luxuriously furnished library, steam gently rising from his saturated clothing. ‘Not for me a door-to-door chauffeur- driven limousine. I have to cope with taxis that go home to roost when the first drop of rain falls and with people who seemed anxious to know where I was going. It didn’t seem clever to let them know that I was going to the house of the Chief of Police.’
‘Your friend Agnelli doesn’t trust you?’
‘Difficult to say. Oh, sure, it was Agnelli who had me followed — couldn’t have been anyone else. But I’m not sure that he’s suspicious of me — I think that, on principle, he just doesn’t trust anyone. Difficult character to read. You’d probably like him. Seems friendly and likeable enough — you really have to make an effort to associate him with anything like blackmail and torture — and even then you find it difficult to convince yourself. Which means nothing. I assume you had a comfortable evening, sir — that you didn’t have to cope with the elements or the thought that you might be shot in the back at any moment.’
De Graaf made a dismissive gesture which could have meant either that such considerations were irrelevant trifles or that they could not possibly apply to him in the first place. ‘An interesting meeting, but only to a limited extent. I’m afraid Bernhard wasn’t in a particularly receptive or co-operative frame of mind.’ Bernhard was Bernhard Dessens, the Minister of justice.
‘A dithering old woman, scared to accept responsibility, unwilling to commit himself and looking to pass the buck elsewhere?’ ‘Exactly. I couldn’t have put — I’ve told you before, Peter, that’s no way to talk about cabinet ministers. There were two of them. Names Riordan and Samuelson. One — person calling himself Riordan — could have been in disguise. The other had made no attempt at any such thing which can only mean that he’s pretty confident about something or other. Riordan had long black hair — shoulder-length, in fact, I thought that ludicrous style had gone out of fashion ten years ago — was deeply tanned, wore a Dutch bargee cap and sunglasses.’
‘Anything so obvious has to be a disguise. ‘van Effen thought for a moment. ‘He wasn’t by any chance very tall and preternaturally thin?’ De Graaf nodded. ‘I thought that would occur to you at once. The fellow who commandeered that canal boat from — who was it?’
‘At Schiphol? Dekker.’
‘Dekker. This must be the man Dekker described. And damned if I don’t agree with your bizarre suggestion that this fellow — Riordan or whatever — is an albino. Dark glasses. Heavy tan to hide an alabaster complexion. Black hair to hide white. Other fellow — Samuelson — had white hair, thick and very wavy, white moustache and white goatee beard. No albino, though — blue eyes. All that white hair would normally bespeak advanced years but his face was almost completely unlined. But, then, he was very plump, which may account for the youthful skin. Looked like a cross between an idealized concept of a US Senator and some bloated plutocrat, oil billionaire or something like that.’
‘Maybe he’s got a better make-up resin than Riordan.’ ‘It’s possible. Both men spoke in English, from which I assumed that Samuelson couldn’t speak Dutch. Both made a point of stating that they were Irish-Americans and I have no doubt they were. I don’t have to be Hector or one of his professorial friends to know that — the north-east or New York accent was very strong. Riordan did nearly all the talking- ‘
‘He asked — no, he demanded — that we contact the British government. More exactly, he demanded we act as intermediaries between the FFF ‘ and Whitehall on the basis that Whitehall would be much more likely to negotiate with another government than with an unknown group such as they were. When Bernhard asked what on earth they could possibly want to discuss with Whitehall they said they wanted to have a dialogue about Northern Ireland, but refused to elaborate further until the Dutch Government agreed to co-operate.’
De Graaf sighed. ‘Whereupon, alas, our Minister of justice, seething and fulminating, while at the same time knowing damn well that they had him over a barrel, climbed on to his high horse and said it was inconceivable, unthinkable, that a sovereign nation should negotiate on behalf of a band of terrorists. He carried on for about five minutes in this vein, but I’ll spare you all the parliamentary rhetoric. He ended up by saying that he, personally, would die first. ‘Riordan said that he very much doubted that Dessens would go to such extraordinary lengths and further said that he was convinced that fourteen million Dutchmen would take a diametrically opposite point of view. Then he became rather unpleasantly personal and threatening. He said it didn’t make the slightest damn difference to anything if he, Dessens, committed suicide on the spot, for the Oostlijk-Flevoland dyke in the vicinity of Lelystad would go at midnight if the government didn’t agree to talk terms by ten o’clock tonight. He then produced a paper with a list of places which, he said, were in immediate danger of going at any moment. He didn’t say whether or not mines had already been placed in those areas — the usual uncertainty technique.
‘Among the places he listed — there were so many that I forget half of them — were Leeuwarden, the Noordoost polder in the vicinity of Urk, the Amstclmeer, the Wieringermeer, Putten, the polder south of Petten, Schouwen, Duiveland and Walcheren — did we remember what happened to Walcheren during the war? Both the Eastern and Western Scheldt estuaries were on their list, he said — did we remember what happened there in February 1953 — while Noord and Sud Holland offered a positive embarrassment of riches. That’s only a representative sample. Riordan then started to make very sinister remarks about the weather, had we noticed how high the level of the North Sea had risen, how the strengthening wind had gone to the north and that the spring tides were at hand — while the levels of the Rhine, Waal, Maas and Scheldt were near an all-time low — so reminiscent of February 1953, didn’t Dessens think? ‘He then demanded that they talked to a minister or ministers with the power and courage to make decisions and not a snivelling time-server bent only on preserving his own miserable political career, which was, I thought, a bit hard on Bernhard.
‘Riordan then said that, to display their displeasure at this wholly unnecessary hiatus in negotiations, they would detonate one of several devices they had placed in public buildings in the capital. Here the two of them had a whispered conference and then Riordan announced that they had chosen the royal palace and defied anyone to find the explosives before they went off. No lives, he said, were at risk in this explosion, which would occur within five minutes of their departure. He added, almost as an afterthought, that any attempt to restrain them, hinder their departure or have them followed would inevitably mean that the Oostlijk-Flevoland dyke would go not at midnight but at nine o’clock this evening. On this happy note, they left. The palace explosion, as you may know, duly occurred.’
‘So I believe.’ It seemed the wrong moment to tell de Graaf that it was he, van Effen, who had, pressed the button. He shivered and moved to a less damp patch on the Esfahan. ‘I think I’m getting pneumonia.’ ‘There’s brandy.’ De Graaf waved a hand at once indicative of preoccupation and irritation that one should be unaware of the universal specifics against pneumococci. ‘Schnapps, scotch — ‘He broke off ‘as a knock came on the library door and a uniformed policeman admitted George and Vasco who were, if anything, even more saturated than van Effen had been. ‘Two more advanced cases, I suppose.’
George said: ‘I beg your pardon, Colonel?’
‘Pneumonia. Help yourselves. I must say I wasn’t expecting you gentlemen.’ ‘The Lieutenant said
‘I know. It just slipped his memory.’
‘I have a lot on my mind,’ van Effen said. ‘Well?’
‘We had a good look at them when they left the house to go to that small bus. Also had a good look at them in the Dam Square. Recognize them anywhere.’ George paused reflectively. ‘Seemed a very harmless bunch to me.’
‘Ever seen — or seen pictures of — the youthful assassins that made — up the Baader-Meinhof gang? All they lacked were harps and haloes. When I said “Well”, that wasn’t what I meant.’
‘Ah! That. Yes. Well. ‘George seemed slightly embarrassed. ‘When you left the house — we saw you go but didn’t approach you as you’d asked us not to in case you were being followed — you know you were followed?’ ‘Yes.’
‘We waited across the street for ten minutes then crossed to the lighted window. The rain! Talk about standing under Niagara Falls.’ He waited for sympathetic comment and when none came went on: ‘Waited another ten minutes. We could hear music and conversation.’
‘I’ll bet you could. So then, overcome by the rain, impatience or suspicion, you moved in. Light still on. Long- playing cassette on a recorder. Birds flown by the back door. Hardly original. So we still don’t know where they’re holed up. Not your fault — Agnelli’s obsessed by security.’
‘Still could have done better,’ Vasco said. ‘Next time The phone bell shrilled and de Graaf picked it up, listened for some time, said ‘Wait a minute, sit’ and cupped the mouthpiece. ‘Predictable, I suppose. Dessens. Seems the cabinet is a bit shaken about the palace explosion and are convinced that the Oostlijk-Flevoland dyke will go up at midnight. So they’re going to parley. They want me along and suggested i i p.m. I’d like you to be there. i i
