Cross of Fire

by Colin Forbes

  Lamy didn't notice in the crowd of passengers a tall, fair-haired man standing watching the flight arrivals. Jim Corcoran, a friend of Tweed's and Chief Security Officer, checked one of the small photos rushed to him from Park Crescent by motorcycle courier. He looked at the back of the photo. Major Jules Lamy.

  Corcoran followed Lamy, keeping a certain distance behind him. He noticed Lamy bypassed the carousels where passengers were already waiting resignedly for their suitcases to appear one day. He followed Lamy through the Nothing To Declare Customs aisle.

  Lamy increased his pace as he left the Customs area. Several drivers stood behind a barrier holding up cards with names. William Prendergast. Lamy went up to the girl holding up that name. Corcoran could have stopped him immediately, charged him with travelling on a false passport - unless he'd used his real name at Passport Control. But the request made by Tweed's assistant, Monica, had been specific.

  Corcoran followed Lamy and the girl to the short-term car park. Up the ramp, across the bridge, inside the park. He took out his own car keys, twirling them as he followed the couple. The car Lamy climbed inside was a Rover - after he had paid the girl with a sheaf of banknotes and dealt with the formalities. Corcoran memorized the registration number, tried to follow the girl, who wasn't wearing a uniform, but she vanished.

  When the Rover had driven off Corcoran ran back to his office. Locking the door, he dialled Monica's number, hoping to speak to Tweed.

  'He's not here, Jim,' Monica said quickly. 'He had to dash off somewhere. Have you any news?'

  'Sounds like Tweed - dashing off. Yes, one of your subjects in the photos just arrived aboard a BA flight from Paris. Travelling under the name William Prendergast in a hired Rover, registration ... Major Lamy.'

  Monica thanked him, broke the connection, was working non-stop for the next hour. She phoned a contact at Vehicle Registration, Swansea, gave him the number and the code confirming she was SIS. Vehicle Registration reacted with almost unique speed, phoning her back in ten minutes, giving her the name and address of the car hire firm in London. She didn't make the mistake of calling the company direct. Instead she phoned another contact at Special Branch, gave him the data, stressed how urgent it was. Inside three-quarters of an hour Special Branch called her back.

  'A William Prendergast hired the Rover, phoned early this afternoon. He had to give the destination he was taking it to.'

  'Go on, don't tease me, Martin,' Monica pleaded.

  'Aldeburgh, Suffolk...'

  *

  'Look, Brand, you've got to handle this job right. No slip-ups,' Dawlish snapped.

  'Have I slipped up yet?' growled Brand, stirring his bulk in the carver chair in the living room of Grenville Grange. 'I am your right-hand man, remember?'

  'At the moment,' Dawlish rapped back. 'But there's always a first time for a slip-up. Make sure this isn't it.'

  'The job will be handled professionally,' Brand told him curtly.

  'Make sure it is. Tonight.'

  Approaching Aldeburgh, Major Lamy slowed down. He had lost count of the number of times he had checked to make sure he was not being followed. In mid-afternoon the traffic had been light once he had left London behind, which had helped.

  He had kept within all the speed limits: he couldn't afford the risk of being stopped by a police patrol car. Once again he checked in his rear-view mirror. Nothing. Shortly afterwards he drove into the courtyard of a hotel on the outskirts of Aldeburgh.

  Carrying his small case, he entered the hotel, registered as William Prendergast with a fictitious London address. He had also phoned the hotel from Paris to make the reservation with no reference to where he was calling from.

  He sneezed several times behind the scarf pulled up over his face. He wore a deerstalker hat pulled down across his forehead.

  'Your room is ready, Mr Prendergast,' the receptionist informed him. 'One night, I think you said?'

  'Yes. I'll pay in advance now for the room and breakfast,' Lamy said. 'I may have to leave early tomorrow morning,' he continued, in English.

  He paid in cash and she handed him the receipted bill. He sneezed again as he stooped to pick up his case.

  'You seem to have a bad cold, sir.' she sympathized.

  Inside his bedroom he whipped off the scarf, no longer bothering to fake a sneeze. He checked his watch. He was a careful organizer. Plenty of time to do a recce of the area. He took from his breast pocket an envelope, extracted from it the photograph he had been handed at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The envelope had been passed to him by his informant inside Lasalle's Paris HQ in rue des Saussaies. It was a photo of Paula Grey.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Kalmar sat in the car in the public car park close to the Brudenell Hotel. No other vehicle was in sight. It was supposed to be daylight but the low storm clouds sweeping across the sky made it seem more like night.

  He could hear the thump! of giant waves against the high rampart extending south along the coast beyond the hotel. No work was going on but huge cranes and Portacabins showed the artificial sea defences were being strengthened. He clasped his gloved hands as he saw spray rising like mist above the rampart, carried over to the marshes by the fury of the gale.

  He flexed his strong fingers. You just couldn't afford to leave a witness alive. And there had been one witness to the strangling of Karin Rosewater. He thought about the witness, about her walking, talking, remembering. Then talking...

  The grip of his fingers tightened. He imagined grasping her by the throat, carefully pressing his thumbs into her wind-pipe. Her eyes starting out of her head as he was the last person she'd ever see in this world.

  He had decided. At the earliest opportunity. Tonight. He wouldn't be paid a Swiss franc on top of the fat fee he'd already collected for the Karin job. But you just couldn't afford to leave a witness alive.

  *

  Paula sat in her room with Newman and Marler. Newman had been giving her a terse account of the trip to the armaments factory in the middle of the night. He went on to describe how they had followed the truck after Marler had discovered its contents. She made her first comment.

  'Who would need thousands of Balaclavas?'

  'You heard what I told you about my Bordeaux trip.' he snapped. Perched on her bed she stared at him, hurt by his brusque rejoinder. He seemed edgy. 'Remember that riot I watched.' Newman went on. 'It was pretty savage stuff. And the mob was pretty well organized. And I didn't see one without a Balaclava mask to avoid identification. Now there's been a much bigger riot in Lyons. Haven't you seen the pictures in the papers? Every man taking part in that orgy of violence is wearing a Balaclava. My bet is to hide the fact they're troops from de Forge's Corps.'

  'I still don't follow this Dunwich puzzle.' she protested. 'Just supposing they are de Forge's men, he could obtain Balaclavas in France ...'

  'And be sure the supplier - or one of his workers -wouldn't report the delivery to the DST? The police?'

  'Oh, you mean ...'

  'I mean.' he overrode her, 'that with the mobs growing larger they may need a lot more Balaclavas. It would be more secure if they brought them in from abroad in secrecy. Hence that truck on the way to Dunwich. You saw the Steel Vulture off Dunwich the day you and Karin went scuba diving.'

  'So the Vulture could be the means of transporting the Balaclavas to de Forge - via Arcachon?'

  Newman grinned. 'Now you're catching on.'

  'Why didn't the two of you follow the truck all the way to Dunwich, see where it stopped?'

  'Because.' Newman explained, 'we hadn't alerted their driver up to that point. You know the side road to Dunwich is a narrow country road. I didn't want us to risk being spotted. So we came back here.'

  'I see.' Paula put her hands on her hips, stretched. 'Bob, you seem irked with me, irritable. Why?'

  'Because you're back here again. Where Karin was murdered. I don't like it. Someone might think of you as a witness. The killer could still be hanging around in t
he vicinity.'

  'I doubt that's at all feasible. He'll be long gone.'

  Newman shrugged. 'Please yourself.'

  'I usually do - like you. Listen to who's talking.'

  Marler, sensing the start of verbal warfare, broke in for the first time. He had been leaning against a wall, watching and listening.

  'If I could get a word in edgeways, I think I'd like to leave, get back to Park Crescent. I'm anxious for the little men in the Engine Room to develop that film I took of the laboratory at Dawlish's factory in the forest. You don't mind if I drive my own Volvo back, do you, Newman?'

  'And how am I supposed to get back tomorrow? Swim? In case you didn't know, the trains stopped coming here quite a few years ago.'

  'You can drive me back, Bob.' Paula said quickly. 'I came in Tweed's Escort.'

  She was beginning to feel contrite. Newman had been brusque only because he was worried about her. Marler waved a hand - as much as to say, 'You've got transport, chum,' and left the room.

  'I think I'm going for a walk.' Newman said when they were alone. 'You're right, I am edgy. Maybe it's the storm they predicted for tonight. Want to come with me?'

  'I'd love to, but I'm feeling bushed. Mind if I cry off and have a bath instead?'

  'I could stay and scrub your back for you, but maybe I'll take that walk instead. Wallow...'

  Left on her own, Paula went into the bathroom, turned on the taps. Her excuse had been a bit of a white lie. Earlier she had phoned Jean Burgoyne and they'd agreed to have drinks together that evening at the home of Jean's uncle, Admiralty House. Jean had proved her efficiency: while Paula was enduring the unpleasantness at the Cross Keys she had left an envelope at reception with a local map marking the position of the house perched on the hill behind the main part of the town.

  Paula had liked Jean when they'd chatted in the bar at the Brudenell during her previous visit. During that short conversation a friendship had sprung up between the two women.

  But that wasn't Paula's real motive in contacting her. She had not forgotten that Burgoyne was General de Forge's mistress. She hoped to guide the subject round to that delicate subject in the hope of extracting information for Tweed.

  She followed Newman's advice and wallowed in her bath, gradually feeling the tension drain out of her body. In her mind she played with the problem of what to wear for the occasion. Eventually she decided on a fine wool print dress with a mandarin collar and a wide belt. She favoured wide belts: they emphasized her slim waist.

  'So that's settled.' she said to herself as she stood up and towelled herself vigorously. 'And combined with my suede coat I should be warm.'

  The temperature was dropping outside rapidly according to the weather forecast. A good job it was only a short drive. Jean had offered to collect her but she'd evaded the offer. Paula, independent, liked to have her own transport.

  Dressed for the occasion, she went down in the elevator to see the receptionist.

  'I'll be going out about six.' she told her. 'I expect to be back about eight. Could you let the dining room know? I'll be as hungry as a horse when I return. The weather...'

  'And it's going to get worse.' a man's voice said behind her. She recognized Berthier's husky tone. 'Winds up to eighty miles an hour.'

  'Sounds lovely.' she replied. 'Excuse me, I'm expecting a phone call.'

  She slipped into the elevator, pressed the button, sighed with relief as it moved upwards. She'd had enough of Berthier for one day. Damn it, she reminded herself, I must get into the mental habit of thinking of him as James Sanders. Otherwise I'm going to put my foot in it.

  She locked her bedroom door, kicked off her high-heeled shoes, reminded herself of something else - to wear sensible shoes when she was driving to Admiralty House. She was expecting no phone call and she sat in a chair, picked up her paperback of Tolstoy's War and Peace, determined to finish the huge tome. She had about half an hour before it would be time to leave to visit Jean.

  In the bar on the ground floor Brand glanced at his watch. He was drinking Scotch with water - he needed a clear head tonight. From where he sat he had seen Paula enter the elevator. He guessed from her dress that she could be going out somewhere for the evening.

  Of course she could be dining in the hotel, but Brand didn't think so. Despite his coarse manner Brand was surprisingly sensitive to social nuances. He'd have bet a month's fat salary that within the hour she'd leave the hotel.

  Unlike his working clothes worn during the morning at the Cross Keys, he was now dressed in a smart, heavy grey suit tailored to allow his thick arms easy movement. On a chair next to his he'd placed his motoring gloves. The last thing he needed tonight was company at this moment.

  Tweed was moving at high speed across Suffolk behind the wheel of Newman's Mercedes 280E, headlights sweeping in the night over hedges lining the road. The wind battered the side of the one and a half tons of car, threatening to blow it off the road.

  Tweed kept a firm grip on the wheel, indifferent to the grim weather conditions, driving automatically, his mind full of anxiety. He was heading for Aldeburgh, Monica had phoned the Brudenell to book him a room, and he was determined to get there as fast as possible.

  He had Paula on his mind. His instinct that she was in danger was strong. He couldn't have explained why his earlier doubts had surfaced into fear - but he did know that when he'd had this instinctive feeling of trouble before it had always proved to be right.

  He had tried to reach her on the phone at lunchtime but the receptionist at the Brudenell had told him she was out somewhere. He had decided against leaving a message: he might be alarming her for nothing.

  Then Newman's car had been returned by one of Robles' staff. The veterinary pathologist had phoned him the report from Porton Down - and that had not made reassuring news. The worst possible case, had been the verdict.

  It was the return of Newman's car which had made Tweed take one of his lightning decisions - that he would drive it to Aldeburgh himself. Before leaving London Newman had phoned from his flat, had told Tweed he'd be staying at the Brudenell for two days and nights.

  There another reason for Tweed's urgent flight from London. He wanted to see for himself the scene of the crime where Karin Rosewater had been murdered. You could listen to other people's detailed accounts of the landscape, but there was nothing like checking it for yourself. He looked at the clock on the dashboard, calculated he'd arrive in time to explore the marshes at about the same hour when the murder had been committed. After making sure Paula was all right...

  Paula, wearing her suede coat, her scarf wrapped round her head against the wind, stepped out of the elevator, handed her key to the receptionist, told her she was driving to see a friend in Aldeburgh.

  It was black as pitch outside the front entrance. She walked quickly to the Ford Escort, parked in a slot up against the hotel wall. Climbing behind the wheel, she slipped her key into the ignition, turned it. Nothing happened. Just a discouraging grunt. She tried again and again to start the engine. Nothing. She looked up as a shadowy figure appeared beyond her side window. Lieutenant Berth ... No, James Sanders.

  'Won't she behave?' he asked. 'Let me try.'

  She hesitated, thought: I'm just outside the hotel. Getting out, she stood while he slipped behind the wheel and fiddled with the ignition. He tried six times and shook his head.

  'Probably the battery is dead. You were going for a long drive?'

  'No, only local. To an address in Aldeburgh.'

  She wished she hadn't reacted so quickly as he climbed out. He'd wound up the window and now he dosed the door.

  'That's my Saab parked next to your car. I'll drive you wherever you want to go. Nothing else to do.'

  Again she hesitated. She had tapped on Newman's door before coming down. No reply. Obviously he was still out walking: he could walk for miles when in the mood. And Marler had gone back to London. Paula made a virtue of punctuality and it was only a short drive.

  'I h
ave a map showing where I'm going. Admiralty House is the name. It's marked with a cross ...'

  Berthier took the map as he sat behind the wheel, left his door open, pretended to study the map. He knew damn well where he was going. Only recently he'd been outside Admiralty House when he'd followed Jean Burgoyne.

  Paula again hesitated before getting into the front passenger seat. I can cope with him. if I have to, she thought, and slipped into the seat. Berthier handed back the map.

  'I've got the route. As you said, it's very local...'

  She fastened her seat belt and he drove off. She adjusted her shoulder bag, wished she was carrying her .32 Browning automatic, but she wasn't. Relax, for Pete's sake.

  He drove along the deserted High Street, turned left up the curving hill past houses which seemed to have no lights. Paula was surprised as they ascended how dark the back road was. Expensive houses at the end of long drives but not the sort of place she'd want to live.

  Close to the entrance to Admiralty House, where the road levelled out at the summit, Berthier swung the car on to the grass verge. He switched off the engine, turned to her.

  'I've admired you ever since we met,' he began. 'You're a very attractive woman.'