watch. Then she went close to him, kissed him on both cheeks.
'I have taken up too much of your time. Thank you so much for seeing me.'
'Didn't give me much choice, did you,' he replied with a warm smile. 'Do you want to give me your address and phone number?'
'Don't waste much time, do you?' she flashed back, smiling wickedly. 'But Paula has all my details.' She looked back at Paula. 'You take care. See you tonight at the Ivy.'
Then she was gone. With her absence the buoyant temperature inside the office seemed to have dropped. Even Monica seemed more subdued.
'What was all this business, Paula, about having dinner with her at the Ivy? You're developing expensive tastes,' Tweed remarked.
'It was Eva's idea,' Paula explained. 'She said it would be nice for just us two girls to go out and compare notes. I'm wondering whether she wants to interrogate me. I'll' be careful. But, that apart, I like her. She's clever. That business about who planned the atrocity in New York.'
'For weeks I have been wondering exactly the same thing myself. For similar reasons. Oh, I arranged for Pete and Harry to follow her.'
'So you don't trust her?'
'It's just that. As you know, I never take people at face value. Also I thought it curious that she never mentioned the disappearance of Mrs Warner. It has to be the main topic at Carpford.'
The door opened and Marler strolled in. He leant against a wall and produced one of his long cigarettes.
'Who was that devastating gorgeous woman I saw leaving here? The one with a great mane of dark hair and very tall.'
'You've just missed out,' Paula teased him. 'That was Eva Brand and Tweed has just sent Pete and Harry to shadow her. Now, if you had been here…'
'I don't think I like you any more,' he commented.
Paula had a point. Had Marler been available, Tweed would probably have sent him after her. An expert tracker, he always worked on his own and none of the targets he had followed had ever been aware of his presence. He lit his cigarette.
'What was Glamour Puss doing here?'
The phone rang and Monica looked surprised. She called out to Tweed. 'You'll never guess who is waiting to see you downstairs.'
Tweed hammered a fist on his desk, part of his new physical vitality. 'I don't want to guess. I want to know who it is.'
'Jules Beaurain.'
Wearing a blue bird's-eye suit, Beaurain breezed in. Tweed introduced him to Newman and Marler. Holding a posy of fresh flowers, Beaurain then walked swiftly to Paula's desk, laid down the posy.
'For an exceptionally intelligent and beautiful lady. It's a Belgian custom.'
'Don't believe that last bit, Jules,' Paula replied. 'They're wonderful. I can't thank you enough.'
'Then don't try.'
He sat down in the armchair facing Newman, stared at him as though he was some strange species. 'You're the reporter. I've read all your articles. Sometimes they're very good,' he chaffed, smiling.
'They're always good,' retorted Newman, returning the smile.
'Enough of this chit-chat. What brings you haring back to London, Jules?' Tweed asked.
'To give you information about Carpford I don't think you have yet. I phoned Buchanan. There are two more people up there you don't know about. You know where Margesson's house is?'
'Yes.'
Tweed had taken a large sheet of cartridge paper from his bottom drawer. Monica had earlier rushed to pick up the posy from Paula's desk, now she returned with a vase of water with the flowers carefully arranged. She placed them on Paula's desk. Paula extracted a rose, trimmed it with scissors, then went over to Beaurain. She inserted it in his lapel, using a safety pin to secure it. He looked up at her.
'With such appreciation next time I'll buy the whole shop.'
'Yes,' growled Tweed. He swivelled the sheet round. 'Have I got Carpford reasonably accurate?'
Paula leaned over Beaurain to study the drawing. She was amazed at how quickly Tweed had worked. Carp Lake was the centre piece. Around it he had drawn Garda, Warner's strange Italianate property; Drew Franklin's concrete blockhouse; Agatha Gobble's Cotswold cottage; Peregrine Palfry's round house and Margesson's Georgian horror.
'You missed your vocation,' Beaurain told him. 'You should have been an artist. Incredibly accurate. Now draw in two bungalows, well spaced apart, here, south of Margesson's house.'
Tweed drew two small oblongs where Beaurain's fingers had indicated. He looked up at Paula.
'I remember passing these before we met Buchanan again. I thought that, like every other dwelling, they were out of place.'
'In the first one lives a man called Billy Hogarth, like the painter. In the last one resides Martin Hogarth, the brother of Billy. They hate each other. Understandably.'
'What are they like then?'
'Billy is the black sheep. Half the time he's roaring drunk – when he's not driving off somewhere. Then he's sober. Bit of a thug. Ask him the time of the day and he's likely to throw a heavy clock at you.'
'And Martin?'
'English gentleman. Tall, in his fifties. Well-spoken. Good-looking. Polite. Master of chatting and telling you nothing.'
'And these two are brothers? Martin and Billy?'
'They are. And there's more to relationships up there than you might think. Both Martin and Billy – wait for it – are cousins of Drew Franklin, the columnist.'
'They are?' Tweed was taken aback. 'Do they communicate with each other? I'd have thought it likely.'
'Not according to Martin when I asked that same question. His reply, mind you, was vague as usual. He said, 'We all live our own lives. Haven't you heard that old saying -'the bloodiest battlefield is the family arena'.''
'Doesn't tell us much.'
'Which seems to be Martin's way of conducting a conversation. He'll chat for ages, but give you no information at all.'
'Talking about relationships,' Paula began, 'maybe we ought to tell Jules about our strange visitor this morning. Eva Brand.'
Tweed then gave Beaurain a full report of everything Eva had said – including the fact that she was a niece of Drew Franklin. When he had concluded, Tweed took out of his top drawer the drawing in ink of the cathedral the motor-cyclist had delivered. Beaurain studied it for a moment, threw it back on Tweed's desk.
'St Paul's Cathedral.'
'Exactly,' Tweed replied. 'Could it be significant?'
'Decoy,' Beaurain said dismissively.
7
'Is that Ali?' asked the voice on the phone.
Spoken in English, it was impossible to tell whether the caller was a man or a woman. The use of a voice- distorter made the speaker impossible to identify.
'It is Ali from Finsbury Park,' the man inside the public phone-box replied.
'Abdullah speaking. Is the consignment on its way. All five of the transporters.'
'They are coming. On schedule. They arrive at their destination at eight o'clock tonight.'
'I will call again, using the other number you gave, at seven.. .'
Ali left the phone-box quickly. Located in a carefully chosen quiet area of London, it was rarely used, a fact confirmed by constant observation.
