A sly smile crept over Pol’s epicene features, then his whole body began to wobble with laughter. ‘Ah, you are a man of spirit and resource, my dear Duncan! And a man of caution, too. So, for the next week, you will cease to be Monsieur Saunders and become Monsieur Fielding again?’
Philby nodded and took a long drink of wine. A police siren wailed somewhere across the docks. A door banged up the street and there was yelling in Portuguese, followed by laughter. ‘It is, as I said, only a precaution,’ he added.
‘And no one in Salisbury will know you have gone to the hotel?’
‘No one. I don’t have that many friends over here.’
‘Quite.’ Pol turned and snapped his fingers for the bill. ‘Monday night then, at the Hillcrest? And Tuesday we will contact you.’ He paid with a thousand-escudo note, leaving the waiter an extravagant tip, and asked for a taxi.
‘I still don’t understand why it was necessary,’ Philby said, ‘for us both to come all this way so that you could give me these instructions?’
‘Not necessary, perhaps,’ said Pol, ‘but advisable. I wanted to see you personally — see how Monsieur Duncan Saunders was comporting himself in his new role as expatriate.’ He put a finger to the side of his tiny nose and belched. ‘I prefer the personal touch, you understand? It is something that does not come with writing letters or talking on the telephone. I also like my instinct to guide me.’
Philby did not inquire in what direction his instincts were guiding him this evening. When they reached the Polana, Pol was in high spirits and anxious that Philby should join him up in his room for a night-cap; but on one of the rare occasions in his life Philby declined. He preferred a quiet night, alone. He slept badly, however, and had one of his regular nightmares, waking with the sheet twisted round his body and soaking wet, despite the air-conditioning.
When he finally rose and went down to breakfast, he found that Pol had already checked out. He had left no message.
Philby flew back into Salisbury that afternoon — a Saturday. The plane was full, and he had no reason to notice a small round-shouldered man in a rumpled grey suit who sat a few rows in front of him, holding a bulky briefcase. At the airport he had disappeared before Philby passed through Immigration.
His name was Paul Rebot; he was fifty-seven years old, a law graduate and holder of the Croix de Guerre for his work in the Resistance, and for twenty-five years he had been a detective with the French Police Criminelle. During the last four of these he had been attached to the headquarters of Interpol in Paris.
His mission to Rhodesia was of a highly unorthodox nature, complicated by the fact that the Smith régime is not recognized by the 117 nations who subscribe to Interpol. Officially, Rhodesia remains subject to the writ of the British courts; and for the past month Rebot’s superiors had been engaged in a series of intricate negotiations involving the British Embassies in both Paris and Moscow, secret conversations with members of the Soviet Diplomatic Service; and finally — the most delicate stage — contacts with the Rhodesian authorities. Here the first overtures had been made through an intermediary, an Anglo-Portuguese businessman resident in Beira, whose work took him frequently, and usually quite legally, to Salisbury.
While the chiefs of Interpol, who are mostly French, no doubt appreciate the diplomatic niceties of dealing with a blackballed regime, their work is not concerned with politics, but with crime. Political crimes, which include hijacking, as well as those loosely described as ‘having a political, military, religious, or racial character’, are still outside their jurisdiction.
The case with which Rebot was now entrusted was on the border-line. The crime was murder — the premeditated murder of a British woman in the Soviet Union. And murder is almost the only crime which is universally recognized as an extraditable offence. Even between countries which do not have a precise extradition treaty.
The complications had begun when the identity of the alleged murderer was given as a former Soviet subject, since stripped of this citizenship, to have it replaced by that of a bona fide British subject, born in Britain, and until lately resident there. The true identity of the man was not discussed, officially. All that concerned Interpol were the details of the crime, and the Soviet authorities had presented these in an impressive and convincing dossier. Interpol was satisfied, and so was London.
It was this dossier, together with a formal request for the extradition of the alleged murderer, that Rebot had brought with him to Salisbury, and which he now conveyed to a senior member of the Rhodesian Security Police, in a discreetly guarded house in the suburbs of the city.
The officer was called MacIntyre, a spare man with dry humourless features, deeply tanned and speckled with the benign cancer-spots that come with long exposure to the sun. He had been a detective-sergeant with the Edinburgh Constabulary before emigrating to Rhodesia after the war, and still spoke with a Lowland burr which was deceptively reassuring. His manner with Rebot was studiously courteous. He knew most of the details already, but insisted that the Frenchman confirm the whole case from the beginning.
When it was over, MacIntyre grunted and rang for tea. ‘Highly irregular,’ he said at last: ‘Most highly irregular. We can surmise, I take it, who the man is? Even in this little backwater of the world, Inspector Rebot, we have our sources of information.’
‘London has not been entirely frank in this affair,’ said Rebot quietly; ‘but the motives of our British friends are not my concern.’
MacIntyre nodded slowly. ‘Verry convenient for London, and, I might add, verry convenient indeed for the Rooshians.’ He put his big spotted hands on
