to once the tide returned – maybe down the estuary and way out into the Atlantic.
'Have to take the coastal path to the cove, then,' Gaunt shouted. 'Now it's low tide. Have a good trip…'
As Tweed approached the steps leading to the path with Newman and Paula he saw Butler and Nield appear out of nowhere. They had accompanied Tweed from the Metro-pole and had then melted away when he was joined by Paula.
The group of six was climbing the steep path beyond the steps when Paula noticed Cardon was still holding the canvas bag looped over his shoulder from a strap. He had held it close to his side all the time they had spent in the bar at the Old Custom House.
'Philip, what goodies have you got inside that bag?' she asked, walking alongside him.
'This and that. Might come in handy. You never know. Remembering what's already happened in peaceful Cornwall. The body count is now ten. Eight at the manor. Celia Yeo. And last night Tweed told me about Buchanan's call to him yesterday. So the real postman was found with his throat cut near Five Lanes. A very hospitable part of the world, Corn wall.'
Ten, Paula thought grimly. Ten bodies now – including poor Celia Yeo lying at the foot of High Tor. She must tell Tweed about their 'outing' as soon as she had him on his own.
In the brilliant sunshine they went on climbing out of sight of the town at the bottom of a green slope to their left. The sea to their right was masked by a thick hedge lower down. Paula kept thinking of the estuary as 'the sea' – it didn't seem like a river.
A signpost bearing the legend TO FERRY pointed to a side path descending the side of the hill. The path led to a flight of wide stone steps dropping steeply to a small cove surrounded with abyss-like rock walls. Not realizing it was the clear air, Tweed estimated it was only a two-minute crossing to Rock.
At the bottom of the steps they found themselves inside a tiny cove, hemmed in from the world by sheer granite walls. Paula glanced back as she picked her way to the water's edge over a scatter of ankle-breaking rocks. Under the cliffs at their base were dark deep caves disappearing into black gloom inside their granite alcoves. She didn't like this cove. She found the atmosphere eerie and they were the only people waiting for the approaching ferry.
Tweed raised his binoculars to his eyes, focusing on a tall thin old house halfway up the slope on the Rock shore. There was a series of flashes originating from an upper window.
'Someone across there is sending a signal,' he said grimly.
'It's just the sunlight reflecting off some glass,' Newman said.
'It was a brief Morse code signal with a lamp,' Tweed insisted. 'A series of long and short flashes. I'll tell you why I know later…'
The ferry had arrived. Paula wondered how on earth they were expected to board it. The ferry was a small craft capable of carrying only a dozen passengers. The wheel-house was a box-like structure close to the prow – hardly more than twice the size of the phone box Tweed had used outside the Old Custom House. There were only two elderly passengers coming over from Rock.
The boat aimed for the shore prow-first. One of the two tough-looking crew jumped ashore, hauled a plank out of the ferry, balanced it to provide a dry crossing platform to the shore. As the two passengers walked separately and gingerly along the plank the man ashore held one of their hands.
Tweed was the first to board the small vessel. Ignoring the extended helping hand, he climbed the plank nimbly, stepped into the craft. Passengers sat in the open on wooden plank seats with their backs to the gunwales.
Paula sat next to Tweed and studied him. He looked very tense. She knew he hated boats and water and he hadn't taken one of his Dramamines which neutralized sea-sickness.
'Are you all right?' she asked as the boat backed off from the shore.
'We could be in great danger,' Tweed warned Cardon and Newman who sat close to him.
'It's being on the water,' Paula soothed him. 'But it's only a short crossing. A couple of minutes.'
'At least five or more,' Cardon told her.
He unfastened the capacious canvas bag looped over his shoulder. As they proceeded down the narrow channel between sandbank and cliffs he slipped a hand inside and kept it there. Paula wondered what he was holding. A gun?
The two crew were squeezed inside the wheel-house and the skipper stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. They reached the end of the sandbank and shortly afterwards the skipper swung his wheel. Paula realized there was open water now between them and the beach near Rock. Where do we land? she wondered.
'Quite a view,' Newman commented a minute later.
They had moved out towards Rock into the middle of the estuary. To the north they could see the open Atlantic, beyond two capes. In the exact centre of the oceanic expanse out at sea a huge brutal rock reared up shaped like a volcano. In places the sea glittered dazzling! y where the sun reflected off it. A sharp cold breeze rippled the blue surface.
'Soon be there,'Paula reassured Tweed.
'I hope so,' said Newman, his tone serious.
He leaned back to see past the wheel-house. Coming in from the ocean a large powerboat had suddenly appeared. It was rocketing towards them, its prow high above the water, curving in a wide arc towards them, leaving behind a great white wake stretching out towards the Atlantic. Newman stiffened, slid his hand inside his windcheater, then withdrew his hand empty. He'd never hit a target moving at that speed. They all heard the skipper's words, a mix of anger and anxiety, as he spoke to his mate.
'Bloody maniac. Never seen that boat before…'
Paula stiffened, then felt Tweed's hand on her wrist, squeezing it. She looked at him. He sat perfectly still, all signs of tension gone. She thought she detected an expression of satisfaction, but that was impossible. Tweed glanced across at Butler opposite him as the huge projectile thundered down closer on them.
Butler nodded to Garden. She glanced at Philip. He was nodding back to Butler, the briefest of motions. Newman was staring inside the wheel-house at the skipper. His hands gripped the wheel tightly. He swung it a little to the left – to port – which appeared to be the wrong manoeuvre. It seemed he had panicked, was making a futile attempt to head back for the shore they had left from – taking them straight into the path of the advancing powerboat, which Paula now saw was huge.
Tweed took out Newman's binoculars, which he had put in his own pocket. Cardon, who had been switching his gaze swiftly from the wheel-house to the powerboat, reached across, took the glasses from Tweed's hands. Like Newman, he had summed up the skipper as a man who did not easily lose his nerve.
Cardon focused the field-glasses on the powerboat, which had changed course, was now slantwise to them. Through the lenses he saw the sole occupant, a figure at the wheel. A bizarre figure wearing a skin-diver's helmet and goggles. No chance of ever identifying who was guiding the powerboat. Cardon shoved the glasses back in Tweed's lap with his left hand. Both of his hands dived inside the canvas satchel as Paula watched him.
The roar of the powerboat was deafening as it swept even closer. Paula clenched her fingers tight inside her gloves. They were going to be smashed to matchwood, capsized into water which would be icy in February. Nield calmly inserted a cigarette between his lips without lighting it.
'The skipper knows what he's doing,' Tweed told Paula, his mouth close to her ear.
'You could have fooled me,' she snapped back.
In the brief time before a shattering collision took place the skipper suddenly swung his wheel hard over to starboard – away from the powerboat's course. It was tricky timing. The huge prow of the monster seemed to Paula to loom over them like something out of the film Jaws. One of her hands was now clamped round the plank beneath her, waiting for the frightful impact.
There were inches between the two vessels as the powerboat skimmed past them on the port side. And as it did so Cardon lobbed the grenade he had withdrawn the pin from. It landed in the well behind the hooded figure. Cardon immediately began counting silently, mouthing the numbers clearly as he stared at Paula.
'One… '
Two… '
'Three… '
'Four…'
On 'Four' something made Paula swivel round to the stern of the ferry which was now rocking madly under
