She broke off as a fresh group of men appeared with torches. A short, plump, bald-headed man, carrying a bag, put on his glasses, peered at Benoit after a glance at the body.
`You do choose the most original locations to find your corpses,' he observed.
Pathologist,' Benoit whispered to Newman as they straightened up. 'And the forensic boys. Let's get back to the hotel and leave them to their work. I'll come back with you by myself. The hotel manager is nearly doing his nut about a murder just outside his cafe.'
Despite the macabre atmosphere Paula smiled to herself. Doing his nut. Benoit prided himself on his command of English slang.
`I do have grim news for you,' Benoit whispered again to Newman as they made their way out of the park.
Entering the hotel Paula noticed Helen Claybourne curled up like a cat on a couch, reading a book. She looked up, raised a hand in a small salute, returned to reading her novel.
Benoit shook his head, frowned as the hotel manager began to approach them. Standing in front of the closed elevator doors, no one said anything. The doors opened and Lee Holmes stepped out. Paula caught an aroma of fresh talc. Lee had just had a bath. She grabbed Newman by the arm.
Bob! Give me just a second. Please! I do want to explain,' she pleaded.
`I'll be up in a minute,' Newman said. 'Here's the key to my room,' he went on quickly, handing it to Benoit. `Paula knows the number. I'll join you very shortly…'
Newman suggested to Lee they could talk in the bar. She nodded and he was glad she didn't take hold of his arm. He was still slightly irked by her disappearance from the restaurant in Grand' Place without a word, although his mind was mostly filled with the murder of Joseph Mordaunt.
She led him to a secluded corner banquette. He sat beside her, leaving a gap between them. She ordered a brandy and Newman asked for a glass of Chablis.
`I really am sorry to treat you in the way I did,' she began. 'The waiter gave you my message?'
`No. But the place was busy and I paid a different waiter for the drinks. What message?'
The drinks arrived and she grasped her glass immediately, sipping a little of the brandy. Then she turned to face him.
He caught a whiff of her perfume. Guerlain Samsara, Tweed had said. There was still that mystery as to who had the bottle: Lee or Helen.
`I suddenly felt sick – very sick. The smell of food in the place made me feel worse. I drank a whole glass of mineral water at one go, asked the waiter to tell you that I was feeling off colour and was going straight back to the hotel.'
He wasn't sure whether he believed her or not. He couldn't read her eyes, let alone her mind.
`I'm sorry you felt unwell,' he said. 'Feeling any better now?'
I lay down for most of the afternoon, then had a bath. I think I'll soon feel half-civilized. The brandy is helping.' `Good. Sip it slowly.'
She laid a hand on his arm. 'Am I forgiven, Bob?' `Nothing to forgive. You can't help feeling unwell. I'd recommend a quiet evening.'
`I suspect I dragged you away from a business meeting. So, if you want to go please do.'
'If you don't mind…'
He paid for the drinks, left the bar, and saw Helen Claybourne standing in front of an exhibition poster. She swung round, walked towards him with her slow, elegant step. As always, she looked neat as a new pin, clad in a pale blue blouse, a dove-grey pleated skirt, and low-heeled shoes. Her cool eyes had a mischievous look which Newman found rather fetching.
`I'm an abandoned woman,' she told him. 'No sign of my Willie. The Brigadier has gone missing. Would you think it very forward of me if I asked if you were free for dinner later?'
`I might be. I'll know later. Sorry to be so vague but I'm going to a business meeting. Never know how long they're going to last. I'll try and cut it short,' he said and smiled.
She showed him the little folder the hotel provided with the room number. Leaning forward, she spoke in her soft voice.
'If you could let me know by eight o'clock. Meantime I'll live in hope..
Going up in the elevator Newman was a disturbed man. I think it was a woman, Paula had said while they stood close to the dead body of Mordaunt.
Had he – within the past ten minutes – been talking to the murderess?
34
In Liege Dr Hyde returned to the obscure 'hotel' where he was staying. He had just sampled the local offerings of feminine companionship. The quality was way below that available in Brussels. The nosy woman, who ran what was no more than a lodging house, met him as he entered.
`You have had a phone call,' she said in French. 'They wouldn't leave a name or a number,' she went on regretfully, tut they said it was urgent.'
`It will have to wait,' Hyde said quickly. 'I have just remembered something I forgot to buy. Be back soon.'
He hurried to the nearest public phone box. The only person who knew where he was staying was Dr Wand.
He dialled the number and, to his surprise, it was Dr Wand who took the call. Normally he spoke first to the man called Jules.
`Are you packed and ready to leave, my dear sir?' Dr Wand asked after checking where he was calling from.
`I'm always ready to move on at a moment's notice,' Hyde assured him.
`Then that is what I would much appreciate your doing. If you would be so good, leave Liege at once. Catch the first express to Cologne. From there you fly to Hamburg. As soon as you have found a suitable resting place, be so good as to leave an anonymous note for me at the Four Seasons Hotel. A note which simply gives me your phone number. Dr Hyde, I would earnestly advise you to go now without losing a minute. I am most concerned for your safety. And be ready to treat a new patient. A German who is seventeen years old…'
When Newman arrived in his room he found Pete Nield seated on a couch, staring out of the window at the lights of Brussels, a blaze of cheap neon on the far side of the Boulevard de Waterloo. Benoit was sitting at a desk, a large sheet of paper in front of him covered in his neat handwriting. Paula sat beside him.
`We have been working,' Benoit said with an impish grin, 'while you go off with the first curvy blonde who catches your eye. Why, I can't imagine, when you have the delightful Paula in your room.'
`I thought I'd leave you to enjoy her company for a while,' Newman retorted. 'What work?'
`She has been making a statement about what she saw in the Parc d'Egmont, about her earlier lunch with the victim. Now I want one from you…'
Ten minutes later Newman signed his own statement. Benoit countersigned it, as he had done after Paula's signature.
`Strictly speaking,' he explained, 'I should have asked one of my men to witness these statements. But I am, after all, the chief of police. Anyone who questions the procedure will get my boot up a tender part of his anatomy.'
`You had news for me,' Newman reminded him. 'Grim, you said.'
`Would you like the good or the bad to start with?' The bad.'
`Then I think I'll give you the good first. I phoned Tweed recently, told him we'd traced this Dr Hyde to a boarding house here in Brussels. But the bird had flown. So now we are concentrating on Liege. A team is checking every low-down dump in that beautiful city.' He looked at his watch. 'They will be starting about now.'
'I can't make out why Mordaunt was murdered,' Newman ruminated. 'And just after lunching with Paula – so if by chance he was leading up to luring her away to be kidnapped… Although that's a pretty wild theory.'
`Maybe not so wild,' Paula said quietly. She sat down next to Nield, looking depressed. 'He was playing up to me to start with, turning on the charm. Then, during lunch, his attitude changed. He' – she searched for a wording which would not sound conceited – 'seemed to genuinely like me. Was going a bit overboard, I thought. Supposing he decided not to go through with it?'