Cavalier followed up on the phone numbers, all French contacts. Two were family who gave him nothing. The others were not well disposed towards the third baron, which surprised Cavalier. They supported his belief that the third Baron Bleulance had been a spy for the KGB from his recruitment in 1934 until his death in 1991. But unlike other French double agents, he did not take a pension from the KGB. He didn’t need one. Nor did he ever, from Cavalier’s research, pass information direct to the KGB. Instead, when in exile in the UK for four years during World War Two, he passed it to Blunt, who then passed it to their controls, such as KGB masterspy Yuri Modin. This way there was no direct trace to the third baron, except if one of the Cambridge Ring was exposed.

In the end, Cavalier was surprised that Bleulance would lead him to evidence that his father was a double agent, although he denied he knew anything. Cavalier concluded that the son, indeed, must have hated his father.

*

The moment Cavalier roared away on his motorbike, Bleulance rang the head of his personal security team, a muscular South African, Mawnie Schwartz.

‘I want you to check on the background of Dr Edwin Harris,’ he said. ‘As long as he is investigating the third baron, that’s fine. If he strays into asking questions about me, apart from my art, well, that’s different. You understand, Mawnie?’

‘Roger, sir.’

21 THE PLASMOID AND THE STAR IN A JAR

21

THE PLASMOID AND THE STAR IN A JAR

‘Time for an update on Al Haut,’ Wombat told Cavalier when they met at Melbourne’s National Gallery after a concert in the Great Hall. They sat in a gallery cafe away from other concert-goers.

‘How is Al?’ Cavalier asked. ‘I haven’t seen him for eight months.’

‘Seems in good spirits,’ Wombat said, ‘if that’s the right term for him. His businesses are going well. He’s managed to fund his exploration through mum and dad small investors from his Full Gospel church and other sources. Haut has set up an unlisted public company, Al Haut Minerals Limited, and another called Bass Resources Limited. He’s in the process of setting up a US corporation.’

‘I had an email from him concerning China.’

Wombat smiled wryly. ‘Yeah, well that’s another story. He won’t be going back there in a hurry.’

‘Why?’

‘He was doing top-secret work on cold fusion with China’s top scientific brains.’

‘What?’