The Day of the Jackal

There was one thing Monson had said that disturbed Thomas; he had mentioned that Calthrop did not know much about rifles when he joined the company. Surely a crack shot would be an expert? But then of course he could have learned that while with the company. But if he was a newcomer to rifle-shooting, why did the anti-Trujillo partisans want to hire him to stop the General’s car on a fast road with a single sh

ot? Or did they not hire him at all? Was Calthrop’s own story the literal truth?

Thomas shrugged. It didn’t prove anything, nor disprove anything. Back to square one again, he thought bitterly.

But back at the office there was news that changed his mind. The inspector who had been enquiring at Calthrop’s address had reported in. He had found a next-door neighbour who had been out at work all day. The woman said Mr Calthrop had left some days before and had mentioned he was going touring in Scotland. In the back of the car parked in the street outside the woman had seen what looked like a set of fishing rods.

Fishing rods? Superintendent Thomas felt suddenly chilly, although the office was warm. As the detective finished talking one of the others came in.

‘Super?’

‘Yes?’

‘Something had just occurred to me.’

‘Go on.’

‘Do you speak French?’

‘No, do you?’

‘Yes, my mother was French. This assassin the PJ are looking for, he’s got the code-name Jackal, right?’

‘So what?’

‘Well, Jackal in French is Chacal. C-H-A-C-A-L. See? It could just be a coincidence. He must be as thick as five posts to pick a name, even in French, that’s made up of the first three letters of his Christian name and the first three letters of his …’

‘Land of my bloody fathers,’ said Thomas, and sneezed violently. Then he reached for the telephone.

15

THE THIRD MEETING in the Interior Ministry in Paris began shortly after ten o’clock, due to the lateness of the Minister who had been held up in the traffic on his way back from a diplomatic reception. As soon as he was seated, he gestured for the meeting to start.

The first report was from General Guibaud of the SDECE. It was short and to the point. The ex-Nazi killer, Kassel, had been located by agents of the Madrid office of the Secret Service. He was living quietly in retirement at his roof-top flat in Madrid, had become a partner with another former SS-commando leader in a prosperous business in the city, and so far as could be determined was not involved with the OAS. The Madrid office had in any case had a file on the man by the time the request from Paris for a further check came through, and was of the view that he had never been involved with the OAS at all.

In view of his age, increasingly frequent bouts of rheumatism that were beginning to affect his legs, and a remarkably high alcohol intake, Kassel, in the general view, could be discounted as a possible Jackal.

As the General finished, eyes turned to Commissaire Lebel. His report was sombre. During the course of the day reports had come into the PJ from the other three countries who had originally suggested possible suspects twenty-four hours earlier.

From America had come news that Chuck Arnold, the gun salesman, was in Columbia trying to clinch a deal for his American employer to sell a consignment of ex-US Army surplus AR-10 assault rifles to the Chief of Staff. He was in any case under permanent CIA surveillance while in Bogota, and there was no indication that he was planning anything other than to put through his arms deal, despite official US disapproval.

The file on this man had, however, been telexed to Paris, as had also the file on Vitellino. This showed that although the former Cosa Nostra gunman had not yet been located, he was five feet four inches tall, immensely broad and squat, with jet-black hair and a swarthy complexion. In view of the radical difference in appearance from the Jackal as described by the hotel clerk in Vienna, Lebel felt he too could be discounted.

The South Africans had learned Piet Schuyper was now the head of a private army of a diamond-mining corporation in a West African country of the British Commonwealth. His duties were to patrol the borders of the vast mining concessions owned by the company and ensure a continuous disincentive to illicit diamond poachers from across the border. No inconvenient questions were asked of him as to the methods he used to discourage poaching, and his employers were pleased with his efforts. His presence was confirmed by his employers; he was definitely at his post in West Africa.

The Belgian police had checked on their ex-mercenary. A report in the files from one of their Caribbean embassies had been unearthed, which reported the former employee of Katanga had been killed in a bar fight in Guatemala three months previously.

Lebel finished reading the last of the reports from the file in front of him. When he looked up it was to find fourteen pairs of eyes on him, most of them cold and challenging.

‘Alors, rien?’

The question from Colonel Rolland was that of everyone present.

‘No, nothing, I’m afraid,’ agreed Lebel. ‘None of the suggestions seem to stand up.’

‘Seem to stand up,’ echoed Saint-Clair bitterly, ‘is that what we have come to with your “pure detective work”? Nothing seems to stand up?’ He glared angrily at the two detectives, Bouvier and Lebel, quickly aware that the mood of the room was with him.

‘It would seem, gentlemen,’ the Minister quietly used the plural form to take in both the police commissaires, ‘that we are back where we started. Square one, so to speak?’