He quickly spotted two: both men in nondescript dark topcoats, bowler hats and heavy moustaches, so similarly anonymous that his instincts told him “police” rather than “criminal”. But police followers didn’t mean there weren’t the other sort as well. Whether or not the lady was the true Mrs Langhorn (which he didn’t yet know), she would only be there by order of the villains (whoever they were) and they’d be fools not to cover their bet with a watcher or two. It troubled him that he couldn’t spot anyone.
Meanwhile, Jay was ahead on the Rue de la Paix, pausing to glance into shop windows, then striding out to keep “Mrs Langhorn” in sight. He wasn’t doing a bad job, but to an old hand like O’Gilroy he was concentrating more on not appearing to be a follower than on following. The two flics were taking one side of the road each in classical pattern.
At the Place de l’Opera she vanished down into the Metro and there was an unobtrusive rush to be closer to her when she chose her platform. O’Gilroy hung back, following the last flic instead, so perhaps he was the only one to spot that a fifth man had joined the party. She must be taking a prearranged route and this one, dressed in what he probably thought was Grands Boulevards fashion and which made him look like a cheap swell, was there specifically to see if she was followed.
To a Londoner the new Paris Metro had a toytown look, with overlarge tunnels and over-small wooden carriages rattling in with a jaunty air. By the time their train arrived, O’Gilroy had positioned himself to get into the carriage behind. He found a seat at one end with his back to the other passengers, and began. First, he sprinkled a matchbox of talcum powder over his good-quality boots so that, at a glance, they looked dusty and thus cheap. He dumped the bowler hat and replaced it with a greasy cloth cap (in Paris, berets were for country yokels). Then he took off the long topcoat and revealed a torn, button-less jacket and out-at-the-knees trousers several sizes too big; the Ritz would have had the vapours to know what he’d been wearing under the coat. Finally he pocketed his tie and collar, rubbed his hands on the carriage floor and then on to his face.
He simply abandoned the coat and bowler, and never mind the Bureau’s accountants. The Bureau just wanted believability, and believability was O’Gilroy’s stock in trade: he was radiating it when he shuffled off at the next station and into “Mrs Langhorn’s” carriage.
Of course, if they turned out to be heading for some posh suburb, he was sunk. But there, Jay would come into his own again, and the further east they went, the less likely posh suburbs became. And the Metro had its standards, skirting around the nineteenth arrondissement to make sure that anyone visiting La Villette, or trying to escape from it, was doomed to a good long walk. Sure enough, the woman got out at Bolivar station and began the trek down the Rue Armand Carrel.
You might say that this was Paris’s equivalent of London’s East End, but that had been built on virgin land to cram the new breed of factory workers into a dreary, geometrical pygmyland. La Villette lay within Paris’s walls, so had started as farmhouses and village cottages, the gaps gradually filled in with whatever fitted the space and need until you had today’s above-ground warren of unmatched buildings and rambling alleyways. Even in the sunlight, it had a grey Northern bleakness. The slums of Naples might be worse, but their cracked and scabbed walls seemed to have soaked up colour from the Mediterranean sun. They could look quite charming – in paintings. Nobody bothered to paint La Villette. There was a dead cat in the roadway that had been there, judging by the smell, for days. That was the essence of the place: not just dead cats, but nowhere worse to put them.
If the flics hadn’t been involved, O’Gilroy would have signalled Jay to drop out: on these streets, he looked like royalty gone slumming. But as the police – almost equally obvious – were soldiering on, he let Jay persist. And the sheer number could be cover for himself: the swell might not have much experience of counting above three. Moreover, the sunshine had brought out modest crowds of locals, running children and odd loafers with the shambling preoccupation that was O’Gilroy’s speciality.
Then “Mrs Langhorn” stepped into a shop.
The flics instinctively bracketed it: one loitered, one went on past. Jay, now right out of his depth, just looked like royalty who’d taken a wrong turning. But O’Gilroy concentrated on the swell, who had kept going and even speeded up. By now, he reckoned, they were only a quarter of a mile and a few twists and turns from the Cafe des Deux Chevaliers - if that was where they were heading.
It lay, he recalled, halfway along a street whose other side was the arches of a railway that looped through the abattoirs a little further east, and as they got closer, O’Gilroy lagged back. He wouldn’t dare go into the place, however he was dressed, and doubly so on an occasion like this. What was the swell doing? Certainly not his job of watching “Mrs Langhorn’s” back, since he was running ahead of her.
Sure enough, the swell vanished into the cafe, but came out again less than a minute later with two tough-looking characters dressed much as himself. That answered O’Gilroy’s question: Jay and the flics had been spotted all right, and these were reinforcements. They hardly glanced at O’Gilroy as they hurried back up the street, but by then he was studying the gutter for cigarette ends.
He resisted the temptation to run after them once they had turned the corner – someone might be watching from the cafe – and shambled instead. It was obvious they were going back to dissuade “Mrs Langhorn’s” followers, but less obvious why. The flics must know about the cafe, and could raid the place at any time they had their own reinforcements. Was “Mrs Langhorn” heading elsewhere and preferred to do so unaccompanied?
So he decided to stay out of any street barney, much as he liked the tactical idea of taking the cafe thugs from behind. And as he rounded a corner he saw “Mrs Langhorn” come around the one ahead, pass the three toughs with a brief word, then keep going. O’Gilroy paused, apparently watching them as they waited by the corner, and as “Mrs Langhorn” went right ahead past him towards the Avenue d’Allemagne, he followed.
Behind him, there was a shot. Then a burst of several, from at least two guns. “Mrs Langhorn” didn’t even glance back.
The long trudge on those crumbling pavements had scraped away at Jay’s temper. He was observant and quick-witted, and could have given a good performance as an aimless local ne’er-do-well – but not in the dark suit, topcoat and bowler which had belonged so well in the Ritz. Still, there was nothing he could do about it except plod on, ignoring suspicious and deriding glances, and hating everyone who had got him into this. The big Army revolver in his topcoat pocket – he was a firm believer in the knock-down power of the government .455 bullet – made him feel lopsided and uncomfortable, too.
He had spotted the two flics since getting off the Metro and guessed who they were (though who could they think he was?), so even apart from the gun, he felt quite safe. Just obvious, pompous, angry and hot. And, when the woman vanished into the shop, quite baffled. There was no other shop window to gaze into, not that he’d have wanted to buy anything for miles around. Or could act as if he might. So he consulted his watch, then took out a piece of paper and pretended to be searching for an address. When three ruffians came around the corner ahead and confronted him, it was almost a relief. He stepped close to the wall to cover his left side, and smiled pleasantly, feeling suddenly alive and at ease.