Cell

mirror, put on a pair of spectacles with blank lenses, a peaked hat on his head. His appearance was transformed. He followed her inside.

He had a surprise. A man was just pulling out a chair for her. Palfry, smirking. He sat opposite her. Marler chose a table giving him a good view of them. Only Tweed at the SIS knew that Marler had trained himself as an expert lip-reader. The place was half empty. He removed his hat and ordered coffee when the waitress arrived. He could make out most of their conversation.

'I'm worried about Victor,' she said,

'Why? He's as fit as a fiddle. You know.' He pretended to play a fiddle with a solemn expression. She laughed dutifully.

'But how long can he keep it up?' she persisted. She kept quiet while their waitress served them both coffee. She continued as soon as they were alone. 'He pushes himself to the limit. He gets very little sleep. In the evenings he's always dashing off up to his place in Carpford. No guards.'

'What do you mean?' Palfry asked, managing to look worried.

'One of his guards told me they got into a car in the evening and followed him when he'd told them he didn't need them. He pulled into a lay-by on the A3, flagged them down. Then he gave them hell, said when he needed them he'd tell them and they could just drive straight back to London. Did you know this?'

'Not my job to tag along when he doesn't want me. Occasionally I do travel with him to Garda, his place in the village. And I always carry a revolver.'

'Could you use the damned thing if it came to it?' she snapped.

'Well…' He smirked. 'Probably end up shooting myself.'

'A lot of use that is,' she snapped. 'Go up there on your own sometimes? You've got that great big tub-like house. Must be room for twenty guests upstairs.'

'Well, sometimes I have a party. Maybe twenty guests. They can end up blotto so not fit to drive. Then I can give them sleeping accommodation for the night. Ask you up some time.'

'Drunken orgies aren't my style.'

'They're hardly that,' he protested. 'You could come up on your own one evening.' He smiled knowingly.

'That's not my style either. Now, getting back to why I asked you to meet me here. Victor is under great pressure and it's showing. He gets bad-tempered with me. Not that I can't handle that. I can. I thought you ought to know.' She leaned forward, 'And if you ever tell Victor about this meeting I'll see your job goes down the drain. Now, pay the tab and leave. We don't want anyone seeing us together outside. Go on.'

Meekly, Palfry paid the bill and walked out, looking baffled. He passed close to Marler's table without noticing him. Eva then stood up, put on her overcoat, walked towards the exit. She stopped by Marler's table.

'Why are you following me, Marler?'

'For protection. How did you know?'

'You're pretty good.' She gave him her warmest smile. 'I spotted you only once. Don't forget my time with Medfords. I was trained to follow people myself – and to know when someone was following me.' She smiled again. 'At least you weren't able to eavesdrop on our conversation.'

'Hardly close enough.'

'It would have bored you.' She picked up his hat, put it on his head back to front, giggled. 'You do look funny. Take care.' She bent down, kissed him on the cheek and was gone.

Marler didn't think it had been the moment to ask her out to dinner. In any case, he wanted to get back to report their conversation to Tweed.

***

At Park Crescent Tweed had decided to call Dixon, the millionaire owner of the power station. He had spoken to him earlier.

'I've just spoken to Harry,' Nield spoke up. 'He's happy to keep on guarding Billy Hogarth but maybe I ought to relieve him.'

'Stay here while I make this call… Mr Dixon, this is Tweed again. The drug dealers we thought might be near your power station are elsewhere. Everything all right at the wharf?'

'Proctor, the guard I mentioned to you, told me over the phone everything is normal. So nothing to worry about. After all-night duty he'll be glad to get back to his wife in Balham.'

'His wife lives in Balham? Give me a moment…'

Tweed sat thinking. He doodled on his pad, decided, picked up the phone again.

'Mr Dixon. This is highly confidential. The big operation to trap key drug dealers is taking place in Balham. Our men are armed. I don't want to risk upsetting Mrs Proctor. Would you mind giving me her address? Then we won't call at her house.'

'Very considerate. I will, of course, keep this under my hat, the one I never wear. I won't contact her but here is where she lives.. .'

'Thank you,' said Tweed, after writing down the address. 'I won't bother you again…'

He looked at Newman and Nield after showing them the address.

'I have spent a lot of time visualizing how I would conduct this spectacular operation, imagining I was the mastermind behind the planning. As regards Dick's wharf, they will have intimidated the guard, Proctor, so he said the right thing to the owner when he phoned Proctor this evening. These are the most ruthless and merciless enemies we have ever faced. I have little doubt they now hold Proctor's wife as hostage in his house. What will they do just before the operation is launched? Kill Proctor. They will also kill his wife. You know the area now you have the address?'

'I do,' Nield replied who had been studying a map of Balham. It's a side street, probably terraced houses.'

'We must try to save Mrs Proctor. I don't expect a hitman is holding her at this stage. It will be some al- Qa'eda terrorist. It will be tricky.'

'Even dangerous,' Newman said doubtfully. 'Supposing the man holding her has time to phone the leader at the wharf?'

'Go with Nield. Your job is to see he doesn't get the time to do that. Kill him…'

Newman drove across Albert Bridge with Nield, navigating, by his side. There was heavy mist and still a lot of traffic. Prior to leaving Park Crescent Nield had collected certain tools, had wrapped them in a leather sheet, now rolled up and in his lap.

'Going to take us all night to get there,' Newman grumbled.

'No, it won't,' Nield said cheerfully. 'You concentrate on driving while I deal with navigating. After my original training session down at the Surrey mansion when they half-murdered me they brought me up here to Balham. Learning to track a suspect, watch a house opposite for two days without falling asleep. All that stuff.'

'Understood, Pete,' agreed Newman.

They had left the bridge behind and the traffic began to thin out. Nield spoke suddenly.

'Slow down, turn right down the next side street. We can get there quicker…'

Nield directed him through a maze of turns past old terraced houses with dim street lighting outside. Without consulting the map, he guided Newman, ordered him' once again to turn right.

'Crawl,' he ordered after the turn. 'This is the street. So where is No. 12? There it is. Park further along and we'll walk back and do a recce.'

When they walked back in their rubber-soled shoes they found No. 12 was at the end of the terrace. A narrow alley led down its windowless end, since it was the last in this block. No mist here. Just a deadly silence.

Steps led up to the front door direct from the street, and the old front door had stained glass in its upper half. There were lights behind the front bay window, which had curtains drawn closed across it. The frontage was only one window wide and they could hear nothing inside. No lights in the upper window.

'I want to call at another house like this one,' Nield said.

'What on earth for?' whispered Newman.

'To get an idea of the interior plan. They'll all be alike. You keep out of sight. And tuck this tool-kit under your arm…'

He walked up the block five houses, paused while Newman took up a position across the road in the