The coffee. Too late, of course, far too late, and in the moment of realization she slipped into darkness.
In his flat at Cavendish Square, Ferguson sat by the fire and listened as Dillon and Blake Johnson filled him in between them. When they were finished, he sat there thinking about it, frowning.
“Strange, it all coming down at this stage to the de Brissac lawyer, this Michael Rocard.”
“Yes, but he’s managed the family affairs for years,” Dillon said. “If anyone would appear to be above suspicion, it would be he, and yet I suspect he must be the source of Marie’s true identity. He must have found out. Perhaps by accident.”
“Like we used to say in the FBI,” Blake told him, “if it’s murder, always check the family first. There is an interesting question here. Why would a man like Rocard, famous, part of the establishment, ever get involved with the Maccabees in the first place?”
Ferguson came to a decision. “I’m going to check him out.”
“Is that wise?” Dillon asked.
“Oh, yes. Conditions of the tightest security, man-to-man. I’m talking about Max Hernu.”
The French Secret Service had probably been more notorious than the KGB for years, and as the SDECE it had enjoyed a reputation for ruthless efficiency second to none. Under the Mitterand government it had been reorganized as the DGSE, which stood for Direction Générale de la Securité Extérieure.
It was still divided into five sections and numerous departments, and Section 5 was still Action Service, the department which had smashed the OAS in the old days and most illegal organizations since.
Colonel Max Hernu, who headed Section 5, had served as a paratrooper in Indochina, been taken prisoner at Dien Bien Phu, then afterwards fought a bitter and bloody war in Algiers, though not for the OAS that was supported by so many of his comrades, but for General Charles de Gaulle.
He was an elegant, distinguished-looking man with white hair, who at sixty-seven should have been retired, the only problem being that the French Prime Minister wouldn’t hear of it. He was sitting at his desk in DGSE’s headquarters in Boulevard Mortier, studying a report of ETA supporters living in France, when he took Ferguson’s call on the Codex line.
“My dear Charles.” There was genuine pleasure on his face. “It’s been too long. How are you?”
“Hanging in there, just like you,” Ferguson told him. “The Prime Minister won’t let me go.”
“A habit they have. Is this business or pleasure?”
“Let’s just say you owe me a favor and leave it at that.”
“Anything I can do, you know that, Charles.”
“You know the de Brissac family?”
“But of course. I knew the general well and his wife. Both, alas, dead now. There is a charming daughter, Marie, the present comtesse.”
“So I understand,” Ferguson said carefully. “The family lawyer, Michael Rocard. Anything you can tell me about him?”
Hernu was immediately alert. “Is there a problem here, Charles?”
“Not as such. His name has cropped up, let’s say, on the edge of an affair I’m involved in. I would be grateful for any information you have on the man.”
“Very well. Absolutely beyond reproach. Legion of Honour, a distinguished lawyer who has served some of the greatest French families. Accepted at every level in society.”
“Married?”
“He was, but his wife died some years ago. No children. She suffered poor health for years. She had a bad war.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Rocard is Jewish and so was the woman he would later marry. As children, they were handed over to the Nazis during the time the Vichy government was in power, together with their families and thousands of others. In their case, they ended up in Auschwitz concentration camp. I suppose they must have been fifteen or sixteen when the war finished. I believe Rocard was the only member of his family to survive. I’m not sure about his wife’s family.”
“Thank you,” Ferguson said. “Very interesting. Where’s he living these days?”
“I believe he still has an apartment on Avenue Victor Hugo. Look, Charles, I’ve known you long enough to tell when something’s going on.”