By Stealth

17

They were the first off the plane at Zaventem Airport. It was Tweed who led the headlong rush, with Paula and Newman hurrying to keep up with him. Through Passport Control they carried their only bags, the ones they'd taken aboard the aircraft. Newman caught up with Tweed.

`Why the mad scramble?'

`Change of plan. You know where to pick up that car you phoned ahead for in London? Good. Forget the Hilton – drive us straight to police headquarters off Grand' Place. I must check the situation with Benoit, then we race to Liege – to Herstal. To Delvaux's chateau. Not a minute to lose..

His unusual urgency conveyed itself to the other two. A cool, fast-walking Paula checked her watch. It would be dark when they arrived in Liege. Running outside the airport, Newman swore under his breath. The hire car waiting for them was a red Mercedes. Too conspicuous. It couldn't be helped. He hustled through the formalities with the car-hire girl, accepted the keys, told her to wait while he tested the engine.

`Get in,' Tweed said impatiently.

`You might have warned me it was going to be a marathon,' Paula remarked as she dived into the rear.

`I only decided this would save time when the plane was descending. And we lost time droning round in that holding pattern. All right, Bob?'

`Engine seems OK. We're off. Grand' Place and Benoit, here we come…'

Paula groaned inwardly as they drove into Brussels, the most muddled and depressing city in Europe. Like Los Angeles, a series of districts in search of a centre. And the fog which had delayed them was drifting in smoke-like trails in the busy streets.

Tall concrete blocks rose everywhere, interspersed with small, shabby, two-storey buildings – centuries old, paint peeling – cafes, bars, and shops illuminated with tasteless neon. Street skiving off in all directions. Drivers of cars jousting for the only available slot left in the middle of a wide boulevard.

The pavements – ankle-breakers – were crowded with Belgian housewives hurrying for metro entrances. The home of the EC commissioners hadn't changed. A worthy home for those fat, well-fed, and over-paid bureaucrats, she thought. The whole place was like a disturbed anthill.

Newman was driving ruthlessly, at high speed, overtaking. Belgian motorists blared their horns as they had to pull up suddenly to let him through. He's exceeding the speed limit, Paula observed to herself. Tweed's burst of nervous energy had transmitted itself to Newman's wild driving.

They pulled up outside a building off Grand' Place, which was barred to traffic with frontier-like poles. One of the truly ancient sections of Brussels, Grand' Place was surrounded with medieval buildings. Newman parked in a no-parking zone, took out a pad of stickers, wrote 'Police HQ' on one, attached it to the windscreen.

Tweed, already outside on the pavement, glanced at the sticker, called out to Newman.

`It's Politie here. You should have remembered that.'

Newman scribbled a new sticker. Removing the previous one, he attached the new version, jumped out of the car, locked it, and followed the others. Tweed and Paula were already inside the building.

`Chief Inspector Benoit is expecting us. An emergency. Every second counts..

Tweed had addressed the uniformed desk sergeant in French. He dropped his card in front of the man, a card which gave his name and the fake cover company.

Chief Inspector Benoit appeared almost at once, running agilely down the stairs. He greeted Paula first, hugging her. 'Welcome to Brussels.'

She felt glad she was wearing a smart outfit. Under her open trench coat she was clad in a high-necked white blouse, navy blue jacket, and pleated skirt. Tweed was moving restlessly, a reaction which did not escape the Belgian.

Chief Inspector Benoit, the shrewdest policeman in Belgium, was a jovial portly man in his forties. He had a great, beaked nose, light brown hair, and quick-moving eyes. He ushered them upstairs to his office on the first floor.

`We have to reach Liege very urgently. Precisely, Gaston Delvaux's chateau at Herstal. We've come straight here from the airport. The Hilton can wait,' Tweed said.

`I'll phone them, book you accommodation. Executive rooms on the twentieth floor, if I remember. Now, Liege. I rather expected this. You must go by train from Midi…' He checked his watch. 'You just have time to catch the express from Ostend going through to Cologne. Only one stop. At Louvain.'

`Surely by car-' Tweed began.

Benoit shook his head. 'With the traffic at this time of day? No, the train. I will try and get there by car to meet your train at Liege, but cannot guarantee I will make it, even with sirens and flashing lights.'

`You said Delvaux had banned police coming near him,' Tweed objected.

`True. I have unmarked cars waiting. There will be a silent approach as we come close to the chateau. We will wait a short distance away.' He raised a hand. 'I insist. My territory. You could be in great danger. Which reminds me. You just have time…'

He took them into another room. One glance at the weapons laid out on a table, with ammo, confirmed to Newman what a remarkable memory the police chief had. Paula picked up a. 32 Browning automatic, some ammo. She was checking the gun when Benoit spoke.

`Empty. Your favourite gun. Made in Herstal. Although today our armaments industry at Herstal hardly exists any more. The collapse of the Soviet Union and other factors.'

Paula was loading the Browning as Newman picked up a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 Special. Alongside the ammo was a hip holster. Benoit never forgot a thing. Taking off his trench coat and jacket, Newman slipped on the holster, checked the mechanism of the gun, loaded it, put extra ammo in his coat packet. That left a 7.65mm. Walther automatic on the table. Benoit looked at Tweed, who shook his head.

`I hardly ever carry a gun.'

`Now for the perishing paperwork,' Benoit continued as he produced two forms which already had details typed in. 'Paula, Newman, sign these. They are permits for you to carry those weapons. Now it is all legal.'

`Benoit,' Tweed said, after checking his watch, 'we will have to buy tickets for Liege before we board that express.'

Benoit produced his wallet, extracted six slips of paper. He handed two to each of them.

`First-class return tickets to Liege. I will drive you to Midi station. Then with a team I will drive on to Liege, hoping to meet you at the station. It is quite a gamble…'

`I'm leaving now,' Newman broke in. 'I've got a Merc. outside. I think I can make it by road before Paula and Tweed reach Liege. Along the motorway. See you two…'

He was gone before anyone could protest. Benoit threw up his hands in mock horror, then ran to the window. Peering down, he took out a pad, made a note.

`I have his registration number. I'll leave instructions to be radioed along his route. To all patrol cars. That Merc. to be permitted to proceed at all costs. Now, we leave for Midi station…'

Tweed and Paula had a first-class compartment to themselves as the express raced eastward well beyond the Brussels suburbs. To Paula's surprise it was still daylight and the fog had gone. They were crossing open countryside and carefully ploughed fields stretched away on both sides. The bread-basket of Belgium. Here and there a dense copse of pine trees reared up. They passed isolated villages with neat rows of old brick-built terrace houses with steep-pitched roofs. In the distance the occasional church spire pointed skywards like a needle. Which prompted Paula's remark.

`I've been thinking about Hilary Vane – how she was murdered at Heathrow. It looked to me as though she was injected with cyanide. Her lips were blue.'

`Undoubtedly,' Tweed agreed. 'Cyanosis was pretty obvious. Her whole face was beginning to turn blue.'

'I was also wondering how the murder was achieved. In a busy airport you can't really produce a hypodermic needle and jab it into somebody. The location was too public.'

`What solution have you arrived at, then?'

`A hypodermic needle disguised as something else. Something very ordinary which no one would think odd a woman holding it in her hand.'

`Sound thinking. The same thought crossed my mind.' `What about Dr Rabin?' Paula asked. 'Has he told you anything?'

`You know what pathologists are. Won't commit themselves until they've gone through the whole process. He said he would have information for me by the time I got back to London.'

`That place we stopped at was Leuven, I noticed.'

`Which means a Flemish enclave,' Tweed commented. `Benoit said Louvain, the French – or Walloon-version. It's a real mix-up, is Belgium – which is why the road signs in Brussels are always first in French, then in Flemish. I think we're coming in to Liege.'

`Looks pretty grim,' Paula observed, peering out of the window. 'Can't really see it yet. Just those peculiar hills shaped like mounds. Funny they're all so rounded. They don't look like proper hills.'

`They aren't. Liege was once a great coal-mining centre. They just dumped the coal dust in great slag-heaps on the edge of the city. Not a very tidy lot out here. You'll see the colour of the buildings – coal black from the dust blown down into the city. Prepare not to enjoy yourself.'

The stench of Liege hit Paula as they walked out of the modern station. A revolting smell of greasy food from hot-dog stalls. The street was littered with stained food cartons carelessly thrown down. The brick buildings opposite were soiled with black dirt – the coal dust Tweed had referred to, she assumed.

Waiting cab drivers, wearing shabby clothes, pestered them for a fare. Their complexions were an unpleasant olive colour and several leered at Paula's legs. So this was Liege…'

Paula stared. On the opposite side of the cobbled street a red Mercedes was parked. Newman stood beside it and beckoned them over. Paula picked her way among the mess of discarded cartons.

`I didn't come over,' Newman explained. 'This is the sort of place where you stay by your car unless you want to lose a wheel, windscreen wipers, the lot. And I have found out the route to Herstal. It's not far. I have marked it on a map, so you can be navigator, Paula.'

`How did you find it?' she asked, studying the map when she'd slipped into the back seat.

`Cost me two thousand francs. These cabbies don't give you the time of day for nothing. This is Money-Grubber Town. Watch your shoulder-bag.'

`Let's get moving,' Tweed urged. 'Any sign of Benoit?' `He's inside that unmarked car on the corner. Arrived about fifteen minutes after me. Relax…'

He was driving down a narrow street walled in by more soot-soiled buildings. It started badly, it became worse.

The gutters were littered with crushed drink cans, with screwed-up paper. The few locals slouching along the dimly lit street were clothed to match their surroundings. The interior of the Mercedes was polluted with the smell of stale food. Newman opened a window wide.

`Don't imagine you appreciate the Liege atmosphere. So a breath of partly fresh air should clear it in a minute. Just relax…'

`Relaxing is the last thing I have on my mind,' Tweed snapped. 'I want us to get to Delvaux in time. Assuming we are in time. Benoit isn't going to form up a cavalcade behind us, I trust?'

`He has three cars packed to the gunwales with armed men. And he's promised me not to come within a quarter of a mile of the chateau. Reluctantly. Ladies and gentlemen,' Newman went on in a lighter vein, 'we have just arrived at the great River Meuse..

It was dark as he drove alongside the major waterway for barges and other traffic, the river from distant Dinant in the south, which progressed via Namur and Liege to become the Maas in Holland before it finally reached the North Sea.

Tweed peered out of the window. Street lamps provided better illumination here. The wide river down below with massive concrete embankments like fortress walls. The water was a muddy colour. Paula touched Tweed's arm.

`Look at those apartment blocks on the opposite bank. They're modern – but even they are hideous.'

Tweed nodded. The apartment blocks were painted in a variety of primary colours, all an offence to the eye. They gave the curious impression they were built of plastic. Newman called out again.

`Now for Herstal. It's roughly north-west of Liege, as you'll see from the map. Not far now.'

Tweed hardly heard him. He was staring out of the window. There was a large yacht basin, a branch of the river closed in by a low wall. Again the element of water and various craft. As at Lymington and Buckler's Hard.

Headlights undimmed, the woman behind the wheel of the black Mercedes raced through the night, blaring her horn frequently to blast other motorists out of her way. Belgian drivers swore as she overtook them, made rude gestures she never noticed. Her whole mind was concentrated on reaching her destination, and God help anyone who got in her way.

It wasn't easy to identify her as a woman. She was wearing a crash helmet, goggles, her leather jacket turned up at the collar. Her gloved hands rested lightly on the wheel. As always, she was perfectly in control of the situation.

A large truck edged out on to the motorway. She pressed her hand on the horn non-stop, increased speed. The truck driver used foul language as he jammed on his air-brakes. Then the black projectile was past him, its red lights disappearing in the distance.

`Crazy bastard!' the truck driver said to himself.

The black Mercedes, with a taxi sign, raced on and on. Its tyres screeched as she swung round a bend, never slackening for a second. Her hand was on the horn again as she overtook more vehicles, several shaking in the slipstream of her fantastic speed.

She checked a road sign, glanced at the dashboard clock, rammed her foot down another inch. The Mercedes was practically flying, seemed about to take off at any moment. She drove on, ruthlessly forcing other traffic to give way.

Her destination: Herstal.