Hidden Faces

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.