Liz Carlyle - 07 - The Geneva Trap (26 page)

Nearing the arch at the far end of Horse Guards Parade, the man quickened his pace slightly – and it was then that Mrs Milner saw the two other men appear, as if from nowhere. Neither of them looked as though they belonged in this part of London – they were both wearing weatherproof jackets and to Mrs Milner’s mind looked like toughs. They seemed to be working in tandem, making a beeline for their target from either side of him.

What were they going to do to him? Maybe they were part of one of the pick-pocketing gangs she was always reading about. In any case, the Chinese-looking fellow seemed utterly unaware of their approach. Or of the woman dawdling by the arch – Mrs Milner had seen her before, walking her dog, which Mrs Milner had avoided since Milly had never got on with Schnauzers. This woman was looking at the little man as well. Surely the two toughs weren’t going to harm the fellow here in broad daylight. Though in London these days, who could be sure? Maybe she should call out to warn him.

Then the little man seemed to sense the presence of the other two. He turned around, and when he saw them he started visibly. He tried to make a break for it, sprinting off back across the parade ground, but they were too quick for him – far too quick. In seconds each of them had grabbed an arm, and they held the little fellow between them. One of them was speaking as they began leading him across the parade ground towards a car parked, quite illegally, on the roadside.

The odd trio passed within spitting distance of Mrs Milner, and in the eyes of the Chinese gentleman all she could see was fear. She wanted to stop them all, ask the men just what they thought they were doing, perhaps threaten to call the police. But there was something in their eyes that said no one should interfere with them. Least of all an old lady walking her dog.

Chapter 44

The
mas
where the
communards
lived, twenty kilometres south-west of Cahors, must originally have been the residence of a minor aristocrat. There was still an ancient orchard in the walled garden next to the residence, and the house itself, though almost derelict when they had first taken it over, would once have bordered on the grand.

Marcel and Pascale, as a couple, had been allocated one of the large rooms on the first floor. It might once have been a grand salon, with its high ceiling and two tall shuttered windows that faced south towards the kitchen garden and the pretty meadow beyond. But like the rest of the house, it had suffered from years of neglect: the ornate cornice that ran around the ceiling was cracked and bits were missing where the damp had come through; the parquet floor had lost some of its pieces and the upright metal rods that held the shutters in place were brown with rust. But young and in love, Marcel and Pascale saw the beauty not the rot. They ignored the missing bits of cornice, they’d covered the holes in the floor with cardboard, and Marcel had put enough oil on the shutter bolts to mute all but the mildest squeaks.

Even this late in spring the evenings in the Quercy could be very cool, and with only one blanket for their rusty bedstead, the couple had made a ritual of jumping into bed together, huddling under the solitary blanket, and cuddling each other for warmth. But tonight when Pascale was ready to get into bed, Marcel remained standing, looking moodily out of the window, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.

‘What is it?’ she asked, shivering in the bed.

‘We have a problem, I fear.’

‘We do indeed,’ said Pascale. ‘I’m freezing! And standing out there, you must be, too.’

Marcel took a last drag on his cigarette and chucked it out of the open window. It was not something one would do in August, when the grass lay parched and white under the scorching sun, but the spring had been unusually wet. He turned and looked at Pascale. ‘I’m afraid it’s not a joking matter,’ he said soberly. ‘I’m worried.’

‘Why?’

He looked at her. ‘Why do you think?’

Both were well trained enough not to speak carelessly, even though the chances of being bugged in this huge relic of a room seemed remote. So Pascale just nodded, indicating that she understood. Both of them had been on edge since Marcel had returned from Marseilles. He had told her all about the meeting with the North Africans, Antoine’s violence, and how they had brought back two Uzis.

Marcel came over to the bed and climbed in under the blanket. When he spoke it was in a whisper in Pascale’s ear. ‘I was in the walled garden, sharpening the blades on the mower. René and Antoine were talking by the garden shed. They knew I was there; that’s what I found odd. Because René was saying that delivery of “the package” had been advanced – it would happen tomorrow instead of next week.’

‘What package?’

‘I think it must be the explosives he was hoping to get from another source.’

‘Christ!’ Pascale exclaimed. ‘But why talk like this in front of you if they suspected you? And I still don’t know why they took you to Marseilles.’

Marcel laid his hand on her thigh and squeezed gently. ‘It was a test – like this business in the garden.’

‘How are they testing you?’

‘René knows that if I’m an informant, I’ll want to communicate the news of the package’s early arrival. Can’t you see – it’s the perfect trap? If I don’t try and contact Philippe then the explosives will go undetected once they’re here. But if I do make a move to contact him, René will know I’m a traitor.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

Marcel gave a wry smile. ‘It’s more what I
have
done, my darling. Or tried to do. I didn’t think I had a choice. Philippe warned us, as you know, never to use the mobile phone to contact him. But I decided it was worth the risk, and I could also tell him about the two machine-guns we got in Marseilles. When I came up here, though, I couldn’t find my phone. It was there –’ He pointed to the small pine cabinet on the far side of the bed. ‘But it was gone when I came up to look for it after lunch. I am sure someone has taken it.’

‘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.