The Power

'You gathered correctly,' Tweed replied.

'Look, Tweed, I understand there are eight bodies inside the mansion, shot to death…'

'Seven. The butler was stabbed.'

'A detail. You're answering questions like a suspect…'

'A detail!' Paula burst out. 'It wasn't a detail to Mounce the butler. It was his life. In his forties, I'd guess.'

Tweed smiled to himself. Paula had vented her indignation to give him time to cope with Buchanan.

'Possibly not the best way of phrasing it,' Buchanan agreed. 'But this is a murder investigation.'

'Why has the Commissioner intervened?' Tweed snapped, using Buchanan's surprise question tactic against him.

'Well…' Buchanan was thrown off balance. 'First there is the scale of the crime. Then an important foreigner is involved. Amberg was a member of the BIS which meets in Basle. The Bank for International Settlements.'

'We are aware of what the initials stand for,' Paula told him drily.

'Is that your only explanation for this unprecedented intervention of the Commissioner?' Tweed pressed.

'It's the only one you're going to get,' Buchanan snapped.

He paused. Paula guessed he was annoyed at losing his cool. He stood staring at the manor, with its curved Dutch-style gables surmounting the towers at either end. He studied the large window? behind which was located the Great Hall. The grey, mellow stone and the mullion windows showed up at their best in the sunlight.

'It's beautiful,' Buchanan remarked and Tweed recalled that one of his interests was architecture. To think such a tragedy should take place in such an ideal setting. Who owns it?' he asked suddenly. 'Amberg?'

'No. A man called Gaunt. The locals call him Squire Gaunt. He's rented it to Amberg before,' Paula replied.

'How do you know that?' Buchanan demanded.

They were walking again. As they approached the mansion Philip Cardon came out of the front door, waited for them on the terrace.

A small well-built man of thirty, Cardon was the most recent recruit to join the SIS. Clean-shaven, he had an amiable expression, An expert linguist, he had penetrated the inner fastnesses of China, speaking Cantonese and passing for a native.

'That's Philip Cardon,' Tweed remarked.

'I asked you how you knew this Squire Gaunt owns this little jewel,' Buchanan persisted.

'Because Julius Amberg told me,' Paula replied. That was just before lunch was served, the lunch the poor devils never got a chance to sample.'

'Wait a minute.' Buchanan paused at the foot of the steps leading up to the terrace. 'You were here before this massacre took place? I understood you all turned up later.'

'You understood wrong,' she rapped back. 'And can we go inside before I explain? It's cold out here.'

'Yes. And you've got a lot of explaining to do,' Buchanan informed her grimly.

An hour later Buchanan had taken separate statements from Paula and then Tweed. Scene of the Crime teams were still swarming over the manor, mainly in the dining-room. A doctor who had arrived with them had officially pronounced that all eight corpses were corpses. Photographers and fingerprint men were still busy with their different tasks.

Cook had supplied umpteen cups of tea, secretly grumbling to Tweed at the amount of sugar they put in a cup.

'It's bad for them. Don't they know anything?'

'Only their own jobs,' Tweed had replied wearily.

Buchanan's interrogations had been intensive. At the end he felt sure Tweed and Paula were concealing information but he realized he'd never break them. On each he sprang his bad news near the end of the interrogation.

'Miss Grey, something strange is going on.'

'It most certainly is.'

'I have grim tidings from London. Your headquarters at

Park Crescent has been totally destroyed by the most massive bomb. Not a stone left standing.'

He waited. She saw the trap and nodded her head. Crossing her shapely legs she responded.

'Isn't it dreadful?'

'I'd have expected you to ask whether there were serious casualties.'

'Oh, we know all about it – and no one was even injured, thank heavens. Bob Newman happened to be talking to Monica in Tweed's office. They noticed the Espace parked outside and evacuated the building just in time.'

'And how do you come to know that?' Buchanan asked in his most persuasive tone.

'Because Bob – Newman – phoned the news to us.'

'He knew you were down here, then?'

'Only because Monica told him. She had the phone number of Tresillian Manor and Bob phoned in the hope we were still here.'

'You do realize,' Buchanan said, bearing down on her, 'that the only explanation of the two outrages – the massacre here which might have included you as victims and the bomb outrage at Park Crescent – suggests someone is trying to exterminate the SIS? Now who would want to do that?'

'I wish to God we knew,' she said fervently. 'No idea.'

'I see.' He sounded as though he didn't believe her. 'And you were the only one who saw the mass murderer. The fake postman. If only you'd seen his face.'

'He was too far away. I knew – I thought – it was a postman because of his blue uniform ribbed with red. And the sun flashed off his badge, as I told you. Plus the satchel perched on his front carrier.'

'Which undoubtedly hid the machine-pistol he used. I find it difficult to believe that when you were inside the toilet you didn't hear the shots.'

'It's a heavy door. The door into the dining-room is also heavy, assuming he closed it.'

'Can we try an experiment…?'

Buchanan escorted her out of the study, gave instructions to one of his detectives armed with an automatic, warned everyone what was going to happen. He then accompanied Paula to the large toilet and closed the door. Mischievously, Paula sat on the closed oak lid of the toilet.

'Let's do it properly.'

She had omitted to tell him she had been sick and had the satisfaction of seeing Buchanan look embarrassed for the first time. They waited. After a short interval someone tapped on the outside of the door which Buchanan opened.

'What is it. Selsdon?'

'I've just done it, sir. Fired six shots out of the dining-room window – with the door into the hall open.'

'Thank you. Go and do something useful.'

'I never heard a thing,' Paula said as they re-entered the hall.

'I must admit neither did I…'

Buchanan's interview – even longer – with Tweed produced no fresh information, which Buchanan found frustrating. He said as much to Tweed.

'I find this unconvincing and unsatisfactory.'

'The first is your suspicious mind, the second I agree with completely. I've answered all your questions.'

Which was true. But Tweed had omitted certain data.

No reference to Joel Dyson's visit to Park Crescent.

No reference to a film.

No reference to a tape, stored in the safe with the film, a safe now buried under tons of rubble. In the study, alone with Tweed, Buchanan stood leaning against a table, jangling loose change in his trouser pocket.

'I may want to talk to you again.' His manner was casual and Tweed, knowing Buchanan's ploy of throwing a witness off balance at the end of an interview, braced himself for the unexpected. 'Incidentally,' Buchanan continued, 'the whole country knows you're down here.'

'How could they possibly know that?' Tweed asked quietly.

'Your presence here has been linked with the massacre. In a stop-press item in a London evening paper. Reported also on the radio and in a TV newsflash. You were named-Deputy Director Tweed of the SIS, et cetera.'

'I still don't understand,' Tweed persisted.

'Neither did I, so just before flying down here I phoned the paper, the BBC and ITV news editors. They all told me the same thing. An anonymous caller contacted all three, told them to check with the Exeter police. Reporting the massacre all the media were careful to use the phrase it is strongly rumoured that eight people have been shot to death at Tresillian Manor, et cetera. Then your rumoured presence was reported.'