by Colin Forbes
He lowered the window and the salty air was blown into the car by a breeze. He scanned the vast flatlands, the few dwellings dotted along the roadsides, separated from each other by miles. The great dyke edged the skyline. Now he'd switched off the engine the only sound was that of the whispering grasses, bending in the slight wind.
`You're very quiet,' he remarked.
Sensing his mood, that he wanted to drink in the atmosphere, she had switched off the radio when he stopped. It had been playing tango music.
`Hugh Grey made a pass at me while we were talking. He took me down a gulley leading towards the dyke. I told him to go to hell. He wasn't pleased.'
`Hence your flushed face when you arrived back?'
`I tried to conceal it – because of his wife. Paula and I didn't take to each other. Now I think I know why. He chases women and she knows it. We were like a couple of cats, circling round each other while you were out with Grey.'
`I'm sorry. On both counts. I'd hoped you'd enjoy the trip.' `Don't get into a fuss.' She laid a hand on his arm. 'I've enjoyed the scenery.'
`What did you think of Grey? If you can stand back and forget his outrageous behaviour?'
`Full of his own self-importance, but that could be me just being catty. Very able at his job, I'd guess. Good at operating on his own, capable of taking responsibility. Perhaps a bit impulsive at taking too many initiatives. Ambitious. In a few years he may quieten down. He apologized all the way back to me. I think he was frightened I'd give the game away to his wife. When do we eat?'
'As soon as we can. Somewhere on the way back.' He started the engine and drove off. 'Do switch on the radio again.'
She turned the knob. They were playing another tango. Diana leaned back against the head-rest, half-closed her eyes, began humming the tune softly. Tweed came to the end of the winding country road, turned left on the A17 leading to King's Lynn. He had a call he wanted to make.
`What is that music?' he asked.
`Jealousy. A tango that goes back to the twenties as far as I know. Paula's theme tune,' she added wickedly. 'We played it a lot back in the old Kenya days at parties. Don't mind me. I'm indulging in a bout of nostalgia. And you're looking very thoughtful.'
`Paula said something significant to me. A chance remark and I'm damned if I can recall it. Do you mind waiting in the car at King's Lynn?'
`Of course not. Looking for somewhere to eat?'
`No. I'm calling at the police station. I have to make an urgent call to the office.'
`Open all hours,' Inspector Cresswell said with a wry smile as Tweed sat opposite him. 'Last time you came I was on night duty. What can I do for you now?'
The short, dark-haired inspector didn't appear to have moved since Tweed last saw him. Except that this time he was smoking a briar pipe. It went with his stolid careful personality.
`Have you got any further with your enquiries into the murder of that girl Carole Langley?'
`You have a good memory for names. I expect it's your job. No fresh developments is the short answer. The file continues to gather dust. What about you?'
`Same answer. No fresh murders, thank God. By the way, when you were investigating the case when it was fresh, did you call on a friend of mine? A Hugh Grey at Hawkswood Farm. Gedney Drove End area – roughly.'
`I know the place.' Cresswell sucked noisily at his pipe. A wet smoker. 'As a matter of fact, I did. Called personally. Had a girl staying with him. They've married since. But you'll know all this.'
`Of course. Any joy?'
`Not a thing. They'd gone to bed early.' Cresswell chuckled but it was not a dirty laugh. 'They're inclined to do that in the early days. Neither of them had heard a sound. No cars passing their place in the early hours. Of course, if by then they were asleep…'
`So, no lead there.'
`Or anywhere else.' Cresswell watched Tweed over his pipe. `It's stretching things a bit, isn't it – to try and link up a murder in East Anglia with yours across the water?'
`It's stretching things a lot,' Tweed agreed as he stood up. `I'd better be getting on. Thought I'd just call in on you as I was in the area.'
`Very good of you. Maybe we'll see you again.'
`Always possible. Thank you. And goodbye. For now.' Tweed was relieved as he left the station and climbed behind the wheel. Despite his exuberant bonhomie, Grey had a careful discretion. Obviously he'd not said a word to Cresswell about the party, about the identity of his guests – and persuaded Paula to go along with him. That was important. A murder investigation leading to the heart of the SIS at Park Crescent would have been embarrassing, even dangerous.
I asked a passer-by,' Diana said, 'if there was a good place to eat here. She suggested The Duke's Head.'
`The Inspector told me the food was awful there,' Tweed lied. There was always the chance one of the staff would remember his last visit to Paula, something he wanted kept secret.
`There's a place at Woburn Abbey on the way back,' he said as he started the motor. 'And, if we can manage it, we'll pay a call on Master Guy Dalby this evening.' He frowned as he drove round the town, following the one-way system, which tripled the distance. 'I do wish I could remember what Paula said. It was a bit odd…'
Thirty-Two
Tweed had left Diana at Newman's flat for a few hours, driving on to Park Crescent. tie entered his office, closed the door and stood quite still. Monica sat behind her desk, her head stooped over a file. In Tweed's favourite arm chair Howard lounged, one leg propped on the arm.
`I've waited for you,' he said, which struck Tweed as the unnecessary remark of the year.
As always, Howard was faultlessly dressed. He wore a new navy pinstripe suit, inevitably Chester Barrie from Harrods. His spotless white shirt was bisected by his blue club tie. The cuffs were shot well clear of the sleeves. Gold chased cuff links shaped like slim barrels dangled from the cuffs. The black shoe at the end of his propped leg, which was swinging gently, gleamed as though made of glass.
`Is there a problem?' Tweed enquired as he sat behind his desk.
`Oh, nothing much. Just the fact that one of our four European sector chiefs has to be a rotten egg. Probably in the pocket of Moscow for years. A man you promoted, a man I brought into the Service originally.'
Tweed's expression showed nothing of his astonishment at this statement of co-responsibility. Monica's head shot up in sheer disbelief, then bent over the file again.
`Do you propose to return to Germany again?' Howard asked.
`Possibly. Depends on how things develop.'
`Come to ask you a favour, Tweed. To extract a promise from you.'
`What promise?'
`That when you return you take back-up.' Howard adjusted the plain navy blue display handkerchief in his breast pocket, swung his leg on to the floor and leaned forward. 'I suggest Harry Butler and Pete Nield. Both speak German. Both are good men to have in a tight corner.' He waved a large pink hand in a sweeping gesture. 'Don't care how you handle it. Take 'em with you. Send them on ahead. Up to you. As a favour to me,' he repeated. 'We're right in the shit on this one, aren't we?' He glanced towards Monica. 'Excuse my language.'
`I would say that sums it up, yes,' Tweed agreed, searching for a trap, finding none.
`Position is this. Correct me if I get it wrong. Fergusson went to Hamburg. I was taking a well-earned leave in France.' He smiled in a deprecating manner. 'Only five people knew Fergusson was going. Grey, Masterson, Lindemann, Dalby – and yourself. Fergusson gets the chop soon after arriving. One of our most experienced and cautious men. So they had to know he was coming. Which brings us back to the Frightful Four, one of them at any rate. Isn't that it?'
`That's it.'
`Of course, someone could have read the minute you recorded of the meeting…'
`Except that I deliberately made no mention of Fergusson's mission in it…'
`Highly irregular.' Howard smiled thinly. 'But the fact that you didn't proves someone's guilt up to the hilt. Pity
is we've no idea who that someone is. And by the way, if you don't mind talking about it…' Howard sounded utterly weary and he paused, obviously expecting an objection from Tweed. He raised his thick eyebrows when none came and went on. 'I gather you've seen Masterson, Lindemann and Grey so far on home ground, so to speak. Any luck?'
`Too early to say.' Tweed noticed Howard's look of resignation, so he explained. 'When you visit three men in little more than twenty-four hours – in their homes, as you said – the mind takes in a vast number of impressions. It's only after thinking about it later, sorting wheat from chaff, that you know whether you heard – spotted – anything significant. I need longer,' he ended firmly.
`Fair do's.' Howard stood up, brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve, straightened his tie. He paused at the door before he opened it. 'And Butler and Nield will be in attendance?'
`Agreed.'
Monica waited until they were alone, then threw down her pencil with such force the point broke. She sat very erect, tucking in her blouse.
`All the years I've been here, I've never seen him like that.'
`He's worried.'
`Of course he's worried! He knows the PM wants to get shot of him. You refused to take over his job after the Procane business. When this thing breaks – when you find who it is – she'll boot him out..
She stopped talking when the door reopened, Howard came in again, closed the door. His manner was apologetic.
`When you find the weevil in the granary I suppose there's no way we can keep it from the press?'
`Let's see what happens,' Tweed replied in his most soothing manner.
`Leave it all to you. Let me know if I can help.'
`There!' Monica burst out when they were alone again. 'What did I tell you? He's sweating out his own position. And why did you agree to Butler and Nield joining you when you return to the continent?'
`Because I may genuinely need them. This thing is getting bigger all the time. And poor Bob Newman may be lost forever.' `If he's behind the Iron Curtain…'
`He's there, all right,' Tweed said grimly. 'I must go now and collect Diana. Time to beard the Dalby in his den. Down in deepest suburbia.'
`You think it's wise to take this Diana Chadwick everywhere?'
`I'm taking her on trust…'
`Do that with a woman and you could be in dead trouble. I know my own sex.'
`The thought had already crossed my mind,' Tweed replied and left the office.
Diana walked into the sitting-room of Newman's flat from the bedroom. Tweed was looking at her shorthand notebooks spread out on the elegant dining table.
'I see you're studying English as well as German shorthand. Pitman's,' he remarked.
`I'm getting on very well. I take it down from radio talks. It's not all that difficult. Learning typing is the bore – I've got a portable I hired in the smaller bedroom. I'm thirty words to the minute – typing. With shorthand I'm up to ninety.'
`That's very good. Now, we'd better go. After interviewing Dalby we have to drive back here, then get dinner.'
`How do I look?'
He studied her. She wore a powder-blue dress nipped in round her slim waist and with a mandarin collar. Pale blue stockings and gold shoes. He blinked. She twirled round to give him the full treatment.
`Out of this world,' he pronounced.
She came very close. He caught a whiff of perfume. 'Can we go to the same place for dinner? The one with cubicles just off Walton Street? I'd love the pheasant again.'
`We'll see. If we get moving now we'll just miss rush hour and get down into Surrey before the armadillo cavalcades block the highways.'
`A lot of people living round here,' Diana remarked, waving her ivory cigarette holder.
`Swarms. Commuter country,' Tweed said. 'They all troop to Woking station for their daily ordeal. Best commuter service up to town round London.'
The main road from West Byfleet was tree-lined. Side roads led off. Battalions of newish houses marched into the distance. All to the same pattern. Neo-Georgian. They had open fronts, gardens leading to the sidewalk edge, American-style. They drove on.
`There he is. Dalby.' Tweed pointed with one finger as he turned a corner into a side road. It was the first house. A large porch supported a brace of twin pillars. 'King's Cross Station,' he commented as he pulled into the kerb.
In the middle of a sweep of neat green lawn Dalby was pushing a petrol-driven mower. The lawn was decorated with islands of tidy shrubs, rhododendrons and evergreens. Several of them were specimen shrubs, standing at attention like exclamation marks. Dalby switched off his machine briefly to shout.
`Welcome to Cornerways.' He made a quick gesture towards the open front door. 'Go inside, sitting-room is at the end of the hall. Be with you in a minute. Downstairs loo if you want it. Must finish this bit…'
The catlick dropped over his forehead from well-brushed hair. His garden clothes were a pair of grey flannels, the creases razor-edged, striped shirt and fire-red tie. The machine burst into a roar as he switched on again, his nimble figure pushing the mower again at speed.
There was a smell of fresh-mown grass in the balmy evening air as Tweed and Diana walked up the crazy-paved path. It was like Hampton Court, Tweed was thinking. On either side of the front door stood two expensive-looking pots. Inside each a hydrangea was in bloom. They'd been freshly watered.
`I don't know how he keeps the place like this – with his wife gone,' Diana whispered, standing in the hall.
The floor was woodblocks, highly polished, scattered with rugs placed exactly parallel to the walls. Tweed led the way into a large sitting-room running the full width of the house. Through the French windows at the rear more Hampton Court spread away, a candidate for an illustration out of Better Homes and Gardens.
Diana sat down in a blue-upholstered arm chair to one side of an Adam-style fireplace, crossing her legs. Tweed walked to the front windows and watched Dalby switching off the mower. He was wearing a pair of dark glasses. He came bustling in, legs moving like a marathon walker.
Tweed made the introductions. Dalby shook hands with Diana. Unlike Masterson and Grey he never gave her displayed legs a glance. He offered drinks and they both chose a glass of white wine.
`Splendid! I have a bottle of '83 Chablis in the fridge. You smoke?' he asked Diana. 'Light up then. No inhibitions here. Back in a minute…'
He returned with a silver tray supporting three elegant glasses. Sitting down opposite Tweed, he stared at him through his dark spectacles. Tweed had the oddest feeling he'd lived through this scene before.
`Cheers!' Dalby sipped, put down his glass, removed the spectacles. 'The light out there is incredibly strong. Where do you come from, Miss Chadwick?'
`Diana…'
`She's the sister of a friend of mine,' Tweed intervened, keeping to the story he'd used at Hawkswood Farm. 'On holiday from a job abroad. How are you getting on, Guy, on your own – if I may ask?'
`Why should I mind?' He turned to Diana. 'My wife, Renee, has gone back to France. Didn't like England. I didn't like her cooking. Garlic. With everything. Upsets my stomach.' He patted it. `We're much happier now.'
`You have some… help?' Diana enquired.
'The Doukhobor lady. Absolute treasure. Comes in daily. When I'm here she cooks as well as cleans. No garlic.'
`Still, it must have been a traumatic experience,' Diana ventured, her tone sympathetic. `I'm sorry.'
`Sorrow doesn't come into it.' Dalby held his glass up to look through it. 'You get these little local difficulties. Like losing a member of your staff. You just reorganize. Cheers!'
He spoke as though a shop had stopped stocking his normal cornflakes for breakfast. You simply changed to another brand.
`Your back garden looks really glorious,' she went on, staring out of the French windows.
`Come and have a look.' Dalby jumped up. `If you find one weed you get a bottle of champagne. Tweed, know you're not interested in gardens. Pile of Country
Lifes over there. Have a look at the house if you like. Biggish place. Four beds, three recep., my study, two bathrooms. Back soon!'
Diana followed him into the hall, clutching her handbag under her arm. Tweed could hear their conversation as they walked along the hall.
`What is a Doukhobor lady?'
`My nick-name for her. Very lat. Arms like tree trunks. Always wears a head-scarf. Looks like a Doukhobor. A Russian religious sect. Fled from Russia to places like Canada before the Second World War. Escaping religious persecution…'
The voices faded. Tweed stood up, walked quietly into the hall. He peered into the dining-room which overlooked the back garden, walked on. Dalby's study was at the end near the front door. He gently pushed open the half-shut door.
A small, square room, the single sash window overlooking the front porch and masked with a heavy net curtain. Tweed glanced at the piles of papers, the files, neatly arranged. Insurance policies and proposals, all headed General amp; Cumbria Assurance Co. Ltd. Excellent camouflage.
He turned to the bookcase placed against the inner end wall. Histories and travel books – Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Dalby's sector. But none on Libya or the Middle East – the forward penetration zones. More of the same on Scandinavia, Canada and the US. Nothing to do with his sector. More camouflage.
Leaving the study, pulling the door half-shut again, he went into a large rectangular-shaped kitchen looking out over the back garden. Modern equipment – dark blue formica cupboards and worktops. Eye-level cooker.
On the worktop next to the sink was a wooden chopping- block. An array of French beans, neatly chopped, lay under a wire-mesh cage. Tweed stared round, seeking a chef's knife. A magnetic knife rack was attached to the wall above the sink supporting a row of various knives. No chefs knife.
Through the windows, between two tall evergreen trees he saw Diana talking with Dalby. He was now wearing a smart grey jacket which matched his trousers. Tweed wandered back into the sitting-room. Compared with Masterson, Lindemann and Grey, Guy Dalby at home was exactly the same as he was at work. Normal was the word which sprang into his mind as he sat down again after collecting a Country Life at random. Completely normal.
