The Geneva Trap

Chapter 49

Bech was tired. It had been a long week, full of meetings and business dinners – and his trip to Zurich. The discovery that Russian Intelligence was moving money out of Switzerland then circuitously bringing it back was still unexplained. Herr Kessler clearly thought he had done his bit and had come up with nothing more. What Kubiak was up to remained a mystery, and as the man himself seemed to have disappeared from Geneva, it was likely to stay that way

Bech was about to pack up and head home when there was a tap at his door. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Leplan stuck his head round the door.

‘What is it?’ Bech asked crossly, certain it could have waited until Monday. Leplan was good at his work but far too cautious – he checked in with Bech much more often than the other senior officers.

But now he came in without his usual hesitancy, and there was no apology for intruding this late on a Friday afternoon. ‘I’ve got some news I think you will wish to hear,’ he announced. He was clutching a folder of papers.

Bech knew what this would be about. Leplan had been non-stop in his pursuit of Kubiak in the past weeks, ever since he’d watched the Russian supervise the forced repatriation of Sorsky at Geneva airport. ‘Have you found him?’

‘No,’ said Leplan, but it was clear from his face that he had found something. Bech motioned the younger officer to sit down. He was impatient now not to get home, but to hear what Leplan had to say.

‘We’ve had the tests back from the forensic mechanics,’ Leplan announced. ‘They demonstrate irrefutably that the paint on Steinmetz’s car came from a Mercedes that was sold to Kubiak six months ago.’

‘Perhaps. But he may not have been driving it at the time,’ Bech said mildly.

‘It’s his personal car. A special order he put in; it’s not an official vehicle. It is very unlikely anyone else was driving.’

‘Okay. But that’s still not enough to connect him to the accident that killed Steinmetz. He could just say that he’d scraped the car on the street in Geneva.’ Bech was becoming annoyed now – was this all the officer had to tell him?

But Leplan pressed ahead. ‘He might have more trouble explaining this.’ He opened the folder and pulled out a paperback book, which he put down on the desk.

Bech peered at it, mystified. It was in English – To Kill a Mockingbird. He hadn’t read it himself, but his children had. It was a staple of English classes in the Swiss school system. And even Bech had seen the film; in black-and-white, with Gregory Peck defending a beleaguered black man facing a false charge of rape. But what did this have to do with Kubiak?’

Leplan laughed, a rarity in Bech’s experience. ‘Don’t worry, Herr Bech, I haven’t gone mad. You see, I had a visit today from Steinmetz’s widow, Mireille.’

‘How is she coping?’ Bech asked automatically.

‘As well as can be expected. I think she’s OK financially. She has her widow’s pension and a generous gratuity, but of course her life in future will be very different, especially when her daughter Anna goes to university. But that’s not why she wanted to see me. She brought me this,’ he said, pointing to the paperback. ‘Apparently it was returned to her by the police along with Steinmetz’s wallet and watch.’

‘Was the book his?’ It seemed unlikely.

Leplan shook his head. ‘No, it belongs to his daughter. She’d left it in the car the day before he was killed, when Mireille picked her up from school. It’s a set text apparently, and she had made lots of notes in it – so Mireille said her daughter was glad to get it back. But then she found this.’

He picked up the book and opened it, then handed it to Bech, open at a blank page at the back. On it was scrawled GE 672931.

‘What’s this?’ asked Bech. And then he understood. ‘A licence-plate number.’

‘Exactly. It’s the registration for the Mercedes saloon belonging to Anatole Kubiak. Steinmetz must have written it down when he was following the car.’

‘Didn’t you say he had been part of the surveillance on Kubiak once before? Maybe he wrote the number down then.’

‘No. The book was only put in the glove compartment the day before the accident. Mireille told me that she stopped at the supermarket on the way home from school. Anna stayed in the car, and took the book out of her bag to read while her mother shopped. When Mireille came out of the shop with a trolley full of groceries, the girl got out to help her put the bags in the boot – only she didn’t put the book back in her bag, she just stuffed it into the glove compartment and forgot about it. The next day Steinmetz took his wife to the airport, and for reasons I still don’t understand, ended up following Kubiak towards Lausanne. At some point he wrote down the Mercedes’s licence plate, probably in case he lost the tail; that way he could still trace the ownership of the car. Instead he was run off the road. Only now we have the number.’

‘And the two match?’

‘Of course.’ Leplan looked annoyed by the question. ‘Why else would I be bothering you, Herr Bech?’

Bech sat back in his chair, and breathed out noisily. ‘You realise it would never stand up in court.’

‘Yes, I know that. And even if it ever came to a charge, I know that the Russian would simply claim diplomatic immunity and skip home. But at least we now know he did it.’