Читать книгу The Spy Quartet: An Expensive Place to Die, Spy Story, Yesterday’s Spy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy - Len Deighton - Страница 32

Saturday was sunny, the light bouncing and sparkling as it does only in impressionist paintings and Paris. The boulevard had been fitted with wall-to-wall sunshine and out of it came the smell of good bread and black tobacco. Even Loiseau was smiling. He came galloping up my stairs at 8.30 A.M. I was surprised; he had never visited me before, at least not when I was at home.

‘Don’t knock, come in.’ The radio was playing classical music from one of the pirate radio ships. I turned it off.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Loiseau.

‘Everyone’s at home to a policeman,’ I said, ‘in this country.’

‘Don’t be angry,’ said Loiseau. ‘I didn’t know you would be in a silk dressing-gown, feeding your canary. It’s very Noël Coward. If I described this scene as typically English, people would accuse me of exaggerating. You were talking to that canary,’ said Loiseau. ‘You were talking to it.’

‘I try out all my jokes on Joe,’ I said. ‘But don’t stand on ceremony, carry on ripping the place apart. What are you looking for this time?’

‘I’ve said I’m sorry. What more can I do?’

‘You could get out of my decrepit but very expensive apartment and stay out of my life. And you could stop putting your stubby peasant finger into my supply of coffee beans.’

‘I was hoping you’d offer me some. You have this very light roast that is very rare in France.’

‘I have a lot of things that are very rare in France.’

‘Like the freedom to tell a policeman to “scram”?’

‘Like that.’

‘Well, don’t exercise that freedom until we have had coffee together, even if you let me buy some downstairs.’

‘Oh boy! Now I know you are on the tap. A cop is really on the make when he wants to pick up the bill for a cup of coffee.’

‘I’ve had good news this morning.’

‘They are restoring public executions.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Loiseau, letting my remark roll off him. ‘There has been a small power struggle among the people from whom I take my orders and at present Datt’s friends are on the losing side. I have been authorized to find Datt and his film collection by any means I think fit.’

‘When does the armoured column leave? What’s the plan – helicopters and flame-throwers and the one that burns brightest must have been carrying the tin of film?’

‘You are too hard on the police methods in France. You think we could work with bobbies in pointed helmets carrying a wooden stick, but let me tell you, my friend, we wouldn’t last two minutes with such methods. I remember the gangs when I was just a child – my father was a policeman – and most of all I remember Corsica. There were bandits; organized, armed and almost in control of the island. They murdered gendarmes with impunity. They killed policemen and boasted of it openly in the bars. Finally we had to get rough; we sent in a few platoons of the Republican Guard and waged a minor war. Rough, perhaps, but there was no other way. The entire income from all the Paris brothels was at stake. They fought and used every dirty trick they knew. It was war.’

‘But you won the war.’

‘It was the very last war we won,’ Loiseau said bitterly. ‘Since then we’ve fought in Lebanon, Syria, Indo-China, Madagascar, Tunisia, Morocco, Suez and Algeria. Yes, that war in Corsica was the last one we won.’

‘Okay. So much for your problems; how do I fit into your plans?’

‘Just as I told you before; you are a foreigner and no one would think you were a policeman, you speak excellent French and you can look after yourself. What’s more you would not be the sort of man who would reveal where your instructions came from, not even under pressure.’

‘It sounds as though you think Datt still has a kick or two left in him.’

‘They have a kick or two left in them even when they are suspended in space with a rope around the neck. I never underestimate the people I’m dealing with, because they are usually killers when it comes to the finale. Any time I overlook that, it will be one of my policemen who takes the bullet in the head, not me. So I don’t overlook it, which means I have a tough, loyal, confident body of men under my command.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So I locate Datt. What then?’

‘We can’t have another fiasco like last time. Now Datt will be more than ever prepared. I want all his records. I want them because they are a constant threat to a lot of people, including stupid people in the Government of my country. I want that film because I loathe blackmail and I loathe blackmailers – they are the filthiest section of the criminal cesspit.’

‘But so far there’s been no blackmail, has there?’

‘I’m not standing around waiting for the obvious to happen. I want that stuff destroyed. I don’t want to hear that it was destroyed. I want to destroy it myself.’

‘Suppose I don’t want anything to do with it?’

Loiseau splayed out his hands. ‘One,’ he said, grabbing one pudgy finger, ‘you are already involved. Two,’ he grabbed the next finger, ‘you are employed by some sort of British government department from what I can understand. They will be very angry if you turn down this chance of seeing the outcome of this affair.’

I suppose my expression changed.

‘Oh, it’s my business to know these things,’ said Loiseau. ‘Three. Maria has decided that you are trustworthy and in spite of her occasional lapses I have great regard for her judgement. She is, after all, an employee of the Sûreté.’

Loiseau grabbed his fourth digit but said nothing. He smiled. In most people a smile or a laugh can be a sign of embarrassment, a plea to break the tension. Loiseau’s smile was a calm, deliberate smile. ‘You are waiting for me to threaten you with what will happen if you don’t help me.’ He shrugged and smiled again. ‘Then you would turn my previous words about blackmail upon me and feel at ease in declining to help. But I won’t. You are free to do as you wish in this matter. I am a very unthreatening type.’

‘For a cop,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Loiseau, ‘a very unthreatening type for a cop.’ It was true.

‘Okay,’ I said after a long pause. ‘But don’t mistake my motives. Just to keep the record straight, I’m very fond of Maria.’

‘Can you really believe that would annoy me? You are so incredibly Victorian in these matters: so determined to play the game and keep a stiff upper lip and have the record straight. We do not do things that way in France; another man’s wife is fair game for all. Smoothness of tongue and nimbleness of foot are the trump cards; nobleness of mind is the joker.’

‘I prefer my way.’

Loiseau looked at me and smiled his slow, nerveless smile. ‘So do I,’ he said.

‘Loiseau,’ I said, watching him carefully, ‘this clinic of Datt’s: is it run by your Ministry?’

‘Don’t you start that too. He’s got half Paris thinking he’s running that place for us.’ The coffee was still hot. Loiseau got a bowl out of the cupboard and poured himself some. ‘He’s not connected with us,’ said Loiseau. ‘He’s a criminal, a criminal with good connections but still just a criminal.’

‘Loiseau,’ I said, ‘you can’t hold Byrd for the murder of the girl.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he didn’t do it, that’s why not. I was at the clinic that day. I stood in the hall and watched the girl run through and die. I heard Datt say, “Get Byrd here.” It was a frame-up.’

Loiseau reached for his hat. ‘Good coffee,’ he said.

‘It was a frame-up. Byrd is innocent.’

‘So you say. But suppose Byrd had done the murder and Datt said that just for you to overhear? Suppose I told you that we know that Byrd was there? That would put this fellow Kuang in the clear, eh?’

‘It might,’ I said, ‘if I heard Byrd admit it. Will you arrange for me to see Byrd? That’s my condition for helping you.’ I expected Loiseau to protest but he nodded. ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why you worry about him. He’s a criminal type if ever I saw one.’ I didn’t answer because I had a nasty idea that Loiseau was right.

‘Very well,’ said Loiseau. ‘The bird market at eleven A.M. tomorrow.’

‘It’s Sunday tomorrow,’ I said.

‘All the better, the Palais de Justice is quieter on Sunday.’ He smiled again. ‘Good coffee.’

‘That’s what they all say,’ I said.