The Savage Gorge

by Forbes, Colin

  Paula had her hands tucked in her jacket pockets as he came close, his hand extended to shake hers. She remained still as a statue.

  'You don't often get the chance to shake hands with a billionaire,' he said.

  She recalled the cut-glass voice from the few words she'd heard distantly in Finden Square. She couldn't

  be rude. She took her right hand out of her pocket, grasped his. It was like shaking hands with a fish and he had an unpleasant way of grasping her, sliding his fingers up between hers. Without a smile she freed her hand and waited.

  'I am looking for a personal assistant, Miss Grey. I know your universal reputation for incredible efficiency.' Pausing, he dabbed at his lips with a silk handkerchief. 'I would be most happy to pay you eighty thousand a year, plus benefits.'

  'Thank you for the offer,' she said quickly, 'but I do have a position I totally enjoy.'

  'Just so long as you have Tweed. He could be shot any day.'

  'It has been tried before and he is good at surviving.'

  'I have never been turned down before.' The cut-glass voice was even sharper, almost with a note of menace.

  'There's always a first time.' She laughed gently. 'Might do your ego good.'

  'I do wish you had not added that last sentence.' He placed his hands on his knees, prior to standing up. 'Few people have risked insulting me,' he remarked, standing up. 'And I'm not sure they're all still walking the planet. . .'

  On this note his tall dark figure strode to the door. He opened it, disappeared, closed it softly.

  Paula heaved a deep breath, decided she needed a long hot bath to wash off his touch.

  After her bath Paula found her mind very alert. She assumed it was the result of the unwanted approaches she'd experienced. She was also intrigued by the hidden tunnel on Black Gorse Moor. What was going on up there?

  She dressed, wearing two leather jackets, ankle boots. In her backpack she put certain items. She scribbled a note to Tweed, hoping he'd excuse her for not attending the Bullerton dinner but she felt she could sleep the evening and the night through. She wrote his name on an envelope, sealed it. She knew he'd be furious if he knew what she had decided to do.

  Walking down the corridor, she paused outside Tweed's suite, pressed her ear against the door. She couldn't hear what was being said but was surprised to gather the conversation was friendly.

  In the hall the landlord was absorbed explaining a map to an elegantly dressed woman. Unseen, Paula descended into the garage. No one about, thank heaven. She climbed behind the wheel of the Audi, using her own key. It was only when she emerged into the street that it occurred to her she might be driving into danger.

  It was dusk when she parked the Audi in a deep hole in the hedge. She walked into the top of the bowl and saw Hobart House, far below, a blaze of lights. Getting ready for the dinner. She was relieved to see the curtains were closed.

  Striding briskly, she descended the slope of the bowl, crossed it well away from the house, began to climb steeply. She sat down for a minute, took out a tough pair of jeans, hauled them on over her daytime pair. She thought she heard a noise as she put on an old pair of motoring gloves. Looking up, she saw briefly the flash of a light. Someone was on the moor. At this hour?

  Or had it been her imagination? In the gloaming everything seemed different. Bullerton's residence looked tiny - more like a doll's house. She had lost her sense of direction - she could not find the section which would lead her up to the tunnel. She took a deep breath and the air was cold, which cleared her mind. The only solution was to climb up to the moor and explore, to search for the large round boulder she'd noticed near the entrance.

  As she climbed, often on hands and knees, she was protected from the sharp rocky ground by her old jeans. One thing worried her: crawling up over shale, the small pieces started scattering down the slope, making too much noise.

  She changed direction, moving gradually to her left, where the ground was more solid, more familiar. She thought she'd heard another noise above her, like a subdued moan. Could there be animals up here? If so, what were they? Reaching down she checked that her Browning was secure in its holster. The feel of the butt gave her fresh confidence.

  She began hauling herself up more rapidly over the

  ground, which was more stable than any so far. She was concentrating so determinedly on grasping tufts of grass, testing their stability before using them as handholds, that she got a shock.

  Something spiky brushed her face. She stopped, looked up. It was the beginning of the black gorse. She stretched out a hand and touched something hard, smooth and round. She had located the large boulder near the entrance to the tunnel. She could have cheered.

  She stood up, bent her aching knees several times. They still felt strong and limber. Crouching down, she crept slowly along the path, her left hand extended for fear of missing the tunnel entrance. Then she felt something odd. Taking off her glove, she felt with her bare hand a curved surface of smooth metal. She extracted her pencil torch from her backpack - her more powerful torch would show too much light in this wilderness. The brief illumination revealed a large circular lid covering the entrance to the tunnel. Putting on her glove again, she grasped a handle at the lid's top, twisted it slowly. It was well oiled and made not a sound as she removed it. The entrance was revealed. Using her more powerful torch she shone the beam inside it.

  The entrance, easily large enough for her to crawl inside, was not inviting. The interior was clean but it gradually sloped downwards until, beyond the beam's reach, it was black as pitch.

  'Come on, girl,' she said to herself, hitching the

  pack onto her back and dropping to her knees to crawl inside. Her last hope was that Tweed had found the message shoved under his door.

  When Tweed had ushered private detective Dermot Falkirk into his suite he immediately noticed a difference from the man he'd rescued from the cell in London. He was smartly dressed in a suit, his black hair had been cut, his moustache was shorter, neatly trimmed. His litheness was apparent in his movements but his normally poker face was smiling.

  Using a technique rarely employed by other Yard interrogators, Tweed suggested Falkirk sat in the most comfortable armchair. At the Yard he would have been escorted to a bare room, seated in an uncomfortable hard-backed chair.

  'How are you, Dermot?' Tweed asked, sitting in the other armchair.

  'Exhausted.' Dermot grinned. 'I have a ton of information to give you. First, I'm breaking my code of secrecy. I have been employed by Miss Lisa Clancy, the only girl who escaped being murdered - her sisters, Nancy and Petra Mandeville, the two missing daughters of Lord Bullerton.'

  'I have wondered recently if that's who they were,' Tweed said grimly. 'The daughter who employed you is Lizbeth Mandeville.'

  'Yes,' Falkirk agreed, 'she changed her name when she escaped from Hobart House. She picked me out

  of the list of private detectives because she liked "Eyes Only". Don't ask me why. Mission, to locate the murderer of her sisters. Since I've broken the code and identified her I'll return the five thousand pounds she paid me.'

  'What else did Lizbeth tell you? Incidentally, last night I called a friend at the Yard and she's under protection, but doesn't know it.'

  'What else? She told me about this place, which was what sent me haring up to Hobartshire. On arrival I described Lisa to the landlord, pretending she'd flirted with me at a party down in London. He identified her as Lizbeth Mandeville.'

  'Did Lizbeth tell you the whole story about leaving here?'

  'Yes.' Falkirk smiled. 'After a little coaxing. They left to get away from her father. When they were much younger he'd bullied them and the late mother had been a strict disciplinarian. When they told Lord Bullerton he was appalled, gave each of them the sum of forty thousand pounds. They decided Lizbeth should just "disappear". Petra collected her clothes and arranged them neatly on the river bank. So she could have gone swimming and then drowned. They were pretty bitt
er according to Lizbeth. Well . . .' Falkirk shook his head. 'Not entirely.'

  'Did she say what she did when she discovered the corpses?'

  'Panicked. Rushed back into her house, locked and bolted the front door, switched off all the lights. That's

  when she saw, peering from behind a net curtain, the Rolls-Royce and amiable Mr Neville Guile.'

  'That would be his first of two visits. Actually saw him?'

  'Had his tinted glass window down, was peering out. She recognized him from a picture in a glossy magazine.'

  'Know much about him?'

  'Guile is the cruellest villain in Europe. Most murderous. Ruthless, callous and brutal. Adopts any method to succeed. Once he kidnapped the daughter of a Belgian banker who refused to sell his oil holdings. A message was sent to the banker that if he didn't sell within twenty-four hours the daughter would be returned. In pieces. The banker sold the oil holdings through an intermediary. The girl, unharmed but out of her wits with fear, was thrown from a car at the entrance to the banker's villa.'

  'A very nasty piece of work,' Tweed commented.

  'Yet he has a most remarkable personality, can charm the birds out of the trees, especially the female variety. Operates via third parties, so the police can never link him to his crimes.'

  'So at present Lord Bullerton is his front man.'

  'That's what I suspect,' Falkirk agreed. 'And Bullerton may have no idea of what is really going on.'

  'May,' Tweed emphasized.

  At that moment he saw the edge of the envelope Paula had pushed under his door. He opened it, read what she had written and thought for a moment. After

  her traumatic experience at the falls, then seeing the murdered Hartland Trent, she was probably exhausted, would sleep the night through.

  Paula had dropped to her knees to explore the tunnel. When she risked shining her more powerful torch into the darkness the beam faded into blackness a few yards ahead. The tunnel must be endless. She had just entered when the metal buckle on her backpack scraped against the top of the tunnel. She worried about the noise, hauled the pack off her back and dragged it along by the handle. It was not long before the pressure of the unknown crept into her mind. She gritted her teeth, determined to discover the reason for the tunnel.

  The tunnel continued its gradual descent. Soon she'd be deep under Black Gorse Moor. Not a pleasant thought. She was also worried that someone might find the lid entrance removed. Her back was completely exposed to attack. She paused frequently to listen.

  The absolute silence was worse. It began to get on her nerves. She pressed on, crawling slowly. The hand which dragged her pack also held her powerful torch awkwardly, but she needed at least one hand free in case of emergency. Now the surface of the tunnel, still dropping, began to curve to her right so her torch could not illuminate what might lie ahead. She slowed her progress. Her outstretched left hand suddenly felt

  nothing beneath it. Dante's Inferno was nothing compared to this.

  Her exploring left hand felt round the rim of nothing. She let go momentarily of her pack, aimed the torch, which had been wobbling all over the place. She had reached a vertical tunnel descending into the bowels of the earth. Beyond, her tunnel continued into darkness.

  Easing herself forward inch by inch, she arrived at the rim of this new tunnel. She shone her torch down, almost dropped it in her shock. About eight feet down the beam was shining on the dead face of Archie MacBlade, body jammed into a space where the vertical tunnel narrowed. The eyes were closed.

  'MacBlade!' she gasped in a whisper.

  The eyes opened. One winked at her. That was when she heard voices, curiously distorted as they travelled down the extension of the vertical tunnel up to the moor. Instinctively she switched off her torch, hauled herself back a short distance from the rim. Despite the distortion, there was one voice she recognized immediately.

  'You are quite clear what you have to do as soon as dawn comes?' the cut glass voice of Neville Guile demanded.

  'Oh, I knows me business,' Ned Marsh, a wiry man with a hooked nose and a harelip, responded in his coarse voice.

  'Then repeat your instructions and take that self-satisfied look off your ugly face.'

  'At dawn I'll 'ave brought the truck of rubble and mud 'ere. I empty the flamin' lot down this tunnel. That bastard MacBlade will never be found.'

  'Must be dead already/ Guile answered casually, 'after the blow from your cosh on the back of his head. And bring the truck along the top moor road. Time we moved off.'

  Paula had held herself so still that after waiting to be sure they had gone she had to stretch. She shone her torch down inside the tunnel where MacBlade was trapped by the bulge in the wall. He called up to her in little more than a whisper.

  'If I try to move I'll shift this soil bulge and drop twenty more feet. Bit of a problem, Paula.'

  'Don't move an inch,' she whispered back. 'I've got an idea.'

  The ingenious Harry had from time to time given her different equipment she might need. One item, stowed in her backpack, was a length of rope tightly knotted at three-foot intervals, and with a metal hook at one end covered with thick rubber. He'd told her it would 'come in handy' for entering the first floor of a target house. Lowering the rope, hooked end first, she told MacBlade what to do. As she talked, she wrapped the other end of the rope round her waist, praying she'd be strong enough to hold his weight. Twisting

  her body round, she pressed both feet against the top of the tunnel where the metal surface was rougher. She peered over the edge, told him to come up when ready. MacBlade had followed her instructions to the letter. With the rubber-covered hook tucked inside his thick leather waist belt, he began hauling himself up, hands gripping a knot, then another. As soon as he moved, the soil bulge which had held him collapsed. Without the rope, he would have fallen at least twenty feet into the depths.

  For Paula, the strain of his weight on her legs and shoulders was agonizing. She thanked God for her recent tough training exercise at the SIS mansion hidden on the Surrey border. She had stopped peering over the rim so was surprised at the speed with which MacBlade reached the top, fell across her, rolled off her and lay beside her, panting for breath.

  They lay together like that for a while, exercising limbs and recovering. Then MacBlade squeezed her arm gently and asked, 'What next?'

  'We get out of this fiendish tunnel. I know the way. I'll go first. Keep close behind me.'

  'Gal, you've got guts,' he said.

  'What's that plastic canister you've got in your pocket?'

  'A sample. Let's start the crawl. . .'

  As she eventually emerged from the tunnel she couldn't recall experiencing such a sense of relief. And

  now for the first time the moon had come out, illuminating the bowl far below. She screwed the lid back in position over the entrance, sat on it. MacBlade was stamping around in lively fashion.

  'The Audi is parked in a hole in the hedge on this side of the road,' she told him. 'You make your way to it and I'll follow in a few minutes. Two people will be easier to spot in this moonlight.'

  'Nothing doing,' he told her. 'You need protection -the least I can do after what you've done.'

  'Do as you're damned well told!' she burst out. 'I need a few minutes on my own.'

  'Then I'll wait over there.'

  'For God's sake leave me alone,' she snapped, suddenly realizing she had raised her voice.

  'Have it your own way,' he said with a warm smile and began walking away down from the moor into the bowl.

  He had almost reached the bowl when once again he looked back. He wasn't able to see her: the hedge masked the round lid.

  Paula stood up, stretched her legs and shoulders. A thick cloth hood descended over her head. Wiry hands swung her round, took hold of her wrists, clamped them in front of her with handcuffs. Then a familiar voice spoke with a cut-glass tone.

  'She's all yours, Ned. Use her as a man likes to use a woman. Then kill her a
nd bury the body. She knows too much.'

  Paula found herself swung round, then frogmarched away from the moor. A wet cloth had been wrapped round her mouth so it was impossible to shout to MacBlade, who was probably too far away now. Where was she being taken by the lustful Ned Marsh?

  THIRTEEN

  Marsh's hands gripped her arms so tightly she knew it would be useless to struggle. He continued to propel her across a grassy surface. She had to be somewhere in the bowl which encircled Hobart House.

  'You're goin' to enjoy this,' his coarse voice told her. 'At least the first part.'

  'And the second part?' she said quietly.

  'You won't know a thing. Guile is clever. He's seen you're Tweed's bit. When you disappear forever it will destroy your Mr Tweed. Guile knows he's the greatest danger.'

  'Tweed will hunt you down, if he has to search the world for you . . .'

  'Shut your face.'

  Marsh's grip on her arms tightened painfully. They slowed down. She heard the squeak of a gate opening,