Raincoat said, “You’ll be met the other end and they’ve fixed a room for you. Hotels are out.”
I did not like the sound of that. I said, “I was jumped by a couple of five-star bastards last night.”
“I know,” he said calmly. “We watched.”
“Thanks.”
“What did they get?”
“The Paris address.”
“That’s what we thought.”
“You going to kick up a fuss when I claim for a cigarette burn in the collar of my suit?”
He yawned a little, but said nothing.
The plane was half-empty. The air hostess was pretty, but had no conversation, so I had a large dry martini and went to sleep.
At Le Bourget I was picked up by a man called Robert Casalis. He was a youthful looking forty, but a shade overblown with muscular fat, the way some ex-rowing men get, and fair-haired, with honest brown eyes which I knew nothing in the world could possibly shock. I’d met him once before, briefly, with Manston. He was no raincoat number. He was out of a much higher security bracket.
He drove me to a flat near the Palais Royal and tossed the key to me when we were in the sitting-room.
“I don’t imagine you’ll be here long. But it’s all yours while you are. Grub in the kitchen. Everything works. We’ve booked a room in your name at the Hotel Florida, a two-star place on the Boulevard Malesherbes – in case anyone asks you for an address. Any messages left for you there I’ll pass when I ring you at eight each morning. I got some whisky in for you.” As he moved to the door, he added, “There’s no law against it, but I wouldn’t bring any visitors up here unless it’s an emergency. And if you get unwelcome ones, the place is entirely soundproof.”
I nodded, and said without hope of an honest reply, “Where’s Manston these days?”
“God knows, and there’s nothing more top secret than that rating. But I’ve no doubt he’s enjoying himself in that quiet country gentleman way of his. Cheerio.”
He was gone.
I took a shower. It was June and hot and sticky. I put on a nice, sober suit and went out. I bought six pairs of pants at a Monoprix and then went and sat in a quiet corner of the lounge of the Hotel George V, nursing my parcel and watching the world go by. I had three hours before my appointment.
They came in after about half an hour, and from the look of them I knew that they had been shopping, probably in the Rue de Rivoli. They were discreetly festooned with those slim, flat carriers and tiny square parcels that you could crook easily on a little finger. Katerina was wearing an inconspicuous suit that obviously had cost the earth, and a hat that held every eye in the lounge. She had suddenly jumped right out of the Brighton ton-up mob into another world ... the glossy, cosmopolitan crowd which was always wondering where it could go and play next. The elderly woman with her looked as though she dressed herself from a junk shop – except that a closer look showed that it was all good.
Mrs Vadarci had a black felt hat, rather like the jobs Roman Catholic priests wear, perched right on top of a mass of closely-curled red hair. She had a square, almost mannish face, all dewlaps and wrinkles, and under a pair of shabby brows were set a pair of bright blue eyes. She wore some kind of green, slightly old-fashioned summer dress that drooped around her like a theatre curtain, all fringes and loops with a suggestion of dust in the creases. A plump strip of pearls cascaded over an enormous bosom, and she held in her right hand a long ivory-topped black ebony cane. She looked a comfortable old biddy, but there was a feeling about her that announced quite clearly that, when she wanted, she could be as tough as old boots. I got every word of her instructions to the hotel clerk to get someone out quickly to pay off her cabby. She beat time to her instructions with the tip of her cane on the floor. As she made for the lifts with Katerina she looked like some formidable old duenna trailing the Infanta of Spain behind her. If I had known how near I was to the truth then, I might have considered taking the next plane back to London.
As they went into the lift Katerina turned and saw me. She looked straight at me and just for a moment there was the faintest smile of recognition on her lips.
I gave her half an hour after that while I tried out my French on a copy of Paris-Soir. She came down just as I was deciding to give it up.
She came straight over and sat down beside me, and with a warm, little gesture, which hauled me right back into the magic circle again, she took one of my hands and fondled it.
“Darling,” she said, “how wunderbar. But I can only stay for a few seconds. Mrs Vadarci would be furious.”
“What is she? A jailer?”
“No. But one of the conditions of my engagement is that I don’t have ... how do you say it?”
“Followers? That’s me, all right.”
“So when
