No Mercy (29 page)

'Now you've barged in you might as well sit down,'
Greystoke suggested.

He staggered a little as he arranged three armchairs in a
circle, one close to the Scotch bottle and glass. He waved a
hand, glared at Paula.

'That was the kitchen. Do you normally poke around in
other people's places?'

'I wanted to be sure we were alone,' she said politely.

'I've just finished one of those brainstorming business
sessions. The businessmen needed liquor to oil their so-
called brains.'

A one-blonde business meeting, Paula would have liked to
say, but she kept quiet.

'OK,' Greystoke began as they sat down and he chose the
chair nearest the bottle. 'What is this in aid of?'

'I am investigating four especially hideous murders,'
Tweed told him, 'where all the bodies were horribly savaged
with a knife. Chunks of flesh cut, off, preserved in bags.'

Greystoke reached for a carafe of water, filled a glass, drank it all down, refilled the glass, repeated the process.
Deciding he'd better sober up, Paula thought.

'Sounds like a friggin' maniac,' Greystoke said.

'When he's doing his foul work. But I do believe that it is
someone who most of the time appears perfectly normal.
Could be a business executive.' Tweed leaned forward. 'I
understand your wife, Lee, disappeared three to four months
ago.'

'She has her way of life, I have mine. So eventually she has
the idea she wants to live her own life - without me. I'm not
bothered.'

'Mr Greystoke,' Tweed began in a grim voice, leaning
closer to him again, 'one of the skeletons discovered on
Dartmoor is that of Lee.'

Paula was taken aback. She had never known Tweed
conduct an interrogation in such a brutal manner.

'Lee? Can't be. Are you sure?'

'I have a witness who positively identified the corpse. She
was wearing a certain piece of jewellery the witness
associates with Lee. No doubt. Lee is dead as a dodo.'

'Who is the witness?' Greystoke poured Scotch into the
glass. 'Hair of the dog,' he explained after swallowing the
contents.

'I cannot reveal the identity of the witness,' Tweed
snapped.

Tweed was studying the suspect, recalling how he had
looked at Santorini's when he had dined there with Lucinda.
Tall, a man in his fifties with gold-rimmed glasses perched
on his Roman nose, his brown hair now awry - due no
doubt to his recent visitor. Attractive to a certain kind of
woman, Aubrey knew this. So what was different? As at
Santorini's he had an air of self-satisfaction when they
arrived. Now, though, he looked uncertain, his sensuous lips
compressed. Like a man holding himself together with an
effort.

'This is a shock,' he said suddenly.

A rather belated reaction, Paula thought to herself.

'Did Lee have any enemies? Had she a woman friend in the States, say in Richmond, Virginia?'

'First,' Greystoke said, his replies now prompt, 'she did
not have any enemies that I know of. Second, ten years ago
I took her to the States and she disliked it intensely. We
never went anywhere near Virginia.'

'I think that will be all - for the moment,' Tweed decided,
standing up. 'I expect to be back as I learn more.'

Paula accompanied Tweed striding towards the exit door.
Greystoke followed them. Before he opened the door
Greystoke said in an emotional voice, 'I did love Lee . . .'

Tweed spun round. 'In that case why did you never
inform the police she was missing?'

'Well . . .' He was almost stuttering. 'I didn't want the
news to get round the staff at Gantia. It's a gossip shop. I was
so sure that she—'

'Thank you for your time,' Tweed said harshly.

He opened the door himself. They didn't hear the door
close but Tweed never glanced back as he pressed the button for the elevator. Once inside, doors closed, they were able to talk.

'What do you think?' Paula asked.

'They're all lying,' he growled. 'I think even Greystoke has
been infected by the devious Armenian element. He was
hiding something, at the best.'

'I thought his reactions were all wrong. And you'd have expected him to ask what he should do about arrangements
for his wife's body.'

'Yes, you would.'

'Where are we going now?' Paula asked as they drove away
in a taxi from the Tower. 'Who's next on your hit list?'

'Lucinda.'

'All the way down the M3 again to the Gantia plant?'

'No,' stated Tweed. 'Her London apartment. If we're
lucky that's where we'll find her. I think she starts work late to avoid rush hour, then stays late after the staff have gone
home.'

'Which would give her free run of the plant?'

'I'd already thought of that.'

'Do you think
Aubrey' -
she pronounced the name with a
posh accent - 'is capable of these ghastly murders?'

'I am looking for someone who strikes me as being
capable of grabbing a man - or a woman - from behind,
jerking them back by clutching their hair, then cutting their throat with a sharp blade. Next, switching their grip on the knife so the serrated edge is used to saw through the neck
and half the spine, plus later using the same knife to mutilate
the dead body.'

'You make it sound so horrible.'

'It
is
horrible.'

He was silent until they arrived at Park Crescent,
transferring to his own car. He drove to Mayfair and into the
underground garage below Lucinda's apartment. Parking in
one of the many empty spaces, he got out, hurried over to the elevators while Paula ran to catch him up.

'Is it a good idea that I come with you?' she wondered. 'Or
do you need me for protection?' she teased.

'You come with me. She'll know it's serious then.'

As they stepped out of the elevator the door to Lucinda's
apartment opened and she was coming out, clad in a leather
driving jacket and trousers. Paula had her overcoat on but
was still feeling the damp cold of London - the sudden contrast to the heat of Marseilles.

'I was just on my way down to the plant,' Lucinda
snapped and pushed back a lock of hair from her face.

'You can go down later,' Tweed said grimly. 'I'm
investigating a case of mass murder. That comes first.'

'If you say so. March in.'

This is going to be interesting, Paula thought. She's in a
bad mood. Slamming the door shut when they were inside,
Lucinda took off her jacket, threw it on a chair. Without
being asked, Tweed took off his overcoat as Paula took off
hers. Tweed hung his coat on one of a row of wall hooks and
did the same with Paula's.

Lucinda sat behind a desk, took out a cigarette, inserted
it into her long holder, lit it. Tweed hauled three armchairs
in a circle, rather as Greystoke had done.

'I want you closer,' he told Lucinda.

'You do? With Paula here?' she said with a malicious
smile.

She stood up, came over and sat in one of the armchairs. Leaning back, she blew smoke rings into the air.

'I'm rather glad you've come,' she said suddenly in her soft
appealing voice.

'Why?' demanded Tweed.

'I had another visitor, not exactly a friend - or friendly. Mr Abel Gallagher, head of Special Branch. He was aggressive,
rude, helped himself to the bottle of Scotch from the drinks
cupboard, poured himself a glass, swallowed the lot. I'll have to have the glass screen over the drinks cupboard replaced by
solid wood panels. That is, if I'm going to have thugs like
that calling on me.'

'When was this?' Tweed asked.

'Earlier this morning.'

'So what did he want to know?' Tweed asked, his tone gentler.

'How much progress you had made with your
investigation. I told him damn-all. Said I wasn't on your staff. Told him to go and ask you. He didn't like that. He threatened me.'

'How?'

'Said I was involved in the murder cases up to my neck,
that if I didn't cooperate he'd send a car to take me to his
HQ. He said I must know where Lee Greystoke had
vanished to, that I was very close to her according to
information received, close in any way I might like to interpret that. I nearly picked up the bottle of Scotch and threw it at him, but I kept my cool.'

'Did he say anything else?'

'Wanted to know where Michael was. I said I hadn't a clue. I'd had enough. I erupted. I stood up and told him to get the hell out of my apartment or I'd throw him out. He's a big man and that made him sneer.'

'What happened next?'

'Oh,' she said calmly. 'I got up, used my jujitsu on him.
Pushed him to the door, opened it, flung him out so he
landed flat on his face, closed the door, locked it. End of
story.'

Tweed was in a quandary. He'd intended to put Lucinda
through the wringer with his interrogation. Not a good tactic
after what she'd just described.

'I was disturbed,' he began quietly, 'when I realized you
had lied to me.'

'Lied?'
Lucinda was taken aback. 'What are you talking
about?'

'You gave as a possible reason for Lee's disappearance that
she had a woman friend in Richmond, Virginia. That she
might have gone there. I've recently talked to Greystoke. He
says his wife disliked the States when he took her there ten
years ago. Also, they never went anywhere near Virginia. I'm
afraid you won't look back on this as one of your best
mornings. Lee is dead,' he said gently. 'Her body was found
in a mine shaft on Dartmoor.'

'Oh, my God!' Lucinda sat very still before reacting. 'That is simply ghastly.' She stood up. 'I need a good stiff Scotch.'
She brought a glass back, sat down.

'Might be best to drink water first,' Paula advised.

Lucinda poured water from a carafe into the glass,
swallowed the contents, refilled the glass, swallowed again. She took deep breaths, then poured herself a stiff Scotch into
the same glass. She sipped it.