Deadlock

And Haber does not like interference. We forget it. The deck is in need of a wash-down…'

Further upstream the Gargantua proceeded towards the citadel towering above Dinant. Klein was satisfied all was well and no one had noticed his confrontation with Haber.

'This is Sampiero Calgourli,' Lasalle introduced.

Tweed and Newman made no attempt to shake hands since the Union Corse chief remained seated when Lasalle had told him their names. They followed Lasalle's example and sat down in the dark room cluttered with old-fashioned furniture.

Calgourli's headquarters was an apartment near the meat market in the southern area of Paris. Swarthy-faced, the Corsican had very wide shoulders in proportion to his lack of height. His neck was thick, his hair dark and greasy, his moustache curved round the corners of a cruel mouth.

'Who are these people?' Calgourli demanded.

'Mr Tweed is a very powerful man in England, Mr Newman is his protector. Both – like me – are interested in everything you can tell us about the man known as The Recruiter.'

'And why should I tell you anything – even if I knew about this man?'

'Look here, Calgourli…' Lasalle leaned forward. His manner was transformed. All hint of good humour had gone. His expression was grim, his tone tough. '… One day you will need a favour. I make a good friend – and a very bad enemy. I could get the idea into my head it would be an idea to investigate your Italian connection.'

'Please, my friend!' Calgourli spread his gnarled hands and he smiled, showing bad teeth. 'I merely ask a simple question. I like to know where I stand…'

'The Recruiter,' Lasalle repeated.

'Not a man I would do business with. He tried though -this Klein.'

'Excuse me,' Tweed intervened in French. 'You say his name is Klein?'

'That is the name he uses. You think that is his real name? He probably has half-a-dozen. He comes here with an introduction from a man in Marseilles. Little does he know I am no longer a friend of this man. I think Perugini has a perverted sense of humour.' He made a dismissive gesture. 'No doubt he extracted a fee for the introduction from Klein.'

'What did Klein want from you?' Lasalle snapped.

To recruit one of my associates. A man who is an explosives expert and a scuba diver. Now, Mr Lasalle, where would I find a man like that?'

'In five minutes on your doorstep – if you wanted to. What was your reply?'

'I told him to go fishing – something like that. Perhaps I was a little crude…'

'How did he react to that?' Lasalle pressed.

'Very calmly. He is a very cold man. I do not mind admitting I was glad I had a friend with me. Klein is a man who would carve up a corpse if he thought the corpse had pearls in its belly. And he laid down absurd conditions for his fee.' Calgourli stirred himself, rang a bell on the table by his side. 'Maurice! Bring wine.'

Lasalle watched as a thin young man with blank eyes came in, laid a tray of glasses and a bottle of red wine on the table. Calgourli poured wine, offered a glass to each of his guests. Tweed sipped cautiously. Vin ordinaire. Very ordinary. He loathed red wine but thought it best not to disturb the atmosphere. The old ruffian, he felt certain, could be explosively touchy.

'I trust,' Lasalle began, 'that Maurice is not listening in to this conversation.'

'If he was I'd cut off an ear.'

'What were these absurd conditions?' enquired Tweed.

'That the man he hired should leave Paris that night, that he should tell no one he was leaving, that no one should know his destination – including myself! I do not work in such ways – even had he asked for someone I could have supplied.'

'How much?' Lasalle asked laconically, not touching his wine.

'Pardon?'

'Oh, come on, for God's sake. I'm losing patience with you. What fee did he offer you?'

'Fifty thousand francs – with a second payment of the same amount when my man had left Paris.'

'Could you please describe this Klein?' Tweed asked.

'About a hundred and eighty centimetres tall, about eighty kilogrammes in weight. Colour of hair – no idea. He wore a black beret and a silk scarf which covered the back of his neck. I didn't like his eyes.'

'What colour?' Tweed continued.

'No idea. He wore those wrap-round tinted glasses…'

'Then why didn't you like the eyes – if you couldn't see them?'

This man is a policeman?' Calgourli asked Lasalle.

'Answer his question.'

'I could only see the eyes vaguely, but all the time he was in this room they stared at me from behind those tinted lenses. Ah, yes, and his face was white as death – a death mask.'

'How did he take your refusal?' Lasalle asked.

'He seemed amused.' Calgourli's lips tightened at the memory. 'He said if I didn't want to do business that was it.' Calgourli paused, looking at Lasalle. 'I can tell you one thing which would greatly interest you – if you would regard it as a great favour. You know what I mean?'

'Let me be the judge of that.'

'He has hired The Monk, the deadliest marksman in Europe.'

'Amazing,' Lasalle remarked as he settled himself behind the wheel of his car beside Tweed with Newman in the back. 'The old villain was actually scared of this Klein. Never before have I heard of anything scaring him.'

'At least we have a name – Klein,' Tweed remarked. 'And one of my contacts in another country used the same name.'

'And what use is that?' Lasalle asked as he started the engine and drove off. 'It is a common enough name. Have you any idea how many Kleins there are in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany?'

'A check on the Interpol computer here might be worth while,' Tweed persisted. 'And I didn't like the news that he has hired The Monk. I've heard of that man – a shadow which passes in the night. Leaving behind a body.'

'So shadowy no one has been able to pin anything on him,' Lasalle remarked. 'But it's very bad news. What kind of hellish operation can this Klein be planning? Hijacking a cruise liner?'

'If something is planned I don't think so,' Tweed said. 'I fear it could be something much bigger. Don't ask me what. But Calgourli did provide at long last what I've been looking for. Some facts.'

'Such as?' asked Newman.

'Explosives, scuba divers, and a top marksman. The Monk.'

'Come to check up on me?' Marler asked cheerfully. 'Making sure I was still in Bouillon?'

'I came to reassure you on our mutual friend's instruction,' Hipper said as they wandered through the streets of the small town. 'To tell you we should be ready soon now. It is very important you remain available at the Panorama…'

'I'm not staying hemmed in by the four walls of a hotel bedroom day after day. If you phone and I'm out, call back.'

'That is not entirely satisfactory…'

'Nothing in life ever is.'

'I will leave you here. Go straight back to your hotel.'

'On the double. Sir.'

Marler gave the Luxembourger a brief mock salute, turned and disappeared round a corner. He ran to where he had parked his newly-hired Volvo, unlocked it, got behind the wheel and started the engine. Ramming a black beret on his head, he perched a pair of dark glasses on his nose and drove to the corner where Hipper was just getting into a Peugeot station wagon.

He followed Hipper past the castle relic which loomed over the town and settled down to keeping the Peugeot in sight. They had left him marooned in the nowhere place of Bouillon. Not good enough. He needed some idea of where Hipper was based. You couldn't know too much about your employer in his line of business.

Hipper drove north through the Ardennes, then turned west. Marler had managed to avoid being spotted when Hipper arrived in Givet, the small French town just inside the frontier and south of Dinant.

Marler drove across the bridge over the river Meuse, turned on to the Quai des Fours, and realized he'd lost Hipper. He parked the Volvo and went into a cafe overlooking the waterfront for some coffee. 'Can't win them all,' he thought as he gazed out of the window.