The Day of the Jackal

‘Not that I know of,’ he said.

Harrowby lifted the telephone on his desk and asked for the Prime Minister’s private office. The line crackled and a voice said ‘Yes?’

‘Harrowby here, Prime Minister. Superintendent Thomas is with me … yes, sir. Right away.’ He replaced the receiver.

‘Straight in. Almost on the double. You must have been up to something. There are two Ministers waiting. Come on.’

Harrowby led the way out of his office and down a corridor towards a green baize door at the far end. A male secretary was coming out, saw the pair of them and stepped back, holding the door open. Harrowby ushered Thomas inside, said clearly, ‘Superintendent Thomas, Prime Minister,’ and withdrew, closing the door quietly behind him.

Thomas was aware of being in a very quiet room, high-ceilinged and elegantly furnished, untidy with books and papers, of a smell of pipe tobacco and wood-panelling, a room more like the study of a university don than the office of a Prime Minister.

The figure at the window turned round.

‘Good afternoon, Superintendent. Please sit down.’

‘Good afternoon, sir.’ He chose an upright chair facing the desk and perched on the edge of it. He had never had occasion to see the Prime Minister that close before, nor ever in private. He got the impression of a pair of sad, almost beaten, eyes, drooping lids, like a bloodhound who has run a long race and taken little joy from it.

There was silence in the room as the Prime Minister walked to his desk and sat behind it. Thomas had heard the rumours round Whitehall, of course, that the PM’s health was not all it might be, and of the toll taken by the strain of bringing the Government through the rottenness of the Keeler/Ward affair, which had even then only just ended and was still number one talking point throughout the land. Even so, he was surprised at the look of exhaustion and sadness in the man opposite him.

‘Superintendent Thomas, it has come to my attention that you are presently conducting an investigation based on a request for assistance telephoned from Paris yesterday morning by a senior detective of the French Police Judiciaire.’

‘Yes, sir … Prime Minister.’

‘And that this request stems from a fear among the French security authorities that a man may be on the loose … a professional assassin, hired, presumably by the OAS, to undertake a mission in France at some future time?’

‘That was not actually explained to us, Prime Minister. The request was for suggestions as to the identity of any such professional assassin who might be known to us. There was no explanation as to why they wanted such suggestions.’

‘Nevertheless, what do you deduce from the fact that such a request was made, Superintendent?’

Thomas shrugged slightly.

‘The same as yourself, Prime Minister.’

‘Precisely. One does not need to be a genius to be able to deduce the only possible reason for the French authorities wishing to identify such a … specimen. And what would you deduce to be the eventual target of such a man, if indeed a man of this type has come to the attention of the French police?’

‘Well, Prime Minister, I suppose they fear an assassin has been engaged to attempt to kill the President.’

‘Precisely. Not the first time such an attempt would have been made?’

‘No, sir. There have been six attempts already.’

The Prime Minister stared at the papers in front of him as if they might give him some clue as to what had happened to the world in the closing months of his premiership.

‘Are you aware, Superintendent, that there apparently exist some persons in this country, persons occupying not obscure positions of authority, who would not be distressed if your investigations were to be less energetic than possible?’

Thomas was genuinely surprised.

‘No, sir.’ Where on earth had the PM got that titbit from?

‘Would you please give me a résumé of the state of your enquiries up to the present time?’

Thomas began at the beginning, explaining clearly and concisely the trail from Criminal Records to Special Branch, the conversation with Lloyd, the mention of a man called Calthrop, and the investigations that had taken place up to that moment.

When he had finished the Prime Minister rose and walked to the window, which gave on to the sunlit square of grass in the courtyard. For long minutes he stared down into the courtyard and there was a sag to the set of the shoulders. Thomas wondered what he was thinking.

Perhaps he was thinking of a beach outside Algiers where he had once walked and talked with the haughty Frenchman who now sat in another office three hundred miles away, governing the affairs of his own country. They had both been twenty years younger then, and a lot of things had not happened that were to come later, and a lot of things had not come between them.

Maybe he was thinking of the same Frenchman sitting in the gilded hall of the Elysée Palace eight months earlier destroying in measured and sonorous phrases the hopes of the British Premier of crowning his political career by bringing Britain into the European Community before retiring into the contentment of a man who has fulfilled his dream.