‘But of course. I have no objection to giving you the broad outline over the phone. But you’ll require documentary evidence to back it up before you run the story. And before you get that, I’ll require the money.’

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘You agree to my terms?’

‘Not until I know what you’ve got.’

Lewis sighed. ‘The company, Machines Internationale, is owned jointly by René Jansen, Michel Lapointe, and . . . ah, the late Mr Robert Gryffe.’

Bannerman felt the skin tighten across his scalp.

‘Not directly, of course. That would have been too easy. No, Machines Internationale is ostensibly owned by another company which in turn is an offshoot of another company, and so on. All shell companies of course. A cobweb of deceit, if I may lapse into cliché, to disguise the identity of the man to whom the number one company is ultimately responsible.’

At last it was the link between Gryffe, Jansen and Lapointe that Bannerman had been looking for. But not worth ten thousand. ‘What is its business?’

Lewis waited and then replied with calculated melodrama, ‘Armaments, my friend. Guns and bombs and landmines, and God knows what else. Machines Internationale buys arms, mostly from the US, and sells to the Third World, some of the Arab states, and one or two of the South American republics. Not in itself a crime, of course. But when a minister at the British Foreign Office is involved, then it starts to get interesting, doesn’t it?’ Lewis chuckled to himself, and when there was no response from Bannerman, he added, ‘So I got my boys to dig a little deeper in the company records, and it would appear that Machines Internationale have also been selling their wares to a number of pirate companies which operate out of several small states in Africa and the Middle East – companies which, it seems, are supplying arms direct to South Africa, in open defiance of the UN embargo on the apartheid régime there. And perhaps even more interesting, to Rhodesia – during almost all of the time that sanctions were being imposed against the illegal Smith regime.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘My sentiments exactly, Neil. So much so, in fact, that I even did a quick trace on the origins of a couple of the pirate companies. Each of those I checked out is owned by a Liechtenstein-registered company, Corniche S.A. Corniche, unfortunately, is one of those naughty little nominee companies that can act for unnamed clients whose anonymity is protected by law. Of course, you’ll know about nominee companies. This one is owned by a very respectable Swiss lawyer and businessman, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever know who’s actually behind it, or the companies it controls. Worth it though, eh? Ten grand? Cheap at the price. British government minister murdered in Brussels was selling arms to Rhodesia and South Africa. Neat headline wouldn’t you say, Neil?’