'We continue watching?' Marler asked.
'Of course.'
'Then I'd better tie up the parcel…'
He produced one of several handcuffs he carried, bent down, turned Craig over on his back, clasped both wrists behind him, handcuffed them together. He next took out two pieces of cloth from his capacious pocket. He tied the dark handkerchief round Craig's eyes, looked up.
'That will disorientate him when he comes to. This will keep him quiet as a babe.'
He twisted the white cloth into a makeshift gag and applied it across Craig's mouth. Then he dragged his 'parcel' across and shoved it against the drystone wall. Newman turned to Philip, who was slipping his Walther inside its holster.
'Thank you, Philip. You probably saved my life – and even I didn't hear your silent approach.'
'You should thank Eve,' Philip explained as she came up to them. 'She created the diversion that caused Craig to shift his weapon away from you.'
'Really?' Newman stared at Eve in surprise. 'Well…'
'Glad you approve.' Eve made a pantomime of studying her long shapely fingers. 'Maybe there'll come a time when you realize a woman can be useful.'
'That time has come.' Newman held out his hand, gripped hers. 'Thank you. You're something else again.' His tone became brisk. 'Now we resume watching Grenville Grange, knowing it's not as unoccupied as it looks. Incidentally, how did Craig come up behind me?'
'Because we weren't watching closely enough.' Eve said bluntly. 'Philip and I were whispering to each other.'
'And I was checking my Armalite.' Marler added. 'Out of the corner of my eye I did see Craig slip through that gap where the wall has crumbled. God, for a man that size, he moved quickly. It only seemed to take him an instant to come up behind you and jab his gun into your neck.'
'That's all right,' Newman replied. 'But I suggest from now on, Marler, you take up a position by that gap. Philip, you find a boulder close to Marler and back him up. Take Eve with you. Now I resume watching.'
He dropped to the ground at the end of the wall as though nothing had happened. Reaching for the binoculars he'd let go of he checked the focus on the house and began waiting. No point in telling the others, but he was pretty sure now something was going to happen.
7
Butler, seated behind the wheel of his Fiesta, jammed the top on his coffee flask, thrust it into the door pocket. Still waiting in the car park, he had the window open to hear anything coming from the ferry and the wind off the sea was raw. He could hear the crash of waves on the nearby beach, see a fleet of black clouds approaching the Purbecks.
What had alerted him was the arrival of another bus. Shortly afterwards he heard motorcyclists coming at a steady pace. Three men clad in black leather astride their machines headed towards the Purbecks. Butler started his engine, then paused.
A gleaming black stretch limousine with amber-tinted windows glided past. Behind it followed two more outriders.
'Jesus!' he said to himself. 'Nield did say royalty.'
He waited a short time, then drove out after the limo, keeping well back. No view through the rear window, which was also tinted. This stretch of road was lonely with a bleak stretch of swampland to his right. Reed islands protruded above the water. To his left a thorn hedge blotted out the sea.
'You should have waited a mite longer.' he told himself.
In his mirror he saw a single motorcyclist in black leather thundering up behind him. Like the earlier outriders he was astride a powerful machine, a Fireblade. As he drew up alongside him Butler saw the word Police painted on his jacket. The newcomer waved to him to pull over and stop. Butler obliged.
The motorcyclist shoved off his helmet, exposing a tough, hard-jawed face with eyes too close together. Butler said nothing as the cyclist shouted at him through his open window. His head was practically inside Butler's car.
'You following that limo?' the rider demanded.
'I'm going home. It's a free road.'
'That's an important personage.'
'What's the difference between a person and a personage?' Butler asked innocently.
'Police business. Turn round, drive back to the ferry.'
'Why should I?'
'Because I say so. Get that machine turned round now.'
Butler lit a cigarette. He leant his arm on the edge of his open window.
'Can I see some identification, please? That you really are police?'
The rider took off his right glove, he shoved his hand inside his jacket. As Butler saw the hand coming out gripping the butt of a large gun he leaned over, pressed his cigarette on the back of the man's bare hand.
There was a yelp of pain as Butler reached out, grabbed the gun. It was a 7.65mm Luger. Not a handgun the British police ever carried. He opened his car door and shoved with great force. It hit the motorcyclist. Everything toppled over sideways. Man and machine.
The rider was trying to get out from under his machine when Butler tapped him over the skull with the butt of the Luger. Unconscious, he sprawled back in the road.
Butler, checking there was no other traffic, went through every pocket swiftly. No sign of a warrant card or anything else confirming he was a policeman. Butler heaved him up by the shoulders, dragged him across the road, hurled him into a thick patch of gorse bushes. His cargo disappeared. It took Butler no time to find him, to unbutton the jacket and haul it off the inert body by sheer brute force. As Butler had estimated, they were about the same build. Ripping off his windcheater, he slipped on the black jacket. Not a bad fit, he said to himself, and zipped up the front. Then he pushed the thug's body further into the gorse.
For a well-built man Butler could move with great speed. He had already switched off the engine of the Fireblade and he folded his windcheater, opened the pannier at the rear of the machine. Under a spare black jacket he found an assortment of handguns, five in all with spare ammo.
'We have a different type of policeman these days.' he muttered under his breath.
Putting on his gloves again, he carried the handguns, using the spare jacket as a makeshift tray. A few feet along the grass verge he found a gap in the hedge with a lake of muddy ooze beyond. He hurled each gun and saw them sink. The jacket followed the guns.
Hurrying back to the prone motorcycle, he lifted it upright, kicked out the prongs which held it in that position. He had already detached the black helmet from the thug's head and he pulled it over his own head.
En route from the ferry he had noticed several sandy tracks leading off towards the sea on his right and he saw another one a few yards away. No wheel tracks. Who would want to drive down to sit on the beach in this weather, at this time of the year?
It took him barely a minute to back his Fiesta down the track out of sight, to park it behind some bushes. Locking it, he ran back to the Fireblade, pulling the visor of his helmet over his face. He slipped the Luger into the pannier. You never knew when it might come in handy.
Astride the Fireblade, he checked his watch. Three minutes since he had knocked the outrider unconscious. He fired the engine, took off at high speed along the deserted road. He was anxious to catch up the limo before it reached the turn-off to Swanage. He rode through the sleepy hamlet of Studland like the wind, saw the limo in the distance.
Butler breathed a sigh of relief. The limo was still proceeding at a civilized glide, showing no sign of speeding up.
'Must be a big egg inside that,' Butler said to himself. 'Doesn't like being shaken up into an omelette.'
He slowed down as the limo with its distant outriders drove straight on, passing the turn-off to the small
