‘Why not? Tell me the routine textbook stuff they taught me — the twenty-nine elementary ways of killing a man with one’s hands and feet. Use of explosives, detonators, cyanide bullets, as well as all those sophisticated methods of interrogation which don’t quite infringe the UN Charter of Human Rights.’
‘You sound bitter, mon cher Capitaine?’
‘Not at all. I’m nostalgic.’ He leaned forward. ‘Did your information tell you that I killed, personally, a total of forty-seven men in Malaya, eighteen in Cyprus, and two in Aden? Not counting the sheikh’s son with the sports car. And all of them civilians. Students — professors — lawyers —’ he smiled — ‘not necessarily terrorists, just left-wing intellectuals. Or do I shock you, perhaps?’
Pol’s chins rippled with mirth. ‘My dear friend, I know the whole routine from Indo-China and Algeria. The only difference is that you British, with your great reputation for fair play, gave up your glorious Empire like gentlemen. It didn’t matter that a few gentlemen — like the good Capitaine Packer — were using their expertise to burst men’s kidneys with their thumbs, or to half drown a suspect in a bucket of his own urine. Nothing mattered as long as the British public went on believing that their army behaved like gentlemen, and no one told them otherwise.’
‘At least we won in Malaya,’ Packer scowled, ‘and didn’t leave a bloody mess like Indo-China.’
‘This is not a political discussion, Monsieur Packer. I am interested in you as an individual. Let us go back to a small incident in Cyprus. There was a young secretary in the GOC’s office in Nicosia, and there had been leaks to the Press about ill treatment of EOKA suspects. One night he had an unfortunate accident — fell out of a third-floor window, didn’t he? — after a wild party at the Ledra Palace Hotel. Broke his spine — pauvre type. I understand he will never walk again. You were one of the guests at the party, of course.’
Packer sat stiffly forward on a mock Empire chair, listening with a mixture of bewilderment and rage to the accuracy of this cruel curriculum vitae from which the unknown Pol seemed to be selecting only atrocities and failures.
‘I was discharged from the army nearly ten years ago,’ he said at last. ‘Is that as far as your spies were able to dig?’
Pol spread his hands. The rest is a little mundane, mon cher Capitaine. You remained on the reserve, attached to this rather obscure organization — I cannot remember the name. Otherwise, you got a job for a short time as a bank security guard. What happened?’
‘Nothing. Nobody tried to rob me or cosh me or take a shot at me. I got bored.’
‘Then you enrolled as a student in an art school outside London.’ Pol made a clucking noise. ‘Rather out of character, surely? A killer with a love of art — that is hardly an English trait.’
‘I’m Welsh. Anyway, how do you know? The War Office files aren’t that thorough.’
‘No, but the police are. You seduced one of your fellow pupils and got her pregnant. When she asked for the money for an abortion, you said you didn’t have any. Her brother entered the act and there was a fight. You were drunk. He was ten days in hospital and you spent three months in prison. The rest is eccentric, perhaps, but not entirely irrelevant. During your last dry-out in hospital you developed an odd skill, in the way of occupational therapy. You started building model windmills. Eventually you became so expert that you were able to sell them. You do it now as a full-time job.’
‘You don’t have to go on any more,’ said Packer. ‘That last bit isn’t on any army or police file. Now just tell me how you got it all.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes, it does matter. When I wipe my arse, I like to do it in private. You wait until I’m having a quiet weekend in Amsterdam, then you pick me up with my girl in a tulip field and — rather cunningly, now I come to think of it — you contrive to have me run you across a couple of frontiers and sit me down in this hotel and expect me not to ask questions. Why France, anyway? Why not back in Amsterdam? Or, better still, London?’
‘The answer to your last question,’ said Pol, ‘is that my presence in your country is not altogether welcome.’
‘Then how the hell were you able to get the information in the first place?’
Pol sat with his fat little hands folded across his stomach, the kiss-curl and goatee looking stiff and artificial against the rest of his hairless face, like adornments on a huge Easter egg. ‘I understand your point of view perfectly, Capitaine Packer. But please understand mine. Our relations with each other must, of necessity, be extremely delicate at this stage. I must win your complete confidence, while at the same time not betraying the confidence of my employer. And my employer, Capitaine Packer, is a man who plays the comedy with absolutely no one. That I promise you.’
‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Packer. ‘What’s the colour of his money? And what does he want done for it?’
Pol had turned his head without moving his vast body, and was watching the tide swirl in across the mud flats at the speed of trotting horses. ‘For yourself, half a million English pounds,’ he said at last; ‘or the equivalent in gold, or any other currency you prefer, paid into the bank of your choice.’
Owen Packer sat very still and straight in his chair. He waited, watching Pol, saying nothing.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Pol added, ‘or perhaps a citron pressé?’
‘I’d like a bloody big drink,’ Packer muttered, in English.
‘You know that is
