The Cauldron (17 page)

'I'm sure he will. He has no alternative. This means I've struck the first blow - only the first - in the offensive I'm launching against VB.'

'I don't follow you.'

"The tactic is to do everything possible to disturb VB. That picture of the dead woman who was dragged out of the sea in Cornwall is going to be splashed all over the newspapers. VB - and Joel Brand - will soon hear of it. That will alarm someone. And disturbed people make a fatal mistake - when they are unnerved.'

'It might work.' Monica agreed.

'It
will
work.' said Tweed with great force. 'I also want copies of those photos - and the Identikit Paula helped to create of the Pacific victim - sent post-haste to Cord Dillon.'

'Why? If I may ask?'

'You just did. I'm going to phone Cord later, tell him to do the same thing in California. To get those

pictures into the papers over there - the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
Los Angeles Times
and the local Monterey newspaper. Someone has to recognize those twins.'

'You are getting the pot boiling. You sound strangely ferocious.'

'I am ferocious. After the way that thug treated Paula. And what I've told you to do is only the tip of the iceberg. I'm going to attack VB from every possible angle. Get it moving, Monica ...'

11

In Cornwall Newman had spent time with Vanity Richmond. They had walked along a side road at the end of the hotel drive, had turned off it along a narrow rough lane, little more than a path, signposted Rosemullion. Vanity had suggested the walk.

"The proprietor of Nansidwell told me about this track.' she explained. 'Apparently it leads to a wonderful view of the sea and hardly anyone ever finds it.'

They were walking along a section where hedges lining high banks enclosed it. She looked at him sideways, her eyes half-closed as she made the remark. Her expression almost hypnotized him. He smiled, thinking how attractive she was. Her greenish eyes and the

enticing look she had given him made him want to grab hold of her in a passionate embrace. He resisted the

temptation.

'You strike me as a very lonely man.' she went on.

'Not really.' he lied.

It was quite a while since he'd had a girl friend. His time had been taken up with working for Tweed, an activity he enjoyed. Now he was beginning to wonder whether he was getting any fun out of life.

'Have you got a girl friend?' she asked.

'Not at the moment. I've been very busy.'

'And yet you haven't written many articles the way you did at one time. You do seem very reserved.'

"The morning isn't my best time. I'm rather an owl. I wake up, get going later in the day.'

'Oh, come on, Bob. No need to look so serious. You need some relaxation. Cornwall is the place where people relax. What a lovely flower.'

She reached up, picked a flower from the hedge, handed it to him with a ravishing smile.

'Put it in my hair for me.' she requested, turning her back on him.

He carefully inserted the flower, told Vanity it suited her. She swung round slowly. When picking the flower she had gone on tiptoe, revealing her shapely legs. While she was picking the flower, still reaching up to the hedge, she turned, gave him an up-from-under look. He had found it entrancing. Now she was close to him with no smile on her full lips. Her eyes stared into his, as though reading his mind.

'Old slow-coach.' she said softly.

He leaned forward to kiss her, touched her lips, and then she backed away from him and resumed her walk. His mind was racing, imagining what they could experience together. So why was the faint danger signal buzzing in his brain? Why did he suspect she had practised all these different expressions in front of a mirror - testing which would be the most desirable to a man? And why did he wonder if she was wearing contact lenses to give her eyes a greenish look?

'Race you to the cliff-top.' she called out over her shoulder and began running down the track, fleet of foot.

He let her get there first, running behind her. She had flopped down on the cliff summit. He sat down close to her and she moved herself away from him several feet. The heat beat down on them and soon Newman was aware that his shirt was pasted against his damp back.

'What a lovely spot,' she remarked, glancing sideways at him quickly, then gazing out to sea again.

'It's so very peaceful,' he agreed, stopping himself from moving next to her so their bodies touched.

Was she playing hard to get? he mused. Her look had again aroused his deep interest. What sort of game was she playing? Playing? It crossed his mind that she reminded him of a playgirl, constantly anxious that men would notice her. He dismissed the thought as nonsense, but still the danger signal was reverberating at the back of his mind.

They sat in the heat and watched the azure sea, the Venetia, still at anchor, distant yachts like white exclamation marks on the blue water. Vanity suddenly jumped up.

Time to go,' she said in a cold voice.

Newman was having trouble keeping up with her swift changes of mood. He talked to her part of the way along the track and then gave it up. She had not replied once. He decided he had had enough for the moment. He spoke as they reached the hotel.

'I have to go out,' he said, walking towards his Merc.

'Where are you off to?' she asked, following him.

Her manner had mellowed and she was smiling at him. He smiled back quickly, unlocked the car, got behind the wheel. She leaned in the window he had lowered to get some fresh air inside the car - the interior was like an oven.

'Bob, can I come with you?'

'Sorry. It's a business appointment.'

'You're not mad with me?' She gave him her most inviting smile.

'Why should I be?'

He smiled briefly back at her, switched on the engine. She leaned across him, turned it off. Then she stood back, arms by her side.

'I'll see you for dinner here, then.'

Saying which, she marched off into the hotel without a backward glance. He switched on the engine again and drove off. He had a long job to do. An urgent one.

Newman was 'trawling' the pubs. He had earlier assembled Paula, Marler, Butler and Nield in their cars a distance from the hotel in the side lane beyond the drive which led to a dead end.

With the aid of a map he had drawn up his plan. Each member of the team had an area to cover and would call at every pub in it. He gave Paula the hotels.

'Your job,' he told them, 'is to find out if there is a local man with considerable influence in this part of Cornwall. I'm looking for someone who might control the network VB has established. You all have mobile phones -1 hid mine from Tweed.'

'He doesn't trust the things,' Paula broke in. 'And I happen to think he's right.'

'Listen to me. If anyone finds such a person they simply call me and say, "Spot on." That way I'll know someone has got lucky. I'll inform the rest of you with the same message. If I'm the one who has tracked our target, all of you come back here. Park at intervals along the road. Very little traffic comes down here. If I've hit a potential target I'll call you all and say, "Spot on, as you said." The last three words tell you I've located what we are looking for.'

He had distributed maps to all of them showing their respective search areas. His own area was Forth Navas, the Helford River, and inland beyond. He adopted the same technique in every pub he visited.

After ordering a glass of French dry white wine he struck up a conversation with one of the locals. He drank very little of the wine, taking it with him at a certain stage to the toilet where he emptied it in a cubicle.

He had got nowhere with his casual conversations when he found himself in an inland village, Constantine. He sat next to a grizzled old inhabitant, had the same blank result. He asked the question when he was on the verge of leaving.

'Is there any other pub in the area where I can get something to eat? They don't serve food here.'

'Try the Trengilly Wartha Inn.' the old boy suggested. 'Go up top of hill...'

He gave Newman exact instructions, which was fortunate because he nearly drove past the side road outside the large village. A notice indicated it was five hundred yards to the pub. Newman grinned wrily. Cornish distances seem to differ from everywhere else in Britain.

'It's only thirty minutes.' he had been told many times when checking how far away somewhere was. He drove down a treelined lane, the trees forming an archway over the road. Again he nearly drove past his destination. A steep drive led up to the inn, a cream-washed building with a glassed-in room near the entrance.

The only place he could park his car among the other vehicles was in the sun. When he climbed out it blazed down on him like a blowtorch. He went inside, found it was full of cricketers, dressed in white flannel trousers and shirts rolled up to the elbows.

There was a jolly atmosphere and at the bar Newman deliberately ordered beer; it was something he never drank but it merged him into the crowd, standing with his jacket over his arm and tieless. He also ordered food. It was 2 p.m. - in the heat of the day.

'Cheers!' he said to a youngish chap who had just raised his own glass.

Tom Hetherington.' the red-faced youngster replied.

'Bob Newman.'

'Your face looks familiar. Not the foreign correspondent chappie, are you?'

'I'm afraid so,' Newman responded with a grin. 'And I'm trying to find someone around here high enough up to give me information.'

'A bigwig? That would be Colonel Arbuthnot Grenville at The Grange. You might get near him. I wouldn't. He's as snooty as hell. Thinks he's Lord of the Manor and all that.'

'Arbuthnot Grenville? Sounds a funny name.'

'Suits His Lordship, as you'll find out - if you ever meet him. Spends the summers here and then hikes off to California for the winters. Nice work, if you can get it, but how he manages it beats me. The Grange is mortgaged up to the hilt.'

'How do you know all this if you've never met him?'

Talk of the town - or rather the village - down here. I know it sounds like gossip, but he makes the mistake of quarrelling with servants, then sacking them. Servants can be nosy. They get their own back on him by spreading the dirt.'

'You said he wintered in California. Any idea where?'

'Place called Monterey. I looked it up on the map. It's south of San Francisco. You're thinking of trying to interview him? He won't see anyone except by appointment. At least that's what I hear. You're not thinking of living down here?'

'No. You live here?' Newman asked.

'Damned if I would. Join the runaways? Not on your life. I just come down here for the cricket for a month or so. I'm a stockbroker.'

'Sounds as though the idea of living here appals you. And you made a reference to runaways.'

'I wouldn't live here if you gave me a house. Lively as it is - if you have friends - down here in summer, it goes dead as a doornail from October on. Yes, I did call them runaways, didn't I? They've run from the routine of doing a daily job. Some weird types round here.'

'I hope you'll excuse me while I sit down and eat. Do you know how to get to The Grange?'

Hetherington reached over the counter, picked up the pad the barman used to write out orders, swiftly drew a map, starting from where they were.

'As you'll see,' he went on, showing Newman the sketch map, 'his place is well outside Constantine. You'll see it from the road - only house around there, a granite job with tall chimneys. Mind you don't miss the turning I've marked with a cross.'

'I'm very grateful for your help,' Newman said with a smile.

'Any time.' Hetherington grinned. 'I'd love it if I read an article you'd written on him. He hates publicity, keeps a low profile. But I have a feeling you could bluff your way in. See you...'

Newman ate his meal quickly, forgetting the second glass of beer he'd acquired when he'd bought a round for Hetherington. Leaving the inn, he walked out into torrid heat. The car was like a furnace. He lowered all the windows, opened the sunroof to its fullest extent and drove off, his jacket neatly folded by his side.

He stopped in a leafy lane, used his mobile phone, calling Paula first.