The Spy Quartet: An Expensive Place to Die, Spy Story, Yesterday’s Spy, Twinkle Twinkle Little Spy

Loiseau bent over the book and wrote in neat neurotic writing ‘Claude Loiseau’; under comments he wrote ‘stimulating’. The woman swivelled the book to me. I wrote my name and under comments I wrote what I always write when I don’t know what to say – ‘uncompromising’.

The woman nodded. ‘And your address,’ she said.

I was about to point out that no one else had written their address in the book, but when a shapely young woman asks for my address I’m not the man to be secretive. I wrote it: ‘c/o Petit Légionnaire, rue St Ferdinand, 17ième.’

The woman smiled to Loiseau in a familiar way. She said, ‘I know the Chief Inspector’s address: Criminal Investigation Department, Sûreté Nationale, rue des Saussaies.’

Loiseau’s office had that cramped, melancholy atmosphere that policemen relish. There were two small silver pots for the shooting team that Loiseau had led to victory in 1959 and several group photos – one showed Loiseau in army uniform standing in front of a tank. Loiseau brought a large M 1950 automatic from his waist and put it into a drawer. ‘I’m going to get something smaller,’ he said. ‘This is ruining my suits.’ He locked the drawer carefully and then went through the other drawers of his desk, riffling through the contents and slamming them closed until he laid a dossier on his blotter.

‘This is your dossier,’ said Loiseau. He held up a print of the photo that appears on my carte de séjour. ‘“Occupation,”’ he read, ‘“travel agency director”.’ He looked up at me and I nodded. ‘That’s a good job?’

‘It suits me,’ I said.

‘It would suit me’, said Loiseau. ‘Eight hundred new francs each week and you spend most of your time amusing yourself.’

‘There’s a revived interest in leisure,’ I said.

‘I hadn’t noticed any decline among the people who work for me.’ He pushed his Gauloises towards me. We lit up and looked at each other. Loiseau was about fifty years old. Short muscular body with big shoulders. His face was pitted with tiny scars and part of his left ear was missing. His hair was pure white and very short. He had plenty of energy but not so much that he was prepared to waste any. He hung his jacket on his chair back and rolled up his shirtsleeves very neatly. He didn’t look like a policeman now, more like a paratroop colonel planning a coup.

‘You are making inquiries about Monsieur Datt’s clinic on the Avenue Foch.’

‘Everyone keeps telling me that.’

‘Who for?’

I said, ‘I don’t know about that place, and I don’t want to know about it.’

‘I’m treating you like an adult,’ said Loiseau. ‘If you prefer to be treated like a spotty-faced j.v. then we can do that too.’

‘What’s the question again?’

‘I’d like to know who you are working for. However, it would take a couple of hours in the hen cage to get that out of you. So for the time being I’ll tell you this: I am interested in that house and I don’t want you to even come downwind of it. Stay well away. Tell whoever you are working for that the house in Avenue Foch is going to remain a little secret of Chief Inspector Loiseau.’ He paused, wondering how much more to tell me. ‘There are powerful interests involved. Violent groups are engaged in a struggle for criminal power.’

‘Why do you tell me that?’

‘I thought that you should know.’ He gave a Gallic shrug.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you understand? These men are dangerous.’

‘Then why aren’t you dragging them into your office instead of me?’

‘Oh, they are too clever for us. Also they have well-placed friends who protect them. It’s only when the friends fail that they resort to … coercion, blackmail, killing even. But always skilfully.’

‘They say it’s better to know the judge than to know the law.’

‘Who says that?’

‘I heard it somewhere.’

‘You’re an eavesdropper,’ said Loiseau.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘And a damned good one.’

‘It sounds as though you like it,’ said Loiseau grimly.

‘It’s my favourite indoor sport. Dynamic and yet sedentary; a game of skill with an element of chance. No season, no special equipment …’

‘Don’t be so clever,’ he said sadly. ‘This is a political matter. Do you know what that means?’

‘No. I don’t know what that means.’

‘It means that you might well spend one morning next week being lifted out of some quiet backwater of the St Martin canal and travelling down to the Medico-Legal Institute

where the boys in butchers’ aprons and rubber boots live. They’ll take an inventory of what they find in your pockets, send your clothes to the Poor Law Administration Office, put a numbered armband on you, freeze you to eight degrees centigrade and put you in a rack with two other foolish lads. The superintendent will phone me and I’ll have to go along and identify you. I’ll hate doing that because at this time of year there are clouds of flies as large as bats and a smell that reaches to Austerlitz Station.’ He paused. ‘And we won’t even investigate the affair. Be sure you understand.’

I said, ‘I understand all right. I’ve become an expert at recognizing threats no matter how veiled they are. But before you give a couple of cops tape measures and labels and maps of the St Martin canal, make sure you choose men that your department doesn’t find indispensable.’

‘Alas, you have misunderstood,’ said Loiseau’s mouth, but his eyes didn’t say that. He stared. ‘We’ll leave it like that, but …’

‘Just leave it like that,’ I interrupted. ‘You tell your cops to carry the capes with the lead-shot hems and I’ll wear my water-wings.’

Loiseau allowed his face to become as friendly as it could become.

‘I don’t know where you fit into Monsieur Datt’s clinic, but until I do know I’ll be watching you very closely. If it’s a political affair, then let the political departments request information. There’s no point in us being at each other’s throat. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘In the next few few days you might be in contact with people who claim to be acting for me. Don’t believe them. Anything you want to know, come back to me directly. I’m 22.22.

If you can’t reach me here then this office will know where I am. Tell the operator that “Un sourire est différent d’un rire”.’

‘Agreed,’ I said. The French still use those silly code words that are impossible to use if you are being overheard.

‘One last thing,’ said Loiseau. ‘I can see that no advice, however well meant, can register with you, so let me add that, should you tackle these men and come off best …’ he looked up to be sure that I was listening, ‘… then I will personally guarantee that you’ll manger les haricots for five years.’

‘Charged with …?’

‘Giving Chief Inspector Loiseau trouble beyond his normal duties.’

‘You might be going further than your authority permits,’ I said, trying to give the impression that I too might have important friends.

Loiseau smiled. ‘Of course I am. I have gained my present powerful position by always taking ten per cent more authority than I am given.’ He lifted the phone and jangled the receiver rest so that its bell tinkled in the outer office. It must have been a prearranged signal because his assistant came quickly. Loiseau nodded to indicate the meeting was over.

‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘It was good to see you again.’

‘Again?’