Platt filled his cup again. He offered the bottle across the table but Bannerman shook his head. ‘Well, everything comes under the umbrella of the parent company, I.V. Internationale, which has its headquarters in the Boulevard Bischoffsheim.’ Platt paused. ‘If you’re trying to find skeletons in his cupboard you’ll be hard-pushed. It’s been tried before. Everything’s above board. All I.V.’s activities are on record and can be checked. Company registration in this country is as accessible as it is in Britain. Companies are registered at the Tribunal de Commerce and there is one of those in every commercial court in the country. Each Tribunal de Commerce feeds a central register held here in Brussels by the Ministry of the Middle Classes. And you or I or anyone can examine that register. You can find out the names of a company’s directors, or what its capital is, as easily as you can obtain the same information at Companies House in London or Edinburgh.’
‘What about a company’s financial state or shareholders?’ Platt shook his head. ‘Afraid not. You’re not required to give that information. But it’s not really important, is it?’
Bannerman shrugged non-committally. ‘Go on,’ he said.
Platt drained his second cup. A little colour had returned to his cheeks. ‘He’s not married, he’s in his late forties and lives with his mother in a huge mansion just outside Brussels. He’s got no overt political affiliations, although it is said he contributes funds. Generally he keeps a pretty low profile, though he’s widely known as a bit of a philanthropist, contributing large sums annually to old folks’ homes, hospitals, international aid organisations and the like. His private life is private.’
Bannerman frowned. He had no clear picture of the man. The description might fit any of a couple of dozen men in Europe. The philanthropic millionaire who steers clear of public politics and jealously guards his spotless reputation by keeping it out of the glare of publicity. All very virtuous. And yet this same man had sent a hoodlum to break into the Post’s office in the IPC building to steal an innocuous folder of newspaper cuttings. He checked the time and then drained his cup quickly. ‘And Lapointe? Make it quick. I have to go.’
Platt was in no hurry, remembering how Bannerman had made him late with his copy that morning. He filled his cup for the third time and sank back again in his chair. ‘Lapointe,’ he said at length, ‘is the legal brain behind I.V. Internationale. He’s a short, stout man in his middle fifties. Very grey and very proper. Wears neatly-tailored dark suits and carries his wealth discreetly. Old-fashioned, conservative. A widower, one grown-up daughter, divorced, I believe. Began his career in criminal law and went on to specialise in company law. He worked for Jansen’s father before he died and was associated with the family for many years. He’s not a man in the public eye at all, but a key figure in the company. And that’s about it, though perhaps a little surprisingly he’s from the south, a French speaker.’ Bannerman stood up suddenly and Platt blinked at him. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ve got to go. You can let yourself out.’ He snatched his coat and went out into the darkness of the hall.
Platt heard the front door closing, and then a few minutes later the car coughing to life in the street below. He smiled to himself, satisfied with his day. The whisky was having its effect. He would show them all. Especially Bannerman. His eyes wandered towards the Brueghel snow scene, reminding him of how it was outside. That, and the dull ache of his ulcer, were the only things that troubled him now. He took a tablet from his pocket and crunched it between his sharp little teeth, and prepared to pour himself another whisky to wash away the taste.
V
The Palais de Justice took on a dark, sinister air at night. In the day it was one of those vast, blackened buildings whose pillars and ornate façades seemed strong and old and solid and always reliable, though now it was all a little shabby. Odd pieces of scaffolding had been erected by workmen who worked between cups of coffee and glasses of beer in the nearest bistro to try to maintain its original dignity.
Bannerman saw, through a small window, the night watchman pouring coffee from a flask at a small wooden table. Behind him a stove glowed brightly. A little insipid yellow light fell out across the snow.
The Place Poelaert was quiet. The night traffic rumbled past in the Boulevard de Waterloo back along the way he had come, two hundred metres distant. At the far end the snow crusted along the top of a high wall beyond which the city fell away below. A floodlit church, rooftops sloping this way and that. In the misted distance the Martini neon on the Manhattan Centre at the Place Rogier.
Footsteps on cobbles rattled in the silence from the shadowed lee of the Palais de Justice where the snow had not fallen. Bannerman turned to see the tall, stooped figure of du Maurier step from the shadow into the weak lamplight. The Inspector seemed older, his coat hanging loose and open on the thin, brittle frame. A cigarette hung at one corner of his mouth and his breath blew shallow and grey in the cold. His hat, tilted forward, threw a shadow over the top half of his face. Hands pushed into his pockets, he walked slowly to the wall, brushed away the crusting of snow and leaned on it to stare out across the city. Bannerman smelled drink on his breath.
Without looking at him the Inspector said, ‘Five years ago I was up for promotion for the post of Principal Commissaire. I was turned down. One of my contemporaries, a Flem, got the job.’ He paused, then, ‘You see, Monsieur, this great country of ours is really an uneasy alliance of two very different cultures. The Flems in the north and the Walloons in the south. The language of the north is Flemish and of the Walloons it is French. But the differences go much deeper than language. It is cultural; it is historical. Brussels, they say, is the new political capital of Europe, a great cosmopolitan city.’ He laughed a short, sour laugh. ‘That is all veneer. Beneath the surface bubble all the old hatreds and prejudices. They say that Belgium is bi-lingual. It is not true. Outside of Brussels, where we all pretend, we are a nation of two one-language communities. The language and culture of the region, rather than of the nation, prevail. It is expected, in the schoolroom, in the boardroom, the officers’ mess, the law courts, the tax office, the church.’ He lit yet another cigarette and seemed lost in thought for some time. Bannerman shuffled impatiently, but said nothing.
‘You see, Monsieur, it was my misfortune to reach promotion at a time when the balance of power was shifting. For years the French speakers held the position of power and influence in Government and in all its institutions. It was a conscious political decision to reverse that tide to create a balance. It had been the turn of the Flems.’ His face tightened. ‘It is ironic that I have always been opposed to the traditional discrimination against the Flems. I have always believed... again my belief in justice... that a man should be judged on his abilities. But you see, I lost my chance because I spoke French at a time when the political climate was not in my favour. Not because I was not good enough.’ He turned to Bannerman again. ‘Why should I feel any allegiance to such a system?’
Bannerman cupped his hand around the end of his cigar and struck a match. He wondered how many absinthes the policeman had put away. He said, ‘You didn’t have me meet you here in the middle of the night to tell me all this...’