SECRET III

By James Haydon

SECRET III is the third in a cycle of books in which Michael James, having discovered his father was the Victorian murderer Jack the Ripper, unearths shocking truths about his family's dark secret.

The year is now 1947 and Michael, after his release from hospital and convalescing home, continues his search to find the origins o

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookTrail Publishing
• Release date: Sep 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951505639

James Haydon

James Haydon was born in Blackfriars, London. His works are predominately London based, depicting various epochs and using London as a backdrop for his novels and its ever-changing stages throughout history.

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Copyright © 2020 by James Haydon

Paperback: 978-1-951505-64-6

eBook: 978-1-951505-63-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020916280

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of nonfiction.

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For James

‘It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.’

Leo Tolstoy. The Kreuter Sonata

CHAPTER ONE

ROME

- 1 -

There is a small restaurant on Piazza del Colosseo, the interior of which is exceedingly neat and tidy, where small tables with yellow tablecloths spill out onto the pavement and slick waiters garbed in black and white uniforms glide between them to accommodate the waiting patrons and tourists. It is elegant and charming, unassuming in many ways yet grand in others. Here they serve exquisite cuisine; bruschetta, cannelloni, lasagne, linguine, tortellini, and a wealth of other culinary delights. Their fine wines are considered the best in all Italy and served up with a reverence almost humbling to observe, where every bottle of Gaja Barbaresco or Incisa della Rocchetta Sassicaia is handled with the greatest of care. If you like eating al-fresco with a side order of traffic fumes and a cacophony of tooting car horns, then this is the place to be. What makes this self-effacing eatery so unique is its location, for it stands directly before the Colosseum, a slowly disintegrating remnant of the Roman Empire, crumbling and cracked yet still as intimidating as it ever was. One cannot help but stare, not for what it is but for what it used to be. City planners have made a feature of it, where wide roads merge to spiral around the imposing edifice and spacious car-parks cater for the thousands of tourists arriving daily. Standing to the east of the Roman Forum, the Flavian Amphitheatre was the largest amphitheatre in the world and constructed between 70 and 80 AD by Emperor Vespasian, and his son Titus, respectively.

Even in its present condition, where a third of the top two stories have collapsed and scaffolding props up its aging wounds of decay here and there, it remains an overwhelming vista. I had arrived at the restaurant early when the tables were being laid out in their citreous coloured coverings and the pavement was still puddled from its morning ritual of sluicing and scrubbing. The sun was already hot and I took a table at the edge of the expanse beneath the shade of the restaurant awning, staring curiously at the wisps of steam carpeting the walkway as the flagstones began to dry. A handsome, olive-skin waiter with black hair and armed with a silver tray and a customary white towel draped over his arm, approached and awaited my order. ‘Una tazza di caffè, per favore,’ I said, assuming a confident air to convey Italian was my second language. And there I sat, quite alone, with cars like upside down Anderson shelters and an abundance of farting, pop-pop mopeds careening around this urban one-way system heading towards the city of Rome. I could visualise the Colosseum in all its magnificence when it was the venue for gladiatorial contests and a theatre reenacting famous battles and mythological dramas. Up to 80,000 spectators crowded inside, where outside the streets heaved with humanity; slavers selling beautiful women from all four corners of the globe, merchants selling their wares, cattle on their way to market, and even the odd elephant or two carrying a prince or princess to see the bloody spectacle.

With the passing of thirty minutes or so, the time of which I spent contemplating the extraordinary accomplishments of the Roman Empire, a vaguely familiar figure appeared walking along the wide pavement towards the restaurant; tall, bronzed and wearing a beige lightweight suit, his jacket slung over his shoulder, and as he closed nearer so his smile brightened all the more on seeing me. His shadow fell upon me as he stood in the morning sun, and then he sat opposite, staring in absolute wonder into my face. His name was Jaqueline Wren, a French ICPO operative, who was both pleasant and annoyingly good looking. The first time we met I pushed a gun in his face and the second time was when I was on a life-support machine. I had met him back in 45 when, quite by accident, I had stumbled on a secret organisation I knew only as BLANCA. Seemingly the International Criminal Police Organisation had been one jump ahead of me and already knew of their existence, but they didn’t have all the facts as yet. Wren was sent from Paris to find out what I knew which – to be fair – wasn’t that much.

‘Well – this is a pleasant surprise!’ he said, shaking my hand warmly, the slightest trace of a French accent bleeding through his otherwise perfect English enunciation.

‘That I’m here in Italy, you mean?’

‘That you’re actually still breathing,’ he returned with a wry grin.

The same Rudolph Valentino waitron emerged through a beaded doorway, slick, lean and exuding all the servility of a pious monk.

‘Due caffè in più, per favore,’ said Jack with a confident wave of his hand. ‘E due piccole cognac.’

I smiled glibly. ‘A little early to be drinking, isn’t it, Jack?’ I questioned, glancing briefly at my watch.

‘Not in Rome,’ he replied with a grin. ‘You speak Italian, Michael?’

‘Si sarebbe sorpreso di quello che posso fare,’ I replied mischieviously but with an air of smugness.

The agent gawped at me incredulously and I began to laugh.

‘I took a crash course,’ I shrugged modestly.

‘I’m impressed.’ He nodded approvingly, but his smile slipped away momentarily. ‘I did come to see you at the hospital, you know,’ he added, adopting a sombre expression.

‘So I was told. Thank you.’

He smiled again. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think you’d make it.’

‘To be honest, neither did I, but here I am – alive and kicking, as they say. Doctors can perform miracles these days, especially when the British Government hands them an open chequebook.’

The agent nodded and ignited one of his stinking French fags.

‘Do you remember anything about what happened?’ he asked from behind a wreath of undulating smoke.

I shook my head, my face expressionless. ‘The last memory I have is parking my car off Parliament Square. That’s it.’

Again he nodded, pausing for consideration as he looked at me through the clearing smog.

‘You’re a lucky man, Michael.’

I stared at him narrowly. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ I frowned, my aggrieved countenance obvious.

The agent observed me with patient eyes. ‘And whose fault is that? You knew the consequences.’

‘I didn’t expect to be shot.’

‘Yes you did, or at least you suspected. Why were you there, Michael? Why were you on that bridge? And don’t try to tell me you can’t remember.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it. You know why I was there – to meet Conrad.’

He paused to take a long drag on his tar-infused coffin nail.

‘In the operating theatre, after your clothes were cut off, they discovered an envelope containing six sheets of blank paper in your pocket,’ he said.

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘And for the past year it’s been baffling me and, one would imagine, anyone else who knows you. Why would you have on your person an envelope of no consequence whatsoever?’

I shrugged ambiguously. ‘I don’t know. I can’t recall,’ I said, moving my gaze to the amphitheatre.

‘I think you do. I think you met Conrad to exchange certain information. I’m guessing you gave him the list of affiliates associated with BLANCA, but the question is what was he going to give you in return? Whatever it was, you considered it important enough to risk your life for. It was him who gave you the envelope containing nothing but six sheets of foolscap paper, wasn’t it?’

I shrugged again without looking at him.

‘But you believed he gave you vital information, didn’t you?’ pursued Jack, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. ‘He had something belonging to you, but you never checked the contents of the envelope.’

I grinned wolfishly and shook my head. ‘When you sent the telegram inviting me to Rome, I didn’t expect to receive the third degree. Do you work for the ICPO or the Spanish Inquisition?’ I said.

Jack leaned back in his chair and fell silent when the waiter returned, placing two coffees, and two small cognacs on the table. He offered a menu which Jack dismissed with a faint shake of his head, where after he watched and waited until the young man disappeared back through the beaded curtain.

‘When we met in London a year ago, you told me a story that a prostitute by the name of Wendy Marshall discovered the identity of BLANCA and that Vincent Pierce, her pimp, killed her probably for what she knew. It was your contention that Richard Conrad gave the order to erase her, as undoubtedly he gave the order to erase you.’

My eyes were still fixed to the grandeur of the vast Roman edifice, where a thousand beams of intense sunlight shot through the deteriorating arches to dissolve the shadows cast by its own vastness.

‘Do you know four hundred thousand people were slaughtered in there at the height of the games?’ I remarked meditatively. ‘Imagine that - four hundred thousand!’

‘You’re not listening to me, Michael,’ said Jack with an impatience which was beginning to tighten itself around me.

‘Oh, but I am, Jack,’ I replied, turning to face him with a sharp, indignant leer, ‘and I don’t think you realise how much you’re pissing me off at the moment. I didn’t travel a thousand miles to be questioned by some crime-fighting sycophant in a gabardine mac who thinks he has his finger on the pulse of the entire world.’

‘Touchy, touchy, Michael!’ returned the agent pulling back. ‘But you have to admit the attempt on your life smacks of a double-cross. Why would an intelligent man like you put himself at risk by holding a clandestine meeting on Westminster Bridge in the middle of the night? It doesn’t make any sense unless, of course, Conrad had something you needed.’

I sighed jadedly. ‘Listen, Sherlock, you can make all the assumptions and wild accusations you like, but you can’t change the truth. I won’t have my integrity questioned by someone who values promotion over facts.’

The ICPO agent threw his head back and began to laugh, and taking a last puff on his cigarette he stubbed it into the ashtray.

‘Is that what you think, that I’m angling for promotion on the back of all your hard work, pain and suffering? You’re a fool if you do. I need to know I can trust you before we move forward, but not to put too finer point on it, your excuses stink. Why didn’t you stop after Wendy Marshall was murdered, and Phillip Heidegger and Matthew Pilinger were locked up safely behind bars?’

‘I did – sort of, but then I received the list of BLANCA’s affiliates. I saw it as an opportunity to finish what I started.’

‘Some may see it as suicide. And how did you come by the list?’

‘The usual way - by post,’ I evasively replied.

Jack shook his head derisively and raised his glass of cognac, downing it in one.

‘Who are you talking to, Michael? One hundred and thirty-four names of an organisation so secret it has evaded detection since that building was constructed, just happened to fall on your front doormat!’ he said, waving a hand towards the Colosseum. ‘This is not a passing infatuation. Your involvement goes deeper than you’re saying. You’re protecting someone, and if you won’t be honest with me then we have no future together. You’ll never get to the truth!’

Jack was right, of course. Secrets have no value when retained solely by the trustee, but once shared all hell can break loose, providing leverage for your enemies, a healthy payday for sleazy reporters, and untold ammunition in which to be ridiculed by your peers. If any trust was to be established between Jaqueline Wren and me, then concealing my father’s past was not a step in the right direction. And just because I confided in Jack, it didn’t mean the rest of the world had to know. I watched him sipping the froth off his coffee, his face pensive, as if he were getting ready to take another wet, juicy bite out of me.

‘I was protecting me,’ I said, leaning forward on the table. ‘Or to be precise, I was protecting the honour of my family. It would appear that as a young man my father committed an indiscretion. I later discovered that he was a member of the faction known as BLANCA. The envelope given to me by Richard Conrad should have contained confirmation that my father was indeed a member of that particular organisation. So in many ways, you were correct: it did smack of a double-cross.’

‘Your father was a member of BLANCA?’

‘That’s why I agreed to meet Conrad. I was bargaining for his silence.’

‘Ah, I see!’ cried the agent, his eyes filled with comprehension. ‘You didn’t want your father – a famous and well-respected surgeon – being associated with a criminal organisation.’

‘There’s more to it than that. There was also a matter of his indiscretion.’

‘What could he have possibly done that was so bad to warrant you almost losing your life?’ the agent grinned as he raised his cup to his lips.

‘He was Jack the Ripper.’

A projectile of coffee launched from Jack’s throat and showered several tables in his line of fire, which thankfully were vacant, and seizing a napkin and holding it to his mouth he gawped at me in horror. ‘He was what!’ he gasped.

‘Jack the Ripper. A bit before your time, I know, but in 1888, he was the talk of the town. There are several books on the subject and the tallies of the dead vary; some propose as many as ten, but the true number is four. Three he committed with someone else, the fourth he did alone. These killings were undertaken while he was a medical student at the London Hospital and, I believe, were more an initiation into BLANCA than the act of a madman. And it’s not like he harboured some deep-rooted resentment towards prostitutes: he married one, and by all accounts worked every hour God sent in order to raise the money to free her from the evil clutches of the brothel-keeper. However, prior to meeting my mother, or perhaps at the same time, and under the jurisdiction of BLANCA’s covenant, my father was expected to impregnate women belonging to the same organisation who are known as true-bloods. He was a true-blood as, I suppose, I am, which brings me neatly to Shani Barnes, another true-blood, who was Richard Conrad’s ex-wife, of which, in a moment of weakness I had a passionate night of sex, only to discover she was my half-sister. She told me the story of my grandfather, who was consigned to a nuthouse and hanged for murdering his precocious wife. Shani vanished shortly before I was gunned down, and that… well, that’s about it.’

Jaqueline Wren sat there aghast, bespattered with coffee and gaping at me as if I were insane. I smiled and lifted my coffee cup.

‘I feel better now I’ve got that off my chest,’ I sighed.

Jack was still frozen, a mortified expression fixing his face, his eyes unblinking and his mouth agape. Not until the waiter came scurrying from the interior with a glass of water did he begin to animate himself.

‘C’era qualcosa di sbagliato con il caffè, Signore?’ enquired the employee urgently as he pushed the glass into Jack’s face.

‘No, nothing was wrong with the coffee!’ replied the agent, pushing the glass away. ‘Bring two more… And two more cognacs! Large ones!’

The concerned waitron nodded and scooted off back toward the kitchen, while Jack observed me steadily.

‘Are you crazy? You didn’t feel compelled to mention that your father was a notorious Victorian murderer and that you had sex with your sister, a year ago!’ he hissed at me.

‘Please!’ I said indignantly. ‘She’s my half-sister. I’m not an animal!’

‘But..? But..?’

‘Families, eh?’ I shrugged as I stirred my cappuccino. ‘On the surface they all look quite normal, but invariably we uncover their dark secrets: the uncle who’s a cross-dresser; the aunt who clads herself in leather and has converted the garage into a sexual torture chamber; the nephew who’s a devout follower of Leyton Orient but steals women’s underwear from washing lines; the grandfather, who on the premise of walking the dog, is the neighbourhood peeping tom; the shy and retiring daughter who is really a kleptomaniac. How do you explain it, eh? How do you convey to a rational human being that a normal, intelligent, level-headed boy is a follower of Leyton Orient? It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘Michael, this isn’t funny!’

‘I thought it was funny.’

The agent suddenly began to appraise me sceptically, where after a few moments of intense scrutiny a smile formed on his lips and he nodded slowly. ‘Ah, I get it now! This is your idea of a little joke. You’re trying to make me look a fool.’

‘You don’t need my help for that, Jack, really.’

His smile began to subside.

‘But this is a joke?’

I shook my head sombrely.

His grin rose and remained unsteady for a brief while, but then it slipped away again without a trace.

‘It’s preposterous! You – the son of Jack the Ripper! It’s… It’s absurd!’

I drained my coffee cup and placed it on the saucer, conveying a supercilious look in his direction.

‘And why would you consider it preposterous, Jack? Megalomaniacs aren’t exempt from having baby megalomaniacs. Attila the Hun had children, as did Alexander the Great. Even Hitler had a mummy and daddy. Why shouldn’t the Whitechapel Murderer be an all-round nice guy with a doting family?’

‘And was your father an all-round nice guy?’

‘I was speaking hypothetically. Listen to me, Jack,’ I said, turning serious. ‘I’m still here. I don’t know why I’m still here but I am. I died so many times on that operating table that if I were a cat I’d be fucked. Do I believe in God? No. Did I see a heavenly light and hear a choir of angels’ voices? No. Did I walk hand in hand with the Lord to those pearly gates where he in his infinite wisdom considered me worthy of a second chance? No. When I awakened after two months of being in a coma I was partially deaf and blind, a condition I’ve been led to believe is post-traumatic and symptomatic of coma victims. I was four months in a bed, three months in a wheelchair, underwent eighteen major operations, and my blood-group has changed so many times it reads like the alphabet. I’ll spare you the sordid details of bodily functions and self-control – or lack of – and move onto present day. I haven’t felt my fingers or toes for a year and the right side of my body is perpetually numb. If the temperature drops below five degrees my arm and leg seize up tighter than a gnat’s chuff, and sometimes the pain is so unbearable I get the urge to slam my penis in a car door just as a distraction. But here I am, and if telling you the truth will get me closer to Conrad and breaking this organisation wide open, then I’m willing to cooperate – with one exception: I won’t tell you who my father’s accomplice was.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘No, you may not! Needless to say, Jack, if you so much as repeat my confession to a living soul or decide to put pen to paper in any shape or form, you’ll wish you were back home in France and living a life of purgatory in the Bastille.’

He agreed with a firm nod, grabbed my cognac, and swallowed it whole.

‘Have you told your wife about your father?’ he asked, looking to the beaded screen for the reappearance of the waiter and replenished glasses.’

‘I couldn’t keep it from her. Eventually I had to tell her I had one.’

‘I meant, have you told her that he was..?’ he paused to look guardedly around him, ‘you know?’

‘A surgeon, you mean? No. She’s always harboured a deep-seated mistrust of doctors ever since she fell pregnant and they kept asking her to open her legs.’

With a loud buzz and some untimely crackles, the unmistakable crooner Frank Sinatra began to waft from the outside speakers and drift on a light breeze across the sidewalk, where the orchestral arrangement was somewhat corrupted by the noise of passing motor scooters, buses, and delivery trucks. The dashing waiter brought coffees and two more cognacs and set about changing our soiled tablecloth. Having performed this task with remarkable speed and dexterity, he hurried to a couple who had taken a table on the far side of the expanse.

‘Does she know, Michael?’ Jack reiterated, with a look that said he had had enough of my puerile retorts.

I shook my head.

‘Do you plan to tell her?’

‘Would you?’ I returned.

He considered the prospect carefully and slowly shook his head.

‘No,’ he reasoned, looking embarrassed he had posed such a ridiculous question in the first place. ‘No, I don’t suppose I would. And is Eleanor with you?’

‘Rachel,’ I emphasised, ‘is at the hotel in Via Labicano.’

‘Forgive me. Only for the past year I have been liaising with Colonel Westwood who refers to her only as Eleanor. I met her once or twice when I visited you at the hospital. She’s well acquainted with the world of espionage.’

‘Yes. As you French say: she knows her onions.’

Jack looked perplexingly into his coffee. ‘Do we? Why would a Frenchman say such a thing?’

‘Onions,’ I elaborated.

The agent waited for something else, but I had nothing else.

‘Anyway, she’ll be here shortly,’ I digressed. ‘She thought it best to give you and me an hour or so to become reacquainted.’

‘She’s alone?’

‘Fortunately, or unfortunately – depending on which way you look at it – she has Sylvia with her, my secretary. Since my little setback a year ago, they’ve become almost inseparable.’

Jack raised his eyebrows suggestively.

‘You couldn’t be more wrong, my friend,’ I said. ‘Have you ever heard the saying: another notch on the bedpost?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard it: it’s a way of keeping count of your sexual conquests.’

‘Well, I have it on good authority that Sylvia’s bedroom is knee-deep in wood shavings. If any men go missing in London the police always go to her place first just to make sure.’

‘Really! Is that true?’ Jack laughed.

‘No. Not a single word of it,’ I replied with a wistful look. ‘Do you know when I came out of the coma Sylvia stayed at my bedside for sixty-five consecutive days and nights? She ate there, bathed there, slept there, and Frank her boyfriend brought in a change of clothes for her. She would sit next to the bed and read Dickens to me, the whole catalogue. I can’t remember much, but Rachel told me. Some mornings I would wake up to find she’d painted my toenails. For days, weeks, she would tell me all her troubles and berate me for being so stupid for nearly being killed. I hardly remember her being there, and if I could remember what the hell she was rambling on about I’ll die a happy man, but that’s the point. It really doesn’t matter whether I remember her being there or not. The point is she was.’

Jack rested forward on his elbows, the cognac glass cradled between both hands.

‘And now what?’ he asked. ‘How far do you want to take this?’

‘All the way.’

‘Revenge? I hope not, Michael. We’ve made considerable progress in the past year. The ICPO and the British Secret Service have been collating information of authorities from all over the world regarding this covert organisation. We can ill-afford a hothead ruining it all.’

‘Hothead!’ I rebuffed. ‘I consider myself more a victim!’

‘You would. But let us for one moment address your past endeavours, shall we? Matthew Pilinger, a key link to London trafficking, is now dead because you used him as a pawn in your misguided strategy. Richard Conrad, the only tangible connection to BLANCA, has disappeared because you used your acquired information of affiliates against him. Wendy Marshall, undoubtedly the catalyst of your obsession is dead. Shani Barnes, your sister and…’

‘Half-sister, if you don’t mind!’

‘Shani Barnes, your half-sister, and incestuous concubine has vanished from the face of the earth. Peter Egan is dead. And what about Donald Trap, the infamous child murderer you pursued with ruthless tenacity? Can you see where I’m going with this, Michael? Everything you try to achieve turns to shit.’

‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

‘But true, nevertheless. Yet somewhere in this mayhem and madness, death and destruction, there’s a purity struggling for dominance, a boundless devotion that died along with the Knights Templar and Joan of Arc; martyrs are thin on the ground these days?’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do,’ the agent smiled. He looked at the vastness of the Colosseum. ‘Do you consider yourself a gladiator, Michael, fighting for some worthy cause?’

I smiled at the question. Perhaps I did.

‘There’s somebody I would like you to meet – Alain Lumas, the head controller of my unit.’

‘Your boss?’

‘And tomorrow I have arranged for you and me to meet a man by the name of Faulkner.’

The name meant nothing and I shook my head.

‘He has information he wants to impart, but he won’t tell anyone else but you. He admires you, Michael.’

I shrugged uncaringly. ‘I’m deeply touched, but I’ve never heard of him.’

‘All will become clearer tomorrow,’ he said. ‘In the meantime…’

‘Ah! Here come the girls,’ I said, cutting off the agent in mid-sentence.

Rachel and Sylvia emerged through a crowd of tourists snapping photographs of the amphitheatre, looking all glowing and summery. At once Jaqueline Wren stood up, smiling with anticipation, his hand extended in greeting.

‘We meet again, Eleanor, only this time under different circumstances,’ he said. He turned then to Sylvia, taking her hand as if he intended to eat it. ‘Cynthia, you haven’t changed.’

‘Only my name: it’s Sylvia.’

‘Ah, but of course. Forgive me.’

‘Not bad, Jack. Two introductions and both wrong,’ I grinned.

The agent nodded as he took his seat. ‘Yes. I forgot you prefer the name Rachel to Eleanor.’

‘And I prefer Sylvia to… any other name,’ Sylvia piped up.

Jaqueline Wren leaned forward with a curious leer, his eyes fixed on my wife. ‘Would it be impertinent of me if I asked why you call yourself Rachel when your name is really Eleanor?’

Rachel cogitated for a spell. ‘Do you know, Jack, I haven’t the slightest clue,’ she said with an alluring smile. ‘I think it is Michael’s way of separating the woman from the profession. Truth be told, he doesn’t like strong women. He prefers the needy, pouting damsels in distress type; the ones who crumble at a derogatory remark. To put it bluntly, he likes to be on top all the time.’ She looked to me with a cold smile. ‘Isn’t that so, Michael?’ she added.

I reciprocated the same frigid grin. ‘When you’ve quite finished giving the world your scathing and a biased broadside against my character, perhaps we can eat. I’m sure you would have little trouble in devouring a new born child providing it’s served up with roast potatoes.’

‘Sounds yummy,’ replied Rachel with a narrowed stare.

Sylvia grabbed the menu at once. ‘Great! My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut. I’m starving!’

‘Bless her,’ I said with a smile in Jack’s direction.

The ICPO agent leaned back in his chair, appraising us with an air of bewilderment. ‘Are all the English so hostile towards one another?’ he grinned. ‘You seem…?’

‘Antagonistic?’ Rachel butted in. She leaned forward on her elbows. ‘You see, Jack, some of us didn’t want to come on this little excursion to Rome…’

‘I did,’ Sylvia grunted as she studied the bill of fare.

‘Some of us,’ resumed my wife, ‘had better things to do, like raising a child, keeping house, and trying one’s level best to hold together whatever is left of this sham marriage. Still, Michael gets what Michael wants, huh.’

‘Not always, darling,’ I put in. ‘I got you, didn’t I?’

‘Yes. Yes, you did; an unforgiveable oversight on my part. I was never a good judge of character.’

‘Pity. You could have saved us both a lot of heartache.’

‘I agree; a pity for both of us.’

In an attempt to defuse the situation, Jack threw his arms open. ‘This is Rome! Nowhere in the world is there a place like it, steeped in history, unrivalled beauty and, of course, romance. Put your differences aside and behold the spectacle. You are dining within the shadow of the Colosseum. That must account for something.’

Sylvia raised her eyes from the menu and gazed disapprovingly at the crumbling amphitheatre.

‘Is that what it is? It’s a dump,’ she remarked.

I stared at her in horror.

‘What are you - some kind of philistine?’ I sniped. ‘It’s the Colosseum, Sylvia! It has stood there for two thousand years. It is the essence of Rome, its people, and the power it had over all other nations.’

‘Sorry,’ she replied with a shake of her head. ‘I just can’t see what all the fuss is about. I mean, look at it! They could have tarted it up a bit; a lick of paint – anything. The builders must have been crap.’

‘True, it has fallen into a state of disrepair, but that’s only to be expected. For centuries, it was used as a quarry, and most of the stones were purloined to build other edifices. But its very appearance gives you some insight into how magnificent the arena once was. Do you know one million animals were killed there?’

‘The bastards! Well, I’m definitely not going in there now. They won’t be getting any of my money. Killing a million animals! What’s up with these people?’

Jack was grinning at the debate. ‘In those days, Sylvia, it was classed as entertainment,’ he explained.

‘What, like spit-roasting your pet poodle over a fire, you mean? Some entertainment!’

Thankfully the conversation concerning the Flavian amphitheatre petered out and we ordered our food and drinks and conversed in soft whispers.

‘So, Jack, why have you brought us to Rome?’ Rachel asked.

‘I want Michael to meet a man connected with BLANCA, or, at least, the organisation responsible for their activities.’

‘And where did you find this man?’

‘Quite by accident. He was arrested for an unrelated crime and, after some interrogation by us he came clean. He told us of his involvement. In the great scheme of things he is probably insignificant, but he may give us something tangible.’

‘And he wants to talk to Michael?’

‘That’s what the man said,’ Jack shrugged. ‘Anything he has to say he wants to say to him.’

‘But why Michael?’ Sylvia interrupted while waving her fork about. ‘How does he even know about Michael?’

The agent paused briefly. ‘It would appear that this organisation knows considerably more about Michael than we know about them. This man said he admires him and that he’s impressed by his conviction. Personally, I think he’s about to jump ship. I think he wants to tell us everything.’

Rachel looked at me and transmitted one of those watery smiles. ‘There you are, Michael. I always knew that one day somebody would believe in you.’

‘Genuine adoration always comes from strangers,’ I returned icily. ‘But then you already knew that, didn’t you, Rache?’

This war of words between Rachel and I had been ongoing long before my release from convalescing. I’ll even go so far as to say that it went beyond that. My suspicions never came like an epiphany, which is to say it wasn’t a sudden moment of awareness. They had materialised over a matter of months… years; perhaps from the very moment I knew her true identity. I had never been privy to her role in government or her attachment to the Secret Service, but to some extent I knew what was expected of her. There was so much I wanted to know but was afraid to ask. What she had told me to date was only a thin veneer, an unsubstantiated history of her life wrapped up in sadness. But my dilemma wasn’t about the past. It was the present. Her continuous absence – even when I was hospitalised – was beginning to take its toll on me, and I found myself silently questioning both her ethics and her loyalty. Asking as to her whereabouts was a question I relinquished long ago, for invariably it was met by a stonewall silence or was protected by the privileged information rule. To this end we moved further apart, conversing in caustic narratives, backbiting observations, or long drawn out silences that sometimes went on for days. These glitches, for the want of a better word, could more often than not be remedied with lovemaking, but it soon became apparent that even sex was a temporary measure. Inevitably the relationship would collapse again and the once soft, lingering looks were replaced by hard stares, and the tone of voice grew just that little bit sharper. And there lie the quandary with keeping secrets. They fester like a neglected wound, corrupting the soul and tearing your conscience asunder. The only road to absolution is to confess. But would I? Would Rachel? Only time would tell. But should by chance we decide to ignore the chances given to us and retain the secrets of which we have been entrusted, then undoubtedly our relationship would wither and die.

Despite our painful and often embarrassing endurances, we tried, at least, to convey the image of a happy couple, if not a little dysfunctional. In the afternoon, and regardless of Sylvia’s objections about animal welfare, Jaqueline Wren led us on a guided tour around the Colosseum as opposed to paying the price of a ticket with the thousands of other tourists to go inside it. We ambled around the grassy outskirts, amid batteries of clicking cameras, sketch artists, and hordes of visitors spewing out of buses lining the kerbside. While the girls were ravenously eyeing the goods on display of an ice-cream kiosk, Jack lit a cigarette and drew me to one side.

‘Forgive me for asking, Michael, but are things okay with you and Eleanor…? Sorry, I mean Rachel,’ he said.

I hunched my shoulders. ‘It’s been a tough year, Jack. Things change.’

‘I understand. It couldn’t have been easy. I trust your government is paying for this little trip?’

‘No expense spared. Colonel Westwood was very forthcoming when Rachel told him we were coming here. The British Government is paying for everything. Why do you ask?’

Jack nodded thoughtfully. ‘I would imagine he’s eager to bring this particular investigation to a close, eh?’

‘I’d imagine so. Do you think this man Faulkner can head us in the right direction?’

‘It’s promising, but who can say? I truly hope this isn’t a wasted journey for you.’ The agent glanced at his watch. ‘I’m afraid I have to abandon you for the time being. I have to collect Alain Lumas from the airport. I was thinking we could all have dinner tonight, and he can update you on our progress.’

‘Fine by me,’ I agreed. ‘Where?’

‘Why not your hotel?’ Jack looked worriedly towards Rachel. ‘Already I’m feeling guilty about bringing you to Rome. I don’t want to cause any unnecessary distress. Say, eight o’clock?’

‘Don’t worry about Rache,’ I reassured him. ‘She has things on her mind.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope.’

‘I’m not sure, she hasn’t told me yet. I’ll make the arrangement. See you at eight.’

I tried to make amends. Later that day, on our way back to the hotel, Rachel, Sylvia and I stopped off at a small bar on the edge Piazza di San Clemente, off the busy shop-lined Via di S. Giovanni in Laterano. The friction between Rachel and me hadn’t gone unnoticed, and I wanted nothing more than to clear the air. Sitting in the sunshine and drinking only soft beverages filled with clumps of ice, we chatted amongst ourselves, the topic of which was in the main Jaqueline Wren and our forthcoming meeting with the head of his unit. My wife showed a distinct lack of interest in the subject, commenting only in brief sentences but more often than not with impartial shrugs. Sylvia threw in her opinions for no other reason but to inject a little enthusiasm into my wife’s otherwise indifference, but it seemed to be a worthless exercise. The only time Rachel opened up was when the conversation wasn’t work-related, and then she would rattle on with boundless energy and the smile I vaguely remembered would once again reappear. You didn’t need to be Einstein to realise what was going on. Unlike me, Rachel had travelled the world and seen places I could only dream of and, again unlike me, her world consisted of nothing but spies holed up in exotic locations; a life full of deceit and intrigue. She somehow now looked tired and jaded, and her once sparkling eyes looked lacklustre, where with all her ambitions fulfilled she had been left dreamless. My selfishness and I held ourselves totally responsible for her present condition, and her embittered attitude towards me indicated that she did, also. At times like these I would invariably be talking to myself, like a preacher offering a sermon to a disinterested audience, and with the lack of fervour from the listening flock my words would drift into a lingering and awkward silence. By way of recompense for dragging my spouse across Europe and denying her the right of a mother to shower our son with the love he deserved, I suggested that she and Sylvia take a walk around the shops and treat themselves. A way to a woman’s heart was always through a man’s wallet, so watching them wander arm in arm across the piazza I believed my sins had been absolved and my egocentrism and tendency to tread on everybody else’s dreams but mine had been forgiven; I wasn’t kidding anybody but me. But in spite of all the baggage I was carrying – discourse and insatiable desire – I was glad I had made it through. Tied to a hospital bed with no future in sight, I never thought I would feel the sun on my face again, let alone walk the streets of Rome to negotiate yet another step closer to solving the past. Everything comes at a cost, and mine was the lasting effects of being gunned down. Every day was a joy, but it was also a bloody struggle, where I survived on a steady diet of strong painkillers and excruciating exercises. It isn’t like the films. I wasn’t the hero who emerges from a gunfight with hardly a hair out of place. Clothes maketh the man, so they say, and this was never more abundantly clear than in my case. Underneath I was a sequence of ragged scars punctuated with unsightly craters, a network of operations that had rearranged my anatomy into one I barely recognised. I bore an ugly limp which took every ounce of concentration to disguise when I walked, and the trembling of my hands and infuriating leg juddering seized me at the most inopportune moments. But far worse was my mind and the thoughts festooning every brain cell ever since I opened my eyes. I wanted Richard Conrad. I wanted the organisation. I wanted to burn the whole thing down and dance amongst the ashes. I want - two self-seeking words that almost brought about an untimely end and could inevitably destroy my marriage.

- 2 -

The roof garden of our hotel doubled as a restaurant, replete with expansive umbrellas, fluttering tablecloths set on pristine tables, soothing Italian music, and a view to die for. It epitomised decadence to the extreme, where the affluent could indulge wantonly in all the extravagances they were accustomed to without a second thought to the mass unemployment, the homeless, or that most of Europe had sunk into a depression of unfathomable depths. It was a different world from the one I knew, but one I was willing to endure for king and country and the fact that the British Government was footing the bill. Rachel and I sat at the bar on the veranda as night was falling, staring out over the city of Rome beneath a crimson sky as the drone of the traffic played an overture far below us. Waiters dressed in tuxedos moved between the tables and potted plants like a well-rehearsed ballet, never putting a foot or an order wrong, and the soft conversations drifting around us were punctuated by coquettish giggles and the chinking of crystal-cut glasses. The flames of the candles moved in no particular direction as a balmy breeze played amongst the rooftops, and such a romantic and impressive setting was apt to leave one dreamy and starry-eyed. The ambience was one of serenity, where the exquisite cuisine and intoxicating wines inevitably induce amorous intentions and set the bedsprings squeaking across the southern hemisphere in a chorus of sexual unity. Amid a gathering of tiaras and diamonds, and under a cloud of cigar smoke, the rich engaged ravenously, feasting on steaks and salmon as if they were going out of fashion, of which I gazed upon with a mixture of disdain and jealousy.

‘Where’s Sylvia?’ I asked, looking at my watch.

‘She’ll be up shortly. She’s getting ready,’ replied Rachel, staring distractedly over the glittering metropolis.

‘It’s unlike her to be late, especially when there’re booze and waiters in tight trousers involved.’

‘Oh, leave her be, Michael. She wants to make a good impression. She picked out a new dress today and she wants to look nice. Mind you, it is rather revealing.’

‘What do you mean: revealing?’ I panicked.

My wife visibly cringed at the question. ‘Daring… provocative, you might say.’

‘Well, which one is it: daring or provocative? You can’t leave her to her own devices - she’s crazy! Couldn’t you have kept her locked up in her room like we agreed?’

‘Do you have to be so unkind?’

‘I am not being unkind,’ I said, defensively. ‘I just don’t want her getting drunk, dancing on the tables, and waving her knickers about, that’s all. Call me old fashioned.’

‘That wasn’t the first word that came to mind,’ Rachel grumbled.

Speak of the devil and he will appear, or she will. Sylvia swanned in wearing a black silk evening dress, tied up at the neck and with what looked like a pair of black braces barely covering her breasts, and completely open right down to the belly button. Her blonde hair was sculpted to her face, a kiss curl on her forehead completing the presentation. My jaw dropped into my lap.

‘She’s got no clothes on… again!’ I gasped.

Rachel smiled adoringly. ‘She looks beautiful in that dress.’

‘What dress? She’s wearing it back to front, surely. She can’t wear that at dinner, something might fall out into the soup.’

‘Will you be quiet!’ Rachel hissed from the corner of her mouth. ‘Is it beyond you to pay a compliment once in a while?’

‘I’m just saying…’

‘Shut up, Michael!’

When Sylvia walked over and stood between us, she struck a pose and looked at me for approval. ‘Well, Michael, what do you think of my new dress?’ she asked.

Rachel gave me a warning look.

‘It’s beautiful, Sylvia,’ I replied grudgingly. ‘It’ll look even better when it’s finished.’

Sylvia looked down on herself. ‘But it is finished.’

‘You’re joking. We might be in Rome, but this isn’t an orgy. Shouldn’t you be wearing a vest or something underneath that?’

‘You don’t wear anything underneath it, Michael.’

‘What, not even…?’

‘Absolutely nothing,’ she intercepted with a wicked smile.

‘Christ!’ I growled under my breath.

‘Don’t be like that, Michael,’ she pouted. ‘It cost a whole month’s wages.’

I shook my head disapprovingly. ‘Well more fool you for…’

‘Thanks,’ she said, kissing me on the cheek.

I stared at her incredulously as I wiped her lipstick from my face with a napkin. ‘What are you thanking me for?’

‘This afternoon, you said Rachel and me could treat ourselves. So we did.’

Rachel exuded a bittersweet smile. ‘Look on the bright side, Michael. At least she can’t wave her knickers around.’

It was yet again another display of one-upmanship: male species – zero, female species – ten. I ordered another round of drinks and tried to screen Sylvia from the gawping male diners.

Alain Lumas, pronounced Lumar, was a smartly dressed and well-educated man in his early to mid-sixties, who had a fine head of steely grey hair, kind blue eyes, and a disarming smile. But for all his endearing attributes, soft voice, and enchanting manner, he struck me as a no-nonsense type, a man very much in control of his own destiny and those in his charge. Jaqueline Wren appeared to be very much enamoured by him, playing it by the book and speaking only when spoken to; a nervous little look in his eye whenever his gaze met mine. When the waiter came over to pour the wine, Alain dismissed the courtesy taster and gestured in such a way as to allude that if it was good enough for me it was good enough for him. I had no doubt he would have made the same polite gesticulation had I been drinking cats piss. After commenting on the beautiful hotel and its wonderful roof restaurant, and remarking how captivating Rachel and Sylvia looked in a way that only a Frenchman can, he turned his eyes to me and smiled almost pitifully.

‘You have suffered greatly, Michael, during your quest for the truth, and may I say how greatly impressed I am by your tenacity to continue. I imagine Jaqueline has briefed you on our intentions?’

‘Some. I think Jack felt that if he told me everything he’d be stealing your thunder.’

The Frenchman conveyed a worthless smile for effect. ‘As you may or may not know, the ICPO have been working closely with your government to find the origins of the tenuous society you’ve been searching for…’

‘I know its origins, Mr. Lumas, and it is right here in Rome.’

‘Once, perhaps, but I can assure you it is no longer the case. An organisation of such magnitude would make ripples financially, and to date, we have found little to stir our interest. We have checked the largest to the smallest, and they are all perfectly legitimate enterprises.’

‘With respect, sir,’ I interrupted, ‘I don’t believe that we’re looking for one organisation. I think it’s several, maybe hundreds linked together.’

‘Please,’ the administrator said with another empty smile, ‘I am not dismissing the idea that the enterprise exists, but I am however rejecting the notion that it remains on Italian soil.’

Sylvia leaned forward on her elbows. ‘Then why are we here?’ she asked.

‘Sylvia!’ hissed Rachel warningly.

‘No. The young lady makes a valid point. During our investigations, we have stumbled across an intermediary who is employed by the association we seek.’

‘The man I’m to meet tomorrow: Faulkner?’

Jack Wren gave a nod.

‘He has agreed to speak with you, but only with you. It would appear your reputation precedes you, Michael. Notwithstanding any confession he makes, we believe that this elusive body owns their own bank. If their estimated worth is to be believed, that amount of money would not go unnoticed.’

‘Ripples?’

‘Waves, Mr. James, waves’ he smiled. ‘How is your knowledge of financial irregularities?’

I hunched my shoulders to convey that it wasn’t all it might have been.

‘Basler Banvkerein established 1856; Zurcher Banvkerein established 1889; Basler Depositenbank established 1882; Schweiz Unionbank, established 1889, and Basler Handelsbank, established 1862, all fall under the directive of the Swiss Bank Corporation. And that is where our search turns cold. In the perfect world we, the ICPO, could investigate the aforementioned banks in order to find our conglomeration; 4.5 billion wouldn’t be hard to find, but we are dealing with an entity whose regulations go beyond the reach of the law. The Swiss Banking Act of 1934 forbids any investigation of their system but their own. Notwithstanding the fact that bank secrecy is considered to be a key instrument in organised crime, money laundering, and the growth of the underground economy, numbered and offshore accounts are practically impossible to locate unless you have the express permission of the bank itself, which, without reasonable grounds is never going to happen. They are impregnable.’

‘Mr. Lumas,’ began Rachel with a confident smile, ‘it is no secret that offshore accounts promote tax evasion and facilitates the laundering of crime money such as that belonging to the Mob, but that doesn’t get us any closer to finding the organisation in question, does it? Perhaps we should be looking elsewhere.’

Alain Lumas took a sip of wine, where after he paused and nodded approvingly. ‘Hardly a Bordeaux, but pleasant enough,’ he remarked. ‘We have made considerable headway when collating our data, specifically regarding unsolved crimes...’

‘With respect, Mr. Lumas, there are millions, billions of unsolved crimes,’ Rachel sighed.

‘Yes, of course. Allow me to rephrase: motiveless unsolved crimes. Assassinations, especially, are a conundrum in themselves if there is no gain, you’ll agree.’

‘To a point,’ I said. ‘But there may be other motivations less apparent; notoriety, hate, politics…’

Alain Lumas nodded agreeably. ‘Nevertheless, I believe that all these factors will move us closer to discovering our entity. Colonel Westwood and I are agreed that the surviving members on the list of BLANCA affiliates should be apprehended and questioned.’

‘They won’t be able to tell you anything.’

‘Why would you say that, Mr. James?’

‘They don’t know anything. That’s how the system works. Each has his own individual duty to perform, and each is sworn to secrecy. The left-hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.’

‘Nevertheless, there are ways. Take this woman Shani Barnes who went off the radar shortly before you were shot in London last year. We know she lives in Guernsey. We even have her address.’

‘So do we,’ Rachel said with another icy smile in my direction. ‘When it all happened Shani was phoning the hospital daily to monitor Michael’s progress, wasn’t she, Michael? But then I suppose she would, claiming as she did to be his sister…’

‘Half-sister,’ I growled through clenched teeth.

‘Sorry – half-sister.’

Alain Lumas looked alarmed and Jaqueline Wren stared into his lap. ‘Is this true, Michael. Shani Barnes, an operative for this elusive organisation, is your sister?’

‘So she says, but I never knew anything about it until I came out of the coma,’ I lied with a smile.

‘Maybe you knew before and it slipped your mind, dear,’ said my wife snottily.

I observed her patiently. ‘I’d have remembered,’ I returned. I turned back to the ICPO controller. ‘What I’ve learned is that you can’t take anything at face value. The whole Shani Barnes thing is probably a lie; a fabrication designed to provoke unrest and to take my wife’s already neurotic condition to new levels. They thrive on misinformation.’

Alain Lumas nodded perplexingly and snapped his fingers, where Jaqueline reached into his inside pocket and pulled out an envelope.

‘With the help of passport control in several countries, we have been able to dismiss the genuine and focus on the dubious. We have established that Shani Barnes has at least a dozen different passports in as many names and as many different nationalities. True, in the past eleven months she hasn’t used any of them, but once we knew the bogus names she used we could monitor her movements across Europe prior to her move to Guernsey. It makes interesting reading,’ he said, passing the envelope to me. ‘We think she should be apprehended and brought in to be questioned with the surviving affiliates on the list.’

‘As I said, Alain, I don’t think…’

‘Then what, Michael?’ said the controller tiredly, his arms akimbo. ‘We have to start somewhere. We have exhausted every avenue available to us; human trafficking, prostitution, even smuggling, and not one has pointed us in the direction of any secret organisation. If nobody will speak against them then we have nothing. We must pool our resources and concentrate solely on those who we know are connected. We must discover their individual weaknesses and use it against them. Believe me, Michael, people talk when their liberty is at stake.’

Sylvia leaned forward and I was sure I glimpsed an escape boob peeking out from her flimsy webbing. ‘So, you’re saying that you’ve arrested some people involved in trafficking and prostitution, yeah? I mean, you’ve actually got them locked up?’ she asked.

‘Not us personally, madam,’ smiled Alain Lumas courteously. ‘We direct the necessary authorities of their suspected criminal activities, and it is they who make the arrests.’

‘Fair enough, but have you spoken to these criminals personally, even if you didn’t bang them up?’

The controller leaned into Jaqueline Wren for clarification of what ‘bang them up’ meant, and having so been informed, he smiled at Sylvia.

‘Our agents were permitted to be present at the examinations, and the necessary questions were posed through the interviewing officers.’

I whispered discreetly in Sylvia’s ear. ‘Pull up. Your udders are showing.’

‘Shit,’ she mumbled, whilst rearranging her thin apparel.

Both the ICPO representatives smiled embarrassingly, but Sylvia braved the storm.

‘Sorry about that,’ she shrugged. ‘Breasts are nice to look at, but they can be a real pain in the arse when you’re trying to squeeze them into a skimpy dress. Anyway, where was I?’

I pinched the bridge of my nose and wished I could die, while Rachel tried not to wet herself laughing.

‘Yes!’ she resumed with a wagging finger. ‘The point I’m getting at is if these people… these criminals that work for a secret organisation, why would they tell you? Surely, that’s the whole idea, isn’t it? If they told you then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?’

Alain Lumas tried desperately to grasp Sylvia’s meaning, which is more than can be said for the rest of us.

‘I think I understand your question,’ he struggled, ‘and the answer is simple. Of those apprehended, which over the past year has been many, they were found to be acting quite independently; self-funding and detached of any other influences. We have discovered the involvement of some minor cartels, but nothing of the magnitude of which Michael describes.’

Sylvia rested her chin on my shoulder. ‘Aren’t cartels something to do with the church?’ she whispered.

‘You’re thinking of cardinals,’ I whispered back.

‘Oh, right.’

‘Isn’t this all circumstantial?’ I said, taking over the discussion. ‘I’ve seen it. I have proof.’

‘The twenty-two girls you saved from a fate worse than death? Nobody disputes that, Michael, but the lines get a little blurry when trying to affix a protagonist. Elizabeth McCauley was working under the instruction of Vincent Pierce. Vincent Pierce was working under the directive of Phillip Heidegger and Matthew Pilinger, both of whom were employed by Richard Conrad. The rash behaviour of the latter is proof that he took matters into his own hands…’

‘Conrad was trafficking human beings for BLANCA, and BLANCA is a part of the organisation we are looking for.’

For the first time, Jack intervened. ‘Michael, since you were gunned down, every country in Europe, and beyond, has been alerted to the so-called activities of this unknown organisation. Every necessary precaution was taken and policing increased considerably. The patrolling of coastlines has since doubled since we notified the individual authorities of human transportation. And, as Alain has already pointed out, not one has shown to have connections with a large conglomeration, secret or otherwise.’

‘You doubt me?’

‘Not in the least,’ interposed the controller with an appeasing smile. ‘We know they exist. What eludes us, however, is their true purpose and, of course, their motives.’

Over dinner, neither Alain Lumas nor Jaqueline Wren said anything I wanted to hear; it was all negative. Being the good wife, and separating business from personal grievances, Rachel came to my rescue and dealt strictly in fact, but even as the discussion bounced back and forth across the table I couldn’t help but have the feeling that something was seriously amiss. The secrets about my father, had I wished to divulge them, would have most certainly bolstered my argument, but I was unprepared to make a comment at this juncture, and I was seriously hoping that neither would Jack. I truly believed that after a year the ICPO would have made some headway, but despite the glowing praise they attributed to themselves I was no closer to finding this indefinable society than I was six years ago. Alain Lumas was sympathetic to my cause, laying down the evidences at hand with all the commitment and knowhow of a wily prosecution barrister while simultaneously accepting any counterattack that either Rachel or I, and Sylvia to some degree, returned. As the negativity from the ICPO corner came thick and fast, so I also found my own doubts consuming me, but yet I had seen enough to convince me otherwise. Like all good courtroom dramas, my case was foundering on the rocks due to lack of supportive evidence and anything remotely connected to proof. As quiet and demure as Jaqueline Wren had been throughout, he appeared to have a certain influence over Alain Lumas or, perhaps, Lumas wasn’t entirely conversant with all the facts. There were moments when it looked almost like a ventriloquist act, where Jack was feeding him straight lines in order to get the payoff from the dummy. Two hours later neither side had advanced a jot.

Alain Lumas stirred his coffee slowly, adding a little brandy to spice it up. ‘I can see by your face that you’re disappointed, Michael,’ he said with a grave refrain. ‘I’m afraid there’s a lot riding on your meeting tomorrow with Daniel Faulkner. I have already informed Colonel Westwood that I’m not willing to waste valuable manpower on something that amounts to nothing more than an illusion,