Nield faced them, and Nield, inadvertently, lit the fuse.
'Saw you today, Paula. I was tracking Robson when he tried to call on Kearns. Got no joy. I thought Kearns must be out. Robson pressed the gate bell several times, no one came out, so he pushed off. I had wondered whether Kearns was ill.'
'I think he is,' Paula replied. ' I saw Robson call, then drive off. A few minutes later Dr Underwood – we met him in the bar if you remember – called. Kearns came out and let him in.'
'What did you mean, Pete?' Marler asked. 'You said you saw Paula. Driving along the road?'
'No. Parked in her hired Renault inside a gateway overlooking that bungalow colony – and Kearns' place.'
Marler turned to Paula. 'What the devil were you doing there?'
'Observing that bungalow estate. You can look down on it. It's odd – one woman seems to clean the lot. Furtively.'
'How do you mean?' Nield enquired.
'She always slips in by the back doors. She has a key to each of them. I've used night glasses to watch her after dark…'
'After dark?' Marler's tone expressed incredulity 'How long have you been keeping up this vigil?'
'For about two weeks.'
'You do realize it's only a matter of time before you're spotted,' Marler persisted in a cold voice. 'It's madness.'
'I have already realized that.' She said the words deliberately, disliking his tone. 'I saw the solution today. There's a riding stable near Dunster which hires out horses. In future I'll ride – which means I can get on the moor, check the area from different angles.'
'You bloody well won't…'
'Partridge used a horse,' she snapped. 'For the same reason, I suspect. He could see more from a horse.'
'And look where it got him.' Marler leaned his long white face – his Grecian suntan had long since faded - close to hers. 'It got him a knife in the back. You should be armed. You shouldn't be doing it at all.'
'No one's going to stop me,' she said icily, staring hard at Marler. 'If you feel that way, get me a weapon…'
It was Newman who calmed the atmosphere. He knew Paula was seething at the unspoken suggestion that she couldn't take care of herself. He remembered times when Tweed had put her in the front line to toughen her up. Standing up, he said he was driving into Minehead to call Tweed, to ask him to send a Browning automatic with spare magazines by motorbike courier. While he was away the rest of the meal was eaten in silence.
The following morning after breakfast Newman tapped on Paula's door. Inside he handed her a Browning and spare mags.
'So, I've come of age,' she said and smiled drily.
'How are you going to carry it on a horse – so it's easy to get at in an emergency?'
She produced a makeshift but neat holster made of blue denim and took hold of the Browning where she had laid it on a table. Releasing the magazine inside the butt, she checked to make sure there wasn't a bullet up the spout, pushed the mag back inside the gun and slipped it inside the holster. Two straps of the same material were attached to it.
She was wearing tight denims thrust inside riding boots and a padded windcheater. All purchased the previous day. Then she strapped the holster to her right upper leg close to her crotch. Parading round the room, she made a gesture with her slim hand.
'I'm on a horse. You meet me. Would you notice it?'
'No. It blends in perfectly. How on earth did you make that holster?'
'By staying up half the night. I cut material from the bottom of my jeans – tucked inside my boots you can't see where I took it from. Then a lot of careful sewing.' She came close to him, kissed him on the cheek. 'I expected you to flare up like Marler last night. Thanks for your vote of confidence.'
Newman shrugged, grinned. 'You are one of the team. Marler's got a short fuse. What did that cleaning woman you saw down at the estate look like?'
'Middle-aged. Medium height. About a hundred and twenty pounds. Grey hair tied back in a bun. I've got several photographs of her. I was carrying my camera with the telephoto lens. Should we send the film to Tweed?'
'Let me have it. Maybe in a few days one of us will have to go up to London. You'd finished the film?'
She handed him the spool. 'Yes. And I've a fresh one in the camera. The one you're holding has pictures of all the men living there. Plus pictures of the bungalows. Including Seton-Charles' place with that weird complex of TV aerials attached to his chimney.'
She hid the Browning with its holster and the mags at the bottom of the wardrobe, then picked up neat rows of shoes and spread them over the gun. Straightening up, she looked at Newman.
'After that row at dinner last night I feel like a walk along the coast. I didn't get much sleep and I'm feeling restless.'
'Let's go…'
It was dark but the gale had slackened to a strong breeze as they strolled along the track westward. Paula glanced at the cottage where Mrs Larcombe had lived, then looked away. Newman was careful not to refer to it.
'What are the others doing?' she asked as they picked their way across the pebbles.
'We're keeping up the watch on the commandos. Kearns appears to have recovered, but he's limping a bit. Maybe he twisted his ankle. Butler followed one of the men who live in those bungalows to the Somerset and Cornwall Bank in Bristol. Watched him draw about a thousand pounds in fifties. He's reported it to Tweed who has now started a discreet check on where that money comes from.'
'Anything new on the commandos?'
'Not really, blast it. Robson still rides to see his patients at all hours. He has one old duck who delights in using her bedside phone and calling him out late at night. Lives in a creepy old mansion near Dulverton. Barrymore is still making calls from that public box in Minehead. Kearns has no help in his house – looks after the place himself, does his own cooking. Army type, I suppose…'
He stopped speaking as Paula grasped his arm. They were some distance west of Porlock Weir, walking close to towering cliffs. 'I heard something funny, a sinister noise,' Paula whispered.
Then Newman heard it. A crumbling sound, the noise of grinding rocks. He looked above them, grabbed Paula's hand, shouted at her to run. They headed for the sea. Behind them the sound increased, grew to a rumbling roar. At the water's edge Newman turned and Paula swung round with him. She gazed, appalled.
By the light of the rising moon they saw a gigantic slab of cliff sliding down from the summit, a slab which broke into smaller pieces as it rolled towards the beach. Enormous boulders bounded downwards towards where they stood, their backs to the sea. The boulders lost momentum, came to rest two dozen yards away. A sudden silence descended. Paula shivered, huddled closer to Newman.
'It's OK,' he said. That's it.'
'My God, if we hadn't run we'd have been under that.'
She pointed towards a dark mass of rocks piled up the height of a two-storey house. They were making their way back, keeping to the edge of the sea, when Paula pointed again.
'Who can that be?'
In the distance, close to the track, a man on horseback was riding away from them. Hunched forward, close to the horse's head, it was impossible to make out his shape, guess his height. He reached the track and the horse broke into a gallop. When they arrived back at The Anchor there was no sign of any horseman and they hurried inside to report the landslip.
The violent incident took place next day.
48
