believe you of all people are asking me that.” He still hadn’t produced the roll, and I was beginning to think I would have to buy one for myself once I got out of this cramped park. “Is it a requirement in the West that a person must account for his movements to every police department and intelligence agency in every country he visits?”
“This isn’t an interrogation, Inspector.” He stood up. “I’m simply curious, and I thought you would find it a novel experience to answer a harmless question.” I pretended not to notice that he had put his hand in his pocket. Dogs do that sometimes, look away when they’re interested. “Your friend, the one who arrived yesterday, is in the morgue. He has a broken neck. Someone has to identify him, and your mission refuses to do it. I thought you might do the honors, seeing as how you were in a bar with him yesterday.” He held out half a roll. “Please, be my guest.”
That explained why Sohn didn’t make the appointment at the Sunflower. The question was, when did he send me that note? Or did he send it at all? “When did you find the body?”
“I can’t very well cooperate with you, Inspector, if you don’t cooperate with me.”
“I don’t need your cooperation.”
“Yes, you do. If you don’t want to end up like him.”
“You going to break my neck?”
M. Beret looked offended. “No, but there is someone in the neighborhood who doesn’t like you, that’s the impression we’re getting.” He paused. “Don’t ask me how I know.” He paused again. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, not here. Having one of you in the freezer is enough.”
“He had plenty of enemies.”
“Then we’ll have to make a list, won’t we? I’ll find a thick pad of paper.” He dropped both halves of the roll in my lap. “Two o’clock, I’ll be at the bar, the one where you met him. If you hurry, you can make the start of the morning negotiating session. It’s at your mission this time, is it not? Don’t worry, you won’t have an afternoon session today.”
Chapter Two
The morning session of the talks went nowhere, though there was a testy exchange that kept everyone awake as long as it lasted. The afternoon session was canceled; somehow, I wasn’t surprised.
When I opened the door to the Sunflower a little after two o’clock, the man behind the bar was watching a small television on the counter next to the cash register. He looked up from the soccer game that filled the little screen with little figures running aimlessly. He frowned at me. I frowned back. Like I’d told the Mossad over dinner, I don’t like soccer that much. They probably had already put that in my file. The man glanced at his watch, shook his head, and then pointed to an alcove in the back. M. Beret was there arranging a number of photographs on the table in front of him.
“Ah, Inspector. I knew you would make it.” He pointed to the photographs. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Just an effort to connect names with faces, faces with places, that sort of thing. I’m sure you do it all the time.”
There were twelve pictures, arranged in four rows of three each. The first three rows each had one clear photograph of a face; the other two were grainy or taken by cameras with fixed shutter speeds—and from a considerable distance. The last row was all landscape shots.
“We’re going to do this in a certain order. All you have to say is yes or no to what I ask. Don’t jump ahead; don’t assume you know what I’m going to ask. Shall we begin?”
“I don’t see a photo here of Sohn. I thought that’s what you wanted me to do, identify him.”
“Already! I make things simple, and you make them complicated.” He took a deep breath. “Again, I’ll go over the procedure again.”
“‘Don’t jump ahead.’ I heard you the first time.”
The man from behind the bar appeared. He and M. Beret had a brief conversation in French, in raised voices. They both looked at me. M. Beret took out his wallet and handed some money to the man, who a moment later returned with a bottle of wine, two glasses, and a small plate of cheese. There was no room on the table, so he put everything on the seat of a chair, puffed out his cheeks, and left.
“Let’s get the pictures out