The Intercom Conspiracy (17 page)

They took me to a two-roomed apartment on the fourth floor.

I say they ‘took’ me because that’s the way it was. Nobody uttered threats or held a gun on me, but their whole attitude, their decisive movements and air of confidence, made it unmistakably plain that any further attempt on my part to reject their hospitality would be regarded as ill-mannered and ridiculous and firmly overridden.

As Morin pulled up in the Chateau Europa parking lot, he whipped out of the car like an attentive chauffeur and came around to open the door beside me. As I got out, Schneider slid
out too. From that moment until we reached the apartment, I was between them with Madame Coursaux bringing up the rear. None of them touched me, but they kept very close. Going through the swing door Morin moved ahead and Schneider dropped back behind me. The same thing happened when we went into the elevator. It was as ordered as a drill manoeuvre. And all the way from the car to the elevator, Madame Coursaux chattered incessantly like an overanxious hostess at the beginning of a dull party.

‘Hotels are such unfriendly places to stay in, don’t you think? Always when I travel – and I have to travel so much in connection with my work – I try to avoid staying in hotels. A little apartment is so much better, a place where one can entertain one’s friends in comfort and privacy. I know that some of my business colleagues never leave their offices. They wait for others to bring them the properties, the so-called professional finders. I will never employ such persons. Some are dishonest, most of them know so little that they are useless. I have always been my own finder and so accustomed myself to travel. But
how
one travels, ah, that is the important thing …’

As camouflage it was curiously effective. Nobody we encountered on the way could have suspected that I was being taken anywhere against my will. If we left any impression at all behind us it was one of three luckless men dogged by a large woman who never stopped talking.

She did stop, though, and abruptly, as soon as we were inside the elevator. Her job was done. Morin took charge from then on.

He closed the inside gate and pressed the fourth-floor button.

‘But,’ he said, ‘it is our friend Carter’s work that interests Monsieur Schneider here.’ His disbelieving smile enveloped both of us. ‘Did you know that he is one of your most faithful readers, Carter? But of course you didn’t. How could you know?’

‘And knowing, why should he care?’ Schneider inquired affably. ‘I am one of many, many thousands.’

‘Eight thousand to be exact,’ I said.

Now that he was in a strong light I could see that he was not as young as I had thought and that his face had skin grafts and scar
tissue over most of the left side. It was that that gave it the lopsided look. I had seen faces like that on ex-fighter pilots and ex-crew members of burnt-out tanks. The association made the smell of lavender water that billowed around him oddly disagreeable.

‘If we were to measure a publication’s influence by the size of its circulation,’ Morin was saying, ‘we would be driven to some strange conclusions.’ The elevator stopped at that moment but he went on talking as he wrenched the gates open and led the way out and along the corridor. ‘Ask yourself. Which newspaper had the greater impact upon events, the greater historical importance, in France during the occupation? The great
Le Matin
in the hands of the collaborators, or the little
Résistance
, which the Nazis could silence in the end only by killing its editor? Ah!’

The exclamation was one of satisfaction. Madame Coursaux, acting in her new, subordinate capacity, had nipped ahead smartly as we approached apartment number 423 and already had the door open and the lights on. Morin flung off his topcoat and waved it like a cape to usher me inside.

In the cramped passageway that connected the two rooms of the apartment Schneider helped me out of my coat. Morin was already at a small built-in refrigerator extracting bottles and a bucket of ice.

‘First things first,’ he said to me. ‘Whisky-soda?’

‘Thank you, but I’d like to do something about getting my car fixed too.’

He snapped his fingers as if in vexation at his absentmindedness.

‘These
garagistes
take more notice of a woman,’ Madame Coursaux put in quickly. ‘What is the number of the car?’

I gave her the number. She repeated it once and then went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

‘Everything under control,’ Schneider said, airing his English again. He motioned me to go ahead of him into the living room.

It had wall-to-wall carpeting with one of those mixed-mucus-and-mud patterns that are supposed to prevent stains showing. The furniture consisted of tubular steel armchairs – the kind without rear legs that make people look as if they are sitting on
air – a tile-topped table with a wrought-iron base, a unit bookcase and a blue divan with little red cushions on it. The radiator was extremely efficient and the atmosphere was stifling.

Schneider pressed me into a chair and sat himself down on the divan. Morin bustled in With a tray and began to mix drinks on the bookcase.

Except for the clinking of ice cubes in glasses there was silence for a moment. Then Schneider leaned forward with a smile.

‘Monsieur Carter,’ he asked softly, ‘has anyone ever tried to kill
you
?’

I stared at him blankly. The plastic surgery on his face had evidently done something to the nerves on the left side because only the right side smiled. The effect, when he looked directly at you, was disconcerting.

‘I was thinking,’ he went on, ‘of what Morin was saying just now about the editor of
Résistance
who was killed by the Nazis.’

‘Not only the editor, in fact,’ said Morin. ‘They murdered the whole of the staff, including the printers. Not unnaturally the paper ceased publication.’

He put a large drink into my hand.

Schneider shook his head sadly. ‘Swine,’ he said.

Morin shrugged. ‘Oh yes, they were swine. Who can deny it? But consider.’ He brought over two more drinks and handed one to Schneider. ‘Look at it from their point of view.’ He lowered himself into the chair facing me. ‘That paper was publishing things they didn’t like, things that endangered their security. What could they do? The only way to censor it was to kill those who produced it. It was natural enough in the circumstances.’

Schneider nodded. ‘That was why I asked Monsieur Carter if there had ever been attempts on his life. After all, he publishes many things that must be objectionable to those with important interests. I would say that in some quarters he must be a highly unpopular person.’

‘Highly unpopular, yes,’ echoed Morin.

They were both looking at me expectantly now, as if they were
waiting for me to reply to a toast. I took a drink and choked slightly; it was neat whisky.

‘If everyone who was highly unpopular qualified for assassination,’ I said, ‘we’d have the world population problem solved in no time.’

They both laughed so heartily that for a moment I thought that I must have said something funny; but, of course, they would have laughed at anything I had said just then. I’m told that they always go into the jollyboy, all-smiles routine before they get to the real arm-twisting; the idea, an erroneous one in my experience, is that it lulls the victim into a sense of false security.

In the middle of the knee-slapping Madame Coursaux came in, grinning in response to the sounds of merriment, and helped herself to a drink.

‘A mechanic has gone to your car,’ she said as I stood up.

‘I am most grateful to you, Madame.’ I put my drink on the table. ‘In that case I had better be getting back to it myself.’

‘Quite unnecessary, Monsieur. They will telephone to let us know when it is ready.’

When I hesitated Morin reached out a freckled paw and tamped me down. ‘Oh, we can’t let you go yet, my friend,’ he said. ‘Finish your drink, finish your drink. Then we’ll see.’

His grin had worn thin and there was an edge to his voice now. For a moment I considered telling him to go to hell and walking out; but, I’ll be frank with you, Mr L; I didn’t have the guts to try it. You see, I was pretty certain by then that in that room I was no longer a free agent, but also too scared to put the matter to the test. I thought that it would be easier to play along with them and pretend that I wasn’t scared.

With a shrug I sat back again.

‘That’s better.’ He pushed my drink across to me ‘Now, Monsieur Carter, tell us all about this dangerous life you lead.’

‘What do you want to know?’

Morin raised his eyebrows mockingly and looked at Schneider. “He asks us what we want to know. What could be more generous than that?’

‘What indeed!’ Schneider got up from the divan and perched himself on the edge of the table. ‘I shall take him at his word. As Morin says, Monsieur, I am a faithful reader of
Intercom
, but I had not realised until a few weeks ago that you, Monsieur Carter, were a person with scientific training.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Surely you are being modest.’

‘Just stating a fact.’

‘Then you must have someone on your staff who is trained.’

‘No.’

‘So? Then how do you evaluate this scientific information you have taken to publishing recently?’

‘It comes from usually reliable sources.’

Morin sneered. ‘Ah, that precious journalistic cant! Usually reliable sources. How good it is to hear it from the actual lips of an editor. What are the others? An unofficial spokesman? A source close to the government? Yes? A presidential aide? A confidential report seen by our correspondent?’

‘That last one would be a bit amateurish.’

‘Amateurish?’ he snapped.

I had used the word because I had guessed that it would wound him and it clearly had; but I should not have tried to rub salt in.

‘You’d make a poor editor, Monsieur Morin,’ I said. ‘I should have thought it was obvious. If your correspondent has seen a confidential report, naturally you don’t reveal that fact. You say that he is unofficially but reliably informed, or mention an informant who does not wish to be identified. In that way you avoid compromising the person who leaked the report and at the same time cover yourself in case the leak was a calculated one.’

There was a three-second silence, then Schneider pounced.

‘But
you
are a good editor, eh, Monsieur?’

‘Competent, I think.’

‘Then why do you not practise what you preach?’

‘I usually do.’

‘You must be joking. Is it usual practice to avoid compromising an informant by publishing his name?’

‘Obviously not.’

‘But that is what
Intercom
does, isn’t it?’ He leaned forward. ‘If I were a member of a Soviet trade mission who had spoken to you of confidential matters and then saw my name published as your informant, how would you answer my accusation of betrayal?’

I decided that the only thing to do was grasp the nettle firmly. ‘I take it that you are referring to a man named N. V. Skriabin,’ I said. ‘He has made no complaint to me.’

‘That is no answer,’ said Morin. ‘Do you know this Skriabin? Have you ever met him?’

‘I know of him.’

‘Then if you know of him you must also know that he would under no circumstances give out the information you attributed to him.’

‘Why not?’ I knew that I was losing my grip, so I said the only thing I could think of. ‘As a senior officer of the KGB he would probably have access to it.’

I saw the back of Schneider’s hand coming, but I had no time to protect myself. It caught me on the side of the head just above the cheekbone and almost knocked me out of the chair. For a moment I didn’t quite know what was going on. Pain thudded through my head and I couldn’t see clearly. Then my ears began to sing, my eyes started to water and I realised that my glasses were in my lap along with most of my drink.

Automatically I put my glasses on again and found that the frame was bent.

Schneider was looking down at me balefully. ‘If I were Skriabin,’ he said, ‘that would be only a beginning. Since I am not Skriabin, but only one of your readers with a special need to know the truth, you may, however, take it as a warning not to talk nonsense. Who was the person who gave you that information?’

‘About the seismograph?’

‘We will start with that,’

I decided that the time had come for me to take Bloch at his word and let him shoulder some of the responsibility.

‘It didn’t come directly to me,’ I began. ‘You see …’

I saw Schneider’s hand start to move again but Morin’s moved at the same time to restrain him.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I don’t think our friend Carter yet understands the position.’ He turned to me. ‘You must believe that we are not asking these questions merely to satisfy a casual, private curiosity.’

‘Oddly enough,’ I said, ‘that idea had got through to me. You could have come to the point very much quicker and without all the preliminary hocus-pocus.’

He ignored that. ‘As Schneider says,’ he went on earnestly, ‘we have a special need to know the truth. You had better accept the fact that we intend to have it.’

There was a mouthful of whisky left in the glass, so I finished it off. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I accept the fact. But when I’m dealing with thugs I like to know who they are. It’s less boring that way. Your cover is French, so you probably aren’t from SDECE. That leaves the CIA, the KGB and the BND. As a matter of interest, which are you?’

Madame Coursaux sighed gustily and came over with the whisky bottle.

‘Our dossier on you, Carter, states that you are an intelligent man,’ she said as she refilled my glass. “If you want to get home to that excellent dinner your daughter is preparing, and in a fit state to enjoy it, now is the time to behave like one.’

Morin nodded. ‘Sound advice, Carter. We understand your need to bolster your courage by making these childish little verbal gestures and we have been very patient so far. You now have a headache perhaps, but only a slight one. Drink some whisky, start giving responsive answers to my friend’s questions and you will probably feel better.’