The Cauldron (38 page)

'She certainly moves.' Newman remarked, nodding towards where Vanity was swinging at speed round a bend and up a hill before disappearing. 'Like a whippet. Get anywhere with VB?'

'Drive me to Spanish Bay.'

Newman started the engine, drove off, realizing he was going to get nothing out of Tweed. In the back Marler, hunched up on the floor behind the front seats with his Armalite, waited until they were out of sight of Black Ridge before settling in the rear seat.

Behind them the BMW appeared, driven by Butler, who had collected it from outside Moloch's house. Nield sat alongside him. Tweed realized that the whole team had been watching over him. All the way along the highway he sat without saying a word, thinking of his recent experience. Nothing in his expression gave away the anxiety he was feeling.

'Go through Carmel.' he said suddenly. 'Drive around it. I want to get thoroughly familiar with it. Go up and down the streets and avenues.'

'Something wrong?' Newman enquired.

'I just have a sixth sense something unpleasant is going to happen...'

It was brilliantly sunny when they began. Newman drove along the avenues which climbed up from the sea, turned along the streets which intersected the avenues. The attractive town was laid out very precisely, its pavements lined with shops and restaurants.

"There's Paula with Vanity,' Newman said.

As they cruised past slowly Paula turned her head, waved a hand and smiled at them. Tweed told Newman to drive on.

'Still got that feeling something unpleasant is going to happen?' Newman asked.

'More than ever c'

'What a glorious peaceful day,' Paula said to Vanity as they strolled along, stopping every now and again to look in shop windows.

'It's wonderful.' Vanity agreed. 'We're on Junipero now, near the top of the town. Here's my Audi. Would you mind if I slipped off for half an hour to see a friend? She's had a bad time of it - lost her husband to another woman. I don't think you'd find the conversation entertaining.'

'Meet you on that far corner. Then we can have coffee together...'

Paula was not sorry to have time to herself. She had recognized Junipero and was close to the courtyard where Linda Standish had been murdered. She wanted to see if she could get inside the apartment Linda had occupied in case she could find something else the police had missed.

From a sunny street where locals were -walking and chatting she turned into the narrow entrance to the courtyard, stepping into a different world. The sun had gone, a disturbing silence filled the deserted courtyard and her heels echoed on the cobbles.

There was no breeze and the hanging baskets of flowers were motionless. She walked on into the main courtyard, turning a corner. When she looked back the streets of Carmel had vanished. She paused, gazed at the shops on the ground floor and they all had 'Closed' notices. The memory of Linda's horrible death hung over the place like a sinister shadow. Clearly business was temporarily at a standstill.

She looked up at the apartments above the shops. No sign of life anywhere. The silence, the lack of people, of movement gave her a creepy feeling. Why on earth had she come here? It had been purely on a whim. Then she stared at the iron staircase leading up to Linda's apartment. The door was slightly open.

Gritting her teeth, she opened her shoulder bag, gripped the butt of her Browning nestling in its special pocket. Then slowly, step by step, she began to ascend the staircase.

She wished she'd worn loafers. On the metal treads the soles of her shoes made a noise. She paused again, took off her shoes, held them in her left hand, crept silently up the remaining treads. The police had obviously abandoned the place - the tapes across the bottom of the staircase had been removed. There were no longer any signs of the macabre event which had taken place inside the apartment.

'Anyone at home.' she called out, standing by the open door.

She didn't want to walk in on Anderson, the detective who had been there when she had visited the apartment with Tweed. If startled, he might draw a gun on her. There was no response. Only an uncanny silence. She eased the door open with her foot.

In the gloom - the curtains were half-closed - the room looked just as she had last seen it. The empty desk with the chair pulled back gave her a weird sensation. Linda Standish had lived and worked here for heaven knew how long. She walked in, put on her shoes, held her automatic in her right hand, looked all round. The door to the toilet was closed.

She approached it cautiously, turned the handle, tried to push it open but it stuck. She remembered Anderson had used his shoulder to push open the door when she was last there. She stood surveying the room, trying to imagine any other hiding place Standish might have used to hide a vital document. She couldn't see anywhere she had missed.

With a certain trepidation she sat down in Standish's chair behind her desk, pulled it in. She had a hope that from this angle she might see a fresh hiding place. Her mood was not helped by the fact that the police had left the IRS tax returns Standish had been working on scattered across the desk. They were soiled with fingerprint powder. They never clean up properly, she thought, but she had had the same experience in Britain.

She noticed the faint bloodstains which still covered the desk in different places. Opening the top right-hand drawer she found it empty. The police had taken away the gun Standish had never had a chance to use.

'There has to be something here they overlooked.' she said to herself. 'Why didn't they send a policeman to check the place? Maybe they did.'

The silence in the room was stifling. She felt cut off from the outside world. But she was determined to stick it out, to stay until she was sure there was nothing more she could find. Then she noticed the camp bed, folded and standing against a dark corner. Beside it was a pile of blankets and a folded sheet. Had an American version of a squatter taken over the place?

She opened all the other drawers in the desk and found them full of notebooks which appeared to concern previous cases Standish had worked on. Paula skim-read each one, hoping that she might find something which would give her a clue as to why Standish had been killed.

Behind her the handle of the toilet door began to revolve. It was turned with great care from the inside. The freshly oiled door opened a few inches. The handle was released with the same slow care. A hooded figure in loafers emerged as Paula crouched over a notebook, rejected it and selected another. The figure made no sound, the feet clad in loafers. The gloved hands held a garrotte.

Paula was still crouched over the notebook when, too late, she was aware of another presence in the room. Two hands whipped the garrotte over her head, pulled it tight round her throat. The pressure increased. For a few seconds Paula was in shock.

The wire had immediately cut through the turtleneck of her jumper. Then it met the fine-mesh collar of chain metal Alvarez had supplied at Tweed's urgent request. Even so, it began to affect her breathing. She snatched the Browning out of her shoulder bag, still slung from her shoulder. Resting the barrel on her right shoulder, she pulled the trigger, firing at random. The bullet missed the hooded figure but the pressure on her neck relaxed as the garrotte was dropped to the floor.

The assassin stepped back, took hold of her chair, tipped her over sideways. Falling, Paula always subconsciously went limp. She took the force of the fall on her shoulder, but still held on to the gun as she heard soft footsteps running for the door leading to the outside staircase.

Forcing herself upright, she took a deep breath to counter shock. Then, gun in hand, she ran to and down the staircase. Her attacker had disappeared. She ran on towards the exit from the courtyard, held the gun behind her back as she was confronted by a coachload of tourists who had just disembarked, crowding the pavement. She pushed her way through them, looked up and down the street. The only people she could see were normal couples, strolling in the sun.

Concealing the gun inside the shoulder bag she had thrust back into position, she ran to the nearest corner, stood looking down an avenue. More couples, some stopping to gaze into shop windows. She waited, breathing heavily. No one seemed to notice the ragged tear across her turtleneck. Then she saw a familiar Mercedes approaching. She stood in the road, waved it down.

Tweed was out of the car almost before it had stopped. He noticed the tear immediately.

'What happened? Are you all right?'

'I'm OK. Could I get into the car?'

Like Newman, Marler had jumped out of the back of the car. Tweed helped her into the rear seat, joined her. Peeling down the damaged turtleneck, he carefully unfastened the zip at one side of her neck. All he could see were faint imprints where the chain mail collar had pressed against her neck. Again he asked her if she was all right.

'I'm OK.' she repeated and then told him what had happened. 'My throat's a bit sore but apart from that all is well.'

Newman had returned to his seat behind the wheel. Marler sat beside him. Tweed's reaction surprised them both.

'Drive me to the nearest phone booth...'

'Take Paula into that restaurant, both of you.' he ordered as the car stopped. 'Get her plenty of still water - no alcohol.'

He leapt from the car, dived inside the phone booth. He pressed numbers from his memory of a phone he had seen on Moloch's desk. The rough voice of a guard answered the call.

'I wish to speak urgently to Luis Martinez.' Tweed snapped.

'He's gone into Carmel to interview someone.'

"Then I'll speak to Byron Landis.'

'Gone to a lunch, also in Carmel. Say, who is this?'

'A close friend of VB. Obstruct me and you've lost your job. Put me on to Joel Brand.'

'He flew to the AMBECO building earlier this morning.'

"Then put me on to Mr Moloch.'

'He's not here. Look, buddy...'

He was talking into air. Tweed had put down the phone to join the others in the restaurant. Any of the people he had asked for could have been involved in the attempt on Paula's life. When he sat down opposite her he was surprised how normal she seemed. She was polishing off an omelette and drinking the strong American coffee. He waited until she used a napkin to wipe her lips.

'How are you feeling now?'

'Perfectly all right. Incidentally, when The Accountant - it has to be the person who tried to kill me - bent over me from behind I caught a whiff of an aroma I thought could be perfume. As you know, I have a good sense of smell. I was not able to identify it but I'd recognize it if I whiffed it again.'

'I see.' He looked at Newman. 'Where is Marler?'

'I sent him back to the Standish flat. Oh, here he is. Did you find anything, Marler?'

'Only the weapon - whoever tried to attack Paula dropped something I have inside a sample bag I took from the car.' He held up a large plastic carrier. 'I bought something from a shop to disguise, it. Inside here is a garrotte - with two wooden handles at either end of the infernal wire. I think there's blood on the wire - it could be the garrotte used to murder the Standish woman. There's also old blood on one of the wooden handles -probably used to inscribe the letters AC on her.'

'We'll hand it to Alvarez,' Tweed decided. 'His technicians will be able to check whether it's Linda Standish's blood.'

'I have to go.' said Paula, standing up. 'Vanity will be wondering where I have got to. I arranged to meet her.'

'Not by yourself.' Tweed warned.

'It would look peculiar if I turned up with a bodyguard.' she protested.

'She'll never see the bodyguard.' Marler informed her as he also stood up. 'But I'll be close to you c'

Vanity was not waiting on the corner where they had arranged to meet. Paula began to wander down into the town, peering in every shop. She already knew from Vanity that she had a passion for shopping.

She was passing a perfumery when she saw Vanity inside. A saleswoman was showing her a new perfume. As Paula watched, the saleswoman sprayed a small quantity of perfume and Vanity sniffed at it. She smiled warmly as she saw Paula entering the shop.

'Sorry I wasn't on the corner. I waited a while and then had a look at the shops down here. What do you think of this? It's a new perfume called Paramour. At least the name's enticing.'

'A bit strong, isn't it?' Paula suggested.

'I think you're right. Not quite me.' she said to the saleswoman. 'I'm in a rush. Come back another day.'