forming a tunnel of foliage. Marler slowed the car, then stopped. Hipper clutched the camera in his lap.
'You must drive on – as fast as you can…'
'My dear Hipper.' Marler paused to light one of his rare cigarettes. That is exactly what they will expect us to do. Belt like mad along a main highway. Listen.'
The chug-chug of a helicopter came closer. Hipper took out a soiled handkerchief, wiped sweat dripping from his greasy forehead. The machine passed overhead, the sound faded into the distance.
'You see?' Marler yawned. 'We wait until things have settled down. They can't search every road in the Ardennes. So, we wait.'
At the last moment Tweed decided to take Butler with Newman to the Deux-Chevaux which was now empty, the driver having joined Sonnet and the others opposite the sunken Gargantua. Harry had typically remained silent since their excursion across the river, but he sometimes noticed something in a narrative which escaped Tweed.
'Bob,' said Tweed when they were seated inside the Deux-Chevaux, 'tell me again briefly what you reported about your adventures on the Meuse. Especially anything about those bargees…'
He listened intently as Newman recapitulated what had happened. His interview with Willy Boden and his wife, Simone. His later experience aboard Colonel Ralston's Evening Star. He had just finished recalling his chat with Ralston's girl friend, Josette, when Tweed interrupted.
'You say Josette told you Haber has a family, a wife and a son called Lucien, living near this tiny village, Celle?'
That's right. Not relevant…'
'I wonder. I think we've got this thing the wrong way round – that Klein has again been diabolically clever. I thought the Gargantua might well be used to transport the timers made by the murdered Swiss watchmaker. But it was the Erika, the other barge, which Boden and his wife saw moving downstream towards Namur?'
'Right again.'
'We'd better get back to Lasalle and Benoit. I'm worried stiff about the time element.'
'What puzzles me,' Butler broke in for the first time, 'is why would Haber agree to pull the plug on his own barge? Money? I doubt it.'
'And there,' Tweed agreed, 'you've put your finger on the whole business. Let's move.'
'Inspector Sonnet,' Tweed said as soon as they reached the waiting group gathered on the towpath, 'I gather that since you identified the corpse as Broucker, not Haber, you must know something about Haber?'
'Know him well.' The thin Frenchman was terse in speech. 'There may be a frontier beyond Givet. It means little. We are all part of the Meuse. The lifeline of this part of Belgium and France.'
'Is Haber a greedy man? For money?'
'He is ambitious. For his family, his son. Which is why he fights to build up a fleet of barges. To that extent, yes, he is greedy for money.'
'What does he value above money?'
'His family, of course. He worships them…'
'So if someone wanted to force him to do something he didn't want to do – a very ruthless man – where would he apply the pressure?'
'Oh my God, you don't mean…'
He broke off. The sun had broken through, was burning the fog off the Meuse. The sound of a helicopter approaching became louder and louder. As they watched, the Alouette appeared above them, descending more rapidly this time, only slowing a few feet above the towpath before landing.
'I told the pilot to come back for us,' Lasalle said. 'Unless he spotted the car quickiy. Sonnet has used the radio to throw out a dragnet across all main roads. Drivers will be stopped, questioned.'
He ran to the machine and talked briefly with the pilot through the open door. The rotors had whirled to a stop. Lasalle ran back.
'Pilot reports he checked all main roads. No sign of any car. Traffic is non-existent. It was the fog. He says there are scores of country roads through the forest. The killer could be anywhere.'
'Gentlemen,' Tweed intervened, addressing Benoit and Lasalle, 'I request two things. From the navigation instructions I was given with the charts at Brussels airport, I gather each lock-keeper is linked by phone with the next. Further that they keep a record of all vessels passing through their own lock?'
'That is so,' Sonnet confirmed.
'Then we need to trace the barge Erika as a matter of international emergency. At the earliest possible moment. When found it must be intercepted with care – by armed men. Then it must be thoroughly searched. Especially its cargo of gravel. Haber must be interrogated.'
'Sonnet, use the radio on that car to start checking all locks. It could be a long business,' Lasalle warned Tweed. 'How many locks between here and Namur?' he asked Sonnet.
'Sixteen between the frontier and Liege, seven between where we stand and the frontier, plus the tunnels…'
Tunnels?' Tweed pounced. The barges pass through tunnels? Where is the nearest to here downstream?'
'At Revin, only a few kilometres away.'
'And that, I'm sure,' said Tweed, 'is where Broucker had his throat cut by Klein while Haber navigated the barge through the tunnel. It puzzled me – that he would take a chance on killing a man in the open.'
'Who is this Klein? Haber would never stand by while that happened,' Sonnet objected.
'He might have to – if his family had been kidnapped.' He looked at Benoit and Lasalle. That is the second request. I want the chopper to fly me now as close as possible to this village, Celle – where Haber's family lives. And if Sonnet could accompany us – to guide the pilot?'
'Of course…'
'Agreed…'
Both men spoke at once. Sonnet excused himself while he ran to the car to radio through the instruction to check with all lock-keepers in the search for the Erika. Tweed looked at his watch, began to take short paces back and forth.
'You're worried we're going to be too late,' Paula said.
'Exactly. Oh, Lasalle, one more question. That CRS communications van which went missing. What equipment does it carry? What makes it so special?'
The normal radio stuff- as a mobile HQ for riot control. But it also has the most advanced transceiver and a transmitter just received from America. With that – it has a great variety of wave-lengths – the vehicle gives you a range over thirty miles.'
'A command vehicle,' Newman said grimly. 'Just what Klein needs to control the whole diabolical operation.'
'And what do you lot think you are doing?'
The voice, indignant, intimidating, a woman's, called out to them in French as they stood outside the front door of a small cottage on the edge of a hamlet near Celle. Tweed, Newman, Benoit, Sonnet and Paula swung round to stare at the owner of the strident voice standing by the open gate. Butler merely glanced over his shoulder and continued examining the outside of the building. He sensed it was empty.
It was Paula who stepped forward with a smile. The woman was large, in her fifties, had a hooked nose and a prominent jaw. She stood with her arms akimbo, her stance challenging.
'I am Madame Joris,' she went on, 'and I am looking after the cottage while the owner is away. Who are you people?'
'We are worried about Marline Haber and her son, Lucien. You say they are away? Where have they gone?' Paula enquired.
'None of your business…'
'Oh, yes it is.' Benoit walked past Paula, his mood anything but jovial. 'Police Judiciaire.' He waved his warrant card at her. 'Answer the young lady's question.'
'They've gone on holiday, haven't they? She phoned me just before they left, asked me to keep an eye on the place.'
'How did she sound? When she phoned you? They take a regular holiday?'
