Blood Storm

13

It was still dark. Newman walked some distance before he hailed a cab driver, told him to drop him outside a block of flats in the Fulham Road. He didn't want any witnesses who could report where he had boarded the cab, where he had left it.

A promising dawn was casting first light as he walked quickly to Paula's place. He'd intended to get into his car and drive quietly away. Paula, fully dressed, appeared at her bedroom window, called down to him.

'Come on up. Here's the key to the front door…'

He caught it, went inside and up to her flat. The ground-floor flat was occupied by a woman who spent little time there. Paula was waiting for him at the head of the stairs, took him by the arm, led him inside. She was clad in what she called her 'battledress' – smart blue slacks tucked into the tops of knee-length boots, a warm blue windcheater. Her hair was well brushed, as though she'd just been to the hairdresser's.

'I was worried when I saw your car still parked out there…'

'I've been up the last twenty-four hours.'

'So you had a great night with Roma.' Paula smiled as she said it. 'I'm not asking for details.'

'You can have them. I left Santorini's with Roma at 4 a.m., drove her home, then came straight on up here. Which may mean that's why you're still alive.'

He'd decided to tell her part of his encounter with Fitch. She needed to grasp the danger of this mission. He cut off the story with shoving an unconscious Fitch in the rear of the Ford, ordering Canal to drive off and never to come back.

'He was climbing up the drainpipe,' Paula said nervously.

'What's in the loft? Another way in?'

'There's a large skylight.'

'Fitch must have done a recce earlier. That's where he planned to get in, to grab you. He had a bag containing cloth soaked with chloroform. You'd have ended up in the river.'

'Are you trying to frighten me? If so, you're doing a good job. And you look fagged out. You need sleep – in my back bedroom. Now!'

'Tweed wants us to go down to Black Island, to interview the General. Then there's his trip to confront the Cabal.'

'Shut up! Sleep.'

Newman stumbled, she grasped his arm, led him to the back bedroom. He found the sight of the made-up bed alluring; his head was throbbing. He was taking off his shoes when Paula reappeared with a glass and a large carafe of water. He swallowed the whole of the glass she poured for him, drank half the refill. Taking off his windcheater he stripped off his tie, loosened his collar.

'I'll phone Tweed, explain the position,' Paula assured him.

He flopped full-length on the bed. He was asleep when she tucked the pillow more comfortably under his head. Then she went into the kitchen, prepared two thermoses, one with coffee, the other with tea, a jug of milk, two cups and saucers, a plate of currant buns, carried everything on a tray, left it on the table by his bedside. Newman was motionless, breathing steadily, out of this world.

*

Paula drove to Park Crescent, was the first person in the office except for Monica. She had phoned Tweed at home from her flat. Everyone else arrived later, including Marler, who took up his favourite position, leaning against the wall, inserting a cigarette into his holder.

When he'd settled behind his desk, Tweed's first question was addressed to Paula.

'How is Bob?'

'Sleeping like a babe. I think he'd had a tougher night than I relayed to you on the phone.'

'I suspected that. Marler, you were going to contact some of your pals in Parliament, to check what they'd heard.'

'Not my pals,' Marler drawled, 'my contacts. Fed them plenty of booze in the visitors' room or whatever they call it – and they talked their heads off. One of the brighter characters had heard the rumours about the formation of State Security. Didn't like it a bit. Said this land of freedom was going to be converted into a police state. A number of others agreed. A number of Cabinet Ministers are in favour, but not quite enough yet to agree to a bill being presented. It's on a knife-edge.'

'So we can expect further incentives to scare everyone stiff. Hooligans smashing up inner cities. God knows what other villainy.. .'

Tweed paused as Newman roared into the office. Paula checked the time. Newman couldn't have had more than four hours' sleep but his mood was tigerish.

'I've been thinking,' he began. 'We're not moving quickly enough. Tweed has a horrific murder to solve, then we have the State Security lot to smash. Anyone with scruples about using unorthodox methods had better wake up. Now I'm ready to drive down with Tweed and Paula to Black Island as a starter.'

Paula was marvelling at Newman's speedy recovery, his vitality. His appearance was intimidating. He was wearing a camouflage jacket and trousers tucked inside his boots. He had crammed a black beret over his tousled hair. Like a Commando, she thought. But at one time he had trained with the SAS to write an article on them. His experience had included joining potential recruits in a gruelling march over the Welsh mountains. To everyone's astonishment, including the SAS commander's, Newman had reached the far-away stop line as Number Two.

'Pete,' Tweed interjected, wanting to give him a difficult task so he'd not feel put down by Newman, 'I need you to do a tricky thing while we're down south. I want you to take photos of the three members of the Cabal when they leave their HQ. They must not see what you are doing.'

What a devil of a job, Paula thought.

'One other point,' Newman roared on. 'Remembering our last experience down there with Paula, we need a strike force. So I'd like Harry and Marler to come with us. All heavily armed.'

'You are starting a war,' Paula commented.

'Only if the other side shoots first. Agreed, Tweed?'

'Yes. And Paula comes too.'

'So,' Newman decided, 'we'll travel in the ancient Bentley with the souped-up engine, courtesy of Harry.'

'What are we waiting for, then?' Tweed demanded as he checked his Walther and slid it back into his shoulder holster.

They parked the car in the area near the ferry where a striped pole was lifted. Tweed gave a local a generous tip to keep an eye on the Bentley.

The drive down to Dorset had been a pleasure, with the sun shining out of a clear blue sky. It was warmer as they neared the sea. This time Abe was no longer operating the barge. His replacement, a local man called Judd, explained Abe had gone on holiday. Newman smiled as they settled down, the only passengers aboard the barge.

'Poor Abe has been scared off by that powerboat which blew up,' he remarked.

The crossing to Black Island was like travelling over a lake. Paula revelled in the experience, sitting so she could see the approach to Lydford. They disembarked at the dock. The streets were deserted as they passed through the village and turned along the road to the left. It was very quiet. As Paula walked in front Harry was wary.

'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. The colours are deliberately exaggerated – the light in Provence is so much stronger than here. Go well…'