No Mercy

by Forbes, Colin

  'So you've narrowed down the suspects?'

  'No, not yet. Are you feeling fresh?'

  'Very. I sense some other visit after we've been to the office.'

  'Ivy Cottage, Heel Lane, Boxton, Berkshire. Off the road to Amersham.'

  'Who on earth lives there?'

  'Lived, unfortunately. Lee Greystoke. I think she may have found something important during her night-time visits to the Gantia plant. Being a woman, you're more likely to find where she's hidden it.'

  'What is "it"?'

  'I have no idea.'

  'I can't wait. You do realize that it will be dark? Dark when we try to find this cottage. Dark when we get there. I can't imagine after at least three months the electricity's still on.'

  'Any more objections?' Tweed said irritably. 'I can always get someone else to come with me. Are you tired? If so, I don't think you ought to come.'

  'Losing your memory?' she snapped. 'A moment ago I told you I was feeling fresh. I do suggest we get Monica to fetch us refreshment from the all-night deli before we start out. We haven't eaten for hours. You haven't.'

  'A good idea.' Tweed was calm now. 'I'd much sooner have you with me. Every day that passes the trail of the four-time murderer grows colder. Also, I have another sense that we need to move very fast.'

  'I'll get out a map for a route to Berkshire — and I'll navigate.' She grinned at him. 'I do it better than you.'

  'You certainly do.'

  The whole team were inside his office when they walked in. Monica had closed the curtains over the dark outside. Harry immediately plunged into an account of the bomb. The effect on Marler was electric. He stood up, his expression unusually grim.

  'That's it, then. You said, Harry, the bomb was a French design? Right. That means Charmian again.' He began pacing, much in the manner of Tweed. 'We've got to wipe out that guy fast. My guess is he's holed up somewhere in London. Harry must have been followed by him when the rat first saw Tweed leaving here.'

  'Didn't realize I was being followed,' Harry said apologetically. 'Tons of traffic on the M3 until we were near Gantia.'

  Marler wasn't listening.

  'I'm going to talk to as many as I can of my ladies of the night. They are very observant, hear a lot. See you.'

  Marler grabbed a long black leather sheath with 'Slazenger' printed on the side, slung it over his shoulder. Paula squeezed his arm for luck.

  'I don't think what you've got inside that thing is sporty.'

  'Armalite.'

  Marler left, closing the door quietly. Paula raised her eyebrows as she stared at Tweed. 'I've never known him look so ferocious.'

  'Neither have I. The hunter is now the hunted.'

  Newman stood up, put on his lightweight overcoat, left it unbuttoned so he could reach his .38 Smith & Wesson quickly. He was heading for the door when he spoke.

  'I'm going after Marler. I have different informants from him.'

  Peter Nield also headed for the door. He glanced round the office before he left.

  'Marler will be heading for Soho. Like Harry, I know people in the East End. Someone will have noticed a Frenchman recently arrived. We'll get him tonight . . .'

  'I'm not joining them,' Harry announced. 'I sense Tweed and Paula are going somewhere - she's been studying an Ordnance Survey map of Berkshire. I'll be right behind them. Paula, can you spare me a sandwich? I heard you sending Monica to the deli.'

  'And I guessed you'd be coming along. I've ordered for three of us.'

  Tweed was surprised at the weight of traffic at that late hour. Did it never stop? The endless crawl bumper to bumper? Only when they were beyond Beaconsfield did the weather change. Dark and drizzly in London, it was now a clear cloudless sky, the landscape crystal bright under the moon's glow, the atmosphere bitterly cold.

  'It's so quiet now,' Paula commented. 'Incidentally, we're on the A355, so we'd better keep a close lookout. And it would help me if you slowed down.' She had her map open on her lap. She and Tweed were alert now after consuming the sandwiches from the deli. 'It's a turning off on the right, Lucinda told you?'

  'Yes. We've passed several with no names. Very helpful.'

  He slowed as they came to another turn-off, a country lane with an evergreen forest on both sides. Paula tapped his arm. He slowed down to twenty miles an hour.

  'This is it,' she said quickly. 'Heel Lane, Boxton.'

  'Now all we have to do is to find Ivy Cottage,' he remarked. 'And Lucinda said it was isolated.'

  'So keep crawling.'

  The forest hemming them in on both sides was dense, and mist began to drift across the lane. Tweed grunted, concentrating on his headlights as they swung round curve after curve. Paula was gazing to her right. No sign of any habitation, no sign of life, no traffic. She glanced back down an exceptionally long stretch of straight road. Nothing.

  'I think Harry missed the turning,' she warned. 'We're on our own.'

  'I've got my Walther,' Tweed told her.

  'And I've got my Browning, also my Beretta tucked down inside my boot - and this.' She produced from a sheath strapped to her right leg a knife. Tweed stared quickly at it and frowned.

  'Where did that come from?'

  'When I was down at the Surrey mansion training, the new chap in charge gave it to me. Made me practise using it against a leather dummy of a man. Wasn't satisfied until I'd rammed it in up to the hilt six times running.'

  'He offered me one,' Tweed said. 'I refused it.'

  'Attacked suddenly at close quarters, a knife can be the only answer.'

  She had just spoken when they heard an oncoming motorcyle. It was moving, had its light full on in a blinding glare. Tweed flashed his lights but they had no effect. Paula had a glimpse of a rider clad in leather with a large helmet and enormous visor. Impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman. Then it was gone.

  She blinked several times to clear her vision. Then she was watching to her right past Tweed. He was still moving the car at a snail's pace. She gripped his arm.

  'Stop! I think we've found it.'

  'I didn't see anything,' he responded as he applied the brake.

  'Then let's get out and look.'

  He locked the door, followed her. A rickety wooden gate stood half open, leaning over. The path beyond, illuminated by Paula's torch, was narrow and hard mud spattered with a few pebbles. Ahead he saw she was.right - there was an ancient thatched cottage with mullioned windows. It needed a coat of paint. Giant firs surrounded the cottage and it was quiet as the grave.

  'This is it,' Paula whispered.

  She was shining her torch on a grubby nameboard attached to the side of the house: ivy cottage. Tweed peered over his glasses. The name board hadn't been attended to for ages.

  'Damned silly place to put it,' he grumbled. 'Can't ever be seen from the road. Strikes me Lee didn't want anyone to find the place while she was here.'

  Paula was standing still, one hand close to her ear. She had acute hearing. In the distance, coming closer, from the same direction they had driven, she heard the sound of a motorcycle. Tweed now heard it too. It came closer, closer, then about a hundred yards from the cottage entrance it stopped. Tweed flapped a hand for her to turn off her torch, which she did. At the same time she gripped the butt of the Browning, hauled it out.

  'It's the same motorcyclist that passed us,' she whispered.

  The claustrophobic atmosphere of the cottage buried amid the walls of firs made her keep her voice down.

  'How do you know that?' Tweed asked sceptically. 'Probably several people use motorbikes in this neck of the woods.'

  'It had a souped-up engine which made a faint clicking noise. So did the machine that's come back.'

  'It might be safer inside if we can get in.' Tweed suggested.

  Paula turned round, lifted the rusty iron latch and realized the door had been slightly open as she pushed the heavy slab of old wood. Cautiously, she stepped inside on to a wooden plank floor. No luxury here. Twe
ed swiftly followed, closed the door almost shut, leaving it about a foot's width open. He didn't want the door to stick when they had to leave.

  A musty smell greeted them as they walked over a pile of envelopes which had been pushed through the iron letterbox. Paula switched on her torch, shielding it with her hand. She warned Tweed not to switch on any lights yet.

  Feeling her way round wooden chairs and tables, she went from window to window, closing the curtains, which needed a gentle tug. Then she called out to Tweed to find the light switch. To his surprise the lights came on, old workmen's lamps slung round the walls from hooks, the kind once used to warn motorists at night of obstacles.

  They cast a red glow over the interior. When Tweed checked them he found a continuous cable attached to each of them. At the moment he had operated the switch he hard the sound of a portable generator purring softly.

  'Lee was very clever,' he said. 'She realized she wouldn't be coming here for long periods, that the utilities would be cut off, so what does she do? She buys these old lamps and a portable generator, then fixes up cable linking the lamps and the generator. She must have been a technical wizard.'

  'You've seen the state the place is in?'

  Tweed had already observed that. The ground floor was one large room, a small kitchen let into an alcove. Old wooden cupboards standing against the walls had all their drawers pulled out, their contents spread on the floor. Tins and glass jars had been opened and emptied below the cooking area. Pushed against a side wall was a single bed, its mattress on the floor, slashed open.

  'Ransacked, just like that houseboat detective's place,' Tweed remarked. 'Now, a woman lived here for short periods. So where would she hide something important?'

  'You ask me that after someone wrecked the place?' Paula exclaimed indignantly.

  'I'm assuming the ransacker didn't find what he - or she -was looking for. Meantime, I'm going outside to make sure the lights don't show.'

  He slipped quickly out of the front door, toured the cottage, watching his footing to avoid brambles. Lee had been clever. The curtains were thick, so the glow from the red lamps didn't show from the outside. Lee had been something else again. He wished he could have met her.

  He arrived back at the front entrance, stumbled over the wooden ledge and sprawled into the room as the first bullet swept past him, shattering a mullion pane at the back of the cottage.

  Tweed hugged the floor as more bullets came through the door opening above him. He already had the Walther in his hand, had now seen die muzzle flash. He began firing at where the assassin must be lying behind a tall fir. Already Paula was flat on her stomach beside him, after crawling along the floor. She also saw the muzzle flash, waited until Tweed had emptied his magazine, then she aimed and fired, first to the right, then the left, then back again to the right and the left of the tree. She had worked out that the gunman would move to one side or the other of the fir to continue his fusillade.

  She was sliding in another magazine when she realized no more shots had been fired at the cottage. She waited. So did Tweed, thinking as she had done. Dead silence. No more shots.

  They remained perfectly still alongside each other. A few minutes later they heard the sound of the motorcycle starting up, the souped-up whine of speed. It was travelling away from them, heading back down the lane for the road to Beaconsfield, or wherever.

  'That was a close one.' Paula said as they stood up. 'I'm continuing my search.'

  'I wish you luck.'

  After a few minutes she arrived in front of a small fridge standing next to the kitchen, contents littering the floor. She opened the fridge, bent down, peered inside its emptiness. A truly foul odour of rotting food assailed her. She ignored it, then reached in with her bare hands and clawed at the back. The fridge colour was cream, but the rear struck her as lighter in colour.

  Her persistent fingers removed a slim panel glued to the rear wall. Behind it was a cream-coloured envelope. She took it out, stood up, called out to Tweed.

  'Could this be what you're looking for?'

  Putting on latex gloves, he opened the flap and took out a sheet covered with computer figures. He looked at Paula and grinned.

  'This is the key document which confirms the pattern for murder I've slowly built up in my mind. It confirms four hundred million pounds have been sent by electronic transmission from Bone in Angora to someone in Britain. The reference number's the same as the one on the sheets Keith Kent decyphered for me. This must be the printout of the transaction, sent by post or courier to whomever received the four hundred million.'

  'Why?'

  'To reassure whoever mastered the deal with Angora.'

  'But whoever received this vast sum must have known they'd now got their hands on it,' Paula objected.

  'The sender in Bone must have been anxious to be certain that was the case, so they followed it up with confirmation. This is what Lee, searching the executive offices down at Gantia, must have found. A clever lady. Frightened that the killer would try to get it back, she hid it here in this cottage -ready to hand to Drago when he came back from abroad.'

  'So X, let's call the recipient of this fortune, found a way to become fabulously wealthy by supplying something of great value to Angora?'

  'Yes,' Tweed said. 'But I sense it wasn't that simple. Before any of this happened I believe X had in some way rifled the Gantia till, so to speak, to the tune of four hundred million. Then he lost the whole lot - or she did. So to put it back in Gantia's reserves - before Drago discovered it was missing -X, in a desperate state - worked out this deal with Angora.'

  'X had rifled the till of four hundred million, lost it, had to find a way of getting the same sum back to put it back in the till.'

  'You've got it, Paula,' Tweed agreed.

  'So you now know who the killer is?'

  'No, I don't. Because I don't know who the reference number belongs to.'

  There was a creak of wood under foot pressure near the front door. Paula had her Browning gripped in both hands as she took aim.

  'Don't shoot the guard, although maybe I deserve it,' said the voice of Harry Butler.

  He stood just inside the front door, both hands above his head, a small Uzi machine gun looped over his back. He had a downcast expression as he lowered his hands, walked up to them.

  'What are you talking about?' Paula asked. 'Saying you deserve it.'

  'I followed you from Park Crescent, keeping one car between us. Then, on the way to Beaconsfield, a car cut me off. I stopped just in time. By the time I drove on to the A355 I was well behind you, didn't see where you'd turned off. I was almost in Amersham when I turned back. I found Heel Lane. Just before I reached it a motorcyclist came out like a shell from a gun, raced back towards London.' He paused suddenly, staring past them. 'Hey, what's been going on? Those are bullet holes in the rear windows.'

  Tweed tersely related their recent experience. Butler's reaction was to rush back to the front door, close it, then to grab a tall, heavy, overturned chair and jam it against the door. He came back.

  'You know something? That motorcyclist thug must have followed me after he'd seen you leave Park Crescent. And I never spotted him in the dense traffic. Not doing very well, ami?'

  'Stop it!' Paula hugged Harry. 'Remember you saved our lives on the M3 when you found that bomb, I nearly missed Heel Lane on the way out.'

  'Strikes me,' Harry mused, 'Newman, Marler and Pete are wasting their time. Trawling Soho, the East End and wherever Pete is traipsing around looking for what's-his-name.'

  'Charmian,' said Paula.

  'First,' Harry explained, 'I heard a motorcyclist down on the M3 when this Frenchie placed a bomb in your car. Second, it was a motorcyclist who tried to gun you down here. Right? I thought so. This hasn't been thought out. The assassin has been watching the office, probably hides his machine in the greenery across the main road beyond Park Crescent.'

  'Sounds plausible,' Tweed agreed. 'Now Paula's found what I ne
ed, we'll get back there.'

  'The others will never find this Frenchie,' Harry said as they left.

  Marler was a walking machine. It was well after midnight and he was still prowling Soho. He'd accosted over a dozen of his lady informants, but had got nowhere. Charmian was either nowhere near Soho or had found a secret hideaway.

  He walked into yet another sleazy 'club'. Hard to see inside through the clouds of smoke. Professional girls sat at cheap Formica-covered tables, pretending to sip at a drink of coloured water, arguing the price with a man.

  A burly individual in shirtsleeves and braces grasped him by the arm. His expression was unpleasant, threatening.