The Man With No Face Page 22

  Du Maurier cast him a cynic’s glance. ‘Monsieur Bannerman, it never happened.’

  ‘And if I choose to go public?’

  ‘Someone will stop you.’

  ‘But not you?’

  ‘Not me.’

  Bannerman drained his second glass, dropped some coins on the counter and limped back out to the lifts. The whisky had restored some of his strength and numbed a little of his pain.

  Mademoiselle Ricain looked up in surprise as he came into the office.

  ‘Monsieur Bannerman . . .’ She seemed embarrassed. ‘What happened to your face?’

  He just shook his head.

  She said, ‘Your office in Edinburgh has been trying to reach you for nearly two days. And’ – she fumbled among some papers on her desk – ‘a man called Platt. He has phoned several times. As has Mademoiselle Robertson.’

  Bannerman sat down and glanced across at Palin’s empty desk. ‘Where’s Palin?’

  Mademoiselle Ricain blushed. ‘He . . . he’s gone back to Glasgow.’ She hesitated. ‘You really look terrible, Monsieur.’

  ‘Flattery will get you nowhere, Mademoiselle.’

  She blushed again and slipped a sheet of paper into her typewriter.

  Bannerman took an envelope from his pocket. It had been easy. After du Maurier dropped him off he had gone straight to the Post Office at the Place de la Monnaie and presented Gryffe’s card. The girl behind the counter had not given him a second glance, returning after a moment with the envelope he now held in his hand. Perhaps he should have felt more excitement than he did, but Tania still filled his thoughts.

  He tried to detach himself from his emotions. Why should it matter to him? But it did. And then he thought, Let it feed your anger. Let it make you angry so that you want all the more to get the bastards. If he could not channel it into something positive, then his sorrow and his anger would become self-defeating.

  He looked at the stamp and postmark on the envelope. It had come from Switzerland, posted at the beginning of the month. Nearly two weeks ago. He slit it open. There were two sheets of paper clipped together. The top sheet was letter-headed, a firm of chartered accountants in Geneva – Fouquet, Maxim and Schmidt, 50 Rue des Quartiers. It was addressed to M. Robert Gryffe, and the letter was brief and in English.

  ‘Dear Sir, please find enclosed, as requested, a quarterly statement of accounts for Machines Internationale S.A. for the three months ending the immediate past year. Your servants etc.’

  The sheet attached listed purchases, sales and overheads in columns of figures down the right-hand side. They showed a pre-tax profit for the previous three months of five million pounds, with a rolling total for the first six months of nearly fifteen. Further returns were expected.

  Bannerman was stunned. He ran his eyes up and down the figures. Just numbers on a sheet of paper. But now, he knew, he was starting to make real inroads into finding a motive for murder. Sales, purchases and overheads were not itemized, but that would come. Here was a beginning, the first inkling of what it was that Gryffe had been involved in. He was oblivious to Mademoiselle Ricain’s typing, to the late afternoon sunshine slanting across his desk, to the fine film of sweat on his forehead. He reached for the phone and dialled quickly.

  ‘Edinburgh Post.’ It was a good, clear line.

  ‘News desk.’

  *

  When the phone on his desk rang, George Gorman was preparing the schedule to be typed up for the five o’clock conference. He was harassed. It had been one of those afternoons. Five dead in a fire in Glasgow; the Prime Minister’s press conference to be held before his election rally at the Usher Hall; a ScotNat MP claiming a political motive behind a burglary at his home. Important documents on the SNP’s election strategy were missing, he claimed. There were the diary entries for the daily round of press conferences each party insisted on giving in the run-up to polling day. And he had two reporters off sick. But if he were to stop and think about it, this was how Gorman liked it.

  ‘Dave!’ he barked, as a copy boy dropped long, ragged-edged sheets of pink paper on his desk. A young reporter with a thick dark moustache and a broken nose ambled across the newsroom. Gorman held out the pink sheets. ‘Press Association copy on the fire. Better check we’ve got it all.’

  ‘Course we have!’ The reporter grinned and ambled back to his seat.

  Finally Gorman picked up the phone. ‘News desk.’

  ‘George?’

  ‘Neil?’

  ‘Listen, I’m in a hurry . . .’

  ‘Hold it, hold it! Where in the name of the wee man have you been, Neil? Tait’s been looking for you for the last two days. Ever since Slater’s girl went missing.’

  ‘You know about that?’ Bannerman was surprised.

  ‘They told Tait. But he won’t run anything. He’s been going spare, and I’ve been getting the shit end of the stick all day every day. Where have you been?’

  ‘I don’t have time to go into it. I want a number from my contacts book.’

  Gorman interrupted. ‘Fuck sake, Neil, you’ve got to talk to Tait.’

  ‘I’m through talking with Tait, George. I guess he didn’t tell you I’m on notice?’

  Gorman’s mouth fell open ‘You’re joking.’ Then, ‘Yours or his?’

  ‘Probably both. We had a little disagreement in Brussels. But I don’t suppose he would tell you about that either. When I’ve filed this story, George, I’m through.’ Gorman heard him draw breath. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. I need that number. A guy called Hector Lewis. He’s got a small enterprise in Geneva which does company searches, among other things. I need to get in touch with him tonight. The book’s in my desk drawer.’

  Gorman was still in shock. He and Bannerman went back a long way. ‘Hold on.’

  He made his way across the newsroom. In the last week he had missed the familiar sight of the cantankerous Bannerman sitting at his desk, shouting at copy boys and being thoroughly objectionable. It didn’t seem possible that he might not be back. And he wondered when it would be his turn.

  He lifted Bannerman’s contacts book from its drawer and riffled through it as he returned to the news desk. He picked up the phone. ‘Got it.’ He read out the number and then hesitated. ‘What will I tell Tait?’

  ‘Tell him to go fuck himself.’

  ‘Can I quote you?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Good. I’ll enjoy that.’

  As he hung up, the door behind him flew open and Tait stood in the doorway, shirt sleeves rolled up above the elbows, clenched fists on his hips. ‘Any word from that bastard Bannerman yet?’

  *

  Bannerman had begun dialling before Tait had even stepped from his office. He listened to the shrill single rings in his left ear and became aware that Mademoiselle Ricain was still typing at the desk opposite. What was she typing? There were only he and Palin working out of this office. And Palin was gone.

  ‘Vous cherchez?’ The voice crashed into his thoughts.

  ‘Hector Lewis, s’il vous plaît.’

  ‘Moment.’ A line got plugged through the switchboard.

  ‘Lewis.’

  ‘Hector, it’s Neil Bannerman.’

  You could almost hear Lewis running the name through his head in the split second before he responded, ‘Neil! Good to hear from you. How are you?’

  ‘Let’s skip the formalities, Hector. Do you still do company searches?’

  Lewis guffawed heartily. He was a man you could not easily offend. ‘Same old Neil Bannerman. Yes, I still do the occasional search for old customers like yourself. But I’ve been branching out a bit lately. Doing a nice line in PR now.’

  ‘Another martyr to presstitution?’

  ‘Haha, that’s a good one. Must remember that.’

  ‘It’s not exactly orig
inal, Hector.’

  ‘Nothing is nowadays, Neil. Who have you got under the microscope this time?’

  ‘A company called Machines Internationale. I have reason to think it might be registered in Switzerland. Possibly Luxembourg, but probably Switzerland.’

  ‘A pleasure, sir, a pleasure. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything. Director, associated companies if any, capital, line of business. And if you do turn up any related companies I’d like the shit on them too.’

  ‘Something big?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Haha. You’re quite right. Mum’s the word. But it’ll cost you. My time is valuable these days.’

  ‘You mean the time you spend on your backside while you delegate the donkey work to your little army of diggers?’

  ‘Exactly right, Neil. Why keep a dog and bark yourself? Where can I reach you?’

  Bannerman gave him numbers for the office and the apartment in Rue de Commerce.

  ‘What are you doing in Brussels, Neil?’

  ‘Shelling sprouts.’

  ‘That’s good. Haha. Very droll. It wouldn’t be anything to do with those shootings, would it?’

  ‘What was it we agreed, Hector?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Mum’s the word. How soon do you want this stuff?’

  ‘Just as soon as you can get off your fat arse and start digging.’

  ‘Haha. Right, good. Give my love to, eh . . . well, whoever. I’ll be in touch.’

  Bannerman hung up and leaned back in his seat. He would rather have gone to Switzerland himself, but there was no time. And Lewis was good. But he was a vicious bastard. Somewhere behind all that ersatz affability he hid a sack of poison.

  The sharp ring of the phone startled him. He lifted the receiver. ‘Bannerman.’

  ‘Neil, it’s Sally. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. God, I’ve been so worried. You know about Tania?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Where have you been? I thought maybe you’d gone back to Scotland. They phoned me the morning after she went missing. I tried to get you at the Rue de Commerce, but there was no reply. You haven’t heard anything, have you?’

  ‘No.’ There was a silence on the line that seemed longer than it was.

  Then Sally said, ‘Can we meet?’

  Bannerman wiped the perspiration from his forehead. ‘I’m tired, Sally. Maybe tomorrow.’ There was another silence and he heard the phone go dead. He hung up and leaned forward on his elbows, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. The typing stopped and he looked up to find Mademoiselle Ricain watching him. He stared back, almost without seeing her. Suddenly he said, ‘Would you do me a favour, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘It’s all right, I just want you to phone Richard Platt at Belgique Soir and tell him I’ll be in touch tomorrow. I’m going home now. When you’ve done you might as well knock off too.’ She nodded, expecting Bannerman to go. But he sat on, still looking at her. She grew more self-conscious and dithered before reaching for the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at length. ‘About Palin. I embarrassed you.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ she said, not sure about how to respond. ‘He . . . he probably deserved it. He wasn’t a very nice man.’

  ‘No.’ Bannerman stood up and crossed to her desk. ‘What are you typing?’

  She blushed. ‘Nothing. That is . . . nothing important.’ Bannerman leaned over and pulled the sheet of paper from the typewriter. The typing was neat and accurate. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog. About thirty lines of it. Bannerman smiled and laid it on her desk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The muffled ring of the telephone reached Tania on the landing. It seeped through her drowsiness like light on a foggy night. She was only vaguely aware of it, although it was not until it stopped that she awoke fully to the gnawing ache in her belly and the cold that gripped her like a vice in the dark.

  Another night. Was it the second or the third? She was losing track of time.

  She looked up at the skylight and saw stars in the blackness of the sky. She thought she heard Death on the stairs, saw its dark shadow lengthening on the steps. But there was no longer fear in her. It didn’t matter any more. She would have welcomed it. Escape, finally, from the prison of her mind.

  She was not certain how she had got here. Her memory of the face caught in the light below her window was fading. Her flight from the house into the deserted road, the snow that fell through the street lights, the empty bus terminus. The fingers of her memory had numbed and were no longer able to hold such things in their grasp.

  Suddenly the landing lamp blinded her. And the shock of it brought back the horror of that moment on the bus when she could not pay, when the conductor had begun to shout and she could not say what it was she wanted to say. The memory came like the sudden flare of a struck match and died as quickly, leaving only a slow flame to flicker hopelessly and make little impression in the vastness of her misery. That first night, though, remained vivid in her recollection. The brick bin shelter, the cold, the smell of decay, the sound of rats scurrying unseen.

  She closed her eyes against the glare of the light and heard slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps this, at last, was Death.

  *

  Bannerman had asked the driver to slow down as they drove past the house in the Rue de Pavie where Gryffe and Slater had been murdered. It lay in darkness, empty and neglected, like the street itself. At the far end he got out and went into a general store on the corner. An old man sold him a loaf, some cheese and two litres of red wine. As an afterthought he also bought a carton of milk. The old man gave him a brown paper bag to carry his purchases back to the taxi, which whisked him off through the snowbound city as the stars came out hard and clear overhead.

  In the Rue de Commerce, Slater’s car stood by the kerb where he had left it. Three inches of snow lay on the roof, its coat of frost glistening in the lamplight. He climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and watched it slither cautiously away down the street. The weight of his fatigue and the burden of his pain were enormous. How could he even think about things or put them in their proper perspective until he’d had some sleep? He would have a hot bath, and then something to eat, washed down with wine. And more wine. And more. Until both his mind and body were numb. Then he would sleep for ever.

  Each flight of stairs, each landing, was depressingly familiar. He had never wanted to be here in the first place. And it was a long climb for weary limbs.

  He almost didn’t see her huddled in the corner opposite to the door. It was only the slightest sound that made him turn as he was slipping the key in the lock. Her eyes were open and staring up at him. There was no hint of recognition, nothing. He opened the door and slid his bag inside and crossed the landing to crouch beside her. The face was drained of colour, dark eyes ringed and sunk deep in her head. He lifted one of her limp hands and was shocked by its coldness. ‘My God!’ The words came in a breath like mist in the lamplight.

  Very carefully he lifted her in his arms and carried her across the landing and into the house. He kicked the door shut and staggered through the half-light in the hall and into the living room. He laid her gently on the settee and lit the fire before switching on a small table lamp and drawing the curtains. Her breathing seemed shallow. He sat on the settee beside her and unbuttoned her coat. All the time her eyes never left him. He took each of her hands in turn and rubbed them briskly between his.

  ‘I’ll get a doctor,’ he said. But in her first response since he had found her, her hand clutched at his sleeve and she shook her head. ‘You need a doctor,’ he said firmly. She shook her head again and he saw that look in her eyes that he had seen before.

  He sighed and thought about it.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ Again she shook her head. ‘All r
ight, I’ll give you some hot milk to start with. Will that be okay?’ This time she nodded and he thought he saw a tiny smile on her lips.

  He was anxious and confused and again stricken by the uncertainty that this child produced in him. He knew he should get a doctor, but understood that she would not have it. At least not right away. He pushed the coffee table aside and dragged the settee nearer the fire. ‘I’ll heat your milk.’

  In the hall he gathered the bag where he had dropped it by the door, and took it into the kitchen. He found a saucepan in a cupboard, poured some milk from the carton and placed the pan on a high gas. Perhaps she should have a hot bath. The worst was not knowing the right thing to do. When it was just you, you didn’t care too much. You mistreated yourself. You did all the wrong things. You drank, you ignored your doctor’s orders. But when it came to someone else, you felt a responsibility that you never felt for yourself.

  He found the switch for the water heater on the wall by the kitchen door and turned it on. Then he remembered the suitcases in Slater’s bedroom. She should change into fresh, warm clothes. Her coat and dress had been cold and damp to the touch. He found her suitcase and delved inside it. There was a heavy woollen dressing gown and a pair of pyjamas. He found a small pair of slippers and took out a pair of socks.

  *

  Tania felt warmth only superficially. It was on her skin, but inside the cold was still there. It dulled her thinking, misted the window through which she looked out on the world. Only a tiny corner of it was clear, and through it she saw Bannerman, smelled him, felt him.

  She’d never really had contact with the world outside herself, been always just an observer. Somehow Bannerman bridged that gap, or at least it seemed to her that he might. That somehow he could provide what she had longed for so much from her father. The love that had never come. Thoughts drifted in her mind like mist. When she reached for them they simply dispersed and she gave up trying. She heard Bannerman in the kitchen and was aware of him going into her father’s bedroom. Presently he returned to the kitchen, then he was there beside her, helping her up into a sitting position.