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?'