'But your father divorced your mother,' I said.
For a moment I thought the boy was angry that I had mentioned it, but he smiled at Lucie, and then said to me, 'He wrote that he was divorced on all the official forms and stuff but the truth of it is that he's always refused to give my mother a divorce — that's what caused all the bad feeling.'
'On religious grounds?'
'Mom said it was easy for Dad to have religious scruples — he didn't want to get married again.'
'But your mother did?'
They never got on. They separated too long ago for me to remember anything about it but I can never imagine them getting along together. Mom digs the high-life. This guy Reid-Kennedy is just rolling in money. He's always wanted me to take an allowance but I wouldn't feel right about that; after all, he's not even my stepfather.'
'What does he do for a living?'
'He's in electronics.'
I said, 'That can mean anything from repairing a broken TV to walking on the moon.'
'His factories make complicated junk for communications satellites. They did a lot of work for this one French TV use to get live news coverage from the States. And there are the weather satellites too… I guess it's not military secrets, if that's what you guys are thinking.'
'You'll be too late for the hospital, cheri,' said the woman.
'I'll skip it today,' said the boy. 'I was due to give blood at the hospital on the Boulevard but I can easily do that tomorrow.'
Mann nodded. 'You keep in touch with your mother?'
'We write.'
'When was the last time you saw her?'
'One,' said the boy, 'no, what am I saying, two years ago.'
Lucie Valentin got up from the arm of the chair and walked over to the window and took a sudden interest in the falling snow.
'And she doesn't write or phone?' Mann persisted.
'A couple of times in this last year,' said the boy. 'She's beginning to accept the situation for what it is.'
Lucie Valentin walked back to him and slipped a hand into the pocket of the overalls he was wearing, took his cigarettes out and lit one. It was an intimate gesture and yet it lacked the spontaneity that such actions usually have. He felt it too. 'What's the matter, darling?'
She turned away from him and shrugged. She puffed the cigarette and said, 'Your mother was here yesterday.'
'Are you sure?' he said incredulously.
Lucie still didn't turn. 'Of course I'm sure. She came here looking for you. Of course I'm sure.'
'Take it easy, baby.'
'I'm sorry, darling,' she said in a voice that showed no sign of regret. 'She hasn't accepted anything. She's determined to part us. I dreamed about her last night.'
'You're being silly.'
Lucie Valentin rounded on him. 'I'm not being silly, and don't call me baby.' She opened the handbag that was on the window-sill and produced from it a slip of paper. 'Call her!' said Lucie. 'That's what you want to 'do, isn't it?'
He didn't take the slip of paper. 'I love you, Lucie.'
She shrugged and turned away.
It was Major Mann who took the slip of paper from her. He didn't pass it on to the boy. He read it himself. Neither of them were aware of us any more.
'You should have told me, Lucie.'
Lucie dabbed at her eyes with a tiny handkerchief. 'She only stayed in France for three hours. She was going back to the airport again. It seemed silly to risk all we have when she was only here for a few minutes.'
'She didn't cross the Atlantic just to pay one short visit,' said the boy. He was flattered by the idea, and his voice betrayed it.
'No,' she said. 'They are in Europe.'
'This is hotel stationery,' said Mann holding up the note. 'No message, just 'Please phone' and the printed note-paper. The Gresham Hotel, Dublin. What would she be doing in Ireland, do you know?'
'No,' said the boy.
'Well, think about it!' said Mann angrily. The tension in the room had got to all of us, and now Mann became unreasonably impatient with the boy. 'Think about it. Is she interested in stud farms or shark fishing? What's she doing in Ireland in the depths of winter?'
The boy shook his head, and Lucie Valentin answered on his behalf. 'His mother had come on the Irish Airlines direct flight: Dublin-Paris. She said not to tell her husband about the trip. He thought she was shopping in Dublin, and going on to the theatre in the evening.'
'So where the hell was he?' said Mann. 'Crazy kind of vacation where you send your wife to a show alone.'
'She didn't say anything about that,' said Lucie Valentin.
Major Mann reached for his hat and buttoned his coat 'You're not planning to leave town, are you?'
Neither of them answered but as we went through the door that Lucie held open for us, the boy said, 'She's not trying to part us, baby. Quit worrying about that. It's having secrets from each other… that's what does the damage,' and after the door closed they switched to a gabble of French.
From below there came the music of the same tango that we'd heard when we arrived. Either the autochange was stuck, or they were learning to dance. Mann didn't talk as we went down the narrow stone stairs. Some of the light bulbs were missing and the ones that worked gave no more than a glimmer of light. There is a false gaiety to the tango: it's really a very melancholy rhythm.
It was late afternoon but the low clouds darkened the street so that some of the cars had their lights on. We walked until we got to our rented Mercedes. The thin layer of snow that had collected on it was coloured yellow by the brick-dust of the demolition, and someone had drawn a hammer and sickle in it. Mann defaced it before getting in. Then he operated the wipers to make a clear patch of glass but even as he did so there was a thunderous crash from a collapsing wall and a great cloud of dust enveloped us. We were tightly boxed but Mann shunted us clear and joined the traffic that sped along the rue de Flandres towards central Paris. We were in the Place de Stalingrad before Mann said anything. 'Suppose the kid really is the courier?' he said.
'I can't believe that was all an act. Those two weren't doing all that for us?'
'And the kid's mother?'
'When a professional network makes a mistake, it's always this kind of mistake,' I said. 'It's always a jealous lover or a suspicious wife.'
'Or a cast-off wife who wants to remarry. So you think the wife framed Hank?'
'It was a way of putting pressure on you,' I said. 'It was a way of making you vulnerable.'
'But was it intended to get us off Bekuv's tail? Or is this a red herring — this junk about Dublin?'
'A good question,' I said. He nodded. We both knew that we'd got to go to Dublin — an investigator follows his lead, no matter how much he suspects it might be a false trail.
By the time we got back to the hotel, near the Ministry of the Interior, the snow was getting a grip upon the city. Major Mann strode into- the hotel shaking the ice from his raincoat. There was a message awaiting him. It was via the French police. Someone had been trying to reach us urgently. There was a contact phone number. I recognized it as one of the accommodation numbers used by the C.I.A. floor of the Paris embassy. Mann rang it, and the messenger arrived within ten minutes. It had been through the cipher machine but it was still enigmatic enough to require explanation.
JONATHAN TO SHOESHINE TRIPLE STAR URGENT. FABIAN REGRETS PROSPECT DEAN NAMED IN ERROR STOP HE NOW SAYS BETTERCAR CAR RENTALS OFFICE IS IN BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS STOP RED SENDS LOVE STOP BRING COGNAC SIGNATURE JONATHAN ENDS
