‘René?’
‘Perhaps. Or someone else under his orders.’
‘So you couldn’t alert Philippe. But why should René be suspicious now? It’s not as if you actually did phone Philippe; you didn’t have a phone.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t stop there.’
Pascale looked alarmed, and Marcel explained, ‘You remember how Philippe said that in an emergency we should leave a chalk mark on the big boulder by the main road?’
‘Yes. He said he would drive by at least once every twenty-four hours. If we left a mark he’d know the DCRI should move in at once.’
‘Exactement. So that’s what I planned to do. Late this afternoon I thought I would take a walk – and quite by chance it would take me by the main road…’
‘So did you?’ asked Pascale anxiously.
‘I was not allowed to.’
‘René stopped you?’
Marcel shook his head. ‘It was subtler than that. I started to take my walk, thinking I’d go through the woods and cross to the road under cover of them. Then little Fabrice came running out. “Come back,” he shouted, and when I turned round he said René needed me right away. When I got back here, René said he wanted me to clear space in the cellar for the delivery the day after tomorrow. So I went downstairs and moved all of two empty suitcases and a small box of books – it hardly required me to do that. Yet he’d sent Fabrice to make sure I came back to do the job. Why?’
‘All right, so he may suspect you. But he has no proof of anything.’
‘No, he doesn’t. So tomorrow I plan— ’
Pascale was already shaking her head. ‘Forget it. Tomorrow you mustn’t do anything. René will be hyper-alert. Let’s wait until the package arrives, then we can try and contact Philippe again.’
‘It may be too late by then,’ he protested.
But Pascale was adamant. ‘We’ll just have to take that chance.’
Chapter 45
The message from Toulon was the last thing Martin Seurat needed. Frantically busy with a terrorist case involving an Algerian cell in the Paris suburbs, he simply didn’t believe what it said – that his former colleague Antoine Milraud had been sighted at an antiques fair in a small town in the hills north of Toulon. It seemed most unlikely that he would revisit his old base of operations where he was well known. But the antiques business had been the cover for his less savoury operations and, Seurat supposed, given Milraud’s arrogance, it was just possible. And there had been an earlier sighting…
Six months ago, he would have been down to Toulon like a shot. He couldn’t have explained his fixation with Milraud, except that the man’s betrayal had hit him hard personally. He had once been such a good and honest officer, as well as Seurat’s closest friend in the ranks of the French Secret Service. Martin Seurat was usually able to keep emotion out of his work; he had only scorn for most of the people he found himself pitted against, though it was a professional aversion he felt rather than a personal one. But Milraud was different. Milraud had been trusted by the people he worked with. Milraud had been ‘one of us’. And he had taken the trust of his colleagues and smashed it as if it were worthless.
Yet Martin realised that his own fixation with nailing his ex-friend was beginning to subside – otherwise he would already be looking at airline schedules for the short hop south to Toulon. What accounted for this slackening of his fervour? Was it Liz’s influence? She seemed to understand his desire to catch his nemesis, but she didn’t encourage it. He admired the way she could feel intensely about her own work, without ever letting her emotions interfere with her professional judgement. He’d like to think that he was equally dispassionate, but knew that, for a time at least, he had been almost obsessed with catching Milraud.
When his phone rang he was still trying to decide if he should perhaps go down to Toulon, just to make sure this was another false lead. He was still in two minds about it when he said hello.
‘Bonjour, Martin, it’s Isobel. Something seems to be developing with these communards down at Cahors.’
‘Has something happened?’
‘No. But Philippe rang me to say that he was supposed to hear from his source Marcel, but he hasn’t. He says it’s the first time Marcel has missed a fixed contact.’
‘Could he be away?’
‘No, he’s there all right. So’s his partner. Philippe walked the boundary of the place, and with his binoculars he saw both Marcel and Pascale outside the mas. But he can’t contact them. It’s not safe to ring or text in case someone else has access to the phone. But Philippe’s worried, and he’s not the worrying type. He thinks we should go in sooner rather than later.’
‘And you agree?’
‘I do. We know they were trying to acquire firearms and possibly explosives. They seem to have succeeded: the shipment was supposed to arrive next week, but there’s some indication from our people in Marseilles that it’s showing up sooner. I’m worried that once they’ve got the stuff they may move it somewhere, ready for the G20 in Avignon. It starts in two weeks, but the Minister is very anxious that we try to close off any threats now. Just shut things down, he says, and worry about evidence later.
‘So, I’m proposing to go in with local police tomorrow at first light. Do you want to come along? I’m also going to alert Liz Carlyle – we should find René and Antoine at the commune, but in case we don’t she needs to alert her immigration colleagues.’
‘Good idea.’ If Martin remembered correctly, René would be visiting Edward’s daughter Cathy in three days’ time. Hopefully, this meant that he would not have left for England yet.
Isobel was still talking. ‘I’m flying to Toulouse after lunch tomorrow. Seat 13A,’ she said with a laugh.
‘I’m on,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if 13B is still free.’
Chapter 46
Paddington Green Police Station – one of the places that God forgot, thought Liz as she walked up the steps of the hideous 1960s concrete block. She had been there before: the police station had been converted in the 1970s to hold high-security suspects, mainly terrorists, in a suite of below-ground cells and interview rooms. She was heading there now, accompanied by Charlie Fielding, to interview the man who had been arrested by Special Branch officers earlier in the day.
They went down two flights of stairs, then along a narrow corridor, painted battleship grey, which had steel-reinforced cell doors to either side. At the counter at one end of the corridor they were joined by one of the arresting officers. ‘Has he said anything?’ asked Liz.
‘Nothing much, ma’am. He asked why he was being held. When I told him he’d find out soon enough, he stopped talking.’
‘Has he asked for anyone?’
‘No. I said he could make a phone call, but he didn’t want to.’
‘So he hasn’t asked for anyone from his Embassy?’
‘No.’
The officer accompanied them into the interrogation room, which was bleak and bare, lit only by an unshaded overhead light bulb. The effect was grim – a grey-and-white world, like a still from the film of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Except that Park Woo-jin was no Richard Burton, thought Liz, as the door opened again and the prisoner was brought in by an armed police officer, who stood guard by the door.
Not that Park Woo-jin seemed to present any sort of physical threat. The short, rather fragile Korean, whom Liz recognised from the surveillance photographs, seemed to have shrunk. In his nondescript grey office suit, white shirt and unremarkable tie, he looked pathetic rather than menacing.