By Stealth

54

`Helen! Of all people! I can't believe it.' Willie went to a double-doored wall cupboard, opened the left-hand panel. 'I need a pick-me-up. This is just too awful…'

He poured himself a glass of Cyprus sherry, perched the bottle back on the shelf, leaving the door half open as he stumbled back to a chair, sat heavily in it. He drank half the glass, looked round in dazed fashion.

`Sorry. Anyone else need a drink?'

Heads were shaken as Paula walked with stiff legs to a different couch. As she sat down Newman joined her, put his arm round her tense body. Her breasts were heaving with the effort.

`No,' Burgoyne said, seating himself again in the carver in the corner, 'I'm not familiar with the symptoms. At least I wasn't until now.'

Already Helen's lips were a bluish tinge and the same colour was spreading to her stiffened face. Willie flapped a hand.

`Can't just leave her like that. I'll move her…'

`Don't!'

It was Tweed's order. He still stood with hands inside his trench-coat pockets. A half-minute earlier he had run close to Paula, but, like the others, couldn't find a way to disentangle the flurry of arms which had waved about.

`Nothing must be touched until the police are called – but that can wait for a few minutes longer. Brigadier, ever heard of someone called Vulcan?' Tweed asked.

`I believe I have. In Hong Kong.'

`Ah, the Far East,' Tweed recalled. 'Where long ago you went missing for four months behind the Chinese lines in Korea. What did Mao's lot do when they captured you?'

`I say, hold on there!' Willie protested. 'We've just had a frightful tragedy. The Brig. doesn't like those days being recalled. Show some sensitivity.'

`Mao's crowd didn't do anything to me.' Burgoyne gazed straight at Tweed. 'Because I was never captured. Went to ground until I could get away. You seem to know a devil of a lot.'

Lee had collapsed back into her chair. Her teeth chattered. Tweed sensed she was on the verge of hysteria. She sat playing with her cigarette holder.

`They say it's rained non-stop while we were away. All the rivers are swollen.'

It was the sort of remark people sometimes make when they are excessively upset. She suddenly burst into tears and Paula hurried over, kneeling beside her. Tweed waited until she had quietened down, then swung round to look down at Willie.

`You have heard of Vulcan?'

`One of the old Roman or Greek gods. Made thunderbolts for Jove

…'

`And you made them for Dr Wand.'

`Sorry. Not with you.'

`Willie, remember that chat we had in the Sambri bar at the Four Seasons? The topic of Brigadier Burgoyne came up. I listened while you told me that what he doesn't love is the present state of England. You went on about the welfare state, about the young wanting everything handed to them on a plate. A good dose of iron government is what is needed – the implication being Communist discipline…'

`Tommy-rot!' Burgoyne blazed.

`Let me finish. Willie remembered now and again to say these were your views. But he'd had a lot to drink and really let his tongue run away. It sounded to me that Willie was expressing his own attitudes – camouflaging them as the Brigadier's. But, Willie, you were just a bit to vehement in expressing those views – which are your own. Because you are Vulcan.'

`I'm confused. Need another drop of the good stuff…'

He stood up, walked unsteadily towards the two-door cupboard. Reaching inside, he unlooped the Heckler and Koch sub-machine-gun concealed inside the left-hand door, turned round, suddenly alert, and aimed it point-blank at Paula.

`First person who moves and she gets the whole mag.'

Everyone froze. Especially Tweed. The stock of the sub-machine-gun was collapsed but the muzzle stayed aimed at Paula. The Heckler and Koch: its performance rattled through Tweed's mind.

A 9mm weapon, it had a rate of fire of six hundred and fifty rounds a minute. A range of almost five hundred feet. It would obliterate Paula. She stayed on her knees, staring over her shoulder.

`You are Vulcan,' Tweed said quietly.

`Key to the whole operation – which you've smashed. But don't worry, we'll be back. I have my contacts. And now I'm leaving. By the front door. Anyone who opens it within five minutes gets the full burst.'

His genial 'favourite uncle' face was etched as though in stone. Willie backed towards the front door, opened it, slipped outside, closed it. Newman, holding his Smith amp; Wesson, ran to the door, listened. He heard the engine of the Mercedes start up, speed off down the drive. He opened the door just in time to see the car turn left – towards Beaulieu. He ran to the Volvo, jumped inside, started the engine, his gun on the seat by his side, and raced down the drive.

Fanshawe saw the lights of the car pursuing him, pressed the button which automatically slid back the sun roof.

Drifts of mist and cold air flooded in but Fanshawe turned the heaters full on. An opportunity might come to ambush his pursuer. If so, he could stand on the seat, poke his head and shoulders out of the opening, and look down on his target. The sub-machine-gun lay on the seat beside him.

As they raced along the deserted winding road through the forest Newman became aware the temperature had nosedived. Ice was forming on his windscreen. He set his wipers going, turned his headlights full on. This was dangerous weather – one unnoticed patch of ice on the road and he'd end up against the trunk of a tree.

Fanshawe was driving like a maniac, increasing speed all the time. A heavy white frost crusted the dead bracken, coated the bare branches. They had left the forest behind and with a few hundred yards between them Newman passed Hatchet Pond. The moon had come out and he saw the surface of the small lake was coated with a sheet of ice. No weather for moving at such speeds.

Fanshawe reached the approaches to Beaulieu, tore down the hill. To Newman's horror he saw two boy cyclists on the diabolical bend where the road to Buckler's Hard turned off to the right up Bunker's Hill. Without reducing speed, Fanshawe skidded round, missing the cyclists by inches as he roared off up Bunker's Hill. The cyclists, unhurt but terrified, had fallen off on to the verge.

`Stupid cretins!' Fanshawe shouted, waving one clenched fist while he held the wheel with the other hand.

Cold-blooded bastard!' Newman growled to himself.

He took the bend more slowly, accelerated as he climbed the curving hill. A minute later he was on the level stretch of lonely country road. Fanshawe's red tail-lights were disappearing as Newman rammed down his foot. He shot forward like a rocket, closely watching the road surface at the limit of his lights.

Fanshawe had turned down the private road to Buckler's Hard when Newman reached that point and also turned. He pressed his foot down harder, closing the gap. Ahead, Fanshawe was skidding round corners. Why was he heading for Buckler's Hard?

Newman controlled the wheel with one hand. With the other he held his Smith amp; Wesson, rested his arm on his open window, fired two shots over the roof of the Mercedes. As he'd hoped, Fanshawe panicked, drove even faster and Newman fired one more shot, again aimed over the roof.

Inside the Mercedes Fanshawe kept looking in his rearview mirror, checking how close his pursuer was. His concentration on this fear made him forget the speed at which he was travelling. He arrived at the anchorage and only then stared ahead in horror.

Newman was reducing speed, swinging his Volvo to a stop by the boatyard when the Mercedes reached the ramp leading down to the river. All the rivers are swollen. Newman recalled Lee Holmes' words as he saw how high the water had reached and the speed of the current flowing down from Beaulieu upstream.

Fanshawe jammed on the brakes. Too late. He was on the downward-sloping ramp which was covered with shot ice. The Mercedes aquaplaned – rocketed forward at high speed into the river. It was half-submerged when Newman jumped out after grabbing a torch. He held that in his left hand and his Smith amp; Wesson in the other hand as he stood on the edge of the bank, switched on the powerful beam.

The car seemed to suspend itself as Newman directed his torch beam on to the vehicle. Fanshawe had climbed on to his seat, thrusting his wide shoulders up through the open roof, holding the sub-machine-gun. His mass of white hair was dishevelled, his voice hoarse as he called out.

`Throw me a rope, Newman, or I'll gun you down.' `You won't – then you'd have no hope of surviving. So drop that weapon.'

Fanshawe's nerveless hands let go of the machine-gun and it fell back inside the car. Waving his empty hands, Fanshawe began pleading.

`For God's sake throw me a rope. There are lifebelts on the shore.'

`I might consider rescuing you – provided you answer truthfully one question.'

`Hurry up, man! I'm going down…'

`The truth, remember. I'll know if you're lying. Did you pass on Dr Wand's orders at any time to kill the victims?'

`I had to,' Fanshawe gabbled. 'I was his deputy. I had no choice

…'

`I see,' Newman replied in a hard voice. 'You were obeying orders. I seem to have heard that excuse before. I have now considered rescuing you – and decided not to.'

`I can't swim!' Fanshawe screeched. 'In the name of humanity…'

The Mercedes had propelled itself quite a distance. The rear was in the water, the front resting on dark muddy ooze, swamp-like. The car was tilted, its rear lower than its front. Then the front sank deeper and more rapidly into the slime. The Mercedes was now submerged almost to the rim of the roof.

Newman stood quite still, his torch beam still shining on Fanshawe who was screaming a mixture of obscenities and pleas. The anchorage was deserted on that eerie December night. Near by a power boat was tied up – Fanshawe's intended means of escape. Vertical trails of motionless ice mist hung over the anchorage.

Newman made no response to the desperate cries for help. This sadist had been instrumental in murdering innocent men and women. The entire vehicle sank lower, watery mud creeping over the roof, sliding down inside the opening. The last sight Newman had of Fanshawe was hands waving as the mud deluged inside the vehicle. The hands, the crown of white hair vanished a moment after Fanshawe let out a fearful gurgle of pure terror. Bubbles appeared where the car had gone down and swiftly disappeared, caught up in the flow of the river heading for the Solent. The silence was total.