Blood Storm (7 page)

'Any sign of forced entry at Fox Street?'

'None at all. Which suggested Vander-Browne knew
whoever killed her. Very premeditated murder,' Saafeld
went on. 'The way he - or she -' he glanced over at Paula -
'arrived with all his equipment - weapon, the whites. I
suspect he arrived in normal dress. I say this because in the
bathroom was cotton wool, traces of powder. Vander-
Browne's visitor may have arrived early. He puts on his whites while she is in the bathroom. I think that's about all I can tell you.'

'Is it?' Tweed pressed.

'Well, I'm not a psychiatrist. We may be dealing with a
psycho, but that's a vague word. What happens to some
people who are strong-blooded and evil is that the pressure
starts to build up inside them. The process probably
accelerates over a period of days, maybe even a few weeks.
They reach the stage when they are ready to murder - and revel in what they are doing.'

'Difficult to detect,' Tweed muttered half to himself.

'I
call it blood storm,' Saafeld concluded.

6

As Tweed drove them back towards Park Crescent, Paula
glanced several times at him, pretending she was looking at
traffic. His expression was unusual - grave, despondent. And he had not said a word since they entered the car.

'Please pull in,' she asked.

He signalled, turned the vehicle to the side of the
road, looked at her. She told him to turn off the engine.
He did so, then slumped in his seat. She took hold of his
arm.

'What is it?' she enquired gently.

'Nothing. I'm OK.'

'You're not - by a long chalk. Tell me. Talking it out
always helps.'

He drank half the water from the slim flask she had taken
from the pocket in her door. He sipped first as she'd
suggested, then drank large quantities. He handed back the
flask.

'Thanks. I'm all right now.'

'You're not,' she repeated firmly. 'Tell me. This is
Paula.'

'When we were in the mortuary I was thinking of how
Viola had looked when we had dinner at Mungano's.
Ravishing and young. I liked her. I think she liked me. If only I'd escorted her home - instead of slinking back into
that alley and falling asleep. She'd be alive now. I'll never
forgive myself. . .'

He paused as Paula's mobile buzzed. She answered,
listened, asked very few questions, then slipped the mobile
back into her pocket.

'That was Professor Saafeld,' she said quietly. 'He sends you his apology but he forgot to tell you the results of the
blood test. He said your margarita was laced with
Percodin.' She spelt it. 'Not Percodan, an American drug, but quite different. Percodin dulls the nervous system,
neutralizes it. Puts you completely out of action. You told
him you'd only drunk about a fifth of the margarita. It
creeps up on you, then suddenly you get the full effect. He also said if you'd drunk the lot your mind
would have been
destabilized for twenty-four hours. So how the hell could
you have escorted Viola home? You couldn't have done. Feel a bit better about things now?'

'What I want to do is to find out who fed me that bloody
drink.' Tweed had straightened up; his expression was
grim, determined, even ferocious. 'I can remember the
waitress who served the thing to me. Mungano should be able to identify her. We'd better get moving . . .'

Tweed was still silent when they reached Park Crescent.
Thank God Saafeld phoned me, Paula said to herself.

Entering the office they found that Nield had returned,
looking rather pleased. Monica relieved Tweed of his coat.

'Your friend Chief Inspector Hammer called,' she said,
'wanted to come and see you, said it was urgent.'

'Urgent to him,' Tweed commented sarcastically as he
settled behind his desk.

'I told him you'd left the office and I had an idea you had
gone abroad. No, I had no idea where or when you'd be back.'

'One in the eye for him,' Paula commented from behind
her desk. 'Where is Harry?'

'He went out, dressed even more like a tramp, if that's
possible. Said he had some pals in the East End he wanted
to question.'

'Good for Harry. How have you got on, Pete? You're
back quickly.'

'You know me,' Nield said, perching on the front edge of
Tweed's desk, arms folded. 'I don't waste time. So far I've found out Benton Macomber is married to a woman called
Georgina. Has a successful fashion-design business. Is
reputed to be very clever and popular. Benton has a house
in Hampstead. I've got the address and phone number.
Noel, the youngster, is a different proposition. Likes
women, plenty of them. He has girlfriends, drops them
when he spots something he fancies more. Just dumps them when he wants variety. A real lady-killer. Has charm which he can turn on and off like an electric light. Very brainy. All
three brothers were at Oxford together, Noel had junior
status because of his age, still came down with three double
firsts, which is rare. He has a pad
in a street off Pall Mall.
It's all in here, addresses and phone numbers - except for
Noel, who is ex-directory and keeps his number quiet.'

'You've done amazingly well,' Tweed said, looking at the
notebook Nield had dropped on his desk.

'There's a bit more,' Nield went on in his well-educated
voice. 'Nelson, Benton and Noel are looked after by a
senior civil servant called Zena Partridge, known behind her back as the Parrot or Freaky-Deaky. A control-freak,
my informant told me. The father, General Lucius
Macomber, has a cottage on a large plot of land down at a
tiny hamlet on the Surrey-Sussex border, Peckham Mallet.
That's in the notebook. End of the story.'

'This informant is a gold mine,' Tweed remarked. 'Who
is she?'

'I don't recall saying it was a woman. And don't ask for a
name. You know the rule. None of us reveal anything about
an informant. That's it. I'll be going out again in five sees.'

'Good hunting and many thanks,' Tweed said as Nield
went out of the office.

'I don't think either you or Paula have eaten,' Monica
said firmly, standing up. 'Just before you came in I prepared
hot food for you both in the upstairs kitchen. Be back in no
time . . .'

'I'm hungry,' Tweed mused.

'So am I now,' Paula exclaimed. 'I'm dropping through
my pockets, as they say up north.'

They both cleaned their plates of shepherd's pie, carrots and spinach, followed by hot apple pie and tea and coffee.
Paula stood up to collect the plates. Monica took them off
her, placed them in a dumb waiter in her corner, pressed
the bell informing the kitchen upstairs there was work on
the way.

Still on her feet, Paula stared down out of the window
into the Crescent leading off the main road. She frowned,
turned round as she spoke.

'I think we have yet another visitor. An odd-looking
person.'

Monica joined her to peer out from behind the heavy net
curtains. A tall slim figure wearing dark trousers, a dark
blue coat, a trilby hat pulled well down over the face was
striding stiffly but briskly to the entrance. Paula had just
caught sight of large horn-rimmed spectacles when the
figure climbed their steps.

'He's coming here, whoever he is,' Monica said and sat
down to wait for the phone to ring from the guard
downstairs. It rang. Monica looked up.

'A Zena Partridge wants to see you. Now!'

'I thought you said it was a man,' Tweed remarked.

'Looked like one.'

'Nield reported on his findings just in time. Send this
odd-looking person, as you described her, up. Why on earth
would she be calling on me?'

'We'll find out, won't we?' Paula chaffed him.

Heavy heels clacked on the stairs, the door was opened without anyone knocking, and the visitor entered.

Paula stared at the apparition without appearing to do so. Whipping off the man's hat the visitor
revealed a thick mop
of brown hair which now fell to her shoulders.

She wore the thickest horn-rims Paula had ever seen,
with lenses of thick glass. Behind them greenish-yellow eyes
surveyed the room quickly. Her mouth was plastered with
bright red lipstick and she peered rather than looked when
she had checked the room. She took off her coat, ignored
Monica's offer to take it, hung it over the back of the chair in front of Tweed's desk. She was wearing a loose white
blouse covered with roses.

Tweed had stood up and opened his mouth to suggest
she sat down but the visitor plonked her slim backside in the
chair without being asked. Tweed sat down, having said
nothing.

'You're Tweed,' she began. 'Over there that must be
Paula Grey,' she said with a brief glance at Paula. 'I am
Zena Partridge,' she continued, 'senior civil servant. My
main role is to attend to the three junior ministers, Nelson,
Noel and Benton Macomber. I have other responsibilities so it is a back-breaking routine but that doesn't worry me
because I have a strong back. I am here to get your advice
about hiring protection.'

Lord, another frightened woman, Tweed thought.
Partridge ploughed on, speaking in a commanding voice as
though addressing the troops.

'The reason for my request is I am being stalked and I
want a stop put to it.' She glared at Tweed through the thick
lenses. 'But the protection must be invisible. On absolutely
no account must the
people I work for know what is
happening. I can give you no reason why this should be
happening but it has to be stopped. I have no enemies or
people who would want to harm me. My life is work, work,
work . . .'

'Could you describe—' Tweed began.

'He is a short fat creature about fifty years old and he
always wears a dark-blue business suit, a red tie and a white
shirt. His feet are clad in blue trainers and he smokes a
cheap cigar constantly. I have a specimen.' She dived inside
the large leather handbag she had slung over her shoulder,
produced a transparent envelope containing a half-smoked
cigar, dropped it on Tweed's desk.

Tweed glanced at it briefly but made no attempt to
examine it. Partridge was talking again.

'Maybe it's a clue - DNA from the saliva and all that - I wouldn't know. I'll pay a reasonable fee for your time and
here is my mobile phone number.' As she spoke she
dropped on his desk a card which she'd extracted at the
same time as the cigar. 'That's all it has on the card. I have
no intention of letting anyone know where I live. What
alerted me to the need to take action was the description in
the newspaper about that brutal murder of the Vander-
Browne woman. There's a lunatic on the loose. I have no
intention of risking being his next victim.