passed it to Madden, who held it up to the light and squinted at the glossy print. The subjects of the snapshot were a young couple sitting hand in hand at a table in a cafe. But it was the pair of men behind them that Madden fixed his gaze on. They were seated at another zinc-topped table, this one bearing a bottle, half-empty glasses and an overflowing ashtray, and the head of one of them had been circled with a pen. He was the least visible of the duo, appearing to have turned away at the moment when the photograph was taken, and only one side of his face could be seen; the image was further marred by the hand which he had raised to his temple. His companion, fair-haired, and with a thick moustache, sat sprawled in a careless pose, legs thrust out, and there was more than a hint of aggression in the way he held himself. Not so the other. Lean and alert-looking, he had not been taken by surprise, Madden saw. The lifted hand, the quickly turned head — everything about his pose suggested a swift reaction.
‘The one with the moustache is Hendrik Bok,’ Sinclair explained. ‘He had a bodyguard called Graaf, who ended up in prison, and Duval arranged with the Dutch police to interview him. According to Graaf, the snapshot dates from the day Marko arrived in the city. He said he’d accompanied Bok to the cafe where the rendezvous took place, but was told to wait outside and keep watch. He didn’t actually set eyes on Marko, but quite soon after this meeting, the cull of Bok’s enemies started and word spread about a Serbian killer he had working for him.’
The chief inspector took the photograph back from Madden and returned it to his jacket pocket.
‘Bok’s wife never met Marko, incidentally, though she knew all about him, and she believed the story Bok put about — that he’d been a member of the Black Hand. And she said an interesting thing. She thought her husband was afraid of him.’
‘Even though Marko worked for him?’
‘And even though Bok must have come across some bad actors in his time. He was one himself. It makes you wonder whose idea it was to keep Marko out of sight; to produce him only when he was needed. Perhaps it suited them both. Marko didn’t want his face known and Bok may have been relieved not to have him around.’
‘One to stay away from.’ Madden murmured the words to himself.
‘What was that?’ Sinclair cocked an ear.
‘Something Florrie Desmoulins said. Men were her business; she knew he was dangerous.’ Madden was silent for a moment. Then he asked, ‘ about the Sobel robbery? ‘What did Bok’s widow have to say about that?’
‘Very little. Only that when Bok heard about it later — when the Dutch police questioned him — he had laughed and said that some people were too greedy for their own good. Later he told his wife he’d had nothing to do with it. It was Eyskens’s own idea. Marko himself had quit Holland some time earlier. The war had put an end to his partnership with Bok, who was dying anyway. Although he didn’t say where he was going, his only escape route lay through France, and he must have got in touch with Eyskens as soon as he reached Paris. I say “must have” because what follows is supposition on Duval’s part, though it seems to hang together.’
The chief inspector emptied his glass. He took a deep breath, trying to shake off his drowsiness.
‘Eyskens had already agreed to sell Sobel the diamonds: he’d done the same for other emigres who needed to leave in a hurry, and made a handsome profit out of it. But before the deal went through, Marko appeared, and that seems to have given him the idea of going one better: of doubling his money, so to speak, by stealing the stones back from Sobel after he’d paid for them. But what he didn’t stop to ask himself was why a man like Marko should have sought him out in the first place. Their only connection had been over the Fontainebleau affair, and that ought to have warned Eyskens. Apparently it never occurred to him that Marko might be set on wiping out whatever tracks he’d left before moving on: that he was one of the few people who could identify him. What seems certain is his plan to rob Sobel merely postponed the inevitable. Marko must have seen it as a windfall, a way of lining his own pockets before attending to his main business.’
Sinclair paused to reflect on what he had said.
‘Whether Sobel’s murder was part of Eyskens’s plan, or whether Marko was simply following his instincts, we’ll never know. But the scheme misfired. It seems Rosa turned up at the critical moment. She may actually have seen the murder take place. What’s certain is she screamed and ran from the house out into the street and Marko pursued her. Given his usual pattern of behaviour, there’s not much doubt he would have killed her as well if he’d caught her, but before he could do that he ran into a pair of gendarmes who were patrolling in the district and had to turn tail. Shots were exchanged and they chased after him, but he managed to escape. However, in the interim Rosa had disappeared. The gendarmes had seen her come out of the house and one of them called to her to wait for them there, but when they returned she was gone. Later, after Sobel’s body had been found, it was learned from his desk diary that he’d had an appointment that same afternoon with Eyskens. Since his name was already known to the police, a pair of detectives were dispatched to bring him in for questioning, but they found him dead in his office. Strangled. Presumably his plan had called for Marko to return the stones to him after robbing Sobel, so he would have been expecting him. Later, when their pathologist examined his body they found signs of torture on it.’
‘Torture-?’ Madden shot him a look.
‘He’d used his wire on Eyskens’s neck before killing him … the marks were plain to see. The police thought it likely he was trying to persuade him to open his safe; that he was after the money Sobel had paid for the stones earlier. We’re back with greed. He must have been interrupted though, because he had to run for it again when the police arrived — this time over the rooftops. But he took the diamonds with him and that list Eyskens had made. The police found a copy of it on Sobel’s body: that’s what alerted them to the theft. They also found a large sum of cash in the safe when it was eventually opened. The equivalent of about?25,000 according to the figures Duval gave us.’
‘But Marko got away?’
Sinclair nodded. ‘By the skin of his teeth. But the police had a stroke of luck. They got hold of the name of the hotel where he was staying. He’d rung Eyskens when he’d arrived and left a number which Eyskens’s secretary had made a note of. So they got to the hotel before he did and found he’d left a briefcase in the safe there with a large sum of money in it. About?40,000 in various currencies, Duval said.’
‘Good grief!’ Madden was struck dumb with surprise.
‘The wages of sin, one assumes.’ The chief inspector cocked an eyebrow. ‘All this took some time to put together, needless to say, but eventually the Dutch police discovered the identity he’d been living under in Amsterdam and they located a safe-deposit box in the same name at a bank. It was empty; he must have cleaned it out before leaving.’
Sinclair paused to swallow what remained of his drink.
‘They also provided the French with some details about him, what they’d gathered from people who’d come in contact with him. It made interesting reading. The name he used for a start — Meiring. As I say, he had French papers, acquired for him by Bok most likely, but he claimed to come from Alsace, of German stock, which would have explained his less than perfect French. He let it be known he was a dealer in rare stamps and actually had a collection, though there’s no record of him having done any business. Or none the French have been able to come up with. But it gave him an excuse to travel whenever he needed to.’
‘How did the Dutch police know he had a stamp collection?’ Madden had been paying close attention.
‘From a woman who knew him. A prostitute. She used to visit him once a week. His tastes were … how shall I put it … unusual.’
The chief inspector raised an eyebrow.
‘He liked to be punished … whipped or beaten with a cane. The woman in question was a specialist in these matters, but although she was accustomed to dealing with clients of his kind, she claimed she was never at ease in these sessions. There was something about this man that alarmed her, and although the drama they played out required her to assume a dominating role, in fact it was she who was afraid of him, and she only continued with the arrangement, which lasted for a few months, because he paid her well.’
Sinclair drained his glass for a second time.
‘That apart, his life was unremarkable, excessively so. He seems to have lived at the same address in Amsterdam for six years without catching anyone’s eye. He’d obviously come a long way since his Balkan days. There he’d been little more than a cheap thug. By the time he joined up with Bok he was a much smoother article, and he must have put some thought into how others saw him. Though he made no friends, he had a number of acquaintances and he let it be known that he’d been married in the past but lost both his wife and young son in a motor accident. He was thought by some who knew him to be still in the grip of melancholy, and he seems to have used this perception as a means of keeping them at bay, not that anyone seemed to regret this. None were ever easy in his company.’
