Deadlock (27 page)

'I want you to tell these two gentlemen from England all you know about Lara Seagrave. They both speak French . . .'

'I must first apologize for messing up my job,' The Parrot began. 'Losing the girl when she jumped into that Volvo near the Place de la Concorde was sheer carelessness . . .'

'You hadn't had sleep for God knows how long,' Lasalle told him. 'Now, tell them your story. Start with Marseilles . . .'

The little man with the funny beaked nose sat down at Lasalle's request and began. Tweed leaned forward, watching him intently. Again he felt himself back in his old Scotland Yard days. Some policemen could spend twenty years in the force and learn nothing from experience. The Parrot was a very different kettle of fish.

He spoke precisely, always explained why he had taken certain action. His opening words impressed Tweed. 'There were these rumours of a strange new organization being built up for some great operation. Maybe the hijacking of a ship. In Marseilles the best viewpoint for a terrorist to check the layout is Notre Dame de la Garde. I had been waiting there - on a hunch - for five days before this girl appeared . . .'

He ended with his losing her when she dived into the Volvo. A colleague had taken over the watch on The Ritz. Lara had returned to the hotel two hours later, walking down the rue St Honore, entering by the main entrance.

'One question,' Tweed said eventually. 'When you've had many years' experience tracking people you get a feeling about your target. What is your feeling about Lara Seagrave?'

'Oh, she is highly suspect. She even watches to see if she is being followed. Professionally, too. She uses shop windows as mirrors. She varies her pace. She has been trained.'

'Does she follow any routine?'

'Only one. She goes each day to Smiths' bookshop tea-room on the first floor - except when she visited Cherbourg. She arrives at 4 p.m. Has tea and a cake.'

'Thank you.' Tweed glanced at Newman. 'I think I shall be having tea at Smiths' at four this afternoon.'

He manoeuvred it carefully. The tea-room was filling up. Lara was pulling out the chair of a corner table when Tweed appeared, performing the same action opposite her. Pausing, he spoke in English.

'I do beg your pardon. I didn't notice you. I was dreaming.'

Lara studied him for a few seconds, then smiled. 'Oh, do come and join me. I'm on my own and getting so bored. It will be nice to have an Englishman to chat to over tea. I've spoken French non-stop ever since I arrived in France.'

'Thank you. After a while one gets homesick.' He picked up the menu. 'I see they have a selection of teas. I want something normal . . .'

'Try the Darjeeling. That's my tipple.' She smiled, offered him her pack of cigarettes and when he refused lit one for herself after asking his permission. 'And if you're hungry, they do a very good toasted tea-cake. English marmalade as well. All home comforts!'

'Paradise,' he responded. 'I'll have the same.'

She ordered for them both and he was careful not to ask any direct questions. 'You like Paris?' he enquired. 'By the way, my name is Tweed.'

'Lara Seagrave.' She extended her slim hand. 'Now we're friends.'

She was enormously attractive, he was thinking - with her long auburn hair, her excellent bone structure, the devil-take-the hindmost tilt of her chin, repeated in the humorous glint in her blue eyes.

'You look as though you enjoy life,' she remarked.

'I suppose I like my job. You'll think it frightfully dull. I'm in insurance.'

'What exactly do you do? Sell insurance? You don't look the type, if I may say so.'

'I'm chief claims investigator. Someone dies, a huge sum is at stake. The statistics show it's a most unusual way for a man to die as he did - a ten thousand-to-one chance. I have to check it. I know the wife benefits, I find she has been having an affair with a man who is a confidence trickster. I launch a full-scale investigation. That's an extreme case.'

'Sounds exciting, like being a detective.'

'I was once.'

They ate their tea-cakes, Tweed said she had good judgement. She poured more tea in both cups, then felt around inside her tote bag, producing two articles wrapped in tissue and handing him one.

'Something extra if you've still got space.
Couques
. They come from Dinant on the Meuse, just across the border in Belgium.'

Tweed unwrapped the tissue, examined the small gingerbread house. 'Quite remarkable. I've never seen anything so well-designed.'

'They're scrumptious.' She ate hers and watched Tweed wrapping his up in the tissue again.

'If you don't mind,' he said, 'I'll keep mine for later. I get peckish about six in the evening - well before dinner. You have a job here in Paris?'

'
Had
.' Her blue eyes held his. 'Now I've switched from being a secretary to research. It brings in a lot more money. It gives you independence. I want to show my family I can make it on my own.'

'I applaud the idea.' Tweed frowned. 'Lara Seagrave. I've heard that name somewhere. Probably I'm wrong . . .'

'Probably you're right,' she said with an ironical twist of her full lips. 'If you ever read the bloody
Tatler
. I'm the step-daughter of Lady Windermere. She's queen of the hitches.'

'She is the one you want to show you can make it on your own, then?' he suggested.

'You're so right.' She paused and studied him afresh. 'It's funny, I'm talking to you about things I've hardly ever said to anyone else. You're a good listener. I wouldn't like to be questioned by you if I'd committed a crime.'

'No crime in wanting to upstage an unpleasant stepmother,' he said amiably.

She looked at her watch. 'Glory! I'm expecting a phone call. Would you think me rude if I rush?'

'Only if you refuse to allow me to pay for the tea.' He lifted his hand. 'No argument. I was lonely, too.'

She stood up, held out her hand. 'I do hope we meet again, Mr Tweed. Four o'clock here will find me for the next few days. Now, I really must go . . .'

Tweed rose to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw The Parrot, who had paid his bill early, leaving his table to precede her down the stairs. He looked quite different in a beret and a dark overcoat.

'Tell me again about Dr Portch and Norfolk,' Tweed said to Newman as they sat in the lounge area of the Hotel d France et Choiseul.

'I checked old newspapers in the British Museum reading room for starters. I found what I was looking for two years ago - the story which rang a bell when you mentioned the name Portch. He had a practice in Brighton. Was very popular with the old ladies. Had a number of them as patients. Two died, left him legacies in their wills. A cool ten thousand pounds altogether. People began talking. At the coroner's inquest, it was touch and go whether he was indicted for murder. The coroner was not too bright, retired shortly afterwards. Natural causes was the conclusion.'

'Why the doubt in your opinion? We didn't have too much time to talk about it before we rushed for the Paris flight.'

'I'd left Butler and Nield in King's Lynn for the day while I drove down to Brighton. I poked around, for the police inspector in charge of the case. He also has retired. He was cagey at first. After a few Scotches at his bungalow he suddenly blew up. Said Portch should be behind bars for life. An Inspector Williams. The coroner's verdict stalled his investigation. Both the old ducks died of overdoses of barbiturates. Williams reckons the coroner was senile, and a woman-hater to boot. But it finished Portch in Brighton.'

'How?'

'Rest of his patients voted with their feet, left him. He had to sell the practice for a pittance. Which explains, I suppose, why he ended up taking a backwater position at Cockley Ford. They probably hadn't heard of the case there. The Portch case wasn't widely reported - there was a lot of international news at the time. It only made one national daily - on an inside page.'

'So someone in London who wanted a man like Portch to take over at Cockley Ford could have read the story?'

'Yes. Who are you thinking of?'

'No one in particular. You'll enjoy tomorrow - Lasalle is taking us to meet a Corsican gang leader here in Paris.'

'What for?'

'He knows something about a man the underworld calls The Recruiter.'

At Dinant in the Belgian Ardennes, just north of the French border, a massive cliff rises above the town, topped by a citadel which looks down on the river Meuse. Klein drove the Citroen over the Pont de Charles de Gaulle and headed for the barge moored further upstream.

Aboard the vessel, the
Gargantua
, its Belgian owner, Joseph Haber, watched the car coming and froze. Haber wore a pair of thick blue serge trousers and an old pea-jacket. A man of forty, he was short and thickset with black hair half-concealed by the peaked cap he habitually wore. He went into the wheelhouse at the rear of the barge and slammed the door as Klein pulled alongside the
Gargantua
, switched off the engine.

Climbing out of the car, carrying a case, he looked round the deserted waterfront and crossed the gangplank linking the barge to the shore. He pushed open the door and entered the wheelhouse. Haber spoke at once.

'I'm not doing any more for you. Don't care what you offer to pay me.'

'Clean up your mortgage on the Rhine barge and leave you a fortune in the bank . . .'

'Get off my barge. I don't want to see you again. One job was enough. You paid me. I did it. That's it.'

'I think not.' Klein was amiable. 'For a start there is the problem of the
Gargantua
. There could be traces of the bullion left down in that hold. I warned you about that at the beginning.'

'I'll have her cleaned out. I'll pay for that myself . . .'

'Really, you don't seem to understand.' Klein was patient, as though dealing with a not too bright child. 'Very fine grains of the bullion could be discovered by police forensic experts. We can't risk it. The barge must go - as we planned. You can get the insurance on it afterwards She has to be sunk where we arranged, Haber. And I have something for you to transport aboard your other barge, the
Erika
. Nothing so bulky or troublesome, this time. In fact, the case I am holding. I really must insist . . .'

'And I told you last time enough was enough. So bugger off . . .'

'Haber, you have a longer trip to make this time with this.' Klein put the case down on the wheelhouse floor, his manner calm and confident. 'And I see your partner, Broucker, is on board the
Erika
further downstream. He must come with us on our trip to Les Dames de Meuse. When we have got rid of the
Gargantua
we then drive back here and I'll tell you your new destination.'

'I said get off my barge . . .'

'Really, you must think of your family. The charming Martine, your wife, and your young son, Lucien.' He dropped a brooch on the ledge of the wheelhouse.

Haber stared at it in horror. The horror turned to fury as he lurched forward, grabbing for Klein's throat with both hands. 'What have you done with them, you bastard? If you have harmed either . . .'

'They are both in a safe place.' Klein grasped Haber by his wrists, forced him to sit down in the captain's chair. The grip felt like a vice of steel. 'Now quieten down. You are going to make a lot of money. I know you're ambitious. You will be able to buy a fleet of barges. Please keep still - we don't want anyone to see us struggling, do we? Not if your family is to remain safe and well-fed . . .'

Inside the wheelhouse aboard the
Nantes
, a third barge upstream from the
Gargantua
, Willy Boden turned to his wife, Simone. 'I think Haber is having an argument with that peculiar chap, Klein. No, don't stand up or they'll see us.'

'I don't like the look of that Klein,' Simone replied, stroking her long hair, 'I think he's trouble . . .'

'It's Haber's business, not ours. Let's finish our meal.'

Half an hour later he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and peered towards Dinant. 'That's funny,' he remarked. The
Gargantua
is leaving. Moving upstream towards the French border and Les Dames de Meuse. Haber was loaded up with gravel. And Broucker has closed the hatches of the
Erika
. He's joined Haber aboard the
Gargantua
. Why would he do that? Why would Haber sail upstream when he always takes the gravel downstream to Liege?'

'What about that man, Klein?' Simone snapped.