`Plonked it in a vase of water in the bedroom.' Tweed had ordered a bottle of Montrachet. She watched him over her glass. 'I might have worn it if you'd given it to me.'
`Finish your pheasant. The desserts here are good....'
He drove her back to the flat, she invited him in for a nightcap, he refused, saying he had notes to make, promised to phone her in the morning and drove on to Park Crescent.
Monica, whom he had phoned from the flat while Diana was changing for dinner, was waiting for him behind her desk. He sighed as he put his raincoat on a hanger, went behind his own desk.
`I don't know why you work for me. The awful hours I ask you to keep. Any sensible woman would have thrown the job in my face years ago.'
`And how would I have spent my days back at the flat down in Pimlico? Talking to Jonathan the cat? I find his conversation rather limited. Can I report now on what you asked me to do?'
`I'm all ears.'
The building was very quiet at 11.30 at night. Everyone had gone home except the security guard on the front door. The curtains were drawn across the windows and there was no sound of any traffic. A time of night Tweed liked, when his brain was at its most active.
`I called Peter Toll at Pullach. Very defensive. Nothing on Newman. Peter pleaded for two more days..
`That's all he's got.' Tweed's expression was grim. 'Then I lower the boom on him, contact his chief. Bob is somewhere out there behind the Iron Curtain.' He glanced at the wall map. `I feel it in my bones. Now, what does that remind me of? Something Guy Dalby said. No matter. Go on.'
`We still have Harry Butler holding Walther Pröhl, Toll's man, at Heathrow. The security chief was getting restless, so Harry invoked the Official Secrets Act. Is Pröhl still on hold?'
`Definitely, but transfer him to Wisbech from Heathrow.'
`To keep up the pressure on Toll?'
`No. It's an attempt to protect Newman. It will have been reported to Markus Wolf that a man looking like Newman — and travelling under his name — flew out of Germany. It may just confuse my old opponent. Next?'
I phoned Kuhlmann again. He reports Dr Berlin has still not reappeared at his home on Priwall Island. They're searching but can't get even a whisper of where he's gone.'
`Bad news. It looks more and more as if I'm right. Don't ask me anything. I just hoped to God I was wrong. Any more murders of young blonde girls?'
`No.'
`Which again confirms the pattern I'm building up. Pretty horrific — for us.'
`Be mysterious. Now you and Diana have seen all four sector chiefs on home ground, have you found anything out?'
`Yes and no.' Tweed leaned back in his swivel chair. 'And I need that wall map changed tomorrow. Replaced by one of the whole of Western Europe — including Britain and Scandinavia. A much larger stage is involved than I suspected at first.'
`That reminds me. Do you know a Chief Inspector Bernard Carson? Scotland Yard. Central Drug Squad..'
`Yes, when he was with the CID. A tough customer. Why?'
`He wants to come and see you urgently tomorrow. I made an appointment — provisional, subject to my confirming early in the morning. At ten o'clock.'
`Confirm.' Tweed wrinkled his forehead. 'I wonder what he can possibly want?'
`You'll find out when you see him. Should I make myself scarce?'
`Wait till he arrives. So that's it?'
`No. You were going to tell me about your visits with the glamorous Diana..
`Glamorous? Why do you say that? You haven't even seen her.'
`Just the way you talk about her.' Monica smiled cynically.
`Well, for starters, during one of those visits she acquired another ?400. In cash. Twenty-pound notes. I told you that I'd checked her handbag...'
`You haven't pried again!'
`I have. Earlier this evening at Newman's flat when we'd got back from seeing Dalby. Over dinner she confirmed she has no bank account here, that she doesn't use travellers' cheques. She had ?250 when I first checked. Now, out of the blue she has another ?400. So who gave it to her?'
`I think you're downright unethical. A woman's handbag is sacred...'
`Nothing's sacred when I'm tracking treachery, maybe even a mass murderer.'
`All right. Now, you have total recall. She carried this handbag on each visit? Good. Did she keep it with her during each visit? Who of the four had the opportunity to slip her money?'
She waited, placing a pencil between her teeth, lightly holding the stem. Tweed closed his eyes and concentrated. His visual memory was phenomenal. He started talking, eyes still closed.
`Harry Masterson was first. Clematis Cottage. He took her off to show her the upstairs, but she left her handbag on a settee. That was when I first checked to see how much money she had. At no time did she have it with her when she was alone with Harry.'
`Not conclusive. Women have places on their person where they can conceal twenty banknotes. Inside her tights is one place.'
`The next one we visited was Lindemann,' Tweed said as he saw in his mind their entering the lodge at the corner of the mews. 'Don't think there was anything there...'
`Except dusty tomes,' Monica commented caustically.
`Just a minute! Don't say anything. There was something. I remember Diana suggested she'd like to see his kitchen. They went in together and were alone for quite several minutes. When Diana came out she had that handbag tucked under her arm. That money could have been handed to her then.'
`What about Hugh Grey?'
Eyes still closed tightly, Tweed moved in his mind to Hawkswood Farm. Hugh bustling down the weed-strewn garden path to greet them, Paula staying at the door. The big sitting-room, the dyke rising up in the distance.
`Grey took her for a walk. Quite a long one while I chatted with Paula. He could easily have handed her the wad while they were outside.'
`That leaves Dalby...'
`Who took her outside to look at the back garden while I stayed inside. Another opportunity.'
`So any of them could have handed her the dibs. Back to square one. What was Diana's impression of them? Like some coffee? I made some just before you came in. It's in the thermos.'
`Yes, please.'
He went on talking while Monica opened the top drawer of one of the steel filing cabinets, took out two brown mugs, the thermos and a carton of milk.
`She loved Harry, thought he was great fun...'
`She has good taste.'
`She even liked Lindemann, which surprised me. Hugh Grey she didn't like at all. The idiot made a pass at her while they were out walking..
`Should have been Harry. That's his prerogative.' She put a paper place mat on Tweed's desk, perched the mug on top. `There you are. Black as sin. That leaves Dalby.'
`She admired him. Said he was dedicated. As for his attitude to women, she thought it was take-them-or-leave-them. Work came first.'
`She's shrewd as well as a man-eater. Don't like the sound of her at all.'
`Why a man-eater?'
`From what you've said she had them all dancing round her at the end of a string. A man's woman. Other women probably hate her guts. Which means they wish they had her power over men. Why is she so important? You've watched over her like a mistress ever since she arrived...'
`Because she's a witness.' Tweed suddenly jumped up from behind his desk. 'God! What a fool I've been. I've shown her to all of them — and one of them is Janus. She needs round-the-clock protection. Get Pete Nield on the phone for me...'
`At this hour? He'll be asleep in his flat at Highgate...'
`I said get him on the phone! Tell him to drive down here the moment he's dressed. I'll be waiting for him.'
`Anything you say. My, she really is something, this Diana...'
Tweed was agitated. Monica watched him as she made the call to Nield. He prowled restlessly round the office. He pulled the flaps out of his jacket pocket, straightened them. He clapped the palms of his hands against his backside. He fiddled with his tie. Couldn't keep still.
She finished the brief call, put down the phone and tried to calm him by talking.
`Nield is on his way. Expects to be here inside thirty minutes. No traffic on the roads at this hour. Now, did you notice anything significant during your visits? You wanted to see them on their home ground.'
`Yes, I did. A landing-stage projecting into The Wash. It had recently been reinforced with fresh timber. Then Clematis Cottage. Masterson loathes the sea. I went to the lavatory, opened the window. Leaning against a shed with other rubbish was a ship's wheel. Not ten minutes' drive away I found a large power cruiser called
Nocturne
. Chopin composed nocturnes...'
`I do know that...'
`No one was about. I climbed aboard, peered inside the wheelhouse. The vessel had what looked like a brand new wheel. In Lindemann's bathroom I opened a wall cupboard. There was a bottle of sable hair colourant. He doesn't drink. In a cupboard in his sitting-room I found half a glass of Scotch. At Dalby's place I found nothing...'
`Thank God for that. My head's spinning...'
`Except in the kitchen. Dalby had been slicing French beans. No sign of the knife. That's it.'
`My, we have been a busy little bee. Might I enquire how all those different things link up?'
`I've no idea...'
`So I might not enquire. Drink your coffee. Nield will roll in soon now.'
`You asked how these things link up. That's the point. I'm convinced there's a link missing.'
`Wouldn't it be strange if Bob Newman supplied the missing link?'
Part 2 Death Cargo
Thirty-Four
It was 1 a.m. Moscow time. Inside his large office in the four-storey building visitors to the Kremlin never see, Mikhail Gorbachev stood staring at General Vasili Lysenko. He wore a smart grey two-piece suit, a white shirt, a red tie.
His large thick-fingered hands rested splayed on the conference table which separated him from his visitor who stood stiff as an automaton. Gorbachev's large rounded head was stooped, his lips pouched. A distant bell chimed once.
`I had you flown here at short notice from Leipzig,' Gorbachev began in his quick, choppy way of speaking, 'because the consignment of heroin for England has now reached Leningrad. Ready for shipment. The largest amount of heroin ever transported as one consignment my advisers tell me. Five hundred kilos.'
`It is enormous...'
`Like your responsibility for seeing it arrives safely. This will do more to demoralize the population of that island than a dozen atom bombs. You understand the weight of your task?'
`Yes, general Secretary...'
`The English are now alert to the heroin peril. Any attempt to move this massive consignment through the normal channels would fail. They watch the airports, the seaports. So, we use the entirely novel route you have devised.'
`Balkan will not fail us...'
`He had better not fail you!' Gorbachev corrected.
As he spoke he hammered his clenched fist on the polished surface of the table, then began moving about the room, his right hand stressing his words with hard chopping movements.
Lysenko listened with a sense of fear mingled with awe. The General Secretary was an overpowering mixture of physical and mental dynamism. He exuded sense of purpose, supremely certain of the direction in which he was moving.
`While I talk peace the demoralization of the West must be accelerated. Heroin is the main weapon, England the main target.' Gorbachev swung his bulky figure through a half-circle, suddenly facing the other man. He gave a broad smile, throwing his visitor off balance. 'Of course, you have my full confidence, Lysenko.'
`Thank you..
`Of course we know at the moment the London Central Drug Squad is concentrating on Holland, the chief continental point of departure for drugs from South America bound for England.'
`That is true.'
Lysenko was again startled by Gorbachev's grasp of details. As soon as this new sun had risen over the Kremlin Lysenko had realized the way to deal with him was tell the truth. It was this realization which had kept him in his present post as a general in the GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence, when many of his old colleagues had been shoved into the waste bin of history.
`So,' Gorbachev continued, his expression now grim, 'they will not be expecting the consignment by the new route. And not a word about it to Markus Wolf.'
`Really? He would resent it if he found he was being excluded..
`Exclude him. Wolf is a monument now. Almost thirty years at his present task. He may be Deputy Minister for State Security in the DDR. Who cares? A monument,' he repeated. `I've had to shift them all over the Motherland. Men who have grown slack and comfortable, who thought they were indispensable. I dispensed with them.'
`I understand.' Lysenko still stood stiffly to attention.
`Relax, Comrade. I'm not going to eat you. Yet! One thing worries me.
Tweed
. I told you I read his file. He is the one man who might sniff out this immense heroin consignment.'
`He is still in London. Balkan has confirmed that. He says he is certain Tweed will return to Germany. Tweed never gives up...'
`That is why I worry. You know the tremendous effort put into transporting the consignment secretly to Leningrad. Munzel has failed once. Normally he wouldn't get a second chance. He only has this fresh chance because you say he is the best. And it must be done by an East German. No risk of egg on our face.'
`Wolf does know about the other consignment which will be moving shortly — the shipment of arms from Czechoslovakia via the DDR to Cuba for Nicaragua.'
`Doesn't matter. That is a little local affair compared with the heroin. Down to you, Lysenko. Supervising the transport of the heroin into England. That's all.'
Gorbachev stared at Lysenko from under his thick eyebrows. He had almost more hair in the brows than on the rest of his balding head. He waited until his visitor reached the door before he gave a last instruction.
`Lysenko! No communication, no reference to the heroin by the normal channels. Telephone, teleprinter or computer. The Americans have developed sophisticated equipment to penetrate our communications system. The problem has not been solved. If you have to contact me, use the phone — but refer to it as "the cargo". Just that phrase. Your plane is waiting. Get back to Leipzig …'
General Vasili Lysenko had a lot to think about on the flight to Leipzig. At Moscow he had boarded the Tupolev 134 as the first passenger, bypassing the normal formalities and security checks. They had given him his own section of the aircraft closest to the air crew's cabin, curtained off from the rest of the plane.
He was always relieved to leave Gorbachev's presence still holding his present rank. You just never knew which way the General Secretary was going to jump next. He was turning the Soviet Union upside down. No one who didn't come up to scratch was safe, regardless of position or track record.
Dawn was a bar of lurid light on the distant horizon. Lysenko was unaware of it as he thought of what he had been told. And he'd noticed Gorbachev had not even assigned a code-name to the heroin. Just 'the cargo'. An additional precaution. Code-names could leak, people speculated what they might mean.
`The cargo' was Gorbachev's pet project. And, as he had said, the effort which had gone into transporting the huge haul had indeed been prodigious. First the endless camel train carrying it out of Pakistan, starting its long journey weeks ago.
It had travelled by a dangerous route. A small section of the route had crossed the eastern 'tongue' of Afghanistan bordered by Pakistan, India, even China — at its most eastern tip — and, to the north, Soviet Russia. They had sent a young Russian general to launch an offensive in the Afghan area against the rebels.
His directive had been to destroy the rebel forces, to occupy the 'tongue'. The Soviet High Command who had sent him had known his task was impossible. It had been a diversion — to keep the Afghan rebels busy while the camel train proceeded across the Pamirs by a pass, then down into the Turanian Plain.
At Khokand the cargo had been put aboard a six-coach armoured train. Only a portion of one coach was needed to store the heroin. A further precaution. The heroin habit was growing inside Russia. The rumour had been spread that the train was transporting armaments.
It had made the long journey to Moscow. There the heroin coach had been uncoupled, attached at dead of night to an express bound for Leningrad. Gorbachev himself had supervised the details of the fabulous journey. Now it would be transshipped by sea to its ultimate destination. By a most devious route. With the aid of Balkan.
Chief Inspector Bernard Carson of the Central Drug Squad was a tall, lanky man in his late fifties and with curly brown hair. His manner was always calm, even off-handed, no matter how great the crisis which faced him. He sat in Tweed's arm chair while Tweed stood by the window. At his request, Monica had left them alone.
`What I've come to see you about doesn't really concern you at all,' Carson explained. 'But I'm a bit bothered.'
`You are?'
Tweed was surprised. He couldn't remember Carson ever admitting to even being ruffled before.
`Word is out on the street that the biggest consignment of heroin ever moved is on its way to this country.'
`May I ask what are your sources of information?'
`Oh, we have a whole underground network of dealers and pushers who — for a consideration — tell us things. They're all keyed up to distribute fast this huge consignment. That's the key to their success. Never hold on to the stuff. Offload it. Fast! Spread it over a small army of pushers. Lose it. Here in London. The Midlands. This poison is spreading through the whole country. I have no doubt the rumour is true.'