Chapter 17
Three Stories
"I need you to do something you won't like," said Idris, "and I need you not to ask why."
It was nearly ten at night in the room with the whiteboard. The building was quiet, the cleaners gone. Tess Marchand looked up from her screen. A small cold wind seemed to pass over her.
"Is it about the building?"
"I'm accusing no one. I'm asking for three days of your trust. Something has been leaving this office. Not documents, but the shape of what we know, before it's written down. A man in Prague knew where we'd look. A man in Cardiff knew who we'd see." He took out a pen. "I'm going to tell three people three different lies, each small and plausible. On Sunday I'll watch to see which comes true."
"A canary trap," said Tess. "It's in spy novels. It's what you did to the last accountant in the Kovač case. You never told me. I worked it out."
For the first time in eleven days, he smiled.
On Thursday he made three calls, in the same low, bored voice of a man passing on small routine.
To Inspector Quintela in Lisbon: I have a witness who'll talk. Sunday at four, on a bench by the lake in Roath Park.
To a young Swiss liaison officer in Bern: A meeting with a source, Sunday at four, in a café on Penarth pier.
And at a quarter to ten, from his own office, he rang a flat above the Rhône. "Marcus. I'm sorry it's late. I wanted you to be the first to hear. Our friend in Cardiff has agreed to see me. Sunday at four, in a public house in Llanrumney, the Plough. I'll go alone. It's delicate."
"Of course, my dear boy. Do be careful." The big voice was warm and full of concern. "I'll be thinking of you."
He sat a long time in the circle of lamplight, feeling three small lies go out from him like threads. Please, he thought, to nobody. Let it be someone else.
On Sunday it rained. By half past three the Plough, a brown pebble-dashed pub with a sign saying KARAOKE SUNDAY, had its lights on. Idris sat in the back of a hired car at the far end of the car park, binoculars on his knee, Tess in front.
"I think I'd like them not to come," she said.
"Yes."
At ten to four, a grey Peugeot turned in. He had known it would. He had known since Tuesday, since a night at a window when he tried to remember the sound of a pen. But it wasn't like knowing. It was like a floor going.
Two well-dressed men in dark raincoats got out and went in. A dark saloon parked across the road. Tess had gone white. "That's Marcus's one. The Plough. I thought you'd told me to give Marcus Penarth."
"I told you to give Marcus nothing. I gave it to him myself. I had to be sure you weren't the leak, Tess. I'm very sorry. I'm not sorry I did it. But I'm so sorry."
She pressed her wrist to her eyes, once, hard. "What do we do?"
"We go in the front, say good afternoon, and watch Strake's face."
Gideon Strake sat in the corner with a half of lager under a television showing the racing from Cheltenham.
"Inspector Kamara. A pleasant surprise. Miss Marchand, I've heard so much about you." He did not rise. "I'd say I was surprised, but I rather hoped you'd come. I was told you were meeting a man. I'm afraid he hasn't turned up."
"Who told you?"
"I'm not going to say. I think you know I can't. I've the greatest respect for you, and I think you've been very badly served. There are people who go through life believing the nearest man is the safest. I've never known it to be true."
Beside Idris, Tess made a small sound.
"Where is Rhiannon Lewis?"
"I'm afraid I don't know a Rhiannon Lewis."
"You were at her house."
"Of course. A charming house." A mild eyebrow lifted. "But you ask where she is. I wonder why."
The question went through Idris like a cold wire.
"Because there was supposed to be a police car outside it since Tuesday. Arranged by the Deputy Director at my request. I rang Cardiff this morning. There was no request on file. Nobody had asked."
"How odd," said Strake. And what was in his face wasn't triumph. It was something much worse. It was sympathy. "I'm so sorry. It's the great drawback of this profession. One never knows who's been kind to whom."
It took eleven minutes to reach the house in Roath. Tess drove like a woman in a dream, through rain that turned the lamps to blurs.
The terrace was dark. A tabby cat sat on the wall, rain on its fur. The front door was ajar.
It wasn't violent. That was what he remembered afterward. There was no broken glass. The hall lamp was on. A cup of tea sat half-drunk on the arm of a chair beside a stack of folded nurse's tunics. The tartan biscuit tin lay open on the table, the cards inside, the lid set beside it so as not to scratch the wood.
On the mat lay a thin envelope addressed to Mrs. R. Lewis. It had been opened and the flap tucked back. He cupped the card inside and breathed.
Happy birthday, Rhi. I'm well.
"What's today's date?" asked Tess from the doorway.
"The second of March. It's her birthday."
He found he couldn't stand. He sat on the bottom stair with his forehead against the cold newel post.
"They didn't have to hurt her," said Tess hoarsely. "She'd have gone with them if they said they were police. If they said it was you."
"I told her to trust them. I wrote my number on her hand."
In the crease of his notebook, soft with handling, lay a scrap of paper in a girl's round blue hand: a long string of digits with a foreign prefix. I don't know why I'm giving it to you.
"Tess. Go back to the car and ring Dr. Roth, the Federal Prosecutor in Bern. Tell her I want a meeting and I'll explain on arrival. She is not to tell anyone, including Lyon. And forget that you saw what I do now."
"What are you going to do?"
"Ring a man," said Idris, "who I'm very much afraid is the only person in Europe I can trust."
He looked at the number. Then he dialled it.