‘Moderately.’
There was an uncomfortable pause. It was very warm in the room, with a sweet clinging odour — stale aftershave, or deodorant perhaps. ‘But you had a satisfactory day?’ Packer asked finally. Pol nodded. ‘Did you get the —’ Packer glanced round the room, hesitated — ‘did you get everything we need?’
‘Yes, yes.’ Pol ate another chocolate, and another crumpled tissue joined the rest on the carpet.
Packer was disconcerted. He was used to a boisterous Pol: a great rubbery rogue with a twinkling self-confidence wrapped in refined self-indulgence. But this was a shell of the man: sagging, listless, almost as though he’d grown too small for his voluminous clothes.
‘Charles, are you sure you’re all right? You look ill.’
‘I told you — I am a little tired.’ His eyes moved dully over Packer’s face, then away again. He heaved himself up and trotted heavily over to a side table where he poured himself a brandy. Packer waited until he had sunk back again on to the sofa.
‘Charles, I want to talk about Sammy.’
‘Ah? He has been misbehaving again?’
‘Well, he pulled a gun on me in the hut. Admittedly, it wasn’t much of a gun, and nobody saw it. But it was a little irregular, don’t you think?’
‘Irregular?’ A small grin started across Pol’s enormous features, then seemed to give up. ‘It is in character. But you did not attempt to take it away from him?’
‘I did not. In my experience, the only time people get hit by toy guns is by accident.’
Pol wagged his head. ‘Ah, Sammy is very wicked! But you must not trouble yourself too much about his little idiosyncrasies. For him guns are merely the tools of his trade — like a hammer to a carpenter or a typewriter to a journalist.’
‘Thank you. I’m reassured.’ Packer felt himself getting angry.
Pol spread his hands in innocent despair. ‘One must accept Sammy for what he is.’
‘He’s a madman. He also drinks too much.’
Pol sighed; he looked bored. ‘He is a very competent drinker. I have known him land a four-engined plane on a curving dam after he had drunk most of a bottle of bourbon. He is also no fool.’
‘No,’ said Packer. ‘He thinks he’s being set up on that mountain as a diversion. Come to that, I’m beginning to have the same idea myself.’
‘Oh?’ Pol looked only mildly interested.
‘When we first talked over this plan, Charles, you made great play of how we wouldn’t be going in for the conventional gadgets of the killing business — rifles with telescopic sights, and that sort of thing. You talked about a more subtle approach. There’s nothing very subtle about sitting up the Gotschnagrat with an Armalite.’
Pol ate another chocolate and said nothing. Packer went on: ‘Sammy’s also got some wild idea that you and the Ruler may be in cahoots, and that this whole business had been planned by the Ruler himself — to get himself some dramatic publicity. Is there anything in that?’
‘It is ridiculous,’ Pol replied, rather quickly. ‘It is nonsense — a pure fantasy of Sammy’s.’ He sipped his brandy. ‘But let us turn now to a more substantial subject — the incident concerning Monsieur Chamaz. You have read the papers, of course? What is your opinion?’
‘About the burning of Chamaz and his car?’
‘About the man himself — and his whole behaviour before you detected him.’
‘Lousy. Lousy enough to be spotted, that is.’
‘By you, yes. But then, you are an expert.’
‘Well, it’s rather a matter of degree, isn’t it? It would depend, for instance, on whether Chamaz’s bosses knew I was an expert.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Pol paused. ‘I forget — when was the first time you suspected he was following us? In Amsterdam?’
‘No. As I told you, Sarah thought she was being followed then — but that’s almost a reflex action with her. And usually she’s right — only not for the reason we’re thinking of.’
‘Quite. But when did you become aware of it?’
‘I noticed a car — a Renault — parked down the side of the hotel in Le Crotoy.’
‘Why that particular car?’
‘An old girlfriend had one. Then, when I dropped Sarah at Le Touquet, I saw it again outside the airport restaurant.’
‘Exactly the same car? A Renault is not uncommon, you know.’
‘It was exactly the same car,’ Packer said firmly. ‘The first four numbers of the registration were 1956 — the year of Suez. I’m sentimental.’
Pol did not smile. ‘A nice coincidence, perhaps?’
Packer shrugged. ‘In this game we were taught that there’s no such thing as coincidence — just luck, sometimes. You learn to watch out for a man’s shoes, watch strap, way of walking — a car with a scratch down the side, extra wing mirror, looped aerial. You don’t bother so much about the number plate — that can be easily changed. The man may change his clothes, too. But it’s a funny thing, they very often forget to change their shoes, and always their watches.’
Pol popped another chocolate into his mouth and munched thoughtfully. ‘You are saying that our friend Chamaz was careless?’
‘I’d say at the beginning — in Amsterdam — he did all right. But then, I wasn’t suspecting anything. It wasn’t until we got into France; and you explained the plan to me, that I started getting sensitive. I had an idea we might be followed. I also had a lucky break — the car and the number. From then it was just a matter of waiting until he exposed himself — which he did, on the front at Berck-Plage.’
There was a pause. ‘Capitaine Packer, would you say there was anything at all unusual — at all bizarre — about the way Chamaz operated?’
‘That rather depends on who organized him. I’d say it was small-time, a one-man
