Dangerous Games (19 page)

T
he Blackburn Beverly C.1. transport plane was ninety-nine feet long and had a wing-span of a hundred and sixty-two feet. Its maximum weight for take-off was nearly a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It could reach a top speed of two hundred and seven knots, fly at sixteen thousand feet and had an operating range of one thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine miles. It had seen service in military operations in the Middle East and Far East, and was generally agreed to be one of the most successful planes of its kind ever built.

Monika Paniatowski had known none of this when she had entered the tail boom through the parachute doors, but a young flight lieutenant, who was the only other passenger, had been more than willing to fill her in on all the details.

He had a great deal to say about Cyprus, too.

‘We'd occupied it since the latter half of the nineteenth century, as a result of the Treaty of Berlin,' he said, ‘but it wasn't until the end of the First World War that it became an actual colony, and even then, it was almost by default.' He paused, and grinned sheepishly. ‘I'm a bit of a history buff,' he admitted.

Paniatowski smiled. ‘I think I was beginning to gather that,' she said.

‘I kept it to myself at first, but then my mother found out about it, and she's had me lecturing to half the Women's Institutes in the Home Counties, when I'm home on leave. But there isn't any reason you should have to endure it.'

‘It's no hardship at all,' Paniatowski protested. ‘I really am interested. And I've got a question I'd like to ask, if I may.'

‘By all means, go ahead.'

‘If we got Cyprus mainly by default, why did we make such a fuss about giving it its independence?'

‘Ah, that was because conditions had changed in the meantime,' the lieutenant said. ‘In 1954 we pulled our forces out of Egypt, and, for want of any real alternative, it was decided to make Cyprus the military headquarters of our Mediterranean zone of operations – and that was as good as saying that we intended to keep it as a colony for ever.'

‘But the Cypriots didn't like that?'

‘You can't really talk about the Cypriots as such, you know,' the lieutenant said.

‘You can't?'

‘Absolutely not. There's the
Greek
Cypriots, who make up about eighty percent of the population, and the Turkish Cypriots who make up the other twenty percent. The Greek Cyps wanted the island to be united with mainland Greece, which is all of five hundred miles across the Med. The Turkish Cyps looked on Turkey as their homeland, which is not really surprising, considering that it's a mere forty-three miles away.'

‘But it was the Greek Cypriots, rather than the Turks, who were actually fighting us, wasn't it?' Paniatowski asked, feeling slightly ashamed that she was so vague about something which was still very recent history.

‘That's right, it was the Greek Cyps, though they did occasionally take time off from fighting us, so they'd have the opportunity to have a go at the Turkish Cyps as well. The organization that actually led the terrorist campaign was called EOKA. The name comes from the Greek words …' the lieutenant closed his eyes, as if he really needed to concentrate, ‘…
Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Aguniston
.'

‘And that means?' Paniatowski asked.

‘The National Organization of Cypriot Fighters. They were led by a chap called Grivas, who'd been a colonel in the Greek Army during the war, and had led a pretty heroic resistance campaign against the Germans. And all the skills he'd learned in that war, he turned on us. There couldn't have been more than a few hundred guerrillas at most, but it needed more than 40,000 British troops to even
contain
the insurgency, never mind defeat it.'

‘So in the end, we just gave up?' Paniatowski suggested.

The lieutenant looked quite shocked. ‘Great Britain
never
gives up,' he said, then seeing the sceptical look in Paniatowski's eyes, he continued, ‘But in 1960 we did … er … decide to compromise a little, by granting the island its independence, as long as the new government was prepared to guaranteed us two British bases in perpetuity.'

‘What's the island itself like?' Paniatowski asked.

‘Small by the standards of some islands in other parts of the world, but quite big for an island in the Med.'

Paniatowski smiled. ‘And what does that mean exactly?'

‘It's a hundred and forty miles long, and – if I remember correctly – it's fifty-nine miles in breadth, at its widest point.'

‘Is it mainly flat?'

‘Not at all. It's a very mountainous place, with the Kyrenia range in the north, and the Troodos massif to the centre and west. It was in the mountains that the guerrillas hid out in the early stages of the conflict, though later they moved into the towns.'

‘So, no beaches?' Paniatowski said disappointedly – though she had no idea why she
should
feel disappointed, since, as Woodend had pointed out, there'd be no time for sunbathing.

‘There are some very fine beaches,' the lieutenant said. ‘Look out of the window, and you'll see for yourself.'

Paniatowski
did
look out of the window – and realized immediately it was a mistake. This was her first ever flight, and up until that moment she'd pretty much been able to ignore the fact that she was in a big metal tube, high in the sky and with no visible means of support. The sight of the island below made such self-denial no longer possible, and with slightly trembling fingers she opened her handbag and took out her cigarettes.

The flight lieutenant shook his finger at her in a slightly chiding way. ‘There's no smoking on RAF flights,' he said. ‘Didn't they tell you that when you were on the ground?'

Of course they had, Paniatowski thought – but she'd managed to very conveniently forget. And the last thing she needed right at that moment, she told herself, was a bloody flight officer – who seemed to have no fear of the situation at all – reminding her of the regulation. Still, she supposed that rules were rules, even if it was the last rule she ever lived to obey.

‘Sorry,' she said, slipping the cigarettes back into the handbag.

The plane's smooth downward progress was suddenly interrupted by a series of rapid bounces.

‘Nothing to be alarmed about!' the flight lieutenant said. ‘We just hit an air pocket.'

It should have reassured Paniatowski – but it didn't.

An air pocket, she thought. What the hell was an
air pocket
? The words didn't make any sense, because what else would anyone expect – up in the bloody air – if not
air
?

In an effort to stem her rising panic, she forced herself to focus her mind on the case.

Something had happened on that island below her – an island on which she might eventually land safely! – which had cost the lives of two men seven years later, and could yet be the cause of more deaths.

So what had Terry Pugh
done
that had merited decapitation?

What crime had Reg Lewis
committed
which meant that he ended up hanging from a crane?

‘We should be landing in another two or three minutes,' the flight lieutenant told her, looking out of the window.

I'll believe it when I see it, Paniatowski thought, looking in quite the other direction.

Before his wife Maria had been murdered, Bob Rutter had always eaten a hearty breakfast each morning – though he had never been able to match the championship artery clogging efforts of his boss, Charlie Woodend – but since her death he had found it difficult to manage even a slice of toast. Now he usually contented himself with a cup of strong coffee, and two or three cigarettes, and that morning – as he scanned the morning newspapers – was no exception.

The papers were full of the murders, which was hardly surprising, given both the sensational nature of the crimes and the chief constable's eagerness to re-establish his own position by talking almost constantly to the press. But though Elizabeth Driver's own paper had gone to town on it more than most, there was no article which bore Elizabeth's by-line.

There hadn't been an article by Elizabeth in the previous morning's paper, either, despite the fact that – after she'd promised to keep it to herself – he had fed her information which would have put her well ahead her rivals.

So, it seemed to him, his gut feeling had been right. Despite both Monika's and Woodend's scepticism, Elizabeth was no longer the woman she'd been when they first met. She was trying to become a better, more honest, person. And if she could make that change, then perhaps he could too.

He tried not to think about her in a sexual way, though that was becoming increasingly difficult as time went by. He knew that he didn't love her, he told himself. Not as he had once loved his wife, and not as he still loved Mo …

An iron grille came down in Rutter's head, slicing through that particular line of thought before it could wriggle even further into his brain.

He took a deep breath, and started again.

He knew that he didn't love Elizabeth as he had once loved Maria, but he did yearn to hold her – to feel her firm and exciting body pressed against his.

But he must resist that temptation. The book they were to write together was all that mattered. He must not do anything that might get in the way of that.

Monika Paniatowski stood on the hot tarmac at Akrotiri Base, looking up at the Blackburn Beverly which had brought her there, still not quite able to understand how the heavy metal bird had managed the trick.

She was still looking at it wonderingly when she heard a Land Rover pull up close to her, and voice call out, ‘Sergeant Paniatowski?'

She turned. Sitting behind the driving wheel of the vehicle was a boy. He was wearing a lightweight military uniform which consisted of a grey socks, shorts, and a short-sleeved shirt which sported a single chevron on one of the sleeves.

‘A boy!' Paniatowski thought with horror. ‘I just called him a
boy
!'

The word had automatically come to her mind, because he was clearly several years her junior. And that had to make him a boy!

Didn't it?

Except that he wasn't. Looking at him objectively, it was difficult to see him as anything but a young
man
.

Paniatowski realized she was suddenly starting to feel very, very old.

The boy – the young man – was still sitting behind the wheel of the Land Rover, waiting for an answer.

‘Yes, I'm Paniatowski,' she heard herself say aloud.

The lance corporal grinned. Was she allowed to call it a
boyish
grin, she wondered.

‘I'm Bill Blaine, Sarge,' he said. ‘Why don't you hop into the vehicle, and I'll take you to meet the boss?'

DC Colin Beresford knew that many of his colleagues stayed in bed until the last possible moment. Then, in a flurry of activity, they shaved while they smoked their first cigarette of the day, ate a bowl of cereal while they dressed, and were out of the house in fifteen minutes flat.

He couldn't do that.

He had responsibilities.

The first thing he had to do, this morning as every morning, was to cook his mother's breakfast. The second was to sit there and make sure she ate it. That accomplished – and sometimes accomplishing it wasn't easy – he always set aside five minutes for talk, because the doctor had told him that it was important to make sure that his mother talked – that though it would not stop the slide into dementia, it might possibly slow it down a little.

These tasks having been completed, he walked around the house, making sure it was a safe place in which to leave his mother.

The main fuse in the kitchen had to be removed and hidden, because once she had turned on the cooker, forgotten she'd done it, and burned her hand badly.

The stopcock in the bathroom had to be turned off, to prevent a recurrence of the time the bath had overflowed and the flood had almost brought down the living room ceiling.

And finally all the locks had to be checked, to make sure that his mother couldn't leave the house even if she wanted to, since she had an inclination to wander, even if she were only wearing her night-gown.

When all that was done, he'd kissed her on the cheek.

Some mornings, she would look at him strangely, as if wondering why a complete stranger would ever do such a thing.

But this morning was one of her good ones. This morning, she smiled at him, and said, ‘Take care, Colin.'

‘I will,' he promised.

As he stepped through the front door – and then carefully locked it behind him – he felt as exhausted as if he had already done a full day's work. But that day's work still lay ahead of him.

In his pocket, he had a list of several men who had served in Cyprus at the same time as Terry Pugh and Reg Lewis – and he was rather hoping that they could explain to him why the two of them were now dead.

When Mrs Bygraves appeared at her front door, it was clear to Bob Rutter, from the haggard expression on her face, that she'd had little sleep the night before. Then she saw who'd been ringing the bell, and her face flooded with hope.

‘You've found him, haven't you!' she gasped with relief. ‘You've found my Tom. I knew it was stupid of me to worry.'

‘I'm afraid we haven't found him yet,' Rutter said gently, ‘but it is still early days.'

‘If you haven't found him, then why are you here?' Mrs Bygraves demanded, as hope immediately gave way to anger and aggression. ‘Why aren't you out
there
?' she gestured expansively towards the wider world beyond her home. ‘Why aren't you still looking for him?'

‘We
are
still looking for him,' Rutter assured her. ‘We've got scores of men out there involved in the operation. But that's not what I've been asked to do. My job is to search the house.'