“The Arab gentleman is known as Mahmoud. He works for an arms dealer. Or should I say, he works for the owner of an import-export business located in Cairo.”
“I went there once on holiday,” commented Doyle. “You think the traffic’s bad here...”
Cli-chack, cli-chack. Slide five. A street scene. The camera had just about managed to focus on a conversation between two men who looked to be arguing about something. The bald blond, and this time a small fat Asian-looking man.
“Spokesman for a now-defunct terrorist group. This is a rare photo of him, made more rare by the fact that he died last year. Not natural causes.”
Cli-chack. Slide six. Cli-chack. Slide seven. And so it went. In a few of the photos, the bald blond had disguised his appearance. There was a particularly risible hairpiece. There were sunglasses, of course, and what looked like an authentic mustache. Eventually, the slides came to an end.
“So he doesn’t mix with royalty,” said Doyle. “But, with respect, sir, who the hell is he?”
Trilling switched off the projector. Greenleaf went to the window and tugged up the venetian blinds. Elder walked to the projection screen and stood in front of it.
“He’s a go-between,” he said. “Just that. He has made a profession and a reputation out of liaising between people — terrorist groups and arms suppliers, crooked politicians and drug dealers, all sorts of organizations. He’s worked in India, Czechoslovakia, Beirut, Austria, Egypt, Colombia...”
“A one-man United Nations.”
“I think divided nations would be nearer the mark, Doyle. He’s Dutch, that much we’re sure of. These slides came courtesy of MI6, who were given them by the Dutch authorities. There was, and still is, a long-term operation to arrest this man.” He paused.
“But not,” suggested Trilling, “until his usefulness is past.”
“I can’t comment on that,” said Elder.
“What do you mean, sir?” Greenleaf asked Trilling.
“I mean,” Trilling was happy to explain, “just now they keep a watch on him, and they learn what he’s up to. They amass information about all these groups he seems to work for. He’s more useful as an unwitting source of information than he is behind bars.”
“The old story,” Doyle said simply.
“The old story,” Elder agreed.
“Like with Khan,” Doyle added.
“I can’t comment on that either,” said Elder with a smile.
“So anyway,” said Greenleaf, “what about him?”
“Two things,” Elder said. “One, he’s in Britain. That, at any rate, is what the Dutch think. His trail’s gone cold, and they’d quite like to pick it up again.”
“As if we don’t have enough on our plates,” said Doyle.
“I don’t think you quite see,” Elder told him.
“Oh? What don’t I see? We’re up to our arses in the summit and Witch and everything...”
“And so,” said Elder quietly, “is the Dutchman. My second point. Think back to the description of the man Crane was seen having a drink with. Do you remember?”
Ever-ready Greenleaf supplied the answer. “Fair and balding, according to Mr. McKillip.”
Elder nodded, while Doyle took it all in.
“It does seem a mighty coincidence,” said Trilling. He handed a copy of the McKillip drawing to Doyle so that Doyle could take in the resemblance for himself.
“It could well be that this Dutchman is the link between the assassin and her paymasters,” said Elder.
“You mean her paymasters on the Khan hit?”
Elder shook his head. “Nobody brings an expensive assassin like Witch into the country for a hit like that. There’s another job, and those paymasters will have supplied the Dutchman.”
“I thought,” said Greenleaf, “she did one paid hit to finance her own private vendettas, isn’t that what you told us?”
“Yes, but aspects of this operation make it unique. It doesn’t quite fit her previous profile.”
Doyle was pinching the skin at the bridge of his nose. “So now you’re saying we change tack completely? Leave Witch and start looking for this Dutchman? New posters made up, more questions at hotels and boardinghouses...”
“Starting here in London,” Greenleaf added. “It’s the obvious place.”
“Which is probably precisely why he’ll be based elsewhere,” said Elder. “Somewhere out in the suburbs, pretending to be the rep for a Dutch company or something.”
Doyle counted on his fingers. “Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Three days before the summit opens. It’s too much ground even to start to cover.”
“So what should we do? Ignore the information?”
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.”
“I know what you’re saying, Doyle. You’re saying you object to the workload, you object to grafting all weekend — again. You’re tired and you need a break. Am I right?”
Doyle shifted his weight on the chair.
“We all need a break,” Trilling said quietly. Then he smiled. “Maybe our Dutch friend will be precisely the break we need.”
Only Greenleaf laughed at the pun, and then not for long.
“Find the Dutchman,” said Elder levelly, “and we find who Witch’s target is. He’s almost bound to know. We may even catch Witch herself.”
Trilling nodded. After a moment, Doyle nodded, too. He looked around at the three faces.
“Well?” he said, rising to his feet. “What are we waiting for? I’ll just phone my bird and tell her I’m not available for lechery this weekend.”
Greenleaf sighed. “And I suppose I’d better phone Shirley. I’ve hardly seen her recently. She’ll go spare.”
“And I,” said Trilling, “have to cancel a race meeting I was supposed to be attending. You see, we all make sacrifices.”
Elder was pleased, but didn’t let it show. He was wondering how he would break it to his colleagues that he had to make a progress report to Joyce Parry this evening, a briefing he just couldn’t cancel. Then Doyle remembered something.
“Oh,” he said, “I know who the American bird is. An old mate of mine, Pete Allison — I used to work with him in CID, he runs his own security firm these days. He phoned me to say he’d been working for Khan, trying to find out about Shari Capri.”
“Why did he want you to know?”
Doyle shrugged. “He was a bit sweaty about Khan being bumped off like that. He thought it through and decided he’d better come clean.”
“So what did he find?”
“She’s a hooker, not a cheap one. That was all crap about her being a model. The story Pete heard is that another security firm had hired her to sniff around Khan.”
“Commercial espionage?”
Doyle nodded. “Women and money, that’s what it boils down to in the end. Another bank wanted to know what Khan’s bank was up to, so they hired themselves a spy.” He turned to Elder. “You still think she was working with Witch?”
Elder shrugged. “Maybe not. But Witch did know a lot about Khan’s movements. Maybe she had the Dutchman put a bit of money about, ask a few questions.”
“The security firm?”
“That’d be my guess. Someone there would have known what Ms. Capri knew. Any idea where she is?”
“Not a clue. Want me to push it a bit further?”
Elder shook his head. “It’s a dead end. I’m sure she only took the job because she knew it would stretch us, lead us away from the real action. No, she’s here now. Let’s remember that and act on it.”