By Stealth tac-9 Read online

  On a straight stretch Tweed rammed the accelerator down further. He thanked God there had been no rain, that the road surface wasn't slippery. The juggernaut was catching them up again. Paula watched it rushing towards them.

  `The driver must be mad or drunk,' she snapped. `Or else he has another more lethal purpose.'

  `But why?' she protested.

  `Let's concentrate on surviving…'

  Tweed skidded round the next bend, regained control, and kept his foot pressed down. They passed a solitary lamp which, presumably, marked the entrance to another isolated residence. Watching in the rear-view mirror Tweed had a glimpse of the driver, wearing dark glasses, hunched over his wheel.

  He was overtaking them like a rocket. Once again the juggernaut was within inches of the rear of his Escort. It was only a matter of seconds before they would feel the hammer of his massive weight smashing into them.

  Tweed risked even more speed, swung round another bend. The gap had widened. But only briefly. The concrete mixer was thundering down on them yet again. Tweed thought of the weight combined with the load of cement inside that revolving drum.

  `He's trying to ram us,' Paula said quietly. 'Where did we say something which so disturbed someone they set out to kill us?'

  `Work that out later. Staying alive is the object of the exercise now.'

  Tweed was cursing himself for bringing Paula with him. But who could have foreseen the original visit to Andover would result in a desperate life-and-death attempt to escape oblivion? He had little doubt that once the mixer reached its target they'd be crushed to pulp.

  His headlights swung round yet another sharp curve and shone on a narrow side road leading off to their left. He braced himself for the manoeuvre, calculating his chances at bringing it off at fifty-fifty.

  `Hang on for dear life!' he shouted.

  At manic speed he swung off the main road, aiming for the side road, little more than a lane. He felt the rear of the Escort sliding away and Paula braced herself for the crash. Luckily, as Tweed had observed, on the far side of the entrance to the lane there was a level flat area covered with dead leaves.

  The rear of the car slid on to the level ground as Tweed reduced speed. The Escort stabilized. He rammed his foot down again, left behind a scatter of leaves which flew up into the air. Now he was driving straight down the lane bordered with trees and undergrowth. Paula glanced in her wing mirror. The unexpected manoeuvre had taken the driver of the killer vehicle by surprise.

  He had overshot the mark, was backing, turning to follow them down the lane. Tweed had caught sight of a signpost at the entrance. Too little time to read what it pointed to. Lymington, he hoped. Or it could be a dead end. In which case…'

  `Where did that signpost point to?' Paula asked, her voice still calm.

  `No idea. We'll find out in due course.'

  Behind them the juggernaut was building up speed. It would be on top of them again in less than a minute, Paula calculated. Where was this nightmare going to end? She glanced at Tweed. His expression was grim but his body showed no signs of tension. Frequently his eyes whipped up for a millisecond, checking the rear-view mirror.

  `Let's hope we don't meet a farm tractor,' she said. `That's what I like. An optimist,' he joked.

  The lane was becoming more tunnel-like, the trees on both sides closer together. Oh, Lord! Paula thought. They had turned round a bend and left the straight stretch behind. The lane became a series of non-stop curves and blind bends, which forced Tweed to reduce speed. She glanced again in the wing mirror. The orange monster was catching up fast, sweeping round the bends with reckless abandon. He had weight on his side and knew it.

  `If only we could reach a village,' Paula commented.

  `Doesn't look like the sort of lane which has them. We haven't passed a single cottage so far…'

  Another glance in the rear-view mirror revealed the concrete mixer close to their tail, its insidious sphere revolving like a clock counting down their fate. Tweed was driving as fast as he dared, bearing in mind the tortuous country lane. The headlights of the pursuing vehicle glared in his mirror. Something had to give – and damned soon.

  He swung round another bend with the thunder of the cement mixer's engine and mechanism in his ears. Paula extracted the Browning from inside her shoulder-bag, reached for her safety belt to release it.

  `Put that away!' Tweed snapped.

  `I might get him with a shot through the rear window…'

  `I said put it away. Travelling at this speed you will never hit him. More likely to shoot me.'

  She rammed the weapon back into the bag, frustrated but seeing the sense of Tweed's objection. The Escort was now rocking from side to side as – by the grace of God – he negotiated another diabolical bend. Suddenly he leaned forward.

  He had his headlights undimmed and the tunnel-like effect continued. Tweed was staring at a point ahead where two ancient thick-trunked oaks leaned from each side of the lane, forming an arch as they reached out towards each other as though in a passionate embrace. The mixer was within inches of the Escort, roaring like a thunderbolt.

  Tweed pressed the accelerator down, coaxed a fraction more speed out of his engine. The gap between the two vehicles again widened for seconds. Tweed drove under the oaks, saw another straight stretch, looked in the rearview mirror.

  The juggernaut was rushing towards them at top speed. He guessed the driver was intent on finishing the job. Which is why he didn't see the arch. His machine began to pass under it but was too large to slip through as the smaller Escort had done. Tweed was still watching when he saw what happened.

  `Look in your wing mirror,' he said quickly.

  Paula saw the huge vehicle stopped with terrifying suddenness. The arch was too small. The mixer was trapped by the narrow vault. There was a frightful screech of tyres. A horrendous grinding of metal against solid oak. The drum continued to revolve but was twisted through a hundred and eighty degrees. An avalanche of cement descended on the cab. One oak trunk gave way, crashing down on the cab roof, telescoping it. The drum was now turning slowly as though revolved by some unseen hand. Then it stopped. The sound of the machine's engine died. Tweed switched off his own engine and a silence like doom closed over the countryside.

  `Give me the gun,' snapped Tweed.

  It was an order. Paula obeyed without hesitation, handing him the Browning. Tweed jumped out of the car, walked slowly back towards the wrecked arch, keeping to the grass verge, to the blackness at the edge of the road, holding the gun by his side.

  Paula followed at a distance. She picked up a fallen heavy branch as a weapon. Better than nothing. Tweed approached cautiously, his rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the grass. As he came close he gripped the Browning in both hands.

  One headlight was out. Its mate was buckled, swivelled round by a huge branch from the fallen oak. By some freak chance it was still functioning and its glaring light shone on the battered cab. By its glow Tweed saw the driver's head, compressed into the neck, the dark glasses still in place.

  The head was covered with a heavy mould of cement, exposing only the face. Tweed saw that in the cold night air the cement was solidifying quickly. The driver was entombed in a thick coating of his own cement. Tweed didn't envy the men who would have to attempt to recover the corpse.

  `He's dead,' Tweed said as he heard Paula behind him. `Obvious remark of the year, I'd have thought. Well, it was him or us,' she said coldly.

  `No good trying to find some identification. It's all sealed in with the body. And no name on what's left of the machine.'

  `Do we report it?' she asked.

  `No. Too many awkward questions to answer. Where we had just come from.' He looked at her, put his arm round her slim waist as she shivered. 'You know, I think you've had enough for one day. Sleep back at Passford House is what you need.'

  `I am dropping,' she admitted.

  5

  The following morning Tweed held a 'council of war'
.

  They were all assembled in his large bedroom, which was practically a suite, on the first floor at the front. Room 2 overlooked a green lawn with a car park to the right and open green fields beyond. Tweed stood staring out of the window as Paula settled herself in a comfortable armchair and Newman perched himself on one of the arms.

  `I like this place,' Tweed mused. 'Excellent service. That was a marvellous English breakfast. The staff is helpful, the surroundings luxurious. It's so peaceful and yet we're only a two-mile drive from Lymington.'

  `I certainly appreciate it after yesterday,' Paula said with feeling.

  `So when are we going to discuss the events of last evening?' Newman asked impatiently.

  `Now.' Tweed snapped himself out of his reverie. He sat in another armchair, facing them. 'So tell us what happened to you, Bob. You've heard about what we experienced.'

  `I followed Andover and he drove straight to the Chief Constable's house outside Brockenhurst. A patrol car was in the drive. Andover stayed exactly an hour.'

  `During which he undoubtedly heard all about the death of Harvey Boyd,' Tweed ruminated. 'Since he carries clout he probably fended them off from visiting him.'

  `He then drove straight back to his house. Which was when I confirmed something I'd suspected on the way out to Brockenhurst. He was also followed there and back by some character in a Land-Rover. Before you ask, no, I couldn't get the vehicle's registration number. It was obscured by mud.'

  `I find that intriguing,' Tweed reflected. 'It suggests Andover is under total surveillance by someone. Did the Land-Rover driver spot you?'

  `You think you're dealing with an amateur?' Newman snapped. 'The answer is no. I didn't follow Andover's Rover as soon as it appeared. I tracked it at a distance since he was on the road which could take him to Brockenhurst. The Land-Rover tagged him soon after he'd left Prevent. Drove out of an entrance to a field.'

  `And yet the whole house is bugged,' Paula remarked.

  `Which is why I used the phrase total surveillance,' Tweed told her. 'Now let's list what has happened. Oh, Bob, why did you drive down here to join me? Welcome and all that, but why?'

  Newman looked uncomfortable. He carefully didn't look at Paula as he replied.

  `I found out Harvey Boyd was taking Paula with him on some whim to investigate the disappearance of his pal, George Stapleton, on the Solent. I thought there might be danger so I came down to Lymington. Simple as that.'

  Not so simple, Tweed thought, keeping his expression neutral. He was amused: Newman was obviously jealous when Paula found herself a boy friend.

  `Now that list of unconnected factors,' Tweed continued. 'One, Boyd also has what Walford called an accident in the fog. A fatal one, unfortunately.'

  `No accident,' Paula protested. 'I did see something big moving in the fog just before the collision. And I do have exceptional eyesight.'

  `Calm down,' Tweed soothed her. 'I said what Watford called an accident. That covers factor one. Two, we find Andover has aged ten years, is a broken man. Before we meet him wandering about outside we discover something macabre in his freezer – the severed arm, presumably of Irene.'

  `Presumably?' Paula broke in again. 'We both saw the ring on the finger. And later Andover mentions he gave her an emerald ring on her eighteenth birthday.'

  `We only have Andover's word for that,' Tweed pointed out. 'He'd guessed we'd found the severed arm and was desperately upset. You're assuming he was upset about the severed limb – which of course he would be. But I think he was upset with us because we had discovered it. A quite different thing.'

  `Surely you can't imagine Andover is mixed up in some conspiracy?' Paula protested.

  `At this stage, I don't imagine anything. I just list facts. Three, his daughter appears to have been kidnapped. We're relying on his strange last-minute remark to me. No ransom at all has been demanded. That I find most sinister, if true.'

  `Is Andover wealthy?' Newman enquired.

  `At a guess he could raise up to half a million, which he inherited from his father.'

  `And he lives in that ghastly house with no comfort,' Paula recalled.

  `He's an old public schoolboy,' Tweed explained. 'I've noticed many of them are quite indifferent to their surroundings. It starts with their boyhood in stark public schools. Poorly furnished dormitories and schoolrooms. No chance ever to develop any sort of taste.'

  `Factor four?' Newman prodded.

  `Andover's sudden resignation from public life, closeting himself away like a hermit. Out of character. He was the top man at INCOMSIN.'

  `I'd never heard of the organization before,' Paula remarked.

  `Because you weren't supposed to. It operates in great secrecy. A very select – and one of the few which work – think-tank. Based in London, its members try to predict coming global developments. I've attended a few of their secret sessions. So have Burgoyne and Fanshawe.'

  `And the significance of Andover becoming a recluse is?' Newman pressed.

  `Appears to coincide with the time Irene disappeared.' `Could be one of those odd coincidences,' Newman commented.

  `Don't believe in them. Five, we find three old China hands, as they're called, all living within yards of each other in the depths of the New Forest. I don't swallow that as a coincidence.'

  `Burgoyne and Fanshawe did give some sort of explanation as to how that came about,' Paula reminded him.

  `Which I didn't believe for one moment. Six – who did we disturb so much that they arranged for that concrete mixer driver to kill us both?'

  `Willie did leave us to make a phone call, allegedly to Andover,' Paula suggested. 'But I liked him.'

  `And,' Tweed reminded her, 'we were at Willie's place long enough for Brigadier Burgoyne to organize the attack.'

  `So it has to be one of them. Horrible thought. Now, if it had been one of their women friends I could believe that,' Paula said.

  `Which,' Tweed began, looking wrily at Newman, `means Paula didn't take to either of them.'

  `There was something odd in the relationship of both the women living with those men,' Paula persisted. 'Only another woman would notice. A lack of true affection.'

  `You've left out one suspect,' Tweed went on. `Andover himself. He urged us to visit his neighbours, which would keep us in the area long enough to set something murderous up.'

  `You can't possibly suspect him,' she protested again.

  `I keep an open mind at the moment. Andover was appalled when he knew we'd been inside his house. He really went berserk. Especially when I suggested calling in the police. It's just possible he felt we had to be stopped at all costs.'

  `If you say so. Have you looked at Andover's file?'

  `I read through it quickly in bed last night.' Tweed paused. 'I don't know whether it tells me much. It's quite thin. A curious document. I think I'm too short of data to appreciate its significance, if any.'

  `I was thinking about Brigadier Burgoyne and Willie Fanshawe,' Paula said with a frown. 'Such different personalities. The Brig. – as Willie kept referring to him – is my idea of a brilliant commander. Decisive, I'd say, sharp as a tack. But something almost sinister in that saturnine smile of his. Willie is such a contrast. Very like a generous uncle I once had and liked. Bumbling – I imagine Helen Claybourne has to look after running the whole place efficiently – and good-humoured.'

  `A fair description of both men,' Tweed said, cleaning his glasses on his handkerchief as he watched her.

  `And a big contrast in wealth, I'd guess,' she went on. `The Brig. struck me as rolling in it – whereas Willie has to count the pennies.'

  `Anything else?' Tweed coaxed.

  `Yes. Burgoyne is living in the past. Look at how he's furnished Leopard's Leap – a funny name – with mementoes from his years in the Far East. But Willie hasn't a thing from his past, as though he's put it all behind him.'

  `All contrasts so far,' Tweed observed.

  `Oh, they do have one thing in common. I got it
wrong when I said Willie has left it all behind him. Didn't you notice how both men seemed frozen in a time-warp? I mean the language they used. Burgoyne referred to Irene's French boy friend as a bounder. No one uses that term any more. Except maybe the British expats still living in Hong Kong. The same thing with Willie. He used the phrase stout fellow, talking about Burgoyne. So archaic. They're both mentally tied to China, to their old life in the Far East.'

  `If you say so,' Tweed remarked absent-mindedly.

  Paula jumped up, annoyed. Without realizing it Tweed had repeated a phrase she'd used earlier. Edgy from her experiences the previous day, she thought he was mimicking her.

  `All right,' she snapped, 'I talk too much. But remembering we were nearly murdered last night, don't forget the bricks and the small concrete mixer on Burgoyne's verge. He's in touch with a builder – and that could be where that orange monster came from. I need some fresh air. I'm going for a walk..

  She closed the door quietly as she left, fuming. Tweed perched his glasses back on his nose.

  `Actually Paula said something very significant. And it could just link up with Andover's report in the file he gave me.'

  `And you're not going to tell me what it was?' Newman hazarded.

  `Too early. I need to be sure. As I said earlier, I need more data.'

  `I remember.' Newman stirred restlessly. `So when do we start getting that data?'

  `Oh, I've already started. I was up earlier than either of you this morning. I collected a load of change from the office here, then drove into Lymington to locate a public phone box.'

  `Go on.'

  `I called Colonel Stanstead, the Chief Constable. Poor Boyd's remains are now in an ambulance on the way to London. I called Sir Rufus Rabin, the eminent pathologist we sometimes use. Rabin will examine the body and report to me. I called Monica at Park Crescent,' he went on, referring to the HO of the SIS. 'Harry Butler and Pete Nield are already on their way down to take turns in watching Andover's house, Prevent. And you can help, if you will. Go and see that Acting Harbour Master, Watford. Play up to his sense of self-importance. Find out if either – or both – Burgoyne and Fanshawe own a boat berthed round here. If so, what type of craft they have…'