He looked at his watch. Anything to stop him from thinking. It was only a little over an hour since it had happened. Still Sunday morning, grey and wet outside.
He glanced again at Schumacher and scuffed his feet. ‘I’m sorry I got you involved in all this,’ he said. ‘I hope everything will be all right with Mrs. Schum... your wife.’
Schumacher waved his hand carelessly. ‘She’s all right. Just shock. It’s the child...’
A doctor pushed through swing doors. He looked tired. ‘She is in the operating theatre.’ His accent was thick and clumsy. He glanced at Schumacher and then back to Bannerman. ‘It could be many hours. And then even if we are successful with the operation it is very difficult for us to know if she will live or die. You can wait if you like.’ He paused with a slight embarrassment before disappearing again behind the doors. They swung back and forth for some moments before coming to a standstill.
‘I’ll be back,’ Bannerman said and began towards the elevator.
Schumacher looked at him in surprise. ‘But the police...’
‘Tell the Inspector when he gets back that I’ll be in touch with him.’ He pressed the down button.
‘But where are you going?’
Bannerman hesitated. He was trembling. ‘To get the bastards.’
Even in the daylight, you could not see Jansen’s mansion from the road. The rain was coming down steady and hard when the taxi drew up at the gates. Bannerman got out and crossed to the gatepost. He pressed the button and spoke into the grill. ‘Neil Bannerman to see René Jansen.’ Nothing happened. He pressed it again and kept his finger on it for several seconds. Then he repeated his message.
The speaker grill crackled and a voice said, ‘Herr Jansen is not at home.’
‘Like hell!’ Bannerman muttered.
The gates were about seven feet high and spiked along the top. The taxi driver watched Bannerman with astonishment as he scaled them, wobbled unsteadily over the spikes at the top and jumped down over the other side. Somewhere in the grounds an alarm hooter began wailing out through the trees. Bannerman started running, his feet clattering over the paving, the trees locked in around him. All he could think of was the child, his fears, his anger.
The drive seemed much longer than it had when he had come up it in the car. At last the square lawns opened out before him and he emerged from the damp, dripping tunnel of trees. The wailing of the hooter intensified as he came nearer the house and he could now hear bells ringing in the building itself. He ran across the slush that lay in patches on the lawn, over the gravel square, glancing up at the rows of windows. For a moment he caught a glimpse of a small, pale face watching him from behind a window-blind on the second floor, but when he looked again it was gone.
The moulded iron knocker on the great door was heavy and thundered against the metal block. He could hear the sound of it echoing away in the big circular hall behind it. He hammered for about a minute before the door was finally opened just a crack, and the butler who had let him in the previous night looked out at him coldly. ‘The police will be here any moment. I would advise you to leave now.’
Bannerman put his shoulder to the door, pushing the old man backwards into the hall. ‘Where is he?’ The old man’s face was drained of colour.
‘He is not here.’
Bannerman swept past him and up the marble staircase two steps at a time. He remembered the face on the second floor and went on up to the second landing. There were about a dozen doors leading off. He opened one after another onto a drawing room, a bedroom, a study, a library, another bedroom. All empty. The sixth door opened into darkness, and he was about to move on to the next when he sensed a presence in the room, perhaps the slightest of movements, or a scent. He stopped and peered into the gloom. All the blinds were pulled and only a little yellow light crept in around their edges.
Suddenly a light came on to his right, a small table lamp that lit up an old woman in a wheelchair. She stared at him out of a white, bony face, with empty grey eyes. Her hair was the purest silver pulled back in a tight bun. She had a black shawl around her shoulders and a rug over her knees. Twisted, arthritic hands lay in her lap, clutching a small glass of red wine. The remains of a log fire smouldered in the hearth. She spoke in a high, clear voice. ‘My son is not here.’
Bannerman hesitated for a moment as the door swung to behind him. He had not expected this. ‘Where is he?’
The old woman sighed and her slight, fragile frame drooped a little. ‘You are Mr. Bannerman, are you not? My son has told me about you. But you are quite wrong about him.’
Bannerman felt uncomfortable, caught in the gaze of those pale grey eyes. ‘Where is he?’
‘He left early this morning. For the Bahamas. We have an estate out there. I do not expect to see him for about six months.’ There was a smugness about her. The bells and the siren stopped and the awful silence that followed was broken only by the slow tick of an old clock on the mantelpiece. The door opened behind Bannerman and the old butler appeared.
‘The police have arrived.’
‘Send them away,’ said the old woman. ‘I don’t believe Mr. Bannerman will cause any further trouble.’ The old man stood for a second and glared at Bannerman. Then he turned, shutting the door softly behind him. ‘Have a seat, Mr. Bannerman.’
‘No thank you.’
‘As you like.’ Her eyes flickered briefly beyond him and then returned with that same empty stare. ‘You see, if my son had been involved in the things of which you suspect him, I would have known. There is nothing I do not know about him. He is a good boy. He will do nothing without his mother’s approval. He has never married. For you see, it is me he needs. Me he depends on. My only fear is what will become of him when I have gone.’ She smiled. ‘I’m afraid he is really rather helpless.’
‘Then you are the power behind the Jansen empire?’ Bannerman was sceptical.
Now she chuckled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is the way my husband wanted it. He knew that René would never be the man he was. Of course, René liked to play at it, to pretend. But then, he knows that he must always answer to his Mama, as when he was just a child. He doesn’t love me, I think. But he fears me, respects me. It was I who sent him away.’
Bannerman shook his head in disbelief. He took out a cigar.
‘I would prefer that you didn’t smoke.’ It was a command, not a request. An old lady accustomed to getting her own way.
Bannerman moved to the fireplace, lit the cigar, and threw his spent match into the ashes. He found that he was still trembling. ‘Well, I don’t really care too much about what you prefer,’ he said. ‘There’s a little girl perhaps dying in a hospital not very far from here that I care about a great deal more.’ He paused. ‘You can start by telling me about Lapointe.’
‘Ah, Michel,’ she said, quite unruffled, ‘he is a genius, Mr. Bannerman, but a man of little breeding. My husband trusted him implicitly.’ She took a tiny sip of her wine. ‘He is a man I have never liked. I am afraid I have used him unscrupulously. He has remained loyal only because the rewards are high. I fear that he does not hold me in as high regard as he held my husband, but perhaps he fears me a little, as René does. It is unfortunate that he must be sacrificed. A sop to public opinion, you understand, over this distasteful arms business. I cannot, you understand, allow my son to be harmed by the scandal.’