The Greek Key

'I expect not, since you phrase it like that.' 'From your description Florakis' land adjoins Petros' -that is a strange coincidence. Might be worth following up. But cautiously. Keep in touch…'

As Tweed put down the phone the door opened and Monica came in. She greeted Paula, took off her raincoat, said she would be making coffee for everyone. Tweed waited until she returned with the tray and asked for black coffee. He was still working on automatic pilot, struggling to throw off the remnants of sleep.

'I woke early,' Monica said as she filled their cups. 'It was all going round and round in my head.'

'I can give you more – enough to make your head spin. Newman just called…'

He gave them both a concise resume of the data Newman had provided. The two women listened intently. Paula made a few notes in her book. Monica absorbed it in her encyclopaedic memory. Tweed leaned back in his chair as he concluded.

'So what do you make of all that?'

'Florakis seems to be the key,' Paula said promptly. 'You've been looking for a link between Greece and England. The fact that he appears to be sending coded signals to somewhere here may be the missing link. That reference to Colonel Winter intrigues me. Colonel Barrymore?'

'Not necessarily…'

'But the thing I got from that tape recording Pete made of the conversation at The Luttrell Arms was Barrymore still treats his two companions as though he's in charge.'

'Colonel Winterton,' said Monica. The man Seton-Charles told you had handled the property transactions for that bungalow estate near Kearns' house. Colonel Winterton, who disappeared once all the properties were sold. The Invisible Man.'

'Have you contacted Pitlochry Insurance then?' Tweed enquired. They were the outfit which actually loaned the mortgages.'

'I managed to get through after you left yesterday afternoon. I had trouble getting the manager to part with the information. I used our General amp; Cumbria Insurance cover to get him to open up. Said we'd had an enquiry from a Colonel Winterton about a property deal, that he'd given Pitlochry as a reference and…'She began choking. 'Coffee… went down the wrong way.'

Paula jumped up, accompanied her to the ladies' room. Tweed sat thinking. The plate at the front entrance read General amp; Cumbria Insurance Co. The cover had worked well. They pretended to be a specialized company dealing with top security protection for private individuals of great wealth. Officially, they also dealt with kidnapping insurance, negotiating with the kidnappers if a client was snatched. This explained all the trips abroad made by Tweed and his sector chiefs. They were even a member of the insurance industry's association – to complete the cover. Monica came back with Paula, dabbing at her mouth with a handkerchief.

'I'm all right now,' she said, sitting down behind her desk. 'I was telling you about Pitlochry. The manager said they'd found Colonel Winterton sound and businesslike. He confirmed that Winterton had simply acted as a middleman between clients buying those bungalows and Pitlochry supplying the mortgages.'

'He met him?'

'No, that was the odd thing. Odd to me. All the transactions were carried out by correspondence from the Taunton office and Winterton on the phone.'

'Did you manage to get any idea how he sounded?'

'Yes, by cracking a joke. Winterton had a very upper crust way of talking. Very much the colonel addressing the battalion – the manager's phrase.'

'Any forwarding address?'

'None. No one at Pitlochry has any idea where he is nowadays.'

'The Invisible Man,' said Paula.

'Another cul-de-sac,' Tweed remarked. 'Which reminds me – we still have no idea what Masterson meant by his note referring to Endstation . I feel certain that's a major pointer – either here or in Greece. Masterson was the cleverest interrogator I ever met. He was trying to tell me something. But what?'

'Dead end for the moment,' Paula said briskly. 'But I've come up with something.' There was a note of triumph in her tone which made Tweed and Monica stare at her. 'I didn't tell you while we were there. I thought I'd follow something up for myself.'

'Which was?' asked Tweed.

'You remember the evening we visited Colonel Barry-more when you interviewed him? I was sitting to one side. He had his copy of The Times folded back to the personal advertisement section. I memorized the date. Yesterday I went off to Wapping, checked their files. What do you think I found?'

'She's playing you at your own game,' Monica said and chuckled. 'Teasing you.'

'So I'll play along. What did you find?'

'An advertisement placed at the time Christina Gavalas was in England, the time when Harry Masterson was going around with her over here. The advertisement was this.' She read from a small pocket diary.' Will anyone interested in the Greek Key and knows about Antikhana please contact me. Irene. It gives a phone number for contact. I phoned the number. Turned out to be the Strand Palace. I phoned the hotel, said I was the sister of Christina Gavalas. Had she stayed at the hotel? They wouldn't play. So I jumped in a taxi and went down to the Strand. I sexed up the reservations clerk – naughty of me, I think he thought he had a date. He looked up their records. Christina stayed there at the relevant time.'

'But Irene is the wrong name,' Monica observed.

'I think she did that to protect herself. Not knowing who would come looking for her.'

'I agree,' Tweed said. 'Type out that ad with the date and add it to the file. You did a good job. Actually,' he admitted, 'I knew about the advertisement. Newman told me over the phone that Christina had explained to him during dinner that was how she met Masterson. He saw the ad and contacted her.'

'Thanks a lot!' Paula threw down her pencil. 'So I wasted my time.'

'Hardly. I didn't spot that newspaper in Barrymore's study – which shows. he was interested. And in the near future I think you and I should drive down again to Exmoor to see how Butler and Nield are getting on. We know more than we did last time.'

He stopped as the phone rang. Monica grabbed her receiver and spoke briefly. Putting her hand over the mouthpiece she looked at Tweed.

'Talk of the devil. Pete Nield on the phone for you.'

'Sorry to phone you so early. I called on the off chance,' Nield explained. 'I'm tasking from a public box. We put the pressure on and guess what's happened. The hunters have become the hunted. Harry and I are being watched by Barrymore and Kearns,'

'What do you mean?' Tweed's tone was sharp, alarmed.

'We each took one of them in turn and let them spot us – riding on the moor. Now when we get up there they appear out of nowhere and stalk us! It's uncanny…'

They know the moor better than you'll ever do. What was their routine before they turned the tables on you?'

'Robson rode to see patients during the day. He can go for ages without food or drink. His patients are scattered over a large area. Evenings he has a meal, presumably prepared by his sister. Then he retires up to that conning tower place and reads. After dark he draws the curtains. Goes to bed late.'

'And Kearns?'

'He rides the moor a lot. His wife, Jill, never appears. She hasn't been seen by either of us. Maybe he locks her up. As for Kearns, he rides up to the summit of Dunkery Beacon. Stays up there at night. God knows what he's doing. Can't get close enough. Weird bloke. A solitary.'

'Dunkery Beacon? That's the highest point on Exmoor…'

That's right. Like to know about Barrymore?'

'Of course.'

'He's about one hundred feet from where I'm talking. Inside a newspaper shop that opens early. He's standing by the window, half-pretending to read a paper. But he's watching me. He came into the village on a horse tethered further down the High Street. He's also got a rifle in a scabbard attached to the saddle.'