As was his habit whenever he returned to the apartment, regardless of whether he had been out for half an hour, a weekend or, like now, several weeks, he checked each room carefully and methodically. Today, he had forgotten how gloomy the flat looked in daylight, particularly on a wet day. He’d only ever had enough money for the basics of apartment life, and several of the major items had come from second-hand shops. The exceptions were the 21'' Sony colour television, his JVC video-recorder — he was addicted to movies and this was his one real luxury — and his Walther PP automatic pistol, together with some £30,000 worth of the most sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment available in the world. Both the gun and the surveillance equipment were still in their places in the hollowed-out headboard of his bed.
He picked up from the bedside table the large framed photograph of Amanda, wearing a hardhat, surrounded by rubble and smiling cheekily. He slipped the photograph out of its frame, seized it between his two hands as if to rip it in half, then relented and pushed it out of sight into a drawer. He sat down on the bed, still unmade from the Saturday when he had set off to drive down to Bristol, and felt sad and desolate. He thought back about those months he had spent with Amanda, and then tried to stop thinking about them because they hurt too much.
They had met when a high-rise office building in Camden Town had been gutted by fire. Baenhaker’s cover role in England was as an insurance loss adjuster for Eisenbar-Goldschmidt, a major Israeli reinsurance company. He had been sent ostensibly to investigate the damage and advise Eisenbar-Goldschmidt on any potential salvage items. The real reason for his presence in the gutted shell was because one floor had been occupied by a large Israeli import-export company. The Mossad wanted to know whether there was any Arab sabotage involved, as part of a plan of international sabotage against Israeli firms, and was interested in a direct report from its own personnel, whom it trusted, and not from the British Police, in whom it had doubts — the same doubts as it had about every other organization in the world that did not openly and unequivocally proclaim and prove itself to be pro-Israeli.
Amanda had been in the shell as part of the team of architects and designers which had been commissioned for the re-building. He went over to the drawer, pulled out the photograph once more, looked at it, then put it back. For eighteen months they had got on brilliantly and then, as suddenly as the flame had started, it died.
The last two occasions they had had dinner, she had lost interest in what he had to say, and no longer seemed to care about anything he had done. Then that weekend they were supposed to go away to Scotland, she had rung him on the Thursday to say she had to go to an architects’ conference in Cologne. He stood up suddenly, and marched over to the window. He opened it and breathed in deep gulps of the air, then put his hands on the sill and stared down into the basement at the dustbins. He remembered now. It came flooding back: Amanda in the Porsche on the motorway: the hell she had been to an architects’ conference in Cologne.
He stared out of the window for a long time, watching the drizzle. He tried to remember more about the accident, but nothing else came.
Baenhaker was conscious that he had little money. If he were paid by Eisenbar-Goldschmidt as a loss adjuster, he would have had a damned good salary and a decent car; but he wasn’t. He was paid by the Mossad out of the Israeli Defence budget. The Mossad was always short of money, and those who bore the brunt of the shortage were the employees. Baenhaker had thought of quitting on a number of occasions, but a sense of duty, a deep-rooted desire to see Israel survive, and a belief that he was an indispensable part of that survival kept him in his job.
He had asked Amanda often whether it bothered her that he had little money, could not afford to have a smart car and take her to smart restaurants; she had always replied that it didn’t. But he had noticed that the lifestyle of the rich seemed to lure her. Having seen her in that Porsche, he knew how she must have finally swallowed the hook deep down inside her. She had been to see him twice in hospital. The first time she had held his hand and looked tearful. The second time she had brought him chocolates, forgetting that he hated chocolates, and stayed for five minutes. A voice deep inside him said, ‘Forget her.’ He was trying, he knew. Damned hard.
20
After the telex from Theo Barbiero-Ruche had been placed on his desk, Rocq sat and stared at it in silence for a long time. The last of the lunchtime alcohol was wearing away, and he had a strong desire to go out, buy a bottle and keep on drinking. He was emerging into full, clear reality, and he wasn’t sure that was a condition he wanted to be in. Right now, he needed oblivion, and he needed it for a good long time. He tried to bury himself in work, but after two half-hearted phone calls he knew it was no good. He looked at his watch: it was five to five, and already one or two people in the office had started to pack up for the day. His intercom buzzed and he picked up the receiver.
‘Mr Rocq?’
It was Sir Monty Elleck’s private secretary.
‘Yes.’
‘Sir Monty wonders if you could spare him a moment upstairs in his office?’
Rocq thought frantically for a moment. He had a damned good idea what Elleck wanted to see him about: the small matter of a few hundred thousand pounds of margin. He wanted to stay well out of Elleck’s way until he could get hold of some money, but he realized he was going to have no chance of avoiding him unless he went sick, and he knew that he could not afford to go sick; he needed to watch the price of coffee twenty-four hours a day, until it had dropped sufficiently to see him out of trouble. He couldn’t take the risk of missing the drop. He had instructed Barbiero-Ruche to buy back, if it went below £327, but if it looked like plummeting well below that, he wanted to be able to cancel that instruction and hold out for even more. Reluctantly, he got up from his desk and made his way up to Elleck’s office.
He was surprised to find Elleck in an uncharacteristically jovial mood. He came out from behind his desk to greet him with a firm handshake, ushered him into a pink chair, and asked him what he would like to drink. He then went and poured two hefty Scotches, added some Malvern water, brought the glasses over, gave one to Alex, and seated himself in a lemon yellow chair next to him.
‘So how are you, Alex?’
‘Fine, thank you, Sir Monty.’
‘Good, good. Business all right?’
‘Reasonable, thank you, sir.’
‘I hear you had a car accident at the weekend. No one hurt, I hope?’
‘No, sir. My car was parked and a lorry hit it.’
‘I am sorry to hear that. Badly damaged?’
‘Smashed to pieces; a write-off.’
‘Very unfortunate. A Porsche wasn’t it? Expensive motor car.’
Rocq nodded.
‘I presume the insurance will cover it?’
‘Yes, sir. Probably take several months though, knowing them.’
‘Impossible people, insurance companies. Will you get another one in the meantime?’
‘I think I’ll have to wait until I get the insurance money — I don’t want to borrow the money at current interest rates.’
‘Of course not, they are very punitive. Still, Alex, it must be very inconvenient not to have a car?’
‘It is — I’m going to have to rent one at the weekends.’
Elleck took a sip of his drink, then handed Rocq a box of Romeo & Juliet coronas. Rocq took one, and Elleck helped himself. ‘Not very satisfactory, renting. Very expensive. I think it would be better, Alex, if you went and bought yourself another Porsche. Put it on the Company — you can arrange it tomorrow through the accounts department. I will tell them in the morning. Then you can reimburse us with whatever you eventually get from the insurance.’