He put a hand on her shoulder. 'Molly, can you drive?'
She looked up eagerly. 'Of course I can.'
'What are you up to?' Youngblood demanded.
'I was just thinking,' Chavasse said. 'What if we run into a road block somewhere. It's always possible. If the girl drove a mile in front in the Ford and we followed in the cattle truck, there'd be time for her to turn back and warn us.'
Youngblood nodded slowly. 'You know, I think you've got something there.' He turned to Molly and put a hand on her shoulder. 'Think you can do it, kid?'
She gazed up at him, an expression of pure joy in her eyes. 'Just try me, Harry. Just try me.'
Five minutes after the truck had rolled away down the track, Sam Crowther emerged from the trees at the back of the farm and limped across the yard. His mouth was badly swollen and his chest hurt so that he could hardly breathe.
He leaned over the sink, holding his head under the cold tap and when he straightened, reaching for a towel, he found Simon Vaughan standing in the open doorway.
'Hello, Mr. Smith,' Crowther said uncertainly. 'I didn't expect to see you.'
'Just thought I'd look in to see if everything had gone off smoothly,' Vaughan said. 'You look as if you've been in the wars, old man.'
'Nothing I couldn't handle.' Crowther's brain worked overtime. 'You've brought the money with you, I hope.'
'You've disposed of them already?' Vaughan said. 'I must say that's very efficient of you. Where are they?'
'In the well at the rear.'
'Mind if we take a look?'
Crowther hesitated. 'You won't see much. Stillsuit yourself.'
It was still raining when they went into the courtyard and approached the well. The stench was appalling, but such was the depth of the shaft that it was impossible to see what lay at the bottom.
'So you put them down there, did you?' Vaughan said.
'That's right.'
Vaughan sighed. 'You know you really are the most awful liar. I've just walked over the hill, old man. I saw Youngblood and Drummond drive away in that cattle truck of yours.'
Which was true, although he had missed Molly's departure in the Ford by five minutes.
'You have a daughter, don't you? Where is she?'
'I reckon she's cleared off,' Crowther whispered.
'I see. Did you tell our friends about Alma Cottage at Bampton and Rosa Hartman?' Crowther's face was his answer and he shook his head gently. 'You shouldn't have done that, old man. You really shouldn't.'
His right hand came out of his pocket and swung up, the blade of a flicked knife springing into view, the point catching Crowther under the chin and shearing through the roof of his mouth into his brain.
He died instantly and Vaughan pulled out the knife, holding him upright, cleaned the blade carefully on Crowther's jacket, then pushed him over the wall into the well. He turned and walked away through the rain whistling tunelessly.
8
Vaughan passed the cattle truck within fifteen miles, travelling fast in a green Triumph Spitfire. A mile further on he overtook the old black Ford with Molly at the wheel, but it meant nothing to him. He had never met Crowther's stepdaughter and had certainly no reason to think she was in any way linked with the fugitives.
On the other side of Blackburn, he pulled in at a roadside cafe, found a telephone box and called World Wide Exports in London.
'Hello, sweetie, just thought I'd let you know I checked on our friend and he hadn't managed to come up to scratch. I'm afraid the two packages are on their way to Bampton.'
'That's a great pity. What are you doing about it?'
'I closed our account with this branch-seemed no point in carrying on and I can be in Bampton before the merchandise. Thought I'd ensure it gets a suitable reception.'
'I'm not certain that's such a good idea. I'd better check. Give me your number and I'll ring back in fifteen minutes.'
Vaughan left the phone box, sat on the high stool at the counter and ordered coffee. The young waitress smiled when she gave it to him, impressed by the handsome stranger in the expensive clothes, but Vaughan seemed to look right through her and she moved away feeling rather disappointed.
He lit a cigarette and frowned at himself in the mirror at the back of the counter. It was not that he was remembering what had happened at the farm-he had already dismissed it from his mind as unimportant. He was only interested in what lay ahead, in whether the Baron would decide that he wanted him to dispose of Youngblood and Drummond personally.
Simon Vaughan was thirty-three years of age, the son of a regular army colonel whose wife had deserted him when the boy was eight months old. From then on life had been a long round of other people's houses, boarding schools and army stations abroad for short periods. He had developed into a handsome, smiling boy, strangely lacking in any kind of emotional response to life, but pleasant and popular with everyone.
After Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Parachute Regiment and the first rather unpleasant incident had occurred. Lieutenant Vaughan's fanatical insistence on discipline and hard training had included the use of pack drill to punish those who failed to meet his standards. In spite of the physical collapse of four men and a slashing report from the battalion medical officer, he had escaped with only a reprimand.
In Cyprus he had been awarded the Military Cross for personally killing two EOKA members who had holed up in a farmhouse in a village in the Troodos and had defied all attempts to get them out. He had gone in through the roof and had shot it out at close quarters in a manner which had certainly left no doubts about his personal courage, although the discovery that the two insurgents had only one gun between them had left uneasy doubts in some quarters.
These were finally confirmed when Vaughan, by then a captain, was once again in action, this time in the Radfan Mountains of Southern Arabia playing a savage game of hide-and-seek with dissident Yemeni tribesmen. In an effort to extract information from a Bedouin, Vaughan had pegged him out in the sun and employed methods more popular amongst the tribesmen themselves than the British. The man had died, Vaughan had been relieved of his command and quietly retired to avoid any scandal.
His father, acting on the advice of the army medical authorities, had persuaded him to enter a private institution for rest and treatment, but after two weeks Vaughan walked out, disappearing off the face of the earth as far as his family was concerned.
The psychiatrists had experienced little difficulty in making their diagnosis. Simon Vaughan was a psychopath-a mental cripple, a man who was incapable of any ordinary emotion, who lived outside any moral frame of reference whatsoever. The taking of human life affected him no more than would the crushing of an ant underfoot by any average human being. He was the perfect weapon-a blunt instrument with a brilliant and incisive mind and the work he engaged in for his present employer suited his talents admirably.
A middle-aged woman came into the cafe, ordered a coffee and made for the phone box. Vaughan beat her to it, removing his hat and giving her his most charming smile.
'Would you mind awfully if I asked you to hang on for a minute or two? I'm expecting a call.'
The woman smiled, her heart fluttering unaccountably, and put a hand to her hair. 'Not at all.'
'So kind.'
Vaughan was still smiling at her through the glass when the phone rang and he picked it up instantly. 'Hello, sweetie, what's the good word?'
