Cross of Fire

by Colin Forbes

  The light was fading faster than she had anticipated. She found herself thinking of Kalmar, the brute who had strangled poor Karin. It seemed ages ago. The ground was more mushy than it had been the last time she had taken this walk. She reached the point where the path forked - left back up to the road, right up the steep path to the dyke overlooking the yacht anchorage.

  She took the right-hand fork, picked her way along the narrow twisting footpath running along the ridge of the dyke. The tide was coming in, funnelling its way up the narrow channel parallel to the coast from the opening to the sea almost twenty miles to the south. That was when she heard the steady tread of footsteps coming up behind her at speed.

  Tweed parked his Ford Sierra in a slot by the wall of the Brudenell. Jumping out, he locked the car, ran to the entrance. Halfway up the stairs he stumbled, swore aloud. As he hauled himself up the rest of the steps, clinging to the banister rail, the receptionist appeared.

  'Is there something wrong, sir? Oh, it's you, Mr Tweed.'

  'I've twisted my bloody ankle. Sorry. Is Miss Paula Grey in the hotel?'

  'She just left. Went for a walk over the marshes ...'

  'Not by herself, I hope?'

  'Yes, no one was with her.'

  Victor Rosewater appeared from the direction of the bar. He stared as Tweed collapsed into a chair, stretched out his right leg with the ankle turned at an awkward angle.

  'Is there a problem?' he asked. 'Paula phoned me at my town flat to say she was coming here. Would I like to keep her company.'

  'So why aren't you doing just that?'

  'Because I didn't know she had arrived. I've been waiting for her in the bar.'

  'Isn't Robert Newman here?' Tweed asked the receptionist. He appeared agitated. 'He told me he was coming here.'

  'He arrived earlier, sir. He said he was driving over to Grenville Grange.'

  'Oh, no!' Tweed looked at Rosewater. 'He's convinced Kalmar is back in Aldeburgh. He must have gone to Grenville Grange to tackle Brand. He'll find Brand isn't at the Grange.'

  'What gave Newman that idea?' Rosewater pressed.

  'Because both Major Lamy and Brand are back in Aide-burgh. Now Paula has gone gallivanting off across those marshes. I'm really worried. By herself. She's in great danger. And now all lean do is hobble a few feet.'

  I'll go and find her.' Rosewater assured him. He lowered his voice. 'And I have my Service revolver with me.'

  'Then why the hell are you wasting time?' Tweed looked at the receptionist. 'Can you say how long ago she left here?'

  'A good fifteen minutes ago ...'

  'I'll get after her now. You nurse your ankle.'

  Rosewater had dashed down the stairs, clad in a trench coat, and had disappeared before Tweed could reply.

  'Is she really in danger?' the receptionist asked. 'I am thinking of what happened on the marshes once before.'

  'So am I. Pray God he's in time.'

  Paula could hear the incoming water lapping across the marshes below the dyke. It was coming in like a flood. Yachts moored to buoys were rocking under its impact, their masts swaying back and forth. She turned as she heard the hurrying footsteps. It was Victor Rosewater.

  Thank God it's you, Victor. I wondered who it might be.

  I felt I had to come and take one last look at where Karin died. A pilgrimage, as I said in Paris.'

  Rosewater clenched his gloved hands together. He looked out across the anchorage where a yacht swathed in blue plastic for the winter was drifting in fast on the tide. It must have broken loose from its buoy and was now drifting through the reeds close to the dyke.

  'Tweed has arrived at the Brudenell.' he told her. 'He's worried sick that you're out here on your own.'

  Paula had one hand inside her shoulder bag. She smiled at him.

  'But that suits you, doesn't it Kalmar?'

  'What the hell are you talking about?' Rosewater demanded roughly.

  'Oh, I should have known much earlier. Remember the night when we paid a second visit here with Newman - at your suggestion. You said you thought maybe the police had overlooked a clue. As we passed the Slaughden Boat Yard on the road you, said: "Which way now?" You made out you had no idea of the route here. Then when we came to where the path forks - one way back up to the road and the other less obvious path up to the dyke? I slipped. You were in the lead. You hoisted me straight up on to the dyke. I only realized what that meant recently. You knew where Karin's body had been found.'

  'You, my dear, are a bit too clever for your own good. In any case, I've been worried you might have seen me strangling that silly bitch from your treetop view.' 'Silly bitch? Karin was your wife ...' 'And getting very tiresome. Just like you ...' 'Jean Burgoyne was a friend of mine. You choked her, you bastard. Choked her to death.'

  'For a big, fat fee. That was a near run thing - at that remote boathouse outside Arcachon. But I'd done the job and got clear before your lot turned up.'

  'You cold-blooded bastard. God knows what else you have done.'

  'Organized Siegfried in Germany for one thing. As an Intelligence officer supposedly after IRA I had the contacts. For another big fee. Now you're the only one left. Isn't it ironic? You're going to die where your friend, Karin, did. Might give you some comfort...'

  He moved closer to her. She had half dragged out from her shoulder bag the Browning automatic when his right hand grasped her wrist in a grip of steel, twisted it. The gun dropped to the path. His gloved hands shot up to her neck, thumbs aimed at her windpipe.

  'You'll never get away with it,' she gasped.

  'Why not? Tweed has two suspects in the area. Foxy Major Lamy and tough guy Brand. Say goodbye, Paula ...'

  The thumbs pressed hard into her windpipe. She tried to knee him in the groin, but the tall figure looming over her turned sideways. Her knee hammered futilely against the side of his leg. His image was becoming blurred.

  The plastic cover over the nearby yacht had been ripped aside. Newman had jumped out, rushing over the ooze and clumps of grass, up the side of the dyke. He grasped a handful of Rosewater's hair, jerked savagely. Rosewater grunted, released Paula, swung round. The two men grappled, lost their balance, rolled together down the side of the dyke on top of the remnants of the craft where Karin had been found. Newman felt hands round his neck, used his shoulders as leverage to roll his body from under Rosewater, ending up on top of him. His own hands gripped Rosewater by the throat, forced his head down under the water below the wrecked boat. He held on. Rosewater's head was a dim silhouette under the surface. He opened his mouth to breathe and swallowed lungfuls of sea as he struggled to get free. Rosewater's head, hair matted to his skull, jerked above the surface. A hideous sight. Newman hung on, his hands squeezing tighter as he forced his antagonist deeper under the tide. Ignoring the desperate thrashing of the body, he held him down. Newman felt the hands round his own throat slacken, fall away. He relaxed his grip cautiously. The submerged body was lifeless.

  Soaked to the skin, dripping water, Newman clambered unsteadily to his feet. He managed a little wave to Paula, staring down, one hand massaging her throat. He climbed Everest, hauling himself up the side of the dyke, stood by Paula who was now gazing over the marshes.

  Newman heard the sound of an engine approaching. He saw a vehicle - a buggy with enormous tyres - bouncing towards them with blinding headlights. Shielding his eyes with his wet hand, he saw three men in the buggy as it stopped on the landward side of the dyke. Chief Inspector Buchanan, Tweed beside him, Sergeant Warden driving.

  'Look ... Bob,' Paula croaked.

  She was pointing to the other side of the dyke. The tide was receding. Rosewater's body, his shoes protruding briefly above the water, was being sucked rapidly down the creek, into the anchorage with the debris of the wrecked craft. Relics of the boat floated rapidly south. Tweed, showing no signs of an injured ankle, was the first to stand beside them.

  With his clothes clinging to him, Newman explained to the three men what had
happened, kept it brief.

  'We always thought it was Rosewater,' Buchanan told him. 'That business of discovering the ring with the Cross of Lorraine - pointing us away from Rosewater to France. Warden supervised an expert team searching the scene of the crime earlier. They would never have missed it. Problem was, no proof. But when a wife is murdered the first suspect is the husband.'

  'I think we should get these two back to the Brudenell and a hot bath.' said Tweed. 'And a freak high tide was forecast. The body may be washed all the way into the North Sea.'

  Epilogue

  A week later Tweed gathered all his team into his office. The bruises on the throats of Newman and Paula - which had convinced Buchanan of the truth of their story - had healed. Marler stood against a wall, smoking a king-size. Butler and Nield perched on Paula's desk while Newman occupied the armchair.

  'Who was Manteau?' Paula asked. 'I couldn't understand why there were two assassins.'

  'There weren't.' Tweed said, leaning back in his chair. 'Marler was Manteau. Only three people knew. Navarre, myself, and Lasalle ...'

  'But why?' Paula persisted.

  'If you'll keep quiet I'll tell you. It was my idea - part of the psychological warfare against de Forge. We knew he was using Kalmar, so I invented another assassin to throw de Forge off balance. Berthier had supplied Lasalle with the private phone numbers of Lamy and de Forge. It was really very straightforward.'

  'Straightforward? But Manteau was supposed to have engineered the wreck of the TGV express, the assassination of the President and the Prime Minister. And his trademark, a cloak, was found in a nearby village. A cloak was also found near the Paris Prefecture when the Prefect was murdered. And a third one near the boathouse when Jean Burgoyne was strangled. Marler couldn't have known those murders were going to take place.'

  'Agreed.' Tweed smiled drily. 'So before Manteau came on the scene Lasalle purchased a number of cloaks from a theatrical costumier in Paris. Trusted DST officers were given the cloaks, stuffed one in a litter bin near the Paris incident. The Paris Prefect, incidentally, was never killed. He went on the holiday he'd planned under an assumed name to Martinique. Officially, he recovered from the bullet wound recently, resumed his duties. It was hours after the TGV tragedy that a cloak was found in the village. Plenty of time to fly one to Lyons. Then the DST bribed an old man in a nearby village to tell the press he'd seen a man in a cloak on the viaduct. Another cloak was flown to Arcachon. Marler, in the role of Manteau, kept phoning de Forge demanding large fees for doing the jobs. When a large sum was delivered we obtained Swiss francs from a Paris bank, many in numbered sequence, and a lot of them counterfeit seized by the Paris police months ago. Marler returned the money to confuse de Forge even more.'

  'But who killed de Forge?' she asked.

  'My dear,' Marler drawled, 'don't you read the papers? It was a random shot when de Forge's own troops panicked during the overturned petrol tanker incident.'

  'Really?' she queried, and Marler nodded amiably.

  'Berthier, Lasalle's spy inside de Forge's GHQ, played a vital part,' Tweed continued. 'With a listening device he overheard Lamy's phone calls with Kalmar's contact in the office next door. Including the new targets - which is how we knew you were a target.'

  'Shivery.' she remarked. 'And for a while I liked Rosewater.'

  'Which is why,' Tweed emphasized, 'Butler and Nield stayed by your side - with orders never to leave you alone.'

  'When did you suspect Rosewater?' she asked.

  'I wondered about him from the first. Remember when we met him at the Hotel Drei Konige in Basle? He gazed with lecherous interest at an attractive woman in the dining room. To cover up, he suggested she was a spy. I'm sure Karin, working for Kuhlmann, began to suspect her own husband. He realized it, strangled her on the Aldeburgh marshes. From what he said to you he wanted to get rid of her anyway - so he could pursue his Casanova ways.'

  'Hideous man. But just that? Looking at another woman?'

  'No, far more. Newman caught on early. Remember he was with you that night the two of you took Rosewater across the marshes? Newman saw Rosewater hoist you on to the dyke without hesitation when you slipped - Rosewater who wasn't supposed to have a clue as to where Karin had been killed. He told me. From that moment you were guarded. The next thing which pointed the finger at Rose-water was Kuhlmann telling me his informant, Heinrich Schneider, had passed via Wiesbaden a list of addresses where Siegfried was based in Germany. But not a word from Rosewater even though Schneider had first told him. And when you came out of a restaurant in Arcachon after having dinner with Rosewater you later told me he'd suggested a ride in his car.'

  'That's right,' Paula agreed. 'Butler stopped me going with him, thank God.'

  'There was a red Porsche parked down the street. Rosewater turned away from it when Butler joined you. After you'd driven off Nield stopped the car so he could go back to find his wallet which he said he must have dropped

  'I remember ...'

  'Nield went to the corner, saw Rosewater climbing behind the wheel of that Porsche. What captain in the Intelligence Corps can afford a Porsche on his pay? There were other strange coincidences.'

  'Did they find Rosewater's body?' Paula asked.

  'No, which was a relief to the MOD. Think of the scandal. They've just posted him as missing in Germany. His body is probably at the bottom of the North Sea.'

  'You took a chance.' Marler remarked, 'using Paula for live bait.'

  'I agreed.' Paula replied. 'Insisted when I caught on it was Rosewater. I'd been rather a fool about him. But Tweed had Butler and Nield concealed behind the dyke in case Newman didn't reach Rosewater.' She looked at Tweed. 'But how did Dawlish smuggle those missiles?'

  'You told me, but only when I watched the Vulture coming into Arcachon was I able to recall it. At the beginning, describing your underwater swim with Karin at Dunwich, you said, "I thought I saw a great white whale." Unlikely in that part of the world.'

  'Then what was it?'

  'A dracoon - one of those very tough and large containers made of plastic they used to transport extra oil, dragging them on the surface behind tankers. Like a sausage. Dawlish was clever. The missiles, I guess, he brought in from a factory abroad, anchored off Dunwich, then stored the dracoons carrying missiles in the sunken village - hence his interest in underwater exploration. The Vulture could then sail safely into Harwich.'

  'So all is well?'

  'It is in France.' Tweed looked round the gathering. 'I think you all did very well. We helped to stop a military dictator taking power in Paris, which would have wrecked the new Europe. Major Lamy, who often supervised those hideous executions in the Landes, has been found dead in an Aldeburgh hotel. Shot himself. Captain Rey was found hanging in that horrible punishment well. Not popular with some of the troops, I assume. Now I think you'd all better go home.'

  'I'd better call on Isabelle.' Newman said, standing up. 'Just to make sure she's settled in the temporary flat we've given her in South Ken.'

  'Which is conveniently close to your pad.' Marler observed.

  'Pure coincidence.' Newman snapped.

  'And maybe Paula would like to join me for dinner.' Tweed suggested.

  'What a lovely idea.' Paula jumped up. I'll just go and fix my face.' She walked past Newman without a glance in his direction.

  Monica, who had said nothing from behind her desk, waited until everyone except Tweed had left.

  'Isabelle might just be joining the SIS.' Tweed remarked. 'She was one of Lasalle's trained agents.'

  'And your interview with the new PM before you opened the meeting here?' Monica enquired.

  'He apologized handsomely and without reservation to me. You remember Howard was told the PM was experimenting with a twin-track policy? Testing us, so to speak? He left it to the MOD to choose someone from Military Intelligence. They chose Victor Rosewater! The PM won't do anything like that again. Now, I must go and freshen up.'

  'Isabelle.' sa
id Monica. 'That's dangerous. She may have the training - Lasalle is a pro. But Isabelle and Paula working together? Trouble.'

  'They got on well enough in Arcachon. I saw it myself.'

  'Men!' Monica cast her eyes heavenwards. 'That was for a brief time in a dangerous situation. You've a lot to learn, about women.'

  'You're imagining it...'

  'Am I? Didn't you see how Paula walked straight past Newman without so much as a goodnight? All right, bring in Isabelle. And watch the fur fly.'