‘Tell him to stick it up his arse.’
‘Can I quote you?’
‘Please.’
‘Good. I shall enjoy that.’
As he hung up the door behind flew open and Tait stood in the doorway, shirt sleeves rolled up, clenched fists on his hips. ‘Any word of Bannerman yet?’
Bannerman had started dialling again almost before Tait had got his door open. He listened to the shrill single rings in his left ear and became aware that Mademoiselle Ricain was still typing away at the desk opposite him. What could she be typing? There was only himself and Palin working out of this office. And Palin was gone.
‘Vous cherchez?’ The voice crashed into his thoughts.
‘Hector Lewis, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Moment.’ A line got plugged through the switchboard. ‘Lewis.’
‘Hector, it’s Neil Bannerman.’
You could almost hear Lewis running the name through his head in the split second before he responded, ‘Neil! Good to hear from you. How are you?’
‘Let’s skip the formalities, Hector. You still do company searches?’
Lewis guffawed heartily at the other end. He was a man you could not offend. ‘Same old Neil Bannerman. Yes, I still do the occasional search for old customers like yourself. But I’ve been branching out a bit lately. Doing a nice line in PR now.’
‘Another martyr to presstitution?’
‘Ha, ha, that’s a good one. I must remember that.’
‘It’s not original.’
‘But nothing is nowadays, Neil. Nothing is.’
Bannerman continued dryly, ‘I need some information on a company called Machines Internationale. I have reason to think it might be registered in Switzerland. Possibly Luxembourg, but probably Switzerland.’
‘A pleasure, sir, a pleasure. What do you want to know?’
‘Everything. Director, associated companies if any, capital, line of business. And if you do turn up any companies I’d like the gen on them too.’
‘Something big?’
‘None of your damned business.’
‘Ha, ha. No, you’re quite right. Discretion is the key word. But it’ll cost you. My time is more valuable these days.’
‘Oh sure, the time you spend on your backside while you delegate the donkey work to your little army of diggers.’
‘Right in one, Neil. Right in one. Life is so much sweeter when one can reap the rewards from the labours of others. Where can I reach you?’ Bannerman gave him his office number and the number at Slater’s flat. ‘And what are you doing in Brussels?’ Lewis asked.
‘Shelling sprouts.’
‘That’s good. Ha, ha. Very droll. It wouldn’t be anything to do with the shootings at the beginning of the week?’
‘I told you. Mind your own bloody business.’
‘Good, fine, right. How soon do you want this stuff?’
‘Just as soon as you can get off your fat arse and start digging.’
‘And goodnight Vienna. Ha, ha. Right, good. Give my love to, eh... well, whoever. I’ll be in touch.’
Bannerman hung up and leaned back in his seat. He was not happy at having to use Lewis. He would rather have gone to Switzerland himself, but that would have taken time. And Lewis was good. But he was a vicious bastard. Somewhere behind all that ersatz affability and good humour was a hidden sack of poison. The sharp ring of the phone startled him. He snatched the receiver. ‘Bannerman.’
‘Neil, it’s Sally. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. God, I’ve been so worried. You know about Tania?’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Where have you been? I thought maybe you’d gone back to Scotland. They phoned me early the morning after it happened. I tried to get you at the Rue de Commerce, but there was no reply. You haven’t heard anything, have you?’
‘No.’ There was a long silence on the line that perhaps seemed longer than it was.
Then Sally said, ‘Can we meet?’
Bannerman wiped the perspiration from his forehead. ‘I’m tired, Sally. Maybe tomorrow.’ There was another silence and then he heard the phone click and go dead at the other end. He dropped the receiver back in its cradle and leaned forward on his elbows, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. The typing stopped and he looked up to find Mademoiselle Ricain watching him. He stared back, almost without seeing her. Suddenly he said, ‘Would you do me a favour, Mademoiselle?’
‘Well, yes,’ she answered hesitantly.
‘It’s all right, I just want you to phone Richard Platt at the Belge Soir and tell him I’ll be in touch tomorrow. I’m going home now. When you’ve done you might as well knock off too.’ She nodded, expecting Bannerman to rise and take his leave. But he sat on, still looking at her. She grew more self-conscious and dithered before reaching for the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘About Palin. I embarrassed you.’
‘Oh...’ she said, not sure about how to respond. ‘He... he probably deserved it. I... he wasn’t a very nice man.’
‘No.’ Bannerman stood up. ‘What are you typing?’
She blushed. ‘Nothing. That is... nothing important.’ Bannerman nodded, leaned over and took the sheet of paper from the typewriter. The typing was neat and accurate. ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’ About thirty lines of it. Bannerman smiled and laid it on her desk.
III
The muffled ring of the telephone reached Tania on the landing. It seeped through her drowsiness like a light seen through a fog on a dark night. She was only vaguely aware of it though she knew it was there. It was not until it stopped that she awoke fully to the gnawing, hungry ache in her belly and the cold that gripped her like a vice in the darkness. Another night. Was it the second or the third? She was losing track of time now.
She looked up at the skylight and saw stars in the blackness of the sky. There was no longer any fear in her. She thought she heard Death on the steps, thought she saw its dark shadow make its stealthy approach. But it didn’t matter any more. She would almost have welcomed it. She was not certain why she was here. Her memory of the face caught in the light below her window was fading. Her flight from the house into the deserted streets, the snow that fell through the light of the street lamps, the empty bus terminus. The fingers of her memory had numbed and were no longer able to hold onto these things.
The landing lamp suddenly came on, flooding a pain of light into her head. With the shock of it, she remembered the horror of that moment on the bus when she could not pay, when the conductor had begun to shout and she could not say what it was she wanted to say. It came like the sudden flare of a struck match and died as quickly, leaving only a slow flame that flickered hopelessly, making little impression in the vastness of her misery. She still remembered that first night in the brick bin shelter, the cold and the smell of rottenness and the scurrying of unseen rats. She closed her eyes against the harshness of the light and heard slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps this, at last, was Death.
Bannerman had got the taxi to drive up the Rue de Pavie, past the house where Gryffe and Slater had been shot. It lay in darkness, empty and desolate, like the street itself. At the top he got out and went into a general store on the corner. An old man served him and sold him a loaf, some cheese and two litres of red wine. As an afterthought he also bought a carton of milk. The old man gave him a thick, brown paper bag to carry the things away in and the taxi whisked him back through the snow-bound city as the stars came out hard and clear overhead.
In the Rue de Commerce, Slater’s car stood by the kerb. Three inches of snow lay on the roof and the bonnet, its coat of frost glistening in the lamplight. He climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and watched it slither cautiously away down the street. The weight of his tiredness was enormous. How could he even think about things or put them in their proper perspective until he had had some sleep? He would have a hot bath first, then take some bread and cheese, wash it down with the wine and go on drinking the wine until he didn’t care any more. Then he would sleep forever.