No Mercy (32 page)

Pressing another button, he watched the first section
telescope into a compact square. He slipped it inside the
leather satchel slung over his shoulder. It was this satchel
that had originally transported the bomb. He checked the
illuminated hands of his watch. Fifteen minutes. The time he'd allowed for this assignment.

To arrive back at his parked motorcycle he made a detour
away from the fence across grassy fields. He wore rubber-
soled shoes with no identifiable pattern on their surface.
Arriving at the edge of the M3 he stopped, listened. No
sound of traffic.

He walked swiftly across and entered the fields on the far
side. He then hurried back to the motorcycle. A profes
sional to his fingertips, he never waited for a bomb to detonate.
His policy was to be as far away as possible from the
devastation.

Walking down the corridor to the elevator, ready to leave the
building, Tweed and Paula were
intercepted by Lucinda.
She appeared out of her office, stood in their way.

'Not leaving without talking to me? And I thought you both liked me.'

She ushered them inside her office. The blinds were
drawn over her windows with a glow of light behind them.

She poured water from a carafe into three glasses, then
coffee from a cafetiere into three Wedgwood cups.

'Make yourselves at home,' she invited, perching herself
on a swivel stool and crossing her long legs. 'Sit,' she said.
They sat close to her in armchairs with a small table near
them. Tweed reached for his coffee, took a long drink. He
felt more lively. Paula drank some water.

'Now, Tweed,' Lucinda commanded with a smile. 'Who
have you been hammering into the ground verbally? Tell all.'
Her mood was playful.

'We've had a long and interesting chat with Larry. A very
able man.'

'In many ways. Michael, believe it or not, is even more
capable. That is, before he had his attack of amnesia. I
wonder what did cause that?'

'He had a nasty bump on the side of his head. The
medical lot think that caused it. May have been hit on the head by someone.'

'That's sinister.'

'The whole thing is highly sinister, if that's the way it did
happen.'

'You sound dubious.'

'At this stage of the investigation, Lucinda, I assume
nothing. Except that everyone may be lying. And everyone
is suspect.'

'So what is the motive?'

'Money and power.' Tweed had leaned forward.

'Don't think I get that,' she said after a pause. She reached
for her coffee, sipped it, staring at Tweed. 'You're not going
to.enlighten me?'

'No, I'm not.' He leaned closer to her. 'We have now identified the last corpse. Number four. The man found by
the side of the track on Dartmoor.'

'So who was he?'

'I'm not revealing that to anyone yet.'

'You think he might be the key to your riddle?' she enquired.

'Yes, he could be. I know a lot more now than I did when
I visited Abbey Grange. When I saw the Reverend
Stenhouse Darkfield ringing his bell nonstop in the church
tower.'

'So you think that's significant?' Her expression was
puzzled.

'At this stage everything - and anything - could be
significant. Paula and I walked past a series of thatched
cottages joined together. A hamlet, I suppose. What's it
called?'

'Oh,' she said offhandedly, 'it's a nowhere place with no
name. You get that sort of thing on Dartmoor.'

Tweed finished his coffee, stood up. 'It's getting late. I
imagine the plant has closed. I've never
seen inside it.'

'I'll show you a view.' She took a mink coat off a hanger,
put it on, caressed the fur. 'Bought at a knock-down price at
a place in Bond Street going bankrupt. I'll come with you.'

Walking ahead of them along the corridor, she stopped
suddenly. Using a key, she unlocked a wide panel in the wall,
which slid back. She gestured to them to look beyond it.

They were looking down on a vast plant with wide aisles dividing long stacks of clean white shelves from each other.
The lights were still on, no sign of staff, and the shelves were
full of food products in brightly coloured containers. Cold
air seeped into the corridor and Paula realized the whole plant was air-conditioned.

She stared down at an aisle, which had railway lines running down it, twenty feet below them. A stationary
motorized engine was perched on the rails with a convoy of open white plastic trucks behind it. She pointed down to the
strange train.

'What's that?'

'Larry's brilliant idea. Trucks laden with supplies drive to the back, a long way as you can see. Originally staff had to
carry the supplies to the shelves. Now they load up the
trollies and the engine carries them along the rails to where
they're unloaded.' She closed the panel, locked it. 'We're not
supposed to leave that open for long.'

'We'd better be going now.' Tweed suggested.

She turned round and came up to him so close he caught
a whiff of expensive perfume. Her voice was soft.

'Now tell me the identity of the fourth corpse. You know
you can trust me.'

She moved even closer to him. Tweed stood his ground.

'Its identity is completely confidential.'

'Oh, well, I tried.' She turned towards her office. 'I've just realized I can't come down with you. I've forgotten to check
the rear doors are locked.'

On the ground floor a uniformed guard opened the front
door for them and said 'Good night.' It was chilly as they
crossed the terrace and descended the steps, and Tweed used his remote to open the car doors. As Paula settled
herself into the passenger seat he nipped round, jumped in
behind the wheel, shut his door and inserted his key into the ignition.

21

Someone was tapping urgently on Paula's window. She
looked out, saw Harry Butler's face, lowered the window. He
thrust his head inside.

'I wouldn't turn that ignition key,' he told Tweed with a
smile.

'Why not?'

'You left something behind.'

Bending down, Harry grasped hold of a small black metal
box and perched it on the edge of Paula's window.
Unfastening a catch, he raised the lid. A sprawl of wires
jumped up, one red,
one blue, one black. Paula peered
inside. At the tip of each wire was a small plug and below
them a complex of curled wires. She shuddered.

'Looks just like a bomb.'

'It is a bomb,' Harry replied. 'Of enormous explosive
power - enough not only to blow the car to smithereens but
to take down half the wall of the building behind me. A
highly sophisticated mechanism.' He grinned at Paula.
'Don't worry, I've removed the detonator. This little beauty
had been cleverly inserted under the pedal Tweed would
have pressed, even earlier, when he switched on.'

Paula wiped her damp hands on her jeans. Tweed leaned
forward to see Harry clearly.

'How come you're down here?'

'I followed you. Someone has to take care of the both of
you.'

'Tell me.'

Harry lowered the inert bomb to the ground. 'I saw your
car parked all on its own in the open. Not a good idea. I was
outside the gates when I heard a motorcycle coming down
from London. It stopped a few hundred yards up the road,
then turned and left. Nothing for a while. It was dark, so not
easy to watch the car. Then the glare lights came on. I saw
a shadow against the wall as someone vanished round the
back. Didn't like the look of that.'

'Don't keep us in suspense,' urged Paula.

'I went to the speakphone, told the guard I was SIS. He opens the gates and I run down the drive. Show the guard
my folder, tell him I'll wait outside to guard the car. He goes
back in. Using a torch, I first crawl under the car, checking
the underside of the chassis. Favourite place to plant a
bomb. Nothing.'

'You were very thorough,' Tweed commented.

'Do let him go on,' Paula snapped.

'So next I use the torch to check the interior. Know a lot
about cars. Saw something under the accelerator pedal that
shouldn't be there. Used a jemmy to unlock the passenger
door in seconds, crawled inside, found the bomb. Lucky I'm
an explosives expert. Got out my metal clippers, used them
to cut the wires - after taking a deep breath and praying. Question of knowing the correct sequence.'

'You guessed right, then,' Paula said.

'Guessing doesn't do the job, if you want to survive. It's a
new French device. Recently one of Marler's informants
gave him detailed photos of the bomb. I joined the boffins
down in the basement while they analysed them. They
found out how it worked. I was lucky.'

'
We
were lucky,' Tweed said. 'Lucky that you followed us.
A feeble thanks for saving our lives.'

'All part of the job. Going back to Park Crescent? Then
I'll follow you. First I'll dive into the back, tell you when to
stop. My car's parked in a field just off the M3.'

'The killer seems to like this area,' Paula said thoughtfully as the gates were automatically opened and Tweed drove on to the motorway. 'That bullet through our window was fired
not far from here.'

'That won't help us.' Tweed said as he stopped at Harry's
request.

'I noticed,' Paula went on as they waited, 'that Lucinda felt it necessary to explain to us why she couldn't come
down and leave at the same time. Whoever hired the assassin
may well have known about the bomb.'

'Same thought occurred to me,' he agreed.

The freighter
Oran
had now passed through the Straits of
Gibraltar and was steaming a hundred and fifty miles off the
coast of Portugal, heading north. The weather was
unseasonably warm in the night, the sea unusually calm, gleaming like a vast blue lake under the moonlight.

Abdul, a huge Arab, peered over the port side. A cat's
cradle was slung over the side containing two Arabs. They
had now painted out the name
Oran.
With a bit of luck,
Abdul thought, they'd have painted in the new name before they sailed into the rough sea of the Bay of Biscay.