by Lex Lander
De Charette frowned and looked enquiringly at Le Bihan who in turn stared blankly at Mazé.
‘His wife,’ Mazé repeated. ‘Did she also die?’
‘Er … non,’ Le Bihan said. ‘Why?’
Mazé did not answer, but a slow grin evolved on his face. ‘You may return to your duties, Agent 411,’ he said to Lucille, who promptly stood up to attention. ‘Continue your excellent work. We have a name, we know the place. We now need to know the date and the precise method. We also need the name or names of the people behind the plot. To guarantee to foil it we must have this intelligence. Compris?’
‘Monsieur. But could we not …’ Lucille faltered. She would not dare to speak too much out of turn in such exalted company. ‘Perhaps we should cancel the President’s vacation or at least change the venue.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Debre said. ‘If we do that we will be completely in the dark as to their intentions. This way we can at least give the President the best possible protection throughout his stay at the Crillon residence.’ He glanced over at de Charette who was tapping his wristwatch as if this would somehow slow it down. He had an appointment over at the Defence Ministry and he was already late.
De Charette nodded. ‘I agree.’ Anything to bring this meeting to a close.
‘So be on your way, my dear,’ the Interior Minister said, in that patronising tone he always used on women.
Lucille kept her umbrage off her face, saluted, and wheeled about.
‘Attractive girl,’ the Foreign Minister remarked, when she was gone. ‘I can see why the Commissaire is prepared to roll over on his back and let her tickle his tummy.’
* * *
It was set to be another grey, windy May day in Wellington. From the second floor office at the embassy, Jacques Le Blanc, French Ambassador to New Zealand, watched the incoming ferry from South Island battle through white horses just outside the harbour. He didn’t envy those who plied the strait between the North and South Islands, one of the roughest stretches of water in the world.
A rap at his door turned his head towards it.
‘Entrez,’ he called.
A man by the name of Maurice Incardona entered. Short of stature, receding black hair, with bright beady eyes that always made Le Blanc think of a rat, he was not officially a member of the Embassy staff. That he was a nifty dresser merely intensified the Ambassador’s dislike. He had no time for fops.
‘You wanted to see me, sir.’
The Ambassador gestured to the easy chair before his low modern desk, on which reposed the contents of last night’s diplomatic bag.
‘Make yourself comfortable, Incardona,’ he said and resumed his own seat behind the desk.
Incardona purported to be a clerk in the tourism section. In reality he was an attaché to the Embassy from the Ministry of Defence, whose brief consisted chiefly of spying on Greenpeace and other pressure groups likely to interfere with French policy, nuclear or otherwise.
‘Have you had any success tracing this new green faction?’ the Ambassador asked, not that he cared overmuch. In fact he wished the whole issue of the Greens and France’s nuclear tests would go away and leave him to run the embassy without interference.
‘Not much. You have seen my latest report?’ A nod from the Ambassador. ‘It is a case of see, hear, and speak no evil. If anyone knows, they aren’t talking.’
‘What about this report you sent to Paris a few weeks ago, about the source of the finance for these people?’ The Ambassador waved five stapled sheets at Incardona. ‘This Edward Nixon. Third richest man in New Zealand, it says here.’
‘Gossip,’ Incardona said with a shrug of his slight shoulders. ‘It couldn’t be verified. And anyway, he died just after I wrote that report, so that’s a dead end.’ He tittered. ‘Excuse the pun, M. l’Ambassadeur.’
‘Not quite a dead end. Or at any rate, Paris doesn’t think so. The Minister wants you to contact his wife, Soon-Li Nixon.’
‘A Chink. I’ve seen a picture of her. She looks about eighteen. Juicy.’ Incardona pretended not to notice the Ambassador’s moue of censure. ‘So they want me to chat her up, do they? Well, it won’t be a hardship.’
The Ambassador handed a sealed envelope to the intelligence agent. The covering note, addressed to him and signed by de Charette, had merely provided an outline. Though out of curiosity he would have loved to see the contents of the envelope, it was best to stay ignorant of the machinations of Ministers and their minions.
* * *
The cassette arrived in a padded bag within a bag as always, the inner one marked EYES ONLY – COMMANDANT DE POLICE MAZE / CRS.
The plastic container bore the label No 14 and a date, 05.05.96. Mazé fed it into the mouth of the recording machine on the shelf behind his desk and sat back to listen while running a battery-driven shaver over his stubble. He had developed the habit of shaving at the office ever since the traffic got so bad as to require him to leave home ever-earlier in the morning.
‘Agent 411,’ Lucille’s voice announced. ‘Recording of conversation on 5th May 1996’.
Mazé’s face remained immobile if not his emotions. Lucille’s endearments carried a new intensity that caused him mild surprise. She was quite the actress. Hidden talents to go with the more obvious ones.
The actual lovemaking did nothing to arouse him beyond a fleeting envy. It was the psychology of interaction between people that fascinated him professionally, not the physiology. Vicarious sexual gratification was not for him.
The cassette ran for two hours. Occasionally he made a note. Much of it was unusable mush. Great material for a cheap erotic novel. Maybe that was the source of her inspiration.
The tape came to a conclusion in mid-sentence - ‘Je t’aime, mon amour … oh, je …’ God, what corn. That line was lifted verbatim from the hit record by Gainsbourg and Birkin, punctuated by her heavy breathing, that caused such an uproar in the 70s.
From a strict intelligence viewpoint it was a dud. She was doing her damnedest to earn Barail’s trust, that much he did concede. But the man was above all a pro. Under the influence of sex and alcohol he had dropped his guard enough to confirm that, in cahoots with Rafael Simonelli, he was probably implicated in a plot to assassinate the President. He had also let slip that the attempt would be carried out at the Crillon place, and that an American female and a New Zealand male were co-ordinating the show, if they were not actually the principals. The Jackal had been identified, though the name - Dennis Hull - was probably a phoney. No criminal record existed of him in Western Europe or North America.
The date, the time, the method, and the names of the co-ordinators were blanks waiting to be filled in. One thing was certain; the assassin wouldn’t be firing blanks.
* * *
The monument was not ostentatious. About four feet in height; grey and black marble, gilt lettering, the simplest of epitaphs.
HERE LIES EDWARD NOBLE NIXON.
1927-1996.
Noble not only by name.
A fresh spray of flowers already occupied the solitary pot. Sheryl bent and laid her bright bouquet on the tombstone. She remained there for a minute or so on one knee, not praying exactly, for she was not devout, just remembering, just trying to convey to his spirit that the cause he championed lived on and would continue to live on. That she would remain true to it, however rocky the road ahead. She was the trustee-in-chief of his cause. The custodian of a good half of his fortune, no matter how much Soon-Li, not content with her hundred and twenty million legacy, might remonstrate with her lawyers.
‘Rest easy, Eddie,’ Sheryl said aloud. Her knee cracked as she straightened up, a reminder of the arthritic tendency in her family genes.
The sun went in and a typical Auckland shower abruptly started, as from a hose in the sky. She had come prepared and put up her umbrella. The transition from a Northern Hemisphere spring to an Antipodean autumn had been barely noticeable, and she was wearing the same summer-weight suit with short sleeves
she wore in London only a few days before.
She stood looking down at the grave for quite a while.
Even when, around mid-day, she eventually walked away, her steps slow and deliberate, her head bent, she remained unaware of the dapper little man on the wooden bench by the entrance to the Purewa cemetery, taking snaps through the zoom lens of a dinky camera. Even if she had noticed him she would have had no way of telling from his appearance that he was a member of the staff of the French Embassy whose sole purpose was to monitor and report on the doings of Greenpeace and its contemporaries.
Twenty-Two
* * *
Her ears still on fire from Mazé’s latest harangue, Lucille snapped the flap of her cellphone shut and slid it in her shoulder bag. Cassettes nos. 15 and 16 had been as uninformative as no. 14, the one that had sparked his previous remonstration, and now the conard was threatening to pull her off the case with all its negative implications for her future advancement within the service.
Fuming, she took out her compact and opened it, peering critically at the circle of her face by the meagre interior light of the taxi. Her make-up was overdone in keeping with the norms of her supposed trade - black eyeliner, lurid turquoise eye shadow, lips drawn beyond those endowed by nature. A generous dab of foundation on each cheek and she was ready for him.
This was to be their first rendezvous outside the hotel. Barail, sensitive to gossip, had always deemed it ‘inappropriate’ until now. The unexpected and unexplained change of heart troubled her somewhat, though she had kept her reservations to herself. Already familiar with Barail’s penchant for perversion, she suspected that he meant to introduce more elaborate and less portable sex aids into their intercourse. She could only hope that they did not involve pain. Pain was not a source of pleasure for her.
The taxi deposited her at the corner of Rue Médéric and Rue Barye, just across from the Lycée Technique. It was a fine mild night, not quite dark. This part of the city lay under a respectful hush, is if in deference to its high class residentia. Apart from the occasional car the streets were bereft of activity. The steel tips of her heels clacked on the paving slabs as she proceeded past the apartment block towards its high portal. Dress discreetly, had been his injunction, ‘like a secretary’.
So she was attired in a chic business suit with a knee-length skirt, her hair drawn back in a schoolmarmish pleat. Underneath these trapping it was of course another story: the skimpiest of G-strings in black silk, matching half-cup bra that barely covered her nipples, and black self-support stockings. His tastes in women’s underwear were wholly consistent and wholly typical.
The male concierge at number 1 watched from his cubicle as she passed under the archway but issued no challenge. The two-hundred franc note reposing in his wallet, courtesy of ‘le Commissaire,’ had purchased his blind eye for the evening. Though as the Commissaire’s visitor entered the side door into the vestibule, he couldn’t resist an envious smirk.
Barail answered Lucille’s buzz at the door even before she removed her thumb from the button. He had no wish to keep her lingering in the corridor where his mealy-mouthed neighbours might catch sight of her and draw the obvious conclusions.
‘Come in, come in,’ he urged and expedited the process by dragging her through the doorway. She cannoned into him.
‘What a caveman!’ she gasped and attached her lips to his. He kicked the door shut with his foot, leaving his hands free to grope and grasp.
Inside five minutes they were under the duvet of the vast four poster bed. Five minutes more and already they had had sex. Unlike many men Barail had not promptly turned over to go to sleep. A cigarette as usual and he would be ready for more. His libido was voracious and, herself naturally highly-sexed, she encouraged him to exercise it to the limit while she pumped him for new scraps of intelligence. It was even quite fun.
An hour later, with her wrists and ankles chained to each post, the tatters of her underwear scattered about the room, the fun was beginning to pall and she felt the first tremor of unease.
Barail was straddling her thighs, smoking; now and again touching the lighted end of his cigarette to her pubic hairs. They burned with a little fizzing noise and an acrid stink. It could have been no more than a harmless fetish. It didn’t hurt in the slightest. Not yet. But unless she came up with satisfactory answers it was going to. He had told her so and she had no reason to doubt him.
In trying to do her job she had gone a question too far, a probe too deep. When he turned on her, half-angry, half-suspicious, she was unprepared. She became flustered. Her stammerings made matters worse. That she was already chained to the bed had weakened her ability to answer back, to fake indignation. Now she was faced with the prospect of pain, perhaps even serious pain, if she failed to allay his suspicions.
‘You are so interested in my plans for the President, my angel,’ he said, his eyes caressing her nakedness. ‘It begins to trouble me, to make me wonder if your questions are motivated by something more than your natural nosiness.’
‘But I love you, chérie,’ she protested, willing her heartbeat to slow down. ‘I want to share everything with you. You know this is true. How often have I already asked you to leave your wife?’ Lucille managed to form her lips into a prize-winning pout.
For once, it made no impression on Barail.
* * *
Lucille’s skirt lay crumpled on the floor. The tiny microphone sewn inside the waistband transmitted every spoken word, every movement, to the recording device in a cramped third floor office in the 15e Arrondissement, where two plainclothes DCPJ men huddled, their heads shrouded in cigarette smoke. Their expressions were without emotion, their eyes cold as those of dead fish. Even when sounds of distress travelled along the wire they did not visibly react. Nor even when the groans graduated to screams. It was left to them to judge whether intervention was necessary. According to their instruction from Mazé it should only be in the case of a matter of life and death.
* * *
Mazé had granted her a few days’ ‘rest and recuperation’ for the hurts she had suffered at Barail’s hands. Not that they amounted to much: a couple of bruises the size of ten franc coins on the inside of her thighs, nipples that bore indentations from his fingernails, and a really sore anus where he had buggered her with a lighted cigarette. That, admittedly, had been nasty. Sitting was no longer a pleasure.
Her subterfuge as the Barail’s paramour had run its course, so there was no prospect of her extracting more secrets, always supposing he still trusted her enough to confide any. She had got off lightly, the torture session having been more of a game to him than a serious attempt to make her confess. Afterwards, she had readily consented to a new assignation, making light of his sadistic treatment, even pretending to have derived a sexual buzz from it. It was a tryst she would simply fail to keep. She would disappear from the streets, and the powers-that-be would make sure the traitorous Commissaire never came anywhere near her place of work.
Later, she would pack a bag and board the TGV to journey south to Nice in search of a little healing in the sun.
* * *
Lux’s appointment with Simonelli was for five o’clock in the afternoon. The Corsican was to come equipped with the phoney Canadian passport, the phoney Renseignements Généraux ID, a technical drawing of the Aérospatiale Ecureuil helicopter, and a certified copy of a Letter of Credit for forty per cent of his fee - though the last mentioned was mere formality, as the money had been accumulating interest in his Swiss account for the past fortnight.
The designated meeting place was the Remparts Café in St Tropez, the only drinking establishment from which both the Citadel and the sea are visible. Lux was there ahead of Simonelli and perched on the crumbling stone wall of the terrace bar in the hot sun, watching the underdressed girls go by.
Most of the sitters at table looked like holidaymakers, with their beach paraphernalia and sun hats. The Remparts was not the sort of haunt locals would frequent. Bri
gitte Bardot in particular, as the most celebrated local, didn’t come and take coffee and garner the inevitable adulation, or even pass by with one or more of her family of dogs in tow, though it was less than a kilometre from her St Trop residence.
Simonelli arrived by chauffeured Citroën XM. It deposited him by the entrance, a flowered archway, and went off in a fusillade of gravel.
His smile when he saw Lux was wide and white and radiated pleasure for all the world to see. His suit was white too and his buckskin shoes, and as if in empathy his pallor was more deathly that ever.
‘An unusual place to rendezvous,’ he observed
‘Not to me. Lonely spots on lonely roads are not only more obvious, they are also less secure.’
Simonelli made a face. ‘I’m not devious enough for this business,’ he lied blithely. ‘All I want is ...’ On the brink of committing an indiscretion, he checked, smiled abruptly.
‘We all want something,’ Lux said, gazing out towards a sea that was as flat as a pane of glass. ‘Money, sex, power.’
‘Freedom,’ Simonelli put in.
‘Yeah ... freedom. One man’s freedom, another man’s life.’ The taste in Lux’s mouth was sour.
‘Everything has a price. Console your conscience with the ten million good American dollars that will make your freedom that little bit more free.’
Lux twitched his lip in a sneer. ‘I don’t need your money. I’ll take it, since it’s being stuffed inside my wallet, but I can get by without it. No trouble at all.’ He slid off his perch. ‘Enough chewing the fat. You can buy me a drink and cross my palm with documentation.’
The key on the table between Lux’s glass of Vermouth and Simonelli’s Ricard had a plastic tag numbered 333. The other side bore the letters SNCF moulded-in.
‘You know where the station is?’ Simonelli asked.
‘There is no station in St Tropez,’ Lux said, suspicious. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘No joke - the station is at Fréjus. You will find everything you requested there.’
