“Did he travel at all? Anywhere regular? Over the period he wore the ring?”
“Regular? No. He went lots of places. Work.”
“What work was that?”
“Critic. Theatre, ballet, films, art. I do food. Together we used to produce a package for the magazines.”
“What were you looking for really?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t fuck me about! Food and art is hardly competitive stuff. What was it that he was working on that you wanted?”
The man seemed to give in then, deflating before Quayle’s eyes. As he sagged, he sat down in one of the chairs.
“The manuscript. He said he was doing an exposé . He had that look in his eye. It would be good. When he put his mind to something, he was quite talented. Better than me...”
“Did you find it?”
“No,” he replied miserably. “It’s gone.”
“Where would he take it? Did he have an agent or a publisher?”
“No agent. He was too mean for that. He spoke of a publisher in Berlin. Melchun and something.” He brightened up then. “They may have, it I suppose.”
*
Cockburn sat opposite Black, who lay back in bed. The bandages were off his hands now and ugly weals of new pink skin and scar tissue criss-crossed the unburnt areas like a child had done it with a paint brush. His eyes were still covered, but the bandages had been taken off the rest of his face – and the deep pitted burns across his cheeks were horrific. Fresh dressings covered the places where the plastic surgeons had gone with the knife.
“I told you everything I could yesterday,” he said to Cockburn.
“I’m not a copper, Adrian,” Cockburn said. “I’m the poor bastard trying to find Titus Quayle.”
“Well he’s not under my bed.”
“You’re not helping, are you?”
Black sat up, angrily. “Why the fuck should I? Tell me! That poor bugger was hunted by every bastard with a gun because some fucking idiot in London fancied himself as a great detective! He had nothing to do with the missing file or the killings. The whole thing was an unmitigated disaster in the true traditions of the service. So why the fuck should I help you? So you can kiss and make up?” He leant back, his anger spent for the moment.
Cockburn looked at him and stood up. He had had enough. “He’s an old friend of mine – that’s why. I was pulled out of my station to come and find him. The hunt’s over and the DG needs him back. Now, I personally don’t give a shit if he tells Tansey-Williams to stuff it. In fact, I’d rather like to be there when he does. But someone else is after him. I think it’s the same bunch that got the files. So you can lie here in your own self pity – I don’t like losers anyway – but find him I will, and help him I will, with you or without you. “
With the final words ringing in Blacks’ ears, he marched towards the door.
To Black, it was only too familiar.
“Cockburn? You on the level? You really trying to help?”
“Yes, I am.”
“If you’re lying to me, I’ll get you for it. You know that.”
“Yes,” he replied softly. “I think you probably would.”
“He was here. The night you flew back in. Walked in, bold as brass, past the police outside. Sent them off for a cuppa.” He smiled at the thought.
Cockburn walked back to the bed. “What did he want?”
“Same as you. What did I know about the Long Knives affair.”
“How was he?”
“Never knew him before. But he was all there, if you know what I mean. Scary.”
“That’s him,” Cockburn said, pleased. “Where did he go from here?”
“Dunno. He had his own leads. He wants to get to whoever’s after the girl. But I had another visitor…” And he told Cockburn about the strange man who had left the medal.
“What’s your feel?”
“If he’s on the Kilo payroll, then they’re as concerned as we are. Quayle knows about him too.”
“If you were to find him, where would you look?”
Black thought for a second or two.
“That stupid manhunt would have chased any normal operative underground, back into his own channels, back into his contacts of long ago.”
“That’s the intention,” Cockburn said dryly.
“Not this one,” Black said. “Quayle’s way too smart for that. He’ll avoid the old haunts like the plague. Try the opposite. I’d look where he has a life the service doesn’t know about, at more recent contacts.”
“I never thought of that,” Cockburn admitted.
“It’s my job, son. Been finding people who didn’t want to be found for years.”
Cockburn thought for a minute, walked to the phone by Black’s bed and dialled the office. You know how to find people and I know Quayle, he thought.
“Chloe? My friend spent some time in the Middle East. Yes. When he left, he travelled with a friend. I’d like his name, if you would.”
That was all he could say over an open line, but he knew she would get the message.
CHAPTER NINE
Quayle had stopped at an autobahn service area and, through the noise of the manoeuvering juggernauts, he telephoned the conduit in Bremen, using the lemon code. It was affirmative and, smiling broadly, he ran back to the car. The post restante at the main post office closed at four. There were names waiting there for him. Something concrete at last. He silently blessed Kurt and, wheels spinning, headed back onto the autobahn and Frankfurt.
An hour later, he sat in a commercial parking building and split open the envelope. Two eight-by-ten inch black and white photographs dropped onto his lap. One was a grainy, badly lit shot, obviously from a surveillance camera. Three men sat round a desk in a crowded office, the two facing the camera circled in red pen. The police station, thought Quayle. The second was a better shot of the two men walking towards a car, obviously after release.
There was a note paper in the envelope too.
