The phone rang at the agreed time. Impossible to tell whether the voice that now spoke was that of a man or a woman.
'M here.'
'M?' Charmian queried.
'M for mosque. Have you tracked Tweed?'
'Driving down the M3 with that woman of his. They are heading for the Gantia plant, I suspect.'
'Kill Tweed. Do it immediately. He is getting too close.'
'Depends where he parks his car. It will be dark soon so I do not see any problem.'
'You want the other half of your fee, you had better succeed this time.' 'I always succeed.'
It was getting dark as Tweed and Paula left Larry, walked into the corridor and bumped into Aubrey Greystoke, standing suspiciously close to the door of Larry's office.
'Good evening, Aubrey,' Tweed said politely. 'Listening in?'
'Don't know . . . what you are meaning. Come to my office. Just along the corridor.'
Greystoke led the way, walking slowly, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. Tweed recalled this peculiar habit from when he'd seen Greystoke walking away from them at Santorini's when he'd had dinner in town with Lucinda.
'He's drunk,' Paula whispered. 'I smelled whisky the moment we met him.'
'Shh!' Tweed whispered back.
He was not convinced that Aubrey was drunk. He suspected it was a pose, to fool people. The slow-march way of walking was a little too deliberate. When they entered Aubrey's office located at the front of the building with a view towards the main entrance, he was not surprised to see a bottle of Scotch, a half-filled glass beside it, on his desk. More camouflage?
'Do sit down, you nice people.'
He sank into one armchair, wiped his high forehead with a handkerchief and smiled foolishly.
'Saw you arrive through the window ages ago. Getting dark.'
Clambering laboriously to his large feet, he padded over, pressed a switch. Automatic blinds closed just before Tweed had been going to peer out to see his car. Returning, he placed two glasses on a square glass block, which Paula assumed passed for a table, and sagged down again.
'Drinks all round. To celebrate.'
'Celebrate what?' asked Paula.
'Any excuse will do.' The silly smile again. He filled his own glass up, raised it, sipped. Paula noticed that the front of his open-necked shirt had a damp patch. Where he had spilled Scotch to create an alcoholic odour?
'Ever travel to the States?' Tweed asked suddenly.
'All the time. If I don't check the costs those Americans are charging, no one does.'. He sat up straight. 'I am the finance director.'
'What about three to four months ago?' Tweed demanded.
'I'd be in the States then.'
'So you could give me a list of the firms you called on?'
'Won't do you any good. I'm so well known the receptionists never bother to record my arrival.'
'I think that's all. For the moment,' declared Tweed, standing up. He looked back as they reached the door. 'Lucinda is dealing with funeral arrangements for Lee;'
'A job I could do without.'
Callous bastard, Paula said to herself.
Charmian had completed his mission. Under the cover of night he had inserted the powerful bomb inside Tweed's car. The moment Tweed switched on it would detonate.
As he made his way to the rear of the building the glaring lights illuminating the building's front were switched on. For a moment his shadow was cast against the front wall below the windows, then he was gone.
For Charmian the security had been easy to evade. Arriving on his motorcycle, parked nearby, close to the M3, he had taken out the folded telescopic ladder from his pannier. The electric wire running along the top of the fence was no obstacle. His ladder was covered with rubber.
Working his way round to the rear, he found the blind spot. He always found a blind spot, this one facing a section of rear wall without windows. Arriving at the top of the fence, he had pressed a button. A fresh section of ladder had extended upwards. He turned a lever, and the extension dropped on the far side of the fence at an angle, giving him access to the plant.
After planting the bomb he returned to the ladder. A bony-faced man, he sported a thin black moustache curving down round the ends of his cruel mouth. His eyes were like ice. Reaching the top of the ladder, he climbed over, turned the lever again and waited as the extension slid back inside the section he stood on. He swiftly arrived on the ground.
Pressing another button, he watched the first section telescope into a compact square. He slipped it inside the leather satchel slung over his shoulder. It was this satchel that had originally transported the bomb. He checked the illuminated hands of his watch. Fifteen minutes. The time he'd allowed for this assignment.
To arrive back at his parked motorcycle he made a detour away from the fence across grassy fields. He wore rubber-soled shoes with no identifiable pattern on their surface. Arriving at the edge of the M3 he stopped, listened. No sound of traffic.
He walked swiftly across and entered the fields on the far side. He then hurried back to the motorcycle. A professional to his fingertips, he never waited for a bomb to detonate. His policy was to be as far away as possible from the devastation.
Walking down the corridor to the elevator, ready to leave the building, Tweed and Paula were intercepted by Lucinda. She appeared out of her office, stood in their way.
'Not leaving without talking to me? And I thought you both liked me.'
She ushered them inside her office. The blinds were drawn over her windows with a glow of light behind them.
She poured water from a carafe into three glasses, then coffee from a cafetiere into three Wedgwood cups.
'Make yourselves at home,' she invited, perching herself on a swivel stool and crossing her long legs. 'Sit,' she said. They sat close to her in armchairs with a small table near them. Tweed reached for his coffee, took a long drink. He felt more lively. Paula drank some water.
'Now, Tweed,' Lucinda commanded with a smile. 'Who have you been hammering into the ground verbally? Tell all.' Her mood was playful.
'We've had a long and interesting chat with Larry. A very able man.'
'In many ways. Michael, believe it or not, is even more capable. That is, before he had his attack of amnesia. I wonder what did cause that?'
'He had a nasty bump on the side of his head. The medical lot think that caused it. May have been hit on the head by someone.'
'That's sinister.'
'The whole thing is highly sinister, if that's the way it did happen.'
'You sound dubious.'
'At this stage of the investigation, Lucinda, I assume nothing. Except that everyone may be lying. And everyone is suspect.'
'So what is the motive?'
'Money and power.' Tweed had leaned forward.
'Don't think I get that,' she said after a pause. She reached for her coffee, sipped it, staring at Tweed. 'You're not going to.enlighten me?'
'No, I'm not.' He leaned closer to her. 'We have now identified the last corpse. Number four. The man found by the side of the track on Dartmoor.'
'So who was he?'
'I'm not revealing that to anyone yet.'
'You think he might be the key to your riddle?' she enquired.
'Yes, he could be. I know a lot more now than I did when I visited Abbey Grange. When I saw the Reverend Stenhouse Darkfield ringing his bell nonstop in the church tower.'
'So you think that's significant?' Her expression was puzzled.
'At this stage everything - and anything - could be significant. Paula and I walked past a series of thatched cottages joined together. A hamlet, I suppose. What's it called?'
'Oh,' she said offhandedly, 'it's a nowhere place with no name. You get that sort of thing on Dartmoor.'
Tweed finished his coffee, stood up. 'It's getting late. I imagine the plant has closed. I've never seen inside it.'
'I'll show you a view.' She took a mink coat off a hanger, put it on,
caressed the fur. 'Bought at a knock-down price at a place in Bond Street going bankrupt. I'll come with you.'
Walking ahead of them along the corridor, she stopped suddenly. Using a key, she unlocked a wide panel in the wall, which slid back. She gestured to them to look beyond it.
They were looking down on a vast plant with wide aisles dividing long stacks of clean white shelves from each other. The lights were still on, no sign of staff, and the shelves were full of food products in brightly coloured containers. Cold air seeped into the corridor and Paula realized the whole plant was air-conditioned.
She stared down at an aisle, which had railway lines running down it, twenty feet below them. A stationary motorized engine was perched on the rails with a convoy of open white plastic trucks behind it. She pointed down to the strange train.
'What's that?'
'Larry's brilliant idea. Trucks laden with supplies drive to the back, a long way as you can see. Originally staff had to carry the supplies to the shelves. Now they load up the trollies and the engine carries them along the rails to where they're unloaded.' She closed the panel, locked it. 'We're not supposed to leave that open for long.'
'We'd better be going now.' Tweed suggested.
She turned round and came up to him so close he caught a whiff of expensive perfume. Her voice was soft.
'Now tell me the identity of the fourth corpse. You know you can trust me.'
She moved even closer to him. Tweed stood his ground.
'Its identity is completely confidential.'
'Oh, well, I tried.' She turned towards her office. 'I've just realized I can't come down with you. I've forgotten to check the rear doors are locked.'
On the ground floor a uniformed guard opened the front door for them and said 'Good night.' It was chilly as they crossed the terrace and descended the steps, and Tweed used his remote to open the car doors. As Paula settled herself into the passenger seat he nipped round, jumped in behind the wheel, shut his door and inserted his key into the ignition.
21
Someone was tapping urgently on Paula's window. She looked out, saw Harry Butler's face, lowered the window. He thrust his head inside.
'I wouldn't turn that ignition key,' he told Tweed with a smile.
'Why not?'
'You left something behind.'
Bending down, Harry grasped hold of a small black metal box and perched it on the edge of Paula's window. Unfastening a catch, he raised the lid. A sprawl of wires jumped up, one red, one blue, one black. Paula peered inside. At the tip of each wire was a small plug and below them a complex of curled wires. She shuddered.
'Looks just like a bomb.'
'It is a bomb,' Harry replied. 'Of enormous explosive power - enough not only to blow the car to smithereens but to take down half the wall of the building behind me. A highly sophisticated mechanism.' He grinned at Paula. 'Don't worry, I've removed the detonator. This little beauty had been cleverly inserted under the pedal Tweed would have pressed, even earlier, when he switched on.'
Paula wiped her damp hands on her jeans. Tweed leaned forward to see Harry clearly.
'How come you're down here?'
'I followed you. Someone has to take care of the both of you.'
'Tell me.'
Harry lowered the inert bomb to the ground. 'I saw your car parked all on its own in the open. Not a good idea. I was outside the gates when I heard a motorcycle coming down from London. It stopped a few hundred yards up the road, then turned and left. Nothing for a while. It was dark, so not easy to watch the car. Then the glare lights came on. I saw a shadow against the wall as someone vanished round the back. Didn't like the look of that.'
'Don't keep us in suspense,' urged Paula.
'I went to the speakphone, told the guard I was SIS. He opens the gates and I run down the drive. Show the guard my folder, tell him I'll wait outside to guard the car. He goes back in. Using a torch, I first crawl under the car, checking the underside of the chassis. Favourite place to plant a bomb. Nothing.'
'You were very thorough,' Tweed commented.
'Do let him go on,' Paula snapped.
'So next I use the torch to check the interior. Know a lot about cars. Saw something under the accelerator pedal that shouldn't be there. Used a jemmy to unlock the passenger door in seconds, crawled inside, found the bomb. Lucky I'm an explosives expert. Got out my metal clippers, used them to cut the wires - after taking a deep breath and praying. Question of knowing the correct sequence.'
'You guessed right, then,' Paula said.
'Guessing doesn't do the job, if you want to survive. It's a new French device. Recently one of Marler's informants gave him detailed photos of the bomb. I joined the boffins down in the basement while they analysed them. They found out how it worked. I was lucky.'
' We were lucky,' Tweed said. 'Lucky that you followed us. A feeble thanks for saving our lives.'
'All part of the job. Going back to Park Crescent? Then I'll follow you. First I'll dive into the back, tell you when to stop. My car's parked in a field just off the M3.'
'The killer seems to like this area,' Paula said thoughtfully as the gates were automatically opened and Tweed drove on to the motorway. 'That bullet through our window was fired not far from here.'
'That won't help us.' Tweed said as he stopped at Harry's request.
'I noticed,' Paula went on as they waited, 'that Lucinda felt it necessary to explain to us why she couldn't come down and leave at the same time. Whoever hired the assassin may well have known about the bomb.'
'Same thought occurred to me,' he agreed.
The freighter Oran had now passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and was steaming a hundred and fifty miles off the coast of Portugal, heading north. The weather was unseasonably warm in the night, the sea unusually calm, gleaming like a vast blue lake under the moonlight.
Abdul, a huge Arab, peered over the port side. A cat's cradle was slung over the side containing two Arabs. They had now painted out the name Oran. With a bit of luck, Abdul thought, they'd have painted in the new name before they sailed into the rough sea of the Bay of Biscay.
High above the ship a different flag hung limply from the pole. While in the Mediterranean it had flown the Liberian flag. Now a different flag of convenience had been hoisted, a Panamanian one.
Despite the fact that Abdul was taking the freighter along little-used commercial sea lanes, he still had lookouts posted on both port and starboard sides. He began touring the vessel. On the port side he stopped suddenly. One of the lookouts was slumped against the hull, fast asleep. His thin lips tightened.
He called out softly to two more Arabs, who ran to him. He pointed to the sleeping lookout, gave his orders in a cold voice. They obeyed immediately, bent down, each taking hold of the sleeping lookout's armpits, hauling him upright.
'AH,' Abdul hissed in Arabic, 'y°u are a disgrace to Allah. We do not need lazy slobs like you aboard.'
He nodded to his two men. They hoisted Ali up higher so his shoulders were bent over the hull, over the sea. Abdul took out his curved knife, leaned forward, slashed the throat of Ali from ear to ear. 'No blood on the hull, please,' he said softly.
The two men reacted swiftly. They jerked the body, dripping blood, well clear of the hull, hurled it as far as they could into the sea. Abdul ordered them back to their posts. An experienced skipper, he knew the body would be carried away from the Portuguese coast, well out into an ice-cold Atlantic stream.
He checked his watch. He would reach his ultimate destination after dark, which was the plan. On time. He took out from under his long flowing galabaieh a sheet of paper. The instructions of his unknown employer were clear, passed to him by a middleman.
He should reach Angora port within ten days. By then the freighter would be loaded with the missiles to be launched from the long-range rockets already in their possession. The chosen target would be annihilated.
Tweed and Paula were approaching Park Crescent. Fairly close beh
ind them followed Harry in his Peugeot, ready to roar forward in an emergency, his automatic weapon concealed under the overcoat on the seat beside him.
'Are we getting closer to the murderer?' Paula asked.
'I think it's possible we've already met the savage.'
No Mercy Page 19
