No Mercy (48 page)

'I think the truck drivers are about to move their vehicles.
Doubtless to dump them into the sea a bit further up the
coast road,' Tweed said bleakly.

'Do you want everything down there eliminated?' Marler
asked Tweed. 'By which I mean missiles, the trucks, the freighter and all those Arabs?'

'Wipe the lot off the face of the earth,' Tweed said, his
voice very cold.

Leaning against the side of the rock to give him perfect
balance, Marler aimed his rifle. He had the cross-hairs fixed
on the container when the Arab who had carried it bent
down to lift it again. Marler, steady as the rock he was
supported by, pressed the trigger. The team were gathered
behind him, staring down.

The container exploded, blew up in a burst of spreading
flame, reaching the exposed missiles. The Arab vanished in
the huge flames that enveloped everything within reach. They had heard a muffled detonation. The spilt missiles
exploded with a thunderous roar, detonating another dozen
crates packed with missiles.

The world went mad. The massive Shockwave blasted out with titanic force against the cliff. Perched by Harmer's bulk, they felt the ground tremble beneath their feet. Tweed began
to hope they were far enough away.

Toppling Rock broke free from its pedestal, rolled down
at ever-increasing speed. Arriving at a ridge, it bounced off
into midair, fell vertically, landed with its great weight on the
foredeck of the freighter. It crashed through the deck,
vanished at the same moment the prow of the
Constantine
split off and dived down into the deep water out of sight. Already the large number of crates stacked with missiles
below deck were exploding, lifting what remained of the
deck skywards.

Another far more deafening roar, which seemed like the
end of the world, blasted against the cliff below them. Immense slabs of rock plunged down, smothering what
remained of the trucks on the coast road. The clouds in the
night sky were illuminated in a monster red glow, which
reminded Tweed of what he had read in Dante's
Inferno.
The middle and stern of the freighter heeled over towards
starboard, exposing the lower part of the hull, now only a huge hole through which sea water was flooding.

The landing stage, which had linked it to the shore,
curiously enough, appeared to have survived as it rocketed
skyward, then broke into pieces and dived under the boiling sea. Outsized waves rolled in, over the sinking freighter,
crashing on to the coast road littered with rock and remnants
of the trucks. Receding, the waves carried back into the sea
every trace of trucks and pieces of mangled bodies. Seconds
earlier the single funnel had torn itself free, elevating like a
rocket, flying out over the sea before it plunged down and disappeared. Every sign of the freighter had now gone, the
wreckage sinking into its watery grave. Another huge slab of cliff below them had broken loose, slamming down on to the
coast road, where it burst and all the pieces bounced off the
edge, ending up out of sight in the water.

There was no sign of life, of survivors anywhere. Marler's single bullet, shrewdly aimed at the target he knew would act
as a horrific detonator, had destroyed everything, everyone.

'Wipe the lot off the face of the earth,' Tweed had ordered.
But he had never dreamed that his command would be
carried out with such devastating completion.

31

T
weed ordered everyone to return to their Land Rovers but
not to drive off until he did so himself. He had studied their
expressions, had not been surprised to see several showing a state of shock. Few people had ever seen such total and
terrible destruction.

Harry, the tough Cockney, seemed least affected. Without
a word he returned from his vehicle to Tweed's. He was
carrying the large insulated container, which he put down on
the scrubby grass.

'Time for a spot of nourishment and coffee,' he said like
a delivery boy.

'Thank you, Harry,' Paula said hoarsely. 'You're an angel.'

'There's some people who'd dispute your opinion,' he told
her with a grin.

Paula opened the container, poured coffee from a flask,
surprised to find it was still piping hot. Handing a cup to
Tweed, she gratefully sipped from her own. Then she
divided up the sandwiches, putting them on plates, handing Tweed a napkin.

'Seems a bit silly,' she began, 'bothering with napkins after
what—'

'We don't want crumbs all over the floor.' he interjected in a normal voice.

'Won't the local police start making enquiries when they
see the coast road? I used my binoculars briefly before we
left Harmer's Head. It's pitted with holes and chunks of it are in the sea.'

'Fortunately, it'll be the local lot.' he replied. 'And all the
evidence has disappeared. They'll assume that after all these
years the cliffs became unstable and collapsed.'

'So now we have one more job to do. Any idea who the Skeleton Killer is?'

'It's someone who, some while ago, thought they saw
their chance to become immensely rich. So they cleverly
siphoned off four hundred million pounds from the
reserves, then not so cleverly bought a huge number of dotcom shares. They ended up without a penny - and a desperate need to cover up what they'd done. The shell company they'd used to pretend that's where it had gone
was fiddled in the accounts as a four-hundred-million-
pound purchase in a highly profitable company. Remember
Enron in the States. They removed huge debts into weird-
sounding outfits and called them profits. When the dotcom
company Orlando Xanadu crashed it led inevitably to a terrible chain of events.'

'How do you mean?'

'Anyone who might discover that vast sum was missing had to be eliminated. First, Lee Greystoke, who was poking
around in the accounts department, sent, I'm sure, by
Drago. Then, also sent by Drago, who was a long way
off abroad, he employed Christine Barton, forensic
accountant, to look into things. So she had to go.'

'Sounds so horribly cold-blooded.'

'It was. The next stage in the ghastly hunt was to murder
the detective, John Jackson, in his houseboat. Christine's sister, Anne Barton, had become worried about her long
absence. She employed the detective. The murderer found out somehow, so he was slaughtered.'

'One thing led to another.'

'Exactly. Finally, the broker, Kenwood, knew too much.
He had secretly handled the disastrous investment in the
dotcom. So he had to be exterminated. He was the fourth
name on the list. "Ken" wasn't a first name - it was short for
"Kenwood".'

'So what sort of person are we looking for?'

'Someone consumed by greed. Someone with a good
planning brain. Someone who is a sadist - hence the
mutilation of the bodies.'

'I can't think any of the four at Abbey Grange fits your
description,' she said.

'You won't yet,' Tweed warned. 'Years ago, when I was at the Yard, I solved three major murder cases. I was getting an
overblown reputation as brilliant. One reason why I joined the SIS. But I never dismissed as a suspect anyone who
appeared normal, ordinary. Another detective, who was
forced to hand over the third case to me, claimed that a
certain person was not a suspect. He was too normal and
ordinary. It turned out he was the murderer.' He switched on
the engine. 'Now we'll get moving. Don't like the look of that storm coming.'

He was worried that they would be caught in the narrow
winding lane leading off the main road. The lane could
become a river.

Harry's Land Rover followed them as Tweed, headlights
on full beam, honking as they approached each corner,
drove as fast as he dared. They were on the main road when
the storm broke in full fury. Lightning flashed, thunder
rolled, rain came down in torrents. They kept moving as the
rain flowed down ditches on either side.

'You know,' Paula mused, 'we're going to arrive very late,
or very early in the morning. The party will have ended and
they'll all be in bed.'

'No, they won't. I'm sure Larry's the type who likes a
party to go on and on. If necessary until dawn.'

'Fingers crossed.'

They were approaching the road to Moretonhampstead -
and Abbey Grange - when the storm suddenly stopped, or
moved away. As they passed the fake row of cottages, the
church and the bell tower, Paula gazed the other way.

'Shouldn't we have called the local police about the head on the altar?' she suggested.

'I did think of it at the time and decided to wait. With the
problem of the freighter I didn't want local police holding us up. Nor do I want that happening now. I'll call after our visit
to Abbey Grange.'

Tweed and Paula drove quietly past the mansion's wall and
parked where the Land Rovers had parked earlier. Harry's vehicle pulled up behind them. Before alighting, Tweed
turned to speak to Marler.

'I'm leaving you here. Only Paula and I are calling. More
would not create the atmosphere I need.'

'Don't like it,' Marler protested. 'The number of attempts which have been made on your life.'

'I appreciate your concern. But I'm issuing you with an
order. You did more than enough at Harmer's Head. So you
wait here.'

Getting out with Paula, he gave the same instruction to
the others, who had jumped out to join them. He met with
the same protests, gave them the same firm order. Then with
Paula he walked back towards the entrance. Paula tugged at
his arm.

'I could have sworn I saw a police car parked further
back.'

'You did. Can't imagine who it is, don't care. Can't be
anything to do with the awful altarpiece. Lights still on in the
bell tower, none in the church. Here we are.'

Walking down the path round the end of the mansion, they saw, the moment they turned the corner, a blaze of
lights in all the downstairs windows facing the moor. There
was also the sound of music. Sade's 'Smooth Operator'.

'Apt,' Tweed said grimly. 'That's what we're looking for.
The smooth operator.'

They climbed the steps on to the terrace and the French
windows opened, flooding out light. Lucinda was now wearing
a long white dress. In her hand she held a champagne glass, which was almost empty. She raised the glass, drank what
was left, holding the door as she swayed slightly.

'Tiddly.' Paula whispered.