The girl unfolded her legs and slunk sulkily out of the room. Le Hir said to Neil, ‘We try to be as helpful as we can to the foreign Press during these difficult times. After all, if it was not for you’ — he gave a condescending nod — ‘the world would be obliged to believe the Paris propaganda machine.’ He paused. Anne-Marie shifted in her chair with a crackle of wicker, exposing an inch of shadowed thigh. Le Hir had begun tapping the riding crop against his ankle.
‘However, Monsieur Ingleby’ — and his voice now became sharp as a razor — ‘in your case there is one small matter which rather disturbs me. It concerns the man you arrived with yesterday from Greece. A man named Pol.’
The only sound in the room now was the tapping of the riding crop. Le Hir’s eyes, which were pale brown with a bright yellow light in them, watched Neil without blinking: ‘Do you know this man well, Monsieur Ingleby?’
Neil felt his pulse begin to race, and in the silence there was a singing in his ears. He knew that if Le Hir had heard of what happened to Jadot, neither he nor Van Loon would leave this building alive.
He said to Le Hir, ‘I hardly know him at all. We met in a hotel in Athens and he offered to take me over here in his boat.’ He turned to Van Loon, who was busy igniting his meerschaum as though it were some complicated machine: ‘He wanted Monsieur Van Loon here to navigate. That’s the only way we got to know him.’
Anne-Marie sat with her legs carefully crossed, staring at a point somewhere just above Neil’s head. Le Hir did not move his eyes from Neil’s face. The girl Nadia slipped in with a tray of filter coffees. Nobody spoke as the cups were passed round. Le Hir removed the filter bowl, placed it in a metal stand beside him, helped himself to two spoonsful of sugar, and sat stirring his cup slowly, still not moving his eyes from Neil. When he spoke his voice was very soft: ‘Do you know who this man is?’
Neil shrugged: ‘He told me he was a Paris businessman.’
Le Hir shook his head: ‘No, Monsieur Ingleby. He is what we call here a barbouze. Do you know what a barbouze is?’
Neil nodded.
Le Hir smacked the riding crop against his shin and sprang up, looming huge above Neil, legs apart, arms akimbo, his big teeth bared in a grin: ‘Listen to me carefully, Monsieur Ingleby. I am a reasonable man. I don’t believe in interfering with journalists who come here to do their job. But when you and your Dutch friend arrive in this city with a leading French secret agent I begin to have doubts. I begin to wonder whether you are here merely as a journalist, or for some other motive. You had better explain. As I said, my programme today is very full.’ He glanced at his watch.
‘I can assure you,’ said Neil, in a small hoarse voice, ‘that my meeting with Monsieur Pol was entirely accidental. I had no idea what sort of work he was doing here. We didn’t discuss it.’
‘But he went with you to your hotel last night. Why?’
‘He came up to have a shower in my room. He sweats a lot.’
Anne-Marie smiled. Le Hir stood above Neil sipping his coffee: ‘Monsieur Ingleby, in normal circumstances I would order you out of this country within twelve hours, under pain of death if you stayed. However, I am satisfied that your explanation is an honest one. I am prepared to let you stay — on one condition. I want to know if this man Pol has made any arrangement to see you again while you are here.’
At that moment Neil panicked. He was still not sure just how much Le Hir knew: whether the news of Jadot’s death had reached the Secret Army. Perhaps this was a trap to test the truth of his story. Rashly, he began telling Le Hir about the telephone call Pol had asked him to make at two o’clock that afternoon. Even as he spoke he realized that Le Hir almost certainly did not know about Jadot. But the damage had been done.
‘Why does he want you to make this call?’
‘He said he might have something important to tell me for my newspaper.’
‘What number did he ask you to ring?’
Neil showed him the number Pol had given him. Le Hir nodded. ‘That’s one of the coded lines to the High Command headquarters,’ he said, handing Neil’s pocketbook back. ‘Very well! Now this is what you are going to do. You will ring this man Pol at two o’clock this afternoon. I want to know exactly what he says to you. Anne-Marie will call at your hotel, and whatever information you have you will give to her.’ He finished his coffee and handed the cup to Nadia. ‘Messieurs,’ he said, ‘it has been my pleasure to meet you!’
Neil and Van Loon stood up. Around them the hi-fi released the mewing tones of Johnny Mathis. Le Hir took their hands in a grip like iron. ‘Remember,’ he said, with his square-toothed smile, ‘that when you see this man Pol you say nothing about your visit here. You have never met me — you have never met Anne-Marie.’ He paused, and a nasty glare showed at the edges of his eyes. ‘But if you do say anything, or if you try to conceal from me anything that Pol says to you, then I shall know about it. I promise you.’
It seemed to Neil that
