She asked for a cigarette. He climbed from the bed and found her bag and opened it. He took out the Benson & Hedges and lit two. He took them back to the bed and climbed in. Her left hand moved and found a resting place between his thighs.
She had come to him. He’d had dinner with Hijaz after a thorough search and check of all entrances and exits, and locks and bolts and burglar alarms in or around the huge third floor Almadi suite. Regan had concluded that the Wellington Clinic killer was not going to get at Almadi that night by any means, from highly subtle burglary to just walking in. Hijaz had suggested they eat in the hotel dining room. Regan had agreed. It had turned out an excellent meal and had ended at eleven p.m. with Regan pleased and pissed. At eleven-thirty he was collapsed on his bed in his suite reading yesterday’s copy of ‘The Times’ nicked from the unattended kiosk below, when the knock came on his door. He’d opened it. She’d said, ‘The old man fell asleep. I got away.’ She’d said nothing else, from taking off her clothes to getting into bed and making love to him.
Some light filtered in under the door from the hallway. Regan watched her face on his pillow. She smoked a cigarette like a cigar – the occasional puff, not inhaling much. She seemed content, other-worldly after the intense energy of her love-making. There was still a tear of moisture on her forehead and under her eyes.
‘Where d’you come from? England?’ he asked.
‘Questions?’
‘I want to know you.’
‘Biography? How much?’
‘All.’
She told him about her parents, father a colonel in the army, mother an inspired amateur gardener, couple of brothers, older, not up to much. A love life that started at fourteen. A fiance of two years who died in a car crash. Nothing had happened to her – a few cuts and bruises. She became a model, then small parts in movies, then one larger part in a porn movie. Then nothing. Then a high class escort agency got in touch, and it was very selective, and the guys who took her out took her to good places, and if when they grabbed her at the end of an evening and she didn’t want to know, then the agency didn’t mind if it lost a customer with a flea in his ear. The agency had made the first contract with Almadi two years ago, when the sheikh had visited London. After that the sheikh’s social secretary contacted her direct. Four or five times a year she’d fly from London to Brussels, or Rome, or wherever he was doing business. He’d made love to her once. She said the effort was pretty practised. But basically he saved screwing for his wives. The rest of the time he just liked pretty naked girls around. He had given her magnificent presents and money. She liked him but she had witnessed his anger with male associates. She reckoned he was a hard man to do business with.
She talked and Regan listened and smoked. When she finished he said, ‘Look, there’s a chance, remote but possible, that someone’s going to try and kill Almadi here. Do something for me. If you go out with him, don’t walk near or next to him. Try not to drive in a car with him, don’t stay in his bed overnight. We know the work of this assassin, he works close up with an M38 and he sprays a full clip. Anyone near the victim is likely to catch some of it.’
Her expression showed she wasn’t taking him too seriously. ‘I’ll survive,’ she said.
‘Napoleon, Wellington, Christ in Jerusalem, they all said that. Take me seriously. Watch out for yourself.’
She gave him a bent grin. ‘I didn’t know you cared.’
He slowly pushed her back on the bed. ‘I’ll show you the full extent....’
‘The British are changing. I’m a legitimate commentator. I’m fond of your island. I’ve visited your country each year for the last twenty. It’s changed.’ Sheikh Almadi’s steel-blue eyes flickered over Regan’s face, maybe searching for a line of weakness, but hesitant, as if not finding one. ‘Years ago, after the war, you were victors living in pauperdom.
But princes no less. Now sixty million of you, all lacking confidence, all looking everywhere on the landscape and in your institutions for something to be proud of, finding nothing. A nation that loses its pride, loses its confidence, loses the race. I’m sorry for England.’ The Sheikh’s eyes had now settled on Regan’s.
‘England’s received lots of obituary notices in its time. The last one from the Germans, 1940.’
‘The Germans were always mad. The British are not mad. But they are weak. You are supposed to have a democratic system, yet you allow your country to be run by the leaders of the four or five big unions.’
‘Not quite as simple as that.’
The sheikh turned his eyes from Regan to the window, his expression cautious but a little humoured. ‘It is as simple as that. Use a computer or use an abacus. The problem’s the same. The answer’s the same.’
Regan was beginning to get irritated.
‘But we’re here to talk of something else,” the sheikh said gently. ‘My security. And how we find this man who killed Haffasa.’
Regan had entered the Almadi suite at ten a.m. chaperoned by Hijaz and a Bahraini secretary. They had walked from the hall through three reception rooms down a corridor with six bedroom doors off and into a sun room with a massive ebony desk. The normal furniture of the room was wickerwork tables and chaise longues arranged along the west-facing balconies. On the trip through the suite, Regan had seen no girls, and no Jo, whom he’d delivered back to her room at four a.m.
‘There are two ways to handle this. Bring in the French police to surround you with marksmen and bodyguards. The other way is the opposite. To take a risk. To show this man that you aren’t surrounded by bevies of bodyguards – that way we would hope to entice him out into the open,’ Regan said. ‘That’s my idea, but as it’s you on the receiving end, you have to make the very difficult decision, sir.’
‘You appreciate in my country it is normal practice for people like me to wear bullet-proof vests, to be accompanied constantly by bodyguards. But I’ve always been a kind of exception to this, Mr. Regan,’ Almadi said. ‘I’ve always accepted certain risks and taken them. That’s proven by the fact I turned down this man’s ransom demand. I could easily have afforded to pay.’
‘I appreciate that, sir. I’ve thought about it. I think this is the best way – to convince the man you’re a wide-open target. He’s a close-up artist. I promise you, he won’t reach you before I spot him and stop him.’
‘You sound very positive, Inspector,’ Almadi said, and turned to the Bahraini cop. ‘What does Captain Hijaz think of all this?’
Hijaz was nodding. ‘Let the man think the task is easy. He will take fewer precautions. I too expect to be there if he tries to strike.’
Almadi was nodding slowly.
‘What’s your itinerary for today, sir?’ Regan asked.
The sheikh told him. Within the hour the French Foreign Minister would be arriving. He didn’t mention the Minister’s mission. Hijaz had been vague about it at dinner last night. Either the French Government was borrowing Bahrain money or Almadi, representing the Bahrain Government, was buying something, probably armaments, or Mystere jets.
‘The Minister comes for an hour. He does not join me for lunch. At one o’clock I shall have my favourite ‘loup en croute’ at the “Vieux Murs”.’
Hijaz explained where that was. ‘It’s a restaurant on Antibes’ sea wall, the old town, within walking distance.’
‘Would you care to walk there, sir?’ Regan asked Almadi.
The sheikh mused about the possibilities, then decided. ‘Alright, I will walk. The remainder of the afternoon, rest.’
Regan took this to mean girls.
‘Eight tonight, light meal at the hotel. Then to Monte Carlo, I meet friends at the Salons Prives...’
‘Can you eat at the Casino?’ Regan asked.
‘At the club, yes. Or in the Hotel du Paris.’
‘The more public the better.’
‘We can find a pavement table in the restaurant opposite the Paris. My meal is always just one simple dish.’
‘Fine,�
�� Regan said.
‘Arrange that, Captain Hijaz,’ the sheikh instructed the Bahraini cop.
Hijaz nodded.
Regan caught the slight off-handedness in Hijaz’s response. The sheikh was one of the half dozen powerful men of Bahrain, and yet Hijaz was definitely off-handed in dealing with him. Regan made a mental note to investigate that, or simply to find out more about Hijaz and his role with these people.
Almadi was calculating something, studying Regan. ‘Let me get this clear, Inspector. Are you saying every journey I make from this hotel, you will be accompanying me...?’
Regan nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Ah....’ Almadi pursed his lips. ‘Unfortunately, there will be one or two trips to do with quite confidential business between the French Government and myself. You will not be able to accompany my party on those assignments.’
‘Let me make this clear,’ Regan returned. ‘I’m either involved in your security or I’m not. If you don’t agree with that, I see no reason for remaining any longer here.’
Almadi turned and looked at Hijaz for guidance. ‘He accompanies me all the time?’
Hijaz nodded.
It was the look behind the nod that Regan didn’t like. It was hard to interpret it, but somehow easy to perm some of its implications. It was a look that seemed to say, ‘We can’t afford to lose this Yard detective – pay lip service to him. We’ll give him the run-around later.’
It was a cold bright afternoon with the breeze prodding the seagulls out of the water to wheel up and head inland. Some round balls of grey cloud started to queue up low on the horizon, readying for a storm.
The fresh breeze had obviously sharpened Almadi’s appetite, Jo suggested. After lunch, for dessert, the sheikh had retired with the German redhead, Elke. That left Jo off the hook for a few hours. She’d come to Regan’s rooms at two-forty. She’d asked him if he’d had lunch and he said no. She said she would take him to lunch at a little restaurant she knew in Antibes town. He said he would take her. She said she knew she made much more money than he. He argued that a Metropolitan policeman was not supposed to live off immoral earnings. She argued that a Metropolitan policeman was de facto living off immoral earnings. Regan put on his overcoat. She covered herself in a floppy wool coat. They left the hotel surreptitiously but once clear of its acreage held hands as they walked to the port.
Her little restaurant was in the upper square, the awnings flapping, and the Pernod umbrellas swaying on street tables. She ordered a Nicoise and ate most of it with her fingers. He ate little, devoting his attention to how marvellous she looked, and how the walk in the sea breeze had freshened the colour of her cheeks, and somehow in untidying her hair had made it even more beautiful.
She asked him about his life, the last few years, his ex-wife, who she was, his seven-year-old daughter, what was she like. He told her but he didn’t make it sound very profound. His history you could find in any cheap paperback. He had really nothing to say about it, except maybe to talk about the mistakes, because sometimes they were interesting. The marriage had been productive of nil. His daughter didn’t appear to miss him much. Daughter and wife lived with a German bloke, factory manager of a German-owned company in North London. He wished them luck.
‘How d’you find your women, Jack?’
‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t, and he didn’t have real answers for her. He was finding she was the kind of woman who asked those simple questions that he in fact had never worked out.
She was watching him dismantle bits of his ‘croque monsieur’. ‘Would we work in London, Jack?’
‘Work?’ He wondered about the definition.
‘You know.’
He sipped his red wine and filled his eyes with visual images, not mental ones. The awnings flapping in the other two bars in the square, the half dozen housewives bent against the wind, the metal Berliets, hump-backed Deux Cheveux, battered bicycles lining the cobbles, one tasty car, a BMW 2500 – but the atmosphere pre-season, the town was basically still closed up. In a month from now only one person in three in Antibes would be a native. Meanwhile no grass on the earth patch of the square, and no buds on the trees. Vacant. He felt like that. He didn’t know, and yet he did know how to tell her. When both got back to London and met again, it wouldn’t work. Because he was older and wiser, and didn’t make enough bread, and all the excitement went into his job, and what had killed his marriage had done for every other relationship – the job came first always. Because Regan knew it was his sanity – the elements of force and righteousness and violence within him were answered in the rooms and corridors of Scotland Yard, and in the grey streets and the back-alleys of London. He had found in his experience that these were the only elements he could rely on. He had always feared that somehow he was not the whole sum of his parts, but held together by tenuous threads from falling to pieces, falling into a pit of hopelessness, drunkenness and failure. So he’d made his life a job that occupied twenty-four stressed-up hours a day, and left the slim pickings, the detritus of bits of nights, for his women.
‘I like you a great deal, Jo,’ Regan said. ‘Back in London we’ll see.’
They faced the wind and walked back to the hotel along the old sea walls, past the shuttered houses.
He hurried the pace slightly, hoped she wouldn’t notice, worried a little, not for himself, but for her safety. There was no question about the identity of the two men in the grey BMW that had followed them on their walk into Antibes at a discreet distance, parked at the opposite side of the square while Regan and Jo ate, and were now following them back to the hotel. He was positive the car contained the two men who had occupied the white Mercedes that had chased the Jag that had tried to kill him in London.
He directed Jo to the main entrance to the hotel. He entered by the rear door, up the steps into Reception. He used the house phone.
‘Hijaz, I need a car urgently,’ he said into the phone. ‘I’m speaking from the front desk.’
‘What’s happened? Why do you say “urgently”?’
‘No time to explain.’
‘Need any help?’
‘No.’
‘There’s a Mercedes 250 SE, hired for general use. Put me on to the Head Porter. He’ll give you the keys.’
Regan signalled the Head Porter over. He handed him the phone.
Half a minute later he walked down the steps and on to the fresh tarmacadam at the back of the hotel. There was only one small Mercedes in the parking lot. He crossed to it, got in and started it, revved the engine and let it warm for a full two minutes. He anticipated some fast driving and he didn’t want a sluggish engine. He took out the nine millimeter Walther that Hijaz had given him, thumbed and checked the magazine, pushed it home, then placed it on the seat beside him.
He waited patiently until he saw the needle on the engine temperature gauge start to move. He put the car in gear, headed for the wide gates of the hotel, and nosed out into the Boulevard Kennedy. He turned right, taking the direction back to Antibes. He had hardly driven fifty yards when he saw the BMW sitting in a little cul-de-sac formed by a driveway leading to a large villa. He drove on and a few seconds later he looked in his driving mirror and saw the grey shape of the other car occupying it.
The route to Antibes town down the Boulevard du Cap is a series of fast straights and sharp corners. He was fifty yards from the Botanical Gardens at the bottom of the wide-laned Boulevard Leclerc when he pulled the auto lever back manually to one, slammed on the brakes and hurled the car round in a vicious U-turn that nearly had the vehicle over on its roof. The BMW driver’s reactions weren’t as fast. It bulletted past the Mercedes and Regan heard the scream of the other car’s tyres as it slowed down and copied the U-turn.
Regan had achieved his goal. The sudden turn, and the close pass to the BMW had given him a perfect close-up of the two men pursuing him. He would know those guys anywhere if he ever saw them again. Neither of them was the man who had killed Haffasa and joined him in th
e elevator at the Wellington Clinic.
They were now heading back up the peninsula. The shorter of the two men had the gas pedal on the BMW flat on to the floor. It was coming up fast. But in an insane way.
Regan saw the passenger in the BMW manoeuvreing his hand out into slipstream, the glint of sun on the metal of a revolver, a second before the rear window of the Mercedes folded into a thousand particles of glass. The bullet ended up carving a hole into the leather facia next to the cigar lighter. He saw an opening to his left, tapped the steering wheel of the Merc – a little jerk to de-stabilise the rear wheels and induce the start of a drift. The Merc’s rear slewed and spun to broadside the car in protesting screams of tyres, metal and suspension, down the road, using the full width of the road. Regan gunned the engine and the car shot off down the side road.
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