Cell

41

Paula swore to herself as Marler drove over the crest into Carpford. A dense fog blotted out the village. She navigated as he drove very slowly, partly because of the fog and partly to make as little noise as possible.

'You see the lake?' she began.

'I do. Driving any faster and we'd have been in it.'

'Follow the road to the left. We'll start with Martin Hogarth's bungalow. I'm sure he'll be so glad to see us…'

Marler drove the car off the road on to the open field when he saw the dim outline of the bungalow. Switching everything off, he followed her towards the entrance. He gripped her by the arm, stopped her, whispered.

'He's up. Glow of light from between the shutters closed over the windows.'

Turning on his powerful torch, he aimed it at the roof. A slim radio mast protruded upwards. Reducing the strength of the beam, he went up to the door, examined the locks. A well-known make. He handed his torch to Paula, gestured to indicate he needed her to shine it on the lock.

Taking out a small folded leather tool-kit, he extracted an oilcan, a pick-lock. He squirted oil first on the lock, then a smear on the pick. He heard the tumblers drop back, put his tools back in the leather holdall. Very gently, he turned the door handle. His acute hearing had caught the sound of a voice speaking inside. He pushed the door open a few inches. No creak. The door's hinges were well oiled.

Paula stood next to him as light flooded out from the narrow opening. Martin's voice came to them clearly, speaking emphatically.

'I tell you Billy is not here. I have checked his bungalow and it's empty. What? No, I don't have any idea where he is. And no, I've no idea where he might have gone. Must go now…'

Marler realized Martin had been alerted to their presence by the drop in temperature as icy air percolated in from the outside. He walked in, Walther in his right hand, followed by Paula. Martin had his back to them as he put down a telephone on a table. His right hand reached inside his jacket.

'Don't do anything stupid, Martin,' Marler ordered.

Turning round slowly, Martin rubbed fingers across his mouth as though considering how to respond. He was fully dressed in a grey business suit. He dropped both hands, exposing them palms outwards, demonstrating he had no weapon.

'What the devil are you doing here?' he hissed. 'Breaking and entering? A crime. I'll put you both behind bars..,.'

'Martin,' Marler interrupted in cold voice, 'who were you calling on that phone?'

'None of your damn business.'

'But it is our damn business,' Marler told him, moving closer. 'You're mixed up with the New Age people – and something far worse.'

'Prove it,' Martin snapped with a feeble show of bravado.

'I'll leave Superintendent Buchanan to do that. You're already linked to New Age for starters.' With his left hand Marler produced a pair of plastic handcuffs, recently issued. Locked on wrists, they clicked tighter and tighter if the prisoner struggled with them. 'Turn round,' Marler went on. 'Hold both wrists close together behind your back.'

The next minute was horrific. Martin twisted his lips in a strange attempt to look defiant, then crunched on something in his mouth. His face twisted again into something almost unrecognizable as his hand darted to his throat. He let out a terrible half-choked scream, fell sideways into a chair. It became a gurgle of unbearable pain. His eyes bulged. Paula rushed forward. She had only seen this once before.

'He swallowed something. He put it in his mouth when his back was turned to us.' She sounded desperate as she reached him, bent down.

'Water,' said Marler. 'With salt. An emetic…'

He was heading for the kitchen when Paula shook her head. By now Martin was thrashing his legs and arms, still in the chair. Paula stopped Marler.

'No good. He's gone. I caught a whiff of bitter almonds from his mouth. He swallowed a cyanide pill. We can't save him.'

Martin's thrashing body suddenly became motionless. He sagged in the chair. His eyes were open. Dead eyes. Marler came back, looked down at him. He realized he was still holding the Walther. He slipped it back inside his holster.

'Why on earth did he do that?'

'My guess,' Paula replied quietly, 'is he knew he'd be linked to al-Qa'eda. That he'd face a sentence of thirty years in prison. Couldn't face it.'

'I'll inform Buchanan at once,' Marler decided, taking out his mobile. 'We'll need an ambulance up here urgently. And no screaming sirens up here – or flashing lights…'

He was lucky. When he pressed Buchanan's private number at the Yard, the superintendent answered immediately. Marler explained the situation in as few words as possible. The superintendent said he was on his way to Carpford with an ambulance at once.

'Buchanan's coming himself,' Marler told Paula.

She had forced herself, after putting on latex gloves, to go through the dead man's pockets. Inside a thick wallet she found credit cards, driving licence, five hundred pounds in five-pound notes. She also found a one-way ticket to the Bahamas via New York. She showed the ticket to Marler.

'Look as though he was about to flee. The Bahamas. That suggests Gerald Hanover.'

'Isn't he the man who is controlling the whole operation?'

'Yes. Or the woman.'

They continued the search while waiting for Buchanan. Marler closed the door to Martin's bungalow but left the door unlocked.

The door to Billy Hogarth's bungalow was closed but also unlocked. Which Paula found strange and said so to Marler.

'An obvious explanation,' he replied. 'We heard Martin say on the phone to someone that he'd checked Billy's place. Anything strike you in here?'

'Nothing.' Paula went on checking. She worked quickly and had the reputation at Park Crescent of being an expert when it came to searching. After checking living-room, kitchen and the two bedrooms she came out, held out her hands in a dismissive gesture.

'Nothing anywhere. Nothing I wouldn't expect to find. A gap in his wardrobe, but they'll be the things he took with him to London. Palfry's tub-house next. No, we'll call on Margesson first. Tweed keeps dismissing him as unimportant.'

Marler first pressed the bell after pretending to admire the outside of the Georgian house. There was a light on in a first-floor room. They both heard the heavy thump of footsteps coming down a staircase. The door was flung open and Margesson, clad in a strange robe which fell almost to his ankles, glared out. Even his beard seemed to bristle. Marler was holding up his identity folder.

'Do you know what time it is?' Margesson fulminated.

'Yes, we do,' said Marler. 'But you obviously were not asleep.. .'

'I was praying. Does that mean nothing to you? This is the state the world has collapsed to. No discipline. No courtesy. You wonder why the revolution is coming?'

'Which revolution is that?' Marler enquired. 'And we can listen to your views more comfortably if you invite us in. It is bitterly cold out here – and the cold is getting into your magnificent home,' he said with a rare smile.

'You like it?' Margesson's mood changed. 'For a few minutes then.' His mood changed again. He pointed at Paula. 'She can't come in. Only one woman is permitted to enter my home.'

'Thank you.' Marler pushed past the large figure, holding Paula by the hand. 'Thank you,' he said again.

Confused, Margesson closed the door. As he turned round the folds of his silken robe swished. He waved towards a sofa.

'You may sit.'

Marler sat down with Paula beside him. He gazed round the spacious room, furnished with expensive sofas and chairs, all covered with Oriental designs of a weird character. The big man sat down in a high throne chair facing them. Paula also looked round the strange room.

'This is so beautiful,' she commented.

'I have spent time on my surroundings. It is probably a sin. The world is full of sin.' His voice had risen, his arms waving. 'Society in the West has fallen to the depths and there is no structure, no discipline, just orgies of the most frightful behaviour. Even the children are polluted.'

'Excuse me,' Paula said, leaning forward, her eyes fixed on Margesson's, 'but I have the strongest feeling that you are repeating, by rote so to speak, what someone else has preached to you. Rather like listening to a record, if I may say so.'

Margesson blinked. He was confused again. He stared round the room as though seeking help. So far he'd made no effort to deny what Paula had suggested. He gazed down at both of them as though not seeing them. As though drugged.

'So,' Paula continued in the same quiet voice, 'who is it that comes to see you? The person who propagates these ideas to you so forcefully you are convinced this is the real truth. One of your neighbours, perhaps?'

'I think I have to ask you both to leave now,' he mumbled. He looked at Paula. 'Who are you?' Then he lifted a large hand. 'No, please do not tell me. I do not wish to know.'

'We do have to leave,' Marler said, standing up. 'Thank you for allowing us in to your holy house.'

Margesson rose slowly, as though really he was reluctant to see them go. As he unlocked and opened the door, Marler asked his question suddenly.

'You see much of Palfry?'

'Palfry?'

'Your neighbour living in the round house.'

'He comes occasionally.' His reply came after a long pause. 'My blessings…'

The cold hit them like a hammer. Marler looked thoughtful as they made their way to the tub-house. As they got closer it looked enormous in the fog.

'That was very clever of you,' Marler remarked. 'He has been brainwashed by some unknown person. Maybe Palfry – you noticed how long it took him to answer my last question.'

'Or the unknown woman, the only one permitted to enter his house.'

No lights in Palfry's home. They walked all round it before approaching the front door. Paula was surprised by the dimension of its circumference. It was a very large place. Marler decided there was no one inside. Using his tool-kit, he dealt with the lock, opened the heavy door, stepped inside, felt round, found the switches, turned them all on. Paula gazed at the interior, taken aback by what she saw.

One vast room with circular walls. A kitchen area over to her right. Curved counters, curved cupboards against the wall, an immense American-style refrigerator, a stove, cooking utensils hanging from the wall behind the huge counter. No antiques, but plenty of tasteful chairs and sofas scattered around. On the far wall a curving staircase led up to a gallery.

I'd soon get dizzy living here, she thought. Marler had a nerve, breaking into the place. Supposing Palfry was sleeping upstairs, appeared with a shotgun. Then she noticed Marler had his Walther in his hand.

It was very warm and so silent. The only sound the faint gurgle from the curved radiators spanning the walls. She wended her way between the furniture, ran quietly up the carpeted curving staircase to the gallery. One heavy door with another lock. Carefully she turned the handle. Locked. She hissed down to Marler, beckoned.

It took him less than two minutes to deal with the lock. He turned the handle slowly, pushed the door open. Paula crept after him. This was the dangerous moment. Again Marler found the switch panel, turned everything on. A corridor curved off in both directions, a corridor with closed doors at regular intervals.

'You go that way, I'll go this way and we'll eventually meet. Check every room…'

None of the doors were locked. She had her Browning ready as she opened doors. Each room had a bed made up and in a corner a shower room. The beds were made up neatly. She felt the sheets but they were cold. She made her discovery in the last room. Neatly piled up in several stacks were piles of sleeping-bags. She counted. Twenty of them.

Emerging from the room, she met Marler coming from the other direction. He took her by the arm.

'Time we got out of this Ideal Home place.'

'I don't think they'd allow it to be shown at the exhibition,' she whispered back.

She even welcomed the cold when they were outside. Marler used his pick to relock the door, turned to her.

'What do you think?'

'I could never live in a place like that. I'd go mad.'

'Find anything?'

'Only in one bedroom. All the others had the beds made up with new sheets. In this particular bedroom stacks of sleeping-bags. Twenty of them.'

'Twenty sleeping-bags. Twenty members of al-Qa'eda en route. So where to next?'

Paula insisted on checking Mrs Gobble's cottage. It had the feel of any empty house. She even peered behind the folding screen. No telescope. She found it strange that the front door had been closed but not locked. She felt a sadness for Mrs Gobble. Was she gone for ever? Buchanan thought so.

'Now for Drew Franklin,' she said to Marler after closing the door on the cottage. 'Brace yourself…'

They kept close together because, if possible, the fog was now denser. It even muffled the sound of their footsteps on the road. Paula felt they were ghosts in a dream.

'Lights on Drew's first-floor window in that cube,' Marler said. 'Think this time I'd better ring the bell.'

'If you can find it.'

After trying several paved pathways they found the entrance. Marler pressed the bell, folded his arms. Very quickly the door was thrown open. Drew stood framed by the hall light behind him, fully dressed in a business suit. He glared.

'Yes?'

'We'd like a word with you…' Marler began.

'Then make an appointment to see me at my office in town,' he rasped at them.

The door was slammed shut in their faces. Marler shrugged.

There were no lights in the palatial Garda, home of Victor Warner. Marler shrugged again, said they'd better not push it this time. They were walking back to where he had parked the car when a figure loomed up in the fog. Marler had his Walther in his hand instantly. A familiar voice called out. Buchanan's.

'Don't shoot the postman, he's doing his best.'

'You've found Martin Hogarth's corpse?' Paula asked him.

'No. That first bungalow you come to is – was – his? Right?'

'Yes.'

'No body inside that place. No sign there ever was one. We've checked the next bungalow – Billy Hogarth's, isn't it? Nothing in there. Somebody, an amateur, had forced open the front door of Billy's place. Nothing. No body.'

'That's Number Five,' Paula said slowly. 'Disappeared up here. Or am I losing count?'