'Vandel,' said Tweed.
'Vandal will do for me,' Harry decided.
'I'll send Pete Nield to relieve you as soon as I can,' Tweed assured Butler.
'No 'urry…'
On his way out Tweed met Master again. He stopped to thank the consultant for what he was doing.
'One thing bothered me. Sister Vandel said at one stage if she recovers. I think she was simply frightening me.'
'One can never be sure, but I'm confident the phrase should have been when she recovers.' He looked annoyed. 'I'll have a word or two with Vandel. We'll take good care of the patient…'
Outside in the night Tweed found Newman seated behind the wheel of his parked car. He explained as Tweed got in next to him.
'I decided to stay with the car. It's unlikely any of those thugs will get into this area but I wanted to protect the car. How is Lisa?' he asked, driving off.
'I'd say she's completely exhausted, needs a lot of sleep and quiet. I didn't think she looked all that fresh when we left Park Crescent.'
He took out his notebook, wrote down Ham… Dan.,. 4 S. Then he showed the page to Newman. 'Mean anything to you? Lisa had trouble saying anything but that's what she said to me.'
'Not a thing. Is it important?'
'Lisa thought it was – to make the effort she did make to say that to me.'
'You probably didn't hear her properly. In her state it's likely she was confused.'
'I don't think she was. Could be the key to this bizarre international situation.'
'Heard on the radio Paris, Berlin and Brussels experienced the same type of trouble. The wreckers are abroad.'
'And it's just occurred to me,' Tweed ruminated, 'those are three of the cities Lord Barford visited recently. If we can believe what Aubrey Barford told Paula in a drunken stupor. And I think we can.'
CHAPTER 10
Marler had driven to Dorset, visited his contact, a retired manager in a security company, living in the model village of Abbotsbury, north-west of Weymouth. He'd suggested his contact might like to join him, but the manager had said sorry, he was no longer in shape.
'And those villains I saw ferried ashore last night were the toughest I've ever encountered…'
So, for several hours, Marler had sat in his car alone. He had driven off the road overlooking Chesil Beach up a steep track. He was now behind the wheel of his car, parked out of sight behind a clump of shrubbery. The height gave him a clear view over the seaway east of Weymouth, over Chesil and west towards Bridport. High-powered night glasses hung from a loop round his neck.
Chesil Beach was a quite unique phenomenon. Instead of sand, six miles or more of a great bank of pebbles extended from Weymouth westward. Marler knew the area, knew that near Weymouth the 'pebbles' were almost the size of small boulders, gradually diminishing in size as the bank stretched to the west where eventually they were truly pebbles in size. He also knew that fishermen, coming ashore in a fog, could tell where they were by checking the size of the pebbles.
It had been night for several hours and outside the air was a bitter cold. He was far enough back and above Chesil to keep his heater on. He had eaten sandwiches purchased from a roadside cafe on his way down from London, and occasionally drunk mineral water from a litre bottle.
Marler, the most deadly marksman in Western Europe, was blessed with an infinite patience. It was ten o'clock, very dark, when he saw something blazing out at sea, east of Weymouth. He focused his glasses, saw a small fishing boat on fire. No sign of a crew.
'The decoy,' he said to himself. 'To keep coastguards away from this area. They're coming and someone is well organized.'
A few minutes later he swore. He had just spotted a launch, a large vessel, packed to the gunwales with men, heading for the end of Chesil Beach near what was known as the Swannery. Then he saw the fog rolling in from the sea, blotting out the launch. He waited.
A few minutes later an old tourist-type bus, what his father would have called a charabanc, appeared from the direction of Bridport. It stopped, performed a two-point turn until it faced the way it had come. The vehicle was then parked near a point where Marler estimated the launch would beach. It carried the legend Topsy Tours. The fog swallowed up the bus.
Marler lowered his window, put his hand out. A few minutes later he felt a breeze. He closed the window, sat up erect, holding his glasses. The fog swirled, evaporated. The bus came back into view, so did the large launch as its bow hit Chesil. He focused on it.
A big man clad in waders, an oilskin, a sou'wester hat came ashore, bent down, picked up a pebble with one hand. In the other he was holding something Marler couldn't identify. Then the big man climbed the steep bank, saw the bus. He returned to the launch, lifted a megaphone to his mouth, called out instructions in as quiet a voice as possible.
Marler couldn't hear what he said but he could see the big man helping to unload his cargo, grabbing men by the arm, shoving them up the bank towards the bus. Marler studied their strange faces, agreed with his contact that this was a right bunch of villains.
Most looked foreign, out of the Balkans. What impressed – and worried – Marler was the military way they filed one behind the other up to the bus, carrying floppy bags. He took out his mobile, pressed the numbers of the police HQ in Dorchester, numbers he'd earlier memorized from a directory in an isolated phone box.
'Police 'ere,' a bored voice said.
'I'm reporting that a gang of illegal refugees are being smuggled ashore at the Swannery end of Chesil Beach. Send patrol cars…'
'Might I have your particulars, sir?' the bored voice asked.
'You'll lose them if you don't move fast. Put me on to a senior officer now.'
'Hold on a minute, sir. Maybe the sergeant will have a word…'
'You'll lose them,' Marler fumed, but there was no one on the line.
He waited, watching a whole column leaving the launch, climbing aboard the bus. He counted twenty men. Once aboard their transport, the bus moved off towards Bridport. Marler saw the big man was still waiting at the edge of Chesil Beach. Then a second tourist bus appeared, performed the same two-point turn, parked so it was also facing Bridport. The fog had cleared off the water and Marler heard the muffled sound of engines. Two large outboards, crowded with men, were approaching the shore where the big man had flashed a torch twice.
'Can I help you, sir? Sergeant Haskins here. What seems to be the trouble?'
'The trouble is you have at this moment a very large gang of illegal refugees being brought ashore at the Swannery end of Chesil Beach. They're being taken away towards Bridport in old tourist buses with the name Topsy Tours.'
'Did I hear you aright, sir? You did say 'Topsy'?'
'Yes.'
'Funny name…'
'For God's sake, get patrol cars to intercept the buses. I said they're on their way towards Bridport…'
'I heard that, sir. Might I ask exactly where you're speaking from?'
'Send patrol cars or I'll report this lack of action to the Chief Constable
Marler had had enough. The motorized dinghies had emptied their passengers with astonishing speed. They had scrambled up the bank, were already aboard the second bus. The big man had returned to the launch, was already steering it out to sea where presumably a freighter was standing to until it could winch the launch aboard. Then the freighter might well return to its pick-up point to take aboard another assortment of talent and bring it back to Britain.
Marler had switched off his mobile, feeling it was hopeless. The only thing he could do was to track the buses
