‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Continental, Rue Beauvau.’
‘Give me forty-eight hours to consider my position.’
‘I’ll give you twenty-four.’
MacGregor seemed to fancy himself a hard bargainer. Max decided to indulge him. ‘Twenty-four it is.’
‘I’ll expect to hear from you no later than this time tomorrow evening.’
‘And I’ll expect to be spared the sight of you dogging my footsteps in the meantime.’
MacGregor nodded. ‘I believe we have an understanding,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Max agreed. ‘I believe we do.’
DESPITE ALL THE
many reasons why he might have slept poorly, Max in fact slept well and long that night, although the problems he was beset by were waiting stubbornly to confront him the following morning.
He breakfasted in his room. Gaspard brought the tray – and the latest news. ‘The Japanese party you asked about,
monsieur
: they will arrive this evening. We expect them to be ’ere by eight.’
‘Where will their rooms be?’ Max asked gruffly as he sipped his coffee.
‘Count Tomura is staying in the front corner suite on the third floor. That would be the second to you,
monsieur
: the floor below this one. ’Is son will be in the room next to it, over Boulevard Garibaldi. There is . . .
une porte de communication
– an inside door . . . that connects the two rooms.’
Max digested the information as he munched a slice of toast, then said, ‘How much for the loan of a pass-key?’
‘
Un passe?
’ Gaspard feigned horror. ‘You ask too much.’
‘Maybe. But that means you can do the same. Who knows? I might agree to your terms.’
Gaspard frowned dubiously at Max, who went on munching his toast. Half a minute or so elapsed. Then Gaspard said, ‘When do you want it?’
After breakfast, Max took himself off to the offices of Nippon Yusen Kaisha to confirm the departure of the
Miyachi-maru
at noon on Tuesday, bound for Port Said, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe and Yokohama. She was coming from Antwerp and was expected to dock that evening. Berths were still available, moderately priced. Max resisted the temptation to book one. Travelling to Japan on the same ship as the Tomuras would be madness. Besides, he had come to Marseilles in pursuit of Anna Schmidt and so far had accomplished nothing on that front.
When he returned to the hotel, he was surprised to find a visitor waiting for him: Corinne. She looked depressed and careworn, as if her faith in her errant husband had evaporated overnight. Max had not expected her to see the folly of trusting Pierre so soon, but was happy to think it possible.
And it was possible, as she rapidly confirmed. ‘I’ve decided to leave Marseilles, Max,’ she announced. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’
They found a café a short distance away in the Cours St-Louis and sat out on the terrace. Corinne ordered cognac with her coffee and readily accepted a succession of Max’s cigarettes, for which he seemed to have less and less use himself. In the dappled sunlight, with the perfume from a pavement flower stall wafting over them and a hopeful violinist sawing away near by, Corinne’s anxiety was even more palpable.
‘Has something happened?’ Max asked. He could hardly believe her sudden change of heart was solely attributable to the force of his argument.
‘You haven’t heard, have you?’
‘Heard?’
‘It was in this morning’s paper.’
‘What was?’
‘I thought about what you said and I saw the sense of it. I knew you were right. Still, I doubt I’d have talked myself into acting on it straight away but for this.’ She took out of her reticule a half-page torn from a newspaper and passed it to him. ‘There.’ She pointed to an article headlined
UNE MORT EN MER
– a death at sea.
Max’s first scan took in only a few salient words:
Port Said, May 3; NYK Kazama Maru; Une noyade; Un citoyen japonais; Kuroda Masataka
.
‘Kuroda’s dead, Max,’ said Corinne softly.
‘Drowned?’
‘The report says he was lost overboard on Friday in unexplained circumstances. His body was picked up by a fishing boat later that day.’
The half-page slipped from Max’s grasp. He slumped back in his chair. ‘I can’t believe it.’ But he could, of course. He remembered what Kuroda had said in his letter: ‘
My continued well-being is by no means guaranteed . . . My position is acutely vulnerable
.’ How right he had been.
‘It’s being treated as an accident, Max. But it wasn’t an accident, was it?’
‘Assuredly not.’
‘He was a good friend of Henry’s.’
‘I know.’
‘Why had he left Paris?’
‘Recalled to Tokyo to face trumped-up charges. It was Count Tomura’s doing. As was his drowning, I don’t doubt.’
‘Another accidental death.’
‘Good God.’ Max put his head in his hands. ‘He wrote to me just before sailing. He virtually predicted this.’
‘There’s a dangerous secret buried somewhere in Japan, isn’t there? A secret Henry and Kuroda both knew too much about to be allowed to live.’
‘Yes. There is.’
‘Pierre’s mixed up in it somehow, isn’t he?’
‘He is, yes.’ Max looked up at her. ‘Which means you’re in danger, Corinne. I think you understand that now, don’t you?’
‘You’re in danger too.’
‘Let me worry about that. It’s vital you leave Marseilles as soon as possible.’
‘I know. Though still it troubles me that Pierre may be a better, nobler man than I ever gave him credit for and is relying on me to stay.’
‘If that was true, he’d already have contacted you. You’ve waited more than long enough for him.’
‘I know, I know.’ She swallowed some of her cognac. ‘I should go.’
‘You said you
were
going.’
She drew a deep breath and slowly released it. ‘I am.’
‘When?’
‘There’s a sleeper to Bordeaux at eight. I can travel on to Nantes from there tomorrow.’
‘You shouldn’t wait until this evening.’
‘What else can I do?’
‘Take a local train to somewhere en route this afternoon. Catch the sleeper there later.’
She frowned at him, more deeply worried than ever by being urged to take such precautions.
‘We can go to the station straight away, Corinne, find out the times and buy you a ticket.’
She looked intently at him, measuring his seriousness, then nodded. She had accepted the need to do as he said. ‘Very well,’ she murmured.
The practicalities of arranging Corinne’s departure distracted Max from the dismay he felt at the news of Kuroda’s death. Somewhere, he knew, the motor of Lemmer’s master-plan was continuing to run. Kuroda’s demise was merely further evidence of this, following hard on the heels of MacGregor’s unwelcome arrival on the scene.
Max wanted Corinne to leave before the evening, not just because the sooner she left the better but because he knew he would then be able to concentrate on the task in hand. The Tomuras were coming. And he had to be ready for them.
When they reached the Gare St-Charles, enquiries revealed there was a 3.30 train to Montpellier, where the Bordeaux sleeper would call later. The booking was made.
‘I’ll see you off,’ said Max as they walked back out of the station.
‘So you can be sure I’ve gone?’
‘We must stop doing what Lemmer wants us to do, Corinne. For some reason, he wants you here. Don’t let him have his way.’
‘I don’t intend to.’
‘Good. Because neither do I.’
They were brave words. But what they amounted to was an open question. Anna Schmidt’s whereabouts were still unknown to Max. As far as breaking the code used in the Grey File went he had achieved less than nothing. And now Kuroda was dead. Max felt the sights of an invisible rifle were trained on him. Only Lemmer’s whim would determine when the fatal shot was fired. Until then, Max had a chance to cheat the bullet. He had to find a way to make the most of it.
After walking Corinne back to the Pension Marguerite, where she had packing to attend to, Max returned to the Grand.
A letter had been delivered for him in his absence. By hand. The deliverer had contrived to leave the letter at the reception desk without being noticed. Max did not recognize the handwriting on the envelope. But the writer knew the pseudonym he was using. That was worrying in its own right.
Max took the letter into the reading-room, sat down and opened it. His eye moved straight to the signature at the bottom.
Pierre Dombreux
. There it was, though whether authentic he had no immediate way to tell.
My dear Max
We have never met, though I feel I know you well. Your father spoke of you often. I saw you with Corinne near the basilica yesterday evening. I regret contacting her. It was a mistake – a surrender to sentiment. I should not have done it. She should leave Marseilles. As for you, I would have said the same until I heard the news from Port Said. They have crossed a boundary with this murder. It cannot go unpunished. That means I cannot stay in hiding. I must show myself. I will need help to defeat them – your help, Max. Meet me tomorrow morning at the Villa Orseis. I have the use of the place. It is on the Corniche, near Malmousque. Be there by nine. I will not wait long. I can tell you everything. I mean to tell you everything. The truth is terrible. But the truth is also freedom. Do not turn away from it, I beg you. And do not tell Corinne, I also beg you. Pierre Dombreux
Do not turn away
. No. Max would not do that. He would never do that.
He took out his lighter, set the flame to the letter and watched it burn in the ashtray before him. The only person who could confirm the letter was from Dombreux was the only person he could not ask: Corinne. Therefore it was safer to destroy it.
Tomorrow morning, if Dombreux was to be believed, Max would know the truth. And if he was not to be believed . . .
That too was truth of a kind.
MAX SAT WITH
Corinne in the buffet at the Gare St-Charles. Warm sunshine burnt sallowly through the grimy windows. The whistles and shouts and engine snorts and general hubbub of the concourse drifted in among the rattling crockery and the low burble of intermingled conversations. Corinne looked at Max, then up at the clock, then back at Max.
‘Do you think Pierre ever intended to contact me?’ she asked through a plume of nervously exhaled cigarette smoke.
‘I don’t know, Corinne,’ Max replied, which he reckoned was not altogether untrue.
‘If not, bringing me here was just a cruel hoax.’
‘No. It wasn’t that. I suspect Lemmer wanted you here to divert me from tracking down Anna Schmidt.’
‘Have you any way of finding her?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Promise me I won’t read in the newspaper that you’ve met with a fatal accident.’
He smiled gamely at her. ‘I promise.’
‘But you can’t, of course. I know that.’
Max said nothing, there being nothing to say. Farewells had often been thus in his experience: much left unspoken, though not unthought. In this case, there was an additional reason for reticence: the letter he had received from Corinne’s errant husband.
She looked at the clock again.
This time, so did he. ‘We should be going,’ he announced.
‘Yes.’ In her gaze was an unplumbed depth of soulfulness. ‘Of course.’
Max walked out onto the platform with Corinne, carrying her bag. Before boarding the train, she handed him a piece of paper with her address in Nantes written on it, along with her sister’s. ‘In case I move,’ she explained. She had tried to break off their acquaintance conclusively when leaving Paris, but seemed no longer to believe that was possible. ‘I’ll write or cable,’ he assured her, worthless though such an assurance was. The sun was warm on his back as he held a door open for her. The paintwork of the carriage was peeling. There was verdigris on the door handle. These details he felt he would remember. And tied to them would be either relief or regret that he had not told her about Dombreux’s letter. A decision was always a guess. And a guess was always a hope.
She kissed him once on the cheek and began to say something, then stifled the words, turned away and climbed hurriedly aboard. He passed the bag up to her and closed the door. She leant out through the window. Other doors were slamming the length of the train. A whistle blew. The engine gathered steam.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, smiling at her. It seemed she could not speak. She grasped his hand, then released it. There was another blast on the whistle. The train clanked into motion. And she stepped back. She did not propose to watch as his figure receded on the platform. The parting was done.
But not for Max. He watched the train all the way out of the station, until it curved out of sight. Silence fell. In the emptiness of the afternoon, he turned and walked away.
Max had experienced a surge of anger on hearing of Kuroda’s death. His first instinct was to await the Tomuras’ arrival, then burst in on them and shoot them both dead. The idea held a strong appeal: to make an end of these people who had somehow ruined his father’s life and Corinne’s and the lives of numerous others he did not even know.
But though the death of Count Tomura might obstruct Lemmer, it would not defeat him, far less destroy him. And it would not give Max what he craved now above all else: the truth. Pierre Dombreux claimed he could give him that. Max had to take the chance Dombreux was in earnest. Until tomorrow morning, at least, he had to stay his hand.
It followed he had to keep MacGregor at bay by seeming to give him what he wanted. Close to the expiry of the twenty-four hours MacGregor had allowed him to consider his position, Max would indicate his willingness to make a sworn statement. It would not be possible to arrange a visit to a
notaire
until the following day. And by then . . .
As Max neared the Grand, a woman emerged from the hotel and stepped into a waiting car, which immediately drove away. It was such a fleeting and distant glimpse that he could not be sure, but his first impression was that the woman was Nadia Bukayeva. He hurried ahead, but the car was already lost to sight in the tangle of traffic on the Canebière.