'It slipped my mind.' Tweed took an envelope off his desk, extracted two photos, handed one to Newman and one to Marler. 'Those are copies of the photograph of Marchat we brought back from Dorset. Just in case we ever find him. Monica has told me Paula took her own copy with her before she flew to Geneva.'
His office door opened and Howard, the pompous Director, strolled in. A tall man, well padded, in his late fifties, he was immaculately dressed, as always.
He was clad in a blue business suit with a chalk stripe which was a Chester Barrie bought from Harrods. He had a pink face, clean-shaven, and a lordly manner.
'Good evening, everyone,' he opened in his public-school voice, 'all quiet on the Western Front?'
It was a joke. No one smiled. Tweed stood up, walked over to the window, pulled aside a curtain, and stared out into the night.
'You could say that,' he replied.
'Not chasing after Mr Leopold Brazil any more, I trust. The PM was very annoyed we'd started to investigate him. He's expecting Brazil to join him for drinks soon at Downing Street.'
'How nice for the PM.' Tweed responded.
Howard sat down, draped one leg over the arm of the chair, adjusted the razor-edged crease in his trousers.
'The computer equipment I've had installed on the floor above is working like a dream. Reginald is very good.'
'Reginald?' Marler queried.
'He's the communications wizard in charge of bringing us into the twenty-first century. You'll be able to throw away your old card-index system, Tweed.'
'I shall keep it going.' retorted Tweed, his back still to the room – and to Howard.
'What on earth for?'
'Because I know any storage system of vital data operated by computers can be penetrated.' Tweed swung round to face his chief. 'Hacked into, is the jargon phrase.'
'I was going to suggest…' Howard paused, glanced at Newman and Marler who were staring at him with blank expressions, as though he wasn't there. 'I was going to suggest.' Howard started again with less confidence, 'we should use the computer to store the names of all our informants…'
'No.' said Newman.
'No.' said Marler.
'It's hardly up to you gentlemen to…'
'It is up to these gentlemen…' Tweed went round his desk, sat in his chair and gazed grimly at Howard as he went on. 'It is up to these gentlemen never to reveal to anyone – not even to me – the names of their secret informants. Haven't you realized yet that lives are at stake – the lives of our informants?'
'Well…' Howard stood up, tucked a finger inside his shirt collar as though it felt uncomfortable. 'Well, if you feel so strongly about it I suppose we can postpone including them…'
'For ever!' snapped Tweed.
'Yes, I see. It is after all your responsibility.'
'All the time.' replied Tweed, refusing to give an inch or to bother about saving Howard's face.
'Appreciate it if you could keep me informed. When you can, of course…'
On this defensive note Howard retreated out of the office. He closed the door behind himself very quietly.
'That's seen him off.' piped up Monica with unconcealed glee.
'He hasn't a clue.' growled Tweed. 'In that big office on the next floor up near the head of the staircase there's enough equipment to run the Pentagon. Reginald, a wet, has a number of personal computers, laptops, a staff of three, cables linking the stuff to the telephone, those horrible green video screens. It must have cost a fortune. Howard was counting on our records being the showpiece of his new toy department. Now I've killed that idea Heaven knows what they'll play about with to justify their existence.'
'I have a friend, Abe Wilson, who works from home,' Newman said. 'He had a lot of this junk. His wife told me that when he comes down at night he heads for the living room and gazes at television. Then he promptly falls fast asleep. She asked me on the quiet would I take her out to dinner.'
'Attractive?' enquired Marler.
'Very. I turned down her invitation as tactfully as I could. Abe is going round the bend.'
'Bob.' Tweed interjected, 'what is your impression of how Philip is getting on with Eve?'
'The poor devil doesn't know whether he's coming or going. She's playing him on a long string. But he becomes the old Philip we know when he's involved in his work.'
'I wonder where Eve Warner is at this moment?' Tweed mused.
Alighting from her flight at Geneva, Eve moved quickly after going through Passport Control and Customs. She went straight to the car-hire counter, identified herself, signed the papers for the Renault she had hired over the phone from Heathrow, paid the girl behind the counter. Then she lingered nearby, smoking a fresh cigarette, glancing casually round at the few passengers hurrying out. Near the end of February the airport was quieter than in the season.
She was looking for anyone who might have followed her. Eve had a photographic memory for faces, even those seen for a fraction of a minute. She saw no one who aroused her suspicions. She walked briskly back to the counter, told the girl she had dealt with she was ready to leave.
Escorted to the waiting Renault, she took the keys from the girl and glared at her.
'It's red,' she snapped, slapping her gloved hand on the bonnet. 'I distinctly asked for a neutral colour.'
'I'm sorry, Madame, but you were insistent over the phone that you wanted a Renault. This is the only one we had left.'
'I suppose it will have to do. Thank you for nothing.'
Taking off her camel-hair coat, she flung it in the back. She wore a scarf over her hair which hid her jet-black hair and was wearing tinted glasses. Only her walk identified her.
She drove off out of the city and hit the highway which headed north-east. Keeping just inside the speed limit, she overtook one vehicle after another. A truck driver blared his horn at her as she swept past him on a long bend. She waved a hand at him over her shoulder.
An hour later she pulled in at a small hotel on the edge of a town. She had a quick meal and rationed herself to one vodka, then, nervous, spilt perfume down her front to mask any faint alcoholic fumes. The Swiss police were bastards about drinking and driving.
Before leaving the hotel she found a phone, dialled a number from memory. When a man answered the phone she pulled a face. That creep.
'Eve Warner speaking from Geneva. I'll be driving and will reach you this evening. Pass the message on…'
She slammed down the phone, went outside and again she was driving north-east on a main highway.
Earlier she had passed the Jura Mountains, their snow gleaming in the moonlight, passed attractive villages with church spires like needles, illuminated. She had seen none of this. Magnificent scenery didn't interest her. As she drove she kept lighting another cigarette and overtaking, overtaking, overtaking. She couldn't bear to have another vehicle in front of her. She felt very good, leaving them behind her, showing them what a marvellous driver she was. She would arrive at her destination early. She liked surprising people.
Inside his office in Berne Leopold Brazil was in a towering rage. He strode round the room, hands clasped behind his back as he thundered. Igor, the wolfhound, watched him, then watched the target of Brazil's anger.
Tall and lean, the dog had a small head and its ears were lifted, sensing the mood of its master. Craig, who had flown back from Geneva to Belp, then had been driven by a waiting car to the villa in Kochergasse, kept glancing at the dog, which had its mouth open, its teeth bared.
Craig had reported to Brazil the ghastly fiasco in the Old City of Geneva – although he had been careful not to use the word 'fiasco'. Only by grilling him had Brazil got the truth out of his deputy.
'You are the world's greatest idiot!' Brazil shouted. 'Corpses lying in the street – your men – just when we need no adverse publicity, to say nothing of the dead you are responsible for. Did I or did I not warn you after the Sterndale Manor massacre that we must maintain a low profile?'
'They had a lot of men waiting for us.' Craig lied.
