The Inspector stubbed out his cigarette and lit yet another. He sighed. ‘The man is of too slight a build to be Monsieur Gryffe, and the jawline is clearly drawn in, so it cannot be Monsieur Slater or surely she would have indicated the beard.’
‘So there was a third party.’
‘Possibly.’
‘Who didn’t know the child was there?’
‘Hmmm. I find that difficult to understand.’ Bannerman sat back and dropped the drawing on the desk. ‘Surely you can’t believe there wasn’t another man there? The man the child drew?
‘Then why didn’t he take the money?’
‘He didn’t know it was there.’
‘Then what was the motive?’
Bannerman had no answers, but already he knew he was being sucked into this whole thing, inextricably, whether he wanted to or not. He found it difficult to understand why du Maurier should be telling him all this. But the policeman broke into his thoughts almost as though he had been reading them. ‘You see, Monsieur Bannerman, this is not just a straightforward case of suspicious death. It involves a high-ranking British Government Minister and the affair must embarrass your Government when there is an election less than three weeks away. There could be moves, over my head, at a political level you understand, to close the case and simply let it die its own death.’ He hesitated for a second then took the plunge. ‘You see, there is no doubt in my mind that Monsieur Slater and Monsieur Gryffe were murdered. By whom or for what reason, I do not pretend to know. But I should not like to see the case closed, if you understand me.’ Bannerman watched him carefully. ‘Political expediency, Monsieur Bannerman, is as corrupt as murder. I am a policeman. It is my life. Politics, religion, whatever, are things in which I have no interest. I believe only in the law, the morality of the law, justice.’
Bannerman knew there was more to it than that. The man was being too precise in his reasoning. There was something else, something personal, something bitter in the tightness around du Maurier’s mouth. The policeman seemed to sense that Bannerman might be thinking something of the sort and he said, ‘I have called a press conference for seven thirty, in the conference room downstairs. I shall tell your colleagues most of what I have told you, though not all. I have had copies of the child’s drawing run off and they will be distributed to the press.’
Bannerman raised an eyebrow. ‘What about your bosses upstairs?’
Du Maurier smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘The machinery of political connivance grinds slowly. It will be a day, perhaps two, before the men of government step in. Meantime I shall proceed as I think best. I have had no instructions to the contrary.’ He looked at his watch and then stubbed out his cigarette. As he rose to his feet he said, ‘I think we had best go downstairs. Your colleagues await me.’
Bannerman sat at the back of the conference room. It was like a small lecture theatre with rows of fabric-covered seats stepped back in steep tiers. Du Maurier took the conference, accompanied by a younger, plainclothes man, in the glare of the television lights. A bank of microphones was mounted centrally on the rostrum for the dozen different radio and television stations that would give the deaths widespread European coverage. There were more than fifty scribes straining not to miss a word, scribbling their shorthand outlines in tattered notebooks, cigarettes tucked in the corners of mouths, eyes screwed up against the smoke, the occasional cough. Du Maurier delivered his terse statement in French and then English amid the heavy silence. He covered most of what he had told Bannerman, though in less detail, and as yet he had made no mention of the child or the drawing, or made any reference to Bannerman.
Then came the questions, thick and fast, confused in French and English.
‘Are you treating this as a murder case?’ — ‘At the moment we regard both deaths as suspicious.’
‘What was the journalist doing at Gryffe’s house?’ — ‘We do not know.’
‘Do you believe the motive was political or financial?’ — ‘We do not know.’
‘How were the bodies discovered?’ — ‘The alarm was raised when a passer-by heard a child screaming in the house.’
There were a few seconds of stunned silence, then a barrage of voices out of which no one question was distinguishable. Du Maurier raised his hands. ‘Monsieur Slater’s daughter was found in the house.’
‘She saw what happened?’ — ‘We do not know. The child is mentally handicapped. Autistic. She is unable to say.’
The excitement among the scribes had risen like a fever. Seats were being left, newsmen jostling for position, questions fired willy-nilly. They smelled a better story, though, my God, it was good enough. Bannerman imagined how tomorrow’s headlines would read. Already he could see excited reporters battering out copy on well-worn typewriters, dragging out the clichés, dreaming up the colour, the emotive catchlines and intros. Packaged and served up to be digested at breakfast along with the cornflakes.
‘How old is the girl? What’s her name?’ — ‘She is eleven years old. Her name is Tania.’ Du Maurier was impassive. He was making them work for it, orchestrating the conference, leading it in the direction he wished it to go.
‘Where can we get pics of the girl?’ — ‘No photographs.’
‘Oh, come on!’ A chorus of voices was raised in protest. Again du Maurier lifted his hands. ‘The child has been able to tell us nothing.’ He paused. ‘However, as a result of a drawing she made showing a man, clearly in the hall of the house in the Rue de Pavie, we are now working on the assumption that there was a third party involved.’ The silence was absolute. The possibilities were turning over in the minds of the scribes. Du Maurier lifted a folder from the bench and handed it to the young man beside him. ‘Copies of the drawing have been made. Monsieur Lousière will distribute a copy to each of you.’
Lousière fed the hands that reached out like the beaks of chicks stretching for food from their mother’s mouth. Bannerman watched with a vague distaste. There was something undignified about it all, but he was unable to separate himself from it. He was one of them, one of those who fed the ugly millions their daily diet of death, tragedy, sex and intrigue. He checked his bitterness and thought, cynicism is too easy. There is so much more to it than that. But right now, he still hurt in a lot of places and he took the easy option. Two men had died, a child had lost nearly all hope for the future, and all any bastard could think about was what a good story it would make. It didn’t touch any of them. The figures they wrote about were only cardboard clichés, not real people. It is always that way, he thought, when it does not touch you personally. And when you are a reporter it takes even more to pierce your hard shell to protect your human softness. You have no right to blame them. He remembered the years of chapping doors for collect pics — ‘And how do you feel about your son being killed, Mrs. Smith?’ Sometimes you got there before the police and while you broke the news you were searching out and removing every picture of the dead boy so that no other damned newspaper would get one. That was not how you wanted to do your job, but that was the way things were. Either you accepted that or you got out. No, he thought, I have no right to blame them. He took a copy of the drawing from Lousière. After all, he would do a story himself.
‘I am sorry. No more questions,’ du Maurier was saying. He collected his papers and began for the door. Immediately he was surrounded by the radio and television people. They all wanted their pounds of flesh; individual interviews, pics, the hope of more than the others had. ‘Why is there no face in the drawing?’ Bannerman heard a voice asking. Stiffly he pulled on his coat and pushed his way towards the door, a cigar clenched tightly between his teeth.