Алистер Маклин - Floodgate

Van Effen smiled. ‘You can tell just by looking at me?’

‘I can tell that left-handed persons don’t carry barely concealed pistols under their left armpit.’

‘Too late for a transfer now, sir. I’m already identified as being a left-hand-glove wearer.’

‘Yes. Well. I see. Your scars more than pass muster. The trouble, I suppose, is that you suspect that those scars might be subjected to some kind of test, such as with a scrubbing brush or even a hot soapy sponge?’

‘A hot soapy sponge is all that is needed.’

‘Normally, you understand, the perfect non-removable scar would take some weeks to achieve. I gather, however, that time is not on your side. Ah, Colonel. Is that Van der Hum I see?’

‘It is indeed.’ The Colonel poured a glass.

‘Thank you. We don’t generally advertise the fact, but members of our profession – well, before an operation, you understand?’

‘Operation?’ said van Effen.

‘A trifle,’ Johnson said soothingly. He took some brandy, then opened a small metal case to reveal a gleaming array of surgical instruments, most of them of a very delicate nature. ‘A series of subcutaneous injections with a variety of inert dyes. There will be no weals, no puffiness, I promise you. There will also be no local anaesthetic. Takes better that way.’ He looked very closely at the facial scar. ‘Must have the position, size and colour as before, you understand. Your left hand is unimportant. Nobody, I assume, has seen that scar. I can give you a much more satisfyingly horrific scar than you have now. Now, if I could have some hot water, sponge, soap.’

Twenty-five minutes later and Johnson was through. ‘Not my proudest achievement, but it will serve. At least, no one can pull or scrub those scars off. Have a look, Lieutenant.’

Van Effen went to a mirror, looked, nodded and came back.

‘First class, sir. A dead ringer for the one I had painted on.’ He surveyed his apparently horribly mangled left hand with melancholy admiration. ‘I’ve really been through it. After such a marvellous job, sir, it seems ungrateful to ask – but how permanent are those scars likely to be?’

‘Not permanent at all. Those dyes are of a completely different chemical composition from tattoo pigments. Absorption time varies – two to three weeks. I shouldn’t worry, Lieutenant – they’re really quite becoming.’

De Graaf and van Effen met Professor Hector van Dam, Professor Bernard Span and Professor Thomas Spanraft in the living-room of van Dam’s house. They didn’t look at all like professors or, more accurately, what professors are supposed to look like. They looked more like a combination of prosperous businessmen and solid Dutch burghers, all curiously alike, all overweight, all cheerful and all with slightly flushed cheeks which might have come from the over-heated room or the large bottle of wine which circulated freely among them.

Van Dam spoke. ‘Well, gentlemen, we think we have the answers you seek. Not too difficult, really. We have in this country linguistic specialists, both occidental and oriental – especially oriental, we have had vast experience of dealing with Asiatic languages over the centuries – as you will find anywhere in Europe. Professor Spanraft has come up specially from Rotterdam. No oriental knowledge in this case. I may start, perhaps, with my own small contribution.’

He looked at van Effen. ‘This gentleman you met in some café with the unusual name of Helmut Paderiwski. He is not Dutch and he is most certainly not Polish. He is, specifically and unquestionably, southern Irish. Even more specifically, he is a Dubliner. My qualifications for making so confident an assertion? A year as visiting scholar and lecturer at Trinity, Dublin. Bernard?’

Professor Span made an apologetic gesture with his hands. ‘My contribution, even smaller than Hector’s, was pathetically easy. I am told that the other two gentlemen the Lieutenant met in the same café with the splendid, if slightly unlikely, names of Romero and Leonardo Agnelli are dark-haired, dark-eyed and of a rather Mediterranean cast of countenance. Gentlemen of such appearance are not exclusively confined to an area south of the Alps. They are even to be found, as you must know, in our own predominantly fair-haired and fair-complexioned society. The Agnellis are two such.’

‘You are quite certain of that, sir?’ van Effen said. ‘I know Italy well and –’

‘Lieutenant van Effen!’ Professor van Dam was shocked. ‘If my colleague –’

Professor Span held up a placatory hand. ‘No, no, Hector, the Lieutenant’s query was a legitimate one. I gather that the enquiries in which he and the Colonel are engaged are of a most serious nature.’ He smiled a deprecatory smile. ‘As a mere academic, of course – anyway, Lieutenant, rest assured that those gentlemen are as Dutch as you or I. My life on it. And at a guess – an educated guess, mark you – from Utrecht. You are amazed, perhaps, by my perspicacity? Please do not be. My qualifications? Impeccable. I’m a Dutchman. From Utrecht. Your turn, Thomas.’

Spanraft smiled. ‘ My qualifications are strikingly similar to Hector’s. This lady who makes all those mysterious phone calls. Young, beyond a doubt. Educated. Perhaps even highly so. Northern Ireland, specifically Belfast. My qualifications? I, too, have been a visiting scholar and lecturer. Queen’s, Belfast.’ He smiled. ‘Good heavens, I may even have taught the young lady.’

‘If you did,’ de Graaf said heavily, ‘you didn’t teach her the right things.’

De Graaf turned to van Effen, who was driving a Volkswagen that evening. As it was not impossible that he might be called upon to drive one or more of Agnelli’s group that evening it had been deemed more prudent not to use the Peugeot, where the presence of a police radio might have been inadvertently discovered. Car papers and insurance were, of course, made out in the name of Stephan Danilov.

‘What do you make of this Irish connection, Peter?’

‘I have no idea, sir. We know, of course, that petty criminals have in the past sold Russian and other eastern bloc weapons to the Irish Republican Army; but these, as I say, were petty criminals operating on a relatively petty scale. This, I feel, is something much bigger. The IRA never had any organization worth speaking of in this country. The FFF definitely have. Where can I contact you later on this evening, sir?’

‘I wish you hadn’t mentioned that,’ de Graaf said gloomily. ‘Earlier, I had hoped to spend it in the bosom of my family. But now? If the government does decide to send an emissary to parley with the FFF – good heavens, Peter, we completely forgot to listen in to the six o’clock news – the broadcast, rather, that was to state when and where the government would hold this parley.’

‘We’ve only to lift a phone. It’s of no significance.’

‘True. This emissary I mentioned. Who, do you think, is the logical choice?’

‘The Minister of Justice?’

‘No other. My lord and master whom you have frequently, actionably and accurately described as an old woman. Old women like to have their hands held. Who do you think would best play the part of nursemaid?’

‘You’d make an admirable choice. In fact, I’m happy to say that you would be the inevitable choice. Don’t forget to take an umbrella big enough for both of you.’ Rain had begun to fall and fall so heavily that the Volkswagen’s wipers failed adequately to cope with it. ‘You should consider yourself privileged, sir, to have a ringside seat at what may be, at least, a minor turning point in history.’

‘I’d rather have my own armchair by my own fireside.’ De Graaf reduced visibility even more by drawing heavily on his cheroot. ‘But whatever seat I’m in tonight it’ll be a damned sight safer and more comfortable than the one you’ll be in. Not that I would suppose for a moment that they have armchairs in the palace cellars.’ De Graaf, apparently concentrating on increasing the blue fug inside the car, lapsed briefly into silence then said: ‘I don’t like it, Peter. I don’t like it at all. Too many ifs, buts and question marks.’