Cross of Fire (36 page)

'I may have the time, I may not,' she said abruptly.

Dawlish tossed back half the double Scotch he'd ordered.
He held on to the glass as he spoke in a mocking tone.

'It would be a unique experience. A day - and a night -
aboard the Cat.'

One of the men gave a braying laugh, cut it short when Dawlish glanced at him. Paula was convinced she was being subjected to calculated pressure. To run her out of Aldeburgh? Berthier, immobile as a statue, continued to stare at her from behind his bloody glasses. A man walked slowly into the pub from the rear entrance.

Tall, so tall his hatless head almost touched the beams,
he wore a trench coat, which showed damp patches. He
must have walked along the promenade from the Brudenell. He wore no gloves on his large hands.

Victor Rosewater paused, looked at Paula, Berthier, and then at the nearby table, his strong face showing no particular expression. But now there was complete silence as he remained standing there.

'Paula, you look as though you've had enough of this
place. Care to come for a stroll?'

'Who asked you to interfere ...' Brand began.

Rosewater turned his gaze on the heavy-set man. He said
nothing and Brand subsided in mid-sentence. No one
seemed anxious to argue any more, to mix it with the
newcomer.

'Yes, Victor,' Paula said quickly, standing up. 'I have had enough of it. I'd welcome a stroll.' She looked at Berthier.
'Thank you for the coffee ...'

Rosewater escorted her through the pub to the front exit
on to the street away from the front. They began walking
back along narrow streets parallel to the front and lined
with quaint houses.

'This way,' Rosewater remarked, 'you won't get that lovely suede coat splashed by salt water. As you can see from my trench coat the waves are now crashing over on to the prom.'

'Thank you.'

And he was showing consideration which never entered
the head of Berthier, she thought. She looked up at him
curiously.

'How did you know I just wanted to get to hell out of
that place?'

He smiled. 'I'm a bit sensitive to atmospheres. Seemed
you were uncomfortable. That the reason could have been
the people in the place. A rum bunch, I thought. And the
chap you were with didn't seem to be helping all that
much.'

'He says that he's a salesman of marine spare parts - that his name is James Sanders.'

She felt it might be important to put Rosewater on his
guard against Berthier. She'd thought about it for a split
second before saying anything. Rosewater was on to it
instantly.

'Says?
You sound as though you don't believe his name
or his way of earning a living.'

Rosewater had slowed down. Paula had long legs but he had much longer: he had realized she was hurrying to keep
up. Not only did he seem to have all his marbles: he was
considerate in little ways.

'I don't.' she replied. 'I suspect he's some kind of con
man. I could be completely wrong.'

Despite the rapport between them, Paula had no inten
tion of revealing information which Tweed would regard as highly confidential. They walked in silence for a minute and
neither seemed to feel compelled to talk. Rosewater took hold of her elbow, guided her down a narrow thoroughfare
into the High Street.

'Where are we going?' she asked.

'You can get quite a good lunch at a place called the
Captain's Table. If s quiet - at this time of the year - the
service is good, the food quite edible.'

'Sounds a marvellous idea...'

Anything to get away from the atmosphere which had
hung like a dark cloud over the Cross Keys. Somehow she
equated it with the dreadful night when Karin had died.
Why? She wasn't sure.

The Captain's Table was a small restaurant, an oblong
room with just a few tables beautifully laid for lunch. Paula
thought it was more like a room in someone's home than a restaurant. A distinguished-looking man welcomed them,
escorted them to a window table overlooking the High
Street, handed them menus and left them alone.

'That man in a British warm,' Rosewater began, 'isn't he Lord Dawlish? I've seen his pictures in the magazines.'

'Yes. Lord Dane Dawlish. Millionaire. Supermarket and armaments king.'

'He was talking to you when I came in. Said something
about a cat. You know him?'

'Yes...' She explained how she had interviewed Daw
lish, how he had shown her the extraordinary diorama, that
the Cat was a catamaran, a big job. She left out any reference
to the presence of Newman and Marler at the shoot, to the fact the Dawlish had come on strong with her.

'And those men with him.,' Rosewater went on as he
closed the menu, 'a bunch of roughnecks if ever I saw one. Who are they?'

'I recognized two of them from my visit to Grenville
Grange. They're members of Dawlish's staff.'

'Crewmen from the
Steel Vulture?'
Rosewater suggested.
'Incidentally, I'm having the roast lamb. I had it the other
day and it was good.'

'I'm having the same.' She paused, smiled. 'How come you turned up at the Cross Keys at just the right moment?'

'I followed you and that chap from the hotel,' he said
frankly. 'I didn't too much like the look of him. I'd seen him
the night before in the bar. Why does he wear those dark
glasses all the time?'

'He says he has weak eyes, that daylight hurts them. I
think that was very sweet of you - to act as my protector.
And your mind must still be full of Karin,' she said gently.
'Is that
why you're still here? In the hope of finding a clue as to who did it?'

'Something like that.' he said in his reserved manner. He gave Paula the impression of a man under iron self-control.
Almost superhuman endurance. Like a bloodhound, she
thought, following the scent.

'These interviews you do for women's magazines.' he said after their meal had been served. 'Is it a sideline? Is your main work with Tweed's company?'

'Yes, Tweed is my boss. I'm his personal assistant -I do a lot of the confidential research for insurance cases.' she chattered on blithely. 'That's my main line of work. It's confidential, so I can't talk about it much.'

After a satisfying meal washed down with a bottle of
Chablis - Rosewater found out she didn't like red wine - he
escorted her back to the hotel. There was no rain but an
army of low clouds like grey smoke was scudding inland, seeming to skim the rooftops. The wind had increased in
force, hurtling down the High Street like air through a wind
tunnel. Paula felt she might be swept off her feet. As though
guessing her state of anxiety, Rosewater slipped a firm arm
round her waist.

'We don't want you blown out to sea.' he joked. 'And the met forecast is for worse to come. Gales up to eighty miles
an hour tonight...'

He still had his arm round her waist as they went inside the hotel, climbed the stairs, ran smack into Newman and
Marler in the hall. Rosewater released her, said he'd enjoyed
her
company, and vanished inside the elevator.

'So you haven't been lonely.' Newman observed, his
expression grim.

'You object?' Paula flared up, mistaking the reason for
his expression.

'No. We have something to tell you.
Dunwich ...'

*

Major Lamy left the British Airways aircraft which had flown him from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to
Heathrow.

He had checked that the troops were in place in Lyons. From there he had flown to Paris by Air Inter. Waiting for his flight to London, he had phoned an obscure British car hire firm, ordered a Rover in the name of William Prendergast. The forged passport in the same name was the one he presented to Passport Control. With a strong following tail wind the flight had taken only forty-five minutes.

Carrying the small case he had taken aboard the plane,
Lamy left Passport Control behind and walked towards the
Customs exit. He wore a British business suit under a
Burberry raincoat and his shoes were also British. He was the archetype of an Englishman back from abroad.

Lamy didn't notice in the crowd of passengers a tall, fair-haired man standing watching the flight arrivals. Jim Corcoran, a friend of Tweed's and Chief Security Officer, checked one of the small photos rushed to him from Park
Crescent by motorcycle courier. He looked at the back of the photo. Major Jules Lamy.

Corcoran followed Lamy, keeping a certain distance
behind him. He noticed Lamy bypassed the carousels where
passengers were already waiting resignedly for their suitcases to appear one day. He followed Lamy through the
Nothing To Declare
Customs aisle.

Lamy increased his pace as he left the Customs area.
Several drivers stood behind a barrier holding up cards with
names.
William Prendergast.
Lamy went up to the girl hold
ing up that name. Corcoran could have stopped him
immediately, charged him with travelling on a false pass
port - unless he'd used his real name at Passport Control. But the request made by Tweed's assistant, Monica, had
been specific.

Corcoran followed Lamy and the girl to the short-term
car park. Up the ramp, across the bridge, inside the park.
He took out his own car keys, twirling them as he followed
the couple. The car Lamy climbed inside was a Rover - after
he had paid the girl with a sheaf of banknotes and dealt
with the formalities. Corcoran memorized the registration
number, tried to follow the girl, who wasn't wearing a
uniform, but she vanished.

When the Rover had driven off Corcoran ran back to his office. Locking the door, he dialled Monica's number, hoping to speak to Tweed.

'He's not here, Jim,' Monica said quickly. 'He had to dash off somewhere. Have you any news?'

'Sounds like Tweed - dashing off. Yes, one of your
subjects in the photos just arrived aboard a BA flight from Paris. Travelling under the name William Prendergast in a
hired Rover, registration ... Major Lamy.'

Monica thanked him, broke the connection, was working non-stop for the next hour. She phoned a contact at Vehicle
Registration, Swansea, gave him the number and the code
confirming she was SIS. Vehicle Registration reacted with
almost unique speed, phoning her back in ten minutes,
giving her the name and address of the car hire firm in
London. She didn't make the mistake of calling the company
direct. Instead she phoned another contact at Special Branch,
gave him the data, stressed how urgent it was. Inside three-quarters of an hour Special Branch called her back.