Packer flicked through the pages of both. The French passport looked used on the outside, but its pages were suspiciously virginal except for a six-month Swiss Resident’s Visa which had two months to run.
He now began to look, more carefully this time, through the Lebanese passport. It was older and well worn, with the gilt cedar tree and Arabic and Roman lettering almost rubbed off the frayed green cover. It had been issued in Beirut in 1972 and renewed three months ago by the Lebanese Consulate in Geneva. Its pages were crowded with a kaleidoscope of West European entry and exit stamps, with corresponding visas. The majority were for Switzerland and France. Packer rioted that the most frequent point of entry and exit was Kloten Airport, Zürich, He counted five since January — the last one being an Eingang five days ago, with an Ausgang the day after.
But what interested him most was the last stamp of all, Schiphol — IN, dated three days ago — the day before he and Sarah had themselves arrived in Amsterdam. He searched hurriedly for the EXIT stamp, and any entries from the Belgian and French frontiers, but could find none. Monsieur Chamaz had evidently used his French passport for this journey, knowing that it would not usually be stamped between EEC countries.
Packer would have liked to have checked the earlier entries, together with their dates — particularly Chamaz’s visits to Switzerland — but time was running out. It was now twelve minutes since he had left the other two in the car.
He checked the street again, then replaced both passports in the same inside pocket, careful not to get blood on his sleeve; and now reached into the man’s side pocket and removed a Minox camera and a tiny cartridge of film, the seals of which were broken. He leaned over the seat and made sure both rear doors were locked from the inside, took the keys from the ignition, got out and locked both front doors, checked the car’s registration number, then started back towards the Mercedes.
Ryderbeit snarled beside him, ‘Where the fuck have you been? Chasing tail in the local cat house?’
Packer ignored him. He turned to Pol and handed him the Minox and the cartridge. ‘By courtesy of a Monsieur Pierre-Baptiste Chamaz, a businessman who enjoys both French and Lebanese nationality.’ He started the engine, did a swift U-turn, and began to head back along the esplanade, away from the marooned Renault.
Ryderbeit had already noticed the blood-clotted teeth marks across the back of Packer’s left hand. ‘Been giving someone the old knuckle sandwich, eh, soldier?’
Packer waited until they were past the roundabout that marked the edge of the town, then began to tell them, calmly, in precise detail, what had happened and what he had found. ‘I don’t think he’s bad enough for hospital,’ he concluded; ‘and I have an idea he won’t be too keen to go to the police. But unless he comes to before someone finds him, the police may go to him, if only to get him out of the car.’
‘You take risks, don’t you?’ Ryderbeit breathed.
Packer shrugged. ‘Why? What can he tell them? Even if I made a mistake, all they’ve got is an innocent old-fashioned mugging.’ He tapped the bulge of his wallet. ‘Enough portraits of “Le Roi Soleil” to stand us all a nice weekend on the Riviera.’
Ryderbeit looked at him suspiciously. ‘And supposing he’s got the number of the bloody car?’
‘If he’s got the number of this car, Sammy, then it proves that he’s just what I think he is.’
Pol now spoke for the first time. He had been sitting with a little notebook on his thigh, scribbling with a slim gold pencil. ‘What is your own evaluation of this incident, my dear Packer?’
‘He’s a man who finds it convenient, or perhaps necessary, to travel to different countries on different passports. My guess is that the French one is forged. He travels as a Lebanese when he’s on bona fide business, which seems to take him mostly to Switzerland. He probably uses the French one to slip over borders when he’s in a hurry — like the day before yesterday, when he followed me and Sarah from Amsterdam.’
‘When did you first spot him?’ Ryderbeit asked.
‘I didn’t. It was Sarah who did, in a sense. That’s to say she thought someone was following her on the boat in Amsterdam. Only — ironically — it was the wrong man.’ He looked at Pol: ‘Unless, of course, Chamaz somehow knew about your interest in me and Sarah before we got to the tulip fields?’
‘That is absurd,’ Pol said piously.
‘Well, the only alternative explanation is that Chamaz followed you in the taxi. And you didn’t spot him.’
‘Mon cher, I was not myself that morning.’
‘No, but you had enough wit to meet me at the windmill, without following on the boat.’
‘I saw which boat you took, and I guessed that you would stop at the windmill.’ Pol smiled. ‘What you would call an inspired guess, yes?’
‘Bloody well inspired — for someone in your condition.’
Pol frowned. ‘You are not insinuating, mon cher, that I and Chamaz were working together?’
Packer looked at him steadily. ‘I think I’ll just have to take your word for that, Monsieur Pol. But the important thing is, Chamaz — according to his passport — arrived in Amsterdam the day before us. Is there any way that someone knew you were in Amsterdam to meet us?’
‘Impossible,’ Pol replied — rather too quickly, Packer thought.
Packer went on: ‘The
