He hesitated. ‘Say five o’clock?’

‘That’d be fine,’ Bannerman said.

‘But not here.’ The policeman cleared his throat. ‘At the Café Auguste in the Boulevard de Waterloo. It’s not far from the Rue des Quatre Bras.’

‘Okay.’ Bannerman hung up, searched through the keys Mademoiselle Ricain had given him and found one that fitted the drawer in Slater’s desk. He pulled it open and slipped in the two folders. He was about to slide it shut when he saw a battered old notebook squeezed down one side. It was Slater’s contacts book.

Bannerman took it out and thumbed through it, a record of all the people a dead man had known. People from whom information had been squeezed. Information that had sometimes been given freely, because it had come from a friend, sometimes had to be prised from unwilling lips. A good journalist was not only good with words, but he was good at getting information, and that was all about knowing the right places to look, the right people to ask.

As he thumbed through the pages that were carefully filled by Slater’s neat hand, it occurred to Bannerman that he might look under J for Jansen and L for Lapointe. It was so obvious he might not have thought of it. Like when you are trying to track down a home number for some obscure union chief and you search every contacts book in the office and wade through the office contacts file, only to find half an hour later that he’s listed in the telephone book. It was a simple lesson that Bannerman had learned many years earlier. Never overlook the obvious. And this time, too, it paid off. There were home and office numbers listed for both men. Bannerman carefully noted them opposite the names he had written in his notebook. And then, as an afterthought, he looked up Gryffe.

There were three numbers listed. One would be the flat in the Rue de Pavie, another was Gryffe’s London mews house and a third number, another Belgian number. It had an H marked beside it to show that it was also a home number. Bannerman frowned. He had not known that Gryffe had two houses in Brussels.

He noted all three and put the contacts book back in the drawer. Mademoiselle Ricain was watching him over her typewriter. She smiled. ‘Anything I can do...?’ she said.

Bannerman shook his head. ‘Thanks,’ he said distractedly. He saw the night stretching ahead of him, lonely dark hours in Slater’s flat or in some bar getting drunk. Then an idea came to him, forming slowly, like a light growing in the darkness. ‘Sla... Tim had a girl who came in and looked after his child during the day,’ he said. ‘Any idea where I can get in touch with her?’

The secretary thought about it. ‘Sally Robertson. Her number’s probably in Tim’s contacts book.’

‘Of course,’ he said and took the book out again. The number was there. He got an outside line and dialled. He let it ring about ten times before he hung up. So that was that. But he took a note of the number anyway.

The door opened behind him and a middle-aged man with a crumpled face and an equally crumpled suit came in. He had an untidy mop of dark hair going grey, and heavy eyebrows that met in the middle above a pair of small, piggy eyes. He carried a dog-eared notebook between the ink-stained fingers of his right hand. Half a dozen pens and pencils stuck out of the breast pocket of a jacket of indefinable colour and shape. He raised his eyebrows when he saw Bannerman, rounded the first desk and sat at his own, at right angles to Bannerman.

He slid the chair back and threw his legs up so that his feet rested on the edge of his desk, a desk piled untidily high with the debris of the last month’s reports, press releases and stories. Without taking his eyes from Bannerman, he took out a match and stuck the end in one corner of his mouth, allowing himself a small, humourless grin. He wore his self-assurance sloppily, like he wore his clothes. ‘Neil Bannerman, I presume,’ he said at last in a voice gravelled by years of drink that showed clearly in the red veins on his nose. ‘Someone been having a go at you?’ He was looking at the yellow bruising down Bannerman’s face. The hostility in his voice was as identifiable as the smell of liquor on his breath. It was always the same. If you had a reputation then either people respected you for it or they tried to knock you down.

‘I fell,’ Bannerman said. ‘Maybe if I was drunk like you I’d have bounced and been none the worse for it.’ He could feel Mademoiselle Ricain’s discomfort without having to look at her. He knew her face would be flushed. People usually felt sorry for drunks and tolerated them. But any fool can be a drunk. Not a muscle moved on the crumpled face. The grin remained fixed.

‘Smart bastard, eh? That figures.’ He moved the match from one corner of his mouth to the other. ‘I heard about you the other day. Shooting your mouth off at some of the lads like you were God Almighty.’

Bannerman flicked ash from his cigar on to the floor. He was in no mood for exchanging wisecracks with a drunk. All the same, he said, ‘Maybe I am. And maybe some of the lads need a good kick up the arse.’ He paused. ‘Palin, isn’t it? Eric Palin. London Herald, ageing hack sent out to grass and pickle what remains of his liver.’

Palin snorted and his amusement seemed genuine. ‘You can think what you like.’

‘Oh, I do. And I will. I know you’re good, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Some of the best reporters around are drunks. They don’t operate at a hundred percent unless they’re half-steamed, and when they operate they’re good, damned good. But I don’t see why I should tell you that.’

‘You just have.’

‘The trouble is,’ Bannerman said, ‘it doesn’t matter how good you are, if you’re a drunk you’re only half a man. And half a man is no damned good to anybody. You can’t trust him. Your editor knows that. He’s taking a calculated short term risk in sending you out here. You’ll keep it up for a year, maybe two, then you’ll start slipping, because people like you always do. And then you’ll be out of a job so damned fast you won’t know where you’re next half s coming from.’

Palin was sharp enough to know the truth when he heard it, the truth that a man like that will never admit to himself. It hurt, because the truth usually does. ‘Go to hell,’ he snapped, taking his feet off the desk. He took the match from his mouth and leaned across the desk. ‘Think you know it all, eh?’ Amidst the anger, there was a smugness in his voice. ‘Well, you don’t know half of it, Mr. God Almighty Bannerman.’ He tapped his nose knowingly.

‘You’d better watch that,’ Bannerman said. ‘You might burst a blood vessel.’

Palin grinned his humourless grin. ‘We’ll see who it is that bursts blood vessels,’ he said.

Bannerman got up and slipped his notebook in his pocket. ‘Be seeing you.’

‘You’ll be going to the press conference, then?’ Palin asked.

‘Which one is that?’

Palin’s grin widened. ‘Tomorrow at the Rue des Quatre Bras. Minister of the Interior on the Slater deaths. Didn’t you know?’ He knew Bannerman could not have known. It had only been circulated half an hour before. Mentally he notched one up.

‘I do now,’ Bannerman said. He nodded at Mademoiselle Ricain and left. He walked the length of the corridor slowly. Palin worried him. His smugness, his self-assurance. He knew something. And not just about the press conference. He had worked in the same office as Slater for nearly a year. You don’t work as closely with someone for that length of time and not get to know something about them. However obnoxious Palin might be, he was still a good journalist. It would worry him for a while.

Palin watched the door close, anger and alcohol hardening the line of his mouth. He took out a cigarette and lit it with an unsteady hand before turning to Mademoiselle Ricain and catching the pity in her eyes. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he snapped. ‘What are you looking at?’ She flushed deeply, lowering her head quickly and starting back with her typing. ‘Take a powder, love,’ Palin said a little less harshly. She was all right. He shouldn’t have spoken to her that way. Without a word she collected her bag and left.

Palin sat for several more minutes, undecided. Then he went to the filing cabinet, unlocked it and began going through Slater’s files. They were gone. God dammit. Bannerman must have taken them. He stood up and looked quickly around the room. Then he crossed to Slater’s desk where Bannerman had been sitting and opened the top drawer. Ah, there they were. He took a flask from his hip pocket, laid back a quick snort and smiled a sort of nasty smile.

He lifted out Slater’s contacts book, shut the drawer and picked up a phone. He got an outside line, found the number he wanted and dialled. A voice reached him from the other end. He spoke French slowly and clearly. ‘Give me Monsieur Jansen’s secretary.’ He waited quite a while before another voice burned in his ear. ‘I’d like to speak to Monsier Jansen... No, he won’t know me. Just tell him I worked with a man called Timothy Slater and that I have some information to sell him. I think he’ll speak to me.’

II

The Boulevard de Waterloo was thick with people wrapped in heavy coats and brightly-coloured rainwear. They clutched umbrellas and briefcases and shopping bags, hurrying, heads bowed, through the darkness and the big white flakes of snow that fell brightly through the lights from the cafés and shops. The snow was wet and was not lying on the pavement. It came drifting in lazily over the tops of tall buildings, dark against the orange glow reflected in the thickly clouded sky, turning white in the light of the street, slapping softly against faces like the merest touch of icy fingers.

The rush hour traffic on both sides of the boulevard crawled noisily in frustrated fits and starts, carrying weary bread-winners home after long, noisy, frustrating days in anonymous offices. It was just another dark January evening in an undistinguished European capital.

Bannerman walked west from the Metro at the Porte de Namur, brushing the shoulders of people hurrying the other way, getting wet from the snow and catching the drips from passing umbrellas. It was odd, he thought, how you were no more a stranger in a busy street at the rush hour in a foreign city than you were in your home town. They were the same faces you passed anywhere. The same people you didn’t know that lived the same lives in which you played no part. He might have been just like them.

There was a time when he might have married, raised a family, mortgaged a nice house in the suburbs, taken a nice safe job in the city and been hurrying home along some city street with nothing more to worry about than what TV programme he would select to while away the night. There had been a time; but that had long since passed. He had made his choices, and some of them had been made for him. He hardly ever regretted it, though there were times when he lay alone in the dark listening to dogs barking to each other in the night and wondered how it might have been if he had followed the well-worn path, how it might have been to have had someone to come home to, someone to share a life with. But thoughts like those came only in the darkest hours, and usually he would decide it was as well things had turned out the way they had.

A newsboy was standing under the awning of the Café Auguste, a bundle of evening papers under his arm. He had no need to shout. Business was good. News was bad. They were still carrying the story of the shooting and the girl’s drawing. People liked to sit back in comfortable armchairs in front of fires after their evening meal and read about the horrors of life from the safety of their own warm little boxes. So long as it didn’t touch them.

Bannerman bought a copy of La Belge Soir and glanced briefly at the front page. There were pics of the death house, single column pics of Gryffe and Slater and a reproduction of the drawing. The by-line of the story was Richard Platt’s.

He folded the paper under his arm and walked into the steamy warmth of the café. The place was filled with people and noise, a strong aroma of coffee and cigar smoke. It was a typical Belgian café. A big barn of a place crammed with tables and chairs, mirror squares all along behind the bar and big, scarred pillars supporting an ornately corniced ceiling almost obscured by the fog of smoke and damp that people make on wet days. Two waiters in white jackets and black trousers darted between tables and bar conveying endless orders of coffee and beer on brightly-coloured trays. These guys really earned their money.

Du Maurier was sitting at a table at the far side of the café behind a square-panelled pillar. He raised an arm to wave Bannerman over. ‘What will you drink, Monsieur?’

Bannerman eased himself into a chair opposite the policeman. ‘Whisky.’

Du Maurier barely moved his head and one of the waiters was at his arm, a thin, dark-skinned man with a small black moustache and a permanent scowl. ‘Inspecteur?’ Du Maurier ordered a whisky and an absinthe. The waiter was called Jacques. When he had gone the policeman pulled at the hair growing out of his nostrils and lit a cigarette. Then he sat back and smiled curiously at Bannerman, dark, dark eyes sharp and watchful. ‘Well?’

‘So they’re going to pull the plug on you tomorrow.’

The smile widened. ‘They have already done so. The case is closed. Tomorrow is just an exercise in public relations. The dirty work is done. I have to admit, I did not expect them to move so quickly.’

Bannerman thought about it. ‘Then there is more to it than embarrassed politicians?’

Du Maurier seemed so relaxed he was almost liquid. ‘That is for them to know and you to find out.’

‘And you?’

Du Maurier leaned forward and placed his elbows carefully on the edge of the table, clasping his big-knuckled hands below his chin. ‘The case is closed.’

‘Is it?’

‘Officially I can do nothing.’

‘And unofficially?’

Jacques arrived with the drinks on a tray and left the cheque in a saucer. Du Maurier reached for a jug on the table. ‘Water?’ Bannerman shook his head and the Inspector poured water into his absinthe and watched it turn cloudy. He picked up his glass and sipped the drink. ‘The case,’ he repeated very deliberately, ‘is closed.’ He took a bigger slug and then studied Bannerman thoughtfully. ‘What do you need to know?’

Bannerman took his first sip of whisky and kept the glass close to his mouth. ‘Michel Lapointe and René Jansen. Who are they?’

Du Maurier shook his head sadly. ‘You are on the wrong track, Monsieur. Oh, yes, we found those cuttings from the newspapers too. But there is nothing to connect them in any way with Monsieur Gryffe or what happened in the Rue de Pavie.’ He paused to consider his words. ‘René Jansen is a very powerful man in this country, Monsieur. His business interests are enormous as is his bank balance. He wields much influence, but not that much. He is a big man, but not that big. The decision to close the case is a political one and Jansen is not a political animal. This is not his affair.’

‘And Lapointe?’

‘A legal man. A company lawyer. Look, Monsieur, there is no connection.’

‘Any connection could do them harm?’

Du Maurier sighed. ‘Perhaps.’

Bannerman emptied half of his glass. ‘Why are you trying to protect them?’

The policeman was annoyed, and his annoyance seemed genuine enough. ‘Perhaps I have made a mistake,’ he said curtly, ‘I thought you were an intelligent man.’

‘So did I,’ Bannerman said. ‘And I see no reason for changing that opinion. You see, I’m just naturally suspicious and I also see no reason why you should be talking to me at all. Oh, I know what you told me yesterday. Justice, morality, the law. All very noble. But I’m just too cynical to believe all that. Forgive me. As I said, I have a suspicious nature.’

Du Maurier nodded, and his years seemed more deeply etched in the lines of his face. ‘Okay. There’s no reason why you should believe me. My motives are my own. Perhaps they are not very noble, but they are real enough and I don’t see why I should go into them with you.’ He wet his lips with a sip of absinthe. His mantle of defeat settled more heavily on his shoulders. ‘Of course I was not mistaken. You are a very astute young man. But you should know that the last thing I would want to do is protect a man like Jansen. Men like Jansen are a cancer in our society, the intrinsic weakness that one of your political leaders once described so nicely as the unacceptable face of capitalism.

‘I am no socialist, but I believe in democracy. Men like Jansen make a mockery of what we call democracy. It doesn’t really exist except in the hearts of idealists. It is true that the people elect their representatives, but the candidates are picked by the parties and the parties do not run on fresh air. They need money to fuel them. And it is men like Jansen who provide that money. Surely none of us is naïve enough to believe that this money is provided for love of party. No, no. Such benefactors seek influence if not control, benefits if not power. Jansen’s business interests sail very close to the wind when it comes to the law, and sometimes he will steer a course that is clearly, though discreetly, outside the law. But he has influence, you see. He has paid for it, and so he survives. I would dearly love to bring such a man down, but that is not the way of things. Who am I? I’m too old and tired for all that. But I have no reason to protect him. The case is closed and even if I thought Jansen was involved there would be little I could do about it. You would be well advised to take my advice. My instinct would be not to tangle with Jansen, or even Lapointe.’

Bannerman nodded slowly. ‘I believe you,’ he said, ‘but my instinct is a journalist’s instinct. If Slater went to the trouble of putting together a folder of cuttings on Jansen and Lapointe and filed it along with his cuttings on Gryffe, then there was a reason for it. They may be connected with what happened, and they may not. But my instinct is to check it out.’

Du Maurier shrugged. ‘Then follow your instinct,’ he said.

‘I always do.’

The Inspector smiled wearily and finished his drink. He pushed back his chair. ‘I must go.’

‘There’s more,’ Bannerman said quietly.

Du Maurier’s face set. ‘What more?’

Bannerman called Jacques and the waiter materialised beside him. Bannerman said, ‘Encore.’ Jacques nodded and disappeared into the fug of people and smoke from which he had come. A group of working men in the far corner raised their voices in laughter. Some bawdy joke. Bannerman took out a cigar and du Maurier lit it for him and then set fire to another cigarette. ‘Slater was planning to leave,’ Bannerman said.

Du Maurier looked at him emptily. ‘You have had a busy day. You searched the flat?’

Bannerman nodded. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

‘No. I didn’t tell you. There are many things I haven’t told you, things I am not going to tell you, things you will have to find out for yourself. Things that only I could have told you — and there are people who would know that. I am prepared to help you, for reasons of my own, but I am not going to be your, or anyone else’s, sacrificial lamb.’ He paused as Jacques brought the drinks then he leaned across the table again. ‘He had booked a flight for Sunday evening for himself and his daughter. London,and then a connecting flight to New York. Tickets and passport were in his inside jacket pocket.’

Bannerman felt tiny needles of shock prick his skin. For the first time he began seriously to doubt that there had been a third party, doubt the interpretation of the child’s drawing. ‘It is just possible then that Slater went with a gun to the Rue de Pavie intending to kill Gryffe, take the money and skip the country.’

‘It is possible,’ du Maurier conceded, ‘but I doubt it. It is a theory with very little to support it. Do not forget all that I told you yesterday. Before I was instructed to drop the case, we found no way of connecting the gun to Monsieur Slater. In fact, I don’t think we ever would. The registration number had been filed off, and I doubt ballistics would have a record of it. It was a professional’s gun. A once only job. And Monsieur Slater was not a professional. Also, he was not stupid. A man is shot dead, a man whom others knew was meeting Monsieur Slater in his house that morning. Monsieur Slater disappears. Those are the actions of a stupid man. Too, Monsieur Slater’s flight to London was not until Sunday evening. Even if he had meant to murder Monsieur Gryffe and run, as you say, he would not wait nearly twelve hours. He would never have reached the airport.’

Bannerman conceded du Maurier’s logic with something like relief. Since finding the packed cases there had been a niggling doubt in the back of his mind about Slater. At no point until then had he thought Slater capable of being involved in murder. Du Maurier’s confirmation of Slater’s intention to flee the country had brought that seed of doubt to flower. But now it withered as quickly and left a greater clarity. ‘Then we are left with the original question of what business Slater had with Gryffe. Blackmail?’

Du Maurier smiled. ‘Go on.’

‘If Slater was blackmailing Gryffe then there would be no need for him to make a hurried departure. Maybe,’ he drew on his cigar, ‘maybe if Slater had been blackmailing him for some time, Sunday was to have been the final payoff. A quarter of a million dollars is a lot of money, but I wouldn’t have thought it was enough to make Slater give up everything here. Certainly not overnight.’

Du Maurier poured water into his absinthe. ‘It’s all possible,’ he said. ‘Personally I like the idea of blackmail. It answers many questions, though not all of them by any means. If, for example, Monsieur Slater had been blackmailing our friend for some time, where is the rest of the money? He certainly did not bank it either here or in England. There was no money in the flat, though it is possible that money was removed from the safe by your intruder. Somehow I don’t think so. What was taken would more likely be evidence, whatever it was that gave Monsieur Slater a hold over Monsieur Gryffe. So, if there was more money, where is it?’

‘A numbered account in Switzerland.’

‘Again, possible, but I think not. We would have found some record of such an account among his personal belongings.’

Bannerman took a slug of whisky. ‘Seems you, too, have been busy.’

Du Maurier smiled and ran a hand through the remains of his black, wiry hair. ‘More importantly,’ he went on, ‘blackmail does not furnish us with any motive for murder by a third party.’

‘Somebody else who felt threatened,’ Bannerman suggested. ‘If Slater had dirt on Gryffe, then some of that dirt could possibly have stuck to the third party.’

The policeman scratched his old chin. ‘Assuming that was true,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘would the murderer then have left the money behind? Not only is it a lot of money, it also provides a possible clue as to motive.’ He sighed. ‘There is little point, Monsieur Bannerman, in speculating. We could talk around the subject all night and only create for ourselves more questions that we cannot answer.’ He emptied his glass.

Bannerman placed a hand on his arm to stop him rising. ‘One final question. Gryffe had another house in Brussels. Where?’

The Inspector frowned. ‘He had no other home in Brussels. Only in the Rue de Pavie.’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘You are not as thorough as you might have been,’ he said. ‘Slater lists two home numbers in Brussels for Gryffe. They are in his contacts book. Presumably one of them is the Rue de Pavie.’ He took out his notebook and flipped through to the page where he had noted the numbers, and pushed it across the table at du Maurier. The other man’s frown deepened.

‘The first number is the Rue de Pavie,’ he said, ‘what makes you think the second number is Belgian? It could be anywhere.’

‘In the contacts book it was preceded by a code in brackets. The international dialling code from Britain to Belgium.’

Du Maurier shook his head. ‘It is not a Brussels number. Provincial perhaps.’ He took out a small black notebook and a pen and copied the second number into it. ‘I will check. Because the case is closed it will not be easy. Perhaps a few days.’ He scribbled another number on a fresh page, tore it out and handed it to Bannerman. ‘If you need to call me, phone that number. Speak to no-one else but me. Do not come to the Rue des Quatre Bras.’

Bannerman took the sheet of paper and folded it into his top pocket. He said, ‘I shall want Slater’s car from the pound.’

Du Maurier stood up. ‘I will arrange to have it taken to the Rue de Commerce. Au revoir, Monsieur.’ He pushed his way out of the café and Bannerman stared at the remains in his whisky glass. He knew more now than when he had come in, but still not enough. He drank the last drop of whisky and noticed that du Maurier had left him to pick up the bill. He drew out a five hundred franc note and dropped it in the saucer, and then left the warmth of the Café Auguste to brave the snow and the raw night.

The newsboy was still selling papers. The news was still bad and business was still good.

III

Bannerman ate alone in a bistro off the Avenue de la Toison d’Or, a small, cheap eating house where they served good steak and Bordeaux wine by the carafe.

It had stopped snowing when he left. He headed back along the Boulevard Waterloo toward the Porte de Namur. Over the meal he had thought again about Palin with some disquiet. The man bothered him, without his knowing quite why. He had known plenty of drunks, abusive ones at that. But with Palin it was something else. Bannerman checked his watch. It was after eight. He had been unwise to leave the cuttings in the office, and he decided it would be safer to stop off at the International Press Centre and pick up the folders. They would be more secure at the flat. There was no way he wanted to risk Palin getting his hands on them.

At the Pone de Namur he rode the escalators down into the Metro and spent twenty-five francs on a ticket to Schuman.

There were only a few lights still showing in the windows of the IPC building. A bored-looking telephone girl sat behind the reception counter. Up steps and beyond the desk, across a wide, thickly carpeted lobby, the sound of voices oiled by alcohol came from the press bar. Bannerman took the elevator up to the sixth floor.

The corridor was dimly lit, every second light switched off for the night. He watched his shadow overtake him, fade like a giant and then drift by him again as he passed under the next light. All the offices were empty and the floor was quiet as death except for the distant rumbling of traffic that came up the Boulevard Charlemagne from the Rue de la Loi. Bannerman looked out his key and thought about phoning Sally again from the office. The key wouldn’t turn in the lock. He swore softly and tried another key. The same again. ‘Shit!’ He tried the handle and the door pushed open. Someone had forgotten to lock it.

Maybe it was because it was night, and the hours of darkness are the hours of fear and danger, or maybe it was something he heard or the slightest movement registering in the darkness. It might even have been that intrinsic sixth sense that warns of the presence of another human being when you can neither see nor hear him. Whatever it was, it triggered in Bannerman a reflex action, his crooked arm rising swiftly to take the full brunt of a blow that would surely have cracked his skull. The pain tore up his arm to his shoulder and his knees buckled. He staggered into the darkness, falling, tangling with the legs of his unsighted attacker. The other man lost his balance and toppled heavily over Bannerman’s back, grunting as he fell. A foot caught Bannerman’s throat. Bannerman choked back the vomit and felt fire in his head and chest. His right arm and hand had gone numb already.

The heavy figure of the other man was frantically disentangling itself from Bannerman’s legs. Then he was up and running, heavy steps beating their retreat down the length of the corridor towards the lifts. But Bannerman was not interested in the other man at that moment. He rolled over and spat blood and saliva at the floor. His head had cleared a little, but his throat hurt like hell. He pulled himself up to his feet with the help of the edge of a desk, and took two or three unsteady steps to the light switch.

The glare filled his head again with fire and he pulled up a chair and sat down heavily. His mouth tasted of blood and sick. ‘Shit,’ he whispered softly to himself. This was getting to be a bad habit. You’re going to have to take more care, son, he told himself.

He let his head drop between his knees for several minutes while he breathed deeply. Then he sat upright and saw a narrow-necked water jug with a glass over it on the desk. He reached over with his left hand, lifted off the glass and poured some water into it. The first swig he rolled around his mouth and gargled in his throat before spitting it out on the carpet. This was no time for niceties. Then he took a long draught and felt the smooth coldness all the way down to his stomach. He turned his attention to his right arm. It was the fleshy bit of the forearm that had taken the blow. He slipped his jacket off and rolled up his sleeve. Already the arm was swollen and bruised. But nothing broken. His fingers seemed to have locked, and his arm was bent at the elbow and hurt badly when he tried to straighten it. Must have got a nerve, he thought.

The next few minutes he spent slowly, painfully, making fists with his right hand and working his arm straight and then crooking it. Gradually the muscles and the nerves eased and he got a pins-and-needles sensation from shoulder to fingertips. That passed and he took out a cigar with his left hand, peeled it one-handed and stuck it between his lips. He lit it and drew deeply. The kick in the neck had probably burst a small blood vessel in his throat. He didn’t know if the smoke would help, but right then he didn’t particularly care.

He leaned back in the seat and looked around the office. It wasn’t a shambles. It looked much as it had looked earlier in the day. There was no evidence of an intruder. He turned to Slater’s desk drawer and pulled it open. The folders were gone. So was the contacts book. Whoever it was had known exactly where to look. That narrowed the field considerably. He sat for a few minutes more, then he took out his notebook, flipped over several pages, picked up the phone and dialled. He wasn’t sure why he was calling her. A cry in the dark. The number rang out and he hung up. It wasn’t his night. He stood up and swung his head to either side to ease the stiffening in his neck. He switched out the light and closed the door behind him and locked it.

A light shone from the window of the top floor flat in the apartment block in the Rue de Commerce. Bannerman might not have noticed it except that there were only two other lights showing in the entire block. Slater’s car, a dark blue Volkswagen, sat at the kerbside. Bannerman paid off his taxi and watched the car move off down the street. It was only fifteen or twenty minute walk from the IPC building, but he had not felt like walking.

He shuffled about on the pavement, unsure about what to do. He lit a cigar and looked up again at the light in the window, weighing up the possibilities. But he was too tired and too sore to think too much about it. And it was cold out there, his breath billowing out yellow in the street lights, melting the big snow flakes that were falling all around him, settling on his head and shoulders. He went inside and started up the stairs, listening to his hollow footsteps clattering back at him off the walls. It seemed even colder in the stairwell than it had outside. The landing lights were harsh, each landing icy in their cold glare. But they didn’t light the stairs too well.

At the door of the flat he fumbled with the keys and then carefully opened it, standing well back and letting it swing inwards. The landing light spilled into the darkness of the hallway and at the far end he could see a crack of light framing the door of the living room. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The air was warm and dusty and touched with a faintly familiar scent. He stood perfectly still as the crack of light widened ahead of him and a long shadow reached out across the hall as though to touch him. The figure in the doorway was silhouetted against the light behind. Bannerman couldn’t see the face, but he recognized the slightness of the outline and the hair cut close around the head. ‘Hello,’ Sally said. Her voice sounded very small. ‘I’ve been waiting for you. Quite a long time. It’s kind of scary sitting alone in a dead man’s house.’

Very slowly Bannerman slipped his coat off and dragged it along behind him the length of the hall. He stopped in front of her and looked down into her shadowed face. ‘How did you know I would be here?’

She was disconcerted by his closeness. ‘I didn’t know for sure. I’ve still got a key, so I came up. I found your clothes still in the bedroom, so I guessed you’d be back. I... I was frightened I might not see you again.’

‘Why? Would that matter to you?’

‘Maybe,’ she said.

He let it lie for a while, smelling her perfume, warm and musky, and he sensed her reserve. ‘Why is it so difficult to get close to you?’

There was a very long silence. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last, knowing that she did. Then she looked up a little more brightly. ‘I brought some wine. I put the refrigerator on and left it in there to chill.’ Bannerman lowered his head and let his lips brush hers. It was what she had wanted, and yet still she drew back. ‘I’ll get some glasses.’

He followed her into the living room, puzzled, disappointed, wondering why she had come, and yet glad she had.

She went up into the kitchen. He heard her open the refrigerator then the sounds of her searching for glasses. He switched off the overhead light, turned on a table lamp and sat back in the settee staring at the painting over the mantelpiece. The browns and blacks, blues and greens, their starkness against the white of the snow that covered the scene. A group of weary hunters returning from the kill, mean-looking dogs slinking at their feet, a fire being lighted at the inn on the hilltop. Through the trees they looked down onto two square frozen-over lakes where tiny figures wrapped in winter coats were skating. There was a great peace about the painting, a strange sense of satisfaction in it, men and women frozen in the painter’s mind below the palest of blue skies that faded almost to yellow.

Sally came in with the bottle uncorked and set it down with two glasses on the long, stained coffee table in front of the settee. She sat down beside Bannerman and followed his eyes to the painting. ‘Brueghel,’ she said. ‘So gentle by comparison with the horrors and madness of his later work.’

Bannerman wondered if the choice of painting reflected anything in Slater. It was a curious painting for such a man. Perhaps it had come with the flat. He dragged his eyes away from it and turned his head to watch Sally pour the wine. It was a white wine, the bottle misted that way that makes it so irresistible. The glasses misted too when the wine was poured into them. Sally raised her glass to her lips. ‘It hardly seems right to toast to anything,’ she said and took a sip. Bannerman lifted his glass and took a mouthful. It was dry and a little fruity and tasted good, cool over the hotness of his throat which still hurt where the blood vessel had burst. Sally put her glass down and without looking at him, asked, ‘What happened to your face?’ He told her and she turned in amazement. ‘You mean there was someone in here waiting for you?’

‘Not waiting for me. He was after something in the safe. I disturbed him. I suppose he got what he was looking for, but he was clearly under the impression that the house was empty.’ He hesitated. ‘Let me ask you something. You normally came to the house on Sundays. Why did you not come yesterday?’

She looked at him curiously, a hint of uncertainty, suspicion, in her green eyes. ‘You don’t think I...’

‘I don’t think anything. I’d just like to know.’

‘If you must know I had a meeting with a professor of English from a very exclusive languages college in Rome. There’s a post available and I have applied for it. It’s a full-time job and it pays well.’ There was a hint of hostility in her voice. ‘Usually I took Tania out on Sunday mornings. To Mass. They were Catholics, you know. I’m not, but I took her anyway. She seemed to get something out of it.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘And that’s why whoever it was that clobbered me thought that the house would be empty.’

She picked up her glass and half emptied it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought that maybe you thought I...’ She stopped. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No.’ He leaned forward and re-filled both their glasses, a slight, sharp intake of breath as the pain returned to his outstretched arm.

‘Why,’ she said suddenly, ‘should anyone want to kill him?’

Bannerman passed her her glass. ‘Because Slater was blackmailing Robert Gryffe. Because someone else felt threatened and decided the best way out was to kill them both. When he had killed them he came here to get whatever it was that gave Slater a hold over Gryffe.’ If he said it often enough he might believe it. He took in her look of incredulity.

‘But how can you possibly know that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t. But it fits with everything we know.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s easier to believe than what you’re going to read in tomorrow’s evening papers.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The Minister for the Interior is going to make a statement tomorrow morning announcing that the police are satisfied that Slater and Gryffe shot each other during some private quarrel. The case is already closed.’

She said nothing, raising her glass slowly to her lips and sipping at it several times. She got up and walked to the window, and stood tracing patterns with her finger on the fine condensation. Outside the snow still fell, brushing the glass, lining the ledge. ‘A cover-up?’ Her voice was quiet and the words were almost lost.

‘Something like that,’ Bannerman said. He replaced his glass on the table and went to the window and stood behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

‘But why?’ he heard her ask.

He sighed. ‘Who knows. There are several possibilities. I don’t know. But I mean to find out.’

She turned then to face him, her eyes turned up to meet his. ‘It’s so unfair.’

‘Nothing in life is fair,’ Bannerman said and she was stung by the bitterness in his voice. ‘Right now there are thousands of children with distended stomachs, arms and legs thin and brittle like twigs, staring, hopeless eyes. They have days, some of them maybe only hours, to live, because they have not eaten for weeks. There is no food for them. Only disease and despair. And we sit sipping our wine and warming our anger because two men have died and someone didn’t want us to know why. Is that fair?

‘A little girl was born with something wrong in her head. She lost her mother when she was five and she saw her father shot to death yesterday. Maybe she’d like to tell us how it was. Maybe she’d like to say, “I loved my Daddy.” But she can’t, because the thing that is wrong in her head won’t let her. Do you care? Do I care? Does anybody care? That doesn’t really seem very fair either, does it? You can’t go through life expecting it to treat you fairly.

‘God, if he exists, either had an off-day when he put this lot together — the world, humanity — or else He’s playing some ethereal chess game where we’re all expendable in the greater plan of things, whether we think it’s fair or not. You can talk about right and wrong, and even that is different for every individual... but nothing is fair.’

She listened in silence. There was bitterness in him, but not venom. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘And, God knows, I should know. But wouldn’t it be sad if we all thought the way you do?’

Bannerman looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Was it a man?’ he said.

‘Isn’t it always?’ She turned away.

‘No, not always.’ He turned her back to face him and cupped his hands either side of her face, tilting her head upwards. ‘It needn’t be,’ he said. And he bent to kiss her. She responded, soft lips, the smell of wine on her breath. She pulled her head away and pressed it into his shoulder.

‘It’s hard,’ she said, ‘not knowing if you can ever really trust anyone again.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’ And she pushed away from him, turning again to the window.

He stood for a moment, then crossed to the coffee table and retrieved his glass. ‘I’d like to see the child,’ he said and drank what was left of his wine.

‘I’ll take you. Tomorrow?’

‘Evening. If it’s possible.’

She nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘You’ll be going to the funeral?’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow afternoon, two thirty at the Cimetière de Bruxelles.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know. Yes, I’ll be there.’ She paused. ‘Why do you want to see her? Professional or personal reasons?’

He looked up sharply. ‘I don’t know. A bit of both, maybe.’ Why indeed? he thought. He knew there was very little chance of getting more out of the child than the police had already done. And it was only then that he realised she had been flitting around the edge of his consciousness all day, a small, clumsy, barefoot child whose cold hands had touched his face in the darkness. Then he remembered something else. He said, ‘The other night, when I came back, drunk. Did I... Did we...? I remember some of it, but not that.’

She smiled at his unusual bashfulness. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We didn’t.’ She hesitated, then, ‘I could stay tonight.’

‘No, I’ll take you home.’ He said it a little too quickly and it hurt her, and he realised too late his mistake.

‘Fine.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...’

‘You don’t have to apologise.’

There was an awkward silence, then Bannerman asked, ‘You want some more wine?’

‘No, it’s getting late.’

He fumbled absently in his pocket and then frowned. ‘The police brought Slater’s car back. I saw it outside. But I guess I don’t have the keys.’

‘They’re on the mantelpiece.’ Sally crossed the room. ‘They must have put them through the letter-box. I found them lying on the floor in the hall when I came in. But don’t bother, I’ll phone a taxi.’ He would have argued, but he saw her face that she would not be argued with. And he thought, I could love you.

It was fifteen minutes before the taxi came and parp-parped down in the street. They had had time to finish the wine and say many things. They had done neither. ‘I’ll come down with you.’

‘Don’t bother.’

‘I’ll come down with you.’ He helped her on with her coat and they walked down the stairs in silence. The taxi was revving impatiently at the kerb, clouds of exhaust fumes rising into the darkness. She stopped in the doorway and relented. She turned and kissed him quickly on the lips. He held her arm to stop her from going. ‘Did you... did you get the job in Rome?’

She looked at him quizzically for a moment. ‘I don’t know. They’re going to let me know.’

‘Oh.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

He watched her climb into the taxi and the car purring off down the Rue de Commerce leaving black tyre tracks in the thin layer of snow, and he wondered if she would always be leaving.

Back in the flat all that remained of her were lingering traces of her perfume and the faintest smear of lipstick on her empty glass. He finished the wine, drinking slowly and listening to the clock ticking in the heavy silence and feeling the dull ache in the stiffening, bruised muscles of his right arm.

IV

A silent figure stood in the snow, pressed against a gable end, the eaves too high above him to afford any protection from the thickly-falling flakes. The tyre tracks of the taxi had vanished already, only a slight, slightly whiter impression remaining in the whiteness of the road. The man shifted his feet, but the feeling in them had long since gone. Even the muscles in his face seemed to have frozen. His hands, pushed deep in his pockets, were raw cold and stiff. His eyes were dull and sunk deep in shadow, and yet still they watched. It was a pointless vigil now, but perhaps for the first time in his life Kale was afraid of the loneliness of his hotel room, locked away in the dark listening to the throbbing early morning music that came drifting up from the basement night club in the adjoining block. There would be too much time to think during the sleepless hours. There were things that would trouble him, strange dark thoughts coming like strangers in the night to blacken the blackness in him.

The light in the top floor flat went out, and still he could not bring himself to move. The woman had been gone twenty minutes and there was no way the man would lead him to the child tonight. And yet he stood on, like a punishment. A mean, lost soul in a foreign city where people spoke words he could not understand, where he had killed two men without a second thought. Only now it was a prison. There was no escape. Every eye watched him, every voice accused him. There was a dreadful inevitability about it all, like death itself.

Of course, there was a way out, but somewhere beyond his grasp, there just to torture him. He had only to leave. By morning he could be in Ostend, by tea time, in London. But it was not to be. A child had seen him commit murder, a child with a disordered mind, a child who would probably never identify him. But she might. He knew that, his employer knew that, and there were others who knew it too. It was expected of him to negate that possibility. He expected it of himself. He had killed before. It was easy, it was necessary, and yet standing there in all the cold and snow on this black winter night, he did not know if it was possible.

It was the uncertainty that trapped him there. He had thought he knew all the dark territory of his mind. He had had no illusions about what he was. It was something he accepted, like life or death. But somewhere in that inner darkness he had stumbled on something unfamiliar, something he could not come to terms with. To kill a child with his secret locked somewhere in her disturbed mind. A note in a locker, three words on a scrap of paper, and he had discovered in himself the seed of destruction that is in the souls of all men. To kill the child would be to kill himself. He knew it with such a dreadful clarity. You choose your own road to hell and you think you know every twist and turn. Then you discover that hell is not the end of the road. He was a person, after all, a human being, and there was a point beyond which you could not go. It is no use, he thought. I will think about it whether I stand here punishing myself, or whether I lie awake in my room. The man whose head he had cracked, whose ribs he had kicked, would lead him eventually to the child. He was no longer in control of his own destiny. He was being drawn towards his own destruction as helplessly as the man being swept into the vortex of a whirlpool. For somewhere in all his lack of humanity, he had discovered a conscience.

He moved stiffly away from the wall against which he had sought some shelter and began walking along the Rue de Commerce. Somewhere he would find a bar to spend some time before he could face the room he had taken across town, and the long hours before morning.

Chapter Six

I

People hurried by without even glancing at the solitary figure sitting at one of the red-painted metal tables under the awning. The market stalls were being removed. The early morning trade had been poor because of the weather. Piles of snow were dotted about where ways had been swept clear for the stalls. Lines of cars stood at the far side gleaming in the morning sunshine and the snow was melting on the black flagstones where great slabs of sunshine fell between the buildings. The sky was a clear, pale blue and reminded Bannerman of the sky in the painting over the mantelpiece back at the flat. It was still cold, though, out of the sun.

He sat at one of the tables near the end of the awning, where the sunshine still splashed in under the yellow canvas, warming the air. The coffee, too, warmed him inside. He smoked a leisurely cigar, not thinking too much about anything, watching the men and women moving the stalls.

The Grande Place was dominated on one side by the ornate splendour of the Town Hall with its tower and tall, tapering spire. It was an impressive square, the centre of the city, full of life and colour and gaiety, the old guild houses, mediaeval gabled buildings, lining the other three sides. Now they were fronted by souvenir shops, restaurants and cafés, though you could still tell the trades they had once represented; the boatmen’s guildhouse with its roof shaped like the stern of a seventeenth century vessel, the archers’ house with its carved statue of St. Sebastian holding a bow, the weigh-house with a pair of scales above a balcony supported by two negroes.

Across the Place, several workmen on ladders were washing down the walls of one of the houses, and repainting the gold decorations. Bannerman took it all in, enjoying it. The sun had lifted him and he felt good, relaxed. He might have been a tourist basking in the winter sun without a care in the world.

But now, as the sun rose higher, the shadow of the awning moved across the table and he was no longer in the warmth. He finished his coffee then stood up and checked his watch. It was a little after ten. He dropped some francs in a saucer and stepped out across the square. His day seemed clearly mapped out before him. The press conference at the offices of the Judicial Police was at eleven. He would have to meet Tait at the office, and there was the funeral in the afternoon. Then at night, he would go and see the child. He found that increasingly he thought about the child with a strange affection, a blend of pity and something else that he was not sure about.

Then there was Jansen, and of course Lapointe. He would have to decide about them today. And there was some unfinished business with Palin. He thought, too, about Platt. It did not please him to have to think about Platt. For here he might be forced into an alliance. Always he preferred to work alone, but he would need someone who knew his way around. But yet, he was pleased with the clearness of his thinking. It was good to be able to shrug off the dark depressions of the past few days.

There was a great expectancy and excitement in the conference room. Reporters and photographers, television crews, radio journalists with their recorders slung over their shoulders. The television lights, the pall of smoke that hung above them in the light from the windows along the top of the back wall. There were many of the same faces that had been there on the Sunday night.

Bannerman pushed his way through the crowd and made sure of a seat at the front. There were only two or three seats unoccupied and several groups of journalists standing around in the aisle. A uniformed gendarme stood by the swing doors. A small, round figure emerged from the other bodies and plumped itself into the seat next to Bannerman. ‘Hello, Neil. Any idea what this might be about?’

Platt was flushed and perspiring as he nearly always seemed to be, his face eager and intent. His grey flannel suit was too large for him, as his dinner suit had been the other night. It was baggy and creased and fitted only where it touched. The grubby collar of his once-white shirt curled up at one side and the knot of his tie was too small and tight. Short stubby fingers fidgeted endlessly with the corners of his notebook. He seemed breathless. ‘I thought I might be late.’ Bannerman glanced at his watch. It was ten after eleven. He said nothing. ‘Well?’ Platt persisted.

‘Well, what?’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And?’ Platt was getting irritated.

‘And nothing. You’ll learn soon enough.’ Bannerman hesitated. ‘I’ll let you buy me a drink after. There are some things I think we should discuss.’ Without looking at him, Bannerman was aware of a change in Platt’s attitude. The little man had pushed himself back in his seat and was watching him closely.

‘What things?’

But Bannerman was saved from answering, for then the swing doors pushed open and the Ministerial entourage breezed in, a pin-striped civil servant flanking the Minister on either side. The Minister was a short, slightly-built man. Bannerman guessed he would be about sixty. He had a smooth, thin face, dark hair cut short and greying at the temples. His eyes, in the television lights, seemed black; wet sharp eyes that twinkled and shone as they raked quickly across the gathering of journalists. His suit, too, was black or very dark blue. He wore a white shirt and black tie. His clothes were well-cut to fit him and he gave the impression of being dapper rather than elegant.

He sat himself centrally behind the rostrum, and Bannerman was annoyed that he was unable to see the man’s hands. The things a man did with his hands were often a good indication of what might be going on in his mind. His face was quite expressionless and would give away nothing. The pin-striped creature on his right hand sat beside him while the other remained standing. There was a moment’s hesitation as the remaining seats were filled. Reporters without seats stood or sat in the aisles.

The civil servant who had remained standing cleared his throat and began in French. He spoke for less than a minute in short, rapid bursts. Then he paused and said in English, ‘Good morning gentlemen. I am happy you could attend. The Minister regrets that it has been necessary to call this conference of the press. He wishes to make a brief statement regarding the unhappy events of Sunday past. His statement will be delivered in both French and English. There will be no questions. Copies of his statement have been prepared in both languages and will be available immediately after the conference. Thank you. Minister...’ He opened his hand as a sign for the Minister to begin, and sat down.

The Minister stood up quickly, producing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and slipping them on with a single easy movement. His voice was unexpectedly deep for so small a man. It was a smooth, persuasive voice, even if you could not understand the words. Bannerman watched him carefully, but there was nothing to be learned. He was reading from a typewritten statement on the bench in front of him, head bowed, spectacles perched about halfway down his long nose. His hands were hidden behind his back. He finished the statement amid a buzz of incredulous voices and he looked up and smiled reassuringly, raising one hand to indicate silence. His manner was confident, dominating, and the buzz died away.

Platt was squirming excitedly beside Bannerman, glancing first at his notes, then at the Minister and finally at Bannerman. The Minister began again in English. Bannerman did not bother to take notes. He knew what would be said and anyway, the text would be available afterwards. He lit a cigar as the Minister spoke. ‘I have been advised by the Judicial Police... no evidence to suggest... after close consultation with the British Government... who are in complete agreement... regretted that the press should have made such an issue of this drawing... mentally disturbed... all parties are in no doubt... full and frank discussions... decision... the case has been closed. Thank you, gentlemen, for your patience.’

He withdrew his glasses and sat down. Still no indication of what kind of pressure the man had been under. Just a cold efficiency. He gathered his papers and all three men stood up. He smiled and nodded towards the journalists, and the entourage climbed down from the rostrum and headed for the doors. A number of journalists were already on their feet and the Minister was engulfed by bodies and questions. The single gendarme was hopelessly outnumbered, and the two pin-stripes, tempers frayed, were shouting for a way to be cleared. It was strange eruption of journalistic instinct and aggression. The whole thing stank of cover-up and they knew it. They knew, too, that there was not a hope in hell of getting the Minister to add anything to his statement, but it was necessary to make the effort. News desks would ask. And the scene would look good on the television screens. Minister for the Interior mobbed by pressmen following controversial statement closing the case on the Slater/Gryffe murders.

Bannerman could see one of the TV reporters in the thick of it, his microphone thrust threateningly towards the Minister, the double humps of the camera. The flashing of electronic flash units gave the whole scene a flickering unreality. There was a brief glimpse of the Minister’s face, tight and grey, angry, perhaps frightened. His head was bowed slightly and then he was shaking it and raising his hand, and then he was gone from view.

There must have been about fifty media people crammed in the doorway. A number of others were hanging back, realising that there was little point. The strange thing was that no-one had moved until the Minister had actually finished speaking and was on his way out. No-one had spoken. There had been no questions. The reactions had been delayed, perhaps they had found it difficult to believe what they were hearing. Bannerman had remained seated, pulling thoughtfully on his cigar. Oddly enough, Platt had not moved from his side, though Bannerman sensed that it had been Platt’s instinct to join the melée. He could feel the man’s impatience. He pushed himself out of his seat and leaned over the rostrum to lift off two English copies of the Minister’s statement. He sat down again and handed one to Platt.

There were a number of gendarmes in the doorway now and in the corridor outside. Voices raised in anger. A baton was used and someone yelped. Then the Minister was gone. Platt could no longer contain his impatience. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

Bannerman nodded slowly, ‘More or less.’

Platt stared at him, his face flushed with excitement. ‘But how...?’

‘How about that drink?’

The big clock on the wall behind the counter at the Café Auguste showed eleven forty-five. The press conference had lasted a remarkably short time. It had seemed longer. And the walk from the offices of the Judicial Police to the café in the Boulevard de Waterloo had taken only a few minutes.

Platt wore a battered old checked hat well back on his head, and a dark blue Burberry that had seen better days. He sat uncomfortably in a chair opposite Bannerman and began chewing dirty fingernails. Bannerman infuriated him. He had said nothing during their walk from the Rue des Quatre Bras and now he was toying abstractly with the remains of his cigar. No doubt he would say what he had to say in his own good time. But Platt did not have time. His second edition deadline was pressing. By now his news desk would know about the Minister’s statement from other sources. There had probably been bulletins on the radio already. He was going to get his ear chewed when he finally called in. Jacques approached their table and nodded at Bannerman. ‘Monsieur?’

‘Two whiskies.’

‘I am sorry, Monsieur, it is forbidden to sell spirits in cafés.’

Bannerman raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘But you served me whisky last night.’

Jacques permitted himself a stiff smile. It did not suit him. ‘Last night, Monsieur, you were drinking with the Inspector. Today you are not.’

Bannerman looked at Platt. ‘Beer?’ The other nodded, a smile dawning on his fat lips. ‘Two beers.’

‘Thank you, Monsieur. I am sorry, Monsieur.’

Platt watched Jacques go and then he smiled more broadly. ‘So you were drinking with the Inspector last night. Du Maurier?’ Bannerman made no reply, which Platt took to mean yes. ‘And that’s how you knew what the Minister would say today. And what else did the Inspector tell you?’

Bannerman sat staring at the chewed end of his cigar. He was annoyed that Platt should have discovered so easily that he was getting information from du Maurier. Finally he looked up and said in a low voice, ‘Quite a bit, Platt, quite a bit.’ Then he leaned forward on the table. ‘But that’s confidential, you understand?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You’re being too damned clever for your own good, Platt. You know nothing except that a policeman tipped me off that the Minister for the Interior was going to announce that the case had been closed. Hardly headline news.’ He paused. ‘The only reason that I’m talking to you at all is because I need someone who knows this city and the people who make it tick.’

‘In return for...?’

‘A share of the story. If I can make it stand up.’ He sat back as Jacques delivered the beers. Platt was containing himself with difficulty. He took a gulp of beer and waited for Bannerman to go on. But Bannerman said nothing, enjoying the other’s discomfort.

‘Well?’ Platt barked. He was like a dog anticipating walkies.

‘Well what?’

‘What’s the story?’

‘Ah, well, that’s between me and me.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Platt grabbed his glass, spilling beer on the table, and half-emptied it. ‘What do you mean, between you and you?’ he spluttered, glancing anxiously at the clock.

Bannerman lifted his beer and took several long, slow pulls. He had regained the upper hand. ‘When’s your edition time?’ he asked.

Platt’s face was a mixture of misery and frustration. ‘Twelve,’ he said and glanced again at the clock. It was ten to twelve.

‘I’ll make it brief, then,’ Bannerman said. But he was in no hurry. He took out a cigar, peeled off the cellophane, part of the ritual of his smoking habit, and got it lit and smoking well. Finally he said, ‘You work in the dark until I start putting things together. I will need certain information on certain individuals. The facilities you have here and your knowledge of Brussels could save me a great deal of time. If and when the story stands up I’ll consider sharing it with you — if you have contributed anything of value.

Platt glared at him angrily. ‘What kind of deal is that?’

‘The only kind of deal I’m prepared to make. If I levelled with you, what would there be to prevent you from jumping me on publication? It’s not that I don’t trust you personally, you understand. I make a habit of not trusting anyone.’

‘You’ve got a bloody nerve. Suppose I provide you with all this information.’ He glanced again at the clock. ‘What’s to stop you from forgetting to let me in on all your little secrets. I’m supposed to trust you I take it?’

Bannerman smiled. ‘I don’t know anyone else I would rather trust.’

Platt gulped down some more beer then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His hat seemed to have slipped even further back on his head. ‘No deal,’ he said emphatically.

Bannerman stood up. ‘Be seeing you.’

‘No, hold on! Wait a minute!’ The reporter was lost in an agony of indecision and the imminence of his midday deadline. ‘Sit down, for Christ’s sake.’ Bannerman sat down. ‘All right. Okay. You’re a bastard, Bannerman. You really know how to screw a guy.’ He hesitated and stole yet another glance at the clock. It was now two minutes before twelve.

Bannerman drew on his cigar. ‘You’re going to hold up your second edition.’

‘Get on with it!’

‘All right. I want to know all about a man called René Jansen. Anything and everything you can get. Personal life, business interests. Also a man called Michel Lapointe. Give me a call first thing tomorrow at the IPC building.’

Platt was confused, curious, but also conscious of the time, anticipating the fury of his news editor. He swilled the last of his beer and stood up. He looked hard at Bannerman, nodded curtly and hurried off to find a telephone. Bannerman finished his beer slowly, stubbed his cigar in the ashtray then settled up with Jacques.

When he stepped out into the boulevard the sun was no longer shining. Dark clouds had rolled in from the east, heavy with the threat of more snow.

II

Mademoiselle Ricain looked up from her typing and smiled primly when Bannerman came in. Bannerman wondered what it was she always seemed to be typing. Palin was slumped at his desk, still with his coat on, going through his shorthand notes. He had not been at the Rue des Quatres Bras and must just have got in from the midday press conference at the Salle de Presse. Palin glanced up when he came in, then buried his head again in his notes. Bannerman sat down and threw his notebook on the desk.

‘Your editor telephoned,’ Mademoiselle Ricain said. ‘Just a few minutes ago, from the airport. His flight had been delayed and he said for you not to expect him before one.’

Bannerman looked at his watch. It was a little after twelve thirty. ‘Fine. Thank you.’ He went through his pockets, not finding what he was looking for. ‘Damn. I seem to have forgotten to get cigars. I’m sorry, Mademoiselle, do you think you could...’

‘Of course,’ she said and stood up, apparently happy to run an errand for him. ‘There’s a place just across the road. What brand?’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. A fistful of the best they’ve got.’ He drew out a thousand franc note. ‘Thanks,’ he said. She took the note, smiled again, still primly, and breezed past him. She was wearing perfume today, he noticed, and frowned a little.

He sat for a full minute after she had left and then took out a cigar and lit it. Palin looked up, hesitated, then said, ‘I thought you’d run out.’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘I never run out. I just thought that what we have to say should be for our ears only.’

Palin pushed himself back in his seat and looked at Bannerman coldly. His face was hard, the hint of apprehension in his eyes and a reluctance to meet his full on. ‘And what could we possibly have to talk about?’ He stuck a match in the corner of his mouth and began chewing it. Bannerman waited, to allow Palin’s apprehension to worry him a little more.

Then he said, ‘About the phone call you made to a certain René Jansen yesterday.’ Palin paled visibly and Bannerman knew he was on the right track. ‘At least, I presume it was a phone call. He wouldn’t have seen you personally.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

Bannerman went on, with the same studied calm, ‘I don’t know if it’s possible to see that you never work for another newspaper again, but I’ll make damn sure your editor is in full possession of the facts. I can imagine what his reaction will be. As for the union, well, they’re not quite as predictable, but I would think there’s a good chance you’ll be expelled. And then there’s the Judicial Police. I’m not certain, but it’s quite possible that you’ve actually broken the law.’

There was a greyness now about the skin of Palin’s face. He was silent for a very long time. Then, ‘You can’t prove a thing.’ Not even a denial. Bannerman kept his anger, his contempt, in check. He drew casually on his cigar.

‘Maybe, maybe not. But even if I can’t there are other factors to consider. You and I both know that Slater was blackmailing Gryffe.’ There was nothing in Palin’s face to give away what he was thinking. Did he know? He switched the matchstick to the other corner of his mouth and said nothing. Bannerman went on, ‘The way I read it, Jansen and Lapointe were involved in some way.’ Still no reaction. ‘Someone killed Slater and Gryffe. I don’t know enough to know who it was, but it is not unreasonable to assume, on the basis of my earlier assumption, that Jansen or Lapointe or both, might also have been involved in that.

‘As I say, I don’t know. Maybe you know more than I do. Whatever, you know something. You knew enough to know that Jansen — or was it Lapointe? — might have been interested in a folder of cuttings that Slater had compiled on them. What were you after? Money? No matter. Let us just suppose that one or both were involved in the murders, where does that leave you?’

Palin folded. His face crumpled and he leaned forward on the desk, dropping his head into his hands. Bannerman watched him with disgust. What made a man with such obvious intelligence and ability fall so low? The drink, the bitterness, his final stupidity were only symptoms. But he did not dwell on it. He was distracted by the muffled sobs and felt sick in the pit of his stomach. Yet there was no pity. Palin looked up, his face smeared with tears, a miserable, pathetic figure of a man who must have been existing on the brink of a break-down such as this for long enough. He reached for his hip-flask and unsteady fingers unscrewed the top which fell and rolled away across the top of the desk.

The neck of the flask disappeared between his lips while he sucked in strength to face the next minutes. It was always to this he would turn for comfort. He slapped the flask down on the desk and looked wretchedly at Bannerman. ‘I never thought,’ he said, his voice breaking somewhere in the back of his throat. ‘I really don’t know anything. I knew that Slater had something on Gryffe. I’d known for some time. Just little things I picked up. The tail end of telephone conversations, the file he had been collecting.’ He stopped to take another pull at the flask. ‘Then I found the cuttings on Jansen and Lapointe. I reckoned he must have had something on all three. God knows what. Believe me, I really don’t know. I thought it was for a story. Something gutsy. I never even thought of blackmail until you said it just now.’ He heaved himself out of his chair and turned away towards the window. ‘It just never occurred to me.’

Bannerman rolled his cigar between thumb and forefinger. ‘Just what did you hope to gain by tipping off Jansen or Lapointe about the cuttings?’

Palin looked back. ‘It was Jansen,’ he said. ‘I thought, I thought he might pay for the information.’

‘And did he?’

‘Not exactly. He said he would need proof first. That he would get in touch after.’

‘And you agreed?’ Bannerman could not believe that Palin could have been so foolish. The man, or what was left of him, returned to his desk and got going on the flask again. A little of the liquor crept out at the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

‘What you said yesterday, about my appointment here being a short-term calculated risk. You were a damn sight closer than you thought. I...’ he choked on it. ‘I’ve been recalled. Next month. Second man on the night news desk in London. After all these years. Shoved to the side. Put out to pasture. Sit like a stookie through the early hours. Desk-bound. Paperwork. A glorified nothing. A has-been with a title. And London. I don’t want to go back to London. Some grim bed-sitter that smells of stale cooking. I’d rather die. When you’ve been on the road all your life..He looked up. ‘Someday you’ll know it, too. When they don’t want you any more, and they stick you in a corner out of the way and wait for you to retire or die. Yes, that’s the only consolation, isn’t it? That someday, even smart bastards like you are put out to grass.’

The alcohol was reviving his aggression. The flask was now empty and he went into a drawer and pulled out an unopened bottle of whisky. He twisted off the cap and put the bottle to his lips and sucked it freely. ‘Yeah, even bastards like you.’

‘Only you won’t be around to see it.’

‘I’m not that old, sonny, and you’re no bloody chicken. Don’t count on it.’ He was swaying a little now, and Bannerman guessed there must have been another session earlier in the morning. Palin suddenly looked at him sharply. ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you? I mean, you couldn’t prove it, could you? You don’t even know that I made that phone call except that I’m telling you. Yah.’

Bannerman sighed and stood up. ‘No, I’m not going to tell anyone. You’re not worth the trouble. But that’s only my point of view. Maybe Jansen reckons you’re worth the trouble. Maybe he’ll send someone looking for you, like he sent someone up here last night.’

The fear returned to Palin’s eyes. ‘They wouldn’t... I don’t even know anything.’

Bannerman gripped his cigar between his teeth and advanced on the other man. ‘I hope they do,’ he said. ‘I hope they put a hole in your head so that maybe some brains could leak in.’ He put his cigar on the edge of the desk and with a tightly clenched fist hit Palin as hard as he could, aiming for the centre of his face. The drunk staggered back and crashed down over his chair, blood spurting from his nose and mouth. Bannerman held his knuckles which hurt more than he thought they would. ‘That’s for last night,’ he said in a voice that sounded strange even to himself. He opened his hand painfully and looked at the grazing. The knuckles would swell over the next few hours. Palin was trying to sit up. His face was a mess and he was making a strange gurgling noise. All the anger drained from Bannerman as he looked at him, and he regretted having hit him. You always think it will make you feel better, but it doesn’t.

He leaned over and helped Palin up, righting the chair and pulling him into it. As he lifted his cigar there was a knock at the door and it opened and Tait stood looking in at them. ‘Jesus!’

Another figure appeared behind him. It was Mademoiselle Ricain, clutching a fistful of cigars. Her mouth fell open and then her eyes lit on the cigar clamped between Bannerman’s teeth.

The day had not fulfilled its early promise. Snow was falling. This time, there was a wind to drive it in, and it was not a wet snow. It would lie, and if it snowed for some hours it would lie deeply. People in the street retreated into their winter shells, hats, coats, scarves, boots, heads bowed, tilted against the wind.

Bannerman and Tait could see them passing outside the window from where they sat in a small bistro in the Rue des Patriotes, less than half a mile from the Berlaymont, and just round the corner from the Sacré Coeur church in the Rue le Correge. Hams, gourd-shaped cheeses, sausages and chitterlings hung from the ceiling, and in the window there were enormous flat loaves. It was a quiet, dark place. There were a few others seated at the half-dozen tables with their fresh, checked table cloths.

They had not intended to eat as there had been so little time. But Tait had spotted the bistro as they drove through the quiet streets trying to find the church where the service was to be held. He had said very little since they left the International Press Centre. He ordered for both of them after glancing at a menu handed him by a wizened old man in shirt sleeves and a pair of baggy, black trousers. Fillet of veal with lentils and a bottle of Moselle. Bannerman watched him light a cigarette. He was obviously still in a state of great agitation and turned his eyes on the reporter. He tightened his mouth. ‘I ought to sack you on the spot,’ he said suddenly. Bannerman said nothing. ‘Don’t you care?’ Tait seemed quite exasperated.

‘Not particularly. I could survive without you or the Post. And besides, I think the union might have something to say about it.’

Tait blew out his cheeks. ‘Oh, and when did you start allowing the union to fight your battles for you?’

Bannerman shrugged. ‘The union has a habit of championing causes whether anyone wants it or not.’

Tait puffed at his cigarette and thought about it for a while. ‘Okay, tell me.’

‘He’s a drunk, half demented. His paper’s pulling him out of here, promoting him sideways so he can die quietly in some corner somewhere where he won’t be an embarrassment to them. He knew I was interested in a man called René Jansen, a man on whom Slater had kept a file. So the bastard tipped him off with the foolish idea that he might get some money out of it. I clocked him.’

Tait was frowning. ‘Jansen... I know the name.’ He seemed to have forgotten about Palin.

‘Yes, it rang a bell with me too. A power in the Belgian business world, it seems. A man with money and influence.’

‘And why were you interested in him?’

Much as he disliked it, Bannerman told him. About the folders of cuttings and the theft of them, his conversations with du Maurier, what Palin had told him. But he left out his deal with Platt.

‘Just what are you trying to do to this paper,’ Tait barked. ‘Blackmail! Oh, come on. How the hell do you think that would look for the Post?’

Bannerman had expected it, but he was still angry. ‘If it’s true then people ought to know it. They also ought to know who killed Slater and Gryffe and why people in high places are trying to stop us from finding out. I take it you do know about this morning’s statement by the Minister for the Interior?’

‘Of course.’ How could he have known? He would still have been in flight when the statement was being made.

‘Since when?’

‘Since last night. I was informed of the situation, naturally, since it was one of our people that was involved. On the understanding we adhered to the embargo.’

‘And you agreed?’

‘Naturally.’ Tait was getting uncomfortable.

‘And, of course, it never occurred to you to put me in the picture.’

‘You knew already.’

‘No thanks to you.’

The fencing stopped as the old waiter, probably chef and proprietor as well, brought their veal and their wine. Bannerman checked the time. They would have to make it quick. The funeral service began in less than twenty minutes. Tait poured the wine in silence and they began eating. Neither man spoke throughout the meal, and it seemed odd to the old man, now behind the bar, that two men should eat together and say nothing. They had been so animated earlier.

Tait finished first and poured the last of the Moselle into his glass. He lit another cigarette and looked coldly at Bannerman. ‘I want you off this story, now,’ he said quietly. ‘Whatever I may think, as a newspaper man, as an editor there are other considerations.’

Bannerman ate on without looking up. When he finished, he washed down the last of his wine and leaned back to light a cigar. He said without a trace of emotion, ‘If you are prepared to allow other considerations to take priority over the basic principles of good journalism, then in my very humble opinion that makes you a pretty duff editor.’

Tait stubbed his half-smoked cigarette out angrily in the ashtray and stood up. ‘I don’t have to take that from you or anyone else, Bannerman. I’m telling you that you are off the story. You can fly back with me tonight.’

‘Goodbye,’ Bannerman said, his face still impassive.

‘What do you mean, goodbye?’

‘I mean I’ve just resigned.’

‘Like hell you have. You’ve got a contract of employment that requires you to give me three months’ notice.’

‘Stuff your contract of employment.’

Tait’s face had gone white. His hands were trembling at his sides. The old waiter was watching them with interest and a couple of workmen at a nearby table turned their heads. Tait became aware of them and sat down again. Bannerman leaned forward now and said in a low voice. ‘Now get this, Tait. No bastard’s ever pushed me around and you’re not going to be the first. Whatever Slater may have done, however that may tarnish the image of the Post, it’s going to look a hell of a lot better for the paper if it comes out first with the full story. Make no mistake, if you force me to carry through my resignation, it won’t stop me going after the story and I can assure you, the Post will be the last paper to get it. There are plenty of other papers both in Scotland and in Fleet Street that would pay plenty for it and just love to rub your face in the dirt.’

Tait was ashen, and just for a second, Bannerman thought he was going to hit him. Then suddenly he seemed to go quite limp. He was beaten and he knew it. But his pride was sticking in his throat. He spoke in a voice that was barely a whisper. ‘All right, Bannerman. You go on with the story. And when you deliver, if you deliver, then we’ll run it. Then you can empty your desk and get out. You have no future with this paper and, if I have anything to do with it, any other paper.’

Bannerman nodded. ‘One other thing,’ he said. ‘Slater’s daughter...’

Tait interrupted. ‘Whatever you may think of me, Bannerman...’ He stopped himself. ‘We are making arrangements for the child to receive the best possible care back in Scotland. Until the arrangements are made she will be staying where she is in Brussels. A few days at the most.’ He looked at his watch. It was almost two. ‘We had better go. I shall walk round to the church. You can pick up the bill.’ He stood up abruptly and walked stiffly to the door, vanishing through it, out into the snow.

Bannerman sat on, chewing his cigar gently. It had been inevitable really, and he had known the first day Tait arrived that his days with the Post were numbered. He thought of it with only a little sadness. And yet, still there were doubts. Was the principle involved really that important? Of course, it was. He knew it. And yet... ‘Garçon! L’addition.’

III

It was many years since Bannerman had stood at a graveside. It seemed such an anachronism in these modern days of conveyor-belt cremation. There was something mediaeval, almost primitive, about it. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. The priest was a small man, bald, silver threads of hair plastered sparsely across his pate. His gown flapped in the wind, a flash of purple in the lining. His face was pink, stung by the snow. He read from a Bible whose pages were wet and he laid one of his big hands across the lower half to stop the pages from lifting in the wind.

Around the grave stood a few mourners, more faces pink and solemn, pressmen with whom Slater had worked. The black of their suits and coats and ties, under the black of the umbrellas, stark and all the blacker for the backdrop of white. Hovering at a more discreet distance were a number of reporters covering the funeral for their papers. A television crew was sheltering beneath a knot of bowed trees, the cameraman using a long lens. It would look good on film. It was a funeral symbolic of death. It had good imagery. If you were thin, drawn, tense and artistic it might do something for you. If you were someone who had known the man, had not particularly liked him and were standing in the cold out of a sense of duty you got little more out of it than cold feet, and maybe a lingering depression if you cared at all. If you were here to report it, you would go first to buy a drink and then you would write fine words about a man you never knew before you dredged up the clichés suitable to express your contrived indignation at the way the case had been handled by the Judicial Police. If you were the priest, then you were doing God’s work, and if you were Slater you were dead and none of it could touch you.

Tait shuffled impatiently beside Bannerman as the coffin was lowered into the hole that had been dug for it. He had not spoken a word during the drive from the Sacré Coeur to the Cimetière de Bruxelles, smoking one cigarette after the other. The dreary, almost pagan, ritual of the mass had done nothing to improve his humour.

Bannerman no longer cared. He was watching Marie-Ange Piard who stood at the opposite side of the grave. She was wearing a three-quarter length black dress beneath a black cape and wide-brimmed black hat with the obligatory black veil. Black patent leather fashion boots completed the outfit. You could not see her face behind the veil, and so you could not tell how she felt about it. But she did not have the bearing of a woman in mourning. You might even have thought she was bored. She stood very still and very upright and if you could have seen her face it would probably have been passive, or perhaps bleak. Bannerman could not imagine that such a woman would shed tears for anyone. He was quite certain that she had not loved Slater and yet she had been his lover. The curiousness of that relationship came back to him. He had not thought about her at all since Slater’s death, and now for the first time it worried him. She was another ill-fitting piece in this strange jigsaw.

Sally stood beside her in a long, dark coat and beret. She had glanced towards him once or twice, but had not approached him either at the church or the cemetery. Perhaps she had sensed the antagonism between Bannerman and the man at his side and had decided to stay at arm’s length. Or maybe she was simply struck by some sense of occasion and did not feel it would be right to approach him.

The priest uttered his final words as he threw a handful of dirt at the coffin. Most of it got whipped away in the wind. The heavier particles rattled on the wood. Then the mourners and the rest abandoned the graveside to the diggers who had skulked among the gravestones beyond the path like lepers. And as the little group trod through the snow towards the gates they heard the first shovelsful of earth clatter on the coffin. Bannerman became aware of Marie-Ange walking at his side. Tait was two or three yards ahead. ‘I did not expect to see you here, Mr. Bannerman,’ she said. She pulled back her veil to reveal a pale, quizzical face.

‘They do a nice line in funerals. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.’

She sighed. ‘How irreverent. You could become either very boring or very interesting.’

Bannerman let that one pass, then he asked, ‘Why did you bother?’

‘With what?’

‘The funeral.’

‘Oh,’ she said, looking away as though she might have lost interest, ‘one has to keep up appearances. And anyway, I was sure you would be here.’

‘I thought you were surprised to see me.’

‘That was just a line. We never finished our conversation the other night. You were very rude.’

The mourners had reached the gates now and they stood in little groups talking solemnly. Bannerman saw Sally watching him from a distance. Tait was scuffing his feet impatiently in the snow by the car. ‘Does it mean nothing to you?’ Bannerman asked Marie-Ange. She looked surprised.

‘Does what mean nothing to me? Really, Mr. Bannerman, you are full of such strange questions.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything that Slater is dead?’ he said patiently.

‘But of course. Death is always so distasteful. Timothy and I had an understanding, a little affection perhaps. Poor Timothy, I’m afraid he took it all a little too seriously. Naturally, I regret that he should have died in the manner he did.’

‘Any idea why someone should want to kill him?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘I understand the police have satisfied themselves that he and the man Gryffe shot each other.’

‘Oh, no,’ Bannerman said. ‘That is simply a curtain of convenience that those in power have drawn on the affair.’

‘But why on earth should they wish to do that?’

‘I have no idea. One thing is quite clear, though. Slater and Gryffe were murdered.’ He watched closely for any reaction. Was there a slight darkening of her face? But the moment was past too quickly to be sure.

‘How interesting.’

‘I suppose you have no idea what Slater and Gryffe were discussing that evening at the party?’

She smiled and opened her handbag, taking out a small memo pad and a pen. ‘None,’ she said and when she had scribbled something on the pad she tore off the top sheet and handed it to him. ‘I take it you are playing detective. And I do so love mysteries. When you have a free evening call me at this number. We can get together and you can tell me all about it.’ Bannerman folded the paper into his top pocket without looking at it. He pushed his hands into his pockets and smiled a little.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I once knew a union official. Transport and General. He started out by collecting dues from members in the days before they got those sort of things better organised, and he spent his time tramping around Glasgow visiting factories and works and depots. In those days, too, the union counted the city gravediggers among its number. And every Friday he went round all the cemeteries collecting from the gravediggers. He used to tell the story of one wet Friday when he went to a cemetery on the north side of the city. The man he wanted was out digging a grave and because it was raining, the man had placed the lids of tea chests across the part of the grave he had already dug to keep it dry. He was underneath when my friend approached and called out for him. “I’m down here,” the gravedigger said, and my friend unwittingly stepped on the lids. Of course, he crashed through them, down into the grave, on top of the digger, into the mud and the wet. He was wearing his best suit, too.’ He paused. ‘Every time he told the story, my friend would say “I must be the only union official in history who actually followed a member into the grave to collect his dues”.’

Marie-Ange stared at him, puzzled. But this time, there was a definite darkening of the skin round her cheeks. ‘Is there supposed to be a moral in that?’ she asked.

Bannerman shrugged. ‘Not really. Just an amusing story. It seemed to suit the occasion.’ He lit a cigar, and said through the smoke. ‘I just wonder who will follow Slater and Gryffe, or if this...’ he waved an arm vaguely around him, ‘...is the end of it.’ She smiled and the moment was past, leaving Bannerman as uncertain as before about what this woman knew, if anything. ‘I’ll call you,’ he said.

‘Make it soon.’ She turned and walked briskly away towards a black limousine parked further along the line of cars.

Bannerman watched her go and thought he was probably wasting his time. Sally touched his arm and he turned, a little startled, for he had not heard her approach. She turned her eyes in the direction of Marie-Ange’s car. ‘Interested?’ she asked.

Bannerman grinned and shook his head. ‘No.’

‘I’m glad.’ She looked down, embarrassed. Then, ‘Is seven thirty alright? For going to see the child.’

‘Sure. I’ll pick you up.’

‘No, I’ll come to the Rue de Commerce. Around seven.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Incidentally, I forgot to give you my key for the flat last night.’

‘Keep it.’ He looked at his watch then glanced across at Tait still standing by the car. ‘I’ll have to go.’

‘Who is he?’

‘My editor. I’m not exactly his golden boy at the moment. I’ll see you at seven.’

In the car Tait took out a folded foolscap envelope and handed it to Bannerman. ‘I almost forgot,’ he said coldly. ‘The stuff you wanted on Gryffe.’ Bannerman took it, and looked inside at the photostat sheets. There were about two dozen. Copies of the various obituary pieces on Gryffe that had appeared in the important British papers, plus a selection of the cuttings from the Post’s obit, file on him. He chucked the envelope into the back seat. ‘You can drop me at the airport,’ Tait said. ‘I’m catching a flight to London tonight. I’ll be back in Glasgow the day after tomorrow. I may require you to put the child on a plane. I’ll be in touch.’ With that he lit another cigarette.

Bannerman sat for a few moments then started the car, and as he pulled away from the kerbside, he saw a taxi in his rear-view mirror pull out from the line of cars behind him. He did not notice the face of the passenger in the back seat. If he had, would he have recognised it as the face he had passed in the Rue de Commerce the day after the killings? It is doubtful, since he only had a glimpse of that face, and there was no particular reason why he should remember it. He had not paid any attention to the taxi that sat outside the church during the mass and then again at the cemetery, though its passenger had never stepped out. There was no reason why he should. The streets were full of taxis. Later it would occur to him and he would wonder bitterly why he had not thought of it before. These were things he should have noticed.

For Kale, drawn and fretful in the back of the taxi, none of this had been easy. There had been the problem of language, the difficulty of making the driver understand. But money was a language all men understood, though Kale was only too aware that money would not erase the driver’s memory. Kale had a face that most men remembered. These were risks that he would never have taken before. They tortured him. They were the twisting of the knife.

An inch of ash fell from the end of his cigarette and burned a tiny hole in his coat. He was unaware of it and drew more smoke into his lungs.

The driver caught sight of Kale’s face in the mirror and felt a slight chill run through him. He did not like this fare. If it hadn’t been for the money... Perhaps when he had finished the job he would go to the police. But what could he say? That an Englishman with a face that put a chill through him had paid him over the odds to run around after a blue Volkswagen? More than likely they would laugh at him. Was he in the habit of running to the police every time he took a dislike to the face of a passenger? What was it about this face whose still, dark eyes stared out from the back seat? What could he tell them? He was being silly, and yet he could not shake himself free of the disquiet that had grown in him. He turned his attention to the road and the Volkswagen ahead of him.

IV

The office was empty when Bannerman got back to the IPC building. It was just after five and already it was dark outside. He was frustrated and tense. In twenty-four hours he had got exactly nowhere. The office was warm and stuffy and he threw open one of the windows, allowing a gust of cold air to sweep in carrying with it the odd flake of snow that landed on the sill to melt almost at once. At this time the previous night he had been sitting with du Maurier in the Café Auguste. What had he achieved since then? He had been attacked here in this office, punched a colleague in the face, spoken with Platt, fallen out with his editor and been to a funeral. But he had achieved nothing.

He turned from the window and found a note on his desk from Mademoiselle Ricain. Inspector du Maurier had phoned twice. There was a number to call back. It was the same number the Inspector had given him the other day. There was also an invitation to the British Press correspondents to attend a dinner at a Brussels restaurant that night when Her Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs would announce the arrangements for shipping Gryffe’s body back to London for a State Funeral. There was an embargo on it until ten a.m. tomorrow when an official Government statement would be put out on the wires. Dress would be informal.

Ironically, the invitation was addressed to Timothy Slater Esq., Edinburgh Post EEC Correspondent. Bannerman chucked it disgustedly in the bin. Yet another Government exercise in public relations. The tragedy was that their attempts to smooth over the affair would probably be successful. Most pressmen were susceptible to good food and drink and the gentle persuasions of such an arch diplomat as the Foreign Secretary. After all, most of them were in the same boat as Kearney and Willis, a boat which they freely admitted they did not want to rock. It was the outsiders, the staffmen sent over from London to cover that morning’s press conference, who would remain stubbornly unconvinced, who would ask the awkward questions. But it was unlikely that any of them would stay long enough in Brussels.

Bannerman sat down and examined his swollen knuckles. The hand had stiffened up. He wondered what Palin would do now, where he had gone. Was he getting drunk somewhere? And Mademoiselle Ricain. She would not understand. The world was filled with people who would not understand, who would never understand. Bannerman took out the envelope with the photostats on Gryffe, lit a cigar and began reading his way laboriously through them.

It took him half an hour to read them all twice. There was no sudden revelation, no sudden understanding of what had happened or why. Just the bare bones of a man’s life. Not much more than he had known already from the file of cuttings Slater had compiled.

Gryffe had been forty-four years old when he died. Born in a London suburb, the son of a wealthy lawyer, he had been educated at a lesser-known public school before going on to academic distinction and an honours degree in political science at Cambridge. His background did not suggest that his politics would fall on the side they did.

It was while at Cambridge that he first became involved in the youth movement of the Party he would later represent, initially in the Commons and then in Government. He was an enthusiastic convert at first, but broke with politics for a while after leaving University to take up a lucrative job as a junior executive with a US-based company that built tractors in seventeen countries. During his ten years with the company he travelled widely, rising quickly in the firm, latterly establishing new plants in a number of Third World African States.

At the age of thirty-three he had finally joined the Party with which he had flirted in his early twenties. A year later he was nominated as a Parliamentary candidate for a ‘safe’ Welsh constituency and was elected the following year with a majority of fifteen thousand. Almost from the start of his political career he had become the protégé of the Party’s ageing chairman and guiding light of the previous thirty years.

It had become obvious, even then, that he was destined for great things in the Party. He was appointed private secretary to the then Shadow Prime Minister. During the next five years he gained experience in a number of important positions before finally winning his coveted post as an Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, shortly after his Party won the General Election. However, within a year of that appointment, his mentor, Lord Armsdale, the Party Chairman, suffered a coronary and was forced to retire from active political life. Many political commentators had seemed convinced at that time, that Gryffe’s dramatic rise in the Party would come to an end. The now-retired Chairman, they hinted in their comment columns, had been the architect of his success. Without him to pull the strings that mattered Gryffe would slide back into obscurity. And yet Gryffe had confounded all their predictions, not only by hanging onto his post, but by consolidating it, extending his circle of influence, becoming a figure in the public eye. A populist, he seemed to have brought a breath of fresh air to the tarnished world of British politics — a grey world bereft of figures of colour and imagination.

Even the commentators appeared to have been converted, and within two years they were describing him as the natural successor to the Foreign Minister. Some even went so far as to predict that he might one day lead the Party itself — a future Prime Minister.

Bannerman rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He was left with a very hazy impression of the man. But it was an impression of a man not only of great ability, but of great cunning. A manipulator of men, of the media, who had climbed to political success on the back of the Party’s former Chairman and then shown he could probably have done it on his own.

It was now nearly six. Bannerman looked again at the note Mademoiselle Ricain had left for him, then picked up the phone. He dialled and leaned forward on his elbows listening to the monotonous series of single rings. This would be a direct line to du Maurier’s office.

He was about to give up when the receiver lifted at the other end and there was a moment’s silence. ‘Du Maurier.’

‘Bannerman. You were looking for me.’

‘Oui.’

‘I was at the funeral.’

‘Ah yes. I had forgotten.’ He sounded tired. ‘Can you meet me?’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘No, I’m going to see the child.’

‘Later then.’

‘Okay. At the Café Auguste?’

‘No. In the Place Poelaert. At the far end of the Rue Des Quatre Bras. At the far side of the Palais de Justice. It is quiet there.’

‘Can you not tell me on the phone?’

‘No. When can you be there?’

Bannerman thought for a moment. ‘Eleven?’

He heard du Maurier sigh. ‘All right. Eleven.’ The line went dead and Bannerman hung up. He swung round in his chair and saw the invitation to the Minister’s dinner lying crumpled in the bin. He lifted it out, smoothed it on the desk and stuffed it in his pocket.

Chapter Seven

I

The hospital was set back from the road and screened by trees and thick evergreen shrubbery behind a high stone wall. The road that ran round the side of the hill that overlooked this outlying suburb was narrow and treacherous in the snow. It was poorly-lit and on the left side there was a steep drop down to a disused railway line. Set in several acres of its own grounds, the hospital was one of several stone-built villas that clung obstinately to the hillside. This had once, perhaps, been an exclusive part of town, a retreat for the rich. Now the large ornately-carved stone gateposts were blackened and chipped. Heavy old wrought-iron gates were rusted, in need of paint, and hung lamely, opening onto driveways where weeds poked up through the light covering of snow beneath the trees.

From the road, most of the houses seemed to be in darkness. They might have been derelict. The only building that showed signs of life was the hospital, fragments of light shining from windows through the trees. There was the same seedy air about the gateway of the hospital that there was about the whole street, a quiet, decaying street that you seemed to come on unexpectedly as your car whined up the steep curve of the road from the housing estate below. A corner of the city forgotten by time.

The brightly polished brass plaque on the gate seemed out of place: HOPITAL DES ENFANTS. Very discreet. A residential clinic for mentally disturbed children. Bannerman swung the Volkswagen into the driveway and they wound up through the trees where the drive broadened in front of the house and levelled out across a terrace. From here you had a stunning view out over the city which lay swathed in cloud.

Thick flakes were still falling around them as Bannerman and Sally stepped out of the car. Half a dozen other cars were parked tight against the house, ledges of snow accumulating on the roofs. The house itself looked well cared for. Sand-blasters had restored the sandstone to its original honeycomb yellow, the window sashes and shutters a freshly-painted green. It was an impressive building with turrets at each of the four corners, and steep grey-slated roofs.

They climbed the steps to double swing doors and pushed them open into a bleak, tiled hallway. A nurse in a white, starched uniform was coming out of a room at the far end. She didn’t notice them at first, preoccupied with charts on a clipboard. Then she looked up and seemed momentarily surprised. She spoke a few words in French and Bannerman was surprised to hear Sally reply fluently in the same language. But, of course, if she taught English she must speak French. The nurse smiled and nodded and asked them to wait.

The two stood in the hall, scuffing their feet impatiently, both disinclined to make conversation. In the stillness of the house, the only sounds to reach them were distant voices and the muffled closing of doors. The place smelled of disinfectant and old age. Then there came the clatter of footsteps from the corridor that opened off to the right at the far end of the hall below the staircase. A man in a dark suit appeared and began towards them. He shook both their hands solemnly and addressed himself to Bannerman in English. ‘You’ve come to see little Tania. I am Doctor Mascoulin.’

‘Neil Bannerman. This is Sally...’

‘Yes, we’ve already met,’ said Mascoulin, and Bannerman glanced at Sally, a little taken aback. He had not known that she had been already. And he realised how little he really knew about her. ‘Some of the older children are still in the playroom. Perhaps you would like to observe her first. She has not integrated well, but maybe it is to be expected.’

He led them along the corridor from which he had emerged and opened a door about halfway along that led into a small observation room where there were six or seven seats. It was only about eight feet by four feet. The left hand wall was a one-way screen that let them observe the children without being seen. A half-light filtered through the screen from the playroom and they found themselves looking in on a large square room where eight or nine children were involved in various stages of play. The walls of the room were covered with paintings and drawings made, obviously, by the children themselves. There were various games spread out on a long, oblong table and two of the children sat on tubular steel chairs playing with a pile of wooden bricks. There were other pieces of apparatus and more chairs scattered about the floor, seemingly at random.

Tania sat alone on one of them, apparently watching the others, but without interest. Her hands were clasped in her lap and her face had a wooden, dispassionate look, distant, as though she were somewhere else. There was one adult in the room with them. A nurse in jeans and a white tee-shirt. She was encouraging the children in their activities and from time to time she would go and speak to Tania. But it was as though the child did not hear her. In the observation room they could not hear the children, or what the nurse was saying. Doctor Mascoulin said, ‘What we are doing here is employing an integrated team approach. One person, usually a nurse, will work with the children in the playroom and attempt to introduce various methods or approaches by which both she and we in the observation room can learn about the child. Of course, in here we normally have sessions where the parents are present and we can learn about the child from them also. Unfortunately, in the case of little Tania there are no parents and so it is much more difficult. Particularly in the light of recent and... er, regrettable, events. However,’ he turned and smiled at Sally, ‘the mademoiselle has proved most helpful already in this respect.’

The doctor spoke in a quiet, mechanical voice that Bannerman found irritating. The children might almost have been bacteria seen through a microscope, arousing only a professional interest. And yet it was possible that his clinical detachment, his cold professionalism, was simply a manifestation of his caring. It was too easy to judge people too quickly.

‘As you can see, Tania has not adapted to her environment in any way. Of course, this is to be expected to a certain extent. And there is the language barrier. We do not know how much French, if any, she understands. Naturally, the other children and the staff... well, French or perhaps Flemish is the native tongue. We cannot upset the routine for one child, though several of our nurses do speak English very well and have spent some time with the child. Individual attention. But, I’m afraid... there is really very little we can do for her here.’

Bannerman was looking at Sally who seemed intent on the children. He wondered again at her interest in Tania. It had not occurred to him that her feeling for the child might be more than that of an occasional minder. Had she been more than once? It was odd, he thought, how the child had affected them both in some ways.

‘...and the sooner she can be taken back to Scotland the better it will be for her,’ Mascoulin was saying. ‘I understand your paper is trying to get her placed in the Doctor George Brook Clinic in Edinburgh.’

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said. He had not known.

‘Doctor Brook has some interesting, if rather unusual, approaches in the treatment of autism. Of course, there is no general agreement on the treatment of autistic children...’

Bannerman had turned his gaze back to the child. She had not moved, nor, it seemed, had she even so much as blinked. Her eyes were dark, mysterious pools that gave no hint of what was going on behind them. Bannerman felt again the touch of her cold fingers on his cheek and he was disturbed by the affection that stirred in him. ‘What kind of future does a child like that have?’ he heard himself asking. And he turned to look at Mascoulin’s square, ugly face.

‘It is difficult to say. Only time will really tell. But there is a great danger in such cases that lack of response to treatment will lead eventually to confinement in a mental institution. There they tend to resort to drugs to maintain some sort of equilibrium. Many cases like this will eventually become schizophrenic.’ He scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘You see, autistic children grow up to become autistic adults. In bad cases, and where there is no-one else to look after them, they are unable to look after themselves. They are unpredictable and sometimes violent. There is little else that can be done. But only in extreme cases, of course.’

The session in the playroom was coming to a close. Another nurse came in and the children were led away. Tania was the last to go. The second nurse took her by the arm and the child followed, at first reluctantly, and then with that passive serenity that Bannerman had seen in her before. ‘She has a room of her own. She seems to like to be left by herself. Sometimes she draws, but never in the playroom, although we always provide pencils and paper there. She regards our attentions as... well, as an intrusion, I suppose.’

‘I’d like to see her,’ Bannerman said.

‘She might react.’

‘I know, I’ve seen it.’

Mascoulin shrugged. ‘There is no harm, I suppose. One just never knows. But only one of you. The mademoiselle can see her another time.’

Bannerman looked at Sally. She had said nothing since their arrival and now she seemed morose, moody. She nodded. ‘That’s okay,’ she said quietly.

The child’s head snapped round abruptly when the door opened. She was sitting at a small desk pushed up against the wall. It was covered with sheets of paper, and a small pencil was clutched in her hand. The weary, pained face of Christ looked down at her from a crucifix pinned to the naked white wall. The sheets on the bed were rumpled and untidy. An old darkwood dresser was pushed against the opposite wall. A faded and threadbare square of carpet covered blackpainted floorboards. It was an austere, functional room, like a cell.

The first thing that Bannerman noticed was the barred window that looked out from the first floor onto the driveway below and the city spread out beyond. Then he was drawn by her eyes.

In the first moment, before she recognised him, her eyebrows were puckered in towards the bridge of her nose and her eyes flared with anger. Almost immediately her forehead unfurrowed and her eyes again became those dark, placid pools. Mascoulin glanced at her to satisfy himself that there would be no tantrums. ‘I’ll leave you for a moment.’ He closed the door softly and Bannerman stood awkwardly, looking at the child. The silence was crushing, and he could hear his own breathing like the scraping of chalk on a blackboard.

The child remained motionless, half-turned in her chair, staring back at him. The seconds dragged interminably. ‘Hullo,’ he said at last, and his voice sounded weak and ineffectual. Still she made no movement, and he took two or three steps towards her and looked at the drawings spread on the table. Even though he had seen her drawing of the man in the house, he was startled by their excellence. Seldom had he seen so much expression conveyed in such simple lines, such movement or perspective, such accurately observed yet simply constructed detail. There were horses and riders, a dog, a bird in flight. ‘They’re beautiful,’ he said, and that, too, sounded inadequate, patronising.

She had turned her head so that she could watch him. What was she thinking? He crouched down suddenly, on an impulse, so that his eyes were on a level with hers, and took one of her hands. For a moment there was something on the tip of his tongue, something he had been going to say. But it vanished as quickly and he lost his grasp of what it was. Everything he felt about her, all the strange feelings that she awakened in him, were so elusive, so indefinable. He was at a loss, foundering in a sea of some unknown emotion, and he felt a sudden urge to take her in his arms and crush her to him. But he was hesitant and again the moment passed, leaving him confused.

He felt embarrassed without knowing why and lowered his head. He sighed lightly and felt the soft warmth of her small fingers in his hand. How could he explain it to her when he could not explain it to himself? He wanted to protect her, to keep her safe always from harm, like a father might feel for his daughter. An instinct foreign to him and yet so natural. But he was not equal to it. He raised his eyes and saw that she was smiling, a slight smile that showed in her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. There was a great serenity in her face that made its plainness almost beautiful. He squeezed her hand and stood up, still touched by embarrassment, but a little easier within himself. ‘I’ll come and see you again.’ But her hand clung obstinately to his and he felt her distress. ‘I must go.’

Still the hand clutched his, and then suddenly she seemed resigned to his leaving and her hand slipped away. He wanted to go, but his feet would not take him. Her face was turned upwards, looking at him with such sadness. He bent over and kissed her gently on the forehead, catching a glimpse of himself in a mirror on the wall opposite. He looked pale and tired, and he turned his eyes away from it. The kiss was a simple thing that seemed to come so easily and he was surprised by it. ‘I will come back,’ he heard himself saying. And then he felt the cold of the metal door handle in his hand and he was out in the corridor shutting the door, trembling a little.

Mascoulin was there and he was looking at him strangely. ‘She has a marvellous talent,’ the doctor was saying. They had walked the length of the corridor and were now on the stairs. ‘Children have such a capacity for affection, for love. With most autistic children it is something in which they are frustrated, as they are frustrated in so many other ways.’ Bannerman became aware of him almost for the first time. The doctor went on in the same tone of professional detachment which had irritated him earlier. Only now the words seemed more important than the way they were spoken. ‘Every child needs a love to return. Just a little love goes such a long way and is returned manyfold. Perhaps little Tania has missed out somewhere.’ Bannerman looked at the doctor. It was almost as though he had seen it all, had known what Bannerman had felt. Then he remembered the mirror on the wall beside the bed where he had caught a glimpse of himself as he stooped to kiss the child. He felt momentarily annoyed that he should have been snooped on. But the anger died quickly.

‘The mirror,’ he said. ‘You watched.’

‘We like to be able to keep an eye on the children without them knowing. It can prove extremely useful.’ He paused. ‘I must admit that her response to you was quite exceptional. With everyone else here she has been surly and uncooperative. Even with the mademoiselle whom, I believe, she knew quite well.’ And again he hesitated. ‘Have you... have you known the child long?’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘I know her hardly at all.’ Sally was waiting in the hall. She looked up as she heard them coming down the steps. ‘I do hope you will come again as you promised,’ Mascoulin said. He shook both their hands again and watched them pass through the swing doors and out into the snow. And he thought about the curious scene he had witnessed in the child’s room.

Outside, Bannerman stopped at the foot of the steps and breathed in the cold night air, turning his face slightly upwards so that the snow flakes cooled the hotness of his skin. He felt Sally’s arm slip through his and she guided him slowly towards the car, her feet scuffing in the soft snow. ‘Why did you really come?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ He searched absently in his pocket for the car keys. ‘The first night I stayed at the flat I woke in the night to find her in my room. She was just standing watching me, and then she came and touched my face. She stood there a while longer and then left. It gave me one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever known.’ The keys were cold in his hand and he unlocked the passenger door. ‘Would you like to go somewhere?’

‘You could take me home,’ she said. ‘I’m very tired.’

II

Kale told the driver to go on past. The brass plaque flashed briefly in the headlights of the taxi, a flicker of information caught in a moment of light and time that told him he need look no further for the child. Beyond where Bannerman’s car had turned into the hospital, the taxi made virgin tracks in the snow and its gears whined as the tyres fought for grip. The vehicle pulled slowly towards the top of the hill. Here there were a few trees where the ground levelled off and the road swung away to wind itself down around the other side. Kale stopped the driver and counted out a thick wad of notes. He was not even sure how much it would be in English money. Perhaps a couple of hundred pounds. It seemed extravagant, but then it hardly mattered any more.

The driver took the money and felt its thickness in his hand. He dared not count it then, but he knew it was a lot. Many times more than the fare he had clocked up. He stuffed it hastily in his pocket and half-turned, a stiff smile on his face, and muttered words of thanks. The cold eyes of his passenger flickered briefly over him, each eye reflecting a pinhead of light from its darkness. The face, pinched and pale, said nothing. Only the eyes spoke, a silent warning, before the man turned to open the door and slip quietly out. The driver wasted no time in pushing into first gear and he turned the car out from the kerb and down the hill. He glanced in the mirror and already the man was only a shadow, hardly distinguishable among the trees. He let out a deep breath that he seemed to have been holding in his lungs all day, grinning as he fingered the wad of notes in his jacket pocket.

All his fears and doubts of earlier in the day melted as quickly as the flakes of snow that fell on his windscreen. The thoughts he had entertained, only a few hours before, of going to the police seemed ridiculous now. His passenger had just been some sullen foreigner with his own reasons for wanting to follow the Volkswagen. He pulled the flap over his pocket and patted it with a certain satisfaction. Perhaps he could take a few days off. Even a week’s holiday.

Kale watched the red tail lights of the taxi vanish from view where the road turned away through the trees. He stood for some minutes. At first he felt nothing. Not even the cold. In a few hours it would all be over and then nothing would matter any more. Back the way they had come he could see the lights of the hospital broken by the branches of trees. He barely noticed the view across the city.

He turned and walked back down the hill until he reached the first of the houses that stood darkly behind its high stone walls. There a spindly street lamp rose above its own pool of feeble yellow light, and he stopped to light a cigarette and turn up the collar of his coat. His every movement seemed remote to him, mechanical, as though he had stepped outside his body and was simply an onlooker. He had given himself over completely to the instincts of his profession.

Already the tyre tracks of Bannerman’s car where it had turned into the hospital were almost covered over. Kale hesitated only for a moment in the gateway, then he moved silently from the drive into the trees. Here the snow lay in patches, the thick layer of dead leaves spongy under his feet. There was a smell of rot and decay, damp and cold, among the evergreen foliage. He scrambled up the slope, his sleeves and trousers snagging on the bushes, and then he waited, breathless, at the top, crouched below the cover of the wall that bounded the terrace. A fine, cold sweat beaded his forehead.

For several minutes he remained there before pulling himself up so that he could see beyond the wall, across the terrace to the house itself. A number of cars, including the one he had been following all day, stood under its shadow, the light of the lamp above the main door streaming out across the terrace towards him. Other lights shone in a number of windows, reflecting their brightness in the snow. He crouched down again and made his way along below the wall to where it cut away at the end of the terrace. From here he had an oblique view across the front of the house beyond where the light fell in long yellow slabs. He eased himself in against a short flight of broken stone steps to watch and wait, silent and unseen, with an infinite and chilling patience.

He could not tell how long it was he had waited before the man and the girl came out. They came down the steps and crossed to their car, the damp snow creaking beneath their feet. Their voices drifted across to him and he registered only a little surprise to hear them speaking English. ‘I don’t know... Would you like to go somewhere?’

‘You can take me home. I’m very tired...’

When the car had gone the silence returned and Kale moved his stiffening legs. He glanced upwards and saw a small face pressed against one of the lit windows on the first floor watching through the bars the lights of the car as it travelled back down the hill towards the housing estate below. Suddenly he felt the cold, felt a pain in his legs and the numbness of his fingers. He no longer stood apart from himself. The face at the window was only a shadow, a small head silhouetted against the light behind it. A small hand came up and pressed against the pane before sliding slowly, hopelessly, down to the sill. Kale knew with a frightening certainty that this was the child that had seen him in the house at the Rue de Pavie.

Still he did not move. Another figure appeared in the room. A nurse. She came to the window and the child turned and they both moved away from view. Several more minutes passed before the nurse reappeared at the window and drew the blind so that the light behind showed only around the edges. Then the light went out.

It may have been after midnight, he was uncertain, when the last lights went out and the house and its grounds lay in darkness. For the last hour his attention had been riveted to the child’s window. He had been surprised to see the blind rise slowly to reveal the paleness of her face in the light reflected from the snow below. For a moment she had vanished again and then returned with a chair to sit motionless, staring into the dark, her head pressed against the window. He had found himself thinking about her. Alone in the world without parents, without love, separated from others by something in her head, something that set her apart, condemned to exist in the loneliness of her own strange world. There was an affinity between them. Her life was no more, no less, than his had been, than his life was now. There would have been a saving of much pain if some stranger with a gun had brought an end to his life thirty years ago. No loss. No-one to suffer. But, he knew, he was only seeking some virtue in what was to be done. A justification. Such a bitter irony. He had never needed it before.

Now, with all the lights gone, he could no longer see her at the window. But she was still there, he knew. He moved his stiff limbs and felt for the gun in his pocket. The cold of the barrel burned his fingers. With a heavy resolution he began up the steps to the terrace. It was time.

Her skin was burning as though with a fever. Occasionally she moved her forehead on the glass so that it was cold again. She did not feel sleepy. She would wait at the window, she had decided, until Bannerman’s car returned. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. She wanted to see the car come up the driveway. She wanted to see him standing in the snow. Perhaps he would glance up and see her at the window and wave. And perhaps she would smile and wave back. It might be difficult, but she wanted him to know. She wanted him to know all the things she couldn’t tell him. Why was she so drawn to the cold blue eyes? Maybe it was what she saw behind them.

The lights of the city twinkled and shone in the valley below in seemingly random patterns. He was out there somewhere. Doing what? Did he think about her as she thought about him? Of course not. Her reasoning was clear and sound. She constituted only a tiny fraction of his life, of his thoughts. It was only in the great void of her own existence that he was so important to her, filling the emptiness, bringing light into the darkness. There was no reason why he should think of her at all. And yet he had come here, and he had felt something for her, something that he too was unable to express. He would come again. Had he not told her he would?

The house had been in darkness for some time now. The others would be asleep. The doctors, the nurses, the other children who all seemed like mirror-images of herself. Prisoners within themselves, prisoners in this house whose windows were barred.

She gave a slight start as a door slammed somewhere in the depths of the house. Not everyone was asleep. A light came on downstairs, throwing a broad wedge of light out across the snow on the terrace. Something was moving down there, something dark and hunched that froze as it was caught in the sudden light. The shadow of a man fell away from the house, long and thin. A face turned up towards the window, sickly pale, almost whiter than the snow. The child did not move. The muscles and skin tightened across her face and throat. It was a face she knew, a face in which she saw fear, bitterness, anger. She saw the eyes clearly as they had met hers and recognized the same hunted look as she had seen in the Rue de Pavie. Then the light went out and she could no longer see him, but she knew he was still there. And she knew what he had come for.

III

The night was empty and yet still young. Bannerman had dropped Sally outside a block of tenement flats in an old part of town. She had not asked him up, returning alone to an empty flat. He sat for a few minutes in the car and watched her light go on three floors up. Her mood was so unpredictable. Someone must have hurt her very badly.

He remembered the girl from tele-ads, the night that he finally had taken her to bed. ‘Please don’t!... Will it hurt? Oh, please be gentle.’ He had been clumsy, inexperienced, and it had hurt so that she sobbed for nearly an hour afterwards, and he had been stricken by the blood that soaked the sheets. It was a moment spoiled by youth, by ignorance and fear. It was the final disillusionment of the angry years. Nothing in his life had been sacred since. It was a night when he should have grown up. But that was not to come for more than six weeks after, when she came to him one night after work and told him that she carried his child.

Even then he had not learned. It was ironic that it was she who would teach him, that it was she who had learned more quickly than he.

Bannerman lit a cigar and pulled the car away from the kerbside. A curtain on the third floor fluttered and a face appeared momentarily at the window. But he did not see it. He glanced at the time. It was not yet nine, and he recalled the crumpled card in his pocket and drew it out. He stopped the car under a lamp-post and held the card in the light. ‘Her Majesty’s Minister for Foreign Affairs extends an invitation... Nine p.m., Restaurant Noir in the Rue des Bouchers.’ He rummaged in the glove compartment and found an indexed street map. The Rue des Bouchers was only about a hundred metres from the Grande Place where he had sat that morning under the yellow awning enjoying the winter sunshine. He allowed himself a grim smile and slammed the glove compartment shut. It was about time he began stirring things up.

The Restaurant Noir was set back from the street. Thick red curtains hung on rings from a polished brass rail. The name was written in scroll, gold on black, above the window, and the menus were displayed in two glass-fronted cases ostentatiously mounted on elaborate imitation gas lamp standards on either side of the door. They were expensive menus. You did not eat here unless you had a fat wallet. Doubtless HMG could afford it. After all, it was in a good cause. Wasn’t it? What price the goodwill of the press? A commissionaire in maroon uniform and gold-braided cap held the door open for him and he stepped inside, his feet sinking into a thick red carpet.

The muted sound of voices, of knives and forks on plates, of bottles brushing the lips of glasses, came softly through from the dining-room. It was set behind stained glass scenes of mediaeval knights and gracious ladies mounted in a carved wooden framework. An arched doorway led through from the subdued light of the reception hall into the slightly less subdued light of the dining room. Another door opened into an adjoining bar where the voices were less muted.

A face hovered darkly behind a cloakroom counter away to his left and a flunky in a black suit and white starched collar approached on tiptoe, smiling with the ease of a professional smiler. ‘Monsieur?’ Bannerman held out the battered invitation card which the flunky took between thumb and forefinger as though it might bite him. ‘Ah, bien. May I take your coat?’

The newspapermen were in the bar with the Minister, a junior member of the Foreign Office staff and a Government press officer — another professional smiler. There was a distinct lull in the conversation as Bannerman came in. Without exception every face was turned in his direction. It was a moment that passed quickly and after it everyone pretended not to have noticed. All except the press officer who pushed forward to greet him. ‘Neil Bannerman, isn’t it?’ The well-practised smile had broadened and a dimple on his right cheek threatened to swallow up the rest of his face.

The reporter took the limp hand offered by the smiler. ‘I’ll have a whisky,’ he said.

‘Of course, of course,’ A few of the faces at the bar were familiar to him. Others he did not know. He recognised Willis, and Kearney who turned away when he saw Bannerman looking at him.

‘Here you are.’ The PR man handed him his whisky. ‘My name’s Holt, Harold Holt.’ He was a young, mouse-brown-haired man of around twenty-five. He oozed confidence and an ersatz buddiness that was the hallmark of his profession.

‘Well, Harold, how would you like to tell the Minister that I would like a word with him?’

Holt’s face darkened a little, though the smile never wavered, ‘I don’t think the Minister will want to discuss...’

‘Just a chat, that’s all. Off the record.’ He watched Holt approach the Minister, touch him lightly on the shoulder and utter a few words close to his ear. The Minister half-turned and smiled in Bannerman’s direction, raising one finger to indicate that an audience would be granted in just a few moments. Holt scurried off to the bar to fetch some more drinks. Bannerman took a mouthful of whisky, swilling it slowly before swallowing.

‘Well, Mr. Bannerman. I don’t believe we’ve met.’ The Minister approached with an outstretched hand. ‘You have quite a reputation. It seems such a pity that you spend most of your time buried away up there in Scotland.’

Bannerman smiled. ‘Maybe you ought to put it on your list of countries worth visiting. I’m sure it would not be beyond a man of your abilities to re-open diplomatic relations.’

‘Very amusing, Mr. Bannerman. Another drink?’

Bannerman shook his head. ‘No. Thanks. I’d like to talk.’

‘That would depend what you want to talk about.’ His manner was impeccable. A man of sixty years, he had met with almost every head of state in the world that was worth meeting, and a few that weren’t. He was not a man to use words carelessly. His smile was almost beatific. Bannerman was sure that when the face adopted its mask of concern or sympathy or understanding, it would be faultlessly convincing. Gryffe would have been the obvious successor. Perhaps that was why the two men had never got on too well.

He had a good head of suitably distinguished greying hair and shrewd brown eyes that held you mercilessly in their gaze. A man of gentle but firm persuasion, the ultimate diplomat. He had a reputation as a hard man, but fair, good at his job. At a glance you could see why, and Bannerman thought, there is no point in staying for the meal. ‘I’d like to talk about Robert Gryffe and Timothy Slater.’

The Minister smiled patiently. ‘Our of bounds, I’m afraid, Neil. Unfortunate, of course, the whole affair. After the meal I shall be releasing details of our plans for having Robert’s body flown back to England. And for the memorial service.’ He put a friendly arm around Bannerman’s shoulders and steered him gently back towards the bar. ‘Of course, after the election, when...’ he grinned, ‘when my Party is returned to office, we can perhaps get together for lunch some day and have a little chat about it, hmmm?’

Bannerman shook his head and returned the Minister’s smile. ‘Not good enough, sir. Of course, I can understand your reluctance to say too much to the press before the election. A nasty business. Can’t have the voters getting the wrong idea. All the same, I’m sure many people would like to know why the murders of Gryffe and Slater have been hushed up by the Belgian authorities with, I hesitate to add, the connivance of the British Government.’

‘Oh, come now, Mr. Bannerman.’ The diplomatic smile was becoming a little frayed around the edges, and he had lapsed from ‘Neil’ back to ‘Mr. Bannerman’. ‘There is no evidence to suggest that either man was murdered. A quarrel...’

‘Bullshit! All the evidence points quite clearly to murder,’ The Minister was steering him away again from the bar. Bannerman went on, ‘The trouble is that most of that evidence hasn’t been made public. Yet. But you and I both know, don’t we? The left-handed Slater with the gun in his right hand. The quarter of a million dollars in the suitcase. Slater’s air tickets to the States. The break-in at Slater’s flat within half an hour of the murder. Perhaps you forget that I was there.’

For the first time the Minister was looking uncomfortable. ‘Really, Bannerman, you have no evidence to support all this... this journalistic fantasy.’ Now he had even dropped the ‘mister’.

Bannerman laughed. ‘You cannot be so naïve, Minister. I don’t need evidence. If I am satisfied I have the truth all I need do is write it. So long as I slander no-one then there is nothing to stop me. And no amount of denials can make a story like that go away. It will need to be disproved. And that might prove difficult if it’s true.’

It was Bannerman’s turn to place the friendly arm around the Minister’s shoulder and steer him further from the bar. ‘You know what I think, Minister? I think that your Robert Gryffe was into something that might prove embarrassing to quite a number of people. I think Timothy Slater was onto him and was blackmailing him.’

The Minister was frowning, but superficially he had lost none of his composure. He had donned his mask of sincerity and now adopted a different tack. ‘Just how good is your information, Neil?’ He looked searchingly at the reporter.

‘Good enough.’

‘Because if what you say is true then it may be that we shall have to take another look at the whole case. About the murder, I mean. It may be that we have been misinformed by the Belgian authorities. Perhaps we should get together, discuss the source of your information.’

‘Now, Minister, you know I would never discuss my sources. And if you are so misinformed, you will be of little help to me.’ Pause. ‘But I’ll tell you what. When I’ve got my story together I’ll give you a call and you can give me your on-the-record reaction. Hopefully I will have things tied up and out of the way before the election. Either way, I promise you, you’ll be the first to know.’

Bannerman admired the Minister’s control. He would give nothing away despite the somersaults he had been forced to make in the last few minutes. ‘Oh, and I do apologise,’ Bannerman said. ‘I shan’t be able to stay for the meal. I hope it goes well. Goodbye, sir.’ He leaned across and laid his empty glass on a table and left quickly.

From the comparative dark of the hallway he glanced back into the bar. The reporters were uneasy. They knew that something had passed between Bannerman and the Minister, although the Minister would do his best to smooth things over.

The Minister himself was muttering thoughtfully to Harold Holt, whose agitation was obvious. The press officer nodded and began towards the door as the Minister turned back to the journalists and beamed beatifically. ‘I think we might eat now, gentlemen.’

Bannerman glanced down the hall. A telephone booth was lit at the far end. He stepped briskly the other way towards the face hovering behind the counter. ‘My coat.’ The attendant vanished among the coats that hung in rows like carcasses in a butcher’s shop. Holt came out into the hall without seeing Bannerman and headed straight for the telephone. Bannerman smiled a little to himself. He had tested the water and found it hot. He took his coat, leaving a few francs on the counter, and walked slowly to the door as he pulled it on. Holt’s mouth opened and closed silently in his pale face behind the glass door of the booth. The commissionaire opened the main door and Holt looked over. All the smiles were gone. He glared at Bannerman as the reporter flashed him a grin and stepped out into the cold Brussels night.

IV

The stairwell seemed colder than it had on other nights, the landing lights harsher, the stairs darker. Outside the snow was falling even more thickly. The winter seemed determined to tighten its grip on the city. Someone coughed on the landing above. A man’s cough, a deep retching cough. Bannerman could smell cigarette smoke. Whoever was there was making no attempt to conceal his presence. He must have heard Bannerman’s footsteps.

Bannerman climbed the last flight cautiously before he saw Platt’s face, round and fat, peering down at him. ‘Is that you, Bannerman? I’ve been hanging around here for more than half an hour. I’m bloody freezing.’ Platt’s face was very white and touched with blue around his eyes. He was wearing a thick coat with a scarf wrapped tightly round his neck, and his battered checked hat was pulled down over his forehead. He made an exaggerated show of stamping his feet for warmth and making fists with his gloved hands.

‘What do you want?’ Bannerman asked, turning his back on him to unlock the door.

‘Oh, that’s nice,’ Platt whined. ‘I’ve been knocking my pan in all afternoon trying to get background on Jansen and Lapointe and then most of the night trying to track you down...’

‘I told you tomorrow would do.’ He paused and looked at the pathetic figure on the landing and relented a little. ‘You’d better come in.’

Platt followed him through to the living room slapping his hands together and making loud blowing noises. Bannerman took a bottle wrapped in brown paper from his pocket and laid it on the table, and draped his coat over the back of the settee. He switched on the fire and saw Platt eyeing the bottle. ‘Malt,’ he said, but did not offer him a drink. ‘Let’s see it.’

‘What?’ Platt looked confused.

‘Your stuff on Jansen and Lapointe.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Platt struggled out of his coat and dropped his gloves on the chair beside it. He drew a large folded envelope from his inside jacket pocket and held it out for Bannerman. He dropped gratefully into the chair, his scarf hanging loosely from his neck over the bulge of his waistline. His eyes fell longingly again on the bottle and involuntarily he licked his wet, purple lips. He said, ‘I got most of what I needed on Jansen from a series the Soir ran on him about six months ago. I went over it and typed out a precis of the relevant details in English. There was some stuff on Lapointe as well, but not as much. He’s not as up front as Jansen, so we don’t know as much about him.’

Bannerman lit a cigar, sank back in the settee and looked at his watch. It was just after ten. He threw the envelope carelessly on the table. ‘Tell me the salient details. I haven’t time to read the stuff just now. I’m going out again shortly.’ Platt made no attempt to hide his irritation. ‘When are you going to come clean with me, Bannerman?’

‘In good time.’ Pause. ‘Did you make your second edition?’

Platt’s mouth tightened. ‘Yes, I made it. The paper was fifteen minutes late getting to the street. I got a right roasting.’ Bannerman couldn’t resist a smile, to Platt’s further annoyance. The old reporter glanced for the umpteenth time at the bottle. ‘How about a drink, Bannerman? You owe me that. Take the chill out of my bones.’

Bannerman drew lazily on his cigar. ‘Alcohol accelerates loss of body heat. Help yourself.’

‘Glasses?’

‘In the kitchen.’

Platt sat for a few moments waiting for Bannerman to get them, but when the younger man made no move, he heaved himself reluctantly out of his chair and crossed towards the kitchen door. ‘In here?’ Bannerman nodded.

He listened to the sound of Platt searching noisily in the cupboards and remembered how he had been when he’d first met him all those years ago when he joined his first weekly paper.

Platt had been there for years, knew it all and breathed whisky and contempt on the succession of keen young news-hounds who passed through the paper on their way to better things. He had been a lonely man, a widower, embittered by all life’s opportunities that had passed him by. At first he had poured scorn on Bannerman the way he had poured scorn on all the rest. But even Platt had come to recognise the possibilities in him and had done everything he could to make life even more difficult.

Bannerman had hated him then. Wasn’t it Platt who had mixed things for him with the editor over the business with the tele-ad girl, Platt who had taken delight in his hurt and dismay? It was possible that he was responsible for Bannerman losing his job. Bannerman had been sure at the time and his anger had lived in him for a long time after. Only the passing of the years had peeled away the anger and brought a little understanding, before finally despatching him to the mists of a half-forgotten past.

And now, all these years later, here they both were. How different it all was. Bannerman had no idea what ebbs of fortune had brought Platt to this end, exiled in a foreign city, still chasing the dreams that had passed him by so long ago.

Platt came out of the kitchen with two cups. ‘I can’t find the glasses.’ He set them down on the table, opened the bottle and poured two large measures. Then he dropped into his seat and raised his cup, smiling a broad, hollow smile. ‘Cheers.’

How he detested Bannerman. His success, his arrogance, his self-assurance. He took a gulp of the smooth malt and grimaced as he felt the first twinges in his stomach. Bannerman was watching him. ‘Ulcer,’ he said. ‘First one always gets it that way.’ Still, he thought with some comfort, there are one or two things that I know about you. He grinned. ‘Where should I begin?’

‘At the beginning.’

Platt shifted in his chair and took another gulp of whisky. ‘Well, René Jansen is probably about the richest man in Belgium. His pedigree is spotless. He comes from one of the oldest and most influential Flemish families in the country. An only child. All this lavished freely upon his fair head. Education, breeding, money. He’s got the lot. When his father died he inherited the Jansen empire. But he didn’t just sit back on it. He built on it, made it more than it ever was when his father was alive. He’s into everything. Owns the biggest private aerospace concern in Europe, supplying not only the bulk of the planes for the Belgian airforce and the national airlines, but also for about half the major airlines in the world — and exclusively to a number of the smaller Third World airlines.

‘And he’s into the construction industry. His companies are almost single-handedly re-building Brussels and some of the bigger provincial towns. About half of that is on government contracts, the other half is in the private sector. Those are the two biggies. But he’s got fingers in lots of other pies. Property, department stores, and he even owns a couple of provincial newspapers. He’s got interests in a shipping line and owns a few breweries.’

Bannerman knew now why the name Jansen had seemed familiar. He was one of the two percent of men who own ninety-five percent of the world’s wealth. Those men who exist in a world of private jets, executive suites, massive estates; whose pictures you see sometimes in the diary pages of newspapers, dining with Royalty, dropping half a million on the tables at Monte Carlo. Always with pretty girls on their arms. The kind of life-style to which Robert Gryffe had aspired. ‘How does he organise his affairs?’

Platt filled his cup again. He offered the bottle across the table but Bannerman shook his head. ‘Well, everything comes under the umbrella of the parent company, I.V. Internationale, which has its headquarters in the Boulevard Bischoffsheim.’ Platt paused. ‘If you’re trying to find skeletons in his cupboard you’ll be hard-pushed. It’s been tried before. Everything’s above board. All I.V.’s activities are on record and can be checked. Company registration in this country is as accessible as it is in Britain. Companies are registered at the Tribunal de Commerce and there is one of those in every commercial court in the country. Each Tribunal de Commerce feeds a central register held here in Brussels by the Ministry of the Middle Classes. And you or I or anyone can examine that register. You can find out the names of a company’s directors, or what its capital is, as easily as you can obtain the same information at Companies House in London or Edinburgh.’

‘What about a company’s financial state or shareholders?’ Platt shook his head. ‘Afraid not. You’re not required to give that information. But it’s not really important, is it?’

Bannerman shrugged non-committally. ‘Go on,’ he said.

Platt drained his second cup. A little colour had returned to his cheeks. ‘He’s not married, he’s in his late forties and lives with his mother in a huge mansion just outside Brussels. He’s got no overt political affiliations, although it is said he contributes funds. Generally he keeps a pretty low profile, though he’s widely known as a bit of a philanthropist, contributing large sums annually to old folks’ homes, hospitals, international aid organisations and the like. His private life is private.’

Bannerman frowned. He had no clear picture of the man. The description might fit any of a couple of dozen men in Europe. The philanthropic millionaire who steers clear of public politics and jealously guards his spotless reputation by keeping it out of the glare of publicity. All very virtuous. And yet this same man had sent a hoodlum to break into the Post’s office in the IPC building to steal an innocuous folder of newspaper cuttings. He checked the time and then drained his cup quickly. ‘And Lapointe? Make it quick. I have to go.’

Platt was in no hurry, remembering how Bannerman had made him late with his copy that morning. He filled his cup for the third time and sank back again in his chair. ‘Lapointe,’ he said at length, ‘is the legal brain behind I.V. Internationale. He’s a short, stout man in his middle fifties. Very grey and very proper. Wears neatly-tailored dark suits and carries his wealth discreetly. Old-fashioned, conservative. A widower, one grown-up daughter, divorced, I believe. Began his career in criminal law and went on to specialise in company law. He worked for Jansen’s father before he died and was associated with the family for many years. He’s not a man in the public eye at all, but a key figure in the company. And that’s about it, though perhaps a little surprisingly he’s from the south, a French speaker.’ Bannerman stood up suddenly and Platt blinked at him. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve got to go. You can let yourself out.’ He snatched his coat and went out into the darkness of the hall.

Platt heard the front door closing, and then a few minutes later the car coughing to life in the street below. He smiled to himself, satisfied with his day. The whisky was having its effect. He would show them all. Especially Bannerman. His eyes wandered towards the Brueghel snow scene, reminding him of how it was outside. That, and the dull ache of his ulcer, were the only things that troubled him now. He took a tablet from his pocket and crunched it between his sharp little teeth, and prepared to pour himself another whisky to wash away the taste.

V

The Palais de Justice took on a dark, sinister air at night. In the day it was one of those vast, blackened buildings whose pillars and ornate façades seemed strong and old and solid and always reliable, though now it was all a little shabby. Odd pieces of scaffolding had been erected by workmen who worked between cups of coffee and glasses of beer in the nearest bistro to try to maintain its original dignity.

Bannerman saw, through a small window, the night watchman pouring coffee from a flask at a small wooden table. Behind him a stove glowed brightly. A little insipid yellow light fell out across the snow.

The Place Poelaert was quiet. The night traffic rumbled past in the Boulevard de Waterloo back along the way he had come, two hundred metres distant. At the far end the snow crusted along the top of a high wall beyond which the city fell away below. A floodlit church, rooftops sloping this way and that. In the misted distance the Martini neon on the Manhattan Centre at the Place Rogier.

Footsteps on cobbles rattled in the silence from the shadowed lee of the Palais de Justice where the snow had not fallen. Bannerman turned to see the tall, stooped figure of du Maurier step from the shadow into the weak lamplight. The Inspector seemed older, his coat hanging loose and open on the thin, brittle frame. A cigarette hung at one corner of his mouth and his breath blew shallow and grey in the cold. His hat, tilted forward, threw a shadow over the top half of his face. Hands pushed into his pockets, he walked slowly to the wall, brushed away the crusting of snow and leaned on it to stare out across the city. Bannerman smelled drink on his breath.

Without looking at him the Inspector said, ‘Five years ago I was up for promotion for the post of Principal Commissaire. I was turned down. One of my contemporaries, a Flem, got the job.’ He paused, then, ‘You see, Monsieur, this great country of ours is really an uneasy alliance of two very different cultures. The Flems in the north and the Walloons in the south. The language of the north is Flemish and of the Walloons it is French. But the differences go much deeper than language. It is cultural; it is historical. Brussels, they say, is the new political capital of Europe, a great cosmopolitan city.’ He laughed a short, sour laugh. ‘That is all veneer. Beneath the surface bubble all the old hatreds and prejudices. They say that Belgium is bi-lingual. It is not true. Outside of Brussels, where we all pretend, we are a nation of two one-language communities. The language and culture of the region, rather than of the nation, prevail. It is expected, in the schoolroom, in the boardroom, the officers’ mess, the law courts, the tax office, the church.’ He lit yet another cigarette and seemed lost in thought for some time. Bannerman shuffled impatiently, but said nothing.

‘You see, Monsieur, it was my misfortune to reach promotion at a time when the balance of power was shifting. For years the French speakers held the position of power and influence in Government and in all its institutions. It was a conscious political decision to reverse that tide to create a balance. It had been the turn of the Flems.’ His face tightened. ‘It is ironic that I have always been opposed to the traditional discrimination against the Flems. I have always believed... again my belief in justice... that a man should be judged on his abilities. But you see, I lost my chance because I spoke French at a time when the political climate was not in my favour. Not because I was not good enough.’ He turned to Bannerman again. ‘Why should I feel any allegiance to such a system?’

Bannerman cupped his hand around the end of his cigar and struck a match. He wondered how many absinthes the policeman had put away. He said, ‘You didn’t have me meet you here in the middle of the night to tell me all this...’

Du Maurier said, ‘No-o,’ stretching the word thoughtfully and then lowering his head. ‘I had information for you.’

‘But now you’re having second thoughts?’

The Inspector’s head snapped up and he searched Bannerman’s face. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because you’ve been all fired up and angry since they passed you over for promotion, and when the politicians descended to take away your murders at the Rue de Pavie you saw your chance to hit back. You saw that they were vulnerable. Now you’re not sure if you’re doing the right thing.’

Du Maurier wished he had not drunk so much, for his head was fuzzy and he found it difficult to think clearly. A man like Bannerman could run rings around him. He suddenly felt vulnerable, foolish for having said all the things he had said. Bannerman went on, ‘The trouble is, you’ve already committed yourself. For you there can be no going back. I could blow the lid off our relationship any time I chose.’

The years sat heavily on du Maurier’s shoulders. His face crumpled a little, his mouth tight and grim. ‘And would you?’

Bannerman let that one hang a long time before he said reluctantly, ‘No.’

Du Maurier stared at him. ‘Why?’

Bannerman shrugged. ‘My own reasons,’ he said. Then, ‘What you wanted to say to me tonight was that you had changed your mind? That you no longer felt able to pass me information from the inside?’ Du Maurier nodded. Both men stood in silence then, one staring out over the city, the other with his back to the wall staring through the darkness of the cobbled square. Neither spoke for several minutes. Finally Bannerman said, ‘What was the information you had?’

Du Maurier turned his head slowly. ‘Mon Dieu! You expect a lot.’

‘I have a certain belief in what I am doing.’

The other man shook his head. ‘I wish I could believe, one way or another.’ He drew a folded sheet of paper from his coat pocket and pushed it at Bannerman. It had an address written on it in a tight, neat hand. ‘It’s the address that goes with the phone number you gave me. A country house in West Flanders near Torhout, about seventeen kilometres south-west of Bruges. Monsieur Gryffe had been renting the house for about two years. The property is owned by a Brussels registered company, a subsidiary of I.V. Internationale.’ He smiled an ironic smile.

Bannerman said, ‘Jansen’s outfit.’

‘Yes, perhaps you were right after all.’ Bannerman’s fingers tightened around the slip of paper. It was the first tangible fact to emerge from the whole mess. However tenuous, it was something. He heard the Inspector ask, ‘What shall you do?’

He let his head fall back so that he was staring up into the falling snow. ‘I shall go to Flanders.’ Pause. ‘And you? What will you do?’

Du Maurier surveyed the chewed wet end of his cigarette. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I will need to think about it.’ He threw the cigarette over the wall. ‘Goodnight, Monsieur.’ And he turned away to cross the cobbles and turn down the narrow steps to the Rue des Minimes below.

Bannerman watched him disappear into the shadows and pushed himself off the wall and began to cross the Place Poelaert.

Chapter Eight

I

The first grey light of dawn was in the sky. In the waiting room the electric light was white and hard, and the slatted benches cold and uncomfortable. The sounds of the station drifted in the open door with the cold mist that smothered the city. An elderly couple sat close and quiet, staring bleakly through the windows at the porters passing with trolleys of luggage and mail. Occasionally they passed a few words in whispers. There was no reason why people should whisper, but a voice raised in normal speech would have seemed somehow out of place.

A fat businessman, prosperous in his navy coat, camel scarf and dark Homburg hat, stood puffing impatiently on a big cigar. He kept wiping the window where it was misting and staring down the line for signs of the train. It was not due for another five minutes. His premature impatience was annoying Bannerman.

The reporter’s eyes were gritty with lack of sleep. His mood was brittle. He was tense without knowing quite why. The weather had changed overnight, the snow turning to rain, and a fine drizzle was drifting down the tracks towards the platforms that stretched away on either side. The dampness was in everything, chill and raw.

Bannerman had risen early, the sound of the alarm drilling into a confused dream that had dispersed, with the coming of consciousness, like smoke in the wind. The windows of the bedroom were milky white with condensation, and outside it had still been dark. In the living room was the smell of stale smoke and the bottle of malt stood empty on the table like a reproach. The first cup of coffee had been good. A few things were pushed into a holdall to do him if he had to stay overnight. When he was in the hall the phone had started ringing. He had frowned and checked the time. Just after seven. Then he had hesitated a moment before deciding to leave it. It had still been ringing as his footsteps echoed down the stairwell. He could not have known what news the call would have borne had he answered it.

More than a dozen people stood now on the platform below the strands of mist that swirled in the lamplight. It was still dark, despite the lightening of the sky. A tall man with short, sandy hair stooped to peer into the waiting room. His eyes lighted on Bannerman for a second and he turned away quickly as the reporter became aware of him. The lights of the train came out of the blackness of the tunnel beyond the platform end, and with a great deal of clattering and grinding of metal on metal, came to a stop. Doors were flung open and people who had come through the night from Germany stepped down pulling suitcases behind them.

Bannerman left the waiting room, pushing past several people on the platform, and climbed up into the train. At the far end of the corridor he caught sight of the man with the sandy hair. He was carrying a polished wooden case. Bannerman slid open the door of an empty compartment and slipped into its welcome warmth. He threw his holdall into the rack overhead and took a seat by the window with his back to the engine. He watched the figures pass in the corridor, the elderly couple who had been in the waiting room, a thin dark man in a dark suit with a Gauloise between his lips and a briefcase under his arm. They all passed. There was no sign of the man with the sandy hair. Bannerman wondered why he had expected to see him, almost expected he would step into the same compartment. Something about the eyes, perhaps, or the way he had looked at him through the window in the waiting room.

The raised voice of the platform guard reached him, and then the slamming of doors. A whistle sounded and with a slight groan, the train began moving slowly out of the station, gathering speed, wheels clattering across rails at the junction.

II

The early afternoon air was clear and bright and the sunlight reflected strongly in patches on the snow that stretched away across the flatness of West Flanders, broken only by the occasional wall or hedge or row of poplars. The mist had lifted and the heavy grey of the sky was clearing to reveal a pale blue behind it. The road was wet and black, a dirty slush piled along the verges where it had been thrown up by the wheels of cars. The snow was still wet, but if the sky continued to clear then it would freeze again tonight.

There was a deep silence across the land. Only the birds could be heard, greeting the return of the sun. The road was deserted, stretching emptily away into the distance towards a belt of trees beyond which the spire of a church rose to a point. Bannerman had walked nearly two kilometres from where the bus from Bruges to Kortrijk had dropped him on the main road. In that time he had not seen a single vehicle or a single human being. The small town of Torhout lay somewhere to the east of him, but whatever town or village it was that lay beyond the belt of trees, it was not big enough to appear on the Michelin map.

The house was set on its own, surrounded by a few gnarled trees, leafless and black, their branches crusted with white. The track that led off the road across half a kilometre of open field to the house was obliterated by the snow. Only two crooked wooden gateposts gave any clues to its existence. A black crow sat one-legged on the further post, ruffling the black feathers on its wings. It watched suspiciously as Bannerman approached. It had seen him coming for some time, waiting until he was within a few metres before taking clumsily to the air with a loud caw-cawing. Somewhere across the fields another crow answered its call, and then silence descended again.

Bannerman paused for a moment before turning into the track and ploughing through snow that had drifted two to three feet deep along the ridge. It took him nearly ten minutes to reach the house. It was a tall, narrow building with a steeply sloped red-tiled roof. A greying whitewash was flaking on the walls and the green of the shutters had faded and cracked. A rusted rone pipe had stained the wall a blood-red down one side where it ran from the guttering. It was an old house, a survivor of the last war, and it bore the scars of neglect.

Against the north wall the snow had drifted several feet deep, and on the protected south side weeds poked up through the patchy skin of snow that covered the gravel path. In summer it would be a fine place to live. Bannerman stood staring up at it, listening to the quiet. The sunlight fell at an oblique angle through the trees, dappling the south wall. All the shutters were closed tight and the storm doors locked.

He walked around the house trying each of the shutters in turn. At the back there was a yard and a crop of crumbling outbuildings. A slab of snow slid from the glistening tiles on the roof and fell with a thud behind him. The stab of fright that shot through him made him conscious for the first time of the uneasiness that had begun to grow in him. He cast his eyes over the surrounding countryside, looking — for what? He didn’t know. There was nothing to be seen. Not a movement, not a sound. And yet there was the strangest sensation he had of eyes watching him. It was foolish, he knew. It was probably just tiredness.

He went around to the south side and as he reached up for the first shutter he saw that it was not properly closed. Where the two met the wood was splintered and broken. He reached up, for the windows were set just above head height, and pulled them open. The steel-framed windows behind them were opened inwards, the glass on one side broken and jagged. Bannerman felt a rush of both excitement and disappointment. Someone had been here before him, though not within the last twelve hours. For there were no tracks in the snow, and it had stopped snowing the night before.

He stepped back and on the wall below the window he saw the marks left by the intruder’s boots where they had sought a hold to push him up and into the house. Again he turned and looked out across the fields. Still nothing stirred. He threw his holdall into the house and took another two or three steps back and then ran at the window, jumping to get his hands up over the sill. His feet scraped on the wall below as he pulled himself up, first straddling the window ledge and then dropping down into the semi-darkness. He crouched for a while, waiting for his eyes to get accustomed to the change of light.

The room took shape before him. It was a small bedroom, sparsely furnished. A bed, a dresser and a short bedside table with a lamp. The sheets had been torn from the bed and were strewn across the floor. The pillows and mattresses had been cut open and searched. Horsehair and down lay in clumps all around the bed. The drawers had been pulled out of the dresser and piled untidily on top. Bannerman, still squatting on the floor below the window, accepted even then that his trip to Flanders had been a waste of time. Gryffe’s country house had been professionally searched. He would find nothing. He could not even tell when the search had taken place. It might have been the day before. It might have been a week before Gryffe was shot. But no! The broken wood on the shutters was very fresh. Within the last couple of days perhaps.

He stood up, heavy with disappointment, and the glass from the broken pane crunched on the floor beneath his feet. He picked his way across the room and pulled the door open. It led into the blackness of a short hallway. His fingers fumbled along the wall until they found a light switch. Nothing. Of course, the electricity would be turned off at the mains. He stumbled across the hall and opened another door.

Tiny chinks of sunlight showed around the windows where the shutters fitted badly. They gave enough light for him to see that this was a big room. A sofa, a working desk, two or three wall cabinets, bookcasing, a coffee table. Two large armchairs and an old wooden rocker were arranged around a huge open fireplace. The debris of the search was here too. Papers and books, whole drawers and their contents thrown any-old-where across the floor. Bannerman opened one of the front windows, unhooked the shutters and pushed them out.

Sunshine streamed in and the rush of fresh air invaded the smell of dust and dampness. A few papers stirred in the breeze. Bannerman lit a cigar and stared thoughtfully out across the fields towards the road. What had they been after? Had they found it? Who were they? He turned and walked across the room to sit in the rocker. It creaked as he pushed it gently back and forth, and he let his head fall back on the wooden rest. It was a dead-end. He could see no way beyond it. He would go and see Jansen and Lapointe. But what would they tell him? They would lock him out with tight-lipped smiles and know he knew nothing. He had given Tait the ammunition the man needed to get rid of him, and without a story he had no bargaining power. His future lay ahead of him like a desert. The words of Palin, the drunk, came back to him like a bitter reproach, ‘...someday even bastards like you get put out to grass’.

Bannerman sighed and leaned forward, tipping his ash into the hearth. The contents of a wicker wastebin were strewn across the stone slabs. Even it had been searched. Bannerman bent further forward and picked up a crumpled envelope. He smoothed it out and and looked inside. Empty. The stamp was Swiss and postmarked December. He was about to throw it away when he noticed the address, P.O. BOX 139, BUREAU DE POSTE, PLACE DE LA MONNAIE, BRUXELLES. Bannerman frowned. It had almost slipped his notice and its significance did not dawn on him immediately.

He stared at it for some time before bending over to search for more envelopes. He found several, and all but two were addressed to Gryffe at his London home. The others were addressed to the same box number in Brussels. He got up and started looking around the room for more. Within a few minutes he had found seven. They were all empty. He clutched them in his hand and cursed softly. So Gryffe had been receiving correspondence which he picked up from a box number in Brussels. It was the first real indication of anything secretive about the man’s activities.

Bannerman dropped the envelope on the floor and thought whoever had gone through the dead man’s papers had been careful to remove all his letters. But he had overlooked the tell-tale address on the envelopes. If Gryffe had kept a private box number then he would also have had a poste restante card. It was just possible that the intruder might have overlooked it also, if it was here. But it had to be. For surely if it had been among his personal possessions in Brussels, du Maurier would have told him.

It did not occur to him until after nearly an hour of fruitless searching among the chaos in the house that it might be among Gryffe’s things in London. The thought stopped him as suddenly and effectively as if he had walked into a stone wall. He righted the upturned desk chair and slumped into it, hot and frustrated. Through the open window he saw that the sun had become a big red globe hanging over the distant horizon, and he realised that the room had sunk into a deep pink gloom. He felt drained and disappointed. The card would have given him access to the box. It was just possible that there would still be mail there for Gryffe that had never been collected.

The drawers down either side of the desk had been pulled out and then not replaced. They lay about the floor where they had been dropped or thrown. Instinctively Bannerman felt under the leaf of the table and found the small round knob of the tray drawer that slides in above the top drawer of most work desks. He pulled it out. The card lay in the tray section among a scattering of paper clips and pins. Carefully, Bannerman lifted it out and examined it before slipping it into his jacket pocket and allowing a little smile to crease his face. ‘Got you,’ he said, softly, and the whisper seemed thunderous in the stillness of the room.

He unwrapped a cigar and lit it slowly, deliberately, taking long, slow pulls and watching the thick blue smoke drift lazily upwards into the quickly fading last light of the day. Everything slowed. His thinking, his breathing, the burning of the cigar, even time itself. It would have been impossible to say how long he sat thus, allowing the passing time to wash over him.

He saw a face peering through a misted waiting-room window. A little girl was shouting, but there were no words. She ran towards him, arms outstretched, but she seemed to go through him and was gone. A hand wiped away the mist from the other side of the window and another face appeared. Bannerman tried to see it. There were features; eyes, a nose, a mouth. They were there, and yet he had no conception of them. He could not see them. But they were there.

He awoke with a start and blinked in the darkness, momentarily confused and a little frightened, until he remembered where he was. He was cold. The room was like ice. A little moonlight filtered through the window he had opened. His cigar, still between his fingers, had gone out and the smell of its smoke had turned stale.

The match he struck to re-light it brought a brief, flickering life to the room. Then he stood up and found his legs and arms stiff with the cold. He picked up his holdall and stumbled across the room in the darkness to find the door. He crossed the hall and went into the bedroom where he had come in the window. The moon, rising in the south, flooded the room with a light that reflected no colour and threw deep black shadows across the floor. The sky was a chaos of stars, and already the frost was glistening on the snow.

Bannerman threw his bag out of the window and then pulled himself up onto the sill. A small red spot of light fluttered momentarily on the wood of the architrave beside his head. As he saw it, the architrave split and threw jagged splinters into his face. The crack of a rifle shot echoed away into the night. An owl in a tree just outside the window screeched and flapped off into the dark. For just a moment Bannerman was confused. He drew his hand from his face and saw his fingers running with blood. He had no time to take in the fact that someone had shot at him before he heard again the crack of the rifle and felt the bullet whistle past, no more than two inches from his left cheek, and smash into the plaster of the wall at the far side of the room. The gap between the two shots may only have been seconds, but it seemed like hours. It was the full realisation that came with the second shot that brought the fear. He recoiled instinctively and fell backwards from the sill.

He landed clumsily in the darkness and felt the broken glass from the window slicing through his trousers and into his right knee. He rolled clear of it and lay on his back on the floor, listening to his breath coming hard and fast. And there, on the wall, was the same spot of red light, no bigger than a half-penny. It moved slowly along the broken plaster then vanished. It had to be some kind of sighting device, but its remoteness, deadliness, was quite chilling.

A jumble of thoughts went tumbling through his mind. Those that stuck brought no comfort. Somewhere out in the snow a man with a rifle was trying to kill him. They were miles from the nearest village. There was no-one to hear the shots. He was on his own.

He turned over and scrambled to his feet, keeping in the shaded part of the room. His hands were shaking, but he felt no pain from his injured face and leg. He searched about the room for something he could hold up at the window. A pillow lay at his feet. It had been cut open and some of its down scattered across the floor. If the sniper had not moved... He would have chosen a position from which he had maximum coverage, the south, west and east sides of the house. The north side had to be blind.

Bannerman thought it out carefully, but he could not bring himself to move. He remained crouched for fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes until his teeth began chattering with cold and fear. The perspiration formed like ice on his face. Maybe he could sweat it out until daylight. What was the bastard waiting for? In the silence a twig snapped. It didn’t seem far off. Bannerman’s nerve broke. The yell ripped out from his throat as he threw the pillow up at the window. Almost immediately the rifle cracked in the moonlight beyond and the pillow was flung back in a cloud of feathers. The room seemed filled with them. Bannerman’s indecision was stultifying. Surely he would be safer to hold out. His chances of success in trying to escape across the snow seemed less than remote. And yet he was drawn by the second alternative.

But then the luxury of choice was sharply removed. The first thing he heard was movement in the snow outside, and then a small, dark cylindrical object hurtled through the window and into the room. It clattered across the floor and immediately began to issue a thick vapour that spread quickly in the stillness. Bannerman coughed, tears springing to his eyes as the stink of the acrid vapour stung his nostrils and burned his throat. He made a lunge for the door, pulled it open, and stumbled blindly across the hall and into the room opposite.

There was still a little light here from the window he had left open and the air was fresh and cold. He tripped as he made for the other side and struck his head on the edge of the desk. The pain filled his head, but the instinct to get out was stronger. He pulled himself up and made the opposite wall. His fingers fumbled infuriatingly with the window catch. It seemed to him that it was taking him hours and he felt a dizziness overtaking him. He took long deep breaths and it cleared a little.

Finally the window pulled open and he unhooked the shutters and pushed them out. As he pulled himself up so that he filled the frame it struck him, with a kind of gripping horror that for a second almost paralysed him, that there might be more than one of them. That any moment a man lying in wait to cover the north side would gently squeeze on a trigger and snuff him out with a single, simple shot. He almost felt it. But it did not come, and he jumped down into the cold and was almost buried in the snow that had drifted up against the wall.

For several seconds he foundered in it before he was clear of its burning cold and staggering towards the fence that bounded the house. He felt the friction of icy air on his skin and was aware of pieces of snow dropping from his coat as he ran, like sparks flying into the night. Most of all he felt the crushing vulnerability of being in the open.

The dizziness he had shaken off a few moments earlier was returning. He was over the fence now and running across the field as fast as the foot-and-a-half of snow would allow. All the time he was waiting for the bullet in his back. Surely he would come into the sights of his assailant at any time. He glanced back. He had made several hundred metres and there was no sign of movement anywhere around the house. Ahead, maybe a kilometre or more distant, lay the dark belt of trees he had seen earlier in the day. At least they would provide some kind of cover. And beyond the trees, he knew, there was a village. He had seen the spire.

But already his strength was giving out. The dizziness was intensifying. Maybe it was the gas he had inhaled. Was the snow getting deeper, or was it just that he found it harder to drag his feet through it? It was no longer cold, but suffocatingly hot. His face was wet and glistening with sweat and still he pushed as hard as he could. He might have been running forever. His lungs and throat were burning and tears sprang from his eyes with the rush of cold air.

A dry stone wall, three or four feet high, divided the fields ahead of him. Beyond that there was maybe a three hundred metres stretch before he would reach the comparative safety of the trees. The thought was fatal. He slowed to a stagger. About a metre in front of him, fractionally to his right, the small red spot appeared as if by magic and began searching the ground. It was strangely elongated. A small plume of snow lifted up from the rest. The sound of the gun followed a fraction of a second after. The red spot zig-zagged ahead of him and the second bullet struck the stone of the wall throwing off splinters in the moonlight. Again the now-familiar crack of the rifle.

He almost fell into the wall, scraping knuckles and tearing fingernails in his eagerness to be over it. A crippling numbness overtook him as he sprawled in the snow on the shadowed side. His heart hammered painfully against his ribs, each breath tearing at the next as his body fought to recoup the oxygen it had burned from his blood.

He had no idea how long he lay this way, and he was not sure he cared any longer. He was not hot any more. The cold had crept back. It was wrapping itself around him in a welcome mist of growing unconsciousness. Somewhere in his head a voice was screaming in warning. Don’t let it take you! Keep going, keep going! Don’t succumb to it, it’ll kill you! It took a supreme effort of will for him to roll over and get up onto all fours. He blinked furiously to stop his eyes from closing on him. The lids felt so heavy, as though they were weighted with lead. His fingers found the wall and he pulled himself up onto it so that he was looking back the way he had come. He could see his tracks in the snow as clear as day. He followed their line back several hundred metres until his eyes fell on the dark shape of a man walking towards him. His silhouette stood out vividly against a strange orange glow in the sky.

For some seconds Bannerman was confused by this. He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. The whole house was ablaze. Flames licked fifty feet into the sky. Through the glow he could see the black, crumbling frame of the building. Bannerman re-focused on the man. He was tall and thin and wore a heavy jacket of some sort. His rifle was held across his chest and he was moving relentlessly nearer. But he was still just a shadow, a shape in the night. He had no face that Bannerman could see. Bannerman felt hope and life slipping away from him.

He slid back down behind the wall and he knew that he could not last much longer in the open. He had expended all his reserves and now, if this man with the gun did not finish him off, the cold and the open would. ‘God damn you!’ he shouted defiantly at the night. But his voice sounded feeble. Keep going, keep going, the voice in his head was screaming. He heard himself sobbing, but he was on his feet again, though he was not sure how, and he was staggering towards the trees.

Afterwards, there was no recollection of how he covered the ground between the wall and the trees. He was certain there had been no further shots. All he knew was that overhead the protective boughs of many trees spread and intertwined between him and the stars. He threw his arms around a trunk, the bark scraping against his cheek. His legs were liquid. Looking back he could see the man with the rifle no more than twenty metres away, coming through the line of the trees. Bannerman pushed himself off and felt the ground falling away beneath him. He fell for what seemed like an eternity. Down and down until suddenly all his senses became sharply focused by the ice-cold water that soaked his clothes and burned his flesh. He heard the sound of running water and felt it wash over him. Chunks of snow and stone were rattling down the bank after him. Oh, how easy it would be just to slip off into the blessed unconsciousness that beckoned so enticingly. But the shock of the water had brought back some of his awareness and his will to keep going.

His fingers scrabbled in the dirt until he found a hold, and he pulled himself clear of the water and clung to the bank. He had never realised how the coldness could be such a bitter and deadly enemy.

Suddenly his ears were filled with a roaring and just for a second the night seemed alive with fire. Then almost as quickly it was over and a softness of earth was showering down from the sky on top of him. The silence that followed then was quite extraordinary. It was the last thing Bannerman could later recall with any great clarity. He had no memory at all of how he clawed his way to the top of the bank, and only a broken recollection of seeing the crater in the ground, the tree half torn up by its roots, the scorch marks on the surrounding trunks, the remains of the man with the rifle, a white, wide-eyed face, sandy hair matted with blood — the rest barely recognisable as human. And all he could recollect of the next minutes was the urge to keep going. He did not even try to understand. The voice in his head, the trees behind him, the flames of the burned-out house dying in the distance, the sound of his feet dragging through the snow, the fence and the roadway. And then the lights that came out of the darkness that descended on him like a shroud, stealing him finally into a black unconsciousness.

III

Light came slowly into his world of darkness. But before the light came he was aware of sounds around him, jumbled at first, unrecognisable. Then they grew clearer. Feet moving across wooden floorboards, the rustle of material, a woman’s voice. Words he could not understand. As awareness increased he could pick up smells, odours evocative of many distant memories. The musk of a woman’s perfume, the smell of hot food, cigarette smoke.

He opened his eyes and the light flooded into his head in a startling, swimming brightness. He screwed them tight shut and then opened them again slowly so that he could control the light. Where was he? He felt warm and stiff and all around a softness rubbed his skin. Above him he saw a white plaster ceiling supported by black painted beams. A woman’s face peered down at him and smiled. It was a round, pleasant face. She spoke to him, but he could not understand. Her head turned away and she spoke to someone else that he could not see. His consciousness was fully returned now, and with it came a pounding pain in his head. His body ached and he found it almost impossible to move.

With a great effort he pulled himself up on his elbows so that his horizon dropped. Beyond the end of the bed du Maurier sat on a hard-backed wooden chair, watching him. He still wore his hat and coat, and a weariness was deeply etched in the lines of his face. His dark eyes stared sadly back at Bannerman. The woman bent over him, blocking the policeman from his sight, and she plumped the pillow behind his back so that he had support to sit half up in the bed. Then she had a bowl of hot soup at his lips. He accepted it gratefully and took rapid gulps of the hot, thick liquid, allowing a little of it to spill out at the corners of his mouth in his haste. It tasted good in a way that nothing had ever tasted before. It filled him with a core of warmth that seemed to penetrate outwards to reach every part of him. He finished it and let the bowl drop away from his mouth, suddenly self-conscious of the eyes watching him. With the self-consciousness returned the memory of the events of a few hours ago. The red spot, the choking gas in the moonlit bedroom, that agonising chase across the snowy wastes, the remains of the man in the crater. The rest was hazy. The dragging stagger through the snow, the lights on the road. He held out a bowl and the woman took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

She was a plain plump woman in her middle forties, her long, thick hair pulled back and held with an elastic band. She smiled.

‘Are you strong enough to talk?’ the policeman asked. Bannerman glanced at du Maurier and nodded. The Inspector spoke briefly to the woman whose face suddenly clouded. She snapped back at him. But du Maurier interrupted her with an authority Bannerman had not seen him exert before and she stopped in mid-sentence, the colour rising in her cheeks. Without another word she bustled to the door and through it, pulling it sharply behind her. A quiet descended on the room.

It was not a big room; bare floorboards with a small, square rug in the centre. The rough plaster walls were painted white. The old brass bedstead was pushed into one corner against the wall opposite the window. There was a big wardrobe, a dresser and two chairs. There was no shade on the light-bulb that hung from the ceiling throwing its harsh, unrelenting light into every corner. Du Maurier took off his hat and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, running the rim of the hat round and round through his fingers. ‘I don’t suppose you would have a cigar?’ Bannerman said.

The policeman shook his head. ‘A cigarette?’

‘All right.’

Du Maurier got up and walked round the bed. He handed Bannerman a cigarette and lit it for him, and then walked back to his chair. His own cigarette was almost spent. He lit another from the end of it and stood on the butt. ‘So,’ he said, ‘I’ve driven all the way from Brussels and I’ve sat up most of the night.’

‘I didn’t know you cared.’

Du Maurier sighed and glared at him. ‘If I had not come you might have been in a great deal of trouble.’

Bannerman drew on his cigarette and tasted burning paper. ‘You were sent?’

‘I was sent.’

‘To smooth it over, cover it up?’

‘I want to know what happened.’

‘And if I don’t want to tell you...?’

‘You could still be in a great deal of trouble.’

Bannerman considered this. His head still hurt, his body still ached. He had not the strength to fight it. So he told it, as it had happened, as he remembered it. But he said nothing about the poste restante card. Somehow in the telling of the story it seemed such an obvious hole. Du Maurier gave no sign of missing anything. He sat without expression, just listening. ‘I have no idea what happened to him,’ Bannerman was saying. ‘There was an explosion. I don’t remember everything, but there was not very much left of him.’

The Inspector nodded. ‘I know, I’ve seen it. You were very lucky, Monsieur. He died in a way he could never have imagined. A German land mine from the last war. The woods are riddled with them and there are warning signs every hundred metres or so. It is quite common in this part of the country. You are very fortunate that you did not go the same way.’ Bannerman shuddered suddenly as though someone had walked over his grave. Du Maurier looked to the floor and then back at Bannerman. ‘And you have no idea what the spot of red light might have been?’

The reporter shrugged and felt weary. ‘I don’t know. Some kind of sighting device maybe.’

Du Maurier nodded. ‘A laser beam. It can pinpoint a target at over one thousand metres. It’s a new American gun, the B120. A high-powered sight enables the marksman to line up the laser on any target. You can’t miss. Even I could handle it.’

Bannerman frowned. ‘But he did miss.’

‘Yes, he did.’ Pause. ‘Let me tell you something. The B120 is a highly specialised weapon. There are very few of them around. You’ve got to be somebody pretty special to have one. A top professional. And there is no way a top professional would miss.’

Bannerman flicked ash at the floor. ‘You mean he wasn’t trying to kill me?’

‘It seems possible.’

‘Well it sure as hell didn’t seem that way at the time. How about the gas?’

Du Maurier waved one hand in a vague semi-circle. ‘Tear gas, maybe. Or something a little more toxic. But you were never in danger. He left you a way out and you took it. He could not have planned for the fact that you very nearly did come to grief, as he obviously did not plan his own end. How long was it since you had eaten?’

‘I don’t know. Early morning probably.’

‘So you had not eaten all day you had spent several hours in a cold house. You had cuts on your head and leg. You inhaled toxic or semi-toxic gas, then you went out into a bitter night hardly dressed for sub-zero temperatures, and ran nearly two kilometres through the snow before falling into a half-frozen stream. Fatigue, shock, exposure. You must have the constitution of an ox. When the police communal found you in the road you were very nearly dead. They got some food and drink into you last night and a doctor came from Torhout and dressed your wounds. He recommends that you remain in bed for two or three days.’

Bannerman looked across at the window. The shutters were closed. ‘What time is it?’

Du Maurier looked at his watch. ‘Just after eight. It should be getting light outside.’

‘Where are we?’ It had not occurred to him until now to ask. It hadn’t seemed important before.

‘A small inn at the village of Smoelaert. Only a few kilometres from Monsieur Gryffe’s house, or what’s left of it.’

‘Are you going back to Brussels?’

‘In an hour or so. I have one or two things to attend to first with the local police.’

‘Will you give me a lift back?’

‘If you insist.’

Then they fell silent and there was not a sound in the place. Bannerman rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked down for the first time to see that he was wearing an old woollen dressing gown with a faded checked pattern. He looked up again at du Maurier. ‘Who was he?’

The policeman shook his head. ‘I have no idea. But I shall find out. He had been staying here at the inn for two days, under the name of Michael Ritchie, an Englishman. Presumably it was he who searched the house before you. The night before last he checked out in a hurry after getting a telephone call.’ A new doubt was suddenly planted in Bannerman’s mind as an ugly little thought wormed its way into his consciousness. He pushed it aside. Du Maurier went on, ‘What he did that night or the following day, we have no idea. But the local police found his car last night. It was parked off the road about half a kilometre from the house.’ Pause. ‘You’d never seen him before?’

Bannerman nodded. ‘Yes, I’d seen him. Yesterday morning at the Gare du Midi. He was on the platform.’ He remembered the face peering into the waiting room. And he remembered that same face with its dead eyes staring out of the mud and snow. ‘Why should someone go to all that trouble not to kill me?’ he asked.

Du Maurier stood. ‘Perhaps simply to frighten you.’

‘They did that all right.’

‘They?’

Bannerman smiled wanly. ‘Men like that act under instruction, or for money. Someone else pays the wages, calls the tune.’

‘Yes.’ The policeman put his hand into an inside pocket and pulled out a small, square poste restante card. He walked slowly round the bed and held it so that Bannerman could see it. ‘You forgot to tell me about this.’

‘So I did.’

‘And do you want to?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then you’d better take it.’ He held it out.

Bannerman took it and looked at him with genuine surprise. ‘Why?’

‘Because it is of no use to me, and my superiors would only destroy it.’

‘But I thought you had decided to play it their way. That you wouldn’t fight them any more, that you would stop feeding me information.’

Du Maurier’s head dropped a little and an odd expression of melancholy came over his face. ‘Things have changed since then.’

‘What’s changed?’

The policeman sighed. ‘The night before last, only a few hours after you visited her, the child, Tania, went missing from the clinic. She... someone broke in.’

Chapter Nine

I

The afternoon editions of the evening papers were on the streets. The sounds of traffic, of people laughing, of the paper-boy calling headlines, floated into the remoteness of the café. Tucked away in a side street off the Boulevard Adolphe Max, it seemed removed from all life that went on around it, like an eddy at the edge of a stream.

Kale sat in the farthest corner from the door. Here he sought his refuge, alone in a dark place where his face was not known, would be neither noticed nor remembered. It was a curious place. The only light came through dirty windows that faced out onto the street, the floor was unswept and the tables and chairs rocked on uneven legs. Half a dozen people sat at tables on their own, staring gloomily into drinks that they made last for hours, or watching the flickering screen of the crackling black-and-white television set on the far wall. The sound was turned down, but the second-hand pictures of other people’s worlds held a remorseless fascination, were company for lonely souls.

An old woman with short, dirty-grey hair sat behind the battered zinc bar, staring into space, puffing periodically on an evil-smelling cheroot. Kale stared despairingly at the newspapers in front of him. He had bought them all. This day and the day before. Scrutinising every column inch of words he did not understand. Searching but never finding. There was nothing that even remotely suggested a story about the missing child. Not even on the shootings at the Rue de Pavie. It was as though none of it had ever happened. He was discovering a quiet, quite alien desperation in himself, a need to know that his existence made a difference to the world, that the things he did had consequences. Here, in this city that was strange to him, where he knew no-one and no-one knew him, it was as though he did not exist at all.

A quality of nightmare about the last days haunted him. It was a time when he had discovered things in himself that he had never known were there, things that confused him, frightened him. His values, if he had ever had any, his relationship with the life that went on around him, had altered beyond his understanding. He was like a man who, having thrown a pebble into a pool, sees the stone vanish without breaking the surface of the water. There are no concentric rings spreading out to infinity, no evidence that he has thrown the pebble. Would such a man, perhaps, begin to doubt his very existence? Would he then dare to look into the pool for fear that there might be no reflection?

He pulled on the last inch of his cigarette and blew the grey smoke back out through nicotine-stained teeth. Why had he not killed the child? The opportunity had been his for the taking. And why, after only two days, had the killings in the Rue de Pavie died in the public consciousness. The papers should be full of it, as they should be full, today, of the child’s disappearance.

He had bought the English newspapers, too, at a large newsagent’s in the centre of the city. After the second day, nothing. The front pages had been given over again to the election; the Prime Minister speaking in Edinburgh, the Leader of the Opposition making an important policy statement on immigration designed to win votes. Why had he not killed the child?

His mind drifted back to the hospital rising above him in the darkness, to the sudden flood of light from the downstairs window that had caught him like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of a car. He had seen the child looking down at him in the reflected light, seen the recognition in her eyes. Even then, after the light had gone, he had not thought of drawing back. It had not occurred to him to fight the almost irresistible drag of the currents that drew him towards the vortex. He had moved around the house, forcing a window and climbing into the pitch darkness of the kitchen. It must have been then that he had heard the first whispers of guilt. Something in the warmth, the smell of stale cooking, a scrap of blue ribbon lying on a work surface by the door. Something that reminded him of when he was a boy.

In the hallway, night lights glowed faintly along the wall and his heart leapt at the sight of a figure watching him from the far end. It was several seconds before he realised that it was his own reflection that watched him from a mirror on the wall. He had stood staring at the mean, cheap, dirty figure, unable to move, to draw his eyes away from it. For just a moment he thought he saw his mother’s face peering back at him out of the darkness. He had never seen the resemblance before. It was uncanny.

The spell had been broken then by the sound of soft footsteps somewhere in the house. They fell like blows upon him. Was it fear that had made him turn on his heels and run? Back through the kitchen, out again into the cold night, the window left open behind him.

In the darkness he stumbled through the snow in despair. And as he came around the house he saw her, a shadow in the night, running down the steps, a coat clutched around her, a woollen hat pulled down on her head. She had glanced in his direction, but had not seen him, and had run on across the terrace. She slipped and fell. He heard her sobs as she picked herself up and ran out of sight down the driveway. He might have followed. It would have been easy then. But he had not.

A policeman came into the café, a black cape across his shoulders, and Kale tensed. The policeman cast an eye around the figures at the tables. Was it only Kale’s imagination that the man’s eyes rested longer on him? He stared back out of sullen, hateful eyes and the policeman turned away to buy a pack of cigarettes. He exchanged a few words with the grey-haired woman and then went out without a backward glance.

Kale finished his beer, and left fifty francs in the saucer and went out into the street. He scuffed along the pavement close to the wall, away from the boulevard, turning left into the Rue Neuve and along to the Place de la Monnaie. A great weight had settled on him. He stopped to light a cigarette and looked up to see the man he had followed to the hospital. Bannerman was crossing the square only fifty metres away. Kale stood fixed, watching as the man climbed the steps and pushed through the great heavy swing doors of the Post Office. It all came back to him. The knowledge of what he must do. He might almost have cried, something he had not done since he was a child. But then, that would have been a weakness, and he could not afford to discover yet more weaknesses in himself. He slipped his right hand into his coat pocket and felt the slip of paper he had drawn from the left luggage locker. Just three words. They almost burned his fingers.

II

Bannerman stepped into the warmth of the IPC building. There was still a rawness in his bones and he felt a slight shiver crawl across his skin. A fine, cold sweat formed over his forehead. He passed the reception desk. The telephone girl did not look up from her magazine. In the press bar he sat on one of the high stools and leaned forward on his elbows breathing noisily. The barman raised an eyebrow. ‘Monsieur?’

‘Whisky.’

He clutched the glass eagerly and poured its golden warmth over his throat. ‘Another.’

‘We are making every effort to find her.’ Du Maurier’s words came to him, crisp in the cold air as they walked across the street from the inn to the car. The sun had been rising over the tops of the trees that were sculpture against the pale sky. ‘But there has been none of the attendant publicity you might expect. It would help. Someone might have seen her. But if the story got out... Well, the politicians are afraid that the whole case would be resurrected by the press.’ Bannerman’s breath had drifted like mist into the early morning.

‘And you think you will find her alive?’

There had been a look of shame on du Maurier’s face. ‘No,’ he said.

‘And I suppose nothing of what happened here last night will reach the papers either. At least, not through you.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And what about me?’

‘I can’t stop you. Others perhaps, but not me.’

Bannerman drained his second glass, dropped some coins on the counter and went back out past the telephone girl to the lifts. The whisky had restored a little of his strength and numbed the hurt.

Mademoiselle Ricain looked up in surprise as he came into the office. She was embarrassed and stood up. ‘I... Monsieur...’ she stuttered. ‘Your office in Edinburgh has been trying to reach you for nearly two days. And...’ she fumbled among some papers on her desk, ‘...a man called Platt. He has phoned several times, as has Mademoiselle Robertson.’

He sat down and glanced across at Palin’s empty desk. ‘Where’s Palin?’

Mademoiselle Ricain blushed. ‘He... he’s gone back to London.’ Pause. ‘You look terrible, Monsieur.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere. For God’s sake sit down. You make me nervous fluttering about like that.’

Her face flushed again and she sat down. She slipped a sheet of paper into her typewriter and began typing furiously.

Bannerman took an envelope from his pocket. It had been so easy. After du Maurier dropped him he had gone straight to the Post Office at the Place de la Monnaie and presented Gryffe’s card. The girl behind the counter had not given him a second glance, but returned within a minute with the envelope he now held in his hand. Perhaps he should have felt more excitement than he did, but the child still filled his thoughts. He tried to feel detached, to remain unaffected. Why should it matter to him? But it did. Then he thought, let it feed your anger. Let it make you angry so that you want all the more to get at those responsible. If he could not channel it into something positive, then the sorrow was always there, waiting to well up and choke him.

He looked at the postmark and stamp on the envelope. It came from Switzerland and it had been posted at the beginning of the month, nearly two weeks ago. He slit it open. There were two sheets of paper clipped together. The top sheet was letter-headed, a firm of chartered accountants in Geneva — Fouquet, Maxim and Schmidt, 50 Rue des Quartiers. It was addressed to M. Robert Gryffe, and the letter was brief and in English.

‘Dear Sir, please find enclosed, as requested, a quarterly statement of the accounts of Machines Internationale S.A. for the three months ending the immediate past year. Your servants etc.’

The sheet below listed purchases, sales, overheads, in columns of figures down the right-hand side. It showed a pre-tax profit for the three months of one and a half million pounds with a rolling total for the first nine months of nearly five million pounds. Further returns were expected.

Bannerman was stunned. He ran his eyes up and down the figures. Just numbers on a sheet of paper. But they meant so much. Sales, purchases and overheads were not itemised, but that would come. He had a start, the first inkling of what it was that Gryffe had been involved in. He was oblivious to Mademoiselle Ricain’s typing, to the late afternoon sunshine that slanted into the office across his desk, to the film of sweat on his forehead. He reached for the phone and dialled rapidly.

‘Edinburgh Post.’ The line was good and clear across all the miles.

‘News desk.’

Gorman, the Post’s news editor, was preparing the schedule for the news desk secretary to type before the five o’clock conference when the phone went. He was harassed. It had been one of those afternoons. Five dead in a fire in Maryhill in Glasgow, the Prime Minister’s conference before an election rally to be held later in the Usher Hall. Then there was a Nationalist MP claiming a political motive behind a burglary at his home. Important documents on the Nationalists’ election strategy were missing, he was saying. There were two reporters off with flu. And, of course, there had been the diary markings of the daily round of press conferences that the Parties insisted on giving in the run-up to polling day. But if he was to stop and think about it, this was the way Gorman liked it.

‘David!’ he barked, as a copy boy dropped long, ragged-edged sheets of pink paper on his desk. A young reporter with a thick dark moustache and a broken nose ambled across the newsroom. Gorman held out the sheets of pink paper. ‘That’s the PA copy on the fire. You’d better check it and see if they’ve got anything we haven’t.’

‘Not a chance,’ the reporter grinned and ambled back to his seat clutching the sheets from the wireroom.

Gorman’s phone rang. He lifted it and said wearily, ‘News desk.’

‘Gorman?’

‘Speaking.’ Then, ‘Neil?’

‘The same. Look, I’m in a hurry, I...’

‘Hold it, hold it! Where in God’s name have you been, Neil? Tait’s been looking for you for the last two days, ever since Slater’s girl went missing.’

‘You know about that?’ Bannerman was surprised.

‘Yes, they told Tait. But he won’t use anything on it. He’s been going spare, and I have been getting the heavy end of the stick, I can tell you. Where have you been?’

‘Busy. I don’t have time to go into it. I want a number from my contacts book.’

Gorman interrupted irritably. ‘Look, I think you’d better talk to Tait.’

‘No way. I’m through talking with Tait. I guess he didn’t tell you I was leaving the Post?’

The words dropped into Gorman’s confusion like lead weights. For a moment he could not think of anything to say, then blurted lamely, ‘You’re joking.’

‘No. There isn’t much room in my life for jokes these days. We had a little disagreement in Brussels, Tait and I. But I don’t suppose he would tell you about that either. When I’m through with this story I’m getting out. However, that is neither here nor there. I need that number. A guy called Hector Lewis. He’s got a small business in Geneva that does company searches among other things. I must get in touch with him tonight. The book’s in my desk.’

‘Hold on.’

Gorman made his way across the newsroom. In the last week he had found himself missing the familiar sight of the cantankerous Bannerman sitting at his desk chewing cigars and being thoroughly objectionable to all around him. It did not seem possible that he might not be back. He was good to have around. If you were a news editor, then he might make life pretty difficult for you, but there was a safe feeling knowing that he was there. Damn Tait with his brash bad manners and his tantrums and the knives that he kept sharpened for his staff. He was killing the Post as surely as if it were a ship he was steering onto the rocks in a cruel sea. You could not afford to lose people like Bannerman. He was not the first, neither would he be the last. When, Gorman wondered, would his turn come? Soon, he suspected.

He lifted Bannerman’s contacts book from its drawer and returned to the news desk. He picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got your number, Neil.’ He read it over, hesitated, then asked, ‘What will I tell Tait?’

‘Tell him to stick it up his arse.’

‘Can I quote you?’

‘Please.’

‘Good. I shall enjoy that.’

As he hung up the door behind flew open and Tait stood in the doorway, shirt sleeves rolled up, clenched fists on his hips. ‘Any word of Bannerman yet?’

Bannerman had started dialling again almost before Tait had got his door open. He listened to the shrill single rings in his left ear and became aware that Mademoiselle Ricain was still typing away at the desk opposite him. What could she be typing? There was only himself and Palin working out of this office. And Palin was gone.

‘Vous cherchez?’ The voice crashed into his thoughts.

‘Hector Lewis, s’il vous plaît.’

‘Moment.’ A line got plugged through the switchboard. ‘Lewis.’

‘Hector, it’s Neil Bannerman.’

You could almost hear Lewis running the name through his head in the split second before he responded, ‘Neil! Good to hear from you. How are you?’

‘Let’s skip the formalities, Hector. You still do company searches?’

Lewis guffawed heartily at the other end. He was a man you could not offend. ‘Same old Neil Bannerman. Yes, I still do the occasional search for old customers like yourself. But I’ve been branching out a bit lately. Doing a nice line in PR now.’

‘Another martyr to presstitution?’

‘Ha, ha, that’s a good one. I must remember that.’

‘It’s not original.’

‘But nothing is nowadays, Neil. Nothing is.’

Bannerman continued dryly, ‘I need some information on a company called Machines Internationale. I have reason to think it might be registered in Switzerland. Possibly Luxembourg, but probably Switzerland.’

‘A pleasure, sir, a pleasure. What do you want to know?’

‘Everything. Director, associated companies if any, capital, line of business. And if you do turn up any companies I’d like the gen on them too.’

‘Something big?’

‘None of your damned business.’

‘Ha, ha. No, you’re quite right. Discretion is the key word. But it’ll cost you. My time is more valuable these days.’

‘Oh sure, the time you spend on your backside while you delegate the donkey work to your little army of diggers.’

‘Right in one, Neil. Right in one. Life is so much sweeter when one can reap the rewards from the labours of others. Where can I reach you?’ Bannerman gave him his office number and the number at Slater’s flat. ‘And what are you doing in Brussels?’ Lewis asked.

‘Shelling sprouts.’

‘That’s good. Ha, ha. Very droll. It wouldn’t be anything to do with the shootings at the beginning of the week?’

‘I told you. Mind your own bloody business.’

‘Good, fine, right. How soon do you want this stuff?’

‘Just as soon as you can get off your fat arse and start digging.’

‘And goodnight Vienna. Ha, ha. Right, good. Give my love to, eh... well, whoever. I’ll be in touch.’

Bannerman hung up and leaned back in his seat. He was not happy at having to use Lewis. He would rather have gone to Switzerland himself, but that would have taken time. And Lewis was good. But he was a vicious bastard. Somewhere behind all that ersatz affability and good humour was a hidden sack of poison. The sharp ring of the phone startled him. He snatched the receiver. ‘Bannerman.’

‘Neil, it’s Sally. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. God, I’ve been so worried. You know about Tania?’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Where have you been? I thought maybe you’d gone back to Scotland. They phoned me early the morning after it happened. I tried to get you at the Rue de Commerce, but there was no reply. You haven’t heard anything, have you?’

‘No.’ There was a long silence on the line that perhaps seemed longer than it was.

Then Sally said, ‘Can we meet?’

Bannerman wiped the perspiration from his forehead. ‘I’m tired, Sally. Maybe tomorrow.’ There was another silence and then he heard the phone click and go dead at the other end. He dropped the receiver back in its cradle and leaned forward on his elbows, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. The typing stopped and he looked up to find Mademoiselle Ricain watching him. He stared back, almost without seeing her. Suddenly he said, ‘Would you do me a favour, Mademoiselle?’

‘Well, yes,’ she answered hesitantly.

‘It’s all right, I just want you to phone Richard Platt at the Belge Soir and tell him I’ll be in touch tomorrow. I’m going home now. When you’ve done you might as well knock off too.’ She nodded, expecting Bannerman to rise and take his leave. But he sat on, still looking at her. She grew more self-conscious and dithered before reaching for the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘About Palin. I embarrassed you.’

‘Oh...’ she said, not sure about how to respond. ‘He... he probably deserved it. I... he wasn’t a very nice man.’

‘No.’ Bannerman stood up. ‘What are you typing?’

She blushed. ‘Nothing. That is... nothing important.’ Bannerman nodded, leaned over and took the sheet of paper from the typewriter. The typing was neat and accurate. ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’ About thirty lines of it. Bannerman smiled and laid it on her desk.

III

The muffled ring of the telephone reached Tania on the landing. It seeped through her drowsiness like a light seen through a fog on a dark night. She was only vaguely aware of it though she knew it was there. It was not until it stopped that she awoke fully to the gnawing, hungry ache in her belly and the cold that gripped her like a vice in the darkness. Another night. Was it the second or the third? She was losing track of time now.

She looked up at the skylight and saw stars in the blackness of the sky. There was no longer any fear in her. She thought she heard Death on the steps, thought she saw its dark shadow make its stealthy approach. But it didn’t matter any more. She would almost have welcomed it. She was not certain why she was here. Her memory of the face caught in the light below her window was fading. Her flight from the house into the deserted streets, the snow that fell through the light of the street lamps, the empty bus terminus. The fingers of her memory had numbed and were no longer able to hold onto these things.

The landing lamp suddenly came on, flooding a pain of light into her head. With the shock of it, she remembered the horror of that moment on the bus when she could not pay, when the conductor had begun to shout and she could not say what it was she wanted to say. It came like the sudden flare of a struck match and died as quickly, leaving only a slow flame that flickered hopelessly, making little impression in the vastness of her misery. She still remembered that first night in the brick bin shelter, the cold and the smell of rottenness and the scurrying of unseen rats. She closed her eyes against the harshness of the light and heard slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps this, at last, was Death.

Bannerman had got the taxi to drive up the Rue de Pavie, past the house where Gryffe and Slater had been shot. It lay in darkness, empty and desolate, like the street itself. At the top he got out and went into a general store on the corner. An old man served him and sold him a loaf, some cheese and two litres of red wine. As an afterthought he also bought a carton of milk. The old man gave him a thick, brown paper bag to carry the things away in and the taxi whisked him back through the snow-bound city as the stars came out hard and clear overhead.

In the Rue de Commerce, Slater’s car stood by the kerb. Three inches of snow lay on the roof and the bonnet, its coat of frost glistening in the lamplight. He climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and watched it slither cautiously away down the street. The weight of his tiredness was enormous. How could he even think about things or put them in their proper perspective until he had had some sleep? He would have a hot bath first, then take some bread and cheese, wash it down with the wine and go on drinking the wine until he didn’t care any more. Then he would sleep forever.

The stairs and the landings were all so depressingly familiar now. And it was a long climb for weary limbs.

He almost didn’t see her huddled in a corner on the opposite side of the landing. It was only the slightest sound that made him turn as he was slipping the key in the lock. Her eyes were open and staring up at him. There was no hint of recognition, no reaction. He opened the door and slid his bag inside and crossed the landing to crouch over her. Her face was drained of colour and her dark eyes were ringed and sunk deep in her head. He lifted one of her limp hands and was shocked by its coldness. ‘My God!’ The words came in a breath like mist in the lamplight.

Very carefully he lifted her in his arms and carried her across the landing and into the house. He kicked the door shut and staggered through the half-light in the hall and into the living room. He laid her gently on the settee and lit the fire before switching on a small table lamp and drawing the curtains. Her breathing seemed shallow. He sat on the settee beside her and unbuttoned her coat. All the time her eyes never left him. He took each of her hands in turn and rubbed them briskly between his. ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he said. But in her first response since he had found her, her hand clutched at his sleeve and she shook her head. ‘You need a doctor,’ he said firmly. She shook her head again and he saw that look in her eyes that he had seen before.

He sighed and thought about it. ‘Have you eaten?’ Again she shook her head. ‘All right, I’ll give you some hot milk to start with. Will that be okay?’ This time she nodded and he thought he saw a little smile about her lips.

He was anxious and confused and again stricken by the uncertainty that this child brought him. He knew he should get a doctor, but equally he knew she would not have it. At least not right away. He pushed the coffee table aside and pulled the settee nearer the fire. ‘I’ll heat your milk.’

In the hall he found the bag where he had dropped it by the door, and took it into the kitchen. He found a saucepan in a cupboard, poured in some milk from the carton and placed the pan on a high gas. Perhaps she should have a hot bath. The worst was not knowing the right thing to do. When it was yourself you didn’t care too much. You mistreated yourself. You did the wrong things, you drank, you defied your doctor’s orders. But when it was someone else, you felt somehow a responsibility that you never felt for yourself.

He found the switch for the water heater on the wall by the kitchen door and switched it on. Then he remembered the suitcases in Slater’s bedroom. She should change into fresh, warm clothes. Her coat and dress had been cold and damp to the touch. He found the suitcases and began to go through the child’s things. There was a heavy woollen dressing gown and a pair of pyjamas. He found a small pair of slippers and took out a pair of Slater’s socks.

Tania felt the warmth only superficially. It was on her skin, but inside the cold was still there. It dulled her thinking, misted the window through which she looked out on the world. Only a tiny corner of it was clear and through it she saw Bannerman, smelled him, felt him.

She had never really had any contact with the world outside herself, always the observer. Somehow Bannerman bridged that gap, or at least she felt that he might. They were just a touch away. She had wanted it so much from her father, but he had never tried. He had never wanted to. Wisps of thought drifted in her mind. When she reached for them they dispersed like smoke and she gave up trying. She heard Bannerman in the kitchen and was aware of him going through the room and into her father’s bedroom. Presently he came out again and returned to the kitchen, then he was there beside her helping her up into a sitting position.

She tried very hard to bring herself up out of the mist. The glass was in her hand and he was bringing it up gently to her lips. The milky hotness of it washed away the badness in her mouth and she felt it going down, down, warm, almost sensuous. Its warmth was spreading and she felt the cold receding before it. For the first time in many hours she shivered. There was a soothing of the gnawing in her stomach and she became acutely aware of her hunger. The mist was at least clearing. She looked up to find Bannerman watching her with concern.

‘That better?’ His voice came close and soft. She nodded. He held up a bundle of clothes and she recognized her dressing gown. ‘I’ve had these warming in front of the fire for you. If you feel able you should change out of the clothes you’re wearing. They’re pretty damp.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction. She managed a weak smile and nodded. ‘I’ve put the water heater on. The water should be ready in about fifteen minutes. I think probably a hot bath would do you good. Then we can eat.’

They sat eating in silence in front of the fire. The bread and cheese was dry, but the wine was good. Tania had never been allowed to drink wine before and she found its taste a little bitter. But it filled her with a feeling of sleepy well-being and warmth, like the warmth that had spread so deliciously through her body in the bath. He had had to help her change and she had sensed his embarrassment.

He had been uncomfortably aware of the beginnings of puberty in the child, the slight swellings that would become her breasts, the fine down between her legs. There was nothing sexual in his discomfort, but it had been disconcerting. Now his own fatigue was catching up with him again. In all his concern for the child, he had forgotten his own weariness, his own desperate need for food and sleep. His bath would have to wait until tomorrow.

He finished eating and drank some more wine, watching her over the rim of his glass. Suddenly she got onto her knees and leaned forward, drawing a handkerchief from the pocket of her dressing gown. He felt its coolness on his forehead as she mopped away the fine beads of perspiration.

He caught her hand. ‘I’ll have to tell them you’re here.’ Almost immediately there was fear in her eyes and she shook her head vigorously. He said, ‘It’s all right. It’s just so they can stop searching. It’s only fair. No-one’s going to take you away tonight.’ He did not wait for a reaction, but turned and lifted the phone down beside him and began dialling.

‘Police Judicial.’ A woman’s voice.

‘Inspecteur du Maurier.’

‘Ne quittez pas.’ A phone lifted. ‘Du Maurier.’

‘You’re still there. I didn’t really expect to get you at this time. Have you no home to go to?’

‘What do you want?’ Du Maurier sounded irritable.

‘The child is here, God knows why. We’ll probably never know. She was waiting on the landing when I got back.’

Tania watched Bannerman darkly. She would not let anyone take her away again. She wanted to be with Bannerman always. She examined him closely while he spoke. She saw his weariness, the perspiration that had broken out again across his forehead, the cuts across his right-hand cheek. There was a hardness about his face, something a little frightening. But she knew, too, that he was capable of great gentleness. ‘And this time I want one of your men at the clinic night and day till she leaves,’ she heard him saying, and became aware of her heart pounding.

He hung up and smiled at her, ‘It’s all right,’ he said, and he got up from the floor to slump into the softness of the settee. She detected his hesitation in saying what was on his mind. Then he came out with it. ‘Tomorrow. Sometime tomorrow you... you’ll have to go back to the clinic. But it’ll only be for a day or so and then we can go back to Scotland.’

She had known it would come, but knowing in advance could not stop the flood of anger and hurt. It was always what they wanted. Did no-one ever think about what she wanted?

She flew at him, clenched fists beating against his chest, the cry of her agony on her lips. Bannerman had not been prepared for it. The fists hurt him, tiny blows raining across his chest and shoulders and face.

He tried to catch her arms, but fear of hurting her made it difficult. Finally he got his arms around her so that her arms were pinned at her sides and he hugged her to him and felt the sobs that racked her small body. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ he was saying, and then felt sick as he remembered hearing her father say that to her.

She was still struggling, but her strength was diminishing rapidly. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said breathlessly, ‘we’ll talk about it. We’ll work it out.’ The struggling subsided with a whimper and her head fell onto his shoulder with her face turned away from him. He rocked her gently to and fro. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he whispered. ‘God, I don’t want to hurt you.’ Something inside him snapped. A kind of iron self-control that had made him invulnerable for so long. But it had grown brittle with the years. His own voice sounded odd to him. ‘Somewhere there’s a little girl,’ he was saying, ‘only three or four years older than you. She’s my... I’m her father. I’ve never seen her. I could pass her in the street and I wouldn’t know it. She maybe even thinks that someone else is her father. I don’t know. I just know that there’s a part of me in her. A part of me...’ He turned his head a little and saw that she was asleep. Maybe she hadn’t heard any of it. Perhaps it was better that she should not know.

Slowly he moved her over so that she lay along the settee on her side and he got up and went through to the bedroom to get a duvet. He laid it across her and looked down on her face. It was almost pretty in repose. He stooped to kiss her cheek lightly and went through to his room.

IV

The morning had almost gone when Bannerman turned over and opened his eyes to the sunlight that filled his room. He craned his neck round to see Tania standing by the window staring out across the rooftops. She turned and smiled. ‘Good morning,’ Bannerman said, and returned her smile.

She looked vastly better than she had the previous night. He looked at his watch. It was nearly midday. ‘God, I’ve been out a long time. Have you been up long?’ She shook her head and held up one finger. ‘An hour?’ She nodded. She was dressed and there was a little bit of colour about her cheeks. ‘You must be starving.’ She grinned and walked, almost ran, to the door, and indicated that she wanted him to follow. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute. I’m not dressed.’ She shrugged.

He laughed and felt a great pleasure in simply laughing. ‘On you go. I’m not a pretty sight first thing in the morning.’ She nodded her agreement and he threw the pillow at her. It struck the door as she closed it quickly behind her.

There was still a stiffness in his limbs as he climbed out of bed and felt the cold air touch his skin. When he dressed he went through to the living room and saw a lump of bread and a piece of crumbling cheese set out for him on the coffee table, with the last half litre of wine and a glass. At the other side crumbs of bread and cheese gave evidence that she could not wait for him.

‘Well, thank you, Tania.’ He sat down and tore off a hunk of bread with his teeth. He looked at the wine and smiled reproachfully. ‘The wine was a nice thought, but honestly, after the excesses of last night I couldn’t really face it. You didn’t have any, did you?’ She nodded with a mischievous little smile in her eyes. ‘I can see I’m going to have to watch you. But you’re right. Bread and cheese is a little bit dry on its own. Could you go a coffee?’ She nodded vigorously in response and followed him eagerly into the kitchen.

There was milk enough to make the coffee half and half. He spooned sugar and coffee into two mugs and watched the milk and water come to the boil in a pan over the gas. He felt good. He could not remember having slept so well for long enough. It was the first morning in many that he had arisen with a lightness about him, with a delight in anticipation of the day ahead. But he was being careful not to let it blot out everything else. The future still lay like a black, ominous cloud on his horizon. He knew that to taste the goodness of life and then lose it was worse than never having tasted it at all.

It was the same for the child and he felt it as much for her as for himself. This was the false peace, the calm before the storm, or perhaps the eye of tranquillity at its centre. It was an ephemeral thing, but he did not want its lack of permanence to spoil it while it lasted.

‘Here.’ He handed her a mug and they drank it in silence, enjoying its sweetness and hotness. He should make her aware of it too. He said, ‘Later we’re going to have to talk about the future.’ He saw her face cloud. ‘But right now we’re not even going to think about it. We can spend the next few hours finding out a little bit more about each other.’ She tilted the mug back to hide her face and he could not detect her response. When she lowered the mug she smiled as though he had not spoken, and he wondered what she was thinking.

The doorbell rang and brought a sudden, tense silence into their world. They exchanged glances and her eyes said, don’t answer it. He sighed and lowered his head so that he did not have to see her. He placed his mug on the work surface and went out of the kitchen.

He felt something like relief when he opened the door and found Sally standing smiling at him. But there was still a residue of annoyance at the intrusion. ‘What do you want?’

The smile left her face and it coloured with anger. ‘I came to apologise,’ she said frostily. ‘For being short with you on the phone last night. But now I don’t think I’ll bother.’ She turned quickly and Bannerman grabbed her arm.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve got company.’

Her eyes flashed a strange dark emotion. ‘Oh, I see. Then I’ll not disturb you.’

Bannerman held her arm still. ‘Not that kind of company,’ he said and smiled in spite of himself. ‘It’s Tania. She was waiting on the landing when I got back last night.’

All her antagonism dissolved and she let her head drop a little. ‘Then I will apologise. I’m sorry. Is she all right?’

‘Well, come in, for God’s sake.’

She came into the hall and he shut the door behind her. ‘She’s okay. A bit weak. She should see a doctor, but she wouldn’t let me call one last night. She must have been through a hell of a lot.’ They stood in the half dark, an uneasiness between them that neither of them really understood. Suddenly Sally laughed.

‘I’m so glad. That she’s well. I don’t think I’ve had much sleep in the past couple of nights.’

‘You’d better come in and say hullo.’

‘Will she be all right?’

‘I don’t know.’

They went into the living room and Tania was standing at the kitchen door.

‘Hullo,’ Sally said. ‘I see you two have made friends.’

There was an awkward silence, almost as though Tania resented Sally’s presence. And Bannerman saw that Sally knew it and was hurt by it. He stepped forward and placed his hands on the child’s shoulders and crouched down so that his eyes were on a line with hers. ‘Look, Tania. The whole world isn’t against you. Even if it seems that way. It’s pretty hard for us all to make our way. It’s harder for you and it’s going to take a special kind of courage to come through it. I think maybe you’ve got that courage. But you’re still going to need all the friends you can get, all the love you can gather. Life’s pretty hostile. You need some kind of buffer against it and you’re going to have to start trusting the people that love you.’ She stared back at him, her face a blank mask. It was impossible to know what she was thinking, as it was so often with her. Bannerman stood up. ‘How about we all go for a walk?’ He glanced back at Sally. His words could almost have been meant for her as well.

She said, ‘That would be nice.’ Then he turned his eyes back to the child. He heard the clock ticking, and his own breathing. Her eyes looked deep into his with a disconcerting penetration and then they dropped a little and she nodded, almost imperceptibly.

It was a day full of promise, the sun pale and round in the vast blueness of the sky above the city. The air was crisp and nippy and your eyes watered in it if you ran.

Bannerman, Sally and the child walked briskly to keep warm, wrapped in heavy coats and scarves, down the Rue de Commerce, turning into the Rue Belliard. They crossed the Boulevard du Regent where the road shone wet and black with the salt, and the traffic threw out a spray of dirty black slush. Down Lambermont and into the Parc de Bruxelles. The seeds of happiness lay in them all, but there was, too, a restraint, so that the happiness was locked inside them.

Sally suggested they build a snowman, but the snow was too crisp and dry. It was Bannerman who threw the first snowball, gathering a handful of snow where the sun had been for some hours. Sally was still trying in vain to build her snowman while Tania watched uncertainly. The child saw the snow that Bannerman had scooped up and he put his fingers to his lips before he threw it and caught Sally on the shoulder. The snow burst in a spray over her face and she wheeled around, anger in her eyes. Then she saw that Bannerman was grinning, and that Tania was pulling in her mouth to stop from smiling. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If that’s the way you want it. Come on, Tania, we’re not going to let him get away with that, are we?’

She stooped quickly to grab a handful of snow that broke into a white cloud in the air as she threw it. Bannerman laughed. ‘You need to get it where the sun’s been on it.’ He threw another and Sally ducked so that it flew over her head. She grabbed Tania’s hand and they ran to where the sun slanted down through the trees across the virgin snow.

‘Like this,’ she said, showing Tania how to cup it between her hands and compress it into a ball. Then she yelled as another burst on her knee. She stood up quickly and hurled her snowball at Bannerman. He side-stepped easily, slipped and fell heavily on his side. He felt the snow in his shoes and burning the side of his face. He saw the black railings of the park and the outline of grey and biscuit-coloured buildings against the sky. Trees overhead and the sound of laughter. Sally’s fine clear voice, and another. He rolled over and saw Tania, her face reddened by the cold and bright with the laughter that came from her like music. He was not sure if he had ever heard anything so good. The child’s laughter was joyous and unrestrained, honest and simple, and in that moment, almost painful in its sweetness.

A snowball burst on his forehead, stinging his skin and bringing tears to his eyes. He heard footsteps crunching across the snow and Tania was there, standing over him, her laughter coming in short bursts of pleasure. She raised a hand and threw her snowball. It broke on his chest and he yelled and she dropped on her knees, her arms around his neck, life and laughter pulsing through her small, clumsy body. He hugged her and got to his feet, lifting her clear of the ground and spinning her round and round until the world swam and he had to stop. They both fell into the snow and Tania lay on her back breathing hard and laughing at the sky. Bannerman saw Sally crouched a few yards away in the snow. She grinned at him and tilted her head to one side.

He scrambled to his feet, brushing snow from his coat and trousers. ‘I’m soaked. What do you say we eat?’ Tania had stopped laughing and he saw that she was gazing up at him with a clear, bright light in her eyes. And his own happiness muddied a little as he wondered if it was in him to condemn her to a life in an institution.

Two hundred metres away, across the snow and the gravel paths, beyond the trees, the figure of Kale in a dark coat stood watching. The skin on his face was smooth and shiny in the cold, touched with yellow. Thin lips were pressed together in a hard line. It was a face without expression, apart from the eyes. They were the same dark eyes that had watched life pass by them, as you watch the rain and wind sweep down your street from the safety of your room, through glass. It did not touch you. Inside you were safe. But mostly these were eyes that revealed more than they took in. Eyes that betrayed the bitterness behind them, the bitterness that life had nourished so cruelly. Eyes that filtered out all the good things, like darkly tinted glass, so that all things seemed without light or colour.

At first Kale’s mind had shrunk painfully from his new reality, as your eyes do when you come out of a dark place into the light. In the dazzle he had been temporarily blinded. A kind of madness had seized upon him. But gradually his awareness had returned, slowly, and not without hurt. Now all things were clear, and the bitterness that had once shone in those black eyes were replaced with an emptiness. They say a man cannot change, but that is not true. There are many things that can change a man. It can be a gradual thing, or it can come in a blinking of the eyes, a blinding light in which God is revealed.

With Kale the change had begun with three words on a scrap of paper, but the change itself, the core of it, had come from within. Whatever it is that makes us what we are, it is not an external thing. It is inside. And it is from there that the light comes, when our eyes are opened. The glass is tinted on the inside and it is we who tint it.

And so Kale stood watching, through the trees, three figures in the snow. He heard them laughing, their voices in the stillness of the winter morning. He felt drawn to them, wanted to share their laughter. But he had long since passed out of their world into his own dark place. He could look back, but never return. A small, silent tear ran from the corner of his eye. He would not, could not, kill the child.

V

Platt battered out the final page of his copy, checked it, sorted out the blacks and called for a copy boy. A spotty youngster with a shock of red hair snatched it from his tray and headed for the news desk. Had there been a hint of contempt in the boy’s cold, green eyes?

The news room was buzzing with activity in the last minutes before the copy deadlines for the final edition.

Platt lit a cigarette and puffed on it nervously. He was through for the day and he felt badly in need of a drink. But there were still things to be done. He was both excited and a little edgy. It worried him that Bannerman should simply have disappeared like that for two days. Then last night there had been the phone call from Mademoiselle Ricain. Bannerman would phone him today. The call had not come. It had crossed his mind more than once that Bannerman would not keep his word, that when it came to the bit he would not share the story. Why should he? After all, Platt had contributed little or nothing so far, and Platt knew that his fears about Bannerman’s intentions derived from the hatching of his own shabby plots. He smiled a little at the thought of putting one over on him.

Bannerman had asked him for background on Jansen and Lapointe. But he had gone further than that. The hours he had spent searching through the records at the Tribunal de Commerce had repaid him handsomely. At last he had something to trade with Bannerman. He had bargaining power. He felt the first mutterings of his ulcer. With fumbling fingers he opened the bottle of lozenges he used when his stomach gave him trouble. He crunched one quickly until it was a powder and let it mix with his saliva before swallowing it. In a gesture that had become second nature to him he took a grubby red handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his brow. Hesitantly he reached for the phone and dialled.

Tania kept her eyes on Bannerman as he flicked through the drawings. She averted them only when he looked up, and then she felt embarrassed. It had been Sally’s idea to show him the drawings. Her father had not packed them and they were still in the folder beneath her bed.

They all sat around a small table by her bedroom window where the late afternoon sun streamed in to warm their skin. She could not remember ever having felt such pleasure, such warmth. She wanted to be with him always, to touch him, to feel his breath on her face. She sensed, too, his own happiness and it had not escaped her notice the way he and Sally looked at each other, even if they were not fully aware of it themselves. It did not make her jealous, and she was vaguely surprised at that. Perhaps she loved them both, and perhaps they loved each other. But with that extraordinary perceptiveness that she took for granted she was aware that they were reluctant to admit it.

Today had been the best day she had ever known, there had been none of the frustration. It was something wonderful to her. She glowed inside with it. They had eaten in a bistro not far from the park in the Boulevard de l’Empereur, where they had had cold chicken salad and a dry, white wine. Their faces glowed red from the cold and the exertion and they ate in silence, pleased just to look at one another and smile. After, they had walked back to the flat across the park.

Bannerman gathered all the drawings together. ‘They’re quite astonishing.’ He looked at Tania, waiting until she lifted her eyes to look back at him. ‘You have a marvellous talent,’ he said. ‘We can maybe get these published when we get back to Scotland. Would you like that?’

She wasn’t sure. They were such private things. She only wanted people she loved to see them. Perhaps Bannerman sensed her uncertainty. He said softly, ‘They say everything that you cannot say with words. They can tell the whole world that you’re a real person, that you see and feel and need like everyone else. And you should tell as many people as you can. It’s a way of getting out of yourself.’ She smiled and reached for his hand. He took it and squeezed it and tensed inside as he made a difficult decision.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket slung across the back of his chair and took out a folded sheet of paper. ‘I have a copy of one of your drawings.’

Without looking at Sally he felt her sudden anxiety. She had remained very quiet since the meal, but now her presence was very strong beside him. He stole a glance at her and saw the doubt in her eyes. He was not sure himself. A fine perspiration moistened his palms as he unfolded the paper and smoothed it out on the table. The child looked at it, almost carelessly, nodded slowly, and her face took on that now familiar expressionlessness.

‘Do you remember it?’ Nothing. He waited a long time before asking, ‘Do you know who it is?’ Again nothing. Sally’s hand came on his wrist.

‘Don’t,’ he heard her saying. But still he persisted.

‘Look at me, Tania. There are things that it is important for me to know.’ Her eyes seemed to be looking straight through him. ‘This is the man that killed your dad, and the other man, isn’t it?’

The quiet in the room was unbearable, and the clock ticked heavily to lend weight and depth to it. Then she nodded suddenly and looked away. ‘All right, all right,’ he said and he took her hand again and squeezed it tightly. It felt limp and small. ‘Just one more thing, just one. Would you... would you know him if you saw him again?’

He felt her hand tighten around his and saw the fear in her eyes. And he misunderstood. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘He can’t harm you now.’ But still her fingers pressed into his hand and she shook her head savagely, frustration welling inside. How could she tell him? I have seen him, I have. She pulled her hand free and stubbed her finger several times on the drawing on the table in front of her. Then she nodded, two, three, four times and felt something like despair as she saw Bannerman’s confusion.

It was Sally who brought sudden understanding, sudden relief. ‘My God, she has! She has seen him again.’

Bannerman glanced at her for a moment and then back to the child and he saw that it was true. ‘But how...? When...?’ And then it dawned and he felt a strange sense of horror pricking his skin. ‘At the hospital.’ Where else could she have seen him? ‘Is that why you ran away?’ Her lips parted as though she were about to speak.

The telephone rang through in the living room and startled them all. Yet none of them moved. It was a quickening of the heart which you could not see. ‘I’m sorry,’ Bannerman said and he stood up and went through to the other room.

Sally smiled with a false cheerfulness and pushed her chair back noisily. ‘How about coffee?’ she asked brightly. ‘I’ll go and make some. Do you want to help?’ Tania didn’t move. ‘That’s all right, I’ll get it.’ Sally bustled quickly out of the room and Tania heard Bannerman’s voice in conversation with someone on the other end of the phone.

For her the day was going, the glow fading like the sun slowly sinking behind the rooftops. She knew that Bannerman would take her back to the hospital now. She had known it all day, but had pushed the thought aside, out of reach, out of sight. Wasn’t that the key to survival? The ability to grasp life’s happinesses when they came without worrying what tomorrow might bring, even if you know it will be sadness. How else can man survive when he lives with the knowledge of certain death at the end of life?

Whatever the future held for her, nothing could erase the memory of this day. She knew, or at least she felt she knew, that Bannerman would always be there, to help her through the difficult times, and surely he would not abandon her now. Didn’t he need her, too? It was something she couldn’t fully understand, but it brought back a bit of lightness to her spirit and she consoled herself with the thought that there would always be tomorrow and with the new day the possibility that she would see him again. He would keep her safe from... him.

She looked at the drawing and wondered why she had not drawn the face. She had forgotten that she had been interrupted before she finished. Would Neil be pleased, she wondered, if she drew the face now? But she had a better idea. Something that would say more. She tore a strip of paper off the foot of one of her drawings and reached for the pencil. It was always difficult for her to come to terms with words on paper. She squeezed the pencil tightly until her fingers went white and she began, with great difficulty, to sort out the letters in the right order. It was strange how, when she drew, the pencil rested easily between her fingers and flew across the page with such fluidity. Now the letters formed themselves clumsily, and the effort of it drained her. When she finished it felt as though it had taken hours. Three words. Quickly, nervously, she folded the paper, got up and hurried round the table, slipping the note carefully into the right hand pocket of Bannerman’s jacket. Then she ran her hand over the softness of the brown cord and put her face close to it, smelling Bannerman from it.

When he left the room, Bannerman was depressed, irritable. He felt guilty at having produced the drawing. The child deserved more than that. And yet it had confirmed many more things for him beyond doubt. There might even have been more. He snatched the phone. ‘Bannerman.’

‘Platt here. I’ve been waiting for your call.’

Bannerman had an immediate picture of Platt, fat and sweating, dabbing his brow with that red handkerchief of his, greasy hair forming in little ringlets about his thick, short neck. ‘Well?’ he said.

Platt was taken aback. ‘Well, I thought you might have something for me. You disappeared for two days. I thought maybe...’

‘Then you thought wrong. There’s nothing new.’

Platt’s mouth was dry when he said, ‘I’ve... I’ve been doing some digging of my own.’

‘And?’

‘Well, I’ve come up with something quite interesting.’

Bannerman sensed the other man’s nervousness. ‘What?’ he asked brusquely.

‘Perhaps,’ Platt said, ‘we should get together and, you know, compare notes. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean with me? We should be able to work something out to our mutual satisfaction.’

Bannerman sat down and lit a cigar. It was just possible Platt did have something, but then he might just be trying it on. And even if he did have something, it was likely that he would not realise its full significance.

‘Hello. Are you still there?’ Platt’s voice was anxious.

Bannerman decided to call his bluff. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in our meeting, Platt. If you’ve got something to tell me, tell it now. Otherwise forget it. I’ve got more important things on my mind.’

Platt was losing and he knew it. ‘Look, Bannerman, it’s time we laid this thing on the line.’

‘Goodbye.’

‘No, no, wait.’ Platt dabbed his forehead and glanced furtively around the newsroom. He cupped his hand round the mouthpiece. ‘I... I’ve been looking at the company records of both Jansen and Lapointe. It’s an absolute jungle. It took me a long time to piece together the relationship between all the companies. That’s Lapointe’s handiwork. He’s a master of company law. He can put companies together and take them apart again like a kid with building bricks. It all looks legit, but if you start from the basic premise that no organisation ever gets that big without getting involved in something a little shady en route, then things can look a bit different.’

‘Get on with it!’ Despite his tone, Bannerman was interested.

‘Okay, okay. Jansen’s outfit got fat by buying up a lot of smaller companies that were folding under pressure from his competition. Many of them were running into cashflow problems and borrowing from two or three finance companies in the City. And then when things got rough the loans were called in. When the companies couldn’t pay they were bought out by a holding company called La Trasque which, in turn, sold them off to Jansen. Only it turns out that the finance companies and the holding company were all owned by a nominee company, Corniche S.A., trading on behalf of unnamed clients. It wasn’t until about two years ago when Corniche S. A. shut up shop and re-registered in Lichtenstein that it became apparent who was really behind it.’

‘Who?’

‘No-one seemed to notice at the time, but it’s all there to see if you check back through the records. It was Lapointe’s own law firm, through another company which it had set up.’

‘It all sounds very contrived.’

‘Yes.’

Bannerman felt his impatient growing. ‘So?’

‘Well, don’t you see? Jansen put the screws on these companies, and lent them money they didn’t know was coming from him. He turned the screws a little harder and then called in the loans. And when they couldn’t pay he bought them up for a song. All indirectly, of course, through the cobweb of companies that Lapointe had spun for him.’

Bannerman sighed. ‘Well, is that illegal?’

Platt was confused. ‘I... I don’t know. But it’s a bloody good story.’

‘Maybe,’ Bannerman said, ‘you should stick to fires and press conferences on the price of butter. Frankly, how Jansen built his empire doesn’t really interest me.’

Platt was stunned. ‘But I thought you wanted something on them, Jansen and Lapointe.’

‘I only wanted a bit of background. You already got that for me. Look, Platt, I don’t know what the law is in this country, but I doubt very much if the procedure you have described is illegal. Unethical, perhaps, but not illegal. It seems like you’ve wasted your time. I’ll call you.’ He hung up.

Platt replaced the receiver slowly. His breath came in rapid bursts and his mind raced in confusion and anger and humiliation. His face had gone quite pale and he rose unsteadily, picking up his coat and hat and heading for the door.

Bannerman sat for a few minutes thinking about what Platt had told him. It might be of value, it might be worthless. It was impossible to know yet. He reached for the notepad beside the telephone and scribbled down the names of the companies while he still remembered them. Platt said that Corniche S.A. had shut up shop and re-registered in Lichtenstein. Technically, then, it was a new company. He wondered what point there might be in that and, as if to lodge the thought firmly in his mind, he underlined the name in his notes.

He stood up and took a long draw on his cigar as Sally emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of steaming mugs of coffee. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘It’s time we took the child back to the clinic.’ He saw her face harden and he said, almost apologetically, ‘She’s tired, I’m tired. I need time to think.’

Sally laid the tray on the table and looked at him coldly. His mood had changed and she felt angry and bewildered. Angry at his sudden indifference, annoyed at her own failure to respond to him as she would have liked. And then she needed to say the thing she had been keeping bottled up all day. She had been careful to keep herself discreetly in the background, not to impose on the relationship she saw developing between Bannerman and the child. There was a selfishness in the things that troubled her, but she could keep them to herself no longer. ‘I got the job,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow for Rome... It’s my last night in Brussels tonight, Neil. I... I’d like us to go somewhere and talk.’

Her words startled him, took him unawares, and he felt suddenly empty. She had been there, and it had not occurred to him that she might be gone before he had a chance to sort out what he felt about her. He was, perhaps, a little afraid to look inside himself for the answers. How many times had he learned that love was a thing that often you did not recognise until it was taken away from you? But how could he love her? He hardly knew her. He said, ‘All right,’ and turned away to the bedroom.

Chapter Ten

I

It was a cold, clear night. There was a splash of light above the entrance to the café, and across the cobbles taxi drivers sat picking their teeth in empty cabs waiting for fares.

Bannerman was dour, silent, as he crossed the square, weighed down still by the memory of the child. The bleakness of her face as he drove her back to the clinic had haunted him all through his solitary meal in some anonymous restaurant after he had left her. And now, his meeting with Sally on this dark, Brussels night, and he wondered why he felt it would be their last.

She was waiting for him at the bottom end of the square, her face pale and sad when they met and then flushing quickly in the sudden warmth of the café as they stepped inside. Neither of them had spoken.

The café was Eastern European, run by a small, fat exile from Communism. A four-piece Hungarian orchestra played in the light of the candles that burned dimly on the tables. A pianist who never smiled sat at a grand piano, and a tall thin creature wrestled with a double bass. The clarinetist sat on a high chair by the piano and a gaunt, middle-aged man stood out front by a microphone which hung by its lead from the rafters, and he played haunting melodies on his violin. The music was soft and pleasant, and stepping into this place was like stepping into the past.

The tables were of rough-hewn wood and the stools hard and uncompromising. The stone walls were whitewashed and a wooden staircase led to a gallery where there were more tables. People leaned on the wooden rail and gazed down on the orchestra, their faces flickering in the candlelight, tiny mobile pinpoints of light shining in their eyes.

Bannerman and Sally sat at a table by the big window that looked out on the Place du Grand Sablon, and though the café was busy they felt safe and anomymous in its darkness. A waiter with a black shirt and trousers and a white napkin over his arm came to take their order. Sally’s face brightened. ‘You must try their speciality,’ she said. And to the waiter, ‘Deux thés Slaves.’

Bannerman looked around. The clientele was mostly middle-aged. There were one or two young couples holding hands below tables and watching the orchestra or gazing at each other as though they had just discovered love for the first time and it was unique to them.

‘The place never closes,’ Sally said. ‘Open twenty-four hours a day. I used to come in for a drink sometimes after college and sometimes after babysitting for Tania.’ She was talking for the sake of talking. ‘On Sundays the square is used as a market for the antique dealers. You can see the antique shops across the other side there, and on Sundays there are stalls set out right up to the church.’

Bannerman smiled and reached for her hand. ‘You don’t have to talk,’ he said.

She took a deep breath and tried to smile. This was so difficult for her. She said, ‘I think, perhaps, I could love you, Neil. I don’t really know, but I think it might be worth a try.’ He felt her hand tighten around his. ‘It’s been too easy just to put it off, not to think about it. But now I’ve got to decide, haven’t I?’

‘I thought you already had. I thought you were going tomorrow.’

The violinist had begun to wander among the tables and he stopped now at theirs and played for them. It seemed as though all the eyes in the café were on them. Bannerman looked up at him and shook his head almost imperceptibly, but the maestro did not miss it. He was too experienced. He smiled and moved away to the next table. Sally’s smile was strained. ‘God, it’s embarrassing when that happens.’ She hesitated, then for the first time faced him with it. ‘Help me, Neil. Please. If I only knew how you felt. If... if you wanted me to, I’d stay.’

There had been a time when she had vowed never to make that kind of commitment again. To any man. And she remembered the horror of that night before the wedding. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. Just that. ‘I’m sorry.’ And there had been the tears, the humiliation of turning away all those people who’d travelled for the wedding. Sending back the presents. The embarrassment of her friends who didn’t know what to say to her. The false comfort of the relatives who told her they never liked him anyway.

But things had changed. She was thirty-two now. Ahead of her lay a lifetime of loneliness. And with Bannerman, somehow, it seemed different in a way that had caught her off balance. Yet she hardly knew him and within her still lay the seeds of doubt and mistrust sown that night three years before. But maybe, just maybe, it would be worth trying.

The thés Slaves arrived in glasses wrapped around with paper napkins, a mixture of tea and some kind of spirit that the waiter set alight at their table. The flames licked up over the rims of the glasses, soft and warm. Bannerman looked across the table at Sally’s downturned face. The flames softened it and he thought she looked almost beautiful. He felt a tremendous weight of responsibility. It would be too easy to say yes, he wanted her to stay. But he knew she would make demands on him that he was not sure he was capable of fulfilling. And his was the kind of life into which love did not fit easily. There was a place inside him, big and empty, that needed it badly. But in that way he was like Tania. It was so often those who needed love most who were the most difficult to love. And what kind of life could he give her? ‘It’s not for me to say,’ he said, knowing that he didn’t want her to go. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’ He blew blew out the flames in their glasses. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better.’ And he thought what an empty son of thing it was to say.

They lifted the scalding liquid to their lips and drank it in tiny sips. It was strong, and the spirit filled their mouths like a cold breath before slipping, burning, over their throats to bring a real glow to their insides. She stared into her glass. ‘Is that just a roundabout way of saying that you don’t want me to stay?’ Bannerman said nothing. If that was what she wanted to think then perhaps it would be easier for her. Then suddenly she said, ‘I’d like to spend just one night with you, Neil. Something...’ she hesitated, ‘to remember you by.’

So, she had decided and he knew now that it was beyond recall. He was going to say he didn’t think it would be a good idea, but a voice cut in before he could speak.

‘Well, Mr. Bannerman, isn’t this a surprise. Come on, Henry. You don’t mind if we join you, Mr. Bannerman?’ Mrs. Schumacher sat herself down without waiting for his reply.

Bannerman turned in astonishment. Mrs. Schumacher grinned at him, her face flushed that way he had seen it at the party. She had been drinking. Behind her Henry Schumacher hovered apologetically. He nodded politely at Bannerman and the girl. ‘Perhaps they want to be alone, dear,’ he said tentatively.

‘Oh, nonsense, Henry, sit down.’ Then to Bannerman, ‘Well, Mr. Bannerman this is a real surprise. Aren’t you going to introduce us to your young lady?’ And confidentially, ‘My, you are a fast worker. Does she speak English?’

Bannerman smiled indulgently. ‘She is English. Miss Sally Robertson — Mr. and Mrs. Schumacher.’

Sally was taken aback by the sudden arrival of this garrulous American woman with her big bosoms and timid husband. She took a moment to collect herself. ‘How do you do?’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, my dear.’

A waiter arrived promptly at the table and Mrs. Schumacher gave him a broad grin. ‘How are you tonight, Jean?’

‘I am very well, madame. Have you had a good night?’ His manners were impeccable. He looked almost as though he was genuinely interested in the reply.

‘Why, yes, Jean, as always. We took your advice about that little restaurant in the Grand Place. Exquisite.’

‘I’m very pleased, Madame. You will have a sherry?’

‘Well, yes. But just a very small one.’

‘And Monsieur?’

‘A small whisky, please.’

Jean bowed and dematerialised into the gloom.

Sally and Bannerman exchanged looks. ‘Actually we were just leaving,’ Bannerman said.

Schumacher leaped self-consciously to his feet to allow Sally out from behind the table.

‘Perhaps you would join us for a drink tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘We are going home on Sunday.’ He seemed so eager for their company that Bannerman was almost sorry to turn him down.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

‘That’s a pity,’ Mrs. Schumacher said. ‘Tomorrow’s our last day, and I would so have liked to hear all about the exciting world of newspapers. We’re flying back to Edinburgh on Sunday morning to spend another few days there before going back to the States. The folks back home would just have loved to hear all about it. It is The Times you work for, isn’t it?’

‘The Post. The Edinburgh Post.’

She frowned as the myth she had been building in her mind crumbled. She would no doubt rebuild it over the next few days. ‘Wasn’t it just terrible about that poor Mr. Griffin?’

‘Gryffe,’ Bannerman corrected her.

‘And to think we were speaking to him just the night before.’

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said. ‘Goodbye. I hope you have a good journey.’

‘Why thank you, Mr. Bannerman. Goodbye young lady.’

Schumacher shook his hand solemnly. ‘It’s been a pleasure,’ he said. ‘If you should change your mind, about the drink I mean, give us a call. We’re at the Hotel Regent in the Avenue Louise.’

‘I’ll do that.’

And when they had gone Mrs. Schumacher said, ‘They haven’t even finished their drinks. He seems a very peculiar young man, doesn’t he. You don’t think he’s trying to avoid us do you?’

‘They struck me’ Schumacher said thoughtfully, ‘as two young people with rather a lot on their minds.’

II

Bannerman watched her undress in the moonlight that came in through the open shutters. The room was cold and he felt a shiver run through him. He knew this was a mistake. It would only make it all the more difficult afterwards. But he wanted her with every fibre of himself. ‘Let me,’ he said in the quiet.

She had slipped out of her jeans and panties and stood only in her tee-shirt. Bannerman ran his hands overs its intimate softness, over the swellings of her small, firm breasts, nipples hard and pouting. Then behind her, pulling her to him, feeling the smoothness of her buttocks and lifting the shirt up over her head. He dropped it on the floor and kissed her, his tongue in her mouth, seeking out every part of it. Then he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

He undressed and lay down beside her and laid his hand on the soft mound of her pubis. There was a great tenderness in him and he kissed her softly on her breasts and on her belly and moved his hands about her body as though it were porcelain. She moaned softly and he felt her nails in his shoulders as he entered her. Her legs crossed over his back and he buried his head in her neck and smelled her perfume.

Afterwards they lay still for a long time, curled up in each other’s arms, each reluctant to be the one to make the break. Finally it was Bannerman who rolled over and turned on the bedside lamp, and they blinked in its sudden brightness. She pulled the sheet up over her and lay on her side watching him. ‘I wish...’ she said. But her voice trailed away and she never said what she wished.

But Bannerman could guess. ‘It probably wouldn’t have worked out,’ he said. ‘It’s probably as well that you’re going.’

And for the first time she knew for certain that he didn’t want her to go. But it was all too late now. They would go their separate ways though neither of them wanted it. Neither of them had had the courage to face the alternative.

She reached up and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him, taste him again, reassure herself about what had gone before. ‘It was so perfect,’ she whispered. ‘You and me. It’s never been like that before.’

Bannerman pulled away, rolling over on to his back and staring up at the ceiling. ‘Perfection,’ he said, ‘only comes once. It’s never the same a second time. You spend the rest of your life trying to recapture the illusion.’

She was silent then for a very long time. Finally she said in a strained, quiet voice, ‘Doesn’t it mean anything to you?’

He thought about it. ‘Yes. It probably means more to me than you’ll ever know. But that’s now. What it will mean next week, or next month, or next year — I don’t know.’ He sat up and fumbled for a cigar and lit it. She lay quite still. ‘A week ago’ he said, ‘there was no-one in my life. Now there are two people.’ He heard her head turn but he didn’t look. ‘You and the child,’ he said. ‘And you are leaving. Sometimes life is like that.’

‘Yes.’ Somehow that one word was the final acceptance of their parting, that whatever they might feel now there was no real future in it. Then she asked, ‘Does she mean that much to you? Tania?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

And he wanted to tell her. He knew that tomorrow she would go and it didn’t matter any more.

‘Somewhere,’ he made a vague gesture, ‘there is a child.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Not even a child any more. Almost a young woman. A part of me. My daughter.’ He turned to see her, but there was nothing in her face. ‘I’ve never seen her, not even a photograph. I would pass her in the street and not know.’

‘You were married?’

‘No, it was a girl, a long time ago. She was only seventeen. She worked in the same office where I had my first job in newspapers. I was eighteen. She was a shy girl. Didn’t know much about anything. Least of all sex. She thought she loved me, and maybe she did. I used to pretend that I loved her, even to myself. It was a kind of growing up game I played where I was sort of testing her, testing myself, playing with both our emotions to see what would happen. I was just a raw boy who thought the world had given him a pretty raw deal. Anyway, I took her virginity, hurt her. I led her into it when she really didn’t want to. I had to promise that I loved her, you know, the way kids do. And it was easy to say it; it’s always easy to say it when you don’t mean it.’

He paused to draw on his cigar and lost himself in thinking about it. All the detail, the finely etched memories that he would carry with him always. ‘And, she got pregnant and I thought my whole world had fallen in. I don’t think I thought too much about her. All about myself. I felt trapped. I tried to persuade her to get rid of it. But she wouldn’t. She just cried and her face went all red and blotchy and she said she would have to tell her parents. So I said I would marry her.’ Again he paused and he smiled to himself and shook his head sadly. ‘And you know, she turned me down. No great fuss or anything. She just said, no, she didn’t want to marry me. She would have the child and stay with her parents if they would have her. And still I only thought about myself. My first feelings were of confusion and hurt. She would rather go through the hell of being an unmarried mother than marry me. The mist was gone from her eyes and she saw me for what I was. A liar and a cheat. And then I thought, I’m free. I didn’t have to marry her, there’ll be no paternity suit. It lost me my job though. Word got around, the editor got to hear about it. He called me in and told me he didn’t want my kind on his staff and that I’d better start looking for another job. I was pretty sore at the time, but I got another job, in England. I heard later she’d had a baby girl, and then I lost contact. It didn’t seem to matter then. I was just glad that I’d escaped.’

His cigar had gone out and he reached for a match to relight it. ‘Then, well then I had time to think about it. The years pass and you get older and wiser and you become more aware of consequences. I find it difficult to reconcile myself now with what I was then. I ruined two lives. I soured a young girl’s attitude to sex, and I scarred her for all to see, as plainly as if I had taken a razor to her face. And I robbed a child of her right to a proper home, to the love of a father. I didn’t discover my own wounds until later. Perhaps not until now.’

The cigar had gone out again and he dropped it in the ashtray. He felt no better for having told her. What had he expected? And suddenly he felt embarrassed at having opened his soul to her. This was only making the moment of parting worse.

He rolled away and climbed out of bed, crossing to the window and standing naked in the darkness with his back to her.

‘Neil...?’ Her voice trailed after him.

‘You’d better go,’ he said, his voice muffled against the glass.

She rose and dressed slowly. He heard her moving about behind him. Then he heard the bedroom door opening and closing, and then the landing door shutting and there were footsteps echoing away down the stairs. When he could no longer hear them, he let his face rest against the cold glass and whispered, ‘Goodbye.’

Chapter Eleven

I

He woke with a bad taste in his mouth. It had been a restless night and the sheets were twisted around him like a shroud. He was cold, but didn’t get up immediately. He lay staring at the rectangle of blue sky he could see through the window. She was gone. All that remained was the smell of stale sex and lingering traces of her perfume.

He got up and dressed himself slowly, with an empty feeling inside. He made coffee in the kitchen and sat drinking it in an armchair in the living room where the sun sloped in at an angle and warmed the air.

Closing his eyes he pulled on the first cigar of the day. Perhaps she was already at the airport, or more likely she would be rising, or packing to leave. He allowed the thought to flicker through his mind only briefly before cutting it off. It was over, a thing of the past, already a memory that he would lock away with the others in his mind.

The phone rang, a long single ring, then an interminable wait before it rang again. He rose reluctantly and crossed the room without enthusiasm. ‘Bannerman.’ His voice caught on the phlegm that had gathered in his throat overnight and he coughed.

‘A heavy night, Neil?’ A pause. ‘It’s Hector Lewis here.’

‘What have you got?’ Bannerman sat down on the edge of the settee and wiped away the sleep from his eyes.

‘I thought I’d call you early in case I missed you. I tried yesterday evening, both at your office and at this number, but you were off gallivanting no doubt.’

Bannerman repeated irritably, ‘What have you got?’

‘Now hold on just a minute, my old friend, not so fast.’ His smarminess oozed across the telephone lines all the way from Switzerland, and it suddenly occurred to Bannerman that Lewis would not have been trying this hard to reach him if he hadn’t come up with something good. ‘It’s going to cost you.’

‘You said that already.’

‘Yes, but that was two days ago, and just for search fees. Now it’s going to cost you to keep the information exclusive.’

‘What the hell do you mean, Lewis?’ Bannerman’s voice was calm and steady.

‘I mean I’ve just unwrapped a time bomb that’s going to blow up in a lot of faces in London and Brussels. It’s heavy meat, Neil, and in lineage alone I could make thousands.’

‘I could be on a plane for Switzerland within the hour and I could break your neck by lunchtime.’

‘Ha, ha, yes, that’s good, Neil, but by lunchtime I could have sold the story over half of Europe, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’

Bannerman felt his grip tighten around the phone. He should never have trusted this to Lewis. But he had had no choice. Now he was being screwed. ‘So?’

‘So I have a certain reputation for confidentiality to maintain and since you came to me in good faith, I’m offering you first option — in good faith.’

‘You bastard!’

‘It’s how I make my money.’

‘How much?’

‘Ten thousand pounds.’

Bannerman was stunned. ‘You’ve got to be out of your mind! Do you think the Post’s going to pay ten thousand notes for a company search?’

‘They will for this one.’

Bannerman’s mind was racing. ‘I would need to know what I’m buying.’

‘But of course. I have no objection to giving you the broad outline over the phone, but you will need the documentary evidence to back it up before you can do a story. And before you get that, I will require the money.’

‘Let’s hear it then.’

‘You agree to my terms?’

‘Not until I know what you’ve got.’

Lewis sighed. ‘So be it. The company, Machines Internationale, is owned jointly by René Jansen, Michel Lapointe, and... ah, the late Mr. Robert Gryffe.’ Bannerman felt the skin tighten across his scalp. ‘Not directly, of course,’ Lewis went on. ‘That would have been too easy. No, Machines Internationale is ostensibly owned by another company which, in turn, is an offshoot of another company, and so on. All shell companies of course, a cobweb of deceit, if I may lapse into cliché, to disguise the identity of the man to which the number one company is ultimately responsible.’

At last, it was the link between Gryffe and Jansen and Lapointe, but not not worth ten thousand. ‘What’s its business?’

Lewis waited and then replied with a calculated melodrama, ‘Guns, my friend, guns. Machines Internationale buys arms, mainly from the US, and sells to the Third World, some of the Arab states, and one or two of the South American republics. Not in itself a crime, of course. But when a British Government Minister at the Foreign Office is involved, then it starts to get interesting, doesn’t it?’ Lewis chuckled to himself, and when there was no response from Bannerman, he added, ‘So I got my boys to dig a little deeper in the company records and, it would appear, Machines Internationale has also been selling its wares to a number of pirate companies which operate out of several small African states — companies which, it seems are supplying arms direct to South Africa, in open defiance of the United Nations embargo. And perhaps even more interesting, to Rhodesia during almost all the time that sanctions were being imposed against the illegal Smith regime.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘My sentiments exactly, Neil. So much so, in fact, that I even did a quick trace on the origins of a couple of the pirate companies. Both the ones I checked are owned by a Lichtenstein registered company, Corniche S.A. The company, unfortunately, is one of those naughty little nominee companies which can act for unnamed clients whose anonymity is protected by law. Of course, you’ll know about nominee companies. This one is owned by a very respectable Swiss lawyer and businessman. So it’s unlikely we’ll ever know who’s actually behind it or the companies it controls. Worth it though, eh? Ten thousand? Cheap at the price. A British Government Minister who is shot dead in Brussels is found to have been indirectly involved in selling arms to the Rhodesians and the South Africans. Neat.’

Bannerman felt the muscles tighten around his throat, and the fingers of his free hand trembled slightly as he reached for the notepad by the phone. He glanced at it quickly and saw the name of the company he had underlined in the notes he had taken after Platt’s phone call. Corniche S.A.

‘Hello, hello? You still there?’

Bannerman was trying desperately to piece it together. Corniche S.A. was formerly a Belgian registered company belonging to Lapointe which had uprooted and re-registered in Lichtenstein, a new company listed under a Swiss lawyer. But wasn’t it just possible that Lapointe who had used the original company to buy and sell other companies for Jansen, was still pulling the strings, still providing the cash? That this Swiss lawyer was just his front man? It occurred to Bannerman that he didn’t even need to prove that. A plain statement of the facts would make the connection by implication. Gryffe, Jansen and Lapointe had not only been selling arms to pirate companies who were in turn selling to the white-ruled African states, they also owned the pirate companies. It wasn’t indirect selling, dammit. They were doing it direct. The implications for the British Government were enormous. And for Jansen and Lapointe. International pressure would be bound to force the Belgian Government to take action against the Jansen empire.

‘Bannerman, you haven’t died on me, have you?’

No wonder Lewis was seeking his pound of flesh. ‘I’ll call you back,’ Bannerman said.

‘No, no. You just wait one minute. None of this is for free. I want a certified cheque within twenty-four hours. When that cheque is in the hands of my bank you will get your documentary evidence. And if the cheque hasn’t shown by nine o’clock Monday morning, at the latest, I’ll sell the story elsewhere. You understand?’ The tone had changed. It was a hard statement of terms.

‘How the hell can I get that kind of money to you over a weekend? The banks are all shut.’

‘It can be done. No way am I going to let you get the stuff together for yourself when the records offices open on Monday morning.’

‘I’ll call you.’

‘I’ll be here till midday.’

The line went dead and Bannerman dropped the receiver back in its cradle. ‘Shit!’ His voice resounded in the stillness of the room.

In Edinburgh it was raining, as it nearly always does. The grey and red sandstone tenements were dark and streaked with wet. The wind blew and rattled empty washing lines against rusted poles. In suburban Morning-side the big houses stood silent and solid behind long sloping lawns and trees that bent in the wind.

Tait lay safe and warm in his bed listening to the wind battering rain against the windows. Outside, the streets were empty and only a few sodden leaves, remnants of the autumn, stirred in the gutter. He liked to lie in on Saturdays, though he had been awake for some time. Now he heard the phone ringing distantly in the house and he cursed. When the phone went it was always for him.

He lay listening for his wife’s footsteps on the stair, but he missed them and was surprised by the gentle creak of the door as it opened inwards. ‘Are you awake dear?’

‘Yes. Who is it?’

‘It’s someone from the paper dear.’ She seemed distressed. ‘A Neil Bannerman. Long distance. I told him you were still asleep, but I’m afraid he was rather rude.’

‘There’s no need to whisper. I am awake.’ He threw back the covers and sat up. What the hell was Bannerman after?

He slipped into his dressing gown and slippers and followed her down the stairs to take the call in the living room. The children had their own playroom at the back of the house, and as he lifted the phone he heard his wife telling them to keep the noise down. ‘What in God’s name do you want, Bannerman? You realise it’s only just gone nine, and it is Saturday!’

‘I need ten thousand pounds. Today if possible, tomorrow at the latest.’

It took several seconds for Bannerman’s words to sink in. ‘Jesus Christ!’ His first reaction was anger, but then he realised that Bannerman would not phone and ask him for ten thousand pounds at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning unless he had bloody good reason. He almost resented the fact that Bannerman was as good as he was. It made it all the more difficult for Tait to get rid of him, though it did not weaken his resolve to do so. No-one was so good that he could usurp his, Tait’s, authority. ‘Why?’

‘To prove that Robert Gryffe, in association with René Jansen and Michel Lapointe, was selling arms to Rhodesia and South Africa.’

Tait ran the implications rapidly through his mind with a well-practised professional detachment. Then he felt the adrenalin. ‘Who gets the pay-off?’

‘A guy called Hector Lewis. He has a business based in Switzerland that does company traces, among other tilings. I came in possession of certain information and asked him to check on it. When it turned up what I just told you he got greedy. He wants a certified cheque in the hands of his bankers by nine a.m. on Monday at the latest, or he’ll sell the story elsewhere.’

‘Damn!’

‘Quite.’

‘How reliable is he? Can you trust him?’

He heard Bannerman chuckle bitterly. ‘Oh, I think so. He’s good, very good, a real pro. The fact that he’s a twenty-four carat bastard is merely incidental.’ Tait felt an irresistible smile creep up on him. So Bannerman was as fallible as the rest of them, and it hurt him like it hurt anyone else. ‘Well?’ Bannerman was impatient.

‘Where does Slater fit into all this?’ The question was inevitable. To Tait it was almost more important then the story itself. Just how embarrassing was it going to be for the Post, even if they were the ones to break the story?

‘I don’t know. Yet,’ Bannerman said.

‘Good.’

‘But I will.’

‘God damn you, Bannerman! Can’t you leave it at that?’

‘No.’ Pause. ‘Well, do I get the money or don’t I?’

‘Yes, you get the bloody money. But how the hell are we supposed to do it when the banks are shut?’

‘That’s your problem. I’ll call you back with the relevant details when I’ve spoken again to Lewis.’

‘Hang on a minute. What arrangement have you come to about the child?’

‘What arrangement?’

‘For getting her on the plane tomorrow.’

Bannerman frowned. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! I had a telex sent yesterday to your office asking you to put her on the Edinburgh flight on Sunday morning. The Dr. George Brook Clinic in Edinburgh has agreed to take her.’

For the first time Bannerman was irretrievably confronted with what he had known all along. That the child would spend the rest of her life in an institution. His mind swerved away from it. ‘I didn’t go into the office yesterday.’ Some protective barrier erected itself. He had taken enough of an emotional battering already. ‘I’ll arrange it.’

‘Good. Someone from the clinic will meet her at the other end. At least no-one can say the Post is shirking its responsibilities.’

Bannerman hung up and then immediately re-dialled. Lewis answered promptly. ‘Well, well, that was quick, Neil. Good news I trust?’

‘You’ve got your ten thousand.’

‘Ah, excellent. I knew you’d come through. A man of your good sense.’

Bannerman’s voice was very controlled. ‘I’ll not waste my breath telling you what’ll happen if you do the dirty on me, Lewis...’

‘Now Neil, would I do a thing like that?’

‘Just the name of your bank, Lewis, and your account number and your documentary evidence telexed to Edinburgh by midday on Monday.’

‘It’s as good as done, Neil, just as soon as the money’s in the bank. You’ll have a pen handy, I take it...’

‘No. You can arrange the details with my editor.’ He gave him Tait’s home number. They deserved one another.

He hung up and sat for some minutes trying to sort out his conflicting emotions, the struggle between his personal feelings and his professional instincts. He needed a clear mind to steer him through the day ahead, and his thoughts turned to Platt. Platt was a problem. Bannerman had promised him a share of the story. He would have had no scruples about welching on that promise but for the material Platt had unearthed on Lapointe’s nominee company. He needed Platt. It would have taken him too long to collect the data himself and the pressure was now to run an early story. He could not trust Lewis to sit on it if he held it back, even for a few days. And the stuff Platt had so diligently compiled completed the circle. It was within his grasp to prove beyond doubt Gryffe’s involvement in arms sales to South Africa and Rhodesia.

Even now he found it difficult to assimilate the enormity of the story. The one thing he did not yet know was who it was who had ordered the execution of Gryffe and Slater, or who had shot at him in Flanders. There was also the thorny problem of Slater. That he had been blackmailing Gryffe seemed beyond doubt. But Bannerman had no proof. And there remained the question of how Slater had come by his information. It was not the kind of thing you stumbled on by accident.

Again Platt wormed his way into his thoughts. There was no escaping it. He would have to take Platt into his confidence. With great reluctance he dug out the grubby business card Platt had given him at the party — how long ago that seemed now — and dialled.

‘Platt.’ The voice was thick with phlegm. The call had clearly woken him.

‘Bannerman.’

‘Oh...’ Platt was wide awake now and fumbling for his bedside clock. ‘What time is it...?’

‘Time you and I had a talk.’

‘What...? What about? What is it?’

‘I’m at the Rue de Commerce. I suggest you get over here. I’ll expect you.’ The line went dead on Platt’s confusion.

Bannerman thumbed through his notebook until he found the unlisted number he had copied from Slater’s contacts book. There was a sense of excited urgency in him now. He picked up the phone again and dialled. It rang three times before a voice answered in Flemish.

Bannerman asked, ‘Do you speak English?’

‘A little.’

‘I’d like to speak to René Jansen.’

‘Who is it that wants him?’

‘Neil Bannerman.’

There was a long wait before the voice returned. ‘Herr Jansen is not available.’

Bannerman said calmly, ‘Tell him I intend to expose a company which is selling arms to South Africa. I think he knows who l am.’

‘I don’t think...’

‘No-one’s asking you to think. Just tell him.’

Another wait. Then, ‘Herr Jansen will speak to you at his home this evening. If you will be here for eight thirty.’

Bannerman dropped the phone and sat back to light a cigar and noticed the number of stubs in the ashtray. He had been smoking too much recently. The flame at the end of his match flickered uncertainly in the flutter of his breathing and he shook it out, leaving the unlit cigar hanging in his mouth. He was putting off what he had already decided to do. He reached for the telephone directory and looked up the Hotel Regent in the Avenue Louise.

Initially Schumacher took the call, then his wife took over. ‘I thought that since you were flying to Edinburgh on Sunday anyway you wouldn’t mind,’ Bannerman said. ‘It’s just that there is no way she can travel alone.’ They were more than willing to take the child.

He spent an uncomfortable fifteen minutes on the phone to her, wondering if he was right to entrust the child to these eccentric Americans. Was Laura-Lee’s concern for the child genuine, or was it simply something else that she saw as a focus of conversation for her social evenings back home?

When, eventually, he got her off the line he called the airport and booked the child a seat on the Schumachers’ flight.

Now it only remained for him to make the arrangements with the clinic. And he would have to tell the child. For a long time he sat looking at the phone. That would be the easy way out. To phone the clinic, let Dr. Mascoulin explain to her. And yet, he knew, he owed it to her to tell her himself. This time he lit his cigar and sat back to wait for Platt.

It was almost half an hour before he heard footsteps on the stairs. He eased himself out of the settee and went through to the hall. Platt stood flushed and breathless on the landing. ‘I got a taxi straight over,’ he said and followed Bannerman through to the living room. ‘What’s happened? I thought after yesterday...’

‘You’re back in business, Platt,’ Bannerman interrupted and he sank into the settee.

Platt stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that the stuff you dug out on Lapointe’s Corniche company has turned up trumps — in the light of further evidence. And I’m prepared to do a swop. Documentary evidence. Your information for mine. A simple exchange, and then we’ve both got a story.’

‘But... but what have you got?’ Platt was suspicious. Why, suddenly, should Bannerman have such a change of heart? And Bannerman knew that he would have to tell him everything; his conversations with Lewis, the information unearthed in Switzerland, the deal he had been forced into.

Platt sat down on the edge of a chair and listened in astonished silence. He was barely able to conceal his excitement, mopping his fat flushed face repeatedly with the now familiar red handkerchief.

‘What about Jansen?’ he said when he had had time to think about it. ‘We’ll have to put it to him.’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight. I’ve already fixed it. But I’m seeing him alone.’

Platt did not fight that. Indeed, he was rather relieved. He would not have relished a confrontation with a man like Jansen. He knew his own limitations and, anyway, why not let Bannerman do the work? Hadn’t he dismissed Platt’s efforts so disparagingly only yesterday? Let him do it on his own and then make him eat dirt. Now he had Bannerman right where he wanted him. Platt could hardly believe his good luck. The euphoria of the day before returned and he beamed happily at Bannerman. ‘How about a drink to celebrate?’

Bannerman shook his head and looked at Platt with a faint disgust. ‘I agreed to share the story. I don’t feel obliged to drink with you.’

Platt’s smile never wavered. I’ll show you, he thought. ‘Can I borrow your car?’

Bannerman was surprised. ‘What on earth for?’

‘There’s things I need to do. I’ll have to go to the office and take copies of my notes from the Tribunal de Commerce and then I can bring them round to you tonight. After you’ve seen Jansen.’

Bannerman felt in his pocket for the keys and threw them across to Platt. ‘Don’t wreck it.’ At least it was an excuse for not going to the clinic.

Platt scurried off with all his happiness and his dark secrets, leaving Bannerman to face the phone call he knew he must now make. An image came to him of the child at the window, watching for him. She would be expecting him today, and he had not the courage to face her, to tell her of the plans other people were making for her future.

Across the city Kale lay fully clothed on his bed as he had done thoughout the hours of darkness. At first it had been the thump of the music from the night club next door that had kept him awake. It had gone on until after five. But by then he had been beyond sleep. He had left the shutters open and a red neon in the street outside had flashed on every few seconds to bathe the room in a warm pink fight. And now the smoke from his cigarette drifted lazily upwards in the late morning fight to thicken the haze of the many cigarettes he had smoked before it.

He had reached a decision. All these days of torment, of discovery and self-doubt, were behind him. Tomorrow he was leaving. Tomorrow he was walking away from it all. He didn’t care about the second half of his fee or his reputation. He didn’t care about anyone or anything. He was simply leaving. It seemed so easy now, now that he had finally admitted to himself that he could not kill the child in cold blood, that there was a potential in him, if not to love, then to not hate so fiercely. No longer was he haunted by the compulsion to follow her, to confront himself with the failure that was his own humanity.

Tomorrow morning a taxi to the airport, a flight that would take less than an hour, and he would be back in London. Safe.

II

You could not see the house from the road. It lay somewhere behind a high stone wall in secluded darkness. The avenue was broad and well-lit, sloping gently uphill and the taxi cruised past the mansions that wealthy men had built in this exclusive quarter of the city over two hundred years ago. Not for the nouveau riche, this. There was a tasteful, classical elegance about the houses, all locked away behind their high walls and tall cypresses. You only glimpsed their grandeur through the bars of sturdy gates like portcullises. No brash or ostentatious floodlighting, just a dark and brooding quiet that seemed somehow to say more about the real power and wealth of the men who owned them.

The taxi drew up at the gates of the Jansen place and Bannerman climbed out. It was a cold night and the sky was hard and clear.

‘Wait,’ Bannerman told the driver. He pressed a button set in the carved stone gatepost and leaned forward to the speaker grill. ‘Bannerman.’

Almost immediately there was a soft hum in the air and the gates moved noiselessly inwards. Bannerman climbed back in the taxi and they drove through the gates along a smooth paved drive between an avenue of thick-trunked trees whose branches intertwined above them so that in the headlights of the car it seemed as though they were moving through a tunnel. You could see nothing in the blackness on either side and little more than the faint silver glow of filtered moonlight beyond the line of the headlamps.

Then, quite unexpectedly, they came out into a flood of naked moonlight that lay across the flat snow-covered lawn. The road divided it into two squares in front of a tall three-storey house whose arched windows grew in number on each floor. Not one of them showed a light. This, Bannerman thought, was the end of the road. And he felt the excitement rising in him. A tiny stab of fear.

The driveway opened into a gravel square that ran the length of the house and the driver pulled up his car at the foot of the short flight of steps that narrowed towards a big, arched doorway. Again Bannerman told the driver to wait and the man switched off his engine and settled back in his seat with a book in front of him.

As Bannerman climbed the steps the door swung open and a soft yellow light split the darkness. A bald, elderly man with a dark, neatly pressed suit and starched white collar beckoned him into a huge circular hall, panelled in polished oak. His shoes clicked on the mosaic tiling and he found himself facing a broad marble staircase that swept upwards in a curve to the first floor whose balcony repeated the circle before more stairs continued the spiral, rising to the next floor and the next. Bannerman looked up to the top of the house to a dome of stained glass that would be quite magnificent in sunlight. Dark, anonymous portraits stared down at him from the walls. The man at his side coughed discreetly. ‘Your coat.’ Bannerman slipped it off and the butler draped it carefully over his arm. ‘Please follow me.’

The sound of their footsteps on the marble drifted away into the echoing vastness. The first-floor balcony was carpeted in a rich, dark blue. They walked round about half its circumference before the butler stopped and opened one of the countless doors leading off. Bannerman thought, when a man has all this, why does he need to sell arms to fascists?

He walked into a long, high-ceilinged room with several windows hung with claret velvet curtains opening out to the rear of the house. Set in the door wall was a huge open marble fireplace. There was no fire in the hearth, though the room was not cold. A crystal chandelier threw its almost perfect mirror reflection onto the surface of an oblong dining table of polished mahogany. There was a place set at either end and at the far end a tall man in a claret smoking jacket stood waiting. The door closed behind Bannerman and the man extended his arms towards the other place. ‘Have a seat, Mr Bannerman. I take it you have not eaten.’

‘No.’ Bannerman moved towards the nearer end of the table and both men sat down to face each other along its length. Jansen was not as Bannerman had imagined him. He seemed older than he had expected. He had kept his hair, but it was streaked with grey, and his face was drawn and lined, cheekbones high and angular. Large eyes, brown and watery. A long, straight nose that was almost aristocratic. A fine wide mouth. But the hard line of the jaw was weakened by a loosening of the flesh of his neck and skin that had the texture of crepe. He had a high noble forehead and if he had lived a hundred years earlier he would almost certainly have worn a monocle. His hands, too, like his face, were thin and bony and angular, and the shiny, paper-thin skin was splattered with the brown spots of age. And yet he was not an old man. A man in his late forties. And that showed in the way he held himself. His eyes stared steadily back at Bannerman. They had a poise and distance about them, held a disconcerting sense of vision. He smiled without warmth and his voice was clear, without accent. ‘My father built this house,’ he said. ‘And my mother still lives here. You will have something to drink before we eat?’

‘Whisky.’

Jansen lifted a small bell from the table and rang it. A door opened from an adjoining room and a young man, Latin and well-groomed, entered at the far end. Without turning Jansen spoke briefly in Flemish. The young man disappeared and returned with a decanter of whisky and two glasses. He poured the drinks at each place and left. Jansen raised his glass. ‘Your very good health, Mr. Bannerman.’ They drank in silence before Jansen said, ‘Shall we talk before we eat?’

‘I’d prefer it. Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘By all means.’ Bannerman lit a cigar and Jansen rang for an ashtray. The young man placed it on the table beside the reporter and Bannerman waited until he was gone. Then he looked at Jansen and wondered if the man was always as distant, untouchable. Had he been this way when he ordered the deaths of Gryffe and Slater?

‘You knew a man called Robert Gryffe.’

‘A question or a statement?’

‘Both, but it is a question only out of politeness.’

Jansen smiled again, with the same cold smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I knew him. Not well, but I met him on a number of occasions.’

‘Timothy Slater?’

‘No. I did not even know he existed until I read about him in the newspapers.’ He shook his head. ‘I know what you are thinking, Mr. Bannerman. But you are wrong. The assumption from what you and I both know is clear. That Mr. Slater came into possession of certain knowledge with which he was blackmailing Robert Gryffe. But that is a conclusion we have both come to with hindsight. If it were the case, then I knew nothing about it. And I certainly had nothing to do with their deaths. Even if I had known...’ He paused to smile again. ‘You see, I can weather the storm of a scandal over the sale of arms to South Africa...’

‘You don’t deny it then?’ Bannerman had been listening to this with a growing uneasiness.

‘Why should I? You are obviously in possession of the facts. Naturally I would prefer to avoid such a scandal, but if necessary I will face it. It will hurt me only a little. Heads will roll, but not mine. The burden of guilt will fall upon others, though it is I who shall accept the ultimate responsibility for the indiscretion of certain of my employees. In six months it will be forgotten. The Government will be embarrassed, but then they need me more than I need them. As I have said, it is a storm I can weather. Murder, however, is something else. One would not entertain murder lightly, and I would not entertain it at all. Not, you understand, from any moral standpoint, but simply because when you compute the risks involved they are far too great.’

Bannerman stared throughtfully at the smoke rising gently from his cigar. It was not what he had expected. And yet there was a ring of truth about it. Wasn’t it so often the case that men like Jansen never took the fall? They all had the ‘right’ things on their side; money, power, influence, such effective buffers against retribution. Would he really need to resort to murder? But still, there were too many questions left unanswered. He looked up with sudden resolution. ‘You sent someone to recover files of cuttings from Slater’s office.’

Jansen nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But at that point it seemed as though our secret might yet remain intact. Lapointe attended to the details. Perhaps it was a mistake.’

‘And the house in Flanders?’

‘Ah, yes, it was burned down, I believe. I am told there will be problems over the insurance.’

A quick anger rose in Bannerman. ‘Somebody tried to kill me in that house and damn near succeeded. I don’t see any reason to believe that you had nothing to do with any of this. You set up a network of companies to sell arms worldwide. You sell to Rhodesia and to South Africa, in defiance of the United Nations embargo. That makes you as responsible for the deaths of the people those guns kill as the ones that pull the triggers. Why then shouldn’t you have some part in the death of your partner and his blackmailer, some part in the attempt to prevent me from finding out? Morally there is no distinction.’

Jansen laughed. ‘How refreshingly naïve, Mr Bannerman. Morality has not the least interest for me. Do you think I care about the blacks in South Africa or, indeed, about Gryffe or Slater, or you for that matter? Self, Mr. Bannerman, is what life is about. Self. Not even the ones we love, or like to think we love, are as important as oneself. It is what all human matters are about, and is unfortunately what most of us feel ashamed to admit. I do not understand why, for selfishness is the essence of existence. What, for example, determines the way we vote in a political election? Naturally, it is what we adjudge will bring the best advantage to ourselves. Why do we weep when a loved one dies? Because of the loss to ourselves of course. All motivation is selfish, even religious motivation where the rewards for a life of goodness are the eternal delights of the promised Utopia. And so am I motivated. When I think of selling arms to South Africa I weigh up the advantages and the disadvantages. The rewards are high, and the risks low, so I proceed. But, as I have told you, when it comes to murder... If I had considered murdering Gryffe I would have decided against it. Because although the advantages might have been considerable in the circumstances, the risks would have been too great.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you see?’

Bannerman nodded. He saw only too well. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see. I see that you are a man who cannot ever have known love, either as something given or received. Of course people are selfish. That is an instinctive thing, self-preservation, perpetuation of the species. But we have other qualities also, or at least, most of us do. There is a balance in the design of us. For each part of us there is an opposite, as in all natural things; night and day, light and dark, summer and winter, rain and shine. In people the contrasts are more subtle, but they are there; love and hate, anger and forgiveness, greed and generosity, selfishness and compassion. The thing is, Jansen, that without one the other does not exist. Without night there is no day. Without hate there is no love. Without compassion there is no self. What you are is an aberration. One of nature’s rare mistakes. My problem is that I’m not quite sure whether I believe you or not.’

Jansen had been listening in silence, his face immobile, stiff like cardboard. Then his face cracked into a repeat of his earlier smile. ‘Most unfortunate,’ he said. ‘I had hoped you might be corruptible. I should not have asked you here otherwise. Perhaps I was wrong. A man like you can’t be bought... can he?’ He paused expectantly and Bannerman stared at him for a moment.

‘Is that a question or a statement?’

Jansen smiled his first genuine smile. ‘Oh, how clever you think you are, Mr. Bannerman.’

‘Yes,’ Bannerman said. ‘I don’t think I’ll bother with the meal.’ He stood up and drained his glass. ‘Good whisky. Scotch, of course.’

Jansen’s eyes followed him to the door. ‘Of course you realise, Mr. Bannerman, that should you quote anything I have told you here tonight I shall sue you.’

Bannerman held the door half-open and looked back. ‘I doubt it. It’s amazing the amount of unsubstantiated shit that can get flung around in an open court. I wonder if you would risk all your splendid isolation.’

Outside the night was a little colder and the glitter of stars seemed a little harder. The frost glistened on the snow as the headlights of the taxi swept through the tunnel of trees. Bannerman glanced back out the rear windscreen and the receding house was still in darkness. The gates were open when they reached the end of the drive and after they had gone they shut again with a soft electronic hum.

Inside the vast empty house Jansen climbed to the second floor and walked around to his study without looking down. The room glowed faintly in the moonlight and he crossed to his desk and switched on a small reading lamp. It threw a sharp, bright pool of light on the desk, plunging the rest of the room beyond its halo into a thick blackness. Jansen lifted the phone.

III

Platt was waiting in Slater’s car with the engine running outside the apartment block in the Rue de Commerce. He had been waiting for about half an hour, his stomach fluttering with nerves and excitement, and a strange, gnawing fear.

He saw Bannerman’s taxi draw up in the rear view mirror and he switched off the engine and jumped out on the pavement. ‘Well, did you see him?’ He trotted up the stairs after the younger man. But Bannerman said nothing. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages.’

In the flat Bannerman drew a bottle of whisky from his pocket and threw his coat over the settee. He screwed off the top, got two glasses and poured out stiff measures. Platt watched him apprehensively and snatched the proffered glass. He didn’t drink it immediately, but watched Bannerman knock his back in one and then pour himself another. ‘Well?’

‘I saw him.’

‘And?’ Platt felt the dull growing ache of his ulcer and sipped gingerly at his whisky.

‘First the company stuff.’ Platt laid his glass on the table and took out a folded manilla envelope that he thrust at Bannerman. Bannerman opened it and glanced over the photostats of clumsily typed sheets inside. He dropped them on the table and poured the second whisky into himself. ‘He wouldn’t say anything.’

‘What do you mean?’ Platt glared at him suspiciously. ‘He must have said something.’

‘What did you expect?’ Bannerman snapped. ‘That he would break down and confess it all? The man is quite safe. He has all his layers of bureaucracy and fall-guys to hide behind. He’s just going to sit quiet. No comment. Why don’t you phone and ask him?’

Platt sat down on the edge of the settee. What, indeed, had he expected? Of course the man would say nothing. He should have known that. Still, it would do just as well... ‘Last night Jansen refused to comment’. He looked at Bannerman. Damn the man. He was holding something back. Platt didn’t want to miss out on anything. ‘And that’s it?’ Bannerman nodded. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Then maybe you should leave.’

‘Now look here, Bannerman...’

He was not prepared for the suddenness with which Bannerman grabbed his lapels and pulled him out of the settee. ‘Get out!’ His voice was quiet and tense. Platt pulled away from him and straightened his coat with as much dignity as he could muster. In that moment he hated Bannerman as much as he had hated anyone or anything in his life. But he controlled himself. His time would come.

‘When do I get my copy of the stuff from Lewis?’

‘Whenever I get it. Monday or Tuesday.’ He turned away towards the window, and Platt allowed himself a smile. By then it would be all over. And yet, somehow, that didn’t seem revenge enough. He wanted to hurt Bannerman now.

‘You don’t care about anyone, or anything, do you?’ he said.

‘Get out!’ Bannerman still had his back to him.

‘And that girl, all those years ago. You didn’t care about her either. It was me that got you the sack you know. I told the editor what you’d done to that girl. And I was right, wasn’t I? You never even turned up for the funeral. You just didn’t care.’

Bannerman wheeled round. ‘What are you talking about?’

Platt frowned. ‘That girl, the one from tele-ads, the one you got in trouble. My God, you don’t even remember?’ He stared at Bannerman in disbelief before he realised, quite suddenly, that he didn’t know, had never known. ‘She killed herself. Just a few months after the baby was born. Her parents threw her out and she drowned the baby and then killed herself. Didn’t you know?’ He felt a great inner joy. At last he had found the place where he could hurt him most.

Bannerman lit a cigar. His face betrayed nothing. ‘I’ll call you.’

Platt stood for a moment then turned and went out through the hall. Bannerman poured himself another drink and when he heard the car start up in the street below thought irrationally, damn him, he’s taken the car. I shall have to take a taxi again tomorrow. The whisky burned his throat and he wished he could weep and wash away the grit in his eyes.

Bannerman could not have said how long he had been dozing. But it felt like forever. His jacket lay in a crumpled heap on the floor and there were only three fingers of gold left in the whisky bottle. He was lying face down on the settee, one arm hanging over the side so that his fingers trailed loosely on the carpet. He did not hear the bell, and it took several minutes before the hammering on the door forced its way through the undulating folds of sleep and alcohol.

Slowly he pulled himself up into a seated position and tried to wipe the bleariness away from his eyes. He was still drunk and found it difficult to focus on his watch. ‘God,’ he groaned. It was after two. A fist hammered again at the door. ‘Just a minute!’ he shouted and his head felt like it had been split by an axe. He made his way unsteadily through the hall and opened the door. Du Maurier pushed his way in and switched on a light. Bannerman blinked blindly.

‘Get yourself sober,’ the policeman said. ‘We’re going for a drive.’

‘What the hell do you want?’ Bannerman slurred at him.

Du Maurier gripped his arm firmly and pulled him into the bathroom, filled a tooth glass with cold water and threw it in Bannerman’s face. Bannerman tried to swing at him, but the policeman caught his fist and held it fast. ‘Take a cold shower. I’ll wait for you downstairs.’

When Bannerman came down ten minutes later he was still slightly giddy, but he was sober enough to realise that du Maurier must have a bloody good reason for dragging him out at two o’clock in the morning.

‘Where are we going?’ The car drifted noiselessly through dark, deserted streets. ‘It’s not the child...?’

‘No, it’s not the child. We’ll be there soon.’

They got out at a high, dark building and climbed steps into a long corridor. At the end they turned into a tiled room filled with the acid stink of formalin. A man in a white coat came through from an adjoining room and nodded to du Maurier who took Bannerman’s arm and led him through.

The body was naked and laid out on a raised marble slab below the glare of a cluster of bright directional lights. The stench of death and acid preservative was nauseating and Bannerman felt his stomach heave. There was a look of serenity on Platt’s face, but his chest was ripped open, laid bare like meat in a butcher’s shop. The white flesh around it was tinged with blue, the blood drained from the body. ‘Jesus, God! Where’s the toilet?’

The man in the white coat took him across the hall to the toilet and left him to vomit into a large white wash-basin. He remained doubled over it, head pressed against the wall above the taps for several minutes before he turned on the cold water to rinse the basin and sluice his face. Then he swilled out his mouth and took a long, cool drink.

Du Maurier was waiting for him in the corridor and they went back out to the car. The two men sat in silence while the policeman rolled down a window and lit a cigarette. ‘Formal identification,’ he said coldly.

Bannerman answered mechanically. ‘Richard Joseph Platt.’

‘What was he doing with Slater’s car?’

‘He borrowed it. Give me a cigarette.’ Du Maurier lit it for him and watched him screw up his face at its taste. ‘What happened?’

The policeman sighed. ‘Someone used both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun on him. Close range. We found the body in Slater’s car. It was parked in a side street near the Gare du Nord.’

Bannerman tried to make himself feel something, but there was only a numbness. His only thought was, why had Jansen done it. The man had been safe until now. The Inspector held out a folded wad of paper. Bannerman took it. There were about a dozen sheets all clumsily typed. ‘It’s in French,’ he said. ‘I can’t read it. What is it?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘Maybe I can guess.’

‘What do you guess?’

‘I guess maybe it’s a story about how René Jansen, Michel Lapointe and Robert Gryffe formed a consortium to sell arms. Knowing Platt he’ll have dressed it up a bit. He probably paints a picture of Gryffe as a high-powered salesman with access to heads of state throughout the world, Lapointe as a kind of wizard of company law who set up a network of companies that enabled them to sell to whomever they liked from behind a veil of anonymity, and Jansen as the quiet power behind it all who supplied the money and creamed off the lion’s share of the profits. Of course, he’ll have made the biggest play of the sales to South Africa and Rhodesia.’

‘Is it true?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why in God’s name did you not tell me?’

Bannerman shook his head sadly. ‘I would have. Probably today. I only found out yesterday morning. I had a deal with Platt but it looks as if he was going to try and screw me on it.’

‘My God, you are a fool, Monsieur! Who else knew about this?’

‘Only Platt, myself, my editor and the man in Switzerland who did the company checks. Oh, and Jansen, of course.’

‘Jansen?’

‘I confronted him with it last night.’ Bannerman heard the air escaping from between du Maurier’s clenched teeth.

‘And who knew about your deal with Platt?’

‘No-one, as far as I know.’

The Inspector lit another cigarette. ‘Then it is you that was meant to be killed.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re taking it very calmly.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ Bannerman was on the edge of breaking. He could not remember having felt worse in his life. He had failed. Failed in everything. ‘When are you going to arrest Jansen?’

‘How can I arrest him?’

‘Because who else could be responsible?’ He was thinking how easily he had been taken in by Jansen, how easily he had been led to doubt Jansen’s involvement in the killings of Gryffe and Slater.

Du Maurier shook his head. ‘There is no proof. Not yet, anyway. One thing is clear, however. Whoever pulled the trigger on Monsieur Platt was not the same man who killed Monsieur Gryffe and Monsieur Slater.’

Bannerman turned to look at the policeman. His face seemed pale, almost yellow, in the light of the street lamps. ‘How can you know that?’

‘Because the man at the Rue de Pavie was a professional. Meticulous, neat, subtle. Monsieur Platt’s killer is just some underworld hoodlum. A hired gun. Effective, but crude. Messy, not a real pro. We have a better chance of catching him and so we have a better chance of finding who hired him. We do not know that it is Jansen. Besides, I think your obsession with Jansen is perhaps blinding you to the other possibilities.’

Bannerman shivered. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I am very tired, Monsieur,’ du Maurier sighed, ‘I should like to be home in my bed. You will be required to come to my office later today to make an official statement. Perhaps we can discuss it then.’

Bannerman folded Platt’s story and held it out to the Inspector.

‘No you keep it. It is better that we never found it. I shall wait until you have published it. You see, Monsieur, public pressure will have a greater influence on my superiors in reopening the case than an uncorroborated story found on the body of a dead journalist. And we would not want to warn them, would we?’

Chapter Twelve

I

Sunday. The change in the weather overnight was marked. It had rained steadily for some hours before dawn, and when the first light misted the rain-sodden air much of the snow had gone.

In the taxi that swept east through the city along the Boulevard Leopold III to the airport at Zavantem, Bannerman and the child sat in silence. He had barely been able to speak to her and he saw the hurt in her eyes. She had been expecting him yesterday, and now he had come to put her on a plane that would take her away from him. He had not even bothered to explain it to her except to say that a lady and gentleman from America would be with her on the plane and that he would come and see her when he was finished with his business in Brussels. She was wondering what it was she had done to offend him, and that ache inside her that was the seed of frustration was growing. She was afraid of it, afraid that it would take control and that he would not understand. She slipped her hand into his. It felt warm and big and it responded with a little squeeze. Please let me control it, she was saying inside. Please let me control it.

Bannerman stared at the buildings he had passed on his arrival ten days before and thought how ten days can change your life.

At the Hotel Regent the Schumachers had risen early and Mrs. Schumacher had fussed and gushed with excitement. ‘Which dress should I wear, Henry?’ She had held up two dresses, one cotton print with a colourful pattern, the other plain blue wool.

‘I don’t know, dear. You look good in them both.’

‘Oh, Henry, don’t be so infuriating.’

‘Perhaps the print dress,’ he said.

She looked at it and then the other. ‘I think I’ll wear the blue. More sombre for the occasion. Poor child. Oh, but isn’t this exciting, Henry?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘No, no, don’t wear that tie, Henry, it clashes so with your suit. Yes that one. Now that looks so much better.’ She struggled breathlessly into the blue dress. ‘Zip me up, please, Henry. Do you think maybe we could stay on in Edinburgh an extra day?’

‘Well, I do have to be back in Washington for Saturday...’

‘Yes, yes. Of course, you’re right.’ Pause. ‘I wonder what she’s like. I certainly hope she won’t throw any tantrums on the plane. That, I could do without.’ Then she added, ‘Poor thing. We must do what we can, Henry.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Hurry now, or we’ll miss breakfast.’

But as the car sped them towards Zavantem she was curiously quiet. Henry Schumacher stared morosely from the windows, and his wife wondered why she felt so nervous. A touch of indigestion, perhaps. She had eaten breakfast much too quickly. Or it might be the change in the weather. The weather could often do that. Tomorrow the damp would bring the rheumatic stiffness back to her arms.

Kale felt a lightness in his heart. He liked the rain. It reminded him of London. He liked the feel of it on his face and the dampness in the air where people gathered for a drink with their coats and hats wet. For him this was the day of release, the day when the nightmare of the past week would be ended. All the questions about his future remained unanswered, but they could wait. The prison sentence of his past was drawing to a close. The only conscious reminder was the weight of the gun in the holster strapped across his back and over his left shoulder. He had decided not to leave it at the hotel, though he could not take it with him, for it would not pass the security checks at the airport. But it was at the airport, he had decided, that he would dispose of it, in one of the flush tanks in the toilets, after he had wiped it clean of prints.

His taxi drew up outside the terminal building and he stepped out into the bluster of wind and rain. Through sliding doors, head down as he passed the security policemen with their hip holsters and machine guns. Rows of airline desks, and people with cases milling back and forth, the mechanical voice announcing flights over the tannoy. Kale breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at his watch. He had half an hour before his flight would be called.

He checked in at the BA desk and left his case, and then looked for signs for a toilet. They led him up a flight of steps onto a concourse on a higher level. He saw the toilets at the other side, brushed past a group of travellers sharing a joke, and stopped with a feeling like death in him. The child was not looking his way, but he saw her head turning. Perhaps she sensed that he was there. Beside her stood the man he had been following earlier and an elderly couple. He could hear the woman’s voice. An American.

‘Well, Mr. Bannerman,’ Mrs. Schumacher was saying, ‘I don’t think you need have any fears about leaving the little girl in our custody for the flight. She is such a darling. I know we’re going to get on just great...’ Her voice trailed away sharply as the scream tore from the child’s lips.

Heads all around them turned. Bannerman looked at her, at the terror on her face, and followed her eyes. He saw a man in a shabby coat, a man in a drawing without a face.

Kale panicked. Suddenly the prison door had slammed shut and he was still on the inside. The screaming went on and on, and yet it must only have been a few seconds. Everything seemed to be happening so slowly. It wasn’t his will that drew the gun from its holster, but the instincts that had kept him alive and safe all these years. He was aware of the gun trembling in his hand as he raised it with the speed and efficiency of his training and practice. And for just one more second there was an enormous battle between will and instinct, before he squeezed the trigger and saw the child thrown backwards.

Now there was screaming all around him and he glanced to either side, still unable to move. The elderly American was advancing slowly towards him, his wife yelling at him hysterically. ‘Henry...!’

‘Okay, son, give me the gun,’ the American was saying. ‘You’ve done what you came to do. No need for anyone else to get hurt now. Just give me the gun.’ The voice was soothing, relaxing, its effect almost hypnotic. Kale felt his gun hand dropping.

Then there was a voice shouting at him above the noise of the others. He looked round and saw the dark uniform of a security policeman. He looked back helplessly at the American, and for a second Schumacher thought he saw the hint of a tear in the man’s eye.

Kale ran, bodies scurrying to either side, squealing like rats in a panic. Again he heard the voice of the security policeman and he seemed to be running into a vast emptiness. The guard levelled his pistol and fired one, two, three times. Kale’s head hit the tiles with a smack and his body slithered several metres across their smoothness, carried on by its own momentum, spraying blood in its wake. He came to rest, twisted and ugly, with a pool of blood spreading rapidly around him. His eyes were open and staring through the walls of glass across the runway. But he saw nothing.

II

The sound of voices echoed mechanically along the corridor, footsteps on a hard floor, unseen doors opening and closing. They seemed remote, disembodied. A trolley was wheeled from one ward to the next, the flash of a nurse’s white uniform, the laugh of an orderly.

Bannerman stood in the emptiness of the vast, glass-walled reception hall. The lights above reflected off the polished floor. He looked over at the bowed head of Henry Schumacher sitting on one of the red vinyl seats and thought of the man’s courage as he had stepped forward to face the gunman. He thought too, of the child’s blood on his own hands and he glanced at them now. They were pale and white, the blood all washed away.

He looked at his watch. Anything to stop him from thinking. It was only a little over an hour since it had happened. Still Sunday morning, grey and wet outside.

He glanced again at Schumacher and scuffed his feet. ‘I’m sorry I got you involved in all this,’ he said. ‘I hope everything will be all right with Mrs. Schum... your wife.’

Schumacher waved his hand carelessly. ‘She’s all right. Just shock. It’s the child...’

A doctor pushed through swing doors. He looked tired. ‘She is in the operating theatre.’ His accent was thick and clumsy. He glanced at Schumacher and then back to Bannerman. ‘It could be many hours. And then even if we are successful with the operation it is very difficult for us to know if she will live or die. You can wait if you like.’ He paused with a slight embarrassment before disappearing again behind the doors. They swung back and forth for some moments before coming to a standstill.

‘I’ll be back,’ Bannerman said and began towards the elevator.

Schumacher looked at him in surprise. ‘But the police...’

‘Tell the Inspector when he gets back that I’ll be in touch with him.’ He pressed the down button.

‘But where are you going?’

Bannerman hesitated. He was trembling. ‘To get the bastards.’

Even in the daylight, you could not see Jansen’s mansion from the road. The rain was coming down steady and hard when the taxi drew up at the gates. Bannerman got out and crossed to the gatepost. He pressed the button and spoke into the grill. ‘Neil Bannerman to see René Jansen.’ Nothing happened. He pressed it again and kept his finger on it for several seconds. Then he repeated his message.

The speaker grill crackled and a voice said, ‘Herr Jansen is not at home.’

‘Like hell!’ Bannerman muttered.

The gates were about seven feet high and spiked along the top. The taxi driver watched Bannerman with astonishment as he scaled them, wobbled unsteadily over the spikes at the top and jumped down over the other side. Somewhere in the grounds an alarm hooter began wailing out through the trees. Bannerman started running, his feet clattering over the paving, the trees locked in around him. All he could think of was the child, his fears, his anger.

The drive seemed much longer than it had when he had come up it in the car. At last the square lawns opened out before him and he emerged from the damp, dripping tunnel of trees. The wailing of the hooter intensified as he came nearer the house and he could now hear bells ringing in the building itself. He ran across the slush that lay in patches on the lawn, over the gravel square, glancing up at the rows of windows. For a moment he caught a glimpse of a small, pale face watching him from behind a window-blind on the second floor, but when he looked again it was gone.

The moulded iron knocker on the great door was heavy and thundered against the metal block. He could hear the sound of it echoing away in the big circular hall behind it. He hammered for about a minute before the door was finally opened just a crack, and the butler who had let him in the previous night looked out at him coldly. ‘The police will be here any moment. I would advise you to leave now.’

Bannerman put his shoulder to the door, pushing the old man backwards into the hall. ‘Where is he?’ The old man’s face was drained of colour.

‘He is not here.’

Bannerman swept past him and up the marble staircase two steps at a time. He remembered the face on the second floor and went on up to the second landing. There were about a dozen doors leading off. He opened one after another onto a drawing room, a bedroom, a study, a library, another bedroom. All empty. The sixth door opened into darkness, and he was about to move on to the next when he sensed a presence in the room, perhaps the slightest of movements, or a scent. He stopped and peered into the gloom. All the blinds were pulled and only a little yellow light crept in around their edges.

Suddenly a light came on to his right, a small table lamp that lit up an old woman in a wheelchair. She stared at him out of a white, bony face, with empty grey eyes. Her hair was the purest silver pulled back in a tight bun. She had a black shawl around her shoulders and a rug over her knees. Twisted, arthritic hands lay in her lap, clutching a small glass of red wine. The remains of a log fire smouldered in the hearth. She spoke in a high, clear voice. ‘My son is not here.’

Bannerman hesitated for a moment as the door swung to behind him. He had not expected this. ‘Where is he?’

The old woman sighed and her slight, fragile frame drooped a little. ‘You are Mr. Bannerman, are you not? My son has told me about you. But you are quite wrong about him.’

Bannerman felt uncomfortable, caught in the gaze of those pale grey eyes. ‘Where is he?’

‘He left early this morning. For the Bahamas. We have an estate out there. I do not expect to see him for about six months.’ There was a smugness about her. The bells and the siren stopped and the awful silence that followed was broken only by the slow tick of an old clock on the mantelpiece. The door opened behind Bannerman and the old butler appeared.

‘The police have arrived.’

‘Send them away,’ said the old woman. ‘I don’t believe Mr. Bannerman will cause any further trouble.’ The old man stood for a second and glared at Bannerman. Then he turned, shutting the door softly behind him. ‘Have a seat, Mr. Bannerman.’

‘No thank you.’

‘As you like.’ Her eyes flickered briefly beyond him and then returned with that same empty stare. ‘You see, if my son had been involved in the things of which you suspect him, I would have known. There is nothing I do not know about him. He is a good boy. He will do nothing without his mother’s approval. He has never married. For you see, it is me he needs. Me he depends on. My only fear is what will become of him when I have gone.’ She smiled. ‘I’m afraid he is really rather helpless.’

‘Then you are the power behind the Jansen empire?’ Bannerman was sceptical.

Now she chuckled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is the way my husband wanted it. He knew that René would never be the man he was. Of course, René liked to play at it, to pretend. But then, he knows that he must always answer to his Mama, as when he was just a child. He doesn’t love me, I think. But he fears me, respects me. It was I who sent him away.’

Bannerman shook his head in disbelief. He took out a cigar.

‘I would prefer that you didn’t smoke.’ It was a command, not a request. An old lady accustomed to getting her own way.

Bannerman moved to the fireplace, lit the cigar, and threw his spent match into the ashes. He found that he was still trembling. ‘Well, I don’t really care too much about what you prefer,’ he said. ‘There’s a little girl perhaps dying in a hospital not very far from here that I care about a great deal more.’ He paused. ‘You can start by telling me about Lapointe.’

‘Ah, Michel,’ she said, quite unruffled, ‘he is a genius, Mr. Bannerman, but a man of little breeding. My husband trusted him implicitly.’ She took a tiny sip of her wine. ‘He is a man I have never liked. I am afraid I have used him unscrupulously. He has remained loyal only because the rewards are high. I fear that he does not hold me in as high regard as he held my husband, but perhaps he fears me a little, as René does. It is unfortunate that he must be sacrificed. A sop to public opinion, you understand, over this distasteful arms business. I cannot, you understand, allow my son to be harmed by the scandal.’

‘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?’

‘Timothy Slater’s daughter. She was shot this morning at the airport. But then, you’ll know all about that.’

‘No,’ she said calmly, ‘I am sorry.’

‘Sure.’

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 shall lose,’ he said and shut the door behind him.

Lapointe dialled the combination with trembling fingers and the door of the safe swung open. There was no money in here, just large manilla folders tied round with red ribbon to contain their bulging contents. They were all his records, the companies, the deals, statements of accounts, going back nearly twenty years. It was a large safe, but his records filled it. He had been meticulous and his memory was such that he could pinpoint almost any deal, any company, within minutes. It would take someone not familiar with his system hours, perhaps days, to make any 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 lifted them out 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 weak? Surely he could have bought off the journalist, Bannerman. Damn the man’s mother. He saw her, frail and delicate in her wheelchair, heard her voice, supercilious and condescending. What power was it she had over them all? She was, after all, only 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 do the dirty work. 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 damn 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 almost finished packing his case when the phone rang. ‘Lapointe. What is it?’

‘This is security at reception, sir. There is a gentleman down here who wishes 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 up.’

‘I’ve already suggested that, sir. But he’s most insistent that the message should be delivered personally.’

Damn the old lady! What was she 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 the room. A large mahogany writing desk and three phones and a clean blotter. An ashtray stuffed with fat cigar ends. There was a suitcase open on the desk, packed with large manilla folders. 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, went from floor to ceiling and gave out on a breathtaking view across the city from this tenth floor.

Lapointe himself was a short, thick-set 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 lighting a cigar and strolled across the office to look out across the damp mist that blotted out 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 confusion between us.’

‘Well, what do you want?’ Lapointe growled. ‘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 onto the 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?’ He was patently agitated.

‘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 the dead body of a journalist called Richard Platt in a car near the Gare du Nord. The paper fell from his hands and he looked up again at Bannerman.

‘Who... who are you?’ he stammered.

‘I’m Neil Bannerman.’

The colour drained from Lapointe’s cheeks 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 round the desk. ‘Let me tell you, Lapointe,’ he said, ‘that I am sick of playing the game according to the rules, rules that protect rich bastards like you from any real justice. I am way beyond the point of caring about what happens to me any more, and I’m going to break you.’

Lapointe yelped as Bannerman grabbed his lapels and hauled him round the desk, forcing him up against the window. The reporter’s face was very close to his, and Lapointe could smell the other man’s hatred. ‘It’s a long way down. You’re going to make a hell of a mess on the pavement.’

‘No!’ Lapointe screamed. ‘I’ll tell you. Anything!’

‘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 a lot 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 hard and the glass creaked. ‘Jesus, God, I don’t know! I swear. We knew nothing about it until after. My God, please believe me.’

Bannerman felt his frustration inside like a coiled spring. ‘I don’t!’ His raised voice seemed to fill the room. He pushed harder and the glass cracked from top to bottom. He was within a fraction of an inch of killing this man.

‘I swear it!’ 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 an outlet for all that. A target for his hate and anger and bitterness, and not even Lapointe could provide that.

‘What about the gunman in Flanders?’

Lapointe’s head came up slowly, tears coursing down his cheeks. It was plain that he did not know 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. ‘And do you still believe that Jansen was responsible for what happened at the Rue de Pavie?’

There was a long silence. Then, ‘No.’

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; as it hurt inside to think of the child.

The door opened and du Maurier came in, the habitual cigarette hanging from his wet lips. He rounded the desk and sat, flicking his 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?’

‘The next twelve hours or so will tell. It is the critical period. 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 Monsieur Gryffe and Monsieur Slater, and, I am quite certain, the man hired for the act was the one shot dead at Zavantem this morning. The child’s drawing was uncannily accurate. Unfortunately, one of the few things we do not know is who hired him and why. But I shall return to that.

‘From what I have learned from Lapointe I think it can be safely assumed that Monsieur Slater was indeed blackmailing Monsieur 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 a flat 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. And she has retained her married name, Piard.’

Bannerman shook his head. He had known it, even before the policeman said it. ‘Slater’s girlfriend,’ he said, heavy with disappointment ‘Why in God’s name 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 little arrangement.’

‘Unfortunately,’ the Inspector sighed, ‘I do not think it is something we will ever prove.’

Bannerman felt the anger welling up inside him. ‘God damn the bitch! If she hadn’t...’ But he stopped. Life was too full of ‘ifs’. And yet it rankled with him that she might be the only one untouched by it all.

‘I know,’ du Maurier said. ‘In my business there are always the ones that 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, hard line. Both men knew there were many things they could never hope to know, to 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 there was her son, and Lapointe, and their arrangement with Gryffe. How had it come about? Why had Gryffe so risked an outstanding career in politics? So many things that you could never hope to understand. Why men do the things they do. You can only ever hope to scratch the surface. And even then...

‘It won’t go away,’ du Maurier said at length.

Bannerman looked at him curiously. ‘What?’

‘The question of who had Messieurs Gryffe and Slater murdered if it wasn’t Jansen.’

‘No, it won’t.’ An ugly little thought had been burrowing into his consciousness since the episode in Flanders and now it returned. He remembered his conversation with the Foreign Minister the night before he left, the PR man’s telephone call in the lobby of the restaurant, the sandy-haired man at the Gare du Midi, the professional’s 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.’ And yet he could not bring himself to believe the implications.

Bannerman dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. Then 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 their understudy to the Foreign Minister was selling arms to South Africa and Rhodesia. But there is 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 can do some pretty horrendous things with their secret services, but to assassinate a Junior Cabinet Minister, and a journalist... There would have been no need. All they would have needed to do would be remove him from office, put pressure on him to resign his seat, even from the Party itself. Why kill him?’

Du Maurier looked at him seriously. ‘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, give them the benefit of the doubt. But was it not my own Government that closed this case when it was clear that there had been two murders? Now why should they do that? Diplomatic relations? 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 killed 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 finger-print check through Interpol who tracked him down through his British Army record when he served three years’ conscription in the early nineteen sixties. He did nine months for assaulting an Officer. He had no police record, but he was known to the police in England. Suspected of a number of killings. But nothing 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 make it look like a quarrel. When it had become apparent that the child had seen it, she had become the next target. But if you eliminated Jansen and Lapointe, and if you eliminated 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 some other time? Why choose a busy airport where he had little or no chance of getting away with it? ‘Is there anything among his things, Kale’s things...?’

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 onto his desk and Bannerman pulled his chair closer in.

There was a holster, a wallet with some money and a cheque book, 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 the desk with a sick feeling inside him. And in that moment there was just a glimmer of understanding of Kale’s behaviour. ‘We’ve checked it for prints. Clean, except for Kale’s.’

Bannerman surveyed the killer’s personal things with a kind of stultifying hopelessness. They did not seem any different from the things he might carry himself. The Inspector opened out the map. ‘You might 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 in with a felt pen. The first circle was drawn around 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, bridge over water’. In the margin, written in green ink, was the word, ‘Lamb’, followed by a question mark. For a few seconds Bannerman stared at it without understanding. Then suddenly he made the connection. He felt his heart quicken and his face flush. He looked up at du Maurier who raised an eyebrow. ‘It means something to you?’

‘Can I use your phone?’ he needed to double-check.

‘By all means.’ The policeman got him a line.

Bannerman dialled, du Maurier watching him with interest. ‘News desk,’ he heard him say. Then, ‘George. Neil Bannerman. Do me a favour. Dig out a copy of Who’s Who and look up Lord Armsdale. Armsdale is a place name. I want to check the man’s real name, before he got the Peerage.’ While he waited he fumbled to light a cigar and glanced at du Maurier. ‘Hello. Yes. Lamb. Thomas Walter Lamb. What’s his address?... Armsdale House, Lancashire... That’s near Southport, isn’t it?... Yes... No... I’ll be in touch.’ He hung up and sat back in his chair, adrenalin pumping. There was a wild look about his eyes. Everything, quite suddenly, seemed to fall into place. It left him with a strange, empty feeling inside.

‘Well, Monsieur?’

Bannerman seemed suddenly weary. ‘Thomas Walter Lamb, or Lord Armsdale as he is now, is the retired Chairman of Gryffe’s Party. In many ways he is, or was, the Party. He was its Chairman for nearly thirty years. He, more than anyone, made it the force it is today. Gryffe was his protégé, his golden boy. Being groomed by the old man as a possible future Party Leader. The intellectual that the old man never was.’ He thought about the cuttings he had read in Slater’s office and wondered why it had not occurred to him before.

Du Maurier sighed and lit yet another cigarette, leaning back in his seat and gazing at Bannerman with big, watery eyes. He understood the implication. ‘Can you be certain?’

‘I think so.’

‘And how will you prove it?’

‘I don’t know. But I will. I’ll get the first flight to London tomorrow.’

The policeman seemed to be staring into space. Finally he broke the silence between hem. ‘I feel sorry for you, Monsieur. You have to carry a burden that no one man should have to bear.’ Bannerman’s head dropped a little. He knew it. ‘When you write your story you will bring down your Government, whether they were involved in it or not.’

Bannerman bit hard on the end of his cigar. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Chapter Thirteen

I

Sally watched how her fingers trembled a little as she toyed with her cup, waiting for the Brussels flight to be called. Some coffee had spilled into the saucer and it dripped across the table from the bottom of the cup as she lifted it to her mouth. The coffee was sweet and dark and strong, and its hotness filled her mouth. It took a bit off the edge of her tension. She shivered, though the airport cafeteria was hot and airless. All around her, voices prattled gaily in that melodic, aggressive way the Italians speak. Rome. Monday morning. Mild and sunny, only a little chill in the air outside.

She had slept badly, and her face was pale, the skin drawn tightly across her cheeks. The morning had come like a relief, the sheet damp and twisted around her. The hours of darkness had tormented her with all the questions, all the doubts. But she knew she had made a mistake; even as she had left the flat in the Rue de Commerce with the silent tears on her cheeks she had known.

But it had taken a headline on the front page of one of the Rome dailies to make her turn back, back to the man she should never have left. The job, the money, the security meant nothing now.

The paper had been lying on her table at breakfast at the Hotel Vittoria in the Piazza Mastai where she had booked in only the night before. For a moment the headline had meant nothing to her. Then she realised. GIRL (11) GUNNED DOWN AT EURO-AIRPORT. And in smaller type. GUNMAN SHOT DEAD BY SECURITY POLICE.

Du Maurier felt the heat of the sun through the glass. The warmth seemed such a deceit when outside it was cold and raw. He was down to his shirt sleeves and he screwed up his eyes against the brightness that streamed in the window of his office across the desk. In front of him lay Lapointe’s statement, typed and signed. The boys in the commercial branch had already begun going through the suitcase full of manilla folders. He had put in his request to start extradition proceedings to bring Jansen back from the Bahamas. That might prove difficult. At least the examining magistrate, Judge Markelbach, was sympathetic for once. But a man like Jansen would be difficult to convict, especially with friends in high places. And doubtless the old woman would have a few strings she could pull. How much, he wondered again, did she really know about it all? How much control had she really had over her son, over Lapointe? She was something of an enigma.

The phone rang and he snatched the receiver, anxious for some distraction. ‘There is a young lady here to see you, Inspector. A Mademoiselle Sally Robertson.’

‘Send her in.’ He leaned back in his chair to light a cigarette and wait for the knock on his door. ‘Come in.’

She came in, pale and hesitant, the cold winter air still clinging to her clothes. Du Maurier stood up and indicated the seat at the other side of his desk. ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle. I am happy to see you again. Please sit.’ Sally sat gingerly on the chair opposite the old policeman and looked at his weary, kindly face. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I,’ she began self-consciously. ‘I only heard this morning about Tania. I’ve come straight from the airport.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve just come from Rome. The child... is she, will she...?’

‘It’s still in the balance,’ du Maurier said. ‘I’m expecting a call any time.’

She nodded. ‘I tried to phone Neil Bannerman from the airport. He’s not at the flat or his office. Do you know where he is?’

Du Maurier smiled sadly. ‘I’m afraid, Mademoiselle, that you have missed him. He took the ten o’clock flight to London this morning.’ The phone rang and he lifted it quickly. She watched him closely. The droop of his shoulders. ‘When?’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. And she feared the worst.

London was blowy, a light rain carried in the wind, encapsulating spots of city smut. And the wind blew in Sally’s face as she hurried down Fleet Street from the tube station. Past the rising glass windows of the Daily Express.

There was a quiet desperation in her now, a disturbing sense of disorientation. Perhaps, she was thinking, she was only compounding her original mistake. There was a dreadful hopelessness about her pursuit of this man she might love half-way across Europe. How would he react? What if he did not want her? Why had she ever gone in the first place? And then there was the child. She felt an ache inside her.

After leaving du Maurier’s office she had taken a taxi back to the airport in time for the two o’clock flight to London. The city seemed strange to her, alien after the months in Brussels. She felt nothing in common with the people she passed in the street and they barely seemed to notice her passing.

She found the Post’s London office at the bottom end of the street, a grey sandstone Victorian building rising into the late afternoon sky from its grim basement to its bright, yellow-lit windows at the top.

Heads in the newsroom turned as she came in and looked helplessly about her for a familiar face. ‘Can I help you?’ a young man at the nearest desk asked.

‘I...’ she broke to catch her breath. ‘I was looking for Neil Bannerman.’

‘Oh, you’ve just missed him, love. He left about an hour ago to get the Glasgow train from Euston.’ A pause. ‘Stood you up, has he? I’m Tom, by the way. I mean, if you’re looking for a bit of entertainment tonight, I know a nice little restaurant...’ But she was gone, the door swinging behind her.

In the street below she had to wait nearly five minutes before she got a taxi. ‘Euston station,’ she told the driver. ‘Please hurry.’

‘Well I’ll do me best, Miss. But you picked the wrong time to try and get through London in a hurry. Bloody traffic. It’s diabolical at this time of day.’

It took over half an hour to get to the station, and she ran up the steps from the covered rank and across the concourse towards the barriers, searching frantically for the Glasgow sign. She grasped a porter’s arm. ‘The Glasgow train,’ she said breathlessly, ‘has it gone yet?’

‘Fraid so, Miss. About ten minutes ago. But there’s another one at quarter to six.’

She turned away, the weight of the case straining at her arm. She felt her disappointment bring tears to her eyes. And for a moment she wondered if it was not a sign, if she should give up and turn back to the life she had left only eight hours earlier.

II

The car bumped and shook its way across the rough, rutted mud track, its headlights picking out the grass verge and the blasted wood fence posts. In the distance the lights of the house twinkled erratically through the branches of tall, dark trees that swayed in the wind. It was a wild night.

Bannerman turned the wheels over a small humpbacked bridge across a narrow gushing stream and the track broadened a little and was lined with trees along the right side. He did not know what to expect, or what he was going to say to the old man, but he felt, somehow, that this time it really would be an end to it all. The car clattered over the cattle grid and pulled up on the asphalt courtyard.

He had left the train at Preston and hired the car at a garage not far from the station to drive the ten or twelve miles south west on the A59 and A565 to Armsdale House near the tiny Armsdale landfall. He switched off the lights and stepped out into the bluster that drove in from the west across the Irish Sea. But there was a warmth in the air, a mildness and a smell of rain.

The house itself was a big, stone, turreted affair, almost a small castle. It stood dark and impressive in its setting. The door was opened by a short, thick-set man with a crop of white, wiry hair. His face was tanned and leathery with age. He had a heavy tweed jacket on over a thick sweater and thick tweed trousers. He stared at Bannerman suspiciously and the reporter noticed his big working-man’s hands, hard-skinned and calloused. ‘Yes?’

‘I’ve come to see Lord Armsdale.’

‘And who’s wanting ’im?’

‘My name is Neil Bannerman. I’m the investigative reporter of the Edinburgh Post.’

There was a pause as the man considered this. ‘Does ’e expect you?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Then you’d better come and wait in the ’all and I’ll see if ’e’ll see you.’

Bannerman waited in the big hall, worn old flagstones beneath his feet, a staircase rising up to an unlit floor above. It was cold in here. He thought about Tania and felt guilty. Not knowing if she was alive or dead. He should have been there... A door opened on his left and a shaft of warm yellow light fell out at his feet. ‘In ’ere.’ The white-haired man beckoned. Bannerman went through the door and found himself in a large, cluttered living room filled with old, cumbersome articles of furniture. A sofa, two big old easy chairs, a writing desk, bookshelves, walls hung with old paintings. A cheery fire burned in a large stone fireplace and Lord Armsdale sat languidly by it in one of the easy chairs. He was pulling gently on the stem of a pipe and the eyes in his old narrow face twinkled sadly as they turned towards Bannerman.

‘Take a seat, Mr. Bannerman. Will you have tea?’

‘Thank you, no.’ Bannerman sank into the softness of the chair opposite the old man and felt strangely at home in this warm, friendly room. It was a lived-in place. Nothing pretentious or fancy. But comfortable. Lord Armsdale surveyed Bannerman shrewdly for some seconds.

‘Would I be right in thinking I know what you have come about?’

Bannerman nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘I think so.’

The old man looked beyond him towards the white-haired man who still stood at the open door. ‘That’ll be all, Arthur, thank you.’ The other turned reluctantly and pulled the door to behind him. Lord Armsdale went on puffing at his pipe, lost in a gentle euphoria of smoke and thought. At length he said, ‘He has been with me a long time. Arthur. Almost from the start. A good man. He carried my messages for me, found the men for the job. He trusted me implicitly, has always trusted me. In a way I suppose I have let him down as well. He’s always done everything for me. My chauffeur, my secretary, my housekeeper, my gardener. He worked in the mines when he was a boy. I wonder how he will manage without me. I think, perhaps, he needs me as much as I have needed him.’

Then suddenly he looked at Bannerman as though coming out of a dream. ‘I have been expecting a visit such as this since I heard the news yesterday. I had no idea who it might be, but in a way I suppose I should have guessed it might be you. I have heard that you are very good.’ He paused again to take comfort in his pipe. ‘At the beginning I took a great many precautions, you know. I thought it was foolproof. But then, when it went wrong, the business of the child, I think I knew that it would end this way.

‘But please,’ he pointed the stem of his pipe at Bannerman, ‘do not get me wrong. I regret none of it, except that it has failed, that by my own actions I have endangered the Party, the Government I tried to save.’ He seemed without emotion, calm and relaxed. ‘Will the child live or die?’

‘She has a chance.’

‘Good, good. I’m glad. You must think me some kind of monster. I suppose history will condemn me as being a misguided old man. But you see, Mr. Bannerman, what are the lives of two or three people when compared with the justice and dignity that my Party is trying to bring to millions? Do we not place far too much importance on life itself, on the unbounded freedom of the individual at the expense of others less able to exploit the world about them?’

For the first time Bannerman felt compelled to speak. ‘If you deny the right of any one man to live, simply because he does not conform to your ideas of what is good for all, then you are denying the rights of all men, weak and strong, to the freedom of humanity. What gives you the right to play God?’

‘Ah, Mr. Bannerman, we all have our ideals. We would all like to achieve them at the snap of a finger. But one has to be realistic. Sacrifices must be made, the end has to justify the means.’

‘Even if that means usurping the principles of democracy, the right of people to choose? Even if it means murdering a mentally handicapped child whose only crime against your ideals has been to see her father shot to death by a man you hired?’

The old man sighed. ‘It is something we will disagree about. If I had time, I believe I could make you understand. But we have no time, and there would be little point to it. I have devoted my life to the Party, Mr. Bannerman. A Party which has done more to improve the lives of ordinary men and women in fifty years than was achieved in the previous five hundred. Do not think it did not pain me to do the things I did, but I could not let the work of a lifetime — this country’s only real hope for the future — be destroyed by a man devoured by greed and deceit. A man who deceived not only myself and my Party, but many millions of people in this land who saw in him the same qualities we all did. Qualities that could have made him great, qualities that could have brought so much to so many. Except that behind them lay a sickness and a corruption that made a nonsense of all the trust we placed in him.’ He had become agitated. He stood up and paced across the room to the window and looked out into the blackness beyond.

‘How did you find out?’ Bannerman asked. ‘About Gryffe’s involvement in the sale of arms?’

Lord Armsdale chuckled ironically. Bannerman could not see his face. ‘He came to me for help. I can still hardly believe his nerve, nor, I think, will I ever understand his motives. You can live, even to my age, and life still has its surprises, its mysteries.

‘He told me he was being blackmailed by a journalist in Brussels. Slater. At first he wouldn’t tell me why. But finally I got it out of him. He was desperate. Slater had taken him for nearly one hundred thousand pounds over a period of several months and was pushing for a final pay-off of another hundred thousand in a lump sum. Gryffe said he just didn’t have that kind of money available and he was worried that Slater was going to blow the whistle on him.

‘He degraded himself, Mr. Bannerman. Promised to do anything if I would help him, even resign his seat. He had obviously weighed up the advantages and disadvantages. He must have reckoned he could have continued to live in the style to which he had become accustomed by continuing his arms deals and his associations with the Jansen empire. Perhaps he even believed that after I had helped him he could hold onto his seat and his post at the Ministry, banking on my being unable to face the humiliation of exposing him to our colleagues. He had been my protégé, after all. Of all those he had taken in, I was the biggest fool. So I promised him half of his requirement and then set about destroying him before he could destroy my Party. I was not prepared to leave anything to chance.’

He stooped and opened a drawer in his writing desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers clipped together. ‘This,’ he held it up, ‘is, if you like, my full confession. I spent many hours composing it last night. I had hoped that perhaps I might not need to use it until after the election. Just ten more days. But, of course, that is not possible.’ He crossed the room and handed it to Bannerman. There were six foolscap pages closely typed. It was dated and signed. ‘The point that I make in it, Mr. Bannerman, the point that I would like to stress, is that the Government itself, and the Party, were in no way implicated or involved in this affair. The responsibility is mine and mine alone. Perhaps, perhaps it will salvage something. It is the last and only sacrifice I can make. Myself.’

Bannerman flipped through the sheets without looking at the old man. He did not want to feel any pity for him. He wanted only to feel contempt, disgust, to remember the child lying bleeding on the concourse at Zavantem. ‘I don’t think that is strictly true,’ he said. His voice was cold and hard. ‘The cover-up after the killings was too speedy for there not to have been a great deal of political haggling in the wings immediately the deaths became known. Diplomatic pressures on the Belgian authorities. And, of course, there was the SIS agent who shot at me in Flanders.’

The old man was silent for a very long time. ‘What I shall tell you is for your own information only. Not, you understand, for the record.’

‘I’ll make no guarantees.’

‘You make it very difficult for me, Mr. Bannerman.’

‘Then I shall write it as I see it. But if you can tell me something that will lend it a little understanding then tell me.’

The former Party Chairman made his way back to his chair and sank his thin, bony frame into its softness. He relit his pipe and said, ‘Gryffe was being investigated by MI5 on Government instructions. They had not fully uncovered his activities at the time of his death, but were on the brink of doing so. I knew nothing about this until afterwards. A day or so after the killings the Prime Minister called me to London. It is not unusual for the Party Leader to ask my advice. We have been good friends for many years and he had often consulted me, even after my retirement. He told me then, and asked me what he should do.

‘Of course, he did not know of my own involvement, and for my part I have told him nothing so as not to compromise him in any way. He told me of the investigations into Gryffe’s activities, their attempts to have the shootings played down as much as possible. He also told me they had put a man in the field in Belgium and that he had discovered about Gryffe’s arms company.

‘He was a man in a state of extreme shock, Mr. Bannerman. He saw quite clearly what it would mean if it ever got out. That is why he was worried about you, about your investigations. It was my suggestion that they try and frighten you off. Looking back, I suppose it was bad advice. It misfired rather badly, didn’t it?’

Bannerman remembered the nightmare of that flight across the dark, snow-covered fields, the chill of approaching death, the human mess in the mine crater. ‘Yes,’ he said. He folded the statement and slipped it into an inside pocket. He lit a cigar and stared without emotion at the old man. A frail old creature, a man destroyed by his own misguided philanthropy. And yet, he retained a certain dignity about him. Bannerman wished he could feel hate for the man, but it was not in him. The sad, watery eyes stared back.

‘I’ve done what I can,’ the old politician said suddenly. ‘But I don’t suppose it’s enough. You can never undo your mistakes. They will fall, won’t they? The Government.’

‘I imagine they will.’

His head dropped and he gazed at his hands resting in his lap. His pipe had gone out again. ‘I think...’ he said, but could not finish. When he looked up again Bannerman saw that there were large, silent tears running down his cheeks. ‘I... excuse me.’ He rose unsteadily, drawing a handkerchief out and wiping away his humiliation and shame. He rounded his chair and disappeared through a door behind it.

Bannerman closed his eyes and let his head fall back. He would go back to Edinburgh and tomorrow he would write a story that would destroy a Government. The irony lay in its injustice. He thought back on the last ten days. Slater, the child, Marie-Ange Piard. Gryffe, Jansen, Lapointe. Platt, the old woman, du Maurier. Sally. What did he know about any of them? And now the old man.

A single, loud report startled him and he sat forward in his chair in a moment of fright and confusion before he realised what it was. He rose and crossed slowly to the still open door through which the old man had passed a few minutes earlier. He found himself looking into a small ante-room. Lord Armsdale lay face down on the floor, a few feet away from an old oak cabinet. A huge pool of blood had spread outwards and soaked into the carpet. Bannerman could see brain tissue spattered across the floor and the lower drawers of the cabinet. The top half of the old man’s head was almost blown away and the revolver lay a few inches from his white, clenched hand.

He turned away and wanted to throw up, a hand against the wall to steady him. No matter how often you saw death you never got used to it.

The door from the hall flew open and the white-haired man ran in. He stopped as he saw Bannerman and then rushed across to the door and looked in. He spun round on Bannerman and the thought that Bannerman had done it was in his eyes, before he realised the truth. There was a strange choking noise in his throat and he turned suddenly and ran from the room.

Bannerman stood a minute longer before crossing the room and out into the hall. There were footsteps on the stair and he looked up to see the white-haired man coming down with a shotgun clutched tightly across his chest. He stopped when he saw that Bannerman had seen him. There was a madness in his eyes. ‘You killed him.’ His voice was taut and quiet. ‘Even if you didn’t pull the trigger you killed him. I... I’ve been with him longer than you’ve been alive. I loved that old man. I really loved him. I’ll kill you for it.’ He raised the shotgun.

‘Then you would be denying him his sacrifice,’ Bannerman said. His voice sounded strange to him and he felt the fear crawl across his skin. ‘He made a mistake. A grave mistake, and he has taken the only honourable way out he can. Just as he had men killed to save his Party, so he has killed himself in his final sacrifice. His own words.’ The seconds seemed to drag forever. The other man stood tense, the gun still raised. ‘You’d better call the police,’ Bannerman said. It was now or never. He turned his back slowly and walked towards the door, all the time waiting for his body to be torn apart by the blast. His hand trembled on the cold metal handle.

And then it was over. He was outside, with the cold wind in his face and the door shut behind him. He let out a long breath and stood for a moment watching the dark swaying shapes of the trees. His feet crunched on the asphalt as he walked to the car.

III

Bannerman stood under a pool of lamplight on Preston station platform. It was almost deserted. One or two shadowy figures stood further down, staring out across the tracks. The sense of loneliness that had descended on him was crushing. Beyond the lights of the glass-roofed platforms, red and amber signal lights shone distantly in the darkness to the north, and to the west there was the far-off twinkling of street lamps. The world was shut up tight behind closed doors and drawn curtains except for a few weary travellers and the night workers.

From the south he heard the sound of the Glasgow train crossing the junctions where the lines divided, past the crumbling, blackened remains of industrial dereliction. The light from its window came brightly out of the darkness and the express ground to a clattering halt down the length of the platform. Other doors opened as Bannerman stepped forward and pulled open the nearest. He climbed up into the First Class corridor and walked down until he found an empty compartment. He threw his things into the rack and slumped into a seat facing north.

The train stood for only a minute before it began pulling silently away from the platform and gathering speed. Bannerman looked out across the empty receding platforms. Waiting rooms dark and locked up, the shutters pulled down on the news stand. A billboard poster flapped in the rush of air. Tonight’s headlines. The top half of the bill was obscured, but he saw the words, GIRL DIES, caught in a brief flash of light as they passed. The muscles of his chest seemed to contract for a moment, the pain of it forcing tears to his eyes, and when it had passed he was left only with the thought that he had not even phoned to see how she had been. She had died alone, and no-one cared.

The door of his compartment slid open, but he was only half aware of it. It was not until he became conscious of the figure still standing in the doorway that he turned to look. Sally smiled nervously. ‘Neil,’ she almost whispered. ‘I saw you on the platform...’ He stared at her blankly. His mind swam. He wanted to stand up, to take her and hold her. But it was as though he had lost all power of movement. Perhaps it was all a dream.

‘She’s dead,’ he heard himself say.

‘Who?’ Sally frowned.

‘Tania. I saw it on a billboard just a few minutes ago.’

Sally stood still for a moment then opened her shoulder bag and pulled out a rumpled copy of a London evening paper. ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. She held out the paper and Bannerman saw its headline. SEX ATTACK GIRL DIES. ‘It’s some London story,’ Sally said. ‘Tania’s going to be all right. I was with the police inspector, du Maurier, when they phoned from the hospital. The doctors said she was going to be okay.’

It was as though a dam had burst and all the poison was running out of him. He felt the return of hope and light and love so sweetly. He rose and held her hands and kissed her, and then he pulled her to him and held her so tightly it must have hurt her. But she didn’t mind. ‘I’m so sorry about everything,’ she whispered. ‘I had to come back. I... I had to give it a try.’

He stopped her. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s a bad way to start.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, I’m so glad.’ He kissed her again and then lifted her bag in and slid the door shut. She sat on the edge of her seat and looked up at him. ‘And did you get your story?’

Bannerman smiled wryly. ‘Oh, yes. I always get the story, don’t I?’ He hesitated and walked to the window and saw his own reflection staring back at him. ‘But it’s funny how it seems so unimportant now. Beside the life of a child, beside the chance to love again. After all,’ it was the last of his bitterness coming out, ‘it will only bring down a Government.’

He reached into his pocket for a pack of cigars and as he brought it out he saw that a small scrap of paper had floated to the floor, a scrap of paper that had remained undiscovered since it had been slipped into his pocket by a small, loving hand. He stooped to pick it up. It was folded over twice. He opened it out and saw three clumsily constructed words. LOVE YOU NEIL.

Content

Peter May
Hidden Faces

Chapter One

I

II

Chapter Two

I

II

III

IV

V

Chapter Three

I

II

III

Chapter Four

I

II

III

Chapter Five

I

II

III

IV

Chapter Six

I

II

III

IV

Chapter Seven

I

II

III

IV

V

Chapter Eight

I

II

III

Chapter Nine

I

II

III

IV

V

Chapter Ten

I

II

Chapter Eleven

I

II

III

Chapter Twelve

I

II

III

Chapter Thirteen

I

II

III