The Greek Key

'And how were they seated in relationship to the two of you?' Tweed repeated.

Paula looked puzzled. She couldn't fathom the reason behind the question.

They came into the dining room about ten minutes later,' explained Nield. They walked past us. We had our backs towards them as they entered. You know the corner table where they sit?' Tweed nodded and Nield went on. 'Barrymore and Robson faced us. Kearns had his back to us the whole time. Which is why his voice comes across quieter.'

'I thought it was like that. Something said in their conversation could be very significant. I may have the lead I've been waiting for.'

'And you wouldn't care to tell us what that is?' Paula enquired.

'Not for the moment. In case I'm wrong.' Tweed smiled. 'Listen to the tape on your own a few times. You might get it.'

Paula glanced down at her notes, then clenched her fists with a gesture of frustration. 'You'll drive me crazy with your hints one of these days.'

Monica nodded sympathetically. 'I know just what you mean. He's been doing it with me for years.'

'If you agree,' Nield said. 'I plan to drive straight back to join Butler again on Exmoor, Have there been any developments at this end?'

'Bob Newman called from Athens…'Tweed gave him a concise account of their conversation, picking out the main elements of the data Newman had passed on. 'Does anyone spot something odd about what he told me? Bearing in mind the clear description he gave of the topography of where Andreas Gavalas was killed?'

Three blank faces stared back at him. Paula pursed her full lips and sighed. 'Here we go again – more mysterious hints. I give up.'

'I have two questions I'd dearly love answers to,' Tweed told them as he perched his elbows on the desk. 'The raid on Siros. The three-man commando team – with Andreas – land on a hostile coast. They make their way up a twisting gulch. That gulch is overlooked by a monastery perched on Mount Ida like the nest of an eagle. The Germans have established a permanently manned lookout post on top of that monastery looking straight down the gulch. Why, then, in heaven's name, did the raiding party choose that point to climb up the island? There must have been scores of other places safer for them to choose.'

'Does sound very strange,' Paula agreed. 'Plus the fact that the body went missing.'

'My second question,' Tweed went on, 'is what happened to the cache of diamonds Andreas was carrying to hand over to Greek Resistance fighters on Siros? In those days they were worth about one hundred thousand pounds – so Brigadier Willie Davies at the MOD told me.'

'Stolen by the man who murdered Andreas,' Paula said promptly. 'Maybe we're dealing with a case of simple robbery.'

'I don't think so,' Tweed objected. 'And I've been to see a leading diamond merchant in Hatton Garden I know. I asked him what a parcel of diamonds worth a hundred thousand back in 1944 would be worth today. I got a shock.' He paused, looked round. 'Any estimates? No? My contact could only make a rough guess. Something in the region of one million pounds sterling.'

There was a stunned silence in his office. Nield screwed up his eyes, thinking hard. Paula crossed her legs, tapped her pen against her teeth, then reacted.

'So we may be looking for something – or someone -showing signs of great wealth? What about Barrymore and Quarme Manor?'

Tweed shook his head. 'He bought it years ago. Probably for a song.'

'He has a Daimler,' Paula persisted.

'An old job,' Nield interjected. 'Looks glitzy but wouldn't fetch all that much. A cool million? The only thing I've seen in the area is that modern little estate of de luxe bungalows near Kearns' place.. .'

'We're looking for something pointing to one of those three men we've listened to on the tape,' Paula objected.

Tweed was hardly listening. 'That business of where they landed on Siros. And the missing body. The priest told Newman they had asked the commander of the German occupation troops about Andreas. None of his patrols knew a thing. And Geiger was convinced they were telling the truth. So who else on the island could have spirited away the body? There's only one answer.'

'Which is?' Paula asked.

'It had to be some of the Greek Resistance people. But which lot? And why on earth would they do that? Now our next job is to pay a visit to Guy Seton-Charles. You come with me, Paula.'

'And who might he be?' she enquired.

'A name in Partridge's notebook. A professor of Greek Studies at Bristol University. The intriguing fact is he was based in the Antikhana Building at the time of Ionides' murder.'

'How could he help?' Paula persisted. 'After all this time?'

That's what I want to find out.' Tweed swung in his chair to face Nield. 'You come with us to Bristol in a separate car – then later return to Exmoor to provide Butler with back-up. I want those three men to be aware of your presence. It will put pressure on them, may force one of them to make a wrong move.'

'You've used that tactic before,' Monica commented. 'And it worked. You're doing the same thing with this Seton-Charles, aren't you?'

'Partridge found out something,' Tweed remarked sombrely. 'I am certain he was murdered because he approached the wrong man. Which man?'

The timing was better than Tweed could have hoped for. He was approaching Professor Seton-Charles' room when the door opened and a brunette in her early twenties rushed out. She was in such a rush she almost collided with Paula who was walking alongside Tweed. The door automatically closed behind her on spring-loaded hinges. Very slim, her intelligent face flushed, she stopped abruptly, clutching a green folder.

'I'm dreadfully sorry. I could have knocked you down.' 'I'm pretty sturdy…' Paula began, and smiled.

'You look really upset,' Tweed said quickly. 'Professor in a bad mood?'

The sarcastic bastard! I'm not attending any more classes he takes

…' The girl flushed again. 'Oh, Lord, I'm sorry. Are you friends of his…'

'Hardly.' Tweed acted on instinct. 'We've come to investigate him. Special Branch. What's the matter with him?' he asked persuasively.

'Everything! He's a bloody Trotskyite. Tries to brainwash us.. ,' She paused. 'God, I'm saying all the wrong things.'

'Don't worry, we won't quote you.' He squeezed her arm. 'Do me a favour. We were never here. Agreed?'

'My pleasure. I'd better push off now.' She turned back for a last word. 'And I can keep my mouth shut. Give him hell.'

Tweed waited until she had disappeared round a corner at the end of the corridor. Then he knocked on the door which carried a name in gilt lettering. Prof. Guy Seton-Charles. The door opened swiftly. A man started talking and then stopped when he saw them.

That's my last word, Louise. You have an IQ of minus…'

'Special Branch.' Tweed showed his card. 'You're alone. Good. May we come in…' He was walking forward as he spoke while the man backed away and Paula followed, closing the door. 'You are Professor Seton-Charles? This is Miss Grey, my assistant, who will take notes during the interview.'

'Interview about what?'

'The unsolved murder of a Greek called Ionides in Cairo over forty years ago. We can sit round that table. If anyone arrives to interrupt the interview please tell them you're busy, get rid of them.'

Tweed was at his most officious. He fetched two fold-up chairs from several rows arranged beyond the table. The room was furnished starkly; walls bare, painted off-white; the table for the lecturer to sit behind and address his class; windows on the far wall which looked out on to a roughcast concrete wall.

Guy Seton-Charles was a slimly built man in his early sixties, Tweed estimated. His face was plump and pale, and perched on his Roman nose was a pair of rimless glasses. The eyes which stared at them were cold and bleak and wary. He had thinning brown hair, was clean-shaven, his mouth was pouched in a superior expression. Prototype of the self-conscious intellectual, Tweed decided.