‘When the rubber is fitted the bullets become quite invisible, and the rubber gives a touch of verisimilitude,’ he explained. The Englishman remained silent. ‘What do you think?’ asked the Belgian with a touch of anxiety.
Without a word the Englishman took the tubes and examined them one by one. He rattled them, but no sound came from inside, for the interiors were lined with two layers of pale-grey baize to absorb both shock and noise. The longest of the tubes was twenty inches; it accommodated the barrel and breech of the gun. The others were about a foot each, and contained the two struts, upper and lower, of the stock, the silencer and the telescope. The butt, with the trigger inside its padding, was separate, also was the rubber knob containing the bullets. As a hunting rifle, let alone an assassin’s rifle, it had vanished.
‘Perfect,’ said the Jackal, nodding quietly. ‘Absolutely what I wanted.’ The Belgian was pleased. As an expert in his trade, he enjoyed praise as much as the next man, and he was aware that in his field the customer in front of him was also in the top bracket.
The Jackal took the steel tubes, with the parts of the gun inside them, and wrapped each one carefully in the sacking, placing each piece into the fibre suitcase. When the five tubes, butt and rubber knob were wrapped and packed, he closed the fibre suitcase and handed the attaché case with its fitted compartments back to the armourer.
‘I shall not be needing that any more. The gun will stay where it is until I have occasion to use it.’ He took the remaining two hundred pounds he owed the Belgian from his inner pocket and put it on the table.
‘I think our dealings are complete, M. Goossens.’ The Belgian pocketed the money.
‘Yes, monsieur, unless you have anything else in which I may be of service.’
‘Only one,’ replied the Englishman. ‘You will please remember my little homily to you a fortnight ago on the wisdom of silence.’
‘I have not forgotten, monsieur,’ replied the Belgian quietly.
He was frightened again. Would this soft-spoken killer try to silence him now, to ensure his silence? Surely not. The enquiries into such a killing would expose to the police the visits of the tall Englishman to this house long before he ever had a chance to use the gun he now carried in a suitcase. The Englishman seemed to be reading his thoughts. He smiled briefly.
‘You do not need to worry. I do not intend to harm you. Besides, I imagine a man of your intelligence has taken certain precautions against being killed by one of his customers. A telephone call expected within an hour perhaps? A friend who will arrive to find the body if the call does not come through? A letter deposited with a lawyer, to be opened in the event of your death. For me, killing you would create more problems than it would solve.’
M. Goossens was startled. He had indeed a letter permanently deposited with a lawyer, to be opened in the event of his death. It instructed the police to search under a certain stone in the back garden. Beneath the stone was a box containing a list of those expected to call at the house each day. It was replaced each day. For this day, the note described the only customer expected to call, a tall Englishman of well-to-do appearance who called himself Duggan. It was just a form of insurance.
The Englishman watched him calmly.
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘You are safe enough. But I shall kill you, without fail, if you ever mention my visits here or my purchase from you to anyone, anyone at all. So far as you are concerned the moment I leave this house I have ceased to exist.’
‘That is perfectly clear, monsieur. It is the normal working arrangement with all my customers. I may say, I expect similar discretion from them. That is why the serial number of the gun you carry has been scorched with acid off the barrel. I too have myself to protect.’
The Englishman smiled again. ‘Then we understand each other. Good day, Monsieur Goossens.’
A minute later the door closed behind him and the Belgian who knew so much about guns and gunmen but so little about the Jackal breathed a sigh of relief and withdrew to his office to count the money.
The Jackal did not wish to be seen by the staff of his hotel carrying a cheap fibre suitcase, so although he was late for lunch he took a taxi straight to the mainline station and deposited the case in the left-luggage office, tucking the ticket into the inner compartment of his slim lizard-skin wallet.
He lunched at the Cygne well and expensively to celebrate the end of the planning and preparation stage in France and Belgium, and walked back to the Amigo to pack and pay his bill. When he left, it was exactly as he had come, in a finely cut check suit, wrap-round dark glasses and with two Vuitton suitcases following him in the hands of the porter down to the waiting taxi. He was also one thousand six hundred pounds poorer, but his rifle reposed safely inside an unobtrusive suitcase in the luggage office of the station and three finely forged cards were tucked into an inside pocket of his suit.
The plane left Brussels for London shortly after four, and although there was a perfunctory search of one of his bags at London Airport, there was nothing to be found and by seven he was showering in his own flat before dining out in the West End.
8
UNFORTUNATELY FOR KOWALSKI there were no telephone calls to make at the post office on Wednesday morning; had there been he would have missed his plane. And the mail was waiting in the pigeon-hole for M. Poitiers. He collected the five envelopes, locked them into his steel carrier on the end of the chain, and set off hurriedly for the hotel. By half past nine he had been relieved of both by Colonel Rodin, and was free to go back to his room for sleep. His next turn of duty was on the roof, starting at seven that evening.
He paused in his room only to collect his Colt .45 (Rodin would never allow him to carry it in the street) and tucked it into his shoulder holster. If he had worn a well-fitting jacket the bulge of the gun and holster would have been evident at a hundred yards, but his suits were as ill-fitting as a thoroughly bad tailor could make them, and despite his bulk they hung on him like sacks. He took the roll of sticking plaster and the beret that he had bought the day before and stuffed them into his jacket, pocketed the roll of lire notes and French francs that represented his past six months’ savings, and closed the door behind him.
At the desk on the landing the duty guard looked up.
‘Now they want a telephone call made,’ said Kowalski, jerking his thumb upwards in the direction of the ninth floor above. The guard said nothing, just watched him as the lift arrived and he stepped inside. Seconds later he was in the street, pulling on the big dark glasses.
At the café across the street the man with copy of Oggi lowered the magazine a fraction and studied Kowalski through impenetrable sunglasses as the Pole looked up and down for a taxi. When none came he started to walk towards the corner of the block. The man with the magazine left the café terrace and walked to the kerb. A small Fiat cruised out of a line of parked cars further down the street and stopped opposite him. He climbed in and the Fiat crawled after Kowalski at a walking pace.
On the corner Kowalski found a cruising taxi and hailed it. ‘Fiumicino,’ he told the driver.
At the airport the SDECE man followed him quietly as he presented himself at the Alitalia desk, paid for his ticket in cash, assured the girl on the desk that he had no suitcases or hand luggage, and was told passengers for the 11.15 Marseilles flight would be called in an hour and five minutes.
With time to kill the ex-legionnaire lounged into the cafeteria, bought a coffee at the counter and took it over to the plate-glass windows from where he could watch the planes coming and going. He loved airports although he could not understand how they worked. Most of his life the sound of aero engines had meant German Messerschmitts, Russian Stormoviks, or American Flying Forts. Later they meant air support with B-26s or Skyraiders in Vietnam, Mysteres or Fougas in the Algerian djebel. But at a civilian airport he liked to watch them cruising in to land like big silver birds, engines muted, hanging in the sky as if on threads just before the touchdown. Although socially a shy man, he liked watching the interminable bustle of an airport. Perhaps, he mused, if his life had been different, he would have worked in an airport. But he was what he was, and there was no going back now.