Cross of Fire (23 page)

She wandered in, looked round as though unsure where
to perch, then chose an empty table near Tinted Glasses.
Sitting down facing him, she crossed her shapely legs.
Tinted Glasses noticed her immediately. He hardly hesi
tated. Getting up, he walked slowly across to her, the glass in his hand.

'Excuse me. If I'm intruding I'll go away at once. I am on
my own and I wondered if we could chat. That is, unless
you're expecting someone.'

She smiled. 'I'm expecting no one. And we are fellow
guests. Do sit down.'

'After I've got you a drink.' He put his glass down. 'What do you fancy?'

'Would a glass of champers be in order? I prefer to stay
with the same drink ...'

She had listened carefully and caught no trace of accent. He brought the glass of champagne back, sat next to her, raised his own glass.

'Cheers! Here's to a memorable evening.'

'Cheers!' Paula responded. 'I'm afraid I don't have the
whole evening though. I spent too much time talking to Jean
Burgoyne a little while ago. In this bar.'

'Really? Who is Jean Burgoyne?'

'She's a well-known society girl. Gets her picture in the top magazines a lot. And sometimes in the gossip columns in the newspapers. She's just returned from France. Do you know France at all?'

'Excuse me. My manners must be slipping. I'm James
Sanders...'

'Paula Grey. You don't know France, then?'

Berthier adjusted his glasses, pushed them up the bridge
of his strong aquiline nose. He turned to face her. It bothered
her that she couldn't see his eyes clearly.

'As a matter of fact, I've just returned from Paris...'
Always stick as close to the truth as you can, Lamy had
trained him. 'A waste of time,' he went on. 'Business at this
time of the year is dead.'

'What business is that? I'm sorry, that was rather
personal.'

'Selling marine equipment. Wholesale and retail to pri
vate buyers. Boaty people. Which is why I'm here. Loads of
boaty types in Aldeburgh.'

She nodded. Was he piling on the English colloquialisms a little too heavily? She couldn't be sure.

'Isn't business pretty dead here. At this time of year?'

He swallowed half his drink. 'I hope to make contacts for the spring. My business is seasonal. Out of season you can often meet a lot of chaps who'll be interested when winter is just a bad memory.' He still faced her, the tinted lenses like soulless eyes.

'Vous en voulez un autre?'
Paula asked suddenly.

She spoke very rapidly the way a Frenchwoman would,
enquiring whether he'd like another drink. He moved, as though about to get up, then shifted his position, settling himself more comfortably. For a second she could have
sworn his face froze.

'I'm sorry.' she went on, 'I assumed you'd speak French.
Seeing as you have to do business in France.'

He grinned, waving his strong hands. 'I know I should but I don't. Usual British attitude - damned foreigners are
expected to speak English. As a matter of fact, they do - the
few people I deal with in Paris. And mostly I'm showing
them marine spare parts in a catalogue. So it's easy. What
did you say, actually?'

'I asked if you'd like another drink.'

'I'm the host.' he replied. 'How about another glass of
champers?'

'I've had enough. But I was suggesting I bought you one this time.'

'I think I've had enough too.' He adjusted his glasses
again. 'You're sure you can't join me for dinner?'

'I'd love to. But I've already arranged to have dinner with two friends.' She looked at her watch. 'And if you don't mind, Mr Sanders ...'

'James...'

'If you don't mind I'm expected in the dining room. It's
been nice talking to you. Good luck with making useful
contacts.'

She stood up and he stood with her, pulling his chair out of the way. He cleared his throat as though unsure whether
to say more. Then he came out with the invitation she was expecting.

'Maybe tomorrow I could take you out for a drive round the countryside? We should be able to find somewhere upmarket for lunch.'

She smiled. 'That's nice of you. But tomorrow's out of the question. I have an appointment. Maybe some other day. If we're still both here ...'

He was walking back towards the bar counter when she
left. A couple were walking out of the elevator and she
dived inside, pressed the button for the first floor. Tapping on Tweed's door in a certain way, she waited until the door was opened.

Tweed was dabbing his mouth with a napkin and he had a visitor. Marler, immaculately clad in a sports jacket and
well-pressed slacks, wearing hand-made shoes which
gleamed like glass, gave her a mock salute.

'I suspect the clever lady has been busy,' he drawled as
Tweed re-locked the door.

'Another helping of sandwiches?' Paula asked, eyeing the
plate on the table alongside a pot of coffee.

'You know I'm always hungry when I've reached the
stage of deploying forces.' Tweed sat down at the table. 'I've
just been giving Marler some very special instructions.' He indicated sheets of papers with names scrawled, some listed in groups encircled with loops. Dotted lines joined certain groups together. Tweed looked at Paula.

'Any luck with Newman's pseudo-Englishman? If he is.'

'Name, James Sanders. So he said.' She wrinkled her
brows. 'The devil of it is I can't be sure. He almost talks like
a foreigner with an excellent command of English, but
peppers his conversation with colloquialisms in a way I'm
not certain a genuine Englishman would. I threw a question at him in French - would he like another drink? He seemed
to start getting out of his chair, but the movement was so slight again I couldn't swear he was French. Verdict? Not
proven. Now I must get down to join Bob and Rosewater
for dinner, leaving you two to plot.'

'Tomorrow...' Tweed's expression was grave. 'Be
extremely cautious at Grenville Grange. I have a sixth sense
there could be danger inside that place.'

Chapter Fifteen

A Gothic horror.

Paula had stopped her car - borrowed from Nield - in
front of the closed wrought-iron gates which guarded Grenville Grange. At the end of a long curving drive she saw the grotesque mansion. Victorian architecture at its most hide
ous: a grey, three-storey pile
with a projecting wing at either
end; small turrets foresting from the roof; huge gargoyles silhouetted against the clear wintry sky.

She had driven out of Aldeburgh, turning left, speeding
along the A1094 past the golf course on her right. The
rolling green had been covered with heavy frost the colour
of
creme de menthe.
Turning left near Snape, she had driven
on past the famous Maltings, turning left once more along a
narrow country road to Iken. Frequently she checked the
road map open on the seat beside her. One more left turn
and she was out in the wilds with a view down to a wide
loop of the river Aide which looked like a sheet of blue ice.
Now this ...

She pressed her horn several times, a large figure dressed like a countryman appeared, holding a savage-looking wolf
hound on a leash which leapt towards her, snarling. Wel
come to Grenville Grange.

'What do you want?' the big man asked. 'Private
property.'

'Pretty obvious,' Paula called back. 'Paula Grey. I have
an appointment with Lord Dane Dawlish. At noon.'

'Show some identification.'

'Come out and damn well look for yourself.' she shouted
back. 'And keep that silly pup away from me. Or, alternatively, call up his Lordship and tell him you have stopped
me driving in...'

Glaring, the guard unlocked the gates, opened one, short
ened the leash, walked towards her. Paula noticed all his
clothes looked brand new. Not what she would have
expected from a guard.

She showed him the press card, one of several cards produced for her in the Engine Room basement at Park
Crescent. She hung on to a corner while he examined it.

'You'd better drive in.' he said grudgingly.

'So you did know I was coming?'

She smiled at his flushed face as he went back, pushed open the other gate, then jumped back as she rammed her
foot down, scattering gravel over the wolfhound as she
raced up to the house. A wide semicircle gave plenty of parking space below a wide balustraded terrace with steps
leading to the entrance.

She switched off the engine and immediately heard the
cr-a-a-ck
of shotguns firing. The shoot was in progress some
where behind the looming pile. She noted Newman's Mercedes
280E was parked at the edge of two rows of cars. About twenty vehicles with a number of BMWs, a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. Dawlish liked money at his shooting parties.
She checked the time. 11.50 a.m. Ten minutes early. She liked
to throw strangers she was visiting off balance. Sometimes you found out something they wished to conceal.

Locking the car, she avoided the steps up to the entrance,
wandered round the left-hand side of the mansion. At the rear a vast lawn bordered on two sides by walls of firs ran
down to a large landing-stage projecting into the Aide.

She counted about thirty guns, men of different ages, all
smartly - even foppishly - dressed. It was still barely above freezing point and she wore a knee-length suede coat and a silk scarf. The shooters were ignoring the black pottery shards raining down on the lawn as the shotgun-wielding men spaced round the edge of the lawn took it in turn with their twelve-bores. She saw Marler take aim as five more targets flew above the lawn. He missed three out of the five and in a brief silence she heard his drawling voice.

'Can't hit the damned things ...'

'Like hell, you can't, she thought. If you wanted to you'd shoot the lot out of the sky.

She looked up as she heard a chopper flying low. Skimming the treetops, it hovered, then flew on over the roof of
the mansion out of sight. Paula, thinking for a moment it
might be a Coastguard machine, tried to catch its identifica
tion markings. As far as she could see, it didn't have any.
Staring straight up the side of the house, she saw a satyr-like gargoyle leering down at her.

'Chap up there on the roof seems quite keen on you,' an upper-crust voice suggested.

She swung round and a young chinless wonder was
eyeing her with open interest. He had his shotgun perched over his shoulder at an affected angle.

'You must be one of his Lordship's harem of fillies,' he continued. 'He's over there...' He jerked his head. 'Waiting
for you, I'm sure - all eager beaver and able.'

Paula stared straight back. 'I've got another suggestion.' she said coldly. 'Why don't you drop dead?'