Vorpal Blade (3 page)

She approached it slowly, frequently beaming her torch
on the ground she would tread on next. More grass flat
tened slightly. She stepped into the circle, her torch aimed
point-blank at the smooth section joining the two arms.
Recently stripped of its back, it should have been white but
it was stained a dark brown, the colour of dried blood.

'I've found the execution block,' she said quietly.

They had hurried over to her when she beckoned.
Buchanan and Tweed crouched down to examine the smooth base. Newman was taking pictures with his
camera.

'Damn it,' said Buchanan, 'there's a narrow wedge in the
wood where the axe ended up after the blow that severed Holgate's neck. And there's blood behind the base and this
side of it, traces on the grass.'

'And,' Paula continued, 'the width of the base would comfortably fit the neck of poor Holgate. A makeshift
execution block, but it did the trick.'

'So what happened to the head?' Buchanan asked, look
ing up at her. 'Thrown into the river, I expect.'

'Maybe,' Paula said, 'but maybe not. I'm getting a
pretty horrific feeling about this murder.'

'We'll have to seal off this whole area,' Buchanan said,
standing up.

'And I wonder who lives in that big house over there,'
Paula said, pointing.

Less than a quarter of a mile away, downriver, was
the only small hill for miles around. Perched on top
of it, just visible in the moonlight, was a large ancient
two-storey mansion, Tudor-style. No sign of life as they
all gazed at it.

'There was a light in a side window a moment ago,' Paula told them.

'No light there now,' Buchanan said dismissively. 'It
must have been your imagination. The place is empty - I
visited it when I was here earlier. Wrought-iron gates were padlocked. I scrambled over a wall, went to the front door,
rang the bell time and again. No one at home. Walked
all round it. Blinds closed over all the windows. Had an
unoccupied feel.' He turned round, clapped both hands
to his mouth, shouted at the top of
his voice.

'Guard, get over here as fast as you can. Come on -
that's an order.'

The dull-faced policeman Buchanan had encountered
when they first arrived began running towards them. Then
he fell, sprawling face first in the grass. Paula knew why
- her boots were smeared with mud and she'd had to
walk carefully when she had begun her exploration. The
policeman scrambled to his feet as Buchanan yelled at
him to move faster. He saluted when he arrived and faced
Buchanan, his uniform covered with mud.

'I want this whole area, five yards from here, cordoned
off with crime scene tape. Got any on you?'

'A whole reel. Sergeant gave it to me when he left. Said
he had enough stuff to cart around. And I'm due off duty.
My relief has just arrived.'

'You stay on duty until the job of cordoning off this
area is completed. You'll have your relief to help you,'
Buchanan told him abruptly. He repeated his instruction.
'Tweed, we can't do any more here in the dark. Let's get
back to London.'

They were moving off when Buchanan noticed Paula
had stayed behind. She was staring at the grim-looking
house on the hill.

'What are you doing?' Buchanan called out.

'I'm
sure
I saw a light in that side window.'

'You're exhausted - and no wonder. Back to the car
with us.'

'Who does that house belong to?' she asked as she
joined them.

'A company called ACTIL. I asked the same question
in Bray when I was here earlier. Actually owned by the
billionaire who created ACTIL. A man called Roman
Arbogast.'

'ACTIL,' Tweed repeated. 'The conglomerate Holgate
worked for after he'd walked out on us. Curious.'

1

The following morning Tweed sat behind his desk in his
large office on the first floor at Park Crescent. The win
dows which faced him along the opposite wall overlooked
Regent's Park in the distance. This was the real HQ of the Secret Intelligence Service. The hideous modern building
on the bank of the Thames was a 'front' - mostly occupied
by administrative staff. The action was controlled from
Park Crescent.

Paula, seated at her own desk in a corner facing Tweed,
suppressed a yawn as Newman walked in. She called out
to Tweed.

'How do you like your new desk - or perhaps I should
say old, as it's an antique?'

With the financial support of the rest of the staff she had
bought the desk in the Portobello Road. It was Georgian
and had a green leather top. She had even had new locks
put on the drawers.

'I think I'm getting used to it.' Tweed smiled. 'I may
even get to like it.'

'You'd better,' chimed in Monica, his secretary of many years, who wore her grey hair in a bun tied at the back. 'It
cost a pretty penny.' She ducked down behind her word processor, feeling she'd said the wrong thing.

'And I'm very grateful to all of you,' Tweed assured her.

'Get any sleep after what you went through yesterday?'
Newman asked Paula.

She looked at him. In his forties, five feet nine tall,
well-built with an impressive head to match his body,
he had fair hair but was clean-shaven with a jaw that
discouraged louts coming anywhere near him. The most
famous international foreign correspondent in the world
before Tweed persuaded him to join the SIS, he had
proved to be a great asset to the unit.

'Not a lot of sleep,' Paula admitted. 'Which surprised
me. When I got back to my flat I threw off my clothes
and dived into the shower. It soothed away the aches and
pains, I flopped into bed and fell fast asleep. Then I had
the most horrible nightmare, which is unusual for me.'

'What kind of nightmare?' Tweed asked.

'It was night, I was near a river, watching the back of a
black-coated figure. It was stooped over Holgate, sawing
off his neck with a chainsaw. I woke up screaming, "Stop
it, stop it." Then I realized it was a bad dream. Checked
the time. 3 a.m. I remember thinking a chainsaw couldn't
have been used. The neck would have been so ragged. No
sleep after that. One of those things.'

'I had Roy Buchanan on the phone just before you
came in,' Tweed told Paula. 'He congratulated you on your brilliant work last night. Said he'd take you on to
his personal staff any day.'

'That's two job offers I've had in less than twenty-
four hours,' Paula replied, pushing a curl of her black
hair behind her ear. 'I'll have to think about them,' she
teased.

'Let me know when you decide which one, then I can
start looking for a replacement,' Tweed teased her back.

He had no more intention of letting her go than he had of
resigning his position as Deputy Director. She just seemed
to get better and better.

'Buchanan also told me,' he went on, 'that he phoned
the local Chief Constable at three in the morning. He
wasn't very popular but he told Colonel Crow, the Chief
Constable, that he'd better send out another team of
men to patrol the two taped areas and search thoroughly
round the so-called execution block area. Crow ended
the conversation by warning Roy that it was no longer
his case and to keep off the grass. Roy told him his
team would have to walk all over the grass to check
for clues, then slammed down the phone. He was quite
right to warn Crow, a pompous idiot I met once. The
type who bullies his subordinates, then creeps and grov
els to people who can help to hoist him higher up the ladder.'

Besides desks, the room was furnished with a mushroom-
coloured wall-to-wall carpet and three armchairs for visi
tors. Newman was settled in his favourite armchair, taking
in what was being said while he read a copy of the
International Herald Tribune.
He looked up.

'Odd, this copy is a fortnight old - I pile them up, then
go through them when I have time, in date sequence. A
fortnight ago there was a similar murder at some nowhere
place called Pinedale, south of Portland in Maine. A
headless corpse inside a body bag was washed up on the
cliffs during a storm. Victim a caretaker called Foley. Head
never discovered.'

'Very unlikely there's a connection,' Tweed told him.
'Maine is three thousand miles or so across the Atlantic.'

'There are such things as aircraft services.'

'Oh, and did you know the Vice-President of the US of A arrived in this country two days ago?'

'Yuck,' Paula commented, 'we can do without someone
like Russell Straub. I've seen him yacking away on the TV.
Thinks he's the cat's whiskers.'

'They think Straub is likely to succeed the present President in the White House,' Newman informed her.
'He's already making campaign noises.'

'Well, I wouldn't vote for him,' Paula said savagely as
the phone rang.

Monica answered it, frowned, carried on a brief conver
sation. Then she put a hand over the phone and gazed at Tweed.

'You're not going to believe this.'

'Try me.'

'George has had a fierce argument with someone who has just arrived.' She paused. 'Nathan Morgan, Head of
Special Branch. Morgan arrived with two of his thugs,
demanded to see you, was coming up with the thugs.
George forced the two thugs to go into the waiting room,
locked the door on them. He's still holding Morgan in
the hall.'

'I see. Ask George to escort Mr Morgan up here.
?

Newman stood up. He walked to the door, opened it
and stood half in the way. Morgan arrived, tried to push
Newman out of the way. Newman smiled as he slowly stood to one side.

'Easy does it,' he said amiably.

Their visitor stormed into the room. Wearing a smart
trench coat with wide lapels,
which gave him a military
appearance, he marched up to Tweed's desk. Heavily
built, he had a large squarish head, black hair, thick
black eyebrows, a pugilist's nose, a thin-lipped mouth
and a prominent jaw. A brute, Paula thought to her
self.