The Main Chance (23 page)

Crystal was close to him now He raised his hand, swung it back to slap her face violently. If the blow had landed he'd have sent her reeling across the room. Tweed grasped his raised arm in a tight clamp.

`Marshal. First she's not a child, she's a young woman Second, you do not go round hitting women, whatever age they may be.'

Marshal, his face twisted in vicious fury, jabbed his elbow savagely into Tweed's ribs. That was his intention but Tweed stepped aside, clenched his fist and hit his opponent on the jaw with half his strength. Had he used all his strength the jaw would have been broken. Marshal was thrown back against the panelling where he slid down to the floor. He used a handkerchief to wipe a blood smear from his mouth. Standing up, he smiled engagingly at Tweed and Paula.

`We all have our moments of disagreement but they pass so quickly. I'm going out to park the Rolls round the back, then I'm off to get some shut-eye. Hope you both sleep well...'

`Did you see that look on his face before he got to his feet?' Paula whispered. 'Like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.'

`Thank you,' said Crystal as she ran to Tweed and kissed him. 'My defender.' Her expression changed. `And he got back not ten minutes ago. Nighty-night, and sleep the sleep of the just.'

Then she was gone, closing the door very quietly. Paula sagged into an armchair and Tweed joined her in a facing chair.

`Well,' Paula mused, 'that was quite something.'

`And Crystal told the truth,' Tweed said. 'When we got back I felt the bonnet of the Rolls and it was very warm. Marshal did get back very recently.'

`He had hours to drive back here from Seacove,' Paula said thoughtfully. 'Then drive on somewhere else, say as far as Dodd's End.'

Tweed was about to suggest they might as well get off to bed when the mobile buzzed. As he listened and said very little Bob Newman came into the library, bent down and hugged Paula. Then he sat in an armchair close to them.

Tweed's expression was grim as he finished the call. He sat pondering the conversation and then spoke.

`That was Buchanan. They have now got certain data on the methods Calouste uses. His strategy, if you like.'

`Well tell us,' Paula said impatiently.

`If he's working on a plan, and I think he is over here, he stays in the background. But if it doesn't pan out he gets aggressive.'

`What does that mean?' Newman asked.

`He's likely to move himself much closer to the scene of the action. To supervise it himself, I suppose.'

`What does that tell us?' Paula wanted to know, pushing a lock of black hair clear of her face. 'About here, I mean.'

`We know he's here,' Tweed went on. 'I'm sure we nearly trapped him at Heather Cottage. I'd wrongly assumed he'd then get a long way from Hengistbury.

`We can see that,' Newman intervened. What does it tell us?'

`He'll be frustrated. And there was the bullet fired at me outside the Hall.'

`Do get to the point,' Paula urged.

`It's frightening. His normal strategy will lead him to get closer to the target. Me. He's probably close, very close, to Hengistbury now as I speak.'

`Oh, my God!' Paula exclaimed.

`In that case,' Newman said cheerfully, 'we have to think of him biding his time while he's based somewhere near here. Maybe quite near.'

`There isn't anywhere that fits that description,' Tweed protested.

`Oh yes, there is,' Newman said grimly. 'Maybe I'm the only one who's noticed it...'

He broke off as Marler entered the room, his flying helmet dangling from one hand Paula waved a kiss and then spoke to him.

`Where have you been all day?'

`Oh,' Newman replied, 'he's been enjoying himself. Flying over East Anglia and then the Fens.'

`Weather wasn't bad,' Marler told her, 'and I just came in to say good night. I'm off myself for some shut-eye.'

`And where is Harry?' Paula asked when he'd gone.

`Harry,' Newman told her, 'has been prowling The Forest all day. Took a snack lunch with him. He's convinced danger will come through The Forest.'

`And now,' Tweed intervened irritably, 'maybe Bob can go on with what he was saying.'

`I took Harry's car today and motored slowly into Gladworth to get a pack of cigarettes. A distance from here Bella's high wall curves away from the road. Beyond The Forest takes over again. Not far from there is an unmade drive to a small ancient house called Shooter's Lodge. The house is like a lodge.

`I do remember catching a glimpse of it,' Paula confirmed. 'Looks very run-down.'

`And,' Newman went on, 'after hearing Tweed tell us what Calouste's tactics are when a plan isn't going well, he moves in close to the target.'

`Sounds unlikely,' Paula commented as she got up while Tweed also stood up. 'Time for bed,' she announced.

`I'll stay up a bit,' Newman said. 'I'm very alert.'

Tweed followed Paula up the staircase, several paces behind her. She was yards ahead of him along the corridor when he coughed briefly to clear his throat. The door he was passing opened and Lavinia stood just inside. She was still wearing her white polo-necked jumper and short skirt. She stood in her stockinged feet, arms folded.

`I recognized that occasional cough,' she said with a welcoming smile. 'Come in for a minute. I want to talk to you.'

`It's rather late...'

She took a step back to encourage Tweed to enter the apartment. He felt disturbed by the sight of her, the deep blue pools of her large eyes. He felt a rising urge to follow her inside.

`I like you,' she said in a soft voice. 'And I think you like me.'

`I do find you intriguing,' he admitted.

`Then we can have a drink of something together. Coffee or something stronger.'

He had both hands inside the pockets of his jacket and he suddenly realized they were clenched tight. Glancing down the corridor he saw Paula still standing outside her door, her apartment key in her hand. Lavinia caught the glance. She leaned out of the door.

`Hi, Paula. Had a tough day? I'd say Tweed has. Can hardly keep his eyes open.' She smiled. 'Get a good night's kip, both of you.' She gave Tweed a wide smile, then closed her door.

Tweed followed Paula into her apartment, which she had opened by the time he reached it. She was grinning as he sank into an armchair. From a cupboard she fetched a bottle of wine and two glasses, which she filled, placing them on a table. As Tweed reached for his glass she perched herself on the arm of his chair. They clinked glasses, drank.

`What's so funny?' Tweed asked her. 'You were like the Cheshire Cat.'

`She's after you. She likes you. I heard her say it. I can understand it. She's in her thirties and prefers older men. She's also very intelligent and regards younger men as big kids.'

`Well, absolutely nothing happened.'

`You find her intriguing,' she teased him.

He sat up straight, slapped his hands on the table, his face grim.

`She's a suspect in two particularly horrible murder cases, along with a number of other people. If she were guilty I'd give the evidence in the witness box straight. I would do it, knowing the judge would send her down for life with no option for parole. It's my job. I'm still a policeman at heart.'

`I know you are.' She laid a hand on his shoulder. 'It is one of a dozen reasons I like you.'

24

`I'm off to bed, sir,' Snape said to Newman as he entered the library.

`No, you're not. I want you to stay up until I get back. So you can open the gates when I walk out and open them for me when I get back.'

`A walk? At this time of night?'

`That's what I said. So get cracking and open the gates...'

Newman left by the exit on the lawn. Walking on pebbles in the drive might be heard by someone. Reaching the road, he turned left towards Gladworth. Walking under the overhead canopy of fir branches was an eerie experience. It was so damned quiet and nothing moved. No breeze. Just the sinister silence.

Arriving at the point where the Hengistbury wall curved away from the road, he slowed down. He moved very cautiously as he reached the unmade drive leading to Shooter's Lodge. The drive was ankle-deep in pine needles. He listened. No sound from the lodge and no lights in any windows. It was too quiet.

By now his night vision was functioning well. The lodge was about ten yards back from the road, on the right of the drive. It was very old, as Paula had said, built years ago of grey stone; it was one storey high with a steep sloping roof and wide stone square chimneys rearing up. The entrance had a long stone-roofed porch protecting it. Too quiet, Newman said to himself again. Yet it had all the appearance of being uninhabited.

With his Smith & Wesson held down by his side he began to walk up the drive, his soft-soled shoes making no sound as they pressed deep into the carpet of pine needles. He thought he saw a movement behind the largest chimney, stopped, waited, stared up. Nothing.

Then he noticed a complex web of radio-like wires attached to the chimney. This was the first sign this place was not all it pretended to be.

Inside Shooter's Lodge an alarm button had flashed red as Newman trod through the pine needles on the sophisticated pressure pad. Two men in the kitchen at the rear looked at each other.

One was dressed in a velvet jacket and trousers. He wore a Jewish-style cap on his head and gold-rimmed pince-nez on the bridge of his long, strong nose above thick lips. He had a professorial look.

His companion, Jacques, was a contrast. Taller and heavily built, his hands were huge. He produced from a leg sheath an ugly wide-bladed knife. He made a gesture of cutting a throat, pointed outside.

The professor frowned, shook his head, pointed first up the chimney, mimicked taking a photograph. Jacques nodded, then carefully removed a sheet of metal from the base of the chimney. Bending his head, he shinned up a ladder leading up the chimney to the roof.

The Professor bent down, removed a heavy floor rug, dug his fingers into a slot, heaved, hauled up a trapdoor, went down a series of stone steps into the vast cellar. Jacques would follow him by the same route. Warmth from the cellar drifted upwards.

The cellar was luxuriously furnished. Wall-to-wall carpet covered the floor. Heat came from a log fire which the Professor hastily damped down. Then he calmly sat on a sofa and began studying an old book entitled
Weapons in the Middle Ages
.

Jacques took his photo of the intruder walking towards the porch with his non-flash camera. Climbing back inside the chimney onto the ladder, he closed the cleverly designed stone door, descended the ladder, re-entered the kitchen, carefully put back into place the stone-coloured metal sheet.

His only real problem was closing the trapdoor after taking several steps down towards the cellar. The heavy kitchen rug had a strong adhesive attached to its base.

Once this was accomplished he slotted the trapdoor back into its place and descended into the cellar. His large hands were sweaty as he sat down on the sofa beside the Professor, who was calmly reading his book. Without looking at Jacques he took a large blue handkerchief out of his pocket, handed it to him. Jacques used it to dry his hands.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Jacques produced the small camera, extracted the photo he'd taken from behind the chimney. The Professor always paid for the best — the camera worked without a flash and yet took clear pictures in the dark. He handed the print to the Professor who examined it over the top of his pince-nez. Nothing in his expression registered a reaction.

He reached for a notebook on a nearby table. He wrote in it with care. Then he handed it to Jacques, watching him closely as Jacques read the words.

Robert Newman. Key member Tweed's team
.

Jacques lurched forward, his wide-bladed knife already in his hand. The Professor reached forward with one hand. With surprising strength he placed it on Jacques's chest, pushed him back into the chair. Then he used two fingers of the same hand, pressed them against his lips. Not one word, his gesture signalled. He resumed reading his book.

On the floor above, Newman was checking each room. When he entered the second bedroom the same atmosphere met him. The bed was made but there was mould on the sheets. And everywhere he went he walked through cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. It seemed even chillier inside the lodge than it was outside.