The Greek Key

24

Three people were seated round Tweed's desk as he listened to the tape for the third time. Monica sat crouched forward, her head turned to one side, her forehead crinkled with concentration.

Paula sat upright, notebook in her lap as she made notes. On the third replay she ignored the notebook, staring out of the window as she visualized the faces of the three men whose conversation was reeling out as they had talked over dinner at The Luttrell Arms.

Tweed was the most relaxed. He sat back in the swivel chair, his hands resting on the desk-top, no particular expression on his face. He glanced at Pete Nield, seated behind Paula's desk, who was smoking a cigarette while he watched the others. The recording ended, Tweed switched off the machine.

'Very interesting, most revealing. What they said. And the relationship between those three men.'

The reference to the Greek Key?' Paula suggested.

'That possibly, but something else. Pete, describe to me how they were seated. You came in with Harry to find them starting dinner?'

'No. We carefully did it the other way round – to avoid calling attention to ourselves. Harry asked one of the staff when they normally arrived for their weekly dinner. So we were at our table when they came in. Other tables were occupied with guests so we merged with the background.'

'And how were they seated in relationship to the two of you?' Tweed repeated.

Paula looked puzzled. She couldn't fathom the reason behind the question.

They came into the dining room about ten minutes later,' explained Nield. They walked past us. We had our backs towards them as they entered. You know the corner table where they sit?' Tweed nodded and Nield went on. 'Barrymore and Robson faced us. Kearns had his back to us the whole time. Which is why his voice comes across quieter.'

'I thought it was like that. Something said in their conversation could be very significant. I may have the lead I've been waiting for.'

'And you wouldn't care to tell us what that is?' Paula enquired.

'Not for the moment. In case I'm wrong.' Tweed smiled. 'Listen to the tape on your own a few times. You might get it.'

Paula glanced down at her notes, then clenched her fists with a gesture of frustration. 'You'll drive me crazy with your hints one of these days.'

Monica nodded sympathetically. 'I know just what you mean. He's been doing it with me for years.'

'If you agree,' Nield said. 'I plan to drive straight back to join Butler again on Exmoor, Have there been any developments at this end?'

'Bob Newman called from Athens…'Tweed gave him a concise account of their conversation, picking out the main elements of the data Newman had passed on. 'Does anyone spot something odd about what he told me? Bearing in mind the clear description he gave of the topography of where Andreas Gavalas was killed?'

Three blank faces stared back at him. Paula pursed her full lips and sighed. 'Here we go again – more mysterious hints. I give up.'

'I have two questions I'd dearly love answers to,' Tweed told them as he perched his elbows on the desk. 'The raid on Siros. The three-man commando team – with Andreas – land on a hostile coast. They make their way up a twisting gulch. That gulch is overlooked by a monastery perched on Mount Ida like the nest of an eagle. The Germans have established a permanently manned lookout post on top of that monastery looking straight down the gulch. Why, then, in heaven's name, did the raiding party choose that point to climb up the island? There must have been scores of other places safer for them to choose.'

'Does sound very strange,' Paula agreed. 'Plus the fact that the body went missing.'

'My second question,' Tweed went on, 'is what happened to the cache of diamonds Andreas was carrying to hand over to Greek Resistance fighters on Siros? In those days they were worth about one hundred thousand pounds – so Brigadier Willie Davies at the MOD told me.'

'Stolen by the man who murdered Andreas,' Paula said promptly. 'Maybe we're dealing with a case of simple robbery.'

'I don't think so,' Tweed objected. 'And I've been to see a leading diamond merchant in Hatton Garden I know. I asked him what a parcel of diamonds worth a hundred thousand back in 1944 would be worth today. I got a shock.' He paused, looked round. 'Any estimates? No? My contact could only make a rough guess. Something in the region of one million pounds sterling.'

There was a stunned silence in his office. Nield screwed up his eyes, thinking hard. Paula crossed her legs, tapped her pen against her teeth, then reacted.

'So we may be looking for something – or someone -showing signs of great wealth? What about Barrymore and Quarme Manor?'

Tweed shook his head. 'He bought it years ago. Probably for a song.'

'He has a Daimler,' Paula persisted.

'An old job,' Nield interjected. 'Looks glitzy but wouldn't fetch all that much. A cool million? The only thing I've seen in the area is that modern little estate of de luxe bungalows near Kearns' place.. .'

'We're looking for something pointing to one of those three men we've listened to on the tape,' Paula objected.

Tweed was hardly listening. 'That business of where they landed on Siros. And the missing body. The priest told Newman they had asked the commander of the German occupation troops about Andreas. None of his patrols knew a thing. And Geiger was convinced they were telling the truth. So who else on the island could have spirited away the body? There's only one answer.'

'Which is?' Paula asked.

'It had to be some of the Greek Resistance people. But which lot? And why on earth would they do that? Now our next job is to pay a visit to Guy Seton-Charles. You come with me, Paula.'

'And who might he be?' she enquired.

'A name in Partridge's notebook. A professor of Greek Studies at Bristol University. The intriguing fact is he was based in the Antikhana Building at the time of Ionides' murder.'

'How could he help?' Paula persisted. 'After all this time?'

That's what I want to find out.' Tweed swung in his chair to face Nield. 'You come with us to Bristol in a separate car – then later return to Exmoor to provide Butler with back-up. I want those three men to be aware of your presence. It will put pressure on them, may force one of them to make a wrong move.'

'You've used that tactic before,' Monica commented. 'And it worked. You're doing the same thing with this Seton-Charles, aren't you?'

'Partridge found out something,' Tweed remarked sombrely. 'I am certain he was murdered because he approached the wrong man. Which man?'

The timing was better than Tweed could have hoped for. He was approaching Professor Seton-Charles' room when the door opened and a brunette in her early twenties rushed out. She was in such a rush she almost collided with Paula who was walking alongside Tweed. The door automatically closed behind her on spring-loaded hinges. Very slim, her intelligent face flushed, she stopped abruptly, clutching a green folder.

'I'm dreadfully sorry. I could have knocked you down.' 'I'm pretty sturdy…' Paula began, and smiled.

'You look really upset,' Tweed said quickly. 'Professor in a bad mood?'

The sarcastic bastard! I'm not attending any more classes he takes

…' The girl flushed again. 'Oh, Lord, I'm sorry. Are you friends of his…'

'Hardly.' Tweed acted on instinct. 'We've come to investigate him. Special Branch. What's the matter with him?' he asked persuasively.

'Everything! He's a bloody Trotskyite. Tries to brainwash us.. ,' She paused. 'God, I'm saying all the wrong things.'

'Don't worry, we won't quote you.' He squeezed her arm. 'Do me a favour. We were never here. Agreed?'

'My pleasure. I'd better push off now.' She turned back for a last word. 'And I can keep my mouth shut. Give him hell.'

Tweed waited until she had disappeared round a corner at the end of the corridor. Then he knocked on the door which carried a name in gilt lettering. Prof. Guy Seton-Charles. The door opened swiftly. A man started talking and then stopped when he saw them.

That's my last word, Louise. You have an IQ of minus…'

'Special Branch.' Tweed showed his card. 'You're alone. Good. May we come in…' He was walking forward as he spoke while the man backed away and Paula followed, closing the door. 'You are Professor Seton-Charles? This is Miss Grey, my assistant, who will take notes during the interview.'

'Interview about what?'

'The unsolved murder of a Greek called Ionides in Cairo over forty years ago. We can sit round that table. If anyone arrives to interrupt the interview please tell them you're busy, get rid of them.'

Tweed was at his most officious. He fetched two fold-up chairs from several rows arranged beyond the table. The room was furnished starkly; walls bare, painted off-white; the table for the lecturer to sit behind and address his class; windows on the far wall which looked out on to a roughcast concrete wall.

Guy Seton-Charles was a slimly built man in his early sixties, Tweed estimated. His face was plump and pale, and perched on his Roman nose was a pair of rimless glasses. The eyes which stared at them were cold and bleak and wary. He had thinning brown hair, was clean-shaven, his mouth was pouched in a superior expression. Prototype of the self-conscious intellectual, Tweed decided.

He was dressed informally in a loose-fitting check sports jacket, a cream shirt, a blue woollen tie and baggy grey slacks. Not a man who gave much attention to his personal appearance.

This is an unwarranted invasion of privacy,' Seton-Charles protested in a high-pitched voice.

'Oh, I can get a warrant,' Tweed assured him, 'but then we'd have to hold the interview in London at headquarters. Might not be possible to avoid a certain amount of publicity…'

'There's going to be publicity,' the Professor spluttered. 'I can promise you that…'

'About a murder investigation in which you might be involved? No skin off my nose.' Tweed was seated on one of the fold-up chairs. He pointed to the chair behind the desk. 'Unless you want to sit down and hear why we are here. Make up your mind.'

'Murder investigation? About Ionides? You're a bit late in the day, aren't you?'

His tone was truculent, sneering, but Tweed noted he had sat in his chair, a significant concession. He frowned as Paula sat in the other chair, produced her notebook, rested it on her lap and waited, pen poised.

'Is she going to record my answers? A bit bureaucratic and official.'

'Oh, it's official.' Tweed's expression was grim.

'All about a forty-year-old murder?'

'Which may be directly linked with two more very recent murders.'

Behind the rimless glasses Seton-Charles' greenish eyes flickered. Tweed had the impression he was thrown off balance. He recovered quickly.

'Which murders? If I am permitted to ask. It all sounds so melodramatic.' A tinge of sarcasm in his voice now.

'We may come to that later. Let's go back to Greece -and Cairo during the war. You had a job and an office inside the Antikhana as a young man. Why weren't you in the Forces?'

'Didn't pass the physical, if you must know. My eyesight.'

'What was your job? Start talking, Professor. I'm a very good listener. It's your job – talking.'

'Even as a young man I had an interest in Greece. It's my subject,' he added pedantically. They said I could do my bit for the war effort by going to the Mid-East. I was packed off aboard a troopship round the Cape and landed up in Cairo. My job was to create propaganda to encourage the Greek Resistance…'

'Which side?' Tweed snapped.

'Oh, you know about that battle in high places? The SOE lot – Special Operations Executive – in Cairo had a fetish for backing the right-wing crowd. Wanted to bring back the King after the Germans were defeated. Wrong side altogether. The EDES people. The London end were brighter – possibly as a result of reading my reports.' He preened himself with a knowing smile. 'It was the ELAS organization who were killing Germans by the score…'

'The Communists, you mean,' Tweed interjected. 'After Russia had been attacked by Hitler, of course.'

'No need to be snide…'

'Merely stating a fact. You supported the idea of switching the airdrop of arms to the Communists. That right?'

'Yes. As I told you, they were really fighting the enemy – and London agreed Churchill himself took the decision, so I heard. Killing Germans was his main aim in life in those days…'

'And Ionides was the man you worked closely with,' Tweed guessed.

'I wrote the text for leaflets in English. Ionides translated them into perfect Greek. I wasn't up to that then. I didn't know him at all well. We worked through secretaries. Hardly ever spoke a word to him. Very close-mouthed, our Mr Ionides.'

'Who do you think killed him so savagely? And why?'

'No idea. My billet was an apartment in another part of Cairo. I wasn't there the night it happened.'

'Quite so.' Tweed gazed at the concrete wall beyond the window, switched the topic suddenly. 'Where do you live, Professor?'

'You do jump about…'

'Just answer the question, please.'

'I bought a bungalow on a new estate near Simonsbath on Exmoor. Rather exclusive…'

'You work here in Bristol, yet you live on Exmoor?' Tweed's tone expressed disbelief. 'Why?'

Seton-Charles sighed heavily as though his patience was wearing thin. He spoke as though explaining a simple point to a child. 'With the motorway a lot of people commute between a home on Exmoor and Bristol. Businessmen as well as university professors, amazing as it may seem. My hobby is walking. I like the open country, the moor. Would you like a list of some other people who live exactly as I do? Your assistant could take down names, help to fill out your report.'

'Might be helpful.' Tweed agreed equably. 'Plus the occupation or profession of everyone living on that bungalow estate.'

Seton-Charles' expression went blank. Something like venom flashed behind the glasses, then disappeared. Tweed was puzzled so he kept silent, forcing the other man to react.

'I don't know anyone on the estate,' the Professor snapped. 'I keep to myself. I take students' papers home to work on. Any free time I walk the moors, as I've already told you. I was referring to the bourgeoisie who live in luxury pads near Taunton.'

'That bungalow you live in must have cost a packet,' Tweed observed in the same level tone.

'I have a huge mortgage, if it's any concern of yours. The colonel was very helpful.'

The colonel?'

Tweed was careful not to look at Paula. He sensed she had frozen, pen poised in mid-air. Only for seconds then she relaxed as Tweed waited again. Seton-Charles was answering more slowly.

'Colonel Winterton. He owned the land the estate was built on – had some old barns pulled down. That was why he was permitted to build. With a restriction the houses should be one storey high.'

'Where can I find this Winterton?'

'No idea. I never met him. I dealt with his staff at an office he had in Taunton. It was a package deal – he arranged the mortgages where required. He was fussy about who he sold the properties to. You had to qualify.'

'How?' Tweed pressed.

'I don't know about the others. When he heard I was a professor in Greek Studies he accepted me. I think the other residents are brokers, solicitors – boring things like that. They leave for work before me, I get back when they've got home. We don't mix.'

'So you could give me the address of Winterton's office based in Taunton? I'd like that.'

'You're welcome to it. Except it's no longer there.'

'What do you mean? Stop playing the half-smart intellectual with me.'

'You don't know everything…' Seton-Charles paused. Paula could have sworn he changed like a chameleon, then recovered, changed back again. Something about the cold glint in the eyes. 'Once he'd sold all the properties he closed down the office and the whole outfit vanished.'

'Vanished?' Tweed's tone was sharp. 'Explain that.'

The staff weren't local. They disappeared. The rumour was that Winterton pocketed his profits and went to live abroad.'

The whole outfit didn't vanish,' Tweed objected. 'Who do you pay your mortgage interest and repayments to?'

'Oh, we found out that was handled by the Pitlochry Insurance Company. Winterton had simply acted as middleman, taken his commission. That's it. End of the trail.'

Was there a smug note in Seton-Charles' voice? Paula couldn't be certain. He sat behind the table, smooth-skinned hands linked together. Like a man satisfied he had closed all the loopholes.

'You visit Greece frequently?' Tweed said suddenly.

'I go to Athens spasmodically.' He was frowning as though he hadn't expected this thrust. 'I have links with the university there. Take seminars…'

'Your last visit was when?'

'A few weeks ago. I thought we started out with the murder of Ionides over forty years ago.'

'We did.' Tweed stood up. 'Which makes a good point at which to end our first interview.'

'Our first interview?'

That's what I said,' Tweed replied and walked out.

They waited in the Mercedes loaned by Newman, waited in the car park. Tweed sat behind the wheel, Paula stirred restlessly beside him. There was no one else about and they were hedged in by cars on either side.

'What do you think of him?' Paula asked. 'And why did you insult him with that half-smart intellectual crack? Not your normal style.'

'To rattle him. I think it worked. You don't know everything. He got that far and stopped what he had been going on to say. Something funny about that new estate of bungalows near where Kearns lives. And Pete Nield, who often hits the nail on the head, remarked that estate was the only thing he'd seen on Exmoor worth a cool million. Something like that.'

'Where is Pete? He followed us down here from Park Crescent as you suggested, then dropped out of sight.'

'He's parked in the Cortina up the road. Again as I suggested. I want to see if Seton-Charles takes the bait.'

'Don't understand.' She gave a rueful smile. 'Par for the course – working with you. I still don't see why there should be something funny about the bungalow estate.'

'There may not be – but Seton-Charles is an experienced lecturer, used to fielding the sort of questions I threw at him. He answered fairly tersely, then went out of his way to explain a lot about the estate. I don't think he liked my asking where he lived. Now, who have we here?'

'Professor Seton-Charles – and in one devil of a hurry.'

In the distance the Professor was wending his way among the army of parked vehicles. He carried a briefcase and his hair was flurried in a breeze. For a man in his sixties he moved with great agility.

'Maybe it has worked,' Tweed commented. 'Pressure. Everyone remembers the last thing you say. I mentioned this was the first interview, suggesting I'd be back. One odd thing about our conversation. He only made a brief comment on my reference to two more recent murders. The absence of something so often goes unnoticed.'

'Well I didn't notice it, but I was taking notes. Are you going all mysterious on me again?'

The absence of any later comment by the Professor. You'd expect almost anyone to come back to that – to ask again what I'd been talking about. Whose murders? He didn't

'He's getting into a Volvo station wagon. Do we follow?'

'No, too obvious…'

'He's a professor. His mind will probably be miles away while he's driving.'

'Scion-Charles,' Tweed told her, 'has a mind like a steel trap. He may have nothing to do with what we're looking for, but he has to be checked out. And carefully…'

Tweed waited until the Volvo was moving towards the exit, then turned on his ignition. He drove out of the slot slowly, turned into the main aisle as Seton-Charles shot at speed for the exit. 'Speedy Gonzalez,' Paula commented. Tweed arrived at the exit seconds after the Volvo had swung left. Perching with the nose of the Mercedes at the exit, he flashed his lights. Seconds later Nield drove past the exit, following the Volvo in Tweed's Cortina.

'There, it worked,' Tweed said with some satisfaction.

'You arranged with Pete to park outside?'

'Yes. I foresaw I might get lucky, pressure Seton-Charles into leaving. Pete will see where he heads for, who he meets, and report back to me.' He checked his watch. Three o'clock – we can make Park Crescent by early evening. We'll be driving into London when the commuters are pouring out.'

'Pressure all round,' Paula remarked as they left the car park. 'Butler and Nield showing themselves to the ex-commando trio. After Nield has tracked Seton-Charles. You think we're getting somewhere?'

Time will tell. I'm waiting for someone to crack. Here – or in Greece.'

Monica looked up as they entered Tweed's office. 'Nield called ten minutes ago…' The phone started ringing. 'Maybe that's him.' A brief exchange, she nodded towards Tweed's phone.

'Just got in, Pete,' Tweed said. 'Any news?'

'Subject drives straight back to Exmoor, makes a call from a public box near Simonsbath. Which is strange.'

'Why?'

'He has a phone in his bungalow. They have overhead wires out here. A three-minute call – and he checks his watch.'

'And then?'

'Drives back to the estate and into his garage. He has one of those electronic devices so you can open it from inside the car. Something else odd I noticed. Perched on the roof of his bungalow is one of the most complex aerial systems I've ever seen – plus a satellite dish. A whole mess of technical gear Change of subject. Gossip in the pubs reports a dog ferreting on Exmoor came home with Partridge's wallet in its mouth. A hundred pounds, all in tenners, intact. Banknote numbers in sequence. That's it.'

'You've done well. Get back to Butler in Dunster. Start a campaign of harassing all three men. Put on the pressure – but from a distance. And watch your backs.'

'Will do. 'Bye, Chief-Tweed put down the receiver, jumped up from his desk and began pacing the office as he rubbed his hands with satisfaction.

Things are moving. It worked, Paula. Seton-Charles called someone from a public booth. Reporting my interrogation of him, I'm sure. We're on the right track.'

'At last,' said Monica.

'And I want you to call Inspector Farthing of Dunster police,' he told her. 'Partridge's wallet has been found. I'd like a list of everything inside that wallet. Someone may just have made the fatal mistake I've been waiting for.'

At the summit of the mountain where he used his transceiver Florakis-Savinkov completed sending the latest coded message to England. The pace was hotting up.. Earlier he had been instructed to receive the signals from Athens weekly. Now it was twice a week. The radio traffic was increasing.

He was about to sign off when he was amazed to receive an order given in clear English. He blinked as he recorded the message. From now on call sign changed to Colonel Winter.