The QE2 Is Missing

Diaz was aware of the people sitting around the room behind him, could almost feel their ears twitch in his direction. He was beginning to feel slightly foolish.

“I’ll be happy to tell someone when they help me.”

She gave him a withering look that would have burned a hole in sheet steel. “The Vice-Consul is free now. Perhaps he will be able to understand your problem.”

“You’re very kind,” he said, trying to sound as though he meant it. She was not convinced. Nor was the Vice-Consul.

“Mr. Diaz, I can understand what you are saying, but I’m afraid that I cannot help you.” He was as young and soberly determined as the girl.

“If I could talk to someone in your military — or your intelligence service…. “

“Mr. Diaz! Do you realize what you are saying? We are the official representatives of our nation in Great Britain. A friendly country. You don’t think for a moment we would have an intelligence service operating here?” +

Diaz, knowing the ways of international politics, was certain that they had intelligence people here. As did every other embassy in London. But, of course, this man could not admit it. Diaz could be anyone as far as they were concerned; spy, provocateur, anything. He made his mind up. He dropped the envelope with the photographs on the desk then scribbled his phone number on it.

“You’re right, of course, and I’m sorry to bother you. I have some photographs here that I was hoping your intelligence people might have been able to identify. We think at least one of them is a German. The photographs were taken just a day ago. No — please don’t say anything. I’m going to leave these photographs with you and pick them up at this time tomorrow. Meanwhile, if anyone wants to get in touch with me I can be reached at this number. Thank you for your time.”

“I’m afraid that we cannot help you,” the Vice-Consul said as Diaz left. “This is most irregular and there is nothing that we can do.”

Yet even as he said this he did not touch the photographs or insist that Diaz take them away with him.

Outside, the sky had clouded over and there was the smell of rain in the air. Diaz walked to the bus stop, taxis were a luxury they could not normally afford, and stood at the end of the queue. And by taking a bus he would know if he was being followed or not. Security becomes a reflex when most of your friends are dead.

It was an hour before he reached the apartment and let himself in.

“What have you been doing?” Alvaro asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The phone. It has been ringing steadily for the past thirty minutes. Always the same voice, asking for you. Hangs up at once when he finds out you’re not here.”

He was cut off by the strident ringing of the telephone bell.

“It must be him again. You take it this time,” Alvaro said.

“Leandro Diaz speaking,” he said into the phone.

“Are you the gentleman who recently left some photographs with your name and phone number on the envelope?” a man asked. A neutral, mid-Atlantic voice with no trace of a recognizable accent.

“I left the photographs, yes.”

“Would you please tell me where they were taken.”

“No. I want to meet someone and then I will be happy to supply all the details about the photographs. Understood?”

“I understand. Can you be in Oxford Street within the hour?”

“Yes.”

“Go to the Centrepoint building at the corner of Charing Cross Road. You want the twenty-first floor, room 20135. Understood?”

“Of course.”

The line went dead as he spoke the words and the dial tone hummed in his ear. Diaz dropped the receiver back into the cradle and smiled. “They’re interested, very interested. Alvaro, get the cash box — and no complaints this time, if you please. With the car being repaired again I’ll need a taxi to get there in time.”

Outside the Centrepoint building, the splatter of the ornamental fountains was half drowned in the continuous roar of traffic. But once inside the doors the air-conditioned silence was broken only by the ubiquitous sound of muzak. The lulling music played in the elevator as well and all the way down the corridor of the twenty-first floor. The entrance to 20135 was suitably impressive with its two large mahogany doors. On one of them, conservatively spelled out in small bronze letters, was the legend Cabot, Lowell, Smith & Green-stein. Diaz went into an equally impressive waiting room where the receptionist, blonde and very attractive, gave him a toothpaste commercial smile.

“May I help you, sir?” she said in accents of purest Roedean.

“Yes, please. My name is Diaz and…. “

“Thank you, Mr. Diaz, you are expected. If you will go down the hallway to your right, it is the third doorway on the left, if you please.”