Tweed and Paula had a first-class compartment to themselves as the express raced eastward well beyond the Brussels suburbs. To Paula's surprise it was still daylight and the fog had gone. They were crossing open countryside and carefully ploughed fields stretched away on both sides. The bread-basket of Belgium. Here and there a dense copse of pine trees reared up. They passed isolated villages with neat rows of old brick-built terrace houses with steep-pitched roofs. In the distance the occasional church spire pointed skywards like a needle. Which prompted Paula's remark.
`I've been thinking about Hilary Vane – how she was murdered at Heathrow. It looked to me as though she was injected with cyanide. Her lips were blue.'
`Undoubtedly,' Tweed agreed. 'Cyanosis was pretty obvious. Her whole face was beginning to turn blue.'
'I was also wondering how the murder was achieved. In a busy airport you can't really produce a hypodermic needle and jab it into somebody. The location was too public.'
`What solution have you arrived at, then?'
`A hypodermic needle disguised as something else. Something very ordinary which no one would think odd a woman holding it in her hand.'
`Sound thinking. The same thought crossed my mind.' `What about Dr Rabin?' Paula asked. 'Has he told you anything?'
`You know what pathologists are. Won't commit themselves until they've gone through the whole process. He said he would have information for me by the time I got back to London.'
`That place we stopped at was Leuven, I noticed.'
`Which means a Flemish enclave,' Tweed commented. `Benoit said Louvain, the French – or Walloon-version. It's a real mix-up, is Belgium – which is why the road signs in Brussels are always first in French, then in Flemish. I think we're coming in to Liege.'
`Looks pretty grim,' Paula observed, peering out of the window. 'Can't really see it yet. Just those peculiar hills shaped like mounds. Funny they're all so rounded. They don't look like proper hills.'
`They aren't. Liege was once a great coal-mining centre. They just dumped the coal dust in great slag-heaps on the edge of the city. Not a very tidy lot out here. You'll see the colour of the buildings – coal black from the dust blown down into the city. Prepare not to enjoy yourself.'
The stench of Liege hit Paula as they walked out of the modern station. A revolting smell of greasy food from hot-dog stalls. The street was littered with stained food cartons carelessly thrown down. The brick buildings opposite were soiled with black dirt – the coal dust Tweed had referred to, she assumed.
Waiting cab drivers, wearing shabby clothes, pestered them for a fare. Their complexions were an unpleasant olive colour and several leered at Paula's legs. So this was Liege…'
Paula stared. On the opposite side of the cobbled street a red Mercedes was parked. Newman stood beside it and beckoned them over. Paula picked her way among the mess of discarded cartons.
`I didn't come over,' Newman explained. 'This is the sort of place where you stay by your car unless you want to lose a wheel, windscreen wipers, the lot. And I have found out the route to Herstal. It's not far. I have marked it on a map, so you can be navigator, Paula.'
`How did you find it?' she asked, studying the map when she'd slipped into the back seat.
`Cost me two thousand francs. These cabbies don't give you the time of day for nothing. This is Money-Grubber Town. Watch your shoulder-bag.'
`Let's get moving,' Tweed urged. 'Any sign of Benoit?' `He's inside that unmarked car on the corner. Arrived about fifteen minutes after me. Relax…'
He was driving down a narrow street walled in by more soot-soiled buildings. It started badly, it became worse.
The gutters were littered with crushed drink cans, with screwed-up paper. The few locals slouching along the dimly lit street were clothed to match their surroundings. The interior of the Mercedes was polluted with the smell of stale food. Newman opened a window wide.
`Don't imagine you appreciate the Liege atmosphere. So a breath of partly fresh air should clear it in a minute. Just relax…'
`Relaxing is the last thing I have on my mind,' Tweed snapped. 'I want us to get to Delvaux in time. Assuming we are in time. Benoit isn't going to form up a cavalcade behind us, I trust?'
`He has three cars packed to the gunwales with armed men. And he's promised me not to come within a quarter of a mile of the chateau. Reluctantly. Ladies and gentlemen,' Newman went on in a lighter vein, 'we have just arrived at the great River Meuse..
It was dark as he drove alongside the major waterway for barges and other traffic, the river from distant Dinant in the south, which progressed via Namur and Liege to become the Maas in Holland before it finally reached the North Sea.
Tweed peered out of the window. Street lamps provided better illumination here. The wide river down below with massive concrete embankments like fortress walls. The water was a muddy colour. Paula touched Tweed's arm.
`Look at those apartment blocks on the opposite bank. They're modern – but even they are hideous.'
Tweed nodded. The apartment blocks were painted in a variety of primary colours, all an offence to the eye. They gave the curious impression they were built of plastic. Newman called out again.
`Now for Herstal. It's roughly north-west of Liege, as you'll see from the map. Not far now.'
Tweed hardly heard him. He was staring out of the window. There was a large yacht basin, a branch of the river closed in by a low wall. Again the element of water and various craft. As at Lymington and Buckler's Hard.
Headlights undimmed, the woman behind the wheel of the black Mercedes raced through the night, blaring her horn frequently to blast other motorists out of her way. Belgian drivers swore as she overtook them, made rude gestures she never noticed. Her whole mind was concentrated on reaching her destination, and God help anyone who got in her way.
It wasn't easy to identify her as a woman. She was wearing a crash helmet, goggles, her leather jacket turned up at the collar. Her gloved hands rested lightly on the wheel. As always, she was perfectly in control of the situation.
A large truck edged out on to the motorway. She pressed her hand on the horn non-stop, increased speed. The truck driver used foul language as he jammed on his air-brakes. Then the black projectile was past him, its red lights disappearing in the distance.
`Crazy bastard!' the truck driver said to himself.
The black Mercedes, with a taxi sign, raced on and on. Its tyres screeched as she swung round a bend, never slackening for a second. Her hand was on the horn again as she overtook more vehicles, several shaking in the slipstream of her fantastic speed.
She checked a road sign, glanced at the dashboard clock, rammed her foot down another inch. The Mercedes was practically flying, seemed about to take off at any moment. She drove on, ruthlessly forcing other traffic to give way.
Her destination: Herstal.
18
`That must be his armaments factory,' Newman commented. 'I thought Delvaux had gone out of business.'
`So did I,' Tweed replied from the back of the Mercedes.
They had reached Herstal. Tweed peered out of the window at a modern single-storey factory complex of white buildings close to the edge of the Meuse. Across the road from the plant was a large landing stage with two huge barges berthed.
A searchlight perched high on top of the main building was switched on. The spotlight of the beam hit the road ahead of Newman, moved swiftly towards him. Just in time he lowered the visor, half-closed his eyes. The glare of the spotlight focused on the car, paused, followed it for several seconds.
`Bloody traffic hazard,' Newman growled.
`Their security is extraordinary,' Tweed observed.
The factory was surrounded with a high wire fence he suspected was electrified. Behind the fence uniformed guards patrolled, holding Alsatians straining at their leashes. Even above the sound of the engine he could hear their fierce barking. The walls of the buildings had no windows but in the sloping roofs were large fanlights and from these powerful lights glowed in the night. A door opened, a fork-lift truck piled high with crates was driven inside, the door closed. A huge sign proclaimed Delvaux SA – with no indication that this was an armaments factory.