Authors: Kevin Wignall
Chapter Twenty-six
There was no time for talking afterwards, as much as he just wanted to lie there in bed with her, as much as he had a thousand questions and things he wanted to know about her. He was falling for her, ridiculously, because he doubted she was being so foolish—she probably saw him as an enjoyable fling, but hardly boyfriend material, and definitely nothing more than that. And he felt even more ridiculous for hoping he might be wrong.
He was dressed again and ready to leave when he glanced back at her, lying in the bed, the sight of her scrambling his thoughts. He walked back, kissed her again.
“How long will you be?”
He shrugged, shook his head, making clear he didn’t know, but that the answer should have been obvious—he wanted to be back as quickly as possible. He kissed her again and left, down the service stairs, through the kitchen where no one seemed to pay any attention, out into a side street and quickly into the city.
The bar was in Rue Delambre in Montparnasse, a little too far to walk, but he walked all the same, cutting quickly along streets, keeping an eye all the time on the cars moving around him, on the people.
He was as certain as he could be that he’d reached the bar without being followed, but he didn’t hesitate for long out on the street once he was there. It was a small place, a bar to one side with white-jacketed barmen, a couple of alcoves at the back, maybe a dozen customers in all, though it was still early. He’d never been there before.
Immediately, he saw a guy of about Patrick’s age raise his hand from the back of the room. Dan nodded in response and walked towards him. He was rougher around the edges than Patrick White, his hair with a slightly wild salt-and-pepper look to it, a jacket but with an open shirt, the look of an aging film star. He also looked like he’d been able to handle himself when he was younger, and probably still could.
“Dan Hendricks?”
“Georges Florian?”
He smiled, shaking his hand, and said, “Please, join me.” There was a bottle of red wine on the table, one glass already full. He filled a second glass as Dan sat down and they drank.
“Patrick speaks very highly of you,” said Florian. He narrowed his eyes then, calculating, and said, “Did you take Habibi?”
It seemed everyone wanted to know if he’d taken Habibi.
Dan smiled and said, “He disappeared from Paris. I assumed your people had taken him.”
“I knew it,” said Florian, ignoring the tongue-in-cheek denial. He shook his head, pleased with himself, as if he’d just solved a long-standing mystery. Then he grew somber and said, “I know you were a friend of Benoit Claudel. I didn’t know he was dead until Patrick told me.”
“You knew him?”
“I met him a few times. We didn’t serve together—he was quite a bit younger than me—but I had a drink with him once or twice. He was a good man.”
Dan nodded. He’d been a good man who’d tried to settle down and move on, and that had probably made him an easier target and helped seal his fate.
“The man who killed him is dead.” Florian looked grudgingly satisfied with that. “But I’m after the man who ordered his death.”
“The same man who also wants you dead? Bill Brabham?” Dan nodded. “So, according to Patrick, you want to talk with me about Jack Redford, and the events of fourteen years ago.”
“That’s correct. What can you tell me, Georges?”
“Nothing at all. You and I never met.” He smiled, took a long sip of his wine. “It seems there’s a foreign bank with a building across the street from the entrance to the alley where Sabine Merel was killed. It has twenty-four-hour security, and it has cameras. On the night in question, the security guard on duty was a man named Gaston Bergeron. He saw nothing at the time, but early the next morning, just before his shift ended, the body was found. Normally, they reused the tapes unless there was something of note. Well, as I said, Gaston had seen nothing unusual, but because of the body being discovered, he put the night’s tapes in the security locker and loaded new ones. He might never have checked them but, two days later, two people from the US Embassy came to the bank and asked for the security tapes from that night. They were told the tapes were reused and so there was nothing to see. Of course, Gaston became suspicious. Why would the Americans want the tapes? So that night he went through them and, we think, he saw the man walking with Sabine Merel into the alley where she died. He thought of going to the police, naturally, but the involvement of the Americans worried him. He knew his nephew’s father-in-law, Jean Sainval, was in quite a powerful position at the DGSE, so he mailed the tape to him.”
“That name’s familiar, Jean Sainval. Maybe from when I was starting out.”
“Of course, you were in SIS for a time. Yes, you probably heard about his death, but we jump ahead. Sainval watched the tape and put a call through to a friend at the Interior Ministry, who agreed to come over the following day. But it seems someone was listening. Sainval was killed in a traffic accident that night.”
“And the tape?”
Florian gave him a roguish smile and said, “So this is the crux! Did the great Jack Redford infiltrate La piscine and steal the tape, with just one day’s notice?” He nodded, impressed even by the memory of it. “The tape disappeared, and it took several days before we were positive that Redford had been in the building. But the body in the Seine—that was nothing to do with us.”
“It wasn’t Redford anyway.”
“We know that now. We didn’t for fourteen years.”
“So whether or not he saw the tape himself, he knew what was on it, and knew that Brabham would come after him for that knowledge.”
“Or maybe he handed it over and they tried to kill him. Who knows why he ran? Maybe he just felt it was time, that he’d . . . ridden his luck too long.”
“The security guard, Gaston . . .?”
“Bergeron. Gaston Bergeron.”
“Did any of your colleagues speak to him?”
“I think so, but he couldn’t tell anything, or didn’t want to—he knew Jean Sainval was dead, and had his suspicions about how.”
Dan drank and Florian topped up both glasses.
“So, we can have all the suspicions we like about who killed Sabine Merel and why Jack Redford went on the run, but there’s no proof, no witness . . .”
“Apart from Gaston Bergeron.”
“Who didn’t know anything.”
“Who didn’t
say
anything. I don’t know even if he’s still alive—he would be quite old by now, but sometimes old men talk more than young ones.”
“Do you know how I could get in touch with him, if he is still alive?”
“Let me see.” He got up, taking his phone out as he walked over and leaned on the far end of the bar.
He spoke briefly into the phone and then put it on the bar and chatted amiably with the two barmen, laughing and joking about something. Maybe he was a regular here or just the kind of raffish charmer who could drop into any drinking hole around the world and make new friends.
Even from there, Dan saw the phone light up a few minutes later. Florian answered, then gestured to the barman who hastily furnished him with a pen and a piece of paper.
When Florian came back he was smiling, and as he handed over the piece of paper, he said, “Still alive. He retired back to the village he came from, in Burgundy, not far from Auxerre.”
“Thanks, I’ll head out there tomorrow.”
“And if he can’t help, or won’t?”
Dan thought it through quickly, realizing they were running out of leads, but knowing he could only count on one outcome.
“As long as Brabham’s still in circulation I’ve got the dot on me. If I can help Patrick to rein him in, great, if not . . . I won’t go down easy.”
“I like your style. But the reason I ask is, it might also be an idea to speak to Eliot Carter, if you haven’t already.”
“Eliot Carter? I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?”
Florian responded with a look of mixed disappointment and superiority, and said, “An American, living here in Paris, in Le Marais. He was CIA a long time ago, but his special skill was forgeries, documents, passports. He did a lot of work for Redford, but they were good friends too.”
Dan checked his watch, conscious that his own time had a limit set to it, and said, “You think I could see him now, tonight?”
Florian smiled, took his phone out and put in a call. He kept his seat this time, which made Dan wonder why he’d wanted to shield the other call from him. A brief exchange followed and he ended the call.
“He’s expecting you.”
“Good, thanks. What the address?”
“It’s on the back of the piece of paper I gave to you. Almost like the old days, no?” He looked lost in thought for a moment, the appearance of someone remembering his own past, then seemed to come back to himself, and said, “Is Habibi dead or hidden away in Guantanamo?”
“He’s dead. His heart gave out under interrogation. Romania.”
Florian shrugged and said, “Just curious. He wasn’t a French citizen. It’s only that he was in Paris when he disappeared.”
“A lot of people seem to disappear in Paris.”
“That’s true. And, Dan, if this doesn’t work out, you should make yourself one of them.”
He knew Florian was right, and he’d spent his whole life disappearing, but it felt desperate now, as if the stakes were much higher. And it wasn’t even the fantasy of there being a possible relationship with Inger to consider—if anything, it was because he knew it
was
a fantasy that he now so urgently wanted to change his life.
Chapter Twenty-seven
He jumped in a cab not far from the bar and traveled the short distance to Eliot Carter’s apartment, conscious of having left Inger alone too long already, not knowing how safe she would be. He was buzzed up but had to ring the bell when he got to the third floor. He could hear some sort of North African music playing inside.
The door was opened by a young and skinny Arabic guy in a tight T-shirt that looked three sizes too small, and low-slung white jeans, a stretch of midriff visible between the two. His features looked incredibly delicate and feminine, and then Dan realized it was because they’d been subtly highlighted with makeup and eye-liner.
At first he thought he’d got the wrong apartment, but after looking him up and down the young guy smiled and said, “Are you Eliot’s friend?”
Dan guessed the answer was yes so he nodded and was shown in. Eliot was lounging in a Moroccan-themed sitting room, as if modeling his expat existence on the life of Paul Bowles, and when he spoke he had the same slightly arch, over-fussy American accent.
“How do you do, Mr. Hendricks? Do excuse me not getting up. Georges tells me you want to talk about Jack.”
“I do. I won’t keep you very long.” Carter looked ready to dismiss the suggestion, but Dan added quickly, “I’m afraid the same people who were after Jack all those years ago are after me now.”
Carter responded to the seriousness of that statement by sitting up and plumping the cushions behind him. He looked to the door but the young guy had left them alone.
“Not even time for a drink?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
He produced a tired little laugh and said, “Jack was always the same, rushing off here or there, but, oh, he was such a decent man. A terrible shame the way it happened.” Dan’s heart sank as he took on board that Carter didn’t know about the most recent developments, that he probably still assumed Redford had died years before. “You want to know about the last job, of course.”
“Yes, did he tell you about it?”
“In passing. He needed some paper and needed it quickly.” With a flourish, he said, “I obliged, of course.”
“Did he tell you what the job was?”
“Well, naturally, given what he was asking of me, I knew it was DGSE headquarters—La piscine, they call it. I remember complimenting him on how audacious it was. But that’s about all I can tell, other than what I knew of him . . . what I mean is, what I knew of him instinctively. You see, he wasn’t quite himself, if I might put it like that. He was preoccupied.”
“Worried about the job?”
“Possibly. I believe he never had any fear in his life, but I suppose it’s conceivable he knew something wasn’t quite right about the job. Of course, it’s also entirely feasible that this is just me using hindsight to create a completely false impression. As I said, jobs never troubled him like that, and there
were
other things.”
Dan waited for him to continue, but Carter simply stared at him, eyebrows raised, inviting Dan to play his part.
Dan obliged, saying, “What do you mean by that, what other things?”
“He’d had a letter a little while before, someone he knew from Beirut—the previous year he’d spent six months there, relaxing, having fun. Whether the letter was a billet-doux or something else entirely, he wouldn’t say, but he did tell me he’d received it and that it was weighing on his mind in some way. You see, what I’m saying, Mr. Hendricks, is that the air of preoccupation might have been nothing to do with the job, it might have been the letter. Nobody sends letters anymore, do they? Such a shame.”
“You said he didn’t discuss its contents, but thinking back to Beirut, do you have any idea what it might have been?”
“I wasn’t in Beirut. Hassan!” He looked towards the door, and when the young guy appeared he smiled and said, “Would you bring my Rolodex and some paper and a pen? Thank you.” He turned back to Dan and said, “I’ll give you the address and number of Tom Crossley in Geneva. He was in Beirut, but they were old friends, in some army unit together. He may well have some idea.”
“Thanks. I have some other stuff to deal with first, but I’ll give him a visit.”
Carter looked thrilled and said, “And I do hope you’ll visit us again, for longer next time. Are you in Paris often?”
“Not as often as I’d like, but I’ll keep you to that invite.”
As for Tom Crossley, and finding out what had happened in Beirut, Dan knew it was hardly relevant. Finding out the secrets of Jacques Fillon had been geared to two specific ends, helping Patrick to rein in Brabham and, at the same time, getting Brabham off Dan’s back. The final pieces of the mystery would hardly make any difference to either of those.
Yet he wanted to know. He wanted to know exactly what had been on that tape, not just for his own security, but for the knowledge of it, for Sabine Merel, for her friends and family. And he wanted to know exactly why Jack Redford had run and become Jacques Fillon.
He’d visit this guy Tom Crossley once this was all done, if he was still in the position to visit anyone, because Redford’s story mattered to him now. It mattered most of all, perhaps, because it could so easily have been Dan’s story, and in some ways might still become it yet.