by Colin Forbes
'It's too quiet,' he remarked, bringing up the rear. Inside a long leather pouch he carried an automatic weapon. In the capacious pockets of his camouflage jacket was a collection of hand grenades. Tweed walked alongside Paula as they went down a wooded lane. Entrances to drives leading to large houses had names but there was no sign of Lockwood, the General's house. The previous evening a friend at the MoD had given Tweed the name. He stopped in front of wrought-iron gates which were closed. The name board merely gave the owner's name: 'Macomber'.
There was no sign of life along the curving drive behind the gates, and no speakphone. Tweed shrugged.
'He likes his privacy,' he observed. 'We'll walk a bit further. There must be someone about…'
Paula clutched his sleeve. On either side of the tall gates was a massive stone pillar. She pointed to the top of the right-hand pillar, her voice expressing distaste.
'Look at the top of that pillar. It's really rather awful.'
Perched on top of the pillar was a stone sculpture of a cat. It was crouched down but its head was twisted round the wrong way, twisted through an angle of a hundred and eighty degrees. There was something horrible about the distortion.
Turning a corner in the lane, Paula stopped. A freshly repainted sign board carried the legend 'Crooked Village'. What lay beyond was extraordinary. With little space between each very un-English one-storey cottage was a scene which reminded Tweed of Provence.
The walls, and the steeply angled roofs above them, were painted with white paint, piled on thickly. Some had spike-like rafters protruding beyond the roof-line. Each cottage had only a few small windows and the doors were painted, again thickly, in blue.
Tweed stared. The sunlight gave the brilliant colours a powerful blinding effect. A mass of cacti were placed close to the front walls. They turned a corner and now the steeply slanted roofs were painted red. It was not like England at all. They felt they had been transferred to another world.
'Someone round here likes Van Gogh,' Tweed observed. 'This village is like one of his paintings.'
'There's someone working inside this one,' Paula pointed out.
'So we can ask about the General,' Tweed said and walked inside, followed by Paula.
Another surprise. The large room was a potter's working area. The potter, working a wheel, was a small heavily built man with a crooked face, one side of his jaw lower than the other. He stopped working and gave Paula the pleasantest of smiles. His gnarled hands were enormous. He wore a white smock, woollen leggings and suede slippers smeared with white paint.
'Welcome to France,' he greeted them. 'I am Francois. I hope you like our village. The General paid all the costs. General Lucius Macomber. He loves France.'
He sat on a three-legged stool, indicated for them to sit in wicker chairs. Tweed lowered himself gingerly but the chair was solidly constructed. He introduced himself and jumped in with a reference to the General.
'I was intrigued by the sculpture of a cat on one of his pillars. The cat with its head the wrong way round. Rather unusual.'
'The story behind that is unusual, even macabre. The General has three offspring, Nelson, Benton and Noel. This goes back to when they were boys, approaching their teens.
There was a cat the General worshipped, called Tommy. An old name for army privates. The General used to feed Tommy – no one else could give it milk or food. I had better demonstrate…'
Francois picked up a large chunk of malleable clay from a table. Paula watched, fascinated, as he used his large hands skilfully, moulding the clay until, quickly, it became a cat. He held it up so they could see how lifelike it looked. He then did something which horrified her. He took hold of it by the neck, slowly twisted it until the head was the wrong way round.
'That,' he said quietly, 'is what one of the offspring did to the cat.'
'How beastly,' Paula exclaimed.
'The General went almost out of his mind with grief and fury. He did everything possible to find out which of the boys had committed this atrocity. He never did. So, to punish the culprit, he asked me to create that sculpture in stone, to fix it to the top of the pillar. His idea was that every time the culprit walked out of the grounds they would see this aberration.'
'I think that too is quite horrible,' Paula muttered. 'So he never knew who was responsible?'
'Never.'
'What about his relationship with his three sons now?' Tweed asked.
'Not all is as it seems.'
'I don't understand.'
'The General is a virile man, even now when he is eighty. His wife died three years ago. Years before that he had an affair with a woman called Horlick. She became pregnant. He told his wife, a remarkable woman. She agreed to tell the neighbours she was pregnant and went on to the mainland. When Mrs Horlick gave birth to Noel the General's wife came back with the baby and everyone thought that it was hers.'
'So Nelson and Benton never knew the truth?'
'Not then. When they were grown up they did find out. I'm not sure how.'
'So how did they react to having a half-brother instead of a real one? Not pleasantly, I imagine.'
'You're wrong there,' Francois told him. 'First, Noel turned out to have a brilliant brain, especially on the planning front. He also took wrestling lessons at a specialist gym on the other side of the island. Nelson is pretty tough but he wouldn't mix it with Noel. If he did he'd end up with a broken arm. When none of them would own up to screwing the cat's neck the General took his revenge.'
'The stone sculpture, you mean?' Tweed suggested.
'More than that. The General is rich. His father was a billionaire, left it all to him. The General used a top lawyer in London to create three trusts. One for each of his offspring. Every year the boys get a handsome amount which enables them to live well – but nothing like a fortune. They were furious. Greed. The General never sees any of them when he goes on one of his three-day trips to London.'
'You did say,' Tweed began, phrasing it delicately, 'that the General is virile. Has he still an interest in women? These trips to London.'
Francois stopped what he was doing. He stood up suddenly and Tweed was surprised to see him standing straight as a ramrod.
'That is personal. The General's private life is his own business.'
He stared hard to Tweed, cocked his head to one side as though he couldn't quite make Tweed out. He sat on the stool again, still gazing at Tweed.
'What is it about you, sir? I'm telling you things I've never told another soul. I presume you will never repeat any of this to anyone. And my real name is Frank. The General calls me Francois to fit in with the atmosphere of the Crooked Village.'
'I give you my word I will never repeat anything you have told me,' Tweed said firmly, his eyes fixed on Frank's.
'You didn't introduce me to the charming lady,' Frank said, gazing at Paula.
'I'm sorry,' Tweed said quickly. 'My manners must be slipping. This is Miss Paula Grey, my confidential assistant.'
'May I call you Paula?' Frank suggested, taking off his working gloves and extending his hand.
'Of course you may,' she said with a smile, shaking his hand.
'I can tell,' Frank went on, 'that she is a trustworthy and most able assistant. Tight-lipped, I am sure.'
He didn't seem bothered about Newman, who had been standing a distance away by the open heavy door at the entrance. Newman kept glancing outside. He had posted Harry with his weapon at the entrance to the village to warn of any intruders. He also had very acute hearing and had heard every word.
'You're going now?' Frank said as Tweed held out his hand. 'I was going to offer you some refreshment.'
'Thank you, but I want to have a word with the General. Is it all right if I tell him we have been here, that we chatted with you about your pottery and the village?'
'Of course it is. He is very proud of his village. When it was built he brought over architects and workmen from France. They advised me about the paint to use. T
he colours are deliberately exaggerated – the light in Provence is so much stronger than here. Go well…'
14
In a daze, Paula turned to look at the village they had left. The startling effect of being in France seemed stronger than ever. She took out her camera, pressed the button three times.
'That was a unique experience,' she said to Tweed with a lilt in her voice. 'And I liked Frank.'
'He liked you. Otherwise he wouldn't have told us so much. A shrewd old boy. And one of the happiest men I've ever met.'
They walked quickly, Harry in the vanguard, his eyes everywhere. Behind him Newman strode briskly along, also very alert. He was worried about Paula. He hoped they wouldn't have another grim experience. To Tweed's surprise the wrought-iron gates guarding the General's estate were swinging open. He stopped, listening.
Thud…
Thud…
Thud…
The sounds were coming from round a curve in the wide drive. For no reason he could fathom Tweed thought of the trip to the mortuary, and what Professor Saafeld had said about the murder of Viola Vander-Browne.
Tweed walked round the bend. He was in the lead and Paula was close behind him. He stopped abruptly. Newman came up behind him.
'Trouble? You're disturbed.'
Tweed was staring at the stretch of drive leading up to a large gracious mansion. Red-brick, Georgian in style, a long terrace perched above a flight of stone steps.
The sounds were being made by a tall agile man swinging a huge axe up and down, chopping large logs into smaller pieces with the flat base of a tree trunk as the chopping block.
The General, wearing a peaked army cap to protect his face against flying chips, laid down the axe, took off his gloves and turned to face Tweed. When he took off the cap he revealed a sun-tanned face with a large hooked nose, piercing blue eyes, a firm mouth, a strong jaw – all of which reminded Tweed of paintings he'd seen of the Duke of Wellington.
'Mr Tweed, I presume, with Miss Paula Grey and the formidable Robert Newman,' he called out in his commanding voice.
No suggestion of the pompous brass-hat in the voice. Rather the voice acquired over the years when addressing officers. Despite his age his skin was leathery rather than lined and he moved briskly as he walked to greet them. Upright as a telegraph pole.
'I was expecting you,' he continued, hand extended. 'Your friend Allenby at the MoD phoned to say you might be visiting me.'
You can't trust anyone these days not to babble, Tweed thought. His hand was ready for the General's crushing grip, but the hand that grasped his was strong but not aggressive. After shaking hands with Tweed he turned immediately to Paula, clasping her hand gently, bowing slightly.
'Tweed is an able fellow otherwise I would not have opened the gate,' he told her. 'But without you I suspect he'd find life very difficult indeed. Ability and charm – not something I often encounter.'
'You overestimate me, sir,' she replied. 'But you are correct in your assessment of my chief.'
'And here is the tough guy, Robert Newman. Not a man I'd trifle with.'
Newman was ready for a bone-crushing grip and that was what he experienced. He squeezed as hard as he could while smiling. The General's expression changed briefly. He'd felt the pressure.
'Of course, Newman, you are younger, so you have the advantage over ancient material. You should start writing more of those articles on the state of the world. I have read them all. You are the best journalist I've read. Of course there is Drew Franklin. Good, but lacks sharpness, which is just one of your strong points.' He spotted Harry, who was a few paces behind the others. He strode over, hand extended. 'You must be Harry Butler, another key member of Tweed's amazing team. Explosives is your speciality.' He was shaking hands as he continued talking. 'Tricky job, yours. Suppose you cut the wrong wire on a time bomb…'
'If I was not sure which wire to cut I'd leave the damned thing alone,' Harry said emphatically.
'Which is why you're still here.' He put an arm round Harry's shoulders. 'Come on now. We'll have drinks inside to celebrate your courtesy in calling on me. A sundowner, as they called it in the Far East. I know that because my favourite author is Somerset Maugham. He knew a thing or two…'
They followed the General up the steps and Tweed asked the question on the terrace before they entered the mansion.
'One thing intrigues me. How did you know we were coming? The gates opened automatically for us.'
'See that object fixed to that tree at the corner of the drive where it turns?'
Tweed stared at where the General was pointing. Attached to a lower branch was a large mirror. The General chuckled.
'That mirror shows me who is outside the gates. If it's someone interesting – like you and your team – I operate a lever behind the trunk where I was chopping the logs. At night glare-lights illuminate the entrance and the road outside. Have to get organized in these decadent days. Now, let's get those drinks.'
Double doors of oak opened into a spacious hall. The floor was covered with a huge Persian rug. On one wall Tweed was not surprised to see a portrait of the Duke of Wellington. On another a self-portrait of Van Gogh, the colours so reminiscent of the Crooked Village.
A white-painted door off the hall led into a comfortable living room with windows on three sides. A girl appeared, obviously the maid. The General checked what everyone preferred, then spoke in French.
'Celeste, our guests would appreciate drinks…'
He rattled off what was required. In an astonishingly short time she reappeared with the drinks on a silver tray, served them, left the room. Paula, who was intrigued by the French maid and understood the language, asked a question.
'General, are all your staff French?'
'Yes, indeed. These days most British people think a servant's job is below their dignity. I have four girls who look after this rather large house. And a dragon of a French housekeeper. They all live in the cottages in Crooked Village. They seem to feel at home there.' He stared at Tweed. 'The murder of the Vander-Browne lady sounds quite ghastly. We are descending into barbarism.'
'How did you hear about that?' Tweed enquired.
'I have the Daily Nation delivered every day. Like to keep up with what's going on. Drew Franklin has written a long article on the subject. Sounds gruesome.'
'I understand it was certainly that,' Tweed replied.
'And now,' the General continued, 'we have the Blackshirts, the Fascists, the so-called State Security lot taking over the western tip of this island, building strange buildings. You know, I wouldn't be surprised' – he paused, ran a finger over his lower lip – 'if one dark evening those buildings and anyone still working on them were blown sky high. What I've just said is off the record and you never heard me say it.'
'Say what?' asked Tweed with an innocent expression.
'My mind was elsewhere,' Paula remarked.
'And I've gone deaf,' Newman said.
'That's the ticket.' The General smiled as he stood up. 'Now you've finished your drinks perhaps I could show you my little Versailles.'
He led the way into the hall and down a long corridor towards the back of the house. Opening a door he stood aside to let Paula walk out on to a spacious terrace running the width of the back of the house. She stopped, gasped as the others followed her. The white stone terrace was elevated with a flight of wide steps leading down into a small paradise – although not so small: the estate spread out on both sides, with stretches of green lawn like a vast putting green. There were pergolas and stone arches, arrangements of evergreen shrubs such as she had never seen before, all trimmed neatly. In the distance, beyond a lake shaped like a swan, was a large maze of evergreen hedges. The General stood beside her.
'Walk into that maze without the map and you'd never find your way out. There's more.'
He walked across to a chrome wheel in the balustrade wall, turned it. All over the endless vista great fountains of water rose up high, each creating a differe
nt shape. He explained the jets were sunk in the lawn.
'I've never seen anything like it,' she enthused, rhapsodized.
'Better than Versailles,' Tweed commented. 'Which is too large for my taste. This is a jewel.'
'Don't need a gardener do you, sir?' joked Harry.
'I have twelve from a village to the east but I can always do with someone else,' the General chuckled, joining in the joke.
'Breathtaking,' Newman commented, placing his hands on the balustrade. 'You had people from France to create this?'
'Yes, I did. Experts from outside Paris.'
They lingered for a while, unable to tear themselves away from the spectacle. Then Tweed checked his watch.
'We thank you for your hospitality, General, but if we leave now I think we'll just catch the return ferry to the mainland.' He looked at his host. 'You look very fit. How do you do it?'
'I get up early, have a glass of orange juice, then jog over Hog's Nose Down. They say you can just see the Isle of Wight to the east but I never have. Not even on a clear day.'
He accompanied them to the end of the drive, then turned back as the gates automatically closed behind him.
Returning aboard the ferry, Paula had expected to recall the powerboat roaring close to them, the explosion when Harry's jumbo-size grenade landed inside it. Instead she found her imagination filled with visions of the Crooked Village, then the amazing garden at the back of the General's house.
They had quick refreshment in the bar of the Monk's Head and settled themselves in the Bentley. The sun was still blazing as Newman pressed his foot down. He called out to Marler, who had stayed in Tolhaven. 'You missed some extraordinary experiences.' 'I was chatting to the barman. They're often funds of info. He's counted fifty of those infernal Special Branch -beg their pardon, State Security – men coming in and heading for the ferry. So they have a small army to build those appalling prisons I saw in the photos Paula took.'