Marler grinned. Opening his case, he produced a slim metal object, circular in shape. He took out another, put it on the deck between his feet, gazed at what was coming at them. A big power launch, its prow was reinforced steel. If it hit them broadside on it would cut them in two. Its speed was alarming, slicing through the sea like a torpedo. Arabs aboard it were already firing automatic weapons. A hail of bullets hammered against the protective metal plate. Crouched down behind it, Tweed put a hand on Paula's shoulder, firmly pressed her lower. The hostile power launch was moving like the TGV.
'Don't fire back whatever you do!' Marler shouted. 'I want it to stay on its present course.'
'It's going to ram us head on,' Cardon shouted back, peering through a small hole covered with armour-plated glass.
Paula couldn't resist peering over Tweed's neck. Marler, during a pause in the bombardment, was standing up. In one hand he held a pancake mine, another in reserve in his other hand. He skimmed the circular mine across the water like a boy skimming a pebble over a pond. Then he skimmed the second mine.
The steel prow of the attacking power launch was so high up that whoever was steering it would never see Marler's action. Cardon crawled swiftly to Paula, grabbed her by the arm and hauled her across the deck to his original position.
'Look through that spy-hole. Don't worry - it has armoured glass . . .'
Paula wasn't worried. She had her eye glued to the spyhole. The power launch was further away than she'd expected, but coming at them fast. She caught a brief sight of a mine as it floated over a small wave. The prow of the enemy's vessel hit it square on. The explosion was fantastic. The steel prow rocketed into the sky, the hull was split into two pieces, one section upended and plunging out of sight deep into the sea. The other section was in flames. The crew, on fire from head to foot, dived into the sea in a desperate, futile attempt to save their lives. Then the launch was gone, leaving behind a spreading patch of oil on the sapphire blue. 'Home, James,' Tweed ordered Garden.
They returned to Vieux Port, climbed on to the landing stage, hurried to their hotel. Tweed, who had the train times in his head, said they'd just catch a TGV back to Paris if they moved.
He had paid the bill and collected his case, when Paula rushed down, followed by the others. When Tweed, who had calculated the amount, had pushed a sheaf of euro notes on the counter, the temporary girl had counted quickly, slipping out ten, which she hid in her pocket. When she had told Tweed he hadn't paid enough he told her to add the tip she had stolen.
Outside, in the blazing sun, Tweed led the way to a battered old cab waiting with an Arab at the wheel. She paused, tugged at his sleeve.
'That cab might not be safe.'
'With Cardon in his Arab gear as driver?'
At the station they dived out. Paula left last and whispered to Cardon, 'You stay here, Philip?'
'Not on your life.' he whispered back. 'Heading East - to slit a few throats.'
They boarded the waiting TGV scarcely a minute before it glided out of St Charles, building up speed once the suburbs were left behind. The team had found an empty first-class coach. As Tweed settled in a seat Paula joined him. Marler and Nield again took up their sentry posts at each end of the coach.
Paula's mind was still full of blue sea, the great limestone amphitheatre circling the city, the warmth of the sun, their first sight of the He des Oiseaux, a limestone triangle perched in the sapphire blue. She squeezed Tweed's arm.
'I want to apologize. For the awful things I said when I arrived back at the bottom of the gulch. I feel terrible -I can recall every dreadful thing I said.'
He put his arm round her waist, hugged her, looked straight into her eyes.
'I'm the one to say sorry - and a feeble thank-you for saving our lives. I looked back a millisecond before your grenade detonated. I saw three huge Arabs about to spray us with bullets. We'd all have gone down. My mistake was thinking you'd gone down ahead of us. When I realized you weren't with us I was appalled, overcome with emotion. On this grim trip there were three top players - yourself, Marler and Cardan.' He gave her a clean handkerchief. 'No need to cry. Or maybe it'll make you feel better . . .'
When she had recovered, she asked the question. 'Did you find out what you wanted to?'
'Yes. That freighter, the Oran, is headed for the Straits of Gibraltar. Once in the Atlantic it can head for Europe, to collect something I'm sure is pretty diabolical.'
20
The team had spent the night at a hotel in Paris, then caught an early Eurostar to Waterloo. Approaching Waterloo, Tweed turned to Paula, keeping his voice down.
'You'll come with me.' His voice was vigorous. 'It's time I grilled all the suspects, got the hunt for the killer moving. My first target is Aubrey Greystoke, finance director at Gantia.'
'So he's on your list of suspects?'
'All of them are.'
At Waterloo they divided their luggage between Marler arid Nield and caught a taxi for the Tower in the city. As it crawled along, Paula found her visions of the Mediterranean fading, overlain by earlier experiences.
The strange drive with Michael to Dartmoor, the two skeletons, Abbey Grange, its peculiar servants - Mrs Brogan and Tarvin - the hideous discovery of Christine Barton's skeleton in the kitchen fridge, the trip to Wensford and the equally hideous locating of private detective John Jackson's deteriorating body on the houseboat, it had become a panorama of horror.
It was a cold morning with a low cloud bank. Looking up to the conical summit of the Tower, Paula saw it shrouded in mist. The same receptionist stood behind her counter. She had the same severe expression. Paula beat her to it.
'I know I can't take this shoulder bag with me. So lock it away in one of those boxes.'
'The bag is locked. I want to see inside it.'
'Because it might contain a bomb?'
'Can't you read?' Tweed was holding his identity folder under her nose. 'Stop fooling about. We're here to see Aubrey Greystoke.'
'He's—'
'In Room 750. Seventh floor.' Tweed said. 'We take the second elevator. Welcome to the Tower. It has an architectural award,' Tweed went on, mimicking the receptionist's patter on their previous visit when they had found Greystoke was out.
The girl stared at him, speechless, as they walked to the bank of elevators. When the doors opened at the seventh floor the hall was empty. They walked across to 750, opposite the elevator. Tweed was about to press the bell when the door opened. A slim blonde woman walked out, pulling the door shut, her coat over her arm.
Tweed turned to watch her walk to the elevator, noticed that the zip at the back of her dress was halfway down her shapely back. He walked over before she could call the lift.
'Excuse me, but it's cold outside and your zip isn't done up properly. Allow me.' With a quick motion he pulled the zip up to the top. 'May I help you on with your coat? You'll need it outside.'
She wasn't in the least disconcerted. As he helped her on with the coat her green eyes studied him. He pressed the button for the ground floor, walked back to Paula as the woman stepped inside the elevator. The doors closed.
'His latest bit on the side,' Paula remarked. 'A bit early in the day I'd have thought.'
'I'm looking for someone with stamina and strength,' he remarked as he pressed the bell.
They had to wait. Then the door opened and Greystoke was blinking as he gazed at them. Tieless, his shirt was open at the neck. He wore a waistcoat and suit trousers. He eased his right foot inside a slip-on shoe. A smell of whisky drifted out.
'Might. . . have made an appointment.' he grumbled.
'We're investigating a case of four murders.'
'Four?' He peered at Paula. 'You're Petula Grey.'
'Paula,' she corrected him. 'We're coming in.'
'If you say so.'
He backed away, they walked in, he shut the door, led them into a spacious living room-cum-office. A large desk stood against the far wall, with all the technological 'junk'
so disliked by Tweed: a fax machine, an advanced computer connected to the Internet. There was also a swivel chair, . leather-bound and a screen on the wall above the desk.
In the living area was a long leather couch - Paula noticed the cushions had been hastily piled untidily. She peered through an open door. It was the kitchen and on a counter, waiting to be washed, was a glass rimmed with lipstick. On a low mahogany table by the couch was the twin glass, half full of Scotch. The bottle of the finest Scotch, half empty, stood beside the glass.
'Now you've barged in you might as well sit down,' Greystoke suggested.
He staggered a little as he arranged three armchairs in a circle, one close to the Scotch bottle and glass. He waved a hand, glared at Paula.
'That was the kitchen. Do you normally poke around in other people's places?'
'I wanted to be sure we were alone,' she said politely.
'I've just finished one of those brainstorming business sessions. The businessmen needed liquor to oil their so-called brains.'
A one-blonde business meeting, Paula would have liked to say, but she kept quiet.
'OK,' Greystoke began as they sat down and he chose the chair nearest the bottle. 'What is this in aid of?'
'I am investigating four especially hideous murders,' Tweed told him, 'where all the bodies were horribly savaged with a knife. Chunks of flesh cut, off, preserved in bags.'
Greystoke reached for a carafe of water, filled a glass, drank it all down, refilled the glass, repeated the process. Deciding he'd better sober up, Paula thought.
'Sounds like a friggin' maniac,' Greystoke said.
'When he's doing his foul work. But I do believe that it is someone who most of the time appears perfectly normal. Could be a business executive.' Tweed leaned forward. 'I understand your wife, Lee, disappeared three to four months ago.'
'She has her way of life, I have mine. So eventually she has the idea she wants to live her own life - without me. I'm not bothered.'
'Mr Greystoke,' Tweed began in a grim voice, leaning closer to him again, 'one of the skeletons discovered on Dartmoor is that of Lee.'
Paula was taken aback. She had never known Tweed conduct an interrogation in such a brutal manner.
'Lee? Can't be. Are you sure?'
'I have a witness who positively identified the corpse. She was wearing a certain piece of jewellery the witness associates with Lee. No doubt. Lee is dead as a dodo.'
'Who is the witness?' Greystoke poured Scotch into the glass. 'Hair of the dog,' he explained after swallowing the contents.
'I cannot reveal the identity of the witness,' Tweed snapped.
Tweed was studying the suspect, recalling how he had looked at Santorini's when he had dined there with Lucinda. Tall, a man in his fifties with gold-rimmed glasses perched on his Roman nose, his brown hair now awry - due no doubt to his recent visitor. Attractive to a certain kind of woman, Aubrey knew this. So what was different? As at Santorini's he had an air of self-satisfaction when they arrived. Now, though, he looked uncertain, his sensuous lips compressed. Like a man holding himself together with an effort.
'This is a shock,' he said suddenly.
A rather belated reaction, Paula thought to herself.
'Did Lee have any enemies? Had she a woman friend in the States, say in Richmond, Virginia?'
'First,' Greystoke said, his replies now prompt, 'she did not have any enemies that I know of. Second, ten years ago I took her to the States and she disliked it intensely. We never went anywhere near Virginia.'
'I think that will be all - for the moment,' Tweed decided, standing up. 'I expect to be back as I learn more.'
Paula accompanied Tweed striding towards the exit door. Greystoke followed them. Before he opened the door Greystoke said in an emotional voice, 'I did love Lee . . .'
Tweed spun round. 'In that case why did you never inform the police she was missing?'
'Well . . .' He was almost stuttering. 'I didn't want the news to get round the staff at Gantia. It's a gossip shop. I was so sure that she—'
'Thank you for your time,' Tweed said harshly.
He opened the door himself. They didn't hear the door close but Tweed never glanced back as he pressed the button for the elevator. Once inside, doors closed, they were able to talk.
'What do you think?' Paula asked.
'They're all lying,' he growled. 'I think even Greystoke has been infected by the devious Armenian element. He was hiding something, at the best.'
'I thought his reactions were all wrong. And you'd have expected him to ask what he should do about arrangements for his wife's body.'
'Yes, you would.'
'Where are we going now?' Paula asked as they drove away in a taxi from the Tower. 'Who's next on your hit list?'
'Lucinda.'
'All the way down the M3 again to the Gantia plant?'
'No,' stated Tweed. 'Her London apartment. If we're lucky that's where we'll find her. I think she starts work late to avoid rush hour, then stays late after the staff have gone home.'
'Which would give her free run of the plant?'
'I'd already thought of that.'
'Do you think Aubrey' - she pronounced the name with a posh accent - 'is capable of these ghastly murders?'
'I am looking for someone who strikes me as being capable of grabbing a man - or a woman - from behind, jerking them back by clutching their hair, then cutting their throat with a sharp blade. Next, switching their grip on the knife so the serrated edge is used to saw through the neck and half the spine, plus later using the same knife to mutilate the dead body.'
'You make it sound so horrible.'
'It is horrible.'
He was silent until they arrived at Park Crescent, transferring to his own car. He drove to Mayfair and into the underground garage below Lucinda's apartment. Parking in one of the many empty spaces, he got out, hurried over to the elevators while Paula ran to catch him up.
'Is it a good idea that I come with you?' she wondered. 'Or do you need me for protection?' she teased.
'You come with me. She'll know it's serious then.'
As they stepped out of the elevator the door to Lucinda's apartment opened and she was coming out, clad in a leather driving jacket and trousers. Paula had her overcoat on but was still feeling the damp cold of London - the sudden contrast to the heat of Marseilles.
'I was just on my way down to the plant,' Lucinda snapped and pushed back a lock of hair from her face.
'You can go down later,' Tweed said grimly. 'I'm investigating a case of mass murder. That comes first.'
'If you say so. March in.'
This is going to be interesting, Paula thought. She's in a bad mood. Slamming the door shut when they were inside, Lucinda took off her jacket, threw it on a chair. Without being asked, Tweed took off his overcoat as Paula took off hers. Tweed hung his coat on one of a row of wall hooks and did the same with Paula's.
Lucinda sat behind a desk, took out a cigarette, inserted it into her long holder, lit it. Tweed hauled three armchairs in a circle, rather as Greystoke had done.
'I want you closer,' he told Lucinda.
'You do? With Paula here?' she said with a malicious smile.
She stood up, came over and sat in one of the armchairs. Leaning back, she blew smoke rings into the air.
'I'm rather glad you've come,' she said suddenly in her soft appealing voice.
'Why?' demanded Tweed.
'I had another visitor, not exactly a friend - or friendly. Mr Abel Gallagher, head of Special Branch. He was aggressive, rude, helped himself to the bottle of Scotch from the drinks cupboard, poured himself a glass, swallowed the lot. I'll have to have the glass screen over the drinks cupboard replaced by solid wood panels. That is, if I'm going to have thugs like that calling on me.'
'When was this?' Tweed asked.
'Earlier this morning.'
'So what did he want to know?' Tweed asked, his tone gentler.
'How much progress you
had made with your investigation. I told him damn-all. Said I wasn't on your staff. Told him to go and ask you. He didn't like that. He threatened me.'
'How?'
'Said I was involved in the murder cases up to my neck, that if I didn't cooperate he'd send a car to take me to his HQ. He said I must know where Lee Greystoke had vanished to, that I was very close to her according to information received, close in any way I might like to interpret that. I nearly picked up the bottle of Scotch and threw it at him, but I kept my cool.'
No Mercy Page 17
