by Colin Forbes
'No crime in wanting to upstage an unpleasant stepmother,' he said amiably.
She looked at her watch. 'Glory! I'm expecting a phone call. Would you think me rude if I rush?'
'Only if you refuse to allow me to pay for the tea.' He lifted his hand. 'No argument. I was lonely, too.'
She stood up, held out her hand. 'I do hope we meet again, Mr Tweed. Four o'clock here will find me for the next few days. Now, I really must go . . .'
Tweed rose to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw The Parrot, who had paid his bill early, leaving his table to precede her down the stairs. He looked quite different in a beret and a dark overcoat.
'Tell me again about Dr Portch and Norfolk,' Tweed said to Newman as they sat in the lounge area of the Hotel d France et Choiseul.
'I checked old newspapers in the British Museum reading room for starters. I found what I was looking for two years ago - the story which rang a bell when you mentioned the name Portch. He had a practice in Brighton. Was very popular with the old ladies. Had a number of them as patients. Two died, left him legacies in their wills. A cool ten thousand pounds altogether. People began talking. At the coroner's inquest, it was touch and go whether he was indicted for murder. The coroner was not too bright, retired shortly afterwards. Natural causes was the conclusion.'
'Why the doubt in your opinion? We didn't have too much time to talk about it before we rushed for the Paris flight.'
'I'd left Butler and Nield in King's Lynn for the day while I drove down to Brighton. I poked around, for the police inspector in charge of the case. He also has retired. He was cagey at first. After a few Scotches at his bungalow he suddenly blew up. Said Portch should be behind bars for life. An Inspector Williams. The coroner's verdict stalled his investigation. Both the old ducks died of overdoses of barbiturates. Williams reckons the coroner was senile, and a woman-hater to boot. But it finished Portch in Brighton.'
'How?'
'Rest of his patients voted with their feet, left him. He had to sell the practice for a pittance. Which explains, I suppose, why he ended up taking a backwater position at Cockley Ford. They probably hadn't heard of the case there. The Portch case wasn't widely reported - there was a lot of international news at the time. It only made one national daily - on an inside page.'
'So someone in London who wanted a man like Portch to take over at Cockley Ford could have read the story?'
'Yes. Who are you thinking of?'
'No one in particular. You'll enjoy tomorrow - Lasalle is taking us to meet a Corsican gang leader here in Paris.'
'What for?'
'He knows something about a man the underworld calls The Recruiter.'
At Dinant in the Belgian Ardennes, just north of the French border, a massive cliff rises above the town, topped by a citadel which looks down on the river Meuse. Klein drove the Citroen over the Pont de Charles de Gaulle and headed for the barge moored further upstream.
Aboard the vessel, the Gargantua, its Belgian owner, Joseph Haber, watched the car coming and froze. Haber wore a pair of thick blue serge trousers and an old pea-jacket. A man of forty, he was short and thickset with black hair half-concealed by the peaked cap he habitually wore. He went into the wheelhouse at the rear of the barge and slammed the door as Klein pulled alongside the Gargantua, switched off the engine.
Climbing out of the car, carrying a case, he looked round the deserted waterfront and crossed the gangplank linking the barge to the shore. He pushed open the door and entered the wheelhouse. Haber spoke at once.
'I'm not doing any more for you. Don't care what you offer to pay me.'
'Clean up your mortgage on the Rhine barge and leave you a fortune in the bank . . .'
'Get off my barge. I don't want to see you again. One job was enough. You paid me. I did it. That's it.'
'I think not.' Klein was amiable. 'For a start there is the problem of the Gargantua. There could be traces of the bullion left down in that hold. I warned you about that at the beginning.'
'I'll have her cleaned out. I'll pay for that myself . . .'
'Really, you don't seem to understand.' Klein was patient, as though dealing with a not too bright child. 'Very fine grains of the bullion could be discovered by police forensic experts. We can't risk it. The barge must go - as we planned. You can get the insurance on it afterwards She has to be sunk where we arranged, Haber. And I have something for you to transport aboard your other barge, the Erika. Nothing so bulky or troublesome, this time. In fact, the case I am holding. I really must insist . . .'
'And I told you last time enough was enough. So bugger off . . .'
'Haber, you have a longer trip to make this time with this.' Klein put the case down on the wheelhouse floor, his manner calm and confident. 'And I see your partner, Broucker, is on board the Erika further downstream. He must come with us on our trip to Les Dames de Meuse. When we have got rid of the Gargantua we then drive back here and I'll tell you your new destination.'
'I said get off my barge . . .'
'Really, you must think of your family. The charming Martine, your wife, and your young son, Lucien.' He dropped a brooch on the ledge of the wheelhouse.
Haber stared at it in horror. The horror turned to fury as he lurched forward, grabbing for Klein's throat with both hands. 'What have you done with them, you bastard? If you have harmed either . . .'
'They are both in a safe place.' Klein grasped Haber by his wrists, forced him to sit down in the captain's chair. The grip felt like a vice of steel. 'Now quieten down. You are going to make a lot of money. I know you're ambitious. You will be able to buy a fleet of barges. Please keep still - we don't want anyone to see us struggling, do we? Not if your family is to remain safe and well-fed . . .'
Inside the wheelhouse aboard the Nantes, a third barge upstream from the Gargantua, Willy Boden turned to his wife, Simone. 'I think Haber is having an argument with that peculiar chap, Klein. No, don't stand up or they'll see us.'
'I don't like the look of that Klein,' Simone replied, stroking her long hair, 'I think he's trouble . . .'
'It's Haber's business, not ours. Let's finish our meal.'
Half an hour later he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and peered towards Dinant. 'That's funny,' he remarked. The Gargantua is leaving. Moving upstream towards the French border and Les Dames de Meuse. Haber was loaded up with gravel. And Broucker has closed the hatches of the Erika. He's joined Haber aboard the Gargantua. Why would he do that? Why would Haber sail upstream when he always takes the gravel downstream to Liege?'
'What about that man, Klein?' Simone snapped.
'He must still be on board. His car is parked by the mooring they have left.'
I think something is wrong. My intuition tells me . . .'
'If we steered this barge by your intuition we'd hit the bank ten times a day. I told you, it's none of our business.
And Haber does not like interference. We forget it. The deck is in need of a wash-down . . .'
Further upstream the Gargantua proceeded towards the citadel towering above Dinant. Klein was satisfied all was well and no one had noticed his confrontation with Haber.
'This is Sampiero Calgourli,' Lasalle introduced.
Tweed and Newman made no attempt to shake hands since the Union Corse chief remained seated when Lasalle had told him their names. They followed Lasalle's example and sat down in the dark room cluttered with old-fashioned furniture.
Calgourli's headquarters was an apartment near the meat market in the southern area of Paris. Swarthy-faced, the Corsican had very wide shoulders in proportion to his lack of height. His neck was thick, his hair dark and greasy, his moustache curved round the corners of a cruel mouth.
'Who are these people?' Calgourli demanded.
'Mr Tweed is a very powerful man in England, Mr Newman is his protector. Both - like me - are interested in everything you can tell us about the man known as The Recruiter.'
'And why should I tell you anything - even
if I knew about this man?'
'Look here, Calgourli . . .' Lasalle leaned forward. His manner was transformed. All hint of good humour had gone. His expression was grim, his tone tough. '. . . One day you will need a favour. I make a good friend - and a very bad enemy. I could get the idea into my head it would be an idea to investigate your Italian connection.'
'Please, my friend!' Calgourli spread his gnarled hands and he smiled, showing bad teeth. 'I merely ask a simple question. I like to know where I stand . . .'
'The Recruiter,' Lasalle repeated.
'Not a man I would do business with. He tried though -this Klein.'
'Excuse me,' Tweed intervened in French. 'You say his name is Klein?'
'That is the name he uses. You think that is his real name? He probably has half-a-dozen. He comes here with an introduction from a man in Marseilles. Little does he know I am no longer a friend of this man. I think Perugini has a perverted sense of humour.' He made a dismissive gesture. 'No doubt he extracted a fee for the introduction from Klein.'
'What did Klein want from you?' Lasalle snapped.
To recruit one of my associates. A man who is an explosives expert and a scuba diver. Now, Mr Lasalle, where would I find a man like that?'
'In five minutes on your doorstep - if you wanted to. What was your reply?'
'I told him to go fishing - something like that. Perhaps I was a little crude . . .'
'How did he react to that?' Lasalle pressed.
'Very calmly. He is a very cold man. I do not mind admitting I was glad I had a friend with me. Klein is a man who would carve up a corpse if he thought the corpse had pearls in its belly. And he laid down absurd conditions for his fee.' Calgourli stirred himself, rang a bell on the table by his side. 'Maurice! Bring wine.'
Lasalle watched as a thin young man with blank eyes came in, laid a tray of glasses and a bottle of red wine on the table. Calgourli poured wine, offered a glass to each of his guests. Tweed sipped cautiously. Vin ordinaire. Very ordinary. He loathed red wine but thought it best not to disturb the atmosphere. The old ruffian, he felt certain, could be explosively touchy.
'I trust,' Lasalle began, 'that Maurice is not listening in to this conversation.'
'If he was I'd cut off an ear.'
'What were these absurd conditions?' enquired Tweed.
'That the man he hired should leave Paris that night, that he should tell no one he was leaving, that no one should know his destination - including myself! I do not work in such ways - even had he asked for someone I could have supplied.'
'How much?' Lasalle asked laconically, not touching his wine.
'Pardon?'
'Oh, come on, for God's sake. I'm losing patience with you. What fee did he offer you?'
'Fifty thousand francs - with a second payment of the same amount when my man had left Paris.'
'Could you please describe this Klein?' Tweed asked.
'About a hundred and eighty centimetres tall, about eighty kilogrammes in weight. Colour of hair - no idea. He wore a black beret and a silk scarf which covered the back of his neck. I didn't like his eyes.'
'What colour?' Tweed continued.
'No idea. He wore those wrap-round tinted glasses . . .'
'Then why didn't you like the eyes - if you couldn't see them?'
This man is a policeman?' Calgourli asked Lasalle.
'Answer his question.'
'I could only see the eyes vaguely, but all the time he was in this room they stared at me from behind those tinted lenses. Ah, yes, and his face was white as death - a death mask.'
'How did he take your refusal?' Lasalle asked.
'He seemed amused.' Calgourli's lips tightened at the memory. 'He said if I didn't want to do business that was it.' Calgourli paused, looking at Lasalle. 'I can tell you one thing which would greatly interest you - if you would regard it as a great favour. You know what I mean?'
'Let me be the judge of that.'
'He has hired The Monk, the deadliest marksman in Europe.'
'Amazing,' Lasalle remarked as he settled himself behind the wheel of his car beside Tweed with Newman in the back. 'The old villain was actually scared of this Klein. Never before have I heard of anything scaring him.'
'At least we have a name - Klein,' Tweed remarked. 'And one of my contacts in another country used the same name.'
'And what use is that?' Lasalle asked as he started the engine and drove off. 'It is a common enough name. Have you any idea how many Kleins there are in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany?'
'A check on the Interpol computer here might be worth while,' Tweed persisted. 'And I didn't like the news that he has hired The Monk. I've heard of that man - a shadow which passes in the night. Leaving behind a body.'
'So shadowy no one has been able to pin anything on him,' Lasalle remarked. 'But it's very bad news. What kind of hellish operation can this Klein be planning? Hijacking a cruise liner?'
'If something is planned I don't think so,' Tweed said. 'I fear it could be something much bigger. Don't ask me what. But Calgourli did provide at long last what I've been looking for. Some facts.'
'Such as?' asked Newman.
'Explosives, scuba divers, and a top marksman. The Monk.'
'Come to check up on me?' Marler asked cheerfully. 'Making sure I was still in Bouillon?'
'I came to reassure you on our mutual friend's instruction,' Hipper said as they wandered through the streets of the small town. 'To tell you we should be ready soon now. It is very important you remain available at the Panorama . . .'
'I'm not staying hemmed in by the four walls of a hotel bedroom day after day. If you phone and I'm out, call back.'
'That is not entirely satisfactory . . .'
'Nothing in life ever is.'
'I will leave you here. Go straight back to your hotel.'
'On the double. Sir.'
Marler gave the Luxembourger a brief mock salute, turned and disappeared round a corner. He ran to where he had parked his newly-hired Volvo, unlocked it, got behind the wheel and started the engine. Ramming a black beret on his head, he perched a pair of dark glasses on his nose and drove to the corner where Hipper was just getting into a Peugeot station wagon.
He followed Hipper past the castle relic which loomed over the town and settled down to keeping the Peugeot in sight. They had left him marooned in the nowhere place of Bouillon. Not good enough. He needed some idea of where Hipper was based. You couldn't know too much about your employer in his line of business.
Hipper drove north through the Ardennes, then turned west. Marler had managed to avoid being spotted when Hipper arrived in Givet, the small French town just inside the frontier and south of Dinant.
Marler drove across the bridge over the river Meuse, turned on to the Quai des Fours, and realized he'd lost Hipper. He parked the Volvo and went into a café overlooking the waterfront for some coffee. 'Can't win them all,' he thought as he gazed out of the window.
A barge was gliding past, moving steadily upstream after passing through the lock. The Gargantua. Marler never gave it a second look as he finished his coffee and called for the bill.
In Paris Lara Seagrave came out of the public phone box and walked to Smiths' tea-room for morning coffee. She looked round after ordering to see if Tweed happened to be there. He was nowhere in sight. Well, she was used to drinking her coffee alone.
* *
'I have a call to make,' Tweed told Newman after Lasalle had dropped them at the France et Choiseul. 'From a phone box. Only take a minute. There's one up this street.'
'I'll wait outside then,' Newman replied. 'Take your time. I've plenty to think about. I have an idea I've forgotten to tell you something significant.'
Tweed entered the booth, dialled his Park Crescent number. Paula came on the line immediately. Only a brief greeting, then she came to the point.
'Jacob Rubinstein called you. Said he had something urgent to report. He'll only talk to you. Have you his number?'
/> 'Yes. I'm still in Paris. I'll phone him when I've finished this call. There may be a call from someone calling themselves Olympus. Like the mountain in Greece . . .'
They called fifteen minutes ago. Is it a man or a woman?'
'Can't tell you that.' Tweed sounded anxious. 'What was the message?'
'The voice was muffled - like someone talking through tissue paper. Couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman. I got them to repeat the message. It's very short. It's the Meuse, the river Meuse. That was it. OK?'
'Very,' said Tweed.
Noticing Tweed's absorbed expression Newman kept quiet until they were inside Tweed's room at the France et Choiseul. He waited again until room service had brought the coffee Tweed ordered.
'I haven't remembered the significant bit, but I have recalled a couple of other items I didn't tell you. I must be slipping.'
'You didn't have much time after you arrived at Park Crescent. Then you drove me to Heathrow. The plane was full, so we couldn't talk then. And Lasalle met us at Charles de Gaulle. What are the two items?'
'First, checking Portch's movements after he left Brighton I found there was a six-month gap before he took over at Cockley Ford. The barman whose place overlooks the harbour at Blakeney told me Portch arrived with his furniture, found there was some cock-up in the timing, and went to Holland for about six months.'
'Probably took a locum job.' Tweed was studying a Michelin map of the general area of the Meuse he'd purchased at Smiths' bookshop. 'What was the other thing?'
'You said there were six new graves of villagers who died during the meningitis epidemic. I didn't have much chance to take a good look - Portch and that thug, Grimes, were breathing down my neck. But I'm sure there were seven. Could you have miscounted?'
He had Tweed's full attention now. Tweed pursed his lips in an effort to think back to his night at Cockley Ford. Such a lot had happened since.