Stay of Execution

70

The same black Citroën picked up Skinner and Arrow from the Royal Windsor Hotel at ten thirty. Both men had wakened with slightly thick heads, but an hour in the gym had set them up for breakfast.

Their driver took them through the city and towards the outskirts. The sky was cloudy and Skinner had no idea whether he was heading north, south, east or west, but eventually they broke out into clear, flat countryside. Not much more than ten minutes later, they turned off the dual carriageway on which they were travelling and into a two-way road, which led eventually to a gateway, barred by a hinged red and white pole. An armed guard appeared, spoke briefly to the driver, and the way was cleared for them.

Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Winters’s office was on the ground floor of a grey concrete two-storey building. He came to greet them at the door, looking stiffer than ever in uniform, and even more solemn. He showed them to his sparsely furnished room, offering each of them a hard wooden chair.

‘Monsieur Skinner,’ he began, ‘I am afraid that I will not detain you long. I have examined the files of all three men in question, and I have made inquiries of the civilian authorities. I can tell you nothing that will help in your investigation. Your trip has been wasted.’

The Scot looked at him. ‘Nothing? You’ve looked at their entire thirty-year army career and it doesn’t offer a single potential line of inquiry?’

Winters sniffed. ‘These were very boring men, sir. Exemplary soldiers.’

‘Is that so?’ Skinner exclaimed. ‘If they were that bloody exemplary, how come they spent twenty-five bloody years as labourers to an orchestra?’

‘We all have to do our part, sir, in whatever way. If you were a military man, perhaps you would understand that.’

Condescension always lit Skinner’s fuse; his eyes caught Winters’s and locked on, as if they were boring into his head. ‘Listen, my friend.’ He ground the words out. ‘I am a member of a disciplined service, just as you are. To extend the point, I am a damned sight higher ranking in my force than you are in yours. I know how to handle the people under my command, and how to slot round pegs into round holes. When I see three men like Malou, Hanno and Lebeau doing the jobs that they did, I know that they’re not there because they’re exemplary. But if they were put there because they were no fucking good at anything else, they wouldn’t have been kept on in the service till they were fifty. There was another reason; I know it, and it’s written in your eyes. .’ Winters blinked, and his face reddened as if he had been slapped. ‘. . that you do too. Will you let me see their service files?’

‘Certainly not. They are private; available only to the Belgian military.’

‘What? A colonel, a sergeant and a corporal who were, according to you, clerks and scene-shifters for the bulk of their careers? They’re state secrets?’ His expression as he looked at the Belgian was pure derision. ‘I’ll tell you, chum, you’re another square peg in a round hole. For a spook you’re not very good at it. You’ve had orders to pat me on the head and send me away with a smile on my face. You’ve failed, big-time. I came here with suspicions, and you’ve turned them into certainties.’

He turned to Arrow. ‘Can we get out of here, or is he going to try to detain me until I promise to stop making waves?’

‘Come, come,’ said Winters, trying to recover some dignity and a degree of control. ‘Of course you can leave. Your car is still at your disposal. It will take you to the airport.’

‘For the first time in my life,’ said Skinner bitterly, ‘I find myself looking forward to seeing that place.’