change of company: just for a few hours. He suggested a drink and she said she wouldn't mind a glass of champagne.
'Or is it a bit early?' she wondered, checking her watch.
`Some people have started lunch already,' he assured her. He ordered two glasses from a waiter, then again gave her his full attention. 'I was dressed differently – in rather casual clothes…'
`Buckler's Hard! You took us by boat to Moor's Landing. Mr Mordaunt!'
'Mr Mordaunt it is,' he agreed. 'I knew you had a good memory. Not that I'm the sort of person people do remember.'
She liked that. It suggested a degree of modesty many men she'd met seemed totally devoid of.
`You're a friend of Bob Newman's…'
`Who is using my name in vain?'
It was Newman who had materialized from nowhere. She wondered why she felt slightly annoyed. Newman sat down and stared at Mordaunt.
`Where did you spring from? Last time you were ambling round Hampshire. What brings you to Brussels?'
`A hot tip. Could be a right royal scandal brewing up. Involving one of those fat-cat EC Commissioners. Could also be the big one I've been hoping for.' He looked at Paula. 'If it's not too brash an approach, would you join me for lunch at the Tete d'Or? It's a very good restaurant off Grand' Place.'
`That's very nice of you.'
She thought it over quickly. Tweed had once taken her to the Tete d'Or. It was a very plush restaurant and the food was excellent. Also police HQ and Benoit were just off Grand' Place.
`I'd like that very much,' she decided.
Mordaunt stood up. 'We're having a glass of champers, Newman. You'll join us, of course?'
`No, thank you.'
`When the waiter comes I'm picking up the tab. Please excuse me for a moment while I visit the bathroom…'
`Did you have to be so rude to him?' Paula snapped. 'I need a bit of variety.'
`Some variety,' Newman commented. `Mordaunt is a snout, a so-called freelance journalist scrabbling in the gutter for snippets of information he can fob off on professional journalists. For money, of course. A hand-to- mouth character.'
`Have you finished?' Paula enquired in a dangerously soft tone. 'A snout? I think that's a disgusting term. And have you, by any chance, used his services yourself in the past?'
`I have,' Newman told her cheerfully. I've asked him for info I didn't want – to send the opposition off in the wrong direction. Knowing he'd go and sell what I'd said to him to a rival.'
`I've heard quite enough,' Paula snapped again. 'More, in fact, than I want to hear. And I am lunching with him at the Tete d'Or.'
`Suit yourself.' Newman took the bill off the waiter as the drinks arrived. He signed it with his own room number. Paula was biting after the waiter had left.
`Mordaunt wanted to pay that bill. Do you have to interfere?'
`You don't have to say thank you,' Newman informed her with the same infuriating smile. He had seen Mordaunt coming back, stood up quickly. 'Excuse me.'
Newman had also noticed Marler emerging from the elevator, then standing some distance away while pretending to study an advertisement for an exhibition. Newman spoke quietly, pausing close to Marler as he lit a cigarette.
`See that dark-haired berk sitting down with Paula? She's soon waltzing off with him to have lunch at the Tete d'Or off Grand' Place. Mordaunt by name. Fringe journalist. Looks as though he's prospering by the cut of his suit. Mordaunt doesn't know you. Follow them. I'm just going to alert Nield to do the same on his scooter. I'll follow at a distance in a taxi. And Paula is in an uptight mood. I think it's a reaction to the kidnap attempt.'
`Three of us,' Marler commented. 'You're using the heavy brigade.'
`I don't trust Mordaunt.'
`I'll collect my hired Merc. from the garage. Oh, by the way, Dr Wand's Lear jet is being prepared for a flight to Hamburg.'
`How did you find that out?'
`You know me. Bribery. I got talking to a mechanic in the airport bar when he'd finished servicing the Lear. He heard the pilot talking about his flight plan…'
32
Lee Holmes came up to Newman at the moment Paula left the Hilton with Mordaunt. She wore a green dress, form-fitting and with a plunging neckline which didn't quite reveal the tops of her well-moulded breasts. Over one arm was folded a camel-hair coat. She smiled with her full red lips.
`I'm free – for anything,' she said mischievously. 'Are you?'
Tor lunch possibly.' Newman thought quickly. know a nice restaurant in Grand' Place.'
`Sounds divine. I've had Maurice up to here.'
She raised her hand and rested it across her throat. Her greenish eyes stared at him invitingly. What the hell, he thought: maybe I could find out something about this woman and be in the right place at the same time. Don't kid yourself, he told himself: Paula has irked you.
He helped her on with her coat. She used both hands to lift her golden mane over the collar, took him by the arm. Outside the doorman summoned a taxi, Newman told the driver to take them to Grand' Place.
Lee crossed her legs, her coat fell open, exposing her elegant legs. She sat closer to Newman as the taxi moved off, looped her arm again inside his, squeezed it.
`I'm really so glad you're available, Mr Newman.'
`Call me Bob.'
`Then I'm Lee…'
How did she manage it? Without appearing to be in any way a tart she used words like 'available' in a way as though they'd known each other a long time. The taxi dropped them outside a street leading into Grand' Place: the barriers prevented him taking them inside the old cobbled square. Newman escorted Lee into a restaurant facing across the square, chose a window table.
From his seat he could see Marler leaning up against a wall, reading a newspaper. He was perched at the corner where the rue Tete d'Or led off Grand' Place. He'd have parked his car near by, Newman guessed. Doubtless at the other end of the short narrow street Nield was close by with his scooter. They had Paula and Mordaunt in a pincer movement.
`Do you like Chablis?' Newman asked, naming his favourite wine.
`I adore Chablis,' Lee assured him.
When they had ordered she leant forward, inserted a cigarette in her fat jewelled holder. Her tone was mocking in a warm way.
`I saw some other man walking off with your girl friend, Paula. I hope she hasn't deserted you.'
`She isn't what is normally known by the term girl friend.'
`So what is the relationship? I'm jealous, Bob. She is a very attractive girl. With brains too.'
She described Paula without a trace of bitchiness. Her eyes never left his.
`She's in the insurance business. Rather high-powered stuff.' He watched Lee closely. 'It can involve negotiations with kidnappers.'
`Sounds dangerous.' Lee bit gently on the tip of her holder. 'Do you mean her outfit insures important men in case they're kidnapped for a ransom?'
`Something like that.' He hadn't seen any flicker of an unusual reaction. But she had been an actress. 'Don't let's talk about her,' he suggested. 'Let's talk about someone who is beginning to intrigue me. You.'
`Thank you,' she said, accepting the compliment gracefully. 'Let me think a moment where to start.'
