Swan recognised the reference to The Day of the Jackal, the debut novel of ex-BBC journalist, Frederick Forsyth.
‘Now, there’s a real belter of a novel,’ Gable commented.
Swan suddenly felt things were going off at a tangent. He needed to return to the case and there had always been one burning question. How did Danvers meet with Miss Santos in the first place?
After asking Higgins, the two SID men listened attentively.
‘He was at a fundraiser last Friday evening at the Café Royal, for the children of Biafra, and he apparently met her at the bar. Then I received a call from him late that evening, asking me to meet him at the Portfield the next morning so that he could get away discreetly. Oh, and to bring his number ones to get changed before the handover parade. Which reminds me — they’re probably still in the Daimler, getting creased.’ Higgins sighed. ‘Not that he’ll be needing them ever again.’
Swan returned the focus to Higgins’ account. ‘You say that he met her while he was at the Café Royal?’
Higgins confirmed this.
Swan moved over to the window to look at the Whitehall traffic.
‘Then, she must have known he’d be there.’
He turned to face Higgins again.
‘How did Danvers get invited to this dinner?’
Higgins recalled. ‘The invitation was put into his in-tray about a month ago. I remember him joking about it, asking me where mine was.’
Swan gently nodded and Higgins could almost see the cogs going round inside his head.
‘You have that look again, Alex. I’ve seen it too many times.’
‘I’m just wondering, if this invitation was perhaps the baited hook?’
Higgins froze. ‘Good grief, are you suggesting he was targeted that far back?’
‘I am indeed, Sir Alistair.’
Gable asked, ‘Who else was attending this dinner?’
Higgins paused. ‘As far as I know, Arthur, virtually everyone. The Lord Mayor of London, various ambassadors, representatives from the Foreign Office, the deputy police commissioner, Field Marshal Plover, Admiral Newman, everyone. Quite frankly, I was quite relieved to not be invited to one of these things, this time around. They can be pretty dreary, although it’s all for a good cause.’
Swan jumped, cat-like, onto the last statement. ‘So, you usually get these invites, then?’
Higgins nodded. ‘Have done for the last ten years!’
Swan was intrigued. ‘So why not this one?’
Higgins decided it might be because Danvers had got his new post as the air officer commanding overseas, however, Swan suddenly had other thoughts.
‘It was intended, by someone who was at that dinner, that he’d be there. It really is the only explanation. Gabriella Santos or rather, let’s now assume, Sapphira Menendez, was there to lure Danvers to his death.’
Gable then made a suggestion. ‘I think maybe we should go through the list of guests who attended this dinner, then also find out who was responsible for distributing the invites.’
Swan agreed with his colleague and turned to Janet. ‘Darling, can you find out who organised this function last Friday and who would have sent out these invites for it?’
Janet gave her husband one of her serious looks. A look that told Swan he could rely on her.
He smiled. ‘Thank you, darling. Then, how about Luigi’s for lunch?’
‘I knew it would be worth it to just cooperate,’ she teased.
Later in the day, Gable had covered the office to go through the list of guests at the Café Royal function. He decided that it would also be a good idea to visit the venue and talk to the bar staff, to see if they remembered anything. Someone must have seen them together.
He now sat with Swan, going through the list. Across from Janet, who was in high spirits following their Italian-style lunch.
‘So far, I’ve checked out all of the people we already know, and I really think we can rule these out as possible suspects. For instance, I don’t really want to ask Deputy Commissioner Burns to help us with our enquiries, or ask the deputy foreign secretary if he happens to be aquatinted with any Portuguese female assassins.’
Swan laughed. ‘No, of course not, Arthur.’
The groundwork that Janet had done had not come up with much to go on, either. She had contacted the event organisers, the Commonwealth Support Funding Association, only to discover that the Chairman’s PA would have been presented with a list of guests and then sent out the invitations. The list was compiled by members of the association, who were mainly government officials, the mayor of London and members of the services. Not exactly a rogue’s gallery, Janet had thought.
Gable had waited until early evening before going to the Café Royal. Showing his credentials to the immaculately-uniformed doorman, he entered and headed for the bar. Not wishing his visit to be seen as purely an official enquiry, he ordered a half pint of best bitter. He then started to talk to the barman, who fortunately for him had been there that night and even more fortunately, remembered the two people concerned, having eavesdropped on most of their conversation.
As Darren Simms wiped a few glasses, he recalled those events. ‘She was gorgeous if you don’t mind me saying, sir. Tall, slim, in a white dress. A real looker!’
Gable acknowledged this comment. ‘And how did she happen to be with the man she was with?’
‘He had come to the bar and ordered a scotch. She seemed to appear from nowhere, walked up to the bar and stood next to him to order a drink herself. He greeted her and they got talking.’
Gable extracted a small black notebook and pencil from his jacket. ‘What did they talk about?’
Simms shook his head. ‘Oh, the usual stuff — started with some small talk about this place, then moved on to where she was from. She told him she was an art dealer in Barcelona. He said that he was in the RAF. He then asked her what had brought her to London, and she told him she had an important meeting about some lost Spanish art. This obviously got him interested, so they talked a lot about that and then they…’
As Gable listened, he was suddenly beginning to envision the scene, as if he was watching a played-back recording. The slow seduction of Danvers, as her deadly tentacles began to ensnare him.
When the barman had finished his narrative, concluding that after almost two hours spent talking to each other, they had left together, he ended by telling Gable how envious he was of this man who had just met this beautiful woman, that evening.
If he only knew, thought Gable. He couldn’t, of course, because of the press embargo still in place. As he thanked Simms for his time and exited the building onto a sun-drenched Regent Street, some questions still remained. How did she manage to get entry in the first place to what would surely have been a highly secure function? The barman had mentioned that she had informed Danvers of a meeting with an art director from the British Museum.
As he walked across Piccadilly Circus with his jacket thrown over his shoulder, another thought occurred to him. Could she have come in with one of the dignitaries? That way, she would easily have gained access. Perhaps she even had an invitation?
Gable tried to remember the list collated by Janet, but couldn’t recall her being on there. Frustrated that his old memory might be failing him, he would double-check once he got back to Wellesley Mews. He looked at his watch and realised that this would have to be tomorrow morning. His wife, Annie, would be expecting him home within the hour, providing the traffic along the Commercial Road was playing fair. There was one other thing that niggled him. Sapphira Menendez had appeared at the bar after Danvers. It was just like one of those Hitchcock movies he liked to watch — the classic pick-up in a bar by the femme fatale.