‘Nothing.’
The florid man returned with the glass of hock. ‘The nationals have been on all morning,’ he said, sitting down, ‘I told them to wait for a statement from you or the editor.’
The tall man nodded: ‘That’s right. I’m seeing David at three. We’ll be putting one out after we’ve heard officially from the Foreign Office.’ He took a deep breath: ‘I still don’t understand it! We know from Tom Mallory that he was out at the airport with a pass on to the first plane — and that left the next afternoon. Why on earth wasn’t he on it?’
The dewy man said, ‘We must bear in mind that there was a lot of confusion. The French admit that it looked pretty doubtful right up to the last moment, what with all the crews on strike. It’s possible he just didn’t think any planes would take off that day.’
‘But what was he doing riding off into the country with that girl?’ cried the tall man. ‘Did he know who she was?’
‘Obviously he didn’t,’ said the dewy man. ‘Perhaps she was offering to drive him out of the country?’
The florid man leant forward and said, ‘What I don’t understand is why he was out there in the first place. I thought he’d gone to Greece to write a book?’
‘He did,’ said the tall man, ‘but he met some Frenchman in Athens who got him over there in a boat. He was one of the first people in — we can’t hold that against him.’
‘Who are you sending now?’ said the dewy man.
‘Saunders, from the Paris office. He’s a pretty tough reporter — he should be able to get to the bottom of it all. The trouble with these sophisticated university graduates is they get too involved.’ He sat staring at the rows of wine-casks behind the bar. ‘It’s all quite frightful!’ he added suddenly. ‘And the only copy I got from him was that eye-witness piece about the Casino. I wanted him to do some intelligent digging into the political background.’
‘He seems to have done enough of that,’ said the dewy man, ‘too much, in fact!’
‘As far as I can see,’ said the tall man, ‘he spent most of his time running around with the stepdaughter of one of the terrorist leaders and getting himself tied up in every kind of dirty deal in the country. That’s all right if you’re writing a book about it perhaps, but my job is to get out a newspaper!’
They all looked up as a black-haired man in a raincoat approached and said with a grave smile, ‘Ah, Foster, there you are.’
The tall man nodded to an empty chair: ‘Well, have you heard anything your end?’
‘Yes.’ He took off his raincoat and sat down, taking his time: ‘A.P. have just put over some pictures of the bodies. At least, what was found. They’re not very nice.’
The tall man, Foster, put his hand to his eyes. ‘Oh, God!’ he murmured.
‘The French think they may have been shot first,’ the black-haired man added. ‘They found quite a lot of clothing and part of a British passport. I don’t think there can be any more doubt about identity. There were French troops on the other side of the village. They saw the car go through and apparently tried to warn them.’ He looked round the table: ‘The other thing is that a French engineer from the Sahara was shot dead in the hotel the night before in the room directly above Ingleby’s. I don’t know if there’s any connection there.’
Foster stood up and began putting on his coat: ‘I’ll have to get in touch with the editor right away.’ He paused just as he was leaving: ‘Ingleby was a good lobby correspondent — he should have stuck to it!’ He shook his head wearily: ‘What did the damned fool think he was trying to do out there?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the dewy man, ‘he was trying to help?’
***
Want to carry on the adventure? Read THE TALE OF THE LAZY DOG — Book Two in the Charles Pol Espionage Thriller series.
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ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
THE CHARLES POL SERIES
The Tale of the Lazy Dog
Gentleman Traitor
Shah-Mak
Dead Secret
Holy of Holies
OTHER NOVELS
Long Run South
The Widow’s War
Snake Water
The Beria Papers
The Brotherhood
Published by Sapere Books.
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United Kingdom
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Copyright © Alan Williams, 1963.
Alan Williams has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781913335885
