Len Deighton - Mexico Set

'I may have done,' I said. 'I didn't notice.'

'She took it to her sister.'

'She was frightened of burglars,' I said.

'She never leaves it in the apartment when we're away.'

'Well, there you are. She wanted to make sure it was safe, There'd be no point in bringing it to Mexico. You'd be asking for trouble with the Customs. And taking it out again would be even more difficult.'

'But usually she asks me to put it in my safe-deposit box. This time she took it round to her sister.'

'You could always ask her about it,' I said, and tried to think of a way to change the subject.

'I did ask her,' said Werner. 'She said she thought her sister might like to wear it while we're away.'

'There you are, then. That's the explanation.'

'Her sister never goes anywhere she could wear stuff like that.'

'So why do you think she took it to her sister?'

'If Zena was going to run off with Erich Stinnes, it would be a good thing to do. She likes that jewellery better than anything in the world.'

'It will be better that Zena doesn't know exactly what's happening on Friday,' I said.

'You mean I refuse to tell her?' I could see Werner anticipating the fight he was going to have about it.

'Better that neither of you know,' I said.

'She won't be satisfied with a refusal,' said Werner. 'She's followed this one through right from the beginning. She'll want to be in on the final act.'

'We'll think of something to tell her,' I said. 'By the way, how do you know that Henry Tiptree has arrived here?'

'He phoned me. He gave me a lot of flattery about what a wonderful reputation I had. Then he arranged a meeting. He said he wanted to pick my brains. But he phoned up later and put the meeting off. He'll phone again, he said.'

'Why did he cancel?'

'Is it important?'

'I'm just curious.'

'I can't tell you why. Zena took the call. He didn't give any reason as far as I know. Zena said he just phoned up and cancelled the meeting.' I nodded. Werner said, 'Don't mention the gun to Zena. She hates guns.'

So Zena had been talking to Tiptree. Or he'd been talking to her. Either way I didn't like it. And I didn't like the way they'd kept Werner out of it. They were a bad combination: the tough, dedicated little Zena, and Tiptree, the ambitious diplomat trying his hand at a cloak-and-dagger job. They were amateurs. Amateurs keep their eyes on the target instead of looking over their shoulders.

You look out for the tacheria which always has smoke from the open fire and a line of people waiting for the fresh tacos. Across the road there are the buses that bring pilgrims to the Shrine of Guadalupe. Buses of all shapes and sizes and colours. Huge air-conditioned monsters that bring people from the big international hotels downtown and bone-rattling old wrecks which convey pilgrims from across the mountains. But the customers buying tacos are not all from the shrine; locals come here too.

Next door to the smoky tacheria is the place where I was to meet Stinnes. It is a large, shed-like building with a ramshackle frontage. Across the bright-red overhang, 'Angel – body shop' is crudely lettered in bloody script. Inside there are trucks and motor cars in various stages of repair and renovation. And always there is the intense flashing light, and the intermittent hiss of the welding torch. There is always work for skilled car-repair men in Mexico City.

I got there early, drove through the workshop, and parked in the backyard. Angel Morales, a small, sad-eyed man with dark skin and a carefully trimmed moustache, came out to see who it was. 'I'm meeting someone, Angel,' I said. 'It's business.' I passed him an envelope containing money.

Angel nodded mournfully. Angel was a friend of a friend of mine but we'd put things on a proper business footing from the time we first met. It was better than using any of the safe houses that the SIS people at the embassy would provide for me. He took the envelope and tucked it into a pocket of his oily overalls without looking inside it. 'I want no trouble,' said Angel. That must have been the only English that Angel knew, for he'd said the same words to me on the two previous meetings.

'There'll be no trouble, Angel,' I said, giving him the sort of wide smile that I'd seen on carefree men with easy minds.

He nodded and went back to shout abuse at an Indian youth who was bolting a new section of metal on to the back of a badly broken truck.

They arrived exactly on time. Stinnes was driving his own car. He stopped the car in the yard and got out but didn't switch off the engine. Then Werner got into the driver's seat and – waiting only long enough for Stinnes to get clear – he gave a brief wave of the hand before reversing back. Carelessly he knocked the rear fender against the wall. Embarrassed, he swung the car round and accelerated loudly to drive away. It was arranged that Werner would return with the car in half an hour. I wondered if Werner was angry at being excluded from the meeting. But then I dismissed that idea from my mind. Werner was enough of a pro not to let that bother him.

Stinnes was dressed in a green tropical suit which repeated washings had faded to a very light colour. The collar of his white shirt was buttoned, but he wore no tie. It gave the impression of an absent-minded man who'd dressed hurriedly, but I knew that Stinnes was not absent-minded, and the way in which he'd dragged out the arrangements for his enrolment was the mark of a man who never hurried.

Stinnes was solemn as he got into the car. There is nothing wrong, I hope,' he said, when the greetings were over.

'What sort of a game are you playing, Erich?' I said. 'I wish I knew.'

'What games are there?'

'There are many different ones,' I said. 'There is the Moscow game in which you lead us by the nose, and then say no thanks.'

'I know only the Bernard Samson game,' he said. 'I do as you propose. I get my money and a few months of interrogation and I retire in comfort.'

'What about the Erich Stinnes game? You grab the money and you take off on your own and disappear.'

'You'll find a way to prevent that, I'm sure. That's your job, isn't it?'

'What have you arranged with London behind my back, Erich?' I said.

'That's what really annoys you; the way your own department have behaved. You have no complaint against me. I have kept my word all along the line.'

'We haven't gone very far yet,' I pointed out.

'The London game, that's what you haven't mentioned,' said Stinnes.

I said nothing. He was trying to rile me in order to see what he could discover. It was to be expected; it was what I would do to him under the same circumstances.

'The London game…' said Stinnes. 'You take the blame for all their mistakes. Is that perhaps the London game, Mr Samson?'

'I don't know,' I said. I was tired of this silly conversation.

But Stinnes persisted. He said, 'If you disappear, it would leave your people in London with a convenient scapegoat for all their failures, wouldn't it?'

'No. They'd have a lot of explaining to do,' I said, with more bravado than I could spare.

'Not if the money also disappeared with you.'

'What are you telling me, Erich?' I kept it light and tried to act as if I found his suggestions amusing. That London would murder me and make the money vanish and pretend that I'd been a KGB agent for many years?'

He smiled but gave no reply.

'And how would you fit into that scenario? Me dead. Money gone. Erich Stinnes where?'

'I'll keep to my agreement. I've told you that. Do you have any reason to doubt?' I followed Stinnes's gaze. The ground sloped up at the back of the yard. On a grubby white wall a youth in faded jeans and a purple T-shirt was spraying a slogan on the tall stucco wall: La revoluti ón no tiene fronteras – the revolution has no frontiers. It was to be seen all over Central America, wherever they could afford the paint.