‘That is,’ said Connell tartly and in pretty fair French, ‘if his Algerian truffle-hound has finished snuffling through our bags.’ He went on quickly as I opened my mouth to reply. ‘And if, Monsieur Firman, you could spare us the protestations of injured innocence, we’d appreciate it. We are, as the Professor says, tired.’
I gave him the thinnest of smiles. ‘Oh, I wasn’t going to protest, my dear sir, though Mr Yves Boularis might do so if he heard himself described as an Algerian. He is Tunisian. Of course your luggage has been searched, and most thoroughly. I must remind you that, even though you seem to speak French quite well, the language agreed upon for this conference was English. Am I not right, Professor?’
Krom cleared his throat. ‘Yes, quite right, Mr Firman, though I think Dr Connell has a point. We all submitted with good grace to a body search, but is it really necessary that we should be treated with such deep suspicion, almost as if we were policemen in disguise?’
‘Yes, Professor, I am afraid it is necessary.’
He gave an exasperated sigh as I went to the sideboard and poured myself a drink. Then Connell started again. My not shaking hands had rattled him.
‘I suppose you’re referring to that little tape machine of mine,’ he began, and drew breath to continue.
I shut him up by turning to Dr Henson.
‘What do you say?’ I asked her. ‘Am I being unreasonable, or are you forgetting that you signed a paper agreeing to abide by a set of rules while attending this conference?’
On closer inspection, she was an attractive woman with delicately structured facial bones, fine eyes and a mouth which suggested all sorts of possibilities. Not all of them would be agreeable, however; that brief marriage of hers must have been a harrowing affair. At that moment she was wondering how she might convincingly convert her embarrassment into anger and failing to find an answer. Finally, she just shrugged.
‘You are not being unreasonable, Mr Firman. I haven’t forgotten the paper I signed.’
‘Thank you, Dr Henson. Now, do you mind telling me and your friends here whether it was your own idea to photograph and fingerprint the persons you were to meet in this house, or someone else’s?’
Krom let out a kind of yelp.
Connell started a protest. ‘Now wait a minute! Are you accusing Dr Henson of … ‘
But Dr Henson preferred to take care of herself. ‘No,’ she broke in crisply, ‘he is not making an accusation. He is asking an awkward question about the special cameras and other equipment found concealed in my handbag.’ She surveyed us challengingly. ‘The answer is that it was not my idea. The camera and other things were given to me, with instructions, by the head of my faculty, Professor Langridge.’
Krom yelped again. ‘Langridge! You mean that you told him about this conference?’
‘Of course, I was taking a leave of absence. Short, yes, but at a time when I was expected to be present. Ought I to have disappeared mysteriously and drawn public attention to myself?’
‘You told Professor Langridge where you were going and on what errand? Couldn’t you have accounted for your absence in some other way? Was it necessary to be so indiscreet?’ Krom was becoming very angry indeed.
‘I don’t make a habit of lying to colleagues, Professor. Besides, I didn’t know where I was going until lunchtime today.’
It was time for plainer speaking. ‘You told Professor Langridge that you were going first to join these two gentlemen in Amsterdam?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know, when you told him, that he often does little jobs for British intelligence?’
She flushed. Connell muttered, ‘Jesus!’ She still had the empty glass in her hands and for a moment I thought she was going to throw it at him. Instead, she put it down carefully.
‘I knew,’ she replied, ‘that he did some work for the government. But there’s nothing remarkable about that. Scholars of most disciplines sometimes accept research commissions from ministries or sit on official department committees. I had always assumed that what he did for the Home Office, or whoever it was, had something to do with his long-term study of the European probation service. A reasonable enough assumption, I think.’
‘When did you discover that it had been a false one?’
‘About a week after I told him that I was proposing to take this time off. One day he called me in and showed me the camera and other stuff.’
‘You didn’t object?’ This was Krom again.
‘Of course I objected!’ Dr Henson was nearly as angry as he was by now. ‘We had a flaming row about it, if you must know. An extremely unpleasant argument, anyway.’
‘Which he evidently won,’ said Krom bitterly. ‘How?’
‘He began by asking, yet again, what our exact intentions were. By “our”, he meant those of us who have concerned ourselves with investigations of the able criminal. What was our object? Did we intend merely to establish his existence, in the way, say, that a microbiologist might, having established the existence of a dangerous viral mutation, simply record the fact? Or did we intend to make use of any knowledge or proofs we might acquire about such persons to assist others in eradicating them?’
Connell grunted sympathetically. ‘Yes. I’ve had that one. What did you reply?’
‘That I didn’t know, that the question was in any case both premature and hypothetical as well as grotesquely unfair to microbiologists. He then said that his “masters” — he actually used the word “masters” like some pompous senior official — that his masters were already convinced of the existence of this new kind of offender and were determined to eradicate him.’
‘Did he say what evidence they had?’ Krom was almost boyishly eager now. The tidings of yet another band of converts to his private religion had quite dissolved his anger.
‘Naturally, I asked, but I soon realized that he didn’t really know much. He did, though, make two statements of interest. This wasn’t a Home Office matter any longer because conventional police forces hampered by rules and restrictions were helpless in these areas. Not much in that. But he also said that for the less-inhibited forces acting on Treasury orders, and in concert with foreign counterpart services where collaborative relations existed, it would be a different story.’
She paused. ‘And then he threatened me.’
‘Sounds a sweet guy,’ Connell remarked.
‘He said that if I refused to co-operate, that is endeavour to get photographs and prints and report fully and secretly on my return, his so-called masters would place me under surveillance of a kind which would frustrate the whole exercise. It’s not as stupid as it may sound. He knows, you see, how I feel about our work in this field.’
‘I suppose he was talking about harassment, men in trench coats breathing down your neck.’
‘And your neck too, I imagine, Dr Connell.’ She turned to me. ‘What about it, Mr Firman? How far would we have got? Turin?’
‘No farther, certainly,’ I replied. ‘Naturally, the possibility of one or all of you being under surveillance had to be considered, and not necessarily surveillance of the obvious kind with which Dr Henson was threatened in order to ensure her co-operation. Professor Langridge’s masters had other options available to them. I had you very carefully watched all the way.’
Connell snorted disbelievingly. ‘All the way, Mr Firman? Taking that amount of trouble to cover yourself costs money.’
‘Yes, the overheads on an operation of this sort can be quite heavy.’
‘Of this sort? I thought this operation was supposed to be one-off, unique.’
‘It is.’ I gave him the needed rap over the knuckles. ‘But I was speaking in general of operations involving inexperienced persons, for whom, or from whom, one needs protection. Naturally it is expensive, but you don’t have much choice. Either you accept the expense when the need for it arises or you resign yourself to the prospect of being very soon — what was Professor Langridge’s word for it? — oh yes, eradicated.’ I turned and looked Krom in the eyes. ‘A serious question must now be asked,’ I went on. ‘We have breaches of security on your side and also gross breaches of good faith. How, under these circumstances, can we possibly continue our conference as planned?’