Hidden Faces

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?’