The Greek Key (23 page)

'Please keep back, sir.'

Tweed, his eyes on the long sheath of folded canvas in the back of the Land Rover, showed the card. The inspector, a short and burly man. took the card, stared at it, compared the photograph with its owner, handed it back.

'Special Branch? We don't see much of you in this part of the world. I'm Inspector Farthing.'

'I may be able to help. What is inside that canvas bundle?'

'Something rather shocking. Brought down from the moor by the chap over there with the corduroy cap. A local. Lock. Goes shooting rabbits on the moor. He found the body inside a rock cleft. Pure luck. Rabbit he'd just shot fell inside the cleft. Nothing in the way of identification. No wallet. No letters.'

'Can I have a look?'

'Of course. I hope you have a strong stomach, sir . . .'

Tweed was moving to the back of the Land Rover when Paula joined him. He warned her it might be unpleasant. She bridled.

'Goes with the territory. Don't treat me like a five-year-old.'

'It's all right,' Tweed assured Farthing who had laid a hand on Paula's arm. 'She's my assistant.'

He heard a retching sound. Lock, the driver, was stooped over a ditch. Nimbly, Tweed leapt up on to the rear of the vehicle open to the sky. Paula followed. Tweed bent down, folded back one end of the canvas. What remained of the face of Partridge stared up at him, eyes open, sightless. He had been savagely slashed many times with a knife. Folds and slivers of flesh hung in flaps. The nose and eyebrows had almost completely disappeared. The clothes as much as anything identified him for Tweed. Paula sucked in her breath. Plunging both hands inside her windcheater, she clenched them into fists.

'I know this man. can identify him,' Tweed said, folding the canvas gently over the brutally ravaged face. He kept his voice low. Farthing crouched to hear him. The crowd of sightseers was still pushing close to the Land Rover. 'Sam Partridge,' Tweed said. He paused. 'A retired Chief Inspector of Homicide at Scotland Yard.'

'Thank God you were here.' Farthing grunted. 'You don't want to see, but all his fingers are missing. Cut off at the base. I'd say they're at the bottom of some other crevice. And all makers' labels have been ripped off the clothes.'

'Someone took trouble in the hope he wouldn't be found quickly - and by the time he was identification wouldn't be easy.'

Farthing breathed heavily. 'Then this case is going to raise one hell of a stink.'

'I'm sure of it. Can I make a suggestion? People rushed out of The Royal Oak to gawk. But three men are still sitting inside at a window table. Colonel Barrymore, Dr Robson and Stuart Kearns. Send a man in to ask them to come out and look at the corpse . . .'

'Study the reactions of each man,' Tweed whispered to Paula when they had moved to the rear of the crowd.

Kearns came out first, strode briskly to the vehicle, climbed into it. Farthing pulled back the canvas, exposed the hideously mutilated face. Kearns stood erect -as he gazed down. No trace of emotion showed as he shook his head. 'Never seen him before,' he informed Farthing, jumped down and walked back to the inn.

Robson arrived next and Farthing greeted him more effusively. 'I am glad you were here. Doctor. You're the first medical man to see the victim. He's dead, of course. Do you know him?'

'Let's check before we make assumptions,' Robson replied in a relaxed voice. Tweed could just catch what he said. Robson stooped over the body, felt the pulse at the side of the neck, then nodded. 'He's dead. No doubt about that.'

'An ambulance has been summoned,' Farthing explained. 'But you have given us valuable assistance before. Any idea of the timing of his demise?'

'I could only guess.' Robson frowned. 'Something odd

- you see the small amount of blood? Yet the face has been savaged. He was dead before the murderer did that.' His tone was dry and professional as he pulled open the windcheater at the top. 'I suppose you realize the head has almost been severed from the body? Look at that.'

Bile rose in Farthing's mouth as he crouched on his haunches beside Robson. An enormous red gash ran just below the throat, continued out of sight. 'We ought to wait for the forensic team from Taunton before I explore further,' Robson reminded the inspector.

'On the other hand he'll have to be shifted into the ambulance when it arrives,' Farthing pointed out.

Then we'll go a little further, see if I can find out how he died. Not from that vicious slash across the throat. Again - not enough blood. He was dead when that happened.' Robson unfolded more canvas to the corpse's waist.

Gently he turned the body on its side. The head lolled like the broken neck of a doll. Robson pointed to the back of the windcheater, to a wide rip and crusted blood below the left shoulder blade.

'I would imagine that was the death thrust. He was attacked from behind. A knife was plunged deep upwards, penetrating the heart. That came first.'

He was replacing the body in its original position, folding the canvas back, when the distant sound of a siren came closer. The inspector glanced up. 'Ambulance almost here. Now, Doctor, how long ago?'

'As I said, I can only guess. The Taunton pathologist will be able to give a more accurate diagnosis. During the past two hours I would say. Now, I'd better leave this to you . . .'

He was walking back to The Royal Oak to wash his hands when Colonel Barrymore appeared, strolling towards the crowd, which parted to let him pass through. He levered himself aboard the Land Rover, thrust both hands in his pockets, stared down while Farthing again exposed the face. Ambulance men carrying a stretcher paused behind the vehicle. Tweed stared hard as Barrymore glanced at Partridge's face.

'Must be the work of a lunatic,' he commented sardonically.'No, I've never seen him.'

Leaping down from the Land Rover, he strolled back to The Royal Oak, presumably to finish his lunch. 'Coldblooded bastard,' Paula hissed.

'He will have seen a lot of war casualties,' Tweed reminded her.

As they loaded the pathetic canvas bundle aboard a stretcher and carried it to the ambulance Paula stared round. The crowd was dispersing; some heading for The Royal Oak before closing time, others trudging to their homes, while a few men and women stood, unsure what to do next now the show was over.

The quiet country village seemed to have taken on a macabre atmosphere. She looked up towards the overcast sky, a threatening gloomy pall; towards the moor where the mist was slowly retreating, exposing the sweep of the grim brown ridges. Somewhere up there a frightful murder had taken place. She hated the moor now and turned to Tweed.

'What do we do next? Did you notice anything about the way those three men reacted to looking at poor Partridge?'

'I noticed the absence of something.'

'Don't start talking to me in riddles.' She played with the bracelet composed of Greek key symbols. 'The murder of Partridge is reminiscent of what we heard about that other horrific murder of the Greek in Cairo during the war.'

'Which reminds me of something I should tell Farthing . . .'

He caught up with the inspector who was just about to climb into his car. Farthing looked at him with an impatient expression.

'Bringing those three chaps out of The Royal Oak didn't get us far. What was all that about?'

'They're all locals. I thought they might have seen Partridge. But there's something else you ought to do. Have you a notebook? Good. Note this down.' He gave Partridge's description of Anton Gavalas, spelt his name. 'I should put out an all points for him. Partridge told me he saw him riding all over Exmoor. And there was one occasion when the Greek confronted him, accused Partridge of following him.'

'We'll check . . .' Farthing held a microphone from the radio car in his hand and studied the description he'd noted down.

'I'll be at The Luttrell Arms in Dunster if the CID man put in charge of the case from Taunton wants to talk with me.'

'Roger . . .'

Farthing was issuing an all points bulletin for Gavalas as Tweed and Paula walked back to the Mercedes. Nield strolled out of The Royal Oak towards the Cortina.

Tweed drove back at speed to Dunster, overtaking the ambulance, his expression grim. Paula glanced at him, laid a gentle hand on his arm. He showed no emotion but she sensed he was concealing a feeling of deep shock.

'You're upset, aren't you?'

'I worked with Sam at the Yard once. He was a good friend and my mentor. I learned a lot from him. Facts, he used to say, concentrate on facts. Then the solution will come sooner or later. He was generous with professional advice. Not always the case. Now I have to hunt down the man - or men - who killed Sam and Harry Masterson. Whatever it takes.'

She was disturbed. She had never heard him express himself with such vehemence; almost as though he were prepared to throw away the rule book. 'I have a feeling this is important.' She dangled her bracelet. 'Harry wouldn't have sent this Greek key bracelet unless it pointed to something. I wish we knew what it means.'

It began to rain. Tweed turned on the windscreen wipers. The moor was lost in a veil of fine drizzle, disappearing like a monster retreating to its lair, Paula thought. A beastly day - in every way. Wet, chilly, a nightmare day. Tweed made the remark as they reached Dunster.

He turned into the High Street, the cobbled areas like sweating stones. No one about; people were huddled indoors. He swung the Mercedes into one of the parking spaces opposite the hotel.

'You could be right,' he muttered. 'Maybe the answer lies not here but in Greece. Let's hope Newman and Marler get lucky.'

==========

PART TWO

Devil's Valley

==========

16

11 a.m. 104°F. 40°C
. The heat scorched them like a burning glass. The cloudless sky above the ferry was a molten blue. Newman lifted his hand, wiped his forehead. He was dripping with sweat. His shirt was sodden. The car ferry bound for Siros edged away from its berth at Piraeus, turned slowly through ninety degrees, headed out into the gulf.

Newman stood at the bow of the vessel, elevated above the car deck and below the bridge. The ferry to Siros was small compared with the giant five-deckers which plied between Piraeus and Crete and Rhodes. Below the bridge and stretching to the stern, trucks and cars were parked three abreast, filling the ferry which was open to the sky.

Nick had had to back the Mercedes on to the ferry up the ramp so, like the other vehicles, he faced the ramp for ultimate disembarkation at Siros. Marler, wearing an open-necked shirt loose outside his khaki drill trousers, appeared alongside Newman and grinned.

'Enjoying the weather, old chap? A super day for the trip.'

'If you say so, and not so much of the old chap.'

'Just an expression, old boy. Don't mind me . . .'

'I won't.'

Marler, damn him, looked as cool as a cucumber. Resting his hands on the rail, Marler stared ahead at the millpond sea where the sun reflected like wavelets of mercury. Newman had earlier rested his own hands briefly on that rail. Very briefly. Like touching a red-hot iron.

'What's the object of our trip to Siros?' Marler enquired. 'That is, assuming I'm permitted to be put in the picture.'

'No need for sarcasm,' Newman growled.

'Irony, not sarcasm. Big difference. Why the change of plan at a moment's notice? Sort of thing Tweed would do. We were going to check out Cape Sounion where Harry Masterson took his dive.'

'You have such a subtle turn of phrase, Marler. The enemy - whoever they may be - would expect us to follow Masterson's trail. Instead we're going to Siros-where over forty years ago a man called Gavalas was murdered during a commando raid. I want to see the place where it happened.'

'You think there's a link with Masterson's death?'

'Tweed said it was a possibility. And that commando raid came up in conversation when Harry visited that chap at the MOD.'

'And how on earth are we going to find the spot where Gavalas was killed on Siros?'

'Nick. He knows the island well, has friends there. But we'll have to watch ourselves every step of the way . . .'

'Which is why, I suppose, you had Nick kit us up?'

'That's why,' Newman agreed. He tilted his wide-brimmed straw hat to shield his eyes. Marler, who seemed impervious to the torrid heat, was hatless, his fair hair gleaming in the sunlight. 'Watch it,' Newman warned, 'Nick's coming.'