FOUR

BROSNAN HAD TAKEN Anne-Marie to the cinema that evening and afterwards to a small restaurant in Montmartre called La Place Anglaise. It was an old favorite because, and in spite of the name, one of the specialities of the house was Irish stew. It wasn’t particularly busy, and they had just finished the main course when Max Hernu appeared, Savary standing behind him.

“Snow in London, snow in Brussels and snow in Paris,” Hernu brushed it from his sleeve and opened his coat.

“Do I deduce from your appearance here that you’ve had me followed?” Brosnan asked.

“Not at all, Professor. We called at your apartment, where the porter told us you had gone to the cinema. He was also kind enough to mention three or four restaurants he thought you might be at. This is the second.”

“Then you’d better sit down and have a cognac and some coffee,” Anne-Marie told him. “You both look frozen.”

They took off their coats and Brosnan nodded to the headwaiter, who hurried over and took the order.

“I’m sorry, mademoiselle, to spoil your evening, but this is most important,” Hernu said. “An unfortunate development.”

Brosnan lit a cigarette. “Tell us the worst.”

It was Savary who answered. “About two hours ago the bodies of the Jobert brothers were found by a beat policeman in their car in a small square not far from Le Chat Noir.”

“Murdered, is that what you are saying?” Anne-Marie put in.

“Oh, yes, mademoiselle,” he said. “Shot to death.”

“Two each in the heart?” Brosnan said.

“Why, yes, Professor, the pathologist was able to tell us that at the start of his examination. We didn’t stay for the rest. How did you know?”

“Dillon, without a doubt. It’s a real pro’s trick, Colonel, you should know that. Never one shot, always two in case the other man manages to get one off at you as a reflex.”

Hernu stirred his coffee. “Did you expect this, Professor?”

“Oh, yes. He’d have come looking for them sooner or later. A strange man. He always keeps his word, never goes back on a contract, and he expects the same from those he deals with. What he calls a matter of honor. At least he did in the old days.”

“Can I ask you something?” Savary said. “I’ve been on the street fifteen years. I’ve known killers in plenty and not just the gangsters who see it as part of the job, but the poor sod who’s killed his wife because she’s been unfaithful. Dillon seems something else. I mean, his father was killed by British soldiers so he joined the IRA. I can see that, but everything that’s happened since. Twenty years of it. All those hits and not even in his own country. Why?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Brosnan said. “They’d give you all the fancy names starting with psychopath and working down. I knew men like him in the army in Vietnam in Special Forces and good men, some of them, but once they started, the killing, I mean, it seemed to take over like a drug. They became driven men. The next stage was always to kill when it wasn’t necessary. To do it without emotion. Back there in Nam it was as if people had become, how can I put it, just things.”

“And this, you think, happened to Dillon?” Hernu asked.

“It happened to me, Colonel,” Martin Brosnan said bleakly.

There was silence. Finally, Hernu said, “We must catch him, Professor.”

“I know.”

“Then you’ll join us in hunting him down?”

Anne-Marie put a hand on his arm, dismay on her face, and she turned to the two men, a kind of desperate anger there. “That’s your job, not Martin’s.”

“It’s all right,” Martin soothed her. “Don’t worry.” He said to Hernu, “Any advice I can give, any information that might help, but no personal involvement. I’m sorry, Colonel, that’s the way it has to be.”

Savary said. “You told us he tried to kill you once. You and a friend.”

“That was in seventy-four. He and I both worked for this friend of mine, a man named Devlin, Liam Devlin. He was what you might call an old-fashioned revolutionary. Thought you could still fight it out like the old days, an undercover army against the troops. A bit like the Resistance in France during the war. He didn’t like bombs, soft target bits, that kind of stuff.”

“What happened?” the Inspector asked.

“Dillon disobeyed orders and the bomb that was meant for the police patrol killed half a dozen children. Devlin and I went after him. He tried to take us out.”

“Without success, obviously?”

“Well, we weren’t exactly kids off the street.” His voice had changed in a subtle way. Harder, more cynical. “Left me with a groove in one shoulder and I gave him one in the arm himself. That was when he first dropped out of sight into Europe.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“I was in prison for over four years from nineteen seventy-five, Inspector. Belle Isle. You’re forgetting your history. He worked with a man called Frank Barry for a while, another refugee from the IRA who turned up on the European scene. A really bad one, Barry. Do you remember him?”

“I do, indeed, Professor,” Hernu said. “As I recall, he tried to assassinate Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary, on a visit to France in nineteen seventy-nine in very similar circumstances to this recent affair.”

“Dillon was probably doing a copy-cat of that operation. He worshipped Barry.”

“Whom you killed, on behalf of British Intelligence, I understand?”

Anne-Marie said, “Excuse me.”

She got up and walked down to the powder room. Hernu said, “We’ve upset her.”

“She worries about me, Colonel, worries that some circumstances might put a gun in my hand again and send me sliding all the way back.”

“Yes, I can see that, my friend.” Hernu got up and buttoned his coat. “We’ve taken up enough of your time. My apologies to Mademoiselle Audin.”

Savary said, “Your lectures at the Sorbonne, Professor, the students must love you. I bet you get a full house.”

“Always,” Brosnan said.

He watched them go and Anne-Marie returned. “Sorry about that, my love,” he told her.

“Not your fault.” She looked tired. “I think I’ll go home.”

“You’re not coming back to my place?”

“Not tonight. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

The headwaiter brought the bill, which Brosnan signed, then helped them into their coats and ushered them to the door. Outside, snow sprinkled the cobbles. She shivered and turned to Brosnan. “You changed, Martin, back there when you were talking to them. You started to become the other man again.”

“Really?” he said and knew that it was true.

“I’ll get a taxi.”

“Let me come with you?”

“No, I’d rather not.”

He watched her go down the street, then turned and went the other way. Wondering about Dillon, where he was and what he was doing.

Dillon’s barge was moored in a small basin on the Quai St-Bernard. There were mainly motor cruisers there, pleasure craft with canvas hoods over them for the winter. The interior was surprisingly luxurious, a stateroom lined with mahogany, two comfortable sofas, a television. His sleeping quarters were in a cabin beyond with a divan bed and a small shower-room adjacent. The kitchen was on the other side of the passageway, small, but very modern. Everything a good cook could want. He was in there now, waiting for the kettle to boil when he heard the footfalls on deck. He opened a drawer, took out a Walther, cocked it and slipped it into his waistband at the rear. Then he went out.

Makeev came down the companionway and entered the stateroom. He shook snow from his overcoat and took it off. “What a night. Filthy weather.”

“Worse in Moscow,” Dillon told him. “Coffee?”

“Why not.”

Makeev helped himself to a cognac from a bottle on the sideboard and the Irishman came back with a china mug in each hand. “Well, what’s happened?”