Kim went out and Harry Fox hurried in from the study. ‘Right, sir, here’s the score. She’ll have a stopover at Rennes for almost two hours. From there to St Malo is seventy miles. She’ll arrive at seven-thirty.’
‘And the hydrofoil?’
‘Leaves at eight-fifteen. Takes about an hour and a quarter. There’s a time change, of course, so it arrives in Jersey at eight-thirty our time. There’s a flight from Jersey to London, Heathrow, at ten minutes past ten. She’ll have plenty of time
izz
to catch that. It’s a small island, sir. Only fifteen minutes by cab from the harbour to the airport.’
‘No, she can’t be alone, Harry. I want her met. You’ll have to go over first thing. There must be a breakfast plane.’
‘Unfortunately it doesn’t get into Jersey until nine-twenty.’
Ferguson said, ‘Damnation!’ and banged his fist on the desk as Kim entered carrying a tray containing tea things and a plate of newly cut sandwiches that gave off the unmistakable odour of grilled bacon.
‘There is a possibility, sir.’
‘What’s that?’
‘My cousin, Alex, sir. Alexander Martin. My second cousin actually. He lives in Jersey. Something in the finance industry. Married a local girl.’
‘Martin?’ Ferguson frowned. ‘The name’s familiar.’
‘It would be, sir. We’ve used him before. When he was working for a merchant banker here in the city, he did a lot of travelling. Geneva, Zurich, Berlin, Rome.’
‘He isn’t on the active list?’
‘No, sir. We used him as a bagman mainly, though there was an incident in East Berlin three years ago when things got out of hand and he behaved rather well.’
‘I remember now,’ Ferguson said. ‘Supposed to pick up documents from a woman contact and when he found she was blown, he brought her out through Checkpoint Charlie in the boot of his car.’
‘That’s Alex, sir. Short service commission in the Welsh Guards, three tours in Ireland. Quite an accomplished musician. Plays the piano rather well. Mad as a hatter on a good day. Typically Welsh.’
‘Get him!’ Ferguson said. ‘Now, Harry.’ He had a hunch about Martin and suddenly felt much more cheerful. He helped himself to one of the bacon sandwiches. ‘I say, these are really rather good.’
Alexander Martin was thirty-seven, a tall, rather handsome man with a deceptively lazy look to him. He was much given
to smiling tolerantly, which he needed to do in the profession of investment broker which he had taken up on moving to Jersey eighteen months previously. As he had told his wife, Joan, on more than one occasion, the trouble with being in the investment business was that it threw you into the company of the rich and, as a class, he disliked them heartily.
Still, life had its compensations. He was an accomplished pianist if not a great one. If he had been, life might have been rather different. He was seated at the piano in the living room of his pleasant house in St Aubin overlooking the sea, playing a little Bach, ice-cold, brilliant stuff that required total concentration. He was wearing a dinner jacket, black tie undone at the neck. The phone rang for several moments before it penetrated his consciousness. He frowned, realizing the lateness of the hour and picked it up.
‘Martin here.’
‘Alex? This is Harry. Harry Fox.’
‘Dear God!’ Alex Martin said.
‘How are Joan and the kids?’
‘In Germany for a week, staying with her sister. Her husband’s a major with your old mob. Detmold.’
‘So, you’re on your own? I thought you’d be in bed.’
‘Just in from a late function.’ Martin was very much awake now, all past experience telling him this was not a social call. ‘Okay, Harry. What is this?’
‘We need you, Alex, rather badly, but not like the other times. Right there in Jersey.’
Alex Martin laughed in astonishment. ‘In Jersey? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘Girl called Tanya Voroninova. Have you heard of her?’
‘Of course I damn well have,’ Martin told him. ‘One of the best concert pianists to come along for years. I saw her perform at the Albert Hall in last season’s promenade concerts. My office gets the Paris papers each day. She’s there on a concert tour at the moment.’