by Colin Forbes
Deadlock
( Tweed and Co - 5 )
Colin Forbes
Deadlock
Colin Forbes
Prologue
Breckland. Shrouded by dense fir forest on three sides, The Bluebell pub seemed like a haven from the April storm to the seven villagers drinking inside. Night was a cloak, further isolating the ancient two-storey building. The gale rattled the windows, rain lashed the mullion panes, a single tile was torn from the roof. There was a deathly hush along the drinkers as they heard the clatter of the falling tile. Although death was the furthest thought from their minds.
Outside the pub the distant cottages of Cockley Ford were blurred silhouettes. No lights showed in the tiny Norfolk village. It was eight o'clock.
Ted Jarvis, ploughman, clad in an old check shirt, corduroy trousers tied at the ankles with pieces of string, a shabby windcheater, broke the silence.
'Well, let's get on with it. Are we all agreed? We're having nothing to do with this crazy foreigner and his mad plan. Money isn't everything…'
'Now, Edward, there's more to it.' Mrs Rout, postmistress, clutched her glass of port, her voice raucous and domineering as she settled her plump body inside her favourite wooden chair – next to the bar. The other villagers – greedy lot that they are – have to be told. And no nonsense. No argufying. Without us they can't do a thing. That's the long and short of it.'
Everyone, including Joel, the barman, nodded. Mrs Rout had spoken and that was an end to it. She drank more of her port. The other four men – Ben, the tractor driver; Eric, the lad who was simple in the head; George, the grocer; and William, the ditch digger nodded again. Mrs Rout drove her point home.
Then there's that new doctor just come. Portch. Don't like him. Not one of us. Anyone needs doctoring goes to Ransome at Cockley Cley …'
The heavy wooden door slammed open. A weird figure stood inside the doorway. Mrs Rout stiffened. She opened her mouth to speak but only a croak of fear emerged. She had thought it was the gale which had forced open the door.
The figure wore a Balaclava helmet. Over that he wore a yellow oilskin with the hood half-pulled down across the helmet. Rivulets of water ran off the oilskin, dripping on to the scoured wooden floor. In gloved hands he held an Uzi machine pistol.
He stood motionless, the cold eyes behind the helmet slit surveying the room with its smoke-blackened beams supporting the ceiling. The eyes noted the position of each of the seven villagers who looked like frozen waxworks. Then he began operating the gun. In short bursts. A fusillade of bullets swept the room as he arced the weapon.
Rain beat against his back as he stood, steady as a rock, continuing the sweep of the muzzle. Mrs Rout slumped in her chair, her hand knocking over her glass of port. Its contents stained the floor as she lay with her head twisted to one side, her false teeth hanging half out of her mouth. Joel, the barman, tried to duck behind the counter. A hail of bullets hurled him against the shelves attached to the rear wall. He sagged out of sight, bringing down a load of bottles on top of his corpse. A momentary pause in the lethal chatter of the Uzi. The gun moved past Simple Eric, leaving him standing and staring with glaucous blue eyes, staring at the blood oozing from Mrs Rout's lolling hand, blood which mingled on the floor with the spilt port. Ted Jarvis stood up from his chair and the gun chattered again. He crashed back into the chair, broke its back, sprawled behind it. Ben, the tractor driver, a tough stocky man, grabbed an almost-full bottle of beer, hoisted his arm to aim for the killer's head. He doubled up like a jackknife closing, dropping the bottle. It rolled across the floor in another brief pause. The only sound was beer gushing on to wood. Two more brief bursts. George and William crumpled into lifeless caricatures of human beings.
It was all over in twenty seconds. Five hideous corpses in various postures of death furnished the room, the sixth out of view behind the bar. The man in the Balaclava helmet walked into the room as a hawk-nosed man wearing a black wide-brimmed hat and a black coat sodden with rain came in behind him. He had a pince-nez perched on the bridge of his nose.
Balaclava pressed a lever, changing the mechanism to single-shot, then paused by each body. He placed the muzzle tip close to each skull, fired once, then moved on. He was walking behind the bar when the hawk-nosed man spoke as he shook water from his hat.
'Is that necessary?'
'I do a job.'
Balaclava was laconic, spoke English with an American accent. He stooped behind the bar. A last shot rang out. The man with the pince-nez carried a black bag which he placed on the nearest table before bending over Mrs Rout. He pursed thin lips.
'I'll have to dig the bullets out of the skulls,' he complained.
'Your part of the operation, Dr Portch,' Balaclava commented. He stared towards the doorway where another man had appeared, a wide-shouldered countryman with an overlong jaw which gave him a primeval look. 'Grimes, are you coming in to clean up this mess?'
They're queueing up outside,' Portch answered. 'Best give them a few minutes to prepare them for this. I've been in enough morgues but the place looks like an abattoir. Where is Simple Eric?' he queried.
'Ran right past me,' Grimes replied. 'Hell for leather towards village. Christ! What's that?'
Balaclava stiffened, his first reaction since he had entered the pub. In the near distance, muffled by the torrential rain, a bell began chiming. A slow, dirge-like chime. Portch reacted first, addressing Grimes whose ruddy face had lost colour.
'Ned, it's the idiot. Eric. Stop him at once. We have to clean up quickly…'
Grimes ran outside. Villagers stood huddled in pairs, protected against the weather in oilskins and raincoats. Each couple held a makeshift stretcher, carried a plastic bucket and a mop. Inside Portch beckoned to them, calling over his shoulder to Balaclava.
'They'll be all right. I gave each of them a Valium to soothe their nerves…'
Grimes pounded along the curving road, head down against the driving rain, heart thudding in his chest, glad of an excuse to get away from the bloodbath. He ran on past the few cottages lining the three sides of the triangle-shaped village green.
His objective was a tiny church perched beyond a wall on a small hill. The church was constructed of flintstone. Attached to the western end of the ancient edifice was a circular bell-tower. The chimes continued, louder now. With trembling hands he pushed open the grille gate in the wall, stumbled up the mossy path to the entrance porch and turned the iron ring handle of the studded door. He paused, then went inside.
At the foot of the bell-tower to his left Eric stood hauling a long rope up and down with both hands. The single rope was tied at intervals into a series of loops like nooses. The solemn, doomful note of the invisible bell – a metal ladder led up to a closed trap-door in the wooden ceiling – rang out again.
'What the hell are you doing?' Grimes demanded.
Tolling for the dead. Tolling for the dead…'
Eric grinned foolishly and then the grin vanished as Grimes hit him a savage blow on the jaw with his clenched fist. The simpleton sprawled on the stone-paved floor, his back against the curving wall as he gazed up.
'No one died,' Grimes told him as though speaking to a child. 'Understand? No one died tonight. They was ill, they was sick. They did die. A few weeks ago. Dr Portch was away. It was too late to save them when he got back. So they was buried. Do you understand, for God's sake?' He grasped Eric by the shirt collar and shook him like a dog. There was saliva on his mouth as he bent close to the simpleton's face. 'I said, do you understand? '
' Aaarraagh! '
Eric was choking, gasping for breath. Grimes realized he had twisted the lad's shirt collar in a vice-like grip, that without meaning to do so he was strangling him. The horror he would have
to return to inside The Bluebell had filled his mind. He relaxed his grip, began slapping Eric's face with desperate urgency.
Eric mustn't die. Grimes was panicstricken at the thought. They had discussed it the previous day. Dr Portch had said the idiot lad would help to frighten people away from the village. That it didn't even matter if Eric was there when the killing of the objectors took place. No one would believe a word he said. And he never left Cockley Ford. He was an asset to the atmosphere of a tightly-closed off community Portch had created. Only Grimes left the village to collect supplies from Thetford. To Grimes' profound relief, the lad began to recover, sitting up.
'They was sick,' Grimes repeated, hammering the message into the fool's skull. They died a few weeks ago. They was buried then. No one died tonight.'
'No one died tonight,' Eric agreed, parrot fashion…
Outside in the churchyard in the drenching rain behind the building six sheets of heavy canvas covered freshly-dug graves. In the lee of the church wall, sheltered from the rain, crouched an old man like a guardian of the graves. He leant on a rusty shovel smeared with wet mud, huddled in a sailor's pea-jacket with a hood concealing his head. He would have to wait. He knew that – but that was one thing a gravedigger learnt. Patience.
The outside world might never have heard of the April massacre at Cockley Ford but for a chance happening. A man called Tweed decided to take a rare holiday.
Over a year later.
Part One
Phantom
1
'It's a super idea – taking this holiday,' Monica said. 'You haven't had one since Noah and his Ark…'
'I don't like holidays,' Tweed said mulishly, prowling round his office in Park Crescent. 'I get bored stiff in three days.' He stared glumly out of the first-floor window as the wind bent the trees in distant Regent's Park. 'Look at it. And it's raining. May. Godawful. ..'
'The forecast is sunshine this afternoon,' his assistant said brightly. 'Even the Deputy Director of the Secret Service needs a break. And Bob Newman has loaned you his 280E Mercedes. You will have a whale of a time.'
'It's already afternoon,' Tweed grumbled, cleaning his glasses with his handkerchief. 'And who believes in weather forecasts any more?' He glanced towards the phone on his cleared desk – willing it to ring.
The door opened and Howard, faultlessly dressed in a dark blue suit from Harrods, waltzed in, shooting snow-white cuffs. His chief was in the worst possible mood from Tweed's point of view, exuding an air of bonhomie. He eyed the suitcase standing by Tweed's desk.
'Off on our hols? Good show. Don't delay. We'll keep the home fires burning. Just forget all about us.'
Probably burn the place down, Tweed thought to himself. The second sentiment was more acceptable. Howard thrust his right hand in his trousers pocket and rattled loose change. Another irritating habit. He stooped to brush a speck of dust from his trouser leg as he continued.
'Going somewhere interesting? Barbados? The Seychelles?'
'Clacton,' Tweed said perversely. 'A breath of sea air.'
'No accounting for tastes.' Howard studied the manicured fingernails of his left hand. 'Well, I'd better be off. Just thought I'd pop in, wish you bon voyage and ail that. Even if it sounds like a trip round the pier. Clacton has one?'
'No idea.' Tweed sat down behind his desk and Monica frowned. She waited until Howard left the room before she shook her index finger at her boss.
'No more hanging about. Off you go. It isn't Clacton, is it?'
The phone rang before Tweed could reply. Monica lifted her own instrument quickly. After identifying herself she grimaced as she listened.
'He's just going off on holiday, I'm afraid…'
'Who is it?' Tweed demanded.
'Paula Grey – calling from Norfolk,' she reported, holding one hand over the mouthpiece. 'She sounds a bit fraught – but I can handle it. I'll tell her you've just left…'
'I'll take it,' Tweed said firmly and lifted his receiver. 'I am still here, Paula. How are you? It sounds as though something's bothering you.'
He listened, saying little, grunting, asking the occasional question. At one stage he opened a deep drawer, using his left hand to rifle through a collection of maps of the British Isles, hauled out one of East Anglia and unfolded it as Paula continued talking.
'Got it,' he said, his finger pressed on a section of the map. 'Are you still at your new home in Blakeney? Yes, I have the address in my head. You may see me in the next day or two. It is odd, I agree. One thing, Paula,' he concluded, 'don't go anywhere near Cockley Ford again. Not until I've seen you. Promise? Good girl…'
He replaced the receiver, folded up the map, pocketed it, stood up and went over to the stand where his Burberry hung on a hanger. Monica watched him suspiciously as he hastily slipped on the raincoat and picked up his suitcase.
'And what, may I ask,' she enquired, 'is odd?'
'You may ask. I may not tell you.' He changed the subject to soften his reply. 'Howard was just a bit too jaunty – the way he is when he's covering up a problem.'
'It's Cynthia, his wife. There's talk she's on the verge of leaving him…' She stopped, appalled, could have cut out her tongue. Tweed's own wife had walked away several years ago – to live with a wealthy Greek shipowner. Rumour had it they were shacked up together in a luxurious villa in South America.
Tweed's face was expressionless. Behind his glasses his eyes showed no reaction. The parting had come as a great shock to him – something he never referred to. Monica, a woman of uncertain age, a spinster who had worked with Tweed for years, began talking rapidly.
'It's office gossip. Probably nothing more. Some people have to have something to natter about in the canteen. About Paula. Something's happened. Suddenly you're in one hell of a rush to leave. Five minutes ago you were like a ship without a rudder.'
'Maybe I've found my rudder…'
'Blakeney is on the coast, you mean'?'
'A breath of sea air I said earlier. Very bracing – the wind off the North Sea…'
'You're not going anywhere near Wisbech, the interrogation centre, I hope?'
'Not a chance. Hold the fort while I'm away. Maybe a holiday is a good idea.'
'Paula might be a good idea for you – now she's on her own…'
'You're a wicked woman. I don't know why I employ you.'
On that note he left the room before she could think up a suitable retort.
Tweed sat behind the wheel of the 280E parked in the Crescent, studying the manual Newman, foreign correspondent and trusted confidante, had left with the car. Everything was automatic – you pressed buttons to open the sun-roof, the windows, to elevate the aerial for the radio, and it had a central locking system. Depress the small lever which locked the driver's door and all the other three doors were locked.
He drove out of London and headed for Bedfordshire. The rain continued to pour down steadily. He left the suburbs behind and moved into open country as evening approached. The sky was a low ceiling of slow-moving pewter cloud. He stopped in Woburn for a late tea at the Bedford Arms. When he drove on along the straight road which followed the endless stone wall enclosing Woburn Abbey estate it became almost like night.
On the seat beside him the map of East Anglia was open, his route outlined with a felt-tip pen. He had drawn a large circle round a section marked with one word.
Breckland.
2
He had left the village of Mundford behind. The turn-off from the A 1065 to Cockley Cley was on his left – several miles ahead. Curious, he thought as he gazed down his headlight beams, that there should be two villages so close with similar names. Cockley Cley – and Cockley Ford. To his right the black fir forests of Breckland loomed close to the highway. He reduced speed as the cloudburst increased in intensity.
The windscreen wipers were fighting a losing battle with the floods of water pouring out of the sky. Lakes snaked out on to the deserted highway from the grass verges. No sign of human habita
tion anywhere. No traffic had passed him for miles when he reached a narrow tarred road turning off to his right. As Paula Grey had told him on the phone, no signpost indicated where it led.
He swung the wheel easily with the aid of the power-assisted steering. The 280E was a dream of a car to drive. Straight ahead stretched a lonely road just wide enough to take the large Mercedes. Tweed, using undipped headlights, peered through the cascade, hoping to God he wouldn't meet anything coming from the opposite direction.
The wind had reached gale force, hammering the side of his car, threatening to blow its one-and-a-half tons of metal off the road. No drainage. Rivers of water flooded down each side, his wheels sent up great clouds of spray as he pressed his foot down.
Tweed was worried the engine would become waterlogged, stopping the vehicle. His increase in speed was an attempt to counter the danger. He stiffened as he saw a flash of light in the distance. A car wax coming from the opposite direction, a car moving at high speed. He doused his headlights. Approaching a gated entrance to a field, he slowed and swung the Mercedes on to gravel, then waited as the projectile hurtled towards him, headlights still turned full on.
'Dip your headlights, you swine,' he muttered to himself.
It was a Porsche, a red Porsche. Tweed raised a hand to shield his eyes against the glare. As it passed him, the car slowed. He caught a glimpse of the driver and stared. A man in his fifties – with a thick thatch of white hair and prominent cheek-bones. Tweed blinked as the car continued on towards the highway. He couldn't believe it.
Lee Foley. American. Ran the Continental International Detective Agency in New York – CIDA.
Here? In the middle of Norfolk? Had his eyes deceived him? He'd had only a brief glance at the driver. He tightened his lips, recalled snatches of his conversation with Paula Grey on the phone. I was driving up this country road… I'm positive the driver of the car was Lee Foley… Hugh pointed him out to me once in a New York restaurant… said he was very bad news… He damned near drove me into the ditch with his bloody red Porsche…