`What is?' asked Newman.
`The estate agent's board has disappeared.'
`You're right. Maybe it's taken down for painting. It was peeling badly, I noticed.'
`So did I. Which struck me as peculiar at the time. I would have thought it would have been spick and span to be in keeping with the model-village effect.'
She walked down to the fourth cottage on the right and pushed open the gate. Newman followed closely behind her after glancing down the street. Once more it had a strangely deserted look. Paula tugged at his arm.
`Net curtains at the windows. They weren't there when we called yesterday.'
She raised the brass knocker and hammered several times. A strange man in a smart business suit opened the door and stared at Paula. About twenty-eight, she estimated, clean shaven and with a pleasant smile. A strong waft of perfume met her. Not one of those, I hope, she was thinking. She spoke briskly.
`We've come to see Mr Barton, the estate agent.' `Mr who?'
`Barton, the estate agent. He had a board up outside.'
`I'm sorry, I don't understand. I live here. Martin's the name. You must have come to the wrong village. No estate agent has been at Moor's Landing since the converted cottages were sold, so far as I know.'
`We were here yesterday,' Paula insisted impatiently. And we met Mr Barton.'
`Indeed we did,' Newman's voice confirmed over her shoulder.
`He has an office in this front room,' Paula ploughed on. `Hardly any furniture, blank walls, one with a board of houses for sale. A trestle table and fold-up chairs.'
`This doesn't make any sense,' Martin replied, a trace of impatience in his voice now. 'This is my home.' He looked at Newman. 'The lady is confused.'
`Then would it be too much, Mr Martin,' Paula pressed on, to let us just see the front room?'
`If it will convince you.' Martin shrugged. 'Walk right in. I'm sorry about the smell of perfume. My wife spilt a whole bottle on the table this morning..
Paula walked in, followed by Newman, who was holding an unlit cigarette. She stopped, stunned. She was looking at an expensively furnished living-room, mostly in the Scandinavian style. The walls were panelled in oak. She stared around helplessly. Newman wandered past her, dropping his cigarette close to a wall, bent down to retrieve it. Martin waved his hands.
`Satisfied? Try the village of Exbury. The roads round here are confusing.'
`Thank you, Mr Martin,' Paula said coldly.
She waited until they had reached the gate. She heard the cottage door close behind them.
`Am I going dotty?' she asked Newman. `It's the sort of experience you have in a dream.'
`No dream,' Newman said grimly. 'More like a nightmare. Let's have that word with Mrs Garnett. She knows what's happening round here – up to a point..
`What the devil's going on?' Paula asked. 'Just look at Mrs Garnett's front door. Bright purple. Yesterday the paint was peeling and it was no particular colour.'
`So we'll call on her.'
Paula marched up the path, touched the purple paint and it was bone dry. She pressed the bell and waited, stiffening herself. The door opened and another man dressed in a business suit stood regarding her. Not a day over thirty, she guessed. Dark-haired, he had a more distant manner.
`Yes, what is it?'
`I've called to see Mrs Garnett, please.'
`Well you certainly won't find her here.' A touch of an American accent. 'She left and went into some nursing home for old people, I understand. No idea where.'
`Left overnight, you mean?' Paula demanded.
`Good Lord, no. I've been here for quite a while.'
`I'm Porter,' Newman interjected. 'Could you tell us your name?'
`Hartford, if it's any of your business. Now, I am very busy, so if you don't mind..
'But I do mind,' Paula snapped. 'Only yesterday…'
`We've made a mistake,' Newman said and grasped her arm firmly. 'The roads round here are confusing. Obviously we've taken a wrong turning, got the villages mixed up. We are sorry to bother you, Mr Hartford.'
`Use a map next time.'
Paula was seething as the door was slammed in their faces. Newman, still gripping her arm, guided her down the path and back to the car. She burst out as he was turning the Mercedes, prior to driving back to Passford House.
`You didn't give me much backing. Damn all, in fact!'
`It's a very lonely part of the world here,' Newman reminded her. 'We don't know how many more men they had about the place. And people disappear from Moor's Landing. At times, discretion is the better part of valour and all that jazz.'
`Too bloody right they disappear!' she stormed. 'So what do you suppose has happened to poor Mrs Garnett? She was a gutsy old soul. Something unpleasant?'
Newman checked his rear-view mirror again. No sign of pursuit. He wanted to reach a main road as soon as possible. Paula repeated her question.
`Something unpleasant?'
`I fear it may be something permanent. Time we got away from this area. We'll leave Passford House today, drive back to London.'
`You mean they've killed her, don't you?'
`I fear that is very much on the cards. The question is who? And why?'
Driving up the motorway to London Tweed was well aware he was being followed. He'd been aware of the fact for some time. By a Land-Rover driven by a man wearing a crash helmet.
But there was something familiar about him. Like Nield, he couldn't place where he had seen him. Despite his tail's efforts to avoid being spotted, Tweed had detected him soon after leaving Passford House.
Which was interesting, Tweed reasoned: it strongly suggested that whoever had given the driver his instructions knew his quarry was staying at Passford House.
`Which,' Tweed said to himself, 'again brings us back to Willie Fanshawe, Brigadier Burgoyne, and Sir Gerald Andover. Not forgetting Lee Holmes and Helen Claybourne – since either woman could be operating independently under the control of some unknown fourth party.'
Tweed made no attempt to lose the Land-Rover. His tail was still with him. when he was deep inside London in the Baker Street area. Driving into the garage where he often bought petrol, Tweed got out, called out to the mechanic.
`Something's not right with the accelerator, I suspect. I may be wrong but perhaps you could check it. I won't need the car for a few hours.'
`I'll give it a thorough check, sir,' the mechanic assured him.
`Looks like rain,' Tweed remarked.
Opening the boot, he took out his rather shabby Burberry and a deerstalker hat. Handing the keys to the mechanic, he put on the raincoat and hat. Leaving the mechanic, he took off his glasses before emerging into the street. He walked towards Regent's Park without glancing back. A few minutes later he paused at a bus stop and pretended to study the timetable, glancing back. No sign of the Land-Rover or its driver.
`You'll have a long wait for nothing, laddie,' he said to himself.
Crossing the road, he walked along Park Crescent and up the steps of the building carrying the doorplate, General amp; Cumbria Assurance. Monica jumped up when he entered his office.
`Have I got news for you – and don't tell me you already know. Because I don't think you do.'
13
At No. 185 The Boltons several hours later Dr Wand sat in his spacious study at the rear of the mansion. In London the sky was overcast and he had the curtains half-closed across the window behind him. A shaded desk lamp provided the only illumination and the rest of the room was in deep shadow. The intercom on his large Regency desk buzzed and he pressed a switch.
`Yes?'
`The messenger you're expecting has arrived, sir.'
`Tell him to wait for a moment or two. I will let you know when I am ready.'
Seated in his swivel chair behind the the desk and facing the door, Wand's large hands began to fold up the maps he had been referring to – maps of Western Europe. He folded them slowly and carefully. Next he covered up a list of names with his leather-bound blotter. He pressed the intercom switch again.