Colin Forbes - Cell

'It's amazing the things people walk off with. Someone has stolen five of those huge milk wagons which distribute to various dairies. Vanished into thin air. What would anyone want with milk wagons?'

'Let me see that,' Tweed said, his voice sharp. He read the item. 'Taken from three different depots in the Midlands. I hope the original drivers are still alive.'

'What makes you say that?' Monica wondered.

'Large transports.' Paula glanced up. Tweed was staring into the distance. He continued. 'What could they be carrying – apart from the milk? Or, maybe, they were carrying something lowered into the milk cargoes. They were driving south in the dark when they vanished and radio communication with the depots ceased…'

'Can't be important,' Monica commented. 'I just thought it was curious.'

'So curious I want you to get Buchanan on the line so I can draw his attention to this mysterious development. First three people go missing, then five milk wagons. A pattern is developing…'

An hour later Paula had finished her reports. Tweed had read them carefully. He sat back in his chair, arms folded behind his head.

'Paula, I know you went through a shocking ordeal. If it's any consolation, the information in these reports is priceless. I don't know yet what the attack plan is but as in a dream I'm beginning to see the outlines of what may be coming. What worries me is I sense we haven't much time left. What is the target? How are they planning to attack London? Who is the mastermind? Those are the questions I need to have answers to. Before it is too late.'

'Is there someone we should question again?'

'Yes, there is.' Tweed had jumped to his feet as Newman walked in, rushed towards Paula, wrapped his arm round her.

'You do know,' he said, 'you are the most valuable member of the team. Up at Carpford I could only wave when the car passed me.' He looked round as Tweed put on his raincoat. 'And where might you be going to? Not on your own.'

'To question the one individual who may be able to tell us more than he has done. A certain Mr Pecksniff.'

'Then I'm coming with you. I can drive.'

'I'm coming too,' said Paula. 'I've finished your reports.'

'No,' said Tweed, pausing before opening the door. 'Sleep is what you need…'

'Yes!' Paula shouted at him, slipping on her windcheater. 'I will not be left out and I'm feeling alert.'

'I suppose,' Monica interjected, 'Roy Buchanan didn't think much of the missing milk wagons story.'

'On the contrary,' Tweed assured her, 'he is phoning the Chief Constable up there, telling him to organize a dragnet to find those wagons. We must visit Mr Pecksniff now.'

During the long drive through heavy traffic Paula asked how Tweed had brought everyone to Carpford in the middle of the night. He smiled grimly, sitting next to her while Newman drove their car.

'When I got back from dinner with Eva Brand and saw your note I organized a general alarm. Called Bob, Marler, Pete and Harry on their mobiles. Ordered them to head at once for Carpford. Also called Buchanan who said he'd drive to the Downs immediately. When I arrived I woke up everyone, which wasn't popular but I was in a grim mood so they soon changed their tune. In this way I traced your movements, confirmed by your reports. The trouble was I didn't leave the dinner with Eva until midnight, so everything was pushed into the middle of the night.'

'How did you get on with Eva?' she wondered.

'Very pleasurably. She was out to charm me. Wore a low-cut dress, drank heavily and tried to persuade me to do the same. Out to extract information from me. It was a duel of wits, and she's a very smart lady.'

'Learn anything?'

'Her mother was killed in a car crash on a motorway five years ago. No other relatives. Refused to talk about a father. I'm intrigued about that. Glided over the missing two years in her life Monica couldn't crack. Doesn't believe Special Branch has the talent to solve the mystery of the people who've vanished. Said she couldn't understand what had happened to Mrs Warner. Described her as a resourceful woman. They'd met at parties, got on well together. Thinks Peregrine Palfry is the Minister's lapdog, an opinion I'm not sure I share. Believes the cleverest man living in Carpford is Drew Franklin.'

'So she didn't slip up?'

'There's steel in that lady. Takes brains to be a top code-breaker.'

'I'm going to have to talk to her again.'

Tweed chuckled, smiled at her. 'You think you can crack the ice maiden when I failed?'

'It's not that. Sometimes women will confide in another woman when they're leery of men.'

No one said anything more until Newman announced they were nearly there. He suggested he parked the car in a side street and walked the rest of the way.

'Incidentally,' he went on, 'last night Harry watched Pecksniff's office until he was contacted by Tweed at close to 1 a.m. The lights were still on, so presumably Pecksniff was working late. No one called on him…'

He parked the car and they walked along a narrow street with half the old buildings unoccupied. No one about. No sign of life behind the frosted glass windows of Pecksniff's shabby office. Newman was about to press the bell when he paused. The door was almost closed but not quite. He looked at Tweed who gestured for him to open the door fully. Newman called out but no one answered. Again he glanced at Tweed.

Tweed peered through the stained-glass window in the upper half of the door. No good – it was too filthy to see anything inside.

'Go in,' he ordered.

Newman, Smith amp; Wesson in his hand, entered, followed by Tweed and Paula, who was gripping the Beretta. While she had been imprisoned in Carpford they had taken her shoulder-bag, which contained her Browning.

The outer office was empty. There was a sinister silence. Newman pushed open the inner door, walked a few paces inside, stopped. Paula peered over his shoulder. This room, Pecksniff's inner sanctum, was also empty. But the throne-like chair he'd occupied behind his Regency desk was lying on the floor, its back broken. The two hard chairs lay on the floor intact.

Paula put on latex gloves, trod cautiously round the other side of the desk. Near the broken-backed throne chair was a brownish pool on the carpet, a large pool. Blood. The filing cabinet against the wall had been ransacked. It had been levered open with some kind of tool. There were files left in an open drawer. More files were scattered on the floor.

'Pecksniff has disappeared now,' Tweed observed sombrely.

Paula was rifling through the files remaining inside the open drawer. She came to 'M' and then moved to 'P.' 'N' was missing. The New Age Development file, she guessed. She checked the files scattered on the floor. Not there.

'They've taken the New Age file,' she told Tweed.

'Bob,' Tweed said decisively, 'call Buchanan. Ask him to get over here. I fear this is the fourth murder.'

Buchanan arrived with his poker-faced assistant, Sergeant Warden, nicknamed by Paula the Wooden Indian. Warden stared round the inner office, then gazed at the latex gloves Paula was still wearing. He raised his thick eyebrows. She gazed back at him. His manner had become like a regimental sergeant major's.

'You haven't been touching anything?' he barked. 'This may turn out to be the scene of a crime.'

'I'm sure it is,' she told him. 'I have been searching for a file on the New Age Development company. It's gone.

So whoever took away what was left of Mr Pecksniff was after that file.'

'What was left of Mr Pecksniff?' Warden's tone was outraged. 'How can you make such an assumption?'

'Furniture smashed to pieces. Files ransacked.' She paused. 'Then there's the blood on the floor.'

'Blood…'

'Sergeant Warden,' broke in Buchanan, a bite in his voice. 'Would you be so good as to go now and examine the outer office. You might close the door on your way out.'