Bannerman wheeled round. ‘What are you talking about?’
Platt frowned. ‘That girl, the one from tele-ads, the one you got in trouble. My God, you don’t even remember?’ He stared at Bannerman in disbelief before he realised, quite suddenly, that he didn’t know, had never known. ‘She killed herself. Just a few months after the baby was born. Her parents threw her out and she drowned the baby and then killed herself. Didn’t you know?’ He felt a great inner joy. At last he had found the place where he could hurt him most.
Bannerman lit a cigar. His face betrayed nothing. ‘I’ll call you.’
Platt stood for a moment then turned and went out through the hall. Bannerman poured himself another drink and when he heard the car start up in the street below thought irrationally, damn him, he’s taken the car. I shall have to take a taxi again tomorrow. The whisky burned his throat and he wished he could weep and wash away the grit in his eyes.
Bannerman could not have said how long he had been dozing. But it felt like forever. His jacket lay in a crumpled heap on the floor and there were only three fingers of gold left in the whisky bottle. He was lying face down on the settee, one arm hanging over the side so that his fingers trailed loosely on the carpet. He did not hear the bell, and it took several minutes before the hammering on the door forced its way through the undulating folds of sleep and alcohol.
Slowly he pulled himself up into a seated position and tried to wipe the bleariness away from his eyes. He was still drunk and found it difficult to focus on his watch. ‘God,’ he groaned. It was after two. A fist hammered again at the door. ‘Just a minute!’ he shouted and his head felt like it had been split by an axe. He made his way unsteadily through the hall and opened the door. Du Maurier pushed his way in and switched on a light. Bannerman blinked blindly.
‘Get yourself sober,’ the policeman said. ‘We’re going for a drive.’
‘What the hell do you want?’ Bannerman slurred at him.
Du Maurier gripped his arm firmly and pulled him into the bathroom, filled a tooth glass with cold water and threw it in Bannerman’s face. Bannerman tried to swing at him, but the policeman caught his fist and held it fast. ‘Take a cold shower. I’ll wait for you downstairs.’
When Bannerman came down ten minutes later he was still slightly giddy, but he was sober enough to realise that du Maurier must have a bloody good reason for dragging him out at two o’clock in the morning.
‘Where are we going?’ The car drifted noiselessly through dark, deserted streets. ‘It’s not the child...?’
‘No, it’s not the child. We’ll be there soon.’
They got out at a high, dark building and climbed steps into a long corridor. At the end they turned into a tiled room filled with the acid stink of formalin. A man in a white coat came through from an adjoining room and nodded to du Maurier who took Bannerman’s arm and led him through.
The body was naked and laid out on a raised marble slab below the glare of a cluster of bright directional lights. The stench of death and acid preservative was nauseating and Bannerman felt his stomach heave. There was a look of serenity on Platt’s face, but his chest was ripped open, laid bare like meat in a butcher’s shop. The white flesh around it was tinged with blue, the blood drained from the body. ‘Jesus, God! Where’s the toilet?’
The man in the white coat took him across the hall to the toilet and left him to vomit into a large white wash-basin. He remained doubled over it, head pressed against the wall above the taps for several minutes before he turned on the cold water to rinse the basin and sluice his face. Then he swilled out his mouth and took a long, cool drink.
Du Maurier was waiting for him in the corridor and they went back out to the car. The two men sat in silence while the policeman rolled down a window and lit a cigarette. ‘Formal identification,’ he said coldly.
Bannerman answered mechanically. ‘Richard Joseph Platt.’
‘What was he doing with Slater’s car?’
‘He borrowed it. Give me a cigarette.’ Du Maurier lit it for him and watched him screw up his face at its taste. ‘What happened?’
The policeman sighed. ‘Someone used both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun on him. Close range. We found the body in Slater’s car. It was parked in a side street near the Gare du Nord.’
Bannerman tried to make himself feel something, but there was only a numbness. His only thought was, why had Jansen done it. The man had been safe until now. The Inspector held out a folded wad of paper. Bannerman took it. There were about a dozen sheets all clumsily typed. ‘It’s in French,’ he said. ‘I can’t read it. What is it?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Maybe I can guess.’
‘What do you guess?’
‘I guess maybe it’s a story about how René Jansen, Michel Lapointe and Robert Gryffe formed a consortium to sell arms. Knowing Platt he’ll have dressed it up a bit. He probably paints a picture of Gryffe as a high-powered salesman with access to heads of state throughout the world, Lapointe as a kind of wizard of company law who set up a network of companies that enabled them to sell to whomever they liked from behind a veil of anonymity, and Jansen as the quiet power behind it all who supplied the money and creamed off the lion’s share of the profits. Of course, he’ll have made the biggest play of the sales to South Africa and Rhodesia.’
‘Is it true?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why in God’s name did you not tell me?’
Bannerman shook his head sadly. ‘I would have. Probably today. I only found out yesterday morning. I had a deal with Platt but it looks as if he was going to try and screw me on it.’
‘My God, you are a fool, Monsieur! Who else knew about this?’
‘Only Platt, myself, my editor and the man in Switzerland who did the company checks. Oh, and Jansen, of course.’
‘Jansen?’
‘I confronted him with it last night.’ Bannerman heard the air escaping from between du Maurier’s clenched teeth.
‘And who knew about your deal with Platt?’
‘No-one, as far as I know.’
The Inspector lit another cigarette. ‘Then it is you that was meant to be killed.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re taking it very calmly.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive.’ Bannerman was on the edge of breaking. He could not remember having felt worse in his life. He had failed. Failed in everything. ‘When are you going to arrest Jansen?’
‘How can I arrest him?’
‘Because who else could be responsible?’ He was thinking how easily he had been taken in by Jansen, how easily he had been led to doubt Jansen’s involvement in the killings of Gryffe and Slater.
Du Maurier shook his head. ‘There is no proof. Not yet, anyway. One thing is clear, however. Whoever pulled the trigger on Monsieur Platt was not the same man who killed Monsieur Gryffe and Monsieur Slater.’
Bannerman turned to look at the policeman. His face seemed pale, almost yellow, in the light of the street lamps. ‘How can you know that?’
‘Because the man at the Rue de Pavie was a professional. Meticulous, neat, subtle. Monsieur Platt’s killer is just some underworld hoodlum. A hired gun. Effective, but crude. Messy, not a real pro. We have a better chance of catching him and so we have a better chance of finding who hired him. We do not know that it is Jansen. Besides, I think your obsession with Jansen is perhaps blinding you to the other possibilities.’
Bannerman shivered. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I am very tired, Monsieur,’ du Maurier sighed, ‘I should like to be home in my bed. You will be required to come to my office later today to make an official statement. Perhaps we can discuss it then.’