Hidden Faces

I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Well, what?’

‘Any ideas?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And?’ Platt was getting irritated.

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

‘What things?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bannerman nodded slowly, ‘More or less.’

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

‘How about that drink?’

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

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

‘Two whiskies.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Perhaps.’

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

‘In return for...?’

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

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

‘Well what?’

‘What’s the story?’

‘Ah, well, that’s between me and me.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bannerman stood up. ‘Be seeing you.’

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

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

‘Get on with it!’

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

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

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

II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘And did he?’

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

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

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

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

‘Only you won’t be around to see it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘And why were you interested in him?’

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

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

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

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

‘Since when?’

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

‘And you agreed?’

‘Naturally.’ Tait was getting uncomfortable.

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

‘You knew already.’

‘No thanks to you.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘What do you mean, goodbye?’

‘I mean I’ve just resigned.’

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

‘Stuff your contract of employment.’

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

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

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

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

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

III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘With what?’

‘The funeral.’

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

‘I thought you were surprised to see me.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How interesting.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bannerman grinned and shook his head. ‘No.’

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

‘Sure. I’ll pick you up.’

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

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

‘Who is he?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Bannerman. You were looking for me.’

‘Oui.’

‘I was at the funeral.’

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

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘No, I’m going to see the child.’

‘Later then.’

‘Okay. At the Café Auguste?’

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

‘Can you not tell me on the phone?’

‘No. When can you be there?’

Bannerman thought for a moment. ‘Eleven?’

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