den. Down in deepest suburbia.'
`You think it's wise to take this Diana Chadwick everywhere?'
`I'm taking her on trust…'
`Do that with a woman and you could be in dead trouble. I know my own sex.'
`The thought had already crossed my mind,' Tweed replied and left the office.
Diana walked into the sitting-room of Newman's flat from the bedroom. Tweed was looking at her shorthand notebooks spread out on the elegant dining table.
'I see you're studying English as well as German shorthand. Pitman's,' he remarked.
`I'm getting on very well. I take it down from radio talks. It's not all that difficult. Learning typing is the bore – I've got a portable I hired in the smaller bedroom. I'm thirty words to the minute – typing. With shorthand I'm up to ninety.'
`That's very good. Now, we'd better go. After interviewing Dalby we have to drive back here, then get dinner.'
`How do I look?'
He studied her. She wore a powder-blue dress nipped in round her slim waist and with a mandarin collar. Pale blue stockings and gold shoes. He blinked. She twirled round to give him the full treatment.
`Out of this world,' he pronounced.
She came very close. He caught a whiff of perfume. 'Can we go to the same place for dinner? The one with cubicles just off Walton Street? I'd love the pheasant again.'
`We'll see. If we get moving now we'll just miss rush hour and get down into Surrey before the armadillo cavalcades block the highways.'
`A lot of people living round here,' Diana remarked, waving her ivory cigarette holder.
`Swarms. Commuter country,' Tweed said. 'They all troop to Woking station for their daily ordeal. Best commuter service up to town round London.'
The main road from West Byfleet was tree-lined. Side roads led off. Battalions of newish houses marched into the distance. All to the same pattern. Neo-Georgian. They had open fronts, gardens leading to the sidewalk edge, American-style. They drove on.
`There he is. Dalby.' Tweed pointed with one finger as he turned a corner into a side road. It was the first house. A large porch supported a brace of twin pillars. 'King's Cross Station,' he commented as he pulled into the kerb.
In the middle of a sweep of neat green lawn Dalby was pushing a petrol-driven mower. The lawn was decorated with islands of tidy shrubs, rhododendrons and evergreens. Several of them were specimen shrubs, standing at attention like exclamation marks. Dalby switched off his machine briefly to shout.
`Welcome to Cornerways.' He made a quick gesture towards the open front door. 'Go inside, sitting-room is at the end of the hall. Be with you in a minute. Downstairs loo if you want it. Must finish this bit…'
The catlick dropped over his forehead from well-brushed hair. His garden clothes were a pair of grey flannels, the creases razor-edged, striped shirt and fire-red tie. The machine burst into a roar as he switched on again, his nimble figure pushing the mower again at speed.
There was a smell of fresh-mown grass in the balmy evening air as Tweed and Diana walked up the crazy- paved path. It was like Hampton Court, Tweed was thinking. On either side of the front door stood two expensive- looking pots. Inside each a hydrangea was in bloom. They'd been freshly watered.
`I don't know how he keeps the place like this – with his wife gone,' Diana whispered, standing in the hall.
The floor was woodblocks, highly polished, scattered with rugs placed exactly parallel to the walls. Tweed led the way into a large sitting-room running the full width of the house. Through the French windows at the rear more Hampton Court spread away, a candidate for an illustration out of Better Homes and Gardens.
Diana sat down in a blue-upholstered arm chair to one side of an Adam-style fireplace, crossing her legs. Tweed walked to the front windows and watched Dalby switching off the mower. He was wearing a pair of dark glasses. He came bustling in, legs moving like a marathon walker.
Tweed made the introductions. Dalby shook hands with Diana. Unlike Masterson and Grey he never gave her displayed legs a glance. He offered drinks and they both chose a glass of white wine.
`Splendid! I have a bottle of '83 Chablis in the fridge. You smoke?' he asked Diana. 'Light up then. No inhibitions here. Back in a minute…'
He returned with a silver tray supporting three elegant glasses. Sitting down opposite Tweed, he stared at him through his dark spectacles. Tweed had the oddest feeling he'd lived through this scene before.
`Cheers!' Dalby sipped, put down his glass, removed the spectacles. 'The light out there is incredibly strong. Where do you come from, Miss Chadwick?'
`Diana…'
`She's the sister of a friend of mine,' Tweed intervened, keeping to the story he'd used at Hawkswood Farm. 'On holiday from a job abroad. How are you getting on, Guy, on your own – if I may ask?'
`Why should I mind?' He turned to Diana. 'My wife, Renee, has gone back to France. Didn't like England. I didn't like her cooking. Garlic. With everything. Upsets my stomach.' He patted it. `We're much happier now.'
`You have some… help?' Diana enquired.
'The Doukhobor lady. Absolute treasure. Comes in daily. When I'm here she cooks as well as cleans. No garlic.'
`Still, it must have been a traumatic experience,' Diana ventured, her tone sympathetic. `I'm sorry.'
`Sorrow doesn't come into it.' Dalby held his glass up to look through it. 'You get these little local difficulties. Like losing a member of your staff. You just reorganize. Cheers!'
He spoke as though a shop had stopped stocking his normal cornflakes for breakfast. You simply changed to another brand.
`Your back garden looks really glorious,' she went on, staring out of the French windows.
`Come and have a look.' Dalby jumped up. `If you find one weed you get a bottle of champagne. Tweed, know you're not interested in gardens. Pile of Country Lifes over there. Have a look at the house if you like. Biggish place. Four beds, three recep., my study, two bathrooms. Back soon!'
Diana followed him into the hall, clutching her handbag under her arm. Tweed could hear their conversation as they walked along the hall.
`What is a Doukhobor lady?'
`My nick-name for her. Very lat. Arms like tree trunks. Always wears a head-scarf. Looks like a Doukhobor. A Russian religious sect. Fled from Russia to places like Canada before the Second World War. Escaping religious persecution…'
The voices faded. Tweed stood up, walked quietly into the hall. He peered into the dining-room which overlooked the back garden, walked on. Dalby's study was at the end near the front door. He gently pushed open the half-shut door.
A small, square room, the single sash window overlooking the front porch and masked with a heavy net curtain. Tweed glanced at the piles of papers, the files, neatly arranged. Insurance policies and proposals, all headed General amp; Cumbria Assurance Co. Ltd. Excellent camouflage.
He turned to the bookcase placed against the inner end wall. Histories and travel books – Switzerland, Italy and Spain. Dalby's sector. But none on Libya or the Middle East – the forward penetration zones. More of the same on Scandinavia, Canada and the US. Nothing to do with his sector. More camouflage.
Leaving the study, pulling the door half-shut again, he went into a large rectangular-shaped kitchen looking out over the back garden. Modern equipment – dark blue formica cupboards and worktops. Eye-level cooker.
On the worktop next to the sink was a wooden chopping- block. An array of French beans, neatly chopped, lay under a wire-mesh cage. Tweed stared round, seeking a chef's knife. A magnetic knife rack was attached to the wall above the sink supporting a row of various knives. No chefs knife.
Through the windows, between two tall evergreen trees he saw Diana talking with Dalby. He was now wearing a smart grey jacket which matched his trousers. Tweed wandered back into the sitting-room. Compared with Masterson, Lindemann and Grey, Guy Dalby at home was exactly the same as he was at work. Normal was the word which sprang into his mind as he sat down again after collecting a Country Life at random. Completely normal.
