The Greek Key

'No, elevate that,' Paula protested as she got in beside him and dropped her shoulder bag in her lap. 'It helps contact. Farthing has a policeman with a walkie-talkie watching each of the houses. Barrymore, Robson and Kearns. They report back to a radio car and I hear their observations over that phone. In a kind of code I can understand. They're all at home. Farthing has been marvellous.'

'I have to get moving,' Tweed said as he elevated the aerial. 'Bob, take Paula with you. Drive to The Anchor and keep your eyes open.'

'For what?' Newman asked.

'In case he gets away from me. I'd say a four-wheel drive – heading past The Anchor and west over that pebble beach. And cover him with that Magnum. He's lethal. Out you get, Paula.'

'I'm coming with you.' She spoke calmly and produced from her bag the Browning. 'I can protect myself. I did with Norton and Mode.'

It was the controlled way she spoke which stopped Tweed arguing. He shrugged, glanced at the call box. 'Has Barrymore used that this evening?'

'Not so far.'

'Then we'd better move off.' He waved to Newman, drove through Minehead and climbed Porlock Hill. The Mercedes purred up the steep ascent. At the top he passed Culbone Inn, continued along the coast road, took the first turning to the left.

'It's the Doone Valley,' Paula said quietly as they descended the steep winding lane, crossed the ford at the bottom, turned right. Towards the Doone Valley.

'We located the two furniture vans they were using as mobile missile launcher platforms,' Tweed remarked. 'Just in time. One was blown to bits. Marler found a dead Middle Easterner in his. Maybe a Shi-ite. They were going to be left behind as the scapegoats. Monica read out a news story about two Arabs being airlifted from Gartree Prison. Shi-ites.' He stopped and backed the car through a gap in the hedge into a field, switched off the lights. 'No one will see you here. Keep the Browning in your lap until I get back.'

'You've stopped midway between Quarme Manor and Endpoint.'

'Lock all the doors,' Tweed said, then he was gone.

He pressed the bell. The man who opened the door was dressed in a leather windcheater unzipped down the front, cavalry twill trousers tucked into riding boots, a woollen scarf round his neck. The hall beyond was as cold as the biting wind moaning across the moor.

'May I have a word with you, Dr Robson?' Tweed asked.

'Come in, my dear fellow. Can't give you long. I'm expecting a call from a patient. They phone me at all hours. Goes with the territory as the Americans say.'

All this as Robson closed the door, led the way into the sitting room. The curtains were almost drawn with a gap where they should have met. Tweed sat down at a polished wooden table as Robson gestured and then sat opposite him. His host moved an old-fashioned doctor's bag on to the floor by his side without bothering to close it.

'I've come to arrest you for murder,' Tweed said. 'Quite a few murders. You've probably heard on the news your plan failed. Gorbachev is now in Washington.'

Robson's face crinkled into a smile. His pale blue eyes watched Tweed as he pulled at his straggly moustache.

'I don't follow any of this. You look sane enough.'

'One thing which pinpointed you was your conversation at The Luttrell Arms over dinner. Barrymore referred to the Greek Key. You pooh-poohed the idea. Out of character. When you all had houses like fortresses. Especially this place. I asked my man Nield, who was recording secretly, who was facing him. Barrymore was. So were you. The tape sounded like someone had spotted the tie pin microphone Nield kept fiddling with to get the right angle. And you made the mistake of asking Barrymore if Nield was wearing an earpiece when he met him on the moor. Only a professional would spot that. You spotted it. Hence your strange remark – considering you were all supposed to be scared stiff someone was coming from Greece to avenge the murder of Ionides. ..'

'Gavalas…'Robson stopped. His expression changed. The eyes were blank and cold.

'I never told you Ionides was a Gavalas,' Tweed remarked.

Robson sat very still. The only illumination was a plastic-shaded bulb which hung low above the table. Robson reached down into his bag. He pointed the Luger as Tweed reached inside his jacket.

'Don't bring your hand out with anything in it but your fingers. I still find your reasoning feeble.'

'Winterton – as we codenamed the killer- needed access to a safe phone. You wouldn't like using the one here. Your sister, May, could have overheard you. Where is she?'

'I sent her off for a holiday to my brother's place in Norfolk

'You needed access to a safe phone,' Tweed continued, 'to keep in touch with the Spetsnaz group you'd set up on that bungalow estate, to give orders when they'd moved to their new base. You kept visiting the bedridden old lady down in Dulverton at night. She has an extension upstairs by her bedside. That means the main phone is downstairs – the one you used.'

'Pure guesswork. You're crazy…'

'The first thing which drew my attention to you was when I heard you'd found homes for Barrymore and Kearns on Exmoor. Two reasons would be my guess, as you call it. Camouflage, in case suspicion centred on this area. Three suspects – and you made Barrymore look the most suspicious. I heard in Greece the voice changing the call sign in English over Florakis' transceiver. Very upper-crust. Very Barrymore. You mimicked him. The second reason for bringing your two commando friends here was a genuine fear of the vindictive Petros.'

'Why should I fear him?' Robson moved his left hand and then held it stilclass="underline" he had felt the need of his pipe, his prop.

'Because you murdered Andreas Gavalas on Siros. Another guess. You took a spare knife on the raid to do the job.'

'You'll be accusing me of stealing the diamonds next.'

'Of course you did. Which is why Andreas was killed. He was going to hand them to the right-wing EDES people. Probably you were told by your controller in Cairo to keep the diamonds for future use…'

'And I live in such luxury,' Robson sneered.

'Not for you. But it must have cost Colonel Winterton – again a pointer towards Barrymore – a packet to build that bungalow estate ready for the Spetsnaz group you'd been told to establish. Plus financing them in little businesses to give authentic backgrounds for them when they arrived from Russia. Plus buying the Stinger launchers and missiles from Gallagher, the Lisbon arms dealer. By then those diamonds were worth far more than the original hundred thousand pounds.'

'And what other murders am I supposed to have committed?' Robson enquired sarcastically.

'Stephen Ionides in the Antikhana Building for one. There was a lot of blood. My guess – again – is you wore an Army waterproof buttoned to the neck to save your uniform.'

'Oh, really? Entering the realms of fantasy now, are we? I suppose you worked out how I escaped when there wasn't even a convenient fire escape?'

'Poor Sam Partridge worked that out. There was a strong iron rail elevated above the wall on the roof. You took inside a briefcase – or something – a length of knotted rope. When you had cleaned up the blood from your hands in the bathroom you went back on the roof. You dropped the rope over the rail on the native quarter side – an equal length on either side. You shinned down the wall, holding both pieces of rope with the knots. Reaching the empty street, you simply hauled one length of rope down and coiled the lot in a loop. Very easy to lose that inside the available native quarter.'

'Any reason for all these acrobatics? And my killing Ionides?'

'Commandos are acrobatic. And Ionides – who was really Stephen Gavalas – had become suspicious of the killing of his brother, Andreas. You tied up a loose end.'