He saw movement at the door, and a face appeared, eyes scanning the room through the glass. Chubby, white, moustache, lank hair. Not a face he recognised. Hard eyes, though, like flints. Another man crowded behind him, almost a carbon copy, but bigger. Their eyes met.
Caspar’s survival instincts kicked in. He glanced at the clock above the bar. Susman was thirty minutes overdue. Where the hell had time gone? He’d been daydreaming. He sipped his beer like a man with time to kill, but the training he’d gone through was already kicking in, along with all the hints and tricks he’d picked up over the years of operating undercover. You never, never waited longer than ten minutes for a meet, no matter what. When the agreed time plus ten went by, you got out fast and reassessed the situation. Contacts lived for the small cash payments you handed out and the power that trading secret information gave them. If they were late, it was because they weren’t coming. Simple as that.
This wasn’t good. He’d pushed someone too hard, asked one too many questions; touched a nerve at the wrong moment.
It was time to go.
He left his beer on the bar and wandered towards the back, pausing to watch a game of baby-foot in one corner. The two contestants were drunk, spinning the players enthusiastically with no hope of hitting anything. He clapped one of them on the shoulder and shouted encouragement, then stepped casually through the rear door and hurried along a narrow corridor.
As he did so, he heard a volley of voices near the street door, and someone shouted an objection. Then there was the sound of a fist smacking something fleshy.
As he exited the back door into a yard and ran past the entrance to the pissoirs, he was surprised to see Susman standing in the shadows, beckoning to him.
‘Where the hell were you?’ he said, and dragged Susman along with him. The man was overweight and soft- looking, dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers from his job as a waiter at a restaurant frequented by members of several street gangs, where he picked up most of his leads. ‘We’d better move; there’s trouble coming.’
‘I know, I heard,’ said Susman. He pointed off down the street. ‘This way — I don’t fancy getting my face rearranged if they see us together.’
When they were three streets away, Susman stopped in a building site between two apartment blocks and stood with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. ‘This is far enough; I’d better get back there or they’ll know something’s up. I go there most nights, so…’
‘Who are those men?’
‘Nothing. A couple of bully boys.’
‘They didn’t look like nothing.’
‘I know them from way back. I was talking to them earlier and touching them up about a group they run with. They suddenly got really touchy — and I mean paranoid. Something’s in the wind.’
‘Yeah, but what?’ Caspar felt a shiver of excitement. This was what all those wasted hours had been about: the kick of getting some information before anyone else did and building it into something he could feed back down the line.
‘I’m not sure. It’s heavy, that’s all I can tell you.’
‘Heavy. That doesn’t help. Heavy as in… a hit?’
Susman ducked his head, then scrambled for a cigarette, eyeing the street behind them. He lit it and blew out a plume of smoke. ‘I think so.’
‘Think so? Think or know? Come on, there’s money on this.’
‘Yes. It’s a hit.’
‘On the big man?’ He didn’t want to mention the president by name, even out here.
‘Who else? He’s the nation’s favourite bullseye at the moment, isn’t he?’
‘Tell me something I don’t know. Come on, man. I need names.’
‘I don’t have any, honest. Things are getting difficult… people have shut down since the last failures. It’s like… there’s been a run of bad luck and they’re scared it’s contagious.’
Caspar swore quietly. ‘Bad luck. Christ, anyone would think it was a game of boules. You must have a feeling, though, right? Which groups are likely to be up for a try right now?’
‘That’s just it — I don’t know. Not even a hint. Not with the groups. All I can tell you is, it’s not political.’
‘Right. There’s going to be a hit on the big man and it’s not political. It’s all political, for God’s sake!’
Susman took a deep breath and flicked his cigarette into the gutter, clapped his hands together and stuffed them under his arms. ‘No. Not this time.’
‘What?’ The statement had been too definite to ignore. Caspar grabbed Susman’s shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The sort of people I’ve been hearing about… the ones behind the hit: they’re gangsters.’
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
A new day brought a flurry of snow to Poissons, powered by a cutting wind which rattled the trees and curled around the house with a soft whining sound. Rocco went for a short run anyway to get his blood moving and his brain in gear.
He kept going over what Nialls had said on the phone. The idea of an English gang’s involvement in hitting a French bank as a distraction exercise hadn’t been at the forefront of his mind. But that had now taken on a greater significance. Tasker was known by the London police to have experience at robbing banks; he had two drivers with him, one of them expert in high-speed cars; and with the possible inclusion of Patrice Delarue into the mix — also with a history of high-profile bank robberies — it seemed to point inexorably in one direction. And what other possibilities were there? In a largely rural and unpopulated area, anything less simply wouldn’t pull in the police attention that Tasker and his men would be aiming for.
Robbing a bank, however, couldn’t fail to attract maximum attention.
He returned home after fifteen minutes of increasing cold and worked through the mundane routine of cleaning the house, setting a fire round the pump to draw water — even checking the car’s oil level, all activities designed to help pass time. As soon as it hit eight o’clock, he picked up the phone and dialled the number for the War Graves Commission office in Arras. It was early but he had a feeling the superintendent wouldn’t be far away.
A woman answered and identified herself as Jean Blake. The superintendent’s wife.
‘Mrs Blake,’ said Rocco, and introduced himself. ‘My apologies for ringing so early, but I was wondering if your husband was in?’
‘I’m afraid not, Inspector. You just missed him.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes. He’s been invited to the town hall — to a reception.’ Her voice carried a hint of quiet pride, he thought, held carefully in check, and he felt a buzz of energy go through him.
Today. It was today.
‘I see. I just wanted to check his timings and movements.’
‘I can’t help you exactly, although I do know he’s been advised that the… event will take place in private at ten, followed by a reception at the town hall and a signature ceremony for the monument to be given the go-ahead. It’s all very hush-hush, of course.’
‘Of course. I won’t say anything.’ Rocco swore silently. At ten this morning? It meant that any diversion or distraction event would take place earlier… and just in time to attract the maximum amount of attention. He made his apologies and disconnected, then immediately dialled Desmoulins’ home number. The detective was the only one he could trust.
‘There’s going to be a bank robbery,’ he told him, the moment Desmoulins answered. ‘This morning some time before ten. I don’t know where, but somewhere in this region. You’ll only get a call when it’s in progress. The gang will be the same men who trashed the Canard Dore. They’ll probably head back towards the coast immediately afterwards, so as soon as you hear about it, get cars positioned along the main routes to Calais and Boulogne.’
