The house, moreover, was not north of London at all; it was in Sussex to the south, near East Grinstead. Zack had simply been motoring around the orbital M.25 to make his phone calls from the northern side of the capital.

Cramer’s men would scour the place from top to bottom; despite the cleaning-up efforts by the four mercenaries, there were some overlooked fingerprints, but they belonged to Marchais and Pretorius.

“What about the Volvo?” asked Quinn. “You paid for that?”

“Yeah, and the van, and most of the other gear. Only the Skorpion was given us by the fat man. In London.”

Unknown to Quinn, the Volvo had already been found outside London. It had overstayed its time in a multistory parking lot at London’s Heathrow Airport. The mercenaries, after driving through Buckingham on the morning of the murder, had turned south again and back to London. From Heathrow they had taken the airport shuttle bus to London’s other air terminus at Gatwick, ignored the airport, and boarded the train for Hastings and the coast. Separate taxis had brought them to Newhaven to catch the noon ferry to Dieppe. Once in France they had split up and gone to earth.

The Volvo, examined by the Heathrow Airport police, was seen to have breathing holes punctured in the floor of the trunk, and a lingering smell of almonds. Scotland Yard was called in, the original owner traced. But it had been bought for cash, the change-of-owner documentation had never been completed, and the description of the buyer matched that of the ginger-haired man who had bought the Ford Transit.

“It was the fat man who was giving you all the inside information?” asked Quinn.

“What inside information?” said Sam suddenly.

“How did you know about that?” asked Zack suspiciously. He evidently still suspected that Quinn might be one of his employers-turned-persecutors.

“You were too good,” said Quinn. “You knew to wait until I was in place, then ask for the negotiator in person. I’ve never known that before. You knew when to throw a rage and when to back off. You changed from dollars to diamonds, knowing it would cause a delay when we were ready to exchange.”

Zack nodded. “Yeah, I was briefed before the kidnap on what to do, when and how to do it. While we were hiding, I had to make another series of phone calls. Always while out of the house, always from one phone booth to another, according to an arranged list. It was the fat man; I knew his voice by then. He occasionally made changes-fine-tuning, he called it. I just did what I was told.”

“All right,” said Quinn. “And the fat man told you there’d be no problem getting away afterward. Just a manhunt for a month or so, but with no clues to go on, it would all die down and you could live happily ever after. You really believed that? You really thought you could kidnap and kill the son of an American President and get away? Then why did you kill the kid? You didn’t have to.”

Zack’s facial muscles worked in something like a frenzy. His eyes bulged with anger.

“That’s the point, you shit. We didn’t kill him. We dumped him on the road like we was told. He was alive and well-we hadn’t hurt him at all. And we drove on. First we knew he was dead was when it was made public the next day. I couldn’t believe it. It was a lie. We didn’t do it.”

Outside in the street a car cruised around the corner from the rue de Chalón. One man drove; the other was in back, cradling the rifle. The car came up the street as if looking for someone, paused outside the first bar, advanced almost to the door of Chez Hugo, then backed up to come to rest halfway between the two. The engine was kept idling.

“The kid was killed by a bomb planted in the leather belt he wore around his waist,” said Quinn. “He wasn’t wearing that when he was snatched on Shotover Plain. You gave it to him to wear.”

“I didn’t,” shouted Zack. “I bloody didn’t. It was Orsini.”

“Okay, tell me about Orsini.”

“Corsican, a hit man. Younger than us. When the three of us left to meet you in the warehouse, the kid was wearing what he had always worn. When we got back he was in new clothes. I tore Orsini off a hell of a strip over that. The silly bastard had left the house, against orders, and gone and bought them.”

Quinn recalled the shouting row he had heard above his head when the mercenaries had retired to examine their diamonds. He had thought it was about the gems.

“Why did he do it?” asked Quinn.

“He said the kid had complained he was cold. Said he thought it would do no harm, so he walked into East Grin-stead, went to a camping shop, and bought the gear. I was angry because he speaks no English and would stand out like a sore thumb, the way he looks.”

“The clothes were almost certainly delivered in your absence,” said Quinn. “All right, what does he look like, this Orsini?”

“About thirty-three, a pro, but never been in combat. Very dark chin, black eyes, knife scar down one cheek.”

“Why did you hire him?”

“I didn’t. I contacted Big Paul and Janni ’cos I knew them from the old days and we’d stayed in touch. The Corsican was sicked on me by the fat man. Now I hear Janni’s dead and Big Paul has vanished.”

“And what do you want with this meeting?” asked Quinn. “What am I supposed to do for you?”

Zack leaned forward and gripped Quinn’s forearm.

“I want out,” he said. “If you’re with the people who set me up, tell ’em there’s no way they need to come after me. I’d never, never talk. Not to the fuzz anyway. So they’re safe.”

“But I’m not with them,” said Quinn.

“Then tell your people I never killed the kid,” said Zack. “That was never part of the deal. I swear on my life I never intended that boy to die.”

Quinn mused that if Nigel Cramer or Kevin Brown ever got their hands on Zack, “life” was exactly what he would be serving, as a guest either of Her Majesty or of Uncle Sam.

“A few last points, Zack. The diamonds. If you want to make a play for clemency, they’d better have the ransom back for starters. Have you spent them?”

“No,” said Zack abruptly. “No chance. They’re here. Every single bloody one.”

He dived a hand under the table and dumped a canvas bag on the table. Sam’s eyes popped.

“Orsini,” said Quinn impassively. “Where is he now?”

“God knows. Probably back in Corsica. He came from there ten years ago to work in the gangs of Marseilles, Nice, and later Paris. That was all I could get out of him. Oh, and he comes from a village called Castelblanc.”

Quinn rose, took the canvas bag, and looked down at Zack.

“You’re in it, mate. Right up to your ears. I’ll talk to the authorities. They might accept your turning state’s evidence. Even that’s a long shot. But I’ll tell them there were people behind you, and probably people behind them. If they believe that, and you tell all, they might leave you alive. The others, the ones you worked for… no chance.”

He turned to go. Sam got up to follow. As if preferring the shelter the American gave him, Zack rose also and they headed for the door. Quinn paused.

“One last thing. Why the name Zack?”

He knew that during the kidnapping, the psychiatrists and code breakers had puzzled long over the name, seeking a possible clue to the real identity of the man who had chosen it. They had worked on variations of Zachary, Zachariah, looked for relatives of known criminals who had such names or initials.

“It was really Z-A-K,” said Zack. “The letters on the number plate of the first car I ever owned.”

Quinn raised a single eyebrow. So much for psychiatry. He stepped outside. Zack came next. Sam was still in the doorway when the crash of the rifle tore apart the quiet of the side street.

Quinn did not see the car or the gunman. But he heard the distinctive “whap” of a bullet going past his face and felt the breath of cool wind it made on his cheek. The bullet missed his ear by half an inch, but not Zack. The mercenary took it in the base of the throat.