Grey mist was curling over the high crests as Paula rode her horse over the high ground behind the bungalow estate. It lay about two hundred yards below her and from this angle she was able to observe features she had not seen before.
Behind the end of the cul-de-sac a path led down into a dip invisible from the road. An old barn-like structure huddled in the dip, a building with half-doors. Both upper halves were open and two horses' heads peered out. This was her first realization that someone living on the estate rode the moors.
She saw movement, the opening of a back door in Seton-Charles' bungalow. Lifting her glasses looped round her neck, she focused. It was the grey-haired cleaning woman, carrying a mop and a plastic bucket. Paula remained perfectly still: people rarely looked upwards.
The woman opened a gate in the back garden fence, walked into the next garden. She put down mop and bucket, fiddled with a bunch of keys, inserted one in the rear door of the bungalow and disappeared inside with her cleaning equipment.
Paula dropped her glasses, rode on, slowly circling the estate. As usual, no sign of cars. They had probably all driven off to their jobs. The cars she had seen earlier, arriving back in the evenings, were Jags and Fords. No Mercedes or Rolls-Royces, but the cars they drove still cost money. There seemed to be no shortage of that commodity.
She had watched them at weekends cutting their lawns with power mowers, big machines which did the job quickly. It was late November and she gave a little shiver: the cold clamminess of the approaching mist rolling down the slopes was making itself felt.
She kept moving slowly, like a rider out for a gentle morning bit of exercise. For the moment she was sheltered from the estate by a gorse-covered ridge. She guided her mount up the side and perched on a small rocky hilltop which gave a bird's-eye view. The two horsemen seemed to appear out of nowhere.
One moment she was alone on the hilltop, the next moment they rode out from behind a concealed ridge and confronted her. They stopped about two dozen feet away, staring at her. She noticed several things as she casually dropped her right hand over the holster.
They were experienced riders: neither had his feet inside the stirrups. Probably because they had mounted their horses in a hurry. She recognized their mounts as the horses which had peered over the half-doors. One man was tall, lean-faced and with jet-black hair. His cheekbones were prominent, almost Slavic. The other was short and heavily-built with an ugly round face and a mean mouth.
Both were in their forties, she estimated. Both wore windcheaters and slacks thrust into riding boots. The Slavic-faced man raised a hand, unzipped the front of his windcheater, left it open. The ugly man began guiding his horse, took up a position on her right side. She responded by turning her own horse.
'I like to face strangers,' she informed them and smiled.
'Why are you spying on us?' Slav-Face demanded.
'It's normal to introduce yourself in this part of the world,' she replied. 'I'm Paula…'
'And I'm Norton. Now, I'll ask you again – why are you spying on us?'
His right hand slipped inside his windcheater, emerged holding a gun. A 9mm Walther automatic as far as Paula could tell. She froze. The weapon was aimed point-blank between her breasts. Paula glanced to her left. A ridge higher than the hilltop masked the road. No help from that direction – even if Nield came driving along.
'This is moorland open to the public,' she snapped, 'You think you own Exmoor?'
'Gutsy, eh?' Norton commented. 'Now answer the question.'
'I ride all over the place. I don't know what you're talking about. And it's illegal to threaten someone with a weapon in this country.'
'She says it's illegal, Morle,' Norton said to his companion, still staring at Paula. 'She says she doesn't know what I'm talking about.'
His voice was cultured; high falutin' some would have called it. Almost a caricature of Marler's drawling way of speaking, but with an underlying sneer. Norton and Morle. Paula recalled the names she'd recorded while Butler examined the electoral register. These were two of them: she had all five names in her head.
'So if she doesn't know what I'm talking about,' Norton continued, 'how come she's been sitting in a parked car up the road day after day, watching the bungalows through field glasses?' He still held the gun levelled at her. 'I think maybe we will continue this discussion inside my bungalow, have a real cosy chat.'
Paula had been frightened when the two men first appeared. Now she remembered Newman putting her through her paces at a quiet spot on the North Downs. And he'd gone through the Special Air Services course before writing an article on the SAS. Faced with a gunman there's always something you can do – say – to distract him, if you're armed. .. And now, unsure of survival, she had gone as cold as ice.
'So you've confused me with someone else,' she said. 'Parked in a car, my foot. A horse is my form of transport here. You can tell the difference between a horse and a car? This is not very encouraging – when Foster asked me if I could take on the job of helping clean the bungalows.'
'He did what?' Norton's forehead crinkled with puzzlement. He turned to Morle. 'Do you know anything about this? He must be clean out of his…'
As he spoke the gun sagged, the muzzle aimed at the ground. It took seconds for Paula to haul the Browning from the holster, to grasp the butt in both hands, to aim it. Norton saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He began to lift his own gun. Paula fired twice. Norton slumped, was falling from his horse, when Morle ripped down his zipper, shoved his hand inside, began to haul out a gun. Paula had swivelled the Browning, her knees clamped to her horse to hold it steady. Twice more she fired.
Morle grabbed at his saddle with one hand, slowly toppled. A loud explosion echoed. Paula thought she was hit. Then she saw Norton had pulled the trigger in a reflex action as he hit the ground. The bullet winged across the moor.
The men's two horses galloped off in panicky freedom. Paula's mount threatened to rise up on its hindlegs. She pressed a firm hand on its neck, made soothing noises, dismounted, trailed the reins and approached Norton, still gripping her Browning. He lay unconscious, his fingers had dropped the gun. She bent down, felt his neck pulse. It beat steadily. Blood oozed from his right shoulder.
Standing up, she ran across to examine Morle. He also was unconscious. A red stain spread across his slacks close to his left hip. Again she checked the pulse. Again she felt its regular beat. Thank God, she thought and stood up, deciding what to do.
Two minutes later she was riding fast along the track which led to Exford, a four-mile trek. She left the horse at the riding stables she had hired it from. Nothing more to pay. Walking along the road, she entered the field where she had parked her Renault, got behind the wheel.
She drove across country, turned on to the A396 and arrived via Minehead at Porlock Weir half an hour later. To her infinite relief Newman and Marler had just returned to The Anchor.
Tweed drank three cups of coffee while he listened to Paula's story in his Park Crescent office. She spoke tersely, with not a wasted word. On his desk lay the sheet of handwritten names she had given him – the occupants of the six bungalows. He already knew them from the earlier report Butler had given him on the phone. He squeezed her hand as she concluded her account, stood up and went back behind his desk.
'So Newman and Marler cleaned up the mess,' he said.
'They were marvellous. I wondered if they'd say I'd made a mistake stopping at the first public phone box on my way back to Porlock Weir. That was when I phoned the police, refused to give a name and told them there'd been a shooting incident near the bungalow estate close to Simonsbath. That they'd better send an ambulance. I felt I couldn't just leave them there. Marler said he'd have done just that…'
'Marler would,' Tweed commented drily.
'But Bob said I'd done the right thing. He took the Browning, spare mags and my makeshift holster. They were going to end up in the sea. Bob also said it was lucky Norton's gun went off by chance. That would confuse the police investigation.'
'Eat your ham sandwiches,' said Monica. 'You need something inside you.'
'Now you mention it, I'm famished.' She devoured one sandwich and Tweed waited, glancing at his watch. 'Am I holding you up?' she asked.
'No. Our tame accountant is due soon. Butler reported that he had followed Foster twice to the Somerset and Cornwall Bank in Bristol. He saw him draw about a thousand pounds in cash each time. He heard the teller address
