'The rumours report an entirely new organization being built up. Don't like that. Our normal sources have no inside track. She could just be a new type. Better get back. Here it comes…'
The express came slowly inside the vast concourse, stopped, doors were thrown open as impatient passengers alighted. Lasalle had two more men standing further back. His eyes blinked. This girl, carrying one case, smartly dressed, fitted Valmy's description. He glanced towards The Parrot who nodded once and then vanished outside where his motor-cycle was parked.
Lasalle took a newspaper out of his pocket, opened it, crossed to where his other two men stood, engaged them in conversation, pointing to the paper. Attractive, Miss Lara Seagrave; walked erect even though she must be tired. She passed out of the concourse, heading for the taxi rank.
'Rue des Saussaies,' Lasalle snapped. 'Then we wait. For The Parrot's report…'
Gare Centrale. Luxembourg City. The express from Basle, Switzerland, which had travelled via Mulhouse, came to a stop at just about the same time. 11 p.m. Among the passengers who alighted was Louis Chabot, carrying a case which bore a Cook's label. On the label in large printed letters were the words Brussels Midi, circled twice.
Chabot walked slowly along the platform, trailing behind the few other passengers. Without appearing to do so, he glanced everywhere, looking for his contact. Klein was so bloody careful – he didn't even know the contact's name or sex. Still, security like that protected him as well.
'Mr Louis Chabot?'
The odd-shaped figure had appeared from nowhere.
Chabot studied him, kept walking as the hatless man trotted by his side. Small, running to fat, a clean-shaven face the colour of lard. His eyes were blank of expression, his clothes nondescript. A grey two-piece suit, the trousers crumpled, the wide shoulders slumped.
'Yes, I'm Chabot.'
'Our mutual friend, Mr Klein, arranged for me to meet you. Outside I have a car waiting. We go into the country. A peaceful village.. .'
'Strangers are noticed in villages. You have a name?'
They were talking in French, but his escort spoke it with an odd accent. Chabot had already taken a strong dislike to the placid little man. More like a servant. Not what he had expected. A nobody.
'I am Hipper,' the little man said. 'We will be working closely together. We go up in this lift. And no one will know you are at Larochette.'
'Where?'
'The village. Twenty-five kilometres north of Luxembourg City. I am in charge,' Hipper continued in the privacy of the ascending lift. 'You will stay underground until the operation begins…'
'What operation?'
'Only Mr Klein knows that. You are explosives expert?'
'Yes. You're not French.' It was a statement.
'I am Luxembourger.'
God, Chabot thought, how long am I going to be hanging round with this creep? Hipper had a habit of sneaking sidelong glances at the Frenchman and never looked him straight in the eye. Luxembourgers. A hybrid race. A mix of French and German – with all their vices and none of their virtues.
'You are explosives expert,' Hipper repeated as the elevator stopped and just before the doors opened. 'When the timer devices arrive you will have a chance to practise your expertise.'
'Valmy here…'
'Yes?' said Lasalle, leaning back in the swivel chair inside his office at the rue des Saussaies. He frowned at the two officers to stop them chattering.
The subject is occupying a room at The Ritz. Room 614. She registered, went straight to bed. The registration form gives an address of Eaton Square, London…'
'I know all about that. Did she make a phone call after she'd arrived?'
'No,' The Parrot reported. 'I checked. What next?'
'Stay there. If she leaves in the night, follow…'
'The reservation was made for six days. In advance.'
Lasalle leaned forward. 'By her? Do you know?'
'The reservations manager who took the call – it was late in the evening – thinks it was a man. But can't swear to that. He has taken so many calls since.' The Parrot paused. 'I need back-up. There are two exits from the Ritz.'
'I'll send someone. And you'll be relieved by a fresh team before morning…'
Lasalle put down the phone, pursed his thick lips and thought. He looked at the two officers, obviously waiting to go off duty. It was almost midnight.
The Lara girl is at The Ritz,' he said eventually. 'For six days. Reservation booked earlier by a man. Perhaps. The significant thing is she phoned no one before retiring for the night. That suggests she's waiting to meet someone. And at Notre Dame de la Garde in Marseilles a man stood alongside her for several minutes on the terrace. The Parrot couldn't get a picture of him – as he did of her. Had the feeling the man would have spotted him. Interesting, that last bit. Maybe we'll find out who he is when he arrives at The Ritz.'
One of the officers chuckled. 'Sounds like a liaison. A married man having it off with this Lara Seagrave.'
'Since you find it so amusing,' Lasalle informed him, 'you can get your backside over to The Ritz now. Liaise, so to speak, with The Parrot…'
Chabot gritted his teeth, refused to show any fear. Hipper was driving the Volvo station wagon like a madman. Leaving Luxembourg City behind, they turned up a side road into a dense forest. The damned road curved viciously, Hipper was driving at a hundred kilometres an hour, skidding round the bends.
On his side great rock outcrops protruded into the road. Chabot estimated they missed the rocks by millimetres, almost scraping past. It was black as pitch, the undipped headlight beams swung round another hairpin bend, flashing over great limestone crags. They had not, thank God, met another vehicle since leaving the main highway. Chabot was constantly waiting for the sight of headlights coming the other way.
Hipper crouched over the wheel, enfolding it with his shoulders, his pudgy hands clutching the rim near the top. They began to descend, they passed an old stone cottage, falling to pieces. Hipper grunted.
'Larochette…'
Silhouetted against a moon which had appeared, the relics of an ancient castle perched on a hilltop. In the gaunt walls were window spaces, like skeletal eyes. Buildings appeared on either side. No lights. No sign of a human soul. Like a village abandoned by villagers who had fled from a plague.
'We are here. The Hotel de la Montagne.'
An ancient stone structure standing back from the road with a wide drive leading up to the entrance. Chabot frowned. The shutters were closed. Some windows were boarded up and the headlights showed a layer of moss on the drive.
'What is this bloody place?' Chabot demanded.
The Montagne. Closed for renovation. No staff. We look after ourselves. You stay inside during daylight hours. If you must walk you go out after ten at night. Klein's instructions…'
'For how long?'
'Who knows? You will have plenty to occupy you when the timer devices arrive. The most sophisticated in the world.' Hipper drove the Volvo round the side, straight inside a vast shed. When he switched off the engine the only sound Chabot could hear was the oppressive silence of a dead village.
Klein was driving through the night, the autoroute far behind, heading for Grenoble which he planned to pass through before dawn. He would hand back his hired Renault in Annecy. Driving into Switzerland was not a good idea.
At Annecy he would catch a train. Eventually he would cross the Swiss frontier and alight at the small Swiss station of Eaux-Vives in southern Geneva. Security took very little interest in travellers arriving by train. And Eaux- Vives was a backwoods station.
Seeing a lay-by ahead, he checked his rear view mirror again. No traffic in sight. He slowed, swung into the lay-by, stopped. Taking out a notebook, he inserted a piece of cardboard under a sheet and began to write, leaving no impression on the sheet below.
