the hill. Cheese?” I shook my head. “You must acquire a taste for cheese, Inspector. It will open up a whole new world for you.”
“If it is anything like this one, I don’t need it.” I took three big swallows from the glass he handed me. “Do you have any other questions? Or am I free to go?” No sense hanging around; I don’t like white wine.
“Have you ever broken anyone’s neck, Inspector?”
“You surely don’t think I killed Sohn, or whoever is in your morgue, do you?”
M. Beret took a sip from his glass. “I think many things, but I manage to winnow out most of what is untrue. You’re sure you won’t try some cheese? This here”—he pointed to a square piece covered with what could have been mold—“it’s very good. Or this.” He sliced off a small piece. “Goat cheese. Why don’t you try some?”
“Excuse me, but when we first met, didn’t you say that you are head of counterintelligence?”
“Not when we first met. I never do that on a first date. At some point, though, I may have mentioned something along those lines. It never hurts for the target to know whom he is talking to. What of it?”
“Why are you investigating a murder? That isn’t counterintelligence business. Don’t you have police for that?”
“Usually yes, but in this case no. The police have registered their firm position that this case is odd and not something they want to touch. The exact wording to me over the phone was, ‘It stinks.’”
“I salute them, a police force with good judgment.”
“Was Sohn a friend of yours?” You could almost hear the question snap into place. Nice technique, I thought, but the delivery was a little flat-footed.
“Friend? People here seem to use the word loosely. Where I come from, it’s not a term to be tossed around. Sohn was an acquaintance, someone I’d barely met; not even a colleague, really. I wouldn’t say I considered him a friend.”
“Does it bother you that he is dead?”
Odd question. “Should it?” Very odd.
“I’m going to tell you something, Inspector, because I don’t give a damn if you know, and maybe it will help you realize that you are about to be caught in a hurricane that will be so destructive it will probably blow your little country apart. Where it will toss you I do not know. Nor do I care.”
“We’re clear on one thing, anyway.” Pak spoke to me of winds from odd places. M. Beret spoke of hurricanes. Maybe that was one of the differences between them and us.
“Sohn had been here before.” M. Beret paused, but as I did not respond, went on. “He struck me as an intelligent man from what I saw, a bit nervous at times, and a tedious way of sitting for long periods at cafés, nursing a cup of coffee, staring at nothing.”
“So far, if there is a hurricane coming, I don’t even feel a breeze.”
“He was here several times. He met Jenö. I know for sure he did that at least once.”
“At least once? Such careful phrasing holds so many wonderful possibilities. To which conclusion would you like me to jump? Or am I free to choose on my own?” So, as soon as Sohn arrived, they already knew who he was. They were probably on him from the moment he got off the plane and entered the air terminal. More than that, they would know perfectly well if it was his body in their morgue. “Don’t tell me you’re unsure about something like how many times Sohn met someone as interesting as Jenö. I thought you and your teams were everywhere.” Over the lamb dinner, or maybe it was over the discussion of prunes, Mossad had told me about their exchanges with Sohn. M. Beret knew as much as I did about Sohn and Jenö; in fact, he probably knew a lot more. But he didn’t seem to know for sure how much I knew. Maybe he didn’t know for sure how much Jenö had told me. That suggested Jenö might be working for M. Beret, and with him, and against him all at the same time.
“Funny story, you might recognize the outlines. The two of them disappeared one evening, and then reappeared hours later. We spotted them separately, about the same time in the same part of town, near a nightclub. Sohn was nursing a bruised shoulder when I saw him next. I think he may have jumped out of a moving car.