by Colin Forbes
'Which authorizes you not to answer any question affecting military security. No, I haven't quite finished. Colonel Barrymore. I understand the three of you returned to Cairo forty-eight hours ago. That means you were all in the city last night. Where were you between the hours of nine and eleven? Last night. And that has nothing to do with military security.'
'If you must know…' Barrymore sounded as though he were having trouble stifling a yawn. 'All three of us were getting some well-earned kip aboard a houseboat on the Nile. The location is top secret.'
'Any witnesses to confirm your story?'
Despite his tan, the hint of a flush of blood appeared on Barrymore's face. He stood up and Humble saw for the first time his khaki drill trousers were thrust into the tops of gleaming leather cavalry boots. Walking to the door, he opened it.
'I am not accustomed to being insulted in front of subordinates. May I suggest the interview is concluded? That you both leave now. If you please.'
Humble stood up, nodded to Partridge, and strode out of the room. The door closed behind them as they headed for the lift.
'Botched that one, didn't I?' observed Humble. 'Sprawled right into it. Gave him just the excuse he was looking for to chuck us out. What did you think of them?'
'Funny trio. I couldn't get it out of my mind there was a lot of tension under the surface.'
'Which there would be if they've just returned from some mission to the Greek islands. They're Special Operations Executive – and commandos to boot.'
'SOE? Then that explains…'
'It explains a lot,' Humble interjected as they ignored the lift and walked down the staircase. 'It explains why some flaming desk wallah of a general at Grey Pillars provides Barrymore with a letter giving total immunity from questioning. It explains why he could throw me out on my ear. And we can't check their alibi. That houseboat is where the SOE plan operations. It's called Tara. Don't know why – but it's off limits even to us.'
Partridge waited until they were settled inside the jeep before he asked his question. First he paid off the chief urchin of the gang guarding the vehicle. 'Not enough!' the urchin screeched. ' Imshi! Yallah!' Partridge bawled. They ran off, shouting obscenities.
'Did you notice Captain Robson qualified his statement that he'd never met Ionides? As far as I know I've never set eyes on the chap.'
'You spotted that, too? You're learning. Gives him an out if we came up with a witness who saw them talking together. Any idea how the murder was done?' he asked as he started the vehicle moving.
'From our visit in the night it seems impossible. The only way out is the front entrance – guarded by the Sudanese receptionist. Our people searched the place from top to bottom. No one there. All windows are barred. You can get out on to balconies from certain rooms on the upper floors. But you're thirty feet from the ground. Yet the killer had to be behind that locked door Higgins tried before he went into the next room.'
'And we found traces of blood in the bathroom. My bet is Higgins sat on that lavatory seat quite a long time. I can't say I blame him – but that was when the murderer was cleaning himself up before performing his vanishing trick.'
'Unless the Sudanese receptionist was bribed?' 'I talked with Selim. I've carried out enough interrogations in my time to know he wasn't lying. You know something. Partridge? I've a hunch we're not going to solve this one.'
'This is a bloody waste of time. You do know that?' Humble rapped out as he pulled the jeep into the kerb in front of the Antikhana Building. It was dark, the street was deserted.
Partridge checked his watch. 'Ten o'clock. The exact time Higgins arrived back on the night of the murder. I want to walk right round the outside first. Then go inside – just like Higgins did.'
'You're on your own, laddie. I'll wait here. And watch it at the back. The native quarter…'
Partridge jumped down on to the pavement and began walking slowly away from the entrance steps. Although it was dark there was plenty of light from the street lamps. He looked up as he walked, stared at the projecting balconies with their iron grilles.
It was very quiet. The only sound the smack of his shoes on stone. No one about. Probably it had been like this on the night of the murder. He turned the first corner of the building and the side street was a canyon of gloom. He unbuttoned his holster flap, felt the butt of his Service revolver. Butterflies in the stomach. The silence became oppressive, sinister.
He turned the next corner, walking more slowly, trying to make no sound. Across the narrow street to his right loomed the ramshackle tenements of the native quarter. Black as pitch now. He looked up again. The roof of the building was a blurred silhouette against a distant background of star-studded sky. He heard a scuffling sound and his hands were moist. A half-starved cat scuttled across the street.
Completing the circuit, he saw Humble leaning over the wheel, the red glow of a cigarette near his mouth. He mounted the steps, pressed the bell. An SIB sentry opened the right-hand door, Partridge showed his pass, went inside, nodded to the Sudanese behind the desk.
'No one in the building?' he asked the sentry.
'Yes, there is, sir. Colonel Barrymore is still in his office. Professor Guy Seton-Charles is also working late. And Sergeant Higgins is sitting on the staircase.'
'Why?'
'Better, maybe, sir, you ask him that yourself.'
The heavily built ex-tank commander was seated out of sight on the sixth step. Hunched forward, hands tightly clasped, he looked embarrassed and stood up as Partridge appeared.
'Sorry, sir. It's just that I can't go up there alone. I'm waiting for Clanger Wilson, my room-mate.'
'Let's go up together. I'm on the way to the roof myself.' Partridge hastened to put the burly sergeant at his ease. 'Why Clanger?'
'It's his nickname. Nothing malicious. He's always knocking things over. Bit like a bull in a china shop. Everyone likes him. Just a bit of fun. Calling him Clanger.'
'I think you're sensible to wait for company,' Partridge assured him as they climbed the staircase together. Think I'd have done the same thing myself in your place. After all. we still have to catch the blighter. Does Colonel Barrymore work this late often?'
'He's still here?' Higgins sounded surprised. 'Never known that to happen before. Not that any of us have a clue what that lot do. We call them the Hush-Hush Boys.'
'Let's look in on him before we go on the roof.'
Partridge opened the door to the office where a light shone from beneath it without knocking. Barrymore was bending over a file behind his desk. He looked up, closed the file quickly and laid a hand flat on it.
'I saw the light,' Partridge explained quickly.
'What the devil do you mean invading my quarters without so much as a warning knock?'
'I've just explained that. I saw the light and thought maybe someone had forgotten to turn it off. And I smell smoke. Is that mineral water, sir?'
A metal wastepaper basket stood by the side of the desk with smoke drifting up from inside. Partridge had pointed to a large glass jug on the desk next to a tumbler. 'Yes. Your powers of detection are extraordinary.' Barrymore noticed Higgins standing in the corridor. He jumped up, strode towards him. 'What are you doing? Snooping around at this hour?'
Barrymore's back was turned when Partridge picked up the jug, doused the papers burning inside the basket. Stooping, he retrieved an intact remnant with a few visible words. Report on Siros raid. He turned to face the door. 'Higgins is with me. We were just making our way to the roof.'
Then kindly make your way.'
As Partridge, cap under his arm, walked back into the corridor Barrymore slammed the door behind him. Going back to the hie, he emptied more sheets into the basket and set light to them.
Partridge was walking alongside Higgins towards the corner of the building when a door opened. A man of slim build wearing a pale civilian suit emerged from an office and locked the door. 'Who is this?' Partridge whispered.
'Professor Gu
y Seton-Charles. Boffin type.'
Twenty-three years old. Partridge recalled from his study of records at GHQ. Rejected for military service on grounds of poor eyesight. The thin-faced man walked towards them hugging a green file under his arm. Everything was thin. Hands, his long studious face. He wore rimless glasses.
'A word with you, sir.' Partridge produced his identity card. 'SIB. We haven't got around to interviewing you yet. What is your precise job here?'
'Difficult to be precise about anything. All problems have shades of meaning. I am concerned with propaganda to the mainland.'
'Mainland?'
'Greece. The authorities are getting it all wrong, of course. The left-wing ELAS andartes are the real guerrillas fighting the Germans. The Republican EDES lot are hopeless. But can I convince people here? Even if ELAS are Communist?'
He spoke in a pedantic petulant tone and was obviously launched into a lecture. Partridge stopped him.
'Propaganda? Greece? Then you must have worked with Ionides.'
'Never, my dear chap. No idea why those two – Gavalas and Ionides – were here. Making jobs for themselves, I suspect…'
'We must go,' Partridge interjected. 'We'll talk later.' He headed for the end of the corridor. 'Funny type.'
'We've given him a nickname. Cuckoo.' Higgins chuckled.
'I'll lead the way,' Partridge suggested tactfully and began to climb the stone spiral staircase. It was very narrow, curving sharply, and there was no lighting. He felt his way up the wall with one hand, emerging suddenly on to the rooftop.
It was flat, enclosed by a waist-high wall with an iron rail on top. Higgins led the way, heading for one of a row of cabin-like structures erected on the rooftop. Taking out a key, he opened the door, switched on the light and showed Partridge his sleeping quarters. Alongside either wall leading from the door to a window at the far end was a camp bed neatly made up with Army blankets. Higgins indicated the one to his right.
That's where Clanger sleeps. Luckily we arrived at the unit early enough to grab a cabin. Better than being billeted in Kasr-el-Nil Barracks across the road. No privacy in that madhouse. I'll show you round. Not a great deal to see. Except the Pyramids.'
Partridge made for the side of the roof at the back. Behind him he heard Higgins relocking the cabin door. His macabre experience had shaken the ex-tank commander to the core. Partridge placed a hand on the iron rail perched half a foot above the wall-top, gripped it, tested its strength and peered over. The dark canyon facing the squalid tenements of the native quarter was like an abyss. It was very quiet as Higgins joined him and made his remark.
'I heard you hadn't been out here long, sir. Going into the native quarter is forbidden. For a very good reason. Lord knows how many squaddies have staggered in there dead drunk. They never come out. The body is found days later by Military Police patrols. Throat slit. Wallet gone.'
'So it would take a brave man to go in even stone cold sober?'
'Sober – and armed – he'd probably be all right. Let's look at something more savoury.'
They walked across to the wall overlooking the front entrance. Below, Humble was smoking behind the wheel of his jeep. Higgins pointed south. 'There they are.'
In the far distance, by the light of a waxing moon, Partridge saw the dark silhouettes of the Pyramids of Giza. He pulled at his shirt. He was sweating but the temperature seemed to have dropped suddenly.
'My Gawd! Look at that. Here she comes,' Higgins commented.
What seemed like a black cloud was blotting out the moon, the Pyramids below. Partridge had the impression smoke from a huge forest fire was sweeping into the city. It was a sight which stayed with him for the rest of his life.
' Khamsin. Sandstorm. Ever seen one?' asked Higgins. 'You've a treat in store. Inside ten minutes that cloud will blot out Cairo like a London pea-souper. Better get back to your jeep – you'll be lucky to make it back to GHQ…'
Humble had the engine running when Partridge ran down the steps of the building. He glared and moved the gears as Partridge jumped aboard.
'I was about to leave without you. Khamsin coming.'
'How did you know?' Partridge asked as the jeep rocketed down the deserted streets, exceeding the speed limit.
'That breeze that's flapping your shirt, you stupid bugger. What kept you?'
'I think I know now how the murderer escaped without being seen.'
'Great! And you know who the murderer is?'
'No. No idea…'
'Great again! I think my hunch was right. We'll not be solving this one.'
And Humble was right. Up to a point. The case might never have been solved but for a man who hadn't even been born as they raced through the streets. A man called Tweed. Over forty years later.
PART ONE
The Moor of Death
1
May 1987. It was another rainy day in London. Tweed stood by his first-floor office window gazing across Park Crescent to Regent's Park. Seated behind her desk, his assistant and confidante, Monica, watched the Deputy Director of the Secret Intelligence Service.
'A penny for your thoughts,' she said. 'You're not here – you have that faraway look.'
'Harry Masterson,' he replied. 'Why has he chosen Greece for his holiday? Dammit, he's Sector Chief for South-East Europe. You'd think he'd want to get as far from that part of the world as possible.'
'He does speak fluent Greek – among his other languages.'
'And you saw him in Bond Street the day before he was due to start his leave. With an attractive girl you think was Greek.'
'So, it's simple. Harry is divorced, has lots of girlfriends. This time it's a Greek. Maybe she wanted to go there, felt homesick.'
'I'm not convinced.' Tweed, a compact, clean-shaven man in his forties who wore glasses, sat behind his desk, began cleaning the glasses with a handkerchief. Monica frowned. He often performed that action when he was disturbed. 'Harry can't take a proper holiday,' Tweed continued. 'He once told me he's bored in three days without a problem to get his teeth into. He's been out there for three weeks.'
'And not a word from him, you mean?'
'But there has been a word – if you can call this a word. I got in early this morning. This came in the post.'
Unlocking a drawer, he took out a package shaped like a cigar box. The wrappings were still intact although the package had been opened. Monica stood up, came round and stood by the side of her chief. The address was written in Masterson's clear bold hand. Marked 'Personal'. The stamps were Greek. Tweed lifted off the top packing where he had carefully slit along the edges. Inside was a cigar box.
'From Harry Masterson. I don't like it,' Tweed said grimly. 'It looks like pieces of evidence he's collected about an investigation he's working on. And sent to me in case something happens to him.'
'Aren't you over-reacting? What's inside the box?'
'See for yourself.' Tweed flipped back the lid. 'That girl you saw him with in Bond Street before he left for Athens. Is this her?'
He rummaged among a collection of papers, photographs and a small notebook. Selecting one of the photographs, he placed it on the desk.
'Yes, that's her,' Monica said, studying the picture. 'I'm sure of it. She looks slimmer in a white dress. Good figure. She was wearing a coat when I saw her. I wonder where it was taken? Looks like somewhere in Greece.'
'Look on the back. Zea. Wherever that might be. Notice anything odd about the picture?'
There are a lot of expensive-looking pleasure craft moored behind her. And beyond, the buildings are stepped up a hill. What's odd?'
'I'm damned sure the girl didn't know her picture was being taken by Harry. She's looking at some book. I think he took it surreptitiously. That's suggestive in itself. I don't think he trusted her…'
'Don't use the past tense…'
'Come in,' Tweed called out as someone rapped on the door. A slim, fair-haired man in his early thirties with an air of self-assurance entered. 'Marler, your ti
ming is perfect as always,' Tweed commented. 'You know Greece fairly well. 7 He handed him the photo. 'Harry Masterson took this picture somewhere in Greece. Any idea of the location?'
Marler examined the print, turned it over, smiled drily. 'It all links up if it's Harry, doesn't it? An attractive female, a small port, very exclusive, millionaires' yachts. Nothing but the best for our high-life Harry. This is the port of Zea. It's along the coast road from the main Piraeus harbour.'
'Why so exclusive?' Tweed asked. 'Apart from the floating palaces? Drug traffickers can afford those boats these days – if they're at the top.'
'Because just behind Zea is the Royal Yacht Club. Nowadays it is officially the Yacht Club since Greece became a republic.' He picked up a magnifying glass from Monica's desk. 'Bet you a fiver some of these still have the initials RYC on their sterns. Are you on?'
'No. I'm fed up with losing money to you.'
'And you would have lost.' Marler was peering through the magnifier. 'Two of the yachts berthed do have those initials. A bit of rather nice snobbery,' he commented in his upper-crust voice. He laid down the glass. 'What's this all in aid of, if I may be so bold?'
'I'm worried stiff about Harry.'
'For what good reasons?'
Marler, dressed in an immaculate pale linen suit, blue-striped shirt, matching blue tie and handmade shoes skilfully weighted in the toecaps – 'useful for kicking your opponent in the balls' – sat down in Tweed's armchair. He lit one of his rare king-size cigarettes. Crossing his legs, the epitome of relaxation, he fixed his blue, ice-cold eyes on Tweed.
'Reason One, why choose part of his working sector for his holiday? Oh yes, I know he likes the sun, but the Caribbean would have served. Reason Two, he always sends a rude postcard. No card. Reason Three, instead he sends this cigar box with stuff which looks to me like clues about an investigation he's conducting. Reason Four, Harry gets bored easily – so if someone has approached him with a problem which intrigues him he'd jump at the chance of occupying himself with it.'
