I offered him the pack of Atika cigarettes. They were his own cigarettes from the things on Nicol's desk. He took one and I put the pack on the table. There was a tacit understanding that he'd get them if he was good. I lit his cigarette and he inhaled greedily. 'Were you carrying all that secret junk I saw upstairs?'

'No,' he said.

'You weren't carrying it? You never saw it before?'

'Yes. That is to say, yes and no. I was carrying it. But I don't know… submarines.' He laughed briefly. 'What do I know about submarines?'

'Sit down. Relax for a moment. Then tell me exactly how you got the papers,' I said.

He exhaled smoke, and waved it away with his hand as if trying to dispel the smoke in case a guard came and took the cigarette away from him. 'I always travel light. I was flying to Rome. I have a holiday place on Giglio – that's an island…'

'I know where Giglio is,' I said. Tell me about the papers.'

'I travel light because a car always collects me at the airport and the only clothes I'll need will be those that I keep there.'

'What a life you have, Paul. Is that what they call la dolce vita down there in Giglio.'

He gave me a fleeting smile that was no more than a grimace. 'So I just carry a little shoulder-bag that is well under regulation size for cabin baggage.'

'Just clothes inside it?'

'Hardly anything inside it; shaving stuff and a change of linen in case I get delayed somewhere.'

'So what about the brown leather case?'

'I paid off the taxi outside the arrivals hall and went in through the main entrance, and before I got anywhere near the Alitalia desk the taxi driver came running after me. He gave me the brown case and said I'd forgotten it. I said it wasn't mine but he was already saying that he was illegally parked and he pushed it to me and disappeared – it was very crowded – and so I thought I'd better take it to the police.'

'You thought it was a genuine mistake? What did the cab driver say when he gave it to you?'

'He said, I'm the cab driver. Here's the bag you left behind.'

'Give it a minute's thought, Paul. I'd really like to get it right.'

'That's what he said. He said, I'm the cab driver. Here's the bag you left behind.' Biedermann waited, looking at my face. 'What's the matter with that?'

'It could be all right, I suppose. But if I was a cab driver and someone had just paid me off, I wouldn't feel the need to say who I was, I'd be egoistical enough to think he'd know who I was. And neither would I be inclined to tell him what the bag was. I'd expect my passenger to recognize it immediately. I'd expect him to fall over with excited appreciation. And I'd hang around long enough for him to manifest that appreciation in the time-honoured way. Right, Paul?'

'Yeah… It seemed all right at the time. But I was flustered.'

'Are you quite sure that the man who gave you the case was the man you paid off in the cab?'

Paul Biedermann's face froze. Then he inhaled again and thought about it. 'Jesus. You're right, Bernd. The cab driver was wearing a leather jacket the same colour as one I've got, and a dark-blue shin. I noticed his sleeve while he was driving.'

'And the one who gave you the case?'

'He was in shirt-sleeves. I thought my driver had taken his jacket off. But the second man's shirt was white. Jesus, Bernd, you're a genius. Some bastard planted that bag on me. I was going to find the police office when they arrested me.'

'You were near the Alitalia desk,' I said. 'Don't get careless, Paul. Who would have known you would be at the Alitalia desk?'

'Can you get me out of here?' he said. His voice had that soft, whispery quality that I'd heard from other desperate men.

'I'll try,' I promised. 'Who'd know you'd be at the Alitalia desk?'

'Only the girl in the hotel reception. She phoned them for me. Was it your people who forced the case on me? Is it a way of getting me to work for you?'

'Don't be stupid, Paul.'

'Why would the Russians do it? I mean they could have asked me to take the bloody case and I would have taken it. I've taken other things for them, I told you that.' He stubbed out his cigarette. He had that American habit of stubbing them out half smoked.

'Yes,' I said, although he hadn't told me about carrying packages for them. There was a long silence. Biedermann fidgeted.

'Why did they do that?' said Biedermann. 'Why? Tell me why.'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I wish I did know.' Nervously he reached for another cigarette and I lit it for him. 'I'll go and talk to the chief inspector again. London have asked for you. He's waiting to hear if Paris will release you into my custody.'

'I hope to God they do. Trying to sort this out in the French courts will take years.'

I unlocked the door with the key Nicol had given me. Biedermann, as if anxious to do me some extra service, for which I might pay in goodwill, said, 'Watch out for that guy Moskvin. He's an evil old bastard. The other one is almost human at times, but Moskvin is a fink. He's really a fink.'

'I'll do what I can for you, Paul,' I promised.

I went out and locked the door. I went back along the corridor to the stairs to speak again with Nicol. I was at the top of the stairs when I almost bumped into a woman in a blue overall coat. She was quite young, about twenty-five, and carrying a tiny plastic tray upon which there was a coffee with froth on it and a dried-up sandwich. 'With the compliments of Chief Inspector Nicol,' the woman said in a shrill working-class accent. 'It's for the man being held in custody. The inspector said you had the key.'

'Yes, I have. Do you want it?'

'Will you take the coffee to him?' she said nervously. 'Inspector Nicol wouldn't approve of you giving the key to anyone – bad security.'

'Very well,' I said.

'Don't be too long. The inspector has to go to a meeting.'

'I'll be right with him,' I promised.

I spent no more than a minute giving Paul Biedermann the coffee and sandwich. 'They gave me lunch,' he said looking at the miserable sandwich. 'But I'd love the coffee.' It had that bitter smell of the high-roast coffee that the French like so much.

I locked him up again and went upstairs to see Nkol. He was still behind his desk. He was speaking on the phone but he beckoned me inside and ended his conversation abruptly. 'Did you get anything out of him, Bernard?' A vase of cut flowers was now on his desk. It was the undefinable Gallic touch; that little je ne sais quoi that the French like to think makes them human.

'He says the case was planted on him.' I said. I put the door key on Nicol's desk. I noticed that the desk had been tidied and the contents of Biedermann's pockets were now back inside the plastic bag.

'By a cab driver? He got that taxi cab from a rank in the Rivoli? How would you arrange for him to select that particular cab? Not very convincing, is it?'

'I think it was another person who gave him the case. I think he might have been set up.'

'Why would anyone do that? You said he was a small-time agent.'

'I can't think why they'd do it,' I admitted.

'Paris still hasn't replied, but they should come through any time now. Since we've got to sit here, can I send out for a drink for you?'

'A grand crème like the one you just sent to your prisoner would be most acceptable. Do you do that with all the prisoners, or was that just to impress me?'

'And a brandy with it? That's what I'm going to have.'

'You talked me into it. Thanks.'

He reached for the internal phone but before he grasped it said, 'What coffee that I sent down for him?'

'You sent a coffee and sandwich down to him, didn't you?'

'A coffee? What do you think this is, the Ritz? I don't send coffee down for prisoners. Not here; not anywhere.'