Slater turned towards him, his face half lit by the street lamps outside whose soft light only deepened the shadows in the room. ‘Okay. Thanks. What will you tell Tait?’ Bannerman said nothing, and Slater waited in the silence. Then he said, ‘I’ve got to go out tomorrow night. A social function. A party if you like. EEC officials, some politicians, some people from NATO. A boring affair. But I’ve got contacts to keep up.’ He paused then, ‘They’re my bread and butter,’ he added almost accusingly. ‘I suppose you’d better come with us. I don’t want to leave you here.’
‘Us?’ Bannerman asked.
Slater shifted uncomfortably and said, with something approaching an apology, ‘Three years is a long time for a wife to be dead. A man needs a woman.’
‘Sure.’
Bannerman lay in the bed with a faint grey light creeping in through the shutters. He thought that, after all, he had no right to intrude on the private pains of a man like Slater. Then he thought about Sally, her bright pretty face, her sudden withdrawal just when it seemed they were beginning to make contact. All the loneliness of the first night in a strange bed closed in about him like a fist, before the drowsiness of approaching sleep scattered his thoughts and numbed his depression.
He was not sure how long he had been dozing. It might only have been a matter of minutes, or it might have been hours. And he was not certain at first what had reached into his subconscious and forced him up to break the surface of wakefulness. The moment of waking was one of confusion; the strange room, the unfamiliar bed and the smell of dampness. The room was washed with the same grey light. Then beyond those first seconds of confusion came an awareness, an awareness of a presence in the room. Nothing he could see or smell or hear. He just felt it and there was a momentary flutter of fear in his chest. He jerked up on to one elbow and saw the child standing in a long, shapeless white nightdress, bare feet on the bare linoleum. She was only a couple of feet away, watching him, big dark eyes, that peaceful passive expression resting easy on her face. She seemed small, more fragile, more childlike. His first thought was that she might scream and he felt his body tighten with tension. But she just stood there.
He could hear his own breathing, loudly, clearly, and he could feel the blood pulsing at his temples. Something told him that it would be a mistake to speak and a little of the tension seemed to slip away. And as though the child knew it, she took two small steps forward and reached out to touch his face. The fingers of her hand were icy against his skin and he felt a trembling in them. At first they rested on his cheek and then after a few seconds they began to follow the contours of his face, running along the line of his cheekbone, his nose, his lips, his jaw. He raised his own hand and placed it over hers, stopping it, feeling the coldness of it, and he squeezed it gently. A tiny smile lit her face and the dark eyes stared into his, and he found himself extraordinarily moved. Then the small hand slipped from his and she turned and padded to the door, opening it and closing it behind her without looking back. Bannerman remained motionless for a minute, maybe more. His head swam with the strangest feelings, the sensation that he had experienced something precious. But something he could not explain.
A dog barked somewhere in the courtyards behind the apartment block and broke into his thoughts. He dropped on to his back and stared up at the ceiling, and realised for the first time that he also was cold.
Chapter Three
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.