Cross of Fire

by Colin Forbes

  'What does it tell us?' Tweed asked quietly.

  'That he was strangled. The aspect I find intriguing about the report...' He paused, glanced at Paula. 'I hope I don't sound cold-blooded?'

  'Not in the least,' Paula said briskly. 'We need all the data we can get.'

  'The pathologist,' Lasalle continued, 'records in his report that the strangler was a professional. An odd word to use but he goes on to explain. The act of strangulation was swift and very efficient. Thumbs were pressed against Bayle's windpipe and held there until he expired. After death - and this is curious - the murderer savagely bruised the neck. Sounds like a sadist, even a psychopath.'

  'More likely an attempt to cover his professional expertise,' Tweed responded.

  'It is rumoured - no more - that the killer was a man we have heard of. Kalmar.'

  'Where did the rumours come from?'

  'We think Kalmar himself advertises his existence - to increase his reputation, and therefore his fees, for such assignments.'

  'Origins?'

  'Shrouded in mystery.' Lasalle waved his hands again. 'Some say he is a Mittel-European. Others that he has come from the East - the Balkans. Like Interpol, we have no description, no clue as to his nationality - but he is alleged to be fluent in several languages. Again, which ones we don't know.'

  'In other words, Ren6,' Tweed smiled, 'we know damn-all about Kalmar so far.'

  'He will make a mistake sooner or later.'

  'After creating more corpses,' Paula suggested.

  Tweed glanced at his watch, reached for his overcoat.

  'We have a flight to catch. Back to London. For your help, for the information, many thanks, René. We must keep in close touch. We shall be working on this day and night. It is just possible the solution to what is going on lies in England...'

  Chapter Eleven

  On a stormy November night all roads led to Aldeburgh, the strange old town on the Suffolk coast of Britain.

  Tweed and Paula had landed at London Airport, hurried to their flats for a change of clothes, had met up again at Park Crescent. From his office Tweed made a series of quick phone calls, told Monica to hold the fort, then left the building with Paula, each carrying a suitcase. Getting into his Ford Escort, he drove them out of the city, across the flatlands of Essex in the dark and on into Suffolk. They arrived at the Brudenell Hotel on the front to find the place almost deserted of guests at that time of the year.

  Paula had found it a weird experience to return to the scene of her terrifying experience with her dead friend, Karin Rosewater. Tweed had been so active she had kept quiet until he invited her to his large room on the first floor. He had summoned what he called a 'council of war' and they drank coffee while they waited for the others to arrive.

  Newman had been phoned, back from Bordeaux and Paris for only a few hours. Marler was on the way, bringing with him in their own cars two more SIS men - Harry Butler and Pete Nield, who often worked in tandem. Paula asked the question as they waited.

  'Why did you tell Lasalle the solution might lie here in England?'

  'One interesting and deadly - literally - fact. Your friend, Karin, was strangled by someone the Suffolk pathologist described as a professional. Remember what the autopsy report said?'

  'How can I ever forget it?'

  'Sorry, I put that too bluntly. Then in Paris Rene Lasalle gives us the gist of the Bordeaux pathologist's comments on how Francis Carey was murdered at the Gare St Jean. He, used the same word - professional. He even went on to give almost precisely the same description of how Carey's murder was enacted.'

  'I did actually notice.' Paula admitted, 'but I thought it must be a coincidence. You're not suggesting that...'

  'The strangler in Suffolk is the same strangler in Bordeaux? I'm suggesting just that.'

  Tweed reached into his breast pocket. He brought out a current British Airways timetable, opened it at a page with the corner turned down.

  'I collected this before we left Park Crescent. The murder of Karin Rosewater took place in the evening. In the evening of the following day Francis Carey was murdered in exactly the same way in Bordeaux. This timetable shows a BA flight leaving Heathrow at 10.55, arriving Bordeaux 12.25. There's also another direct flight via Air France - leaves a little later but gets to Bordeaux mid-afternoon.'

  'Aren't you letting your imagination run away with you?'

  'The facts I've given have nothing to do with imagination - allied to two different pathologists' identical descriptions of the murder technique used.'

  'Kalmar?' she ventured.

  'A top assassin can move fast. Operating in Europe he'll know all the routes, flight times. It's part of his stock-in-trade.'

  'Kalmar,' she repeated. 'A strange name.'

  'Chosen deliberately to conceal his real identity, his real nationality. One fact common to both pathologists' reports -the strangler has large hands.'

  He broke off as the phone rang. Paula answered it, said come up now, put down the receiver.

  'Newman has arrived. And so have Marler, Butler, and Nield. Good job you asked for extra chairs ...'

  The spacious bedroom had a wide bay window overlooking the North Sea. The curtains were drawn against the night but Paula could hear beyond the windows the insidious surge of the sea, the thump of waves hitting the beach with the incoming tide. When the four men had entered the room, found themselves seats, she poured coffee. Characteristically, Marler refused a chair, leaning against a wall while he lit a king-size cigarette.

  Tweed wasted no time. He sketched in briefly what was happening in France and Germany, gave them the data supplied by Lasalle and Kuhlmann.

  'We have to take action urgently.' he went on. 'I had a quick call from Lasalle after I'd arrived back at Park Crescent. More details of the Lyons riots had reached him. He said events were assuming the character of an insurrection. I suspect de Forge is only waiting for the trigger - some new event which will give him the excuse to move on Paris. Now, Bob, you learned something while you were in Bordeaux?'

  'I learned a lot - all of which confirms what you've just said...'

  Tersely, he described the hazards of his experience of his stay in Bordeaux. His interview with de Forge, the punishment well, his narrow escape when pursued by the Berliet truck. And Isabelle's ordeals.

  'That's it,' he concluded.

  This Isabelle,' Paula asked, curious about the way he had described her, 'she's attractive?'

  'I suppose she is,' Newman replied and said no more.

  He fancies her, Paula thought. She sounds to be quite a girl. And she probably likes Bob, too.

  'That riot you witnessed in Bordeaux.' Tweed said in a business-like tone. 'You conjured up a picture of a disciplined force - not a mob of hotheads. The way they out-manoeuvred the CRS, a skilled paramilitary force. Almost sounds as though they were well-trained troops under those damned Balaclavas.'

  'Which was exactly the impression I got, watching from that upstairs bar.' Newman confirmed. 'I was about to make the same comment.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Some of the smaller rioters are probably members of Pour France - farmers, peasants, shopkeepers. But the big stuff, I'm convinced - after what I saw in Bordeaux - are de Forge's men disguised with those Balaclavas.'

  'Then the situation is more than dangerous, it is explosive. And we have very little time left.'

  Marler spoke for the first time, in his off-hand drawl. 'Then why, may I ask, are we all assembled here out in the backwoods of England?'

  'Because this is where it all started - the murder of Karin Rosewater, the attempt to kill both women. Why? Because they had been caught exploring underwater off Dunwich. Something is going on up there.'

  'Might be able to give you a start point.' Marler continued. 'While you were all gallivanting abroad I drove around up here — as far as Dunwich and then up a bit further north to Southold. Visiting pubs. The people who frequent local pubs know things.'

  'So what d
id you discover?'

  'That the man financing the new underwater exploration of that sunken village, Dunwich, is a certain Lord Dane Dawlish.'

  'A millionaire several times over.' Tweed mused after digesting Marler's information. 'And someone must be financing de Forge - Lasalle made that point. He'll need money to pay his men extra for creating the riots, to smooth palms liberally high up in Paris. It's a long shot - we need a link between Aldeburgh and Bordeaux. And we haven't got one - except for the similarity between the two murders. We need far more.'

  'So it's probably helpful,' Marler remarked, 'that I wangled an invitation to a shooting party on Dawlish's estate at Grenville Grange.'

  'How did you work that one?' Tweed asked.

  'I was having a quick lunch at the Cross Keys - a very good pub further along the front from here. Behind the Moot Hall. At the next table was a bunch of tough-looking individuals, smartly dressed. Gabbing about a clay pigeon shoot at Dawlish's place. I got talking to them, put on an act, told them I was a stockbroker on holiday, that I could shoot clay pigeons out of the sky. They took the bait - a heavy type called Brand laid a bet with me. Five hundred quid, as he put it.'

  'What do you do to win?' Newman asked. 'And maybe I could join the party.'

  'I have to blast all my clay pigeons out of the sky. I'm going to lose. No point in letting them know about my marksmanship. You can come - if you insist. Brand said bring friends if I wanted to. Dawlish, I gather, is very sociable. Likes big parties.'

  'When?' Newman asked.

  'Tomorrow. Turning up at Grenville Grange about eleven in the morning. They think I'm Peter Wood. I've a stockbro ker pal in the City of that name. I phoned, asked him to cover for me. If they check, his secretary will confirm her boss, Wood, is away in Suffolk.'

  Tweed leaned forward. 'Why such careful precautions?'

  'Something phoney about them. Except for Brand, they don't look comfortable in their fancy country gear. An athletic gang, in their late twenties, early thirties.'

  Tweed took from his breast pocket the well-filled wallet he always carried. Extracting ten fifty-pound notes he handed them to Marler.

  'Your lost bet. I think you're wise to conceal your markmanship. It's another long shot - Dawlish. But there is a link there. Dawlish involved in underwater exploration at Dunwich. And those scuba divers who tried to kill both Paula and Karin.'

  'And I'll join you,' Newman decided. 'Under my own name.'

  'If you must,' Marler agreed, shrugging his shoulders.

  'That's what I like.' Newman grinned. 'Enthusiasm.'

  'I'd like to come, too,' Paula suggested. The editor of Woman's Eye is a friend of mine. And they'd like an interview for their feature Men of Distinction.'

  'That would be overdoing it,' Newman objected.

  'And.' Tweed warned her, 'supposing some of the thugs who pursued you from Dunwich in dinghies turned out to be among the group of characters Marler met at the Cross Keys? You could be recognized.'

  'Don't agree,' Paula insisted. 'They only saw us under murky water with our masks on. Impossible to recognize anyone wearing one of those.'

  'But while you were changing out of your wetsuits on

  122

  the beach.' Tweed recalled, 'you said those killers in the dinghies were approaching the shore.'

  'Too far away to recognize me. It was dusk, too. I'd turn up quite on my own.' she informed Newman. 'So I won't know either of you. And.' she pounded on, 'you are getting there at eleven. I'll phone Dawlish and make an appointment for midday.'

  'If you can...'

  'Men are vain. Successful men are very vain, love to get their names in quality magazines. Bet I pull it off.'

  'Under those circumstances.' Tweed decided reluctantly, T suppose it might be a good idea. We're so short of time the sooner we cross Dawlish off the list of suspects the better.'

  I'd say he fits like a glove.' Marler observed. 'You quoted Lasalle a few minutes ago as saying someone was secretly supplying nice General de Forge with arms. Dawlish has armaments factories. One of them could be in the woods between Snape Maltings and Orford.'

  'How do you know that?' Tweed asked sharply.

  'Because, as I told you, I drove round up here. On my way to Orford I passed a track leading up into the woods off a lonely road. The area was fenced off with an eight-foot high wire fence, electrified. Plates attached to the fence with a friendly warning. "Keep Out! Danger!" Plus skull and crossbones. The lot.'

  'That's a long way from France - especially Bordeaux.'

  Tweed blinked, gazed into the distance. Something he had heard Paula say on another occasion. What was it? Maybe it would come back to him.

  'You're looking for a French link?' Newman enquired. 'Could be one downstairs inside this hotel. When I was approaching the elevator a youngish chap stubbed his toe on a step. I distinctly heard him mutter Merde! under his breath. He then asked me the way to the lounge in perfect English.'

  'Describe him.'

  'Late twenties, early thirties. Clean shaven. Walks very erect. Struck me as a military type. Wearing dark glasses -Lord knows why at this time of the year.' He glanced at Paula with a dry smile. 'Some women would describe him as handsome.'

  'I must visit the bar.' Paula said promptly. 'Bet he finds his way there. After I call Woman's Eye for tomorrow.'

  'I suppose we could have come to the right place.' Tweed thought aloud.

  'You don't know how right you are.' Marler needled him. 'Chief Inspector Buchanan and Sergeant Warden are staying here. I had a brief encounter with Buchanan yesterday.'

  'Why are they still here?'

  'The Chief Constable has asked Buchanan to continue his investigations into Karin Rosewater's murder. The whole of Aldeburgh knows about him.'

  'We can't let him get in the way.' Tweed stood up. 'The exact nature of de Forge's threat to Germany is vague - so even more menacing. We can't do much this evening. All of you have rooms I reserved for you from London. I want action tomorrow.'

  'Where do we fit in?' asked the heavily-built Butler.

  As usual, he had remained silent with his partner, Pete Nield. But both men had memorized every single word said.

  'I was coming to you.' Tweed replied. 'Are you armed as I suggested?'

  'Nice to know he can't tell.' the more extrovert Nield remarked, fingering his moustache.

  Both men were clad in clean denims and windcheaters. Butler nodded, produced from his hip holster under his windcheater a 7.65mm Walther automatic. Nield showed his own Walther.

  'Good.' Tweed approved. 'Because tomorrow I want you to follow Newman and Marler discreetly to this Grenville place. You are to act as guards, back-up in case of trouble.'

  'We expect trouble from a man like Dawlish?' queried Marler sceptically.

  'Monica drew up a dossier on him while we were away. I skipped through it before I drove out with Paula. He built up his empire from nothing - and used some dubious methods on the way. Exercise the utmost caution. Paula, see if you can find out who Newman's Frenchman is. It is the first whiff of the French we've had in Suffolk.'

  Paula, wearing a Chanel-style blue suit with a white blouse and a pussy bow, walked into the bar as a tall slim girl with a mane of blonde hair turned, a glass of champagne in her hand, and collided with her.

  Paula jumped aside and the spilt champagne just missed her suit. Jean Burgoyne stared at the suit with horror. Paula smiled reassuringly.

  'It is all right. It went on the floor.'

  'My God! I'm so sorry. How simply dreadfully clumsy of me. Are you sure it isn't spoilt? That's Chanel, isn't it? You look stunning.'

  'You don't look so bad yourself. And this isn't an original, I'm sorry to say. I made it myself.'

  Jean Burgoyne did look stunning in a light green form-fitting sheath dress which displayed her excellent figure to full advantage. Two slim straps supported it over her bare, well-shaped shoulders. Her greenish eyes studied Paula, her wide mouth smiled.

  '
I'm Jean Burgoyne ...'

  'I'm Paula Grey, a freelance journalist on Woman's Eye...'

  Thinking quickly, Paula had decided it was best to stick to the same story. In a small place like Aldeburgh you never knew who knew who. She had instantly recognized the glamorous blonde and hoped she was on her own.

  'I buy every issue.' Jean told her. 'The least I can do is get you a glass of champagne. That is, if like me, you're on your own.'

  'As it happens, I am. I wasn't looking forward to a solitary evening...'

  Paula took Jean Burgoyne's glass to a quiet corner table. She was puzzled. What was Burgoyne doing in this part of the world? Another French link: de Forge's mistress in Aldeburgh. And she was quite a girl, Paula thought. She moved gracefully and every man in the bar was watching her.

  As she brought more champagne to the table Paula spotted the Frenchman with tinted glasses Newman had identified. He ordered a drink and sat alone, erect in his chair. He looked briefly at Burgoyne and then turned away. Burgoyne had sat next to Paula, raised her glass.