out, a KLM for Paris, took off about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Van Rees, clutching his millions, relaxing in the first class?’ ‘Yes.’
‘And no grounds for extradition. No charges against him. In fact, no hard evidence against him. That we’ll get the evidence, I don’t doubt. Then I’ll go and get him. When all this is over, I mean.’ ‘Your illegal penchants are well known, Lieutenant.’ ‘Yes, sir. Meantime, I suggest that my penchants, your blackballing and the fact that van Rees is at the present moment probably entering French air space are not quite of primary importance. What does matter is that van Rees — who has by this time passed over to the dyke-breakers all they’ll ever want to know about sluices, weirs and locks so that they won’t even miss him now — was also tied in with the would-be palace bombers. And we are as convinced as can be that the Annecy brothers are in league with the bombers. It was Julie who first expressed the possibility of this idea, how too much of a coincidence can be too much of a coincidence, although I must say — with all due modesty and not with hindsight — that this possibility had occurred to me before.’
‘Your modesty does you credit, Lieutenant.’
‘Thank you, sir. Well, what we’re faced with now is the probability — I would put it as high as certainty — that we are faced not with three different organizations but only with one. That should make things much simpler for us and easier to cope with.’
‘Of course, of course.’ De Graaf gave van Effen the kind of look that stops a long way short of being admiring. ‘How?’ ‘How?’ Van Effen pondered. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Heaven help Amsterdam,’ de Graaf muttered.
‘Sir?’
De Graaf was saved from enlarging on his brief statement by a knock on the door. Valken opened it to admit a tall, lean gentleman with greying hair, rimless glasses and a faintly aristocratic air. De Graaf rose to his feet and greeted him warmly.
‘Hugh, my good friend. So kind of you to come and to come so quickly. At great inconvenience to yourself, I have no doubt.’ ‘Not at all, my dear chief, not at all. The patients of a plastic surgeon do not expire upon the spot if not attended to immediately. With a six-month waiting list one can squeeze in the odd patient here and there.’ De Graaf made the introductions. ‘Professor Johnson. Lieutenant van Effen. Lieutenant Valken.’
‘Ah. Lieutenant van Effen. The Colonel has explained your requirements to me. Rather unusual requirements, I may say, even in our at-times somewhat bizarre profession — we tend to be called upon to remove scars, not inflict them. However.’
He looked at the scar on van Effen’s face, produced a magnifying glass and peered more closely. ‘Not bad, not bad at all. You have quite an artistic bent, my dear fellow. Wouldn’t deceive me — not when you’ve spent all your life studying thousands of different scars of every conceivable variety. But a layman is not a plastic surgeon and I doubt very much whether any layman would question the authenticity of that scar. Let me see the dreadful wound concealed by that glove on your left hand.’ He did some peering. ‘By Jove, even better. You are to be congratulated. Very convenient to have it on your left hand, isn’t it? But a trifle suspicious to the nasty criminal mind, perhaps? You are, of course, right-handed.’
Van Effen smiled. ‘You can tell just by looking at me?’ ‘I can tell that left-handed persons don’t carry barely concealed pistols under their left armpit.’
‘Too late for a transfer now, sir. I’m already identified as being a left-hand-glove wearer.’
‘Yes. Well. I see. Your scars more than pass muster. The trouble, I suppose, is that you suspect that those scars might be subjected to some kind of test, such as with a scrubbing brush or even a hot soapy sponge?’ ‘A hot soapy sponge is all that is needed.’
‘Normally, you understand, the perfect non-removable scar would take some weeks to achieve. I gather, however, that time is not on your side. Ah, Colonel. Is that Van der Hum I see?’
‘It is indeed. ‘The Colonel poured a glass.
‘Thank you. We don’t generally advertise the fact, but members of our profession — well, before an operation, you understand?’ ‘Operation?’ said van Effen.
‘A trifle,’ Johnson said soothingly. He took some brandy, then opened a small metal case to reveal a gleaming array of surgical instruments, most. of them of a very delicate nature. ‘A series of subcutaneous injections with a variety of inert dyes. There will be no weals, no puffiness, I promise you. There will also be no local anaesthetic. Takes better that way.’ He looked very closely at the facial scar. ‘Must have the position, size and colour as before, you understand. Your left hand is unimportant. Nobody, I assume, has seen that scar. I can give you a much more satisfyingly horrific scar than you have now. Now, if I could have some hot water, sponge, soap.’
Twenty-five minutes later and Johnson was through. ‘Not my proudest achievement, but it will serve. At least, no one can puff or scrub those scars off. Have a look, Lieutenant.’
Van Effen went to a mirror, looked, nodded and came back. ‘First class, sir. A dead ringer for the one I had painted on.’
He surveyed his apparently horribly mangled left hand with melancholy admiration. ‘I’ve really been through it. After such a marvellous job, sir, it seems ungrateful to ask — but how permanent are those scars likely to be?’
‘Not permanent at all. Those dyes are of a completely different chemical composition from tattoo pigments. Absorption time varies — two to three weeks. I shouldn’t worry, Lieutenant — they’re really quite becoming.’
De Graaf and van Effen met Professor Hector van Dam, Professor Bernard Span and Professor Thomas Spanraft in the living-room of van Dam’s house. They didn’t look at all like professors or, more accurately, what professors are supposed to look like. They looked more like a combination of prosperous businessmen and solid Dutch burghers, all curiously alike, all overweight, all cheerful and all with slightly flushed cheeks which might have come from the overheated room or the large bottle of wine which circulated freely among them.
Van Dam spoke. ‘Well, gentlemen, we think we have the answers you seek. Not too difficult, really. We have in this country linguistic specialists, both occidental and oriental — especially oriental, we have had vast experience of dealing with Asiatic languages over the centuries — as you will find anywhere in Europe. Professor Spanraft has come up specially from Rotterdam. No oriental knowledge in this case. I may start, perhaps, with my own small contribution.’
He looked at van Effen. ‘This gentleman you met in some cafe with the unusual name of Helmut Paderiwski. He is not Dutch and he is most certainly not Polish. He is, specifically and unquestionably, southern Irish. Even more specifically, he is a Dubliner. My qualifications for making so confident an assertion? A year as visiting scholar and lecturer at Trinity, Dublin. Bernard?’
Professor Span made an apologetic gesture with his hands. ‘My contribution, even smaller than Hector’s, was pathetically easy. I am told that the other two gentlemen the Lieutenant met in the same cafe with the splendid, if slightly unlikely, names of Romero and Leonardo Agnelli are dark-haired, dark-eyed and of a rather Mediterranean cast of countenance. Gentlemen of such appearance are not exclusively confined to an area south of the Alps. They are even to be found, as you must know, in our own predominantly fair-haired and fair-complexioned society. The Agnelli’s are two such.’ ‘You are quite certain of that, sir?’ van Effen said. ‘I know Italy well and — ‘
‘Lieutenant van Effen!’ Professor van Dam was shocked. ‘If my colleague — ‘
Professor Span held up a placatory hand. ‘No, no, Hector, the Lieutenant’s query was a legitimate one. I gather that the enquiries in which’ 1i he and the Colonel are engaged are of a most serious nature.’ He smiled a deprecatory smile. ‘As a mere academic, of course — anyway, Lieutenant, rest assured that those gentlemen Pre as Dutch as you or I. My life on it. And at a guess — an educated guess, mark you — from Utrecht. You are amazed, perhaps, by my perspicacity? Please do not be. My qualifications? Impeccable. I’m a Dutchman. From Utrecht. Your turn, Thomas.’
Spanraft smiled. ‘My qualifications are strikingly similar to Hector’s. This lady who makes all those mysterious phone calls. Young, beyond a doubt. Educated. Perhaps even highly so. Northern Ireland, specifically Belfast. My qualifications? 1, too, have been a visiting scholar and lecturer. Queen’s, Belfast.’ He smiled. ‘Good heavens, I may even have taught the young lady.’
‘If you did,’ de Graaf said heavily, ‘you didn’t teach her the right things.’
De Graaf turned to van Effen, who was driving a Volkswagen that evening. As it was not impossible that he might be called upon to drive one or more of Agnelli’s group that evening it had been deemed more prudent not to use the Peugeot, where the presence of a police radio might have been inadvertently discovered. Car papers and insurance were, of course, made out in the name of Stephan Danilov.
