‘If you’ll take off those bloody glasses,’ I said, ‘you might be able to see.’
26
I went round to Maria’s in a hurry. When she opened the door she was wearing riding breeches and a roll-neck pullover. ‘I was about to go out,’ she said.
‘I need to see Datt,’ I said.
‘Why do you tell me that?’
I pushed past her and closed the door behind us. ‘Where is he?’
She gave me a twitchy little ironical smile while she thought of something crushing to say. I grabbed her arm and let my fingertips bite. ‘Don’t fool with me, Maria. I’m not in the mood. Believe me I would hit you.’
‘I’ve no doubt about it.’
‘You told Datt about Loiseau’s raid on the place in the Avenue Foch. You have no loyalties, no allegiance, none to the Sûreté, none to Loiseau. You just give away information as though it was toys out of a bran tub.’
‘I thought you were going to say I gave it away as I did my sexual favours,’ she smiled again.
‘Perhaps I was.’
‘Did you remember that I kept your secret without giving it away? No one knows what you truly said when Datt gave you the injection.’
‘No one knows yet. I suspect that you are saving it up for something special.’
She swung her hand at me but I moved out of range. She stood for a moment, her face twitching with fury.
‘You ungrateful bastard,’ she said. ‘You’re the first real bastard I’ve ever met.’
I nodded. ‘There’s not many of us around. Ungrateful for what?’ I asked her. ‘Ungrateful for your loyalty? Was that what your motive was: loyalty?’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I have no loyalty to anyone. A woman on her own becomes awfully hard. Datt is the only one who understands that. Somehow I didn’t want Loiseau to arrest him.’ She looked up. For that and many reasons.’
‘Tell me one of the other reasons.’
‘Datt is a senior man in the SDECE, and that’s one reason. If Loiseau clashed with him, Loiseau could only lose.’
‘Why do you think Datt is an SDECE man?’
‘Many people know. Loiseau won’t believe it but it’s true.’
‘Loiseau won’t believe it because he has got too much sense. I’ve checked up on Datt. He’s never had anything to do with any French intelligence unit. But he knew how useful it was to let people think so.’
She shrugged. ‘I know it’s true,’ she said. ‘Datt works for the SDECE.’
I took her shoulders. ‘Look, Maria. Can’t you get it through your head that he’s a phoney? He has no psychiatry diploma, has never been anything to do with the French Government except that he pulls strings among his friends and persuades even people like you who work for the Sûreté that he’s a highly placed agent of SDECE.’
‘And what do you want?’ she asked.
‘I want you to help me find Datt.’
‘Help,’ she said. ‘That’s a new attitude. You come bursting in here making your demands. If you’d come in here asking for help I might have been more sympathetic. What is it you want with Datt?’
‘I want Kuang; he killed the girl at the clinic that day. I want to find him.’
‘It’s not your job to find him.’
‘You are right. It’s Loiseau’s job, but he is holding Byrd for it and he’ll keep on holding him.’
‘Loiseau wouldn’t hold an innocent man. Poof, you don’t know what a fuss he makes about the sanctity of the law and that sort of thing.’
‘I am a British agent,’ I said. ‘You know that already so I’m not telling you anything new. Byrd is too.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not. I’d be the last person to be told anyway. He’s not someone whom I would contact officially. It’s just my guess. I think Loiseau has been instructed to hold Byrd for the murder – with or without evidence – so Byrd is doomed unless I push Kuang right into Loiseau’s arms.’
Maria nodded.
‘Your mother lives in Flanders. Datt will be at his house near by, right?’ Maria nodded. ‘I want you to take an American out to your mother’s house and wait there till I phone.’
‘She hasn’t got a phone.’
‘Now, now, Maria,’ I said. ‘I checked up on your mother: she has a phone. Also I phoned my people here in Paris. They will be bringing some papers to your mother’s house. They’ll be needed for crossing the border. No matter what I say don’t come over to Datt’s without them.’
Maria nodded. ‘I’ll help. I’ll help you pin that awful Kuang. I hate him.’
‘And Datt, do you hate him too?’
She looked at me searchingly. ‘Sometimes, but in a different way,’ she said. ‘You see, I’m his illegitimate daughter. Perhaps you checked up on that too?’
27
The road was straight. It cared nothing for geography, geology or history. The oil-slicked highway dared children and divided neighbours. It speared small villages through their hearts and laid them open. It was logical that it should be so straight, and yet it was obsessive too. Carefully lettered signs – the names of villages and the times of Holy Mass – and then the dusty clutter of houses flicked past with seldom any sign of life. At Le Chateau I turned off the main road and picked my way through the small country roads. I saw the sign Plaisir ahead and slowed. This was the place I wanted.
The main street of the village was like something out of Zane Grey, heavy with the dust of passing vehicles. None of them stopped. The street was wide enough for four lanes of cars, but there was very little traffic. Plaisir was on the main road to nowhere. Perhaps a traveller who had taken the wrong road at St Quentin might pass through Plaisir trying to get back on the Paris-Brussels road. Some years back when they were building the autoroute, heavy lorries had passed through, but none of them had stopped at Plaisir.
Today it was hot; scorching hot. Four mangy dogs had scavenged enough food and now were asleep in the centre of the roadway. Every house was shuttered tight, grey and dusty in the cruel biting midday light that gave them only a narrow rim of shadow.
I stopped the car near to a petrol pump, an ancient, handle-operated instrument bolted uncertainly on to a concrete pillar. I got out and thumped upon the garage doors, but there was no response. The only other vehicle in sight was an old tractor parked a few yards ahead. On the other side of the street a horse stood, tethered to a piece of rusty farm machinery, flicking its tail against the flies. I touched the engine of the tractor: it was still warm. I hammered the garage doors again, but the only movement was the horse’s tail. I walked down the silent street, the stones hot against my shoes. One of the dogs, its left ear missing, scratched itself awake and crawled into the shade of the tractor. It growled dutifully at me as I passed, then subsided into sleep. A cat’s eyes peered through a window full of aspidistra plants. Above the window, faintly discernible in the weathered woodwork, I read the word ‘café’. The door was stiff and opened noisily. I went in.
There were half a dozen people standing at the bar. They weren’t talking and I had the feeling that they had been watching me since I left the car. They stared at me.
‘A