The Day of the Jackal

The Jackal thought for a moment. ‘About a hundred and fifty pounds sterling. All right. I will pay you a hundred pounds deposit and the remainder on delivery.’

The Belgian rose. ‘Then we had better get the portrait photos taken. I have my own studio.’

They took a taxi to a small basement flat more than a mile away. It turned out to be a seedy and run-down photographer’s studio, with a sign outside indicating that the premises were run as a commercial establishment specialising in passport photographs developed while the customer waited. Inevitably stuck in the window were what a passer-by must have presumed to be the high points of the studio owner’s past work—two portraits of simpering girls, hideously retouched, a marriage photo of a couple sufficiently unprepossessing to deal a nasty blow to the whole concept of wedlock, and two babies. The Belgian led the way down the steps to the front door, unlocked it and ushered his guest inside.

The session took two hours, in which the Belgian showed a skill with the camera that could never have been possessed by the author of the portraits in the window. A large trunk in one corner, which he unlocked with his own key, revealed a selection of expensive cameras and flash equipment, besides a host of facial props including hair tints and dyes, toupees, wigs, spectacles in great variety and a case of theatrical cosmetics.

It was halfway through the session that the Belgian hit on the idea that obviated the necessity to seek out a substitute to pose for the real photograph. Studying the effect of thirty minutes working on the Jackal’s face with make-up, he suddenly dived into the chest and produced a wig.

‘What do you think of this?’ he asked.

The wig was of hair coloured iron-grey and cut en brosse.

‘Do you think that your own hair, cut to this length and dyed this colour, could look like this?’

The Jackal took the wig and examined it. ‘We can give it a try and see how it looks in the photo,’ he suggested.

And it worked. The Belgian came out of the developing room half an hour after taking six photos of his customer with a sheaf of prints in his hand. Together they pored over the desk. Staring up was the face of an old and tired man. The skin was an ashen grey and there were dark rings of fatigue or pain beneath the eyes. The man wore neither beard nor moustache, but the grey hair on his head gave the impression he must have been in his fifties at least, and not a robust fifty at that.

‘I think it will work,’ said the Belgian at last.

‘The problem is,’ replied the Jackal, ‘that you had to work on me with cosmetics for half an hour to achieve this effect. Then there was the wig. I cannot emulate all that by myself. And here we were under lights, whereas I shall be in the open air when I have to produce these papers I have asked for.’

‘But this is precisely not the point,’ riposted the forger. ‘It is not so much that you will not be a dead image of the photograph, but that the photograph will not be a dead likeness of you. This is the way the mind of a man examining papers works. He looks at the face first, the real face, then asks for the papers. Then he sees the photograph. He already has the image of the man standing beside him in his mind’s eye. This affects his judgement. He looks for points of similarity, not the opposite.

‘Secondly, this photograph is twenty-five by twenty centimetres. The photograph in the identity card will be three by four. Thirdly, a too precise likeness should be avoided. If the card was issued several years previously, it is impossible that a man should not change a bit. In the photograph here we have you in open-necked striped shirt with collar attached. Try to avoid that shirt for example, or even avoid an open-necked shirt at all. Wear a tie, or a scarf or a turtle-necked sweater.

‘Lastly, nothing that I have done to you cannot be easily simulated. The main point, of course, is the hair. It must be cut en brosse before this photo is presented, and dyed grey, perhaps even greyer than in the photograph, but not less so. To increase the impression of age and

decrepitude, grow two or three days of beard stubble. Then shave with a cut-throat razor, but badly, nicking yourself in a couple of places. Elderly men tend to do this. As for the complexion, this is vital. To extract pity it must be grey and tired, rather waxy and ill-looking. Can you get hold a some pieces of cordite?’

The Jackal had listened to the exposé of the forger with admiration, though nothing showed on his face. For the second time in a day he had been able to contact a professional who knew his job thoroughly. He reminded himself to thank Louis appropriately—after the job was done.

‘It might be arranged,’ he said cautiously.

‘Two or three small pieces of cordite, chewed and swallowed, produce within half an hour a feeling of nausea, uncomfortable but not disastrous. They also turn the skin a grey pallor and cause facial sweating. We used to use this trick in the Army to simulate illness and avoid fatigues and route marches.’

‘Thank you for the information. Now for the rest, do you think you can produce the documents in time?’

‘From the technical standpoint, there is no doubt of it. The only remaining problem is to acquire an original of the second French document. For that I may have to work fast. But if you come back in the first few days of August, I think I can have them all ready for you. You … er … had mentioned a down payment to cover expenses …’

The Jackal reached into his inside pocket and produced a single bundle of twenty five-pound notes which he handed the Belgian.

‘How do I contact you?’ he asked.

‘I would suggest by the same way as tonight.’

‘Too risky. My contact man may be missing, or out of town. Then I would have no way of finding you.’

The Belgian thought for a minute. ‘Then I shall wait from six until seven each evening in the bar where we met tonight on each of the first three days of August. If you do not come, I shall presume the deal is off.’

The Englishman had removed the wig and was wiping his face with a towel soaked in removing spirit. In silence he slipped on his tie and jacket. When he was finished he turned to the Belgian.

‘There are certain things I wish to make clear,’ he said quietly. The friendliness was gone from the voice and the eyes stared at the Belgian as bleak as a Channel fog. ‘When you have finished the job you will be present at the bar as promised. You will return to me the new licence and the page removed from the one you now have. Also the negatives and all prints of the photographs we have just taken. You will also forget the names of Duggan and of the original owner of that driving licence. The name on the two French documents you are going to produce you may select yourself, providing it is a simple and common French name. After handing them over to me you will forget that name also. You will never speak to anyone of this commission again. In the event that you infringe any of these conditions you will die. Is that understood?’

The Belgian stared back for a few moments. Over the past three hours he had come to think of the Englishman as a run-of-the-mill customer who simply wished to drive a car in Britain and masquerade for his own purposes as a middle-aged man in France. A smuggler, perhaps running dope or diamonds from a lonely Breton fishing port into England. But quite a nice sort of fellow, really. He changed his mind.

‘It is understood, monsieur.’