‘Then you’ll have no problems,’ she said. ‘The Salle de Presse is on the first floor. Just ask when you get there.’
‘Thanks...’
‘Mademoiselle Ricain. I’m just the secretary. Not only do the Post and the Herald share an office, they share me too — secretarially speaking.’
Bannerman laughed. ‘Of course. Thanks, Mademoiselle.’ He hung up and squeezed past a fat Belgian who was anxious to get to his phone.
Outside it was warmer than it had been in Edinburgh, the sky heavy and grey, the first drops of rain beginning to fall. Bannerman felt the first pangs of rootlessness that always came when he arrived in a strange place. The disorientation, the sense of being utterly alone. It was always then that you re-discovered your affection for home. Bannerman thought about the cluttered tenement flat in Edinburgh that for him was home. Somewhere in all its drab familiarity was a sense of belonging. The grey routine of the Post, the close, dark winter streets of the northern city, the parochial insularity of it all; gems of security to be taken out and polished during lonely nights in strange hotel rooms under foreign skies.
The taxi ride from the airport took only twenty minutes, through the industrial outskirts on the north-west fringe of the city, past the Centre Commercial on the Avenue Leopold III, down on to the Boulevard General Wahis and the Boulevard Auguste. Streets where once German tanks had rolled in from the east, defeated Belgians watching from windows and doorways with a quiet hatred. Now the city was being re-built, adapting to a new world. The hammers of the demolition workers smashing down the past — rows of grey terraces and cobbled squares, tall crumbling tenements that had known better days, and worse. Bannerman wondered what kind of future today’s planners were building.
The Berlaymont stood in the heart of the commercial sector of Brussels, a massive building shaped like a star if seen from above, towering over the city skyline, great walls of glass curving inwards. Each office was glass from floor to ceiling, so that looking in from the outside you felt that half the building had been chopped away, like a half-demolished tenement, and you at once had a private view into every room or office where people worked and fought and hatched plots. Out front was the Metro, across the boulevard the lesser white-stone office block that housed the Council of Ministers.
The press briefing was still in progress, five men, the Porte Parole, sitting along a table at the top end of the Salle de Presse addressing a clutch of fifty or more reporters in French across a loud speaker system. The journalists were arranged along five rows of benches set in a semi-circle around the top table, like a mini conference chamber; microphones at each place, headsets linked to translation booths in galleries set high up along either side. They were all empty. The journalists asking questions seemed fluent in French.
Bannerman came in at the back of the room and moved round to a bar on the right side and ordered a beer. A number of reporters were seated along the bar drinking beer or coffee, chatting quietly or reading papers — Le Monde, The Guardian, La Belge Soir, Die Weld, La Stampa, The Times. Very few of the newsmen seated round the benches seemed to be paying much attention. There was an oddly casual atmosphere of informality, or perhaps indifference. Two secretaries moved constantly between the rows delivering press releases in various languages. Bannerman leaned against the bar, sipping his beer, his cigar burning in an ashtray. He had picked out the thin figure of Slater with his distinctive red beard. He had only once met the man, several years before when he worked on the Chronicle. That was before Slater had been sent out to Brussels as the Post’s EEC correspondent. He had aged considerably, Bannerman thought, his face pale and drawn. The long, thin nose seemed more pinched than it had been.
The briefing broke up, and as the journalists gathered into their little nationality cliques, Slater caught sight of Bannerman and made his way over to the bar. He was unsmiling and seemed distracted. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘You can buy me a beer.’ He risked a smile. ‘The prices here are subsidised.’
Bannerman leaned across the counter. ‘Deux bières,’ he said and pushed a fifty franc note at the barman. ‘Much doing?’ he asked Slater, watching the pale freckled face and the green eyes that kept avoiding his.
‘Not this week,’ Slater said. ‘The only real topic of conversation is the British Election. The Germans and French are worried shitless that the Government’s going to lose. If the Opposition get in the opinion here is that progress towards European unity will take yet another backward step — not that it takes many forward anyway.’
Bannerman sensed a great uneasiness between them and a certain hostility in Slater that made him uncomfortable in the man’s presence. And I’ve got to live with you for the next month, he thought. Slater lifted his beer. ‘Cheers.’
They were joined by another two reporters whom Bannerman had seen drifting slowly towards them. One was dark and wrinkled, about sixty, dressed in a neat dark suit. The other was younger, less formal, a shock of fair hair over a cherubic, bland face. This one patted Slater on the back. ‘Waste of time today, Tim. You get anything to interest you?’
Bannerman smiled. It was the old game that reporters played. They always needed the reassurance that they hadn’t missed something. Years ago when Bannerman had been starting out he had very quickly learned that reporters did not compare notes for the sake of accuracy. It was all a matter of confidence, or the lack of it; the instinct being to hunt with the pack rather than rely on your own judgement and ability. As his own self-confidence had developed so he had taken cruel satisfaction in leaving the pack in confusion with a parting, ‘bloody good story’, when they had been busy reassuring each other that there was ‘nothing in it’. Nothing was better designed to ruin their day, even if there had been nothing in it. But Slater just said, ‘Not a thing,’ and then reluctantly made the introductions. ‘This is Neil Bannerman, the Post’s investigative reporter. Jim Willis, Roger Kearney, respectively of the London Standard and the Euro-News Agency.’
Kearney, the fair-haired one, said, ‘Ah, yes. I know you by reputation, Bannerman. What brings you to Brussels?’
‘I’ve come to rake a little muck,’ Bannerman said. ‘If there’s any to be raked.’
Willis laughed. ‘Fertile ground for you, my old son. The place is alive with corruption. You want to take a look at the EEC system of awarding grants to the Third World. Some fantastic rip-offs there. Large backhanders to Commission officials from some of these African dictatorships where about half the country’s gross earnings are spent annually on building royal palaces and luxurious watering holes in the country for fat politicians with delusions of grandeur. It wouldn’t take much to dig something out there.’
Kearney took a slug of beer and pointed a finger at Bannerman. ‘And there’s the allocation of contracts to companies in member countries for building roads and the like. There’s almost certainly fraud involved there. Why, for example, does France get more Community money for road building than any other member country, when a God-forsaken place like Eire gets damn all?’
‘And agriculture’s another minefield of fraud if you care to try and negotiate it,’ Willis added.
Bannerman made no attempt to disguise his contempt. ‘Then why the hell do some of you people not dig it out yourselves?’
Willis frowned. ‘Oh piss off, Bannerman. We got a living to make. Why rock the boat?’
Bannerman gulped down the last of his beer. ‘Because you’re newspaper men. Or are you? You’ve got it pretty cushy here, haven’t you? Everything laid on. Maybe you should try working in the real world.’