The Day of the Jackal

by Frederick Forsyth

  The tubes themselves were each wrapped in a thin sock of sacking material. The steel wire lashed them tightly inside the flange, and the places where the wire touched the chassis’ edge were spot-welded with the soldering iron.

  By the time he was finished the overalls were smeared with grease from the garage floor and his hands ached from the exertions of heaving the wire tighter round the chassis. But the job was done. The tubes were almost undetectable except to a close search made from underneath the car, and would soon be coated with dust and mud.

  He packed the overalls, soldering iron and the remains of the wire into the canvas grip and dumped it under a pile of old rags in the far corner of the garage. The metal clippers went into the glove compartment set in the dashboard.

  Dusk was settling again over the city when he finally emerged at the wheel of the Alfa, the suitcase shut into the boot. He closed and locked the garage door, pocketed the key and drove back to the hotel.

  Twenty-four hours after his arrival in Milan he was again in his room, showering away the exertions of the day, soaking his smarting hands in a bowl of cold water, before dressing for cocktails and dinner.

  Stopping at the reception desk before going into the bar for his habitual Campari and soda, he asked for his bill to be made up for settlement after dinner, and for a morning call with a cup of tea at five-thirty the following morning.

  After a second splendid dinner he settled the bill with the remainder of his lire and was in bed asleep by shortly after eleven.

  Sir Jasper Quigley stood with his back to the office, hands clasped behind him, and stared down from the windows of the Foreign Office across the immaculate acres of Horse Guards Parade. A column of Household Cavalry in impeccable order trotted across the gravel towards the Annexe and the Mall and on in the direction of Buckingham Palace.

  It was a scene to delight and to impress. On many mornings Sir Jasper had stood at his window and gazed down from the ministry at this most English of English spectacles. Often it seemed to him that just to stand at this window and see the Blues ride by, the sun shine and the tourists crane, to hear across the square the clink of harness and bit, the snort of a mettled horse and the oooohs and aaahs of the hoi-polloi was worth all those years in embassies in other and lesser lands. It was rare for him that, watching this sight, he did not feel his shoulders square a little squarer, the stomach draw in a trifle under the striped trousers, and a touch of pride lift the chin to iron out the wrinkles of the neck. Sometimes, hearing the crunch of the hooves on gravel, he would rise from his desk just to stand at the neo-Gothic window and see them pass, before returning to the papers or the business of the state. And sometimes, thinking back on all those who had tried from across the sea to change this scene and supplant the jingle of the spurs with the tramp of brodequins from Paris or jackboots from Berlin, he felt a little pricking behind the eyes and would hurry back to his papers.

  But not this morning. This morning he glowered down like an avenging acid drop and his lips were pressed so tightly together that, never full or rosy, they had disappeared completely. Sir Jasper Quigley was in a towering rage, and by a small sign here and there it showed. He was, of course, alone.

  He was also the Head of France, not in the literal sense of possessing any jurisdiction over the country across the Channel towards friendship with whom so much lip-service had been paid and so little felt during his lifetime, but head of the bureau in the Foreign Office whose business it was to study the affairs, ambitions, activities and, often, conspiracies of that confounded place and then report upon them to the Permanent Under Secretary and, ultimately, to Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

  He possessed, or he would not have got the appointment, all the essential requirements: a long and distinguished record of service in diplomacy elsewhere than France, a history of soundness in his political judgements which, although frequently wrong, were inevitably in accord with those of his superiors of the given moment; a fine record and one of which to be justly proud. He had never been publicly wrong, nor inconveniently right, never supported an unfashionable viewpoint nor proffered opinions out of line with those prevailing at the highest levels of the Corps.

  A marriage to the virtually unmarriageable daughter of the Head of Chancery in Berlin, who had later become an Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of State, had done no harm. It had enabled an unfortunate memorandum in 1937 from Berlin advising that German rearmament would have no real effect in political terms on the future of Western Europe to be overlooked.

  During the war, back in London, he had been for a while on the Balkan Desk, and had forcefully counselled British support for the Yugoslav partisan Mikailovitch and his Cetniks. When the Prime Minister of the time had unaccountably preferred to listen to the advice of an obscure young Captain called Fitzroy MacLean who had parachuted into the place and who advised backing a wretched Communist called Tito, young Quigley had been transferred to France Desk.

  Here he had distinguished himself by becoming a leading advocate of British support for General Giraud in Algiers. It was, or would have been, a jolly good policy too, had it not been out-manoeuvred by that other and less senior French general who had been living in London all the while trying to put together a force called the Free French. Why Winston ever bothered with the man was something none of the professionals could ever understand.

  Not that any of the French were much use, of course. No one could ever say of Sir Jasper (knighted in ’61 for his services to diplomacy) that he lacked the essential qualification for a good Head of France. He had a congenital dislike of France and everything to do with the place. These feelings had become, by the close of President de Gaulle’s press conference of January 14th, 1963, in which he barred Britain from the Common Market and caused Sir Jasper to have an uncomfortable twenty minutes with the Minister, as nothing compared to his feelings towards the person of the French President.

  There was a tap on his door. Sir Jasper swung away from the window. From the blotter in front of him he picked up a piece of blue flimsy paper and held it as though he had been reading it when the knock came.

  ‘Enter.’

  The younger man entered the office, closed the door behind him and approached the desk.

  Sir Jasper glanced at him over the half-moon glasses.

  ‘Ah, Lloyd. Just looking at this report you filed during the night. Interesting, interesting. An unofficial request lodged by a senior French police detective to a senior British police officer. Passed on to a senior superintendent of the Special Branch, who sees fit to consult, unofficially of course, a junior member of the Intelligence Service. Mmm?’

  ‘Yes, Sir Jasper.’

  Lloyd stared across at the spare figure of the diplomat standing by the window studying his report as if he had never seen it before. He had cottoned on at least that Sir Jasper was already well versed in the contents, and that the studied indifference was probably a pose.

  ‘And this junior officer sees fit, off his own bat and without reference to higher authority, to assist the Special Branch officer by passing on to him a suggestion. A suggestion, moreover, that without a shred of proof indicates that a British citizen thought to be a business man may in fact be a cold-blooded killer. Mmmmm?’

  What the hell’s the old buzzard getting at? thought Lloyd.

  He soon found out.

  ‘What intrigues me, my dear Lloyd, is that although this request, unofficial of course, is lodged yesterday morning, it is not until twenty-four hours later that the head of the department of the ministry most closely concerned with what happens in France gets to be informed. Rather an odd state of affairs, wouldn’t you say?’

  Lloyd got the drift. Inter-departmental pique. But he was equally aware that Sir Jasper was a powerful man, versed over decades in the power struggle within the hierarchy into which its component members habitually put more effort than into state business.

  ‘With the greatest respect, Sir Jasper, Superintende
nt Thomas’ request to me, as you say an unofficial one, was made at nine last night. The report was filed at midnight.’

  ‘True, true. But I notice his request was also complied with before midnight. Now can you tell me why that was?’

  ‘I felt the request for guidance, or possible guidance as to a line of enquiry only, came within the scope of normal interdepartmental co-operation,’ replied Lloyd.

  ‘Did you now? Did you now?’ Sir Jasper had dropped the pose of mild enquiry and some of his pique was coming through. ‘But not apparently within the scope of interdepartmental co-operation between your service and the France Desk, mmm?’

  ‘You have my report in your hand, Sir Jasper.’

  ‘A bit late, sir. A bit late.’

  Lloyd decided to riposte. He was aware that if he had committed any error in consulting higher authority before helping Thomas, it was his own chief he should have consulted, not Sir Jasper Quigley. And the head of the SIS was beloved by his staff and disliked by the mandarins of the FO for his refusal to allow anyone other than himself rebuke his subordinates.

  ‘Too late for what, Sir Jasper?’

  Sir Jasper glanced up sharply. He was not going to fall into the trap of admitting it was too late to prevent the co-operation with Thomas’ request from being fulfilled.

  ‘You realise of course that a British citizen’s name is concerned here. A man against whom there is not a shred of evidence, let alone proof. Don’t you think it a rather odd procedure to bandy a man’s name and, in view of the nature of the request, reputation about in this manner?’

  ‘I hardly think divulging a man’s name to a superintendent of the Special Branch simply as a possible line of enquiry can be described as bandying it about, Sir Jasper.’

  The diplomat found his lips were pressed hard together as he sought to control his rage. Impertinent pup, but astute too. Needed watching very carefully. He took a grip on himself.

  ‘I see, Lloyd. I see. In view of your evident desire to assist the Special Branch, a most laudable desire, of course, do you think it too much to expect you to consult a little before throwing yourself into the breach?’

  ‘Are you asking, Sir Jasper, why you were not consulted?’

  Sir Jasper saw red.

  ‘Yes, sir, I am, sir. That is exactly what I am asking?’

  ‘Sir Jasper, with the greatest deference to your seniority, I feel I must draw your attention to the fact that I am on the staff of the Service. If you disagree with my course of conduct of last night I think it would be more seemly if your complaint went to my own superior officer rather than to me directly.’

  Seemly? Seemly? Was this young upstart trying to tell a Head of France what was and was not seemly?

  ‘And it shall, sir,’ snapped Sir Jasper, ‘and it shall. In the strongest terms.’

  Without asking for permission, Lloyd turned and left the office. He had few doubts that he was in for a roasting from the Old Man, and all he could say in mitigation was that Bryn Thomas’s request had seemed urgent, with time possibly a pressing matter. If the Old Man decided that the proper channels should have been gone through, then he, Lloyd, would have to take the rap. But at least he would take it from the OM and not from Quigley. Oh, damn Thomas.

  However, Sir Jasper Quigley was very much in two minds whether to complain or not. Technically he was right, the information about Calthrop, although completely buried in long discarded files, should have been cleared with higher authority, but not necessarily with himself. As Head of France, he was one of the customers of SIS intelligence reporting, not one of the directors of it. He could complain to that cantankerous genius (not his choice of words) who ran the SIS and probably secure a good ticking off for Lloyd, possibly damage the brat’s career. But he might also get a dose of the rough edge of the SIS chief’s tongue for summoning an intelligence officer without asking his permission, and that thought did not amuse. Besides, the head of SIS was reputed to be extremely close to some of the men at the Very Top. Played cards with them at Blades; shot with them in Yorkshire. And the Glorious Twelfth was only a month away. He was still trying to get invited to some of those parties. Better leave it.

  ‘The damage is done now, anyway,’ he mused as he gazed out over Horseguards Parade.

  ‘The damage is done now anyway,’ he remarked to his luncheon guest at his club just after one o’clock. ‘I suppose they’ll go right ahead and co-operate with the French. Hope they don’t work too hard, what?’

  It was a good joke and he enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately he had not fully estimated his lunch guest, who was also close to some of the men at the Very Top.

  Almost simultaneously a personal report from the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police and news of Sir Jasper’s little bon mot reached the Prime Minister’s eyes and ears respectively just before four when he returned to 10 Downing Street after questions in the House.

  At ten past four the phone in Superintendent Thomas’s office rang.

  Thomas had spent the morning and most of the afternoon trying to track down a man about whom he knew nothing but the name. As usual when enquiring into a man of whom it was definitely known that he had been abroad, the Passport Office in Petty France had been the starting point.

  A personal visit there when they opened at nine in the morning had elicited from them photostat copies of application forms for passports from six separate Charles Calthrops. Unfortunately they all had middle names, and all were different. He had also secured the submitted photographs of each man, on a promise that they would be copied and returned to the Passport Office’s archives.

  One of the passports had been applied for since January 1961, but that did not necessarily mean anything, although it was significant that no records existed of a previous application by that Charles Calthrop before the one Thomas now possessed. If he had been using another name in Dominican Republic, how come the rumours that had later linked him with Trujillo’s killing had mentioned him as Calthrop? Thomas was inclined to downgrade this late applicant for a passport.

  Of the other five, one seemed too old; he was sixty-five by the August of 1963. The remaining four were possibles. It did not matter whether they tallied with Lebel’s description of a tall blond, for Thomas’s job was one of elimination. If all six could be eliminated from suspicion of being the Jackal, so much the better. He could advise Lebel accordingly with a clear conscience.

  Each application form had an address, two in London and two in the provinces. It was not enough simply to ring up, ask for Mr Charles Calthrop and then ask if the man had been in Dominican Republic in 1961. Even if he had been there, he might well deny it now.

  Nor were any of the four top-listed suspects marked down as ‘business man’ in the space for professional status. That too was not conclusive. Lloyd’s report of a bar rumour at the time might call him a business man, but that could well be wrong.

  During the morning the county and borough police, after a telephone request by Thomas, had traced the two provincial Calthrops. One was still at work, expecting to go on holiday with his family at the weekend. He was escorted home in the lunch-break and his passport was examined. It had no entry or exit visas or stamps for Dominican Republic in 1960 or 1961. It had only been used twice, once for Mallorca and once for the Costa Brava. Moreover, enquiries at his place of work had revealed that this particular Charles Calthrop had never left the accounts department of the soup factory where he worked during January 1961, and he had been on the staff for ten years.

  The other outside London was traced to a hotel in Blackpool. Not having his passport on him, he was persuaded to authorise the police of his home town to borrow his house key off the next-door neighbour, go to the top drawer of his desk, and look at the passport. It too bore no Dominican police stamps, and at the man’s place of work it was found he was a typewriter repair mechanic who also had not left his place of work in 1961 except for his summer holidays. His insurance cards and attendance records showed that.


  Of the two Charles Calthrops in London one was discovered to be a greengrocer in Catford who was selling vegetables in his shop when the two quiet-spoken men in suits came to talk to him. As he lived above his own shop he was able to produce his passport within a few minutes. Like the others it gave no indication that the possessor had ever been to Dominican Republic. When asked, the greengrocer convinced the detectives that he did not even know where that island was.

  The fourth and last Calthrop was proving more difficult. The address given in his application form for a passport four years previously was visited and turned out to be a block of flats in Highgate. The estate agents managing the block searched their records and revealed that he had left that address in December 1960. No forwarding address was known.

  But at least Thomas knew his middle name. A search of the telephone directory revealed nothing, but using the authority of Special Branch Thomas learned from the General Post Office that one C. H. Calthrop had an ex-directory number in West London. The initials tallied with the names of the missing Calthrop—Charles Harold. From there Thomas checked with the registration department of the borough in which the telephone number was listed.

  Yes, the voice from the borough hall told him, a Mr Charles Harold Calthrop was indeed the tenant of the flat at that address, and was listed on the electoral roll as a voter of that borough.

  At this point a visit was made to the flat. It was locked and there was no reply to the repeated rings on the bell. Nobody else in the block seemed to know where Mr Calthrop was. When the squad car returned to Scotland Yard, Superintendent Thomas tried a new tack. The Inland Revenue was asked to check their records for the tax returns of one Charles Harold Calthrop, private address given. Particular point of interest—who employed him, and who had been employing him over the past three years?

  It was at this point that the phone rang. Thomas picked it up, identified himself, and listened for a few seconds. His eyebrows lifted.