Newman scribbled a new sticker. Removing the previous one, he attached the new version, jumped out of the car, locked it, and followed the others. Tweed and Paula were already inside the building.
`Chief Inspector Benoit is expecting us. An emergency. Every second counts..
Tweed had addressed the uniformed desk sergeant in French. He dropped his card in front of the man, a card which gave his name and the fake cover company.
Chief Inspector Benoit appeared almost at once, running agilely down the stairs. He greeted Paula first, hugging her. 'Welcome to Brussels.'
She felt glad she was wearing a smart outfit. Under her open trench coat she was clad in a high-necked white blouse, navy blue jacket, and pleated skirt. Tweed was moving restlessly, a reaction which did not escape the Belgian.
Chief Inspector Benoit, the shrewdest policeman in Belgium, was a jovial portly man in his forties. He had a great, beaked nose, light brown hair, and quick-moving eyes. He ushered them upstairs to his office on the first floor.
`We have to reach Liege very urgently. Precisely, Gaston Delvaux's chateau at Herstal. We've come straight here from the airport. The Hilton can wait,' Tweed said.
`I'll phone them, book you accommodation. Executive rooms on the twentieth floor, if I remember. Now, Liege. I rather expected this. You must go by train from Midi…' He checked his watch. 'You just have time to catch the express from Ostend going through to Cologne. Only one stop. At Louvain.'
`Surely by car-' Tweed began.
Benoit shook his head. 'With the traffic at this time of day? No, the train. I will try and get there by car to meet your train at Liege, but cannot guarantee I will make it, even with sirens and flashing lights.'
`You said Delvaux had banned police coming near him,' Tweed objected.
`True. I have unmarked cars waiting. There will be a silent approach as we come close to the chateau. We will wait a short distance away.' He raised a hand. 'I insist. My territory. You could be in great danger. Which reminds me. You just have time…'
He took them into another room. One glance at the weapons laid out on a table, with ammo, confirmed to Newman what a remarkable memory the police chief had. Paula picked up a. 32 Browning automatic, some ammo. She was checking the gun when Benoit spoke.
`Empty. Your favourite gun. Made in Herstal. Although today our armaments industry at Herstal hardly exists any more. The collapse of the Soviet Union and other factors.'
Paula was loading the Browning as Newman picked up a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 Special. Alongside the ammo was a hip holster. Benoit never forgot a thing. Taking off his trench coat and jacket, Newman slipped on the holster, checked the mechanism of the gun, loaded it, put extra ammo in his coat packet. That left a 7.65mm. Walther automatic on the table. Benoit looked at Tweed, who shook his head.
`I hardly ever carry a gun.'
`Now for the perishing paperwork,' Benoit continued as he produced two forms which already had details typed in. 'Paula, Newman, sign these. They are permits for you to carry those weapons. Now it is all legal.'
`Benoit,' Tweed said, after checking his watch, 'we will have to buy tickets for Liege before we board that express.'
Benoit produced his wallet, extracted six slips of paper. He handed two to each of them.
`First-class return tickets to Liege. I will drive you to Midi station. Then with a team I will drive on to Liege, hoping to meet you at the station. It is quite a gamble…'
`I'm leaving now,' Newman broke in. 'I've got a Merc. outside. I think I can make it by road before Paula and Tweed reach Liege. Along the motorway. See you two…'
He was gone before anyone could protest. Benoit threw up his hands in mock horror, then ran to the window. Peering down, he took out a pad, made a note.
`I have his registration number. I'll leave instructions to be radioed along his route. To all patrol cars. That Merc. to be permitted to proceed at all costs. Now, we leave for Midi station…'
Tweed and Paula had a first-class compartment to themselves as the express raced eastward well beyond the Brussels suburbs. To Paula's surprise it was still daylight and the fog had gone. They were crossing open countryside and carefully ploughed fields stretched away on both sides. The bread-basket of Belgium. Here and there a dense copse of pine trees reared up. They passed isolated villages with neat rows of old brick-built terrace houses with steep-pitched roofs. In the distance the occasional church spire pointed skywards like a needle. Which prompted Paula's remark.
`I've been thinking about Hilary Vane – how she was murdered at Heathrow. It looked to me as though she was injected with cyanide. Her lips were blue.'
`Undoubtedly,' Tweed agreed. 'Cyanosis was pretty obvious. Her whole face was beginning to turn blue.'
'I was also wondering how the murder was achieved. In a busy airport you can't really produce a hypodermic needle and jab it into somebody. The location was too public.'
`What solution have you arrived at, then?'
`A hypodermic needle disguised as something else. Something very ordinary which no one would think odd a woman holding it in her hand.'
`Sound thinking. The same thought crossed my mind.' `What about Dr Rabin?' Paula asked. 'Has he told you anything?'
`You know what pathologists are. Won't commit themselves until they've gone through the whole process. He said he would have information for me by the time I got back to London.'
`That place we stopped at was Leuven, I noticed.'
`Which means a Flemish enclave,' Tweed commented. `Benoit said Louvain, the French – or Walloon-version. It's a real mix-up, is Belgium – which is why the road signs in Brussels are always first in French, then in Flemish. I think we're coming in to Liege.'
`Looks pretty grim,' Paula observed, peering out of the window. 'Can't really see it yet. Just those peculiar hills shaped like mounds. Funny they're all so rounded. They don't look like proper hills.'
`They aren't. Liege was once a great coal-mining centre. They just dumped the coal dust in great slag-heaps on the edge of the city. Not a very tidy lot out here. You'll see the colour of the buildings – coal black from the dust blown down into the city. Prepare not to enjoy yourself.'
The stench of Liege hit Paula as they walked out of the modern station. A revolting smell of greasy food from hot-dog stalls. The street was littered with stained food cartons carelessly thrown down. The brick buildings opposite were soiled with black dirt – the coal dust Tweed had referred to, she assumed.
Waiting cab drivers, wearing shabby clothes, pestered them for a fare. Their complexions were an unpleasant olive colour and several leered at Paula's legs. So this was Liege…'
Paula stared. On the opposite side of the cobbled street a red Mercedes was parked. Newman stood beside it and beckoned them over. Paula picked her way among the mess of discarded cartons.
`I didn't come over,' Newman explained. 'This is the sort of place where you stay by your car unless you want to lose a wheel, windscreen wipers, the lot. And I have found out the route to Herstal. It's not far. I have marked it on a map, so you can be navigator, Paula.'
`How did you find it?' she asked, studying the map when she'd slipped into the back seat.
`Cost me two thousand francs. These cabbies don't give you the time of day for nothing. This is Money- Grubber Town. Watch your shoulder-bag.'
`Let's get moving,' Tweed urged. 'Any sign of Benoit?' `He's inside that unmarked car on the corner. Arrived about fifteen minutes after me. Relax…'
He was driving down a narrow street walled in by more soot-soiled buildings. It started badly, it became worse.
The gutters were littered with crushed drink cans, with screwed-up paper. The few locals slouching along the dimly lit street were clothed to match their surroundings. The interior of the Mercedes was polluted with the smell of stale food. Newman opened a window wide.
`Don't imagine you appreciate the Liege atmosphere. So a breath of partly fresh air should clear it in a minute. Just relax…'
`Relaxing is the last thing I have on my mind,' Tweed snapped. 'I want us to get to Delvaux in time.
