Hidden Faces

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.