Cross of Fire (89 page)

'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 grap
pled, 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 Rosewa
ter, 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 mur
dered. 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 - Rosewa
ter 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.'