Colin Forbes: By Stealth

`Never seen one of your lot down here before…'

`You're seeing one now. Hadn't you better get a move on and stop that ambulance?'

`Miss Grey has already identified the body,' Walford said half under his breath as they went out into the icy fog. `A second identification never does any harm.'

Inside the ambulance, at Walford's request, one of the attendants pulled back the sheet covering the corpse laid out on a stretcher. Tweed gazed down on the savaged head and face with a poker expression. Inwardly he was shocked.

On leaving the SAS, Harvey Boyd had applied to join the SIS. He had passed all the severe training courses designed to break a man under pressure. Those had been physical endurance tests. Later he had sailed through the relentless psychological examinations. Now, about to serve his country again, he was going to end up on a cold mortuary slab, cut about by a pathologist.

`That's Harvey Boyd,' Tweed said tersely. 'I may wish to choose my own pathologist. Warn Southampton. I do have that power…'

He left the ambulance abruptly, leaving Walford to follow, went back inside the building. Paula opened a door and came in clad in the new clothes Tweed had brought, her wet things inside a plastic bag he'd given her. She rushed forward and hugged him as Newman entered a few steps ahead of Walford.

`Tweed, you're so considerate,' she gasped out. 'I was like ice. That warm towel was heaven. And the change of clothes.'

`You may be in a state of shock,' Tweed warned. 'A hot drink would help. No alcohol.'

`Mr Walford provided me with one when I asked him. A mug of steaming cocoa.'

With her back to the other two men, she lifted her head off his shoulder and Tweed caught the flash of humour in her grey-blue eyes. Only a man like Walford would serve cocoa and she hated the stuff.

`We shouldn't really have the press in here at this stage,' Walford grumbled, eyeing Newman.

`He's a close associate of mine,' Tweed said, and left it at that.

No point in explaining that Newman had been fully vetted years before, that he'd worked closely with Tweed on a number of secret missions. The Harbour Master hadn't given up. He was holding a long form while he continued gazing at the foreign correspondent.

He saw a man close to forty, five foot ten tall, clean shaven, athletic in movement, with light brown hair, alert eyes, and a face suggesting strength of character. Walford had seen photos of him in the newspapers above reports from trouble spots all over the world, but not for several years. Bob Newman had written a blockbuster international best-seller, Kruger: The Computer That Failed. It had made him a fortune and now he could do what he liked. Walford waved the form.

`The police will want a statement about this episode from Miss Grey. I'll need some details myself..

`The Chief Constable, Mark Stanstead, is a friend of mine,' Tweed interjected. 'She'll give her statement to him.'

`Then,' Walford plodded on, 'there's the question of informing relatives..

`He was a distant cousin of Sir Gerald Andover-his only relative,' Tweed informed him. 'He also happens to be someone I know. Lives way out in the New Forest. You know his address? Good. Tell us how to get there and we'll drive to Andover's place now.'

`I'll tell you one thing, Mr Walford,' Paula said suddenly. 'Just before Harvey's – Mr Boyd's – engine stopped I saw the vague outline of a large vessel in the fog coming up the river. At least there was something…'

`I suppose she's overwrought with her experience,' Walford began, staring at Tweed.

`Then I'm overwrought, too. Let her finish,' Tweed snapped.

`Some vague shape, anyway,' Paula went on. did see something.'

`Nothing else was moving on the river tonight,' Walford insisted. 'You must have imagined it.'

`Oh, really?' Paula was furious. 'You think Harvey Boyd pulled out the plug on his own boat and then sliced the side of his head off?'

`He was a bloody fool to venture out in these weather conditions…'

`He might have been a fool but he was a brave one,' she raged. 'He went out because a pal of his, George Stapleton, disappeared a month ago crossing to the Isle of Wight in his yacht. He just vanished. No trace of wreckage was ever found. Mind you, that was a month ago. Maybe you've got a short memory?'

`No need to-'

`And while we're on the subject, how many other vessels have disappeared in this area in the past year?'

`I'm not a computer…'

`So there have been other mysterious disappearances? I'd like to know how many. Please. You could check the records.'

`I suppose I could…'

`Then suppose you do just that. Now!' Tweed intervened.

`Five altogether.' Walford sounded reluctant to admit the fact. 'If silly stories get bandied about a lot of the yachtsmen who use our marina might look for a different anchorage. Bad for business.'

'Oh, Lord!' Newman spoke for the first time. 'Bad for the tourist trade. Here we go again – the old Jaws syndrome.'

`There's no sharks round here,' Walford rasped.

He reached for an old red leather-bound ledger from a shelf, began leafing through it. Newman looked grim.

`There may be no sharks but there is the odd jellyfish.'

`I'm looking up the register,' Walford growled. 'Not that I see this has anything to do with our experience tonight.'

`Just give us the statistics in detail and we'll be the judge of that,' Tweed told him.

`Mid-October,' Walford began, 'a George Stapleton took out his yacht bound for Wight in a heavy fog. Never reached Yarmouth. No wreckage ever found.' He turned back several pages. 'You should be dealing with the Harbour Master himself on a job like this.'

`So where is he?' Paula demanded.

`On holiday abroad. I'm by way of just standing in till he gets back. Here we are. Early February this year. Two youngsters sailed – separately – into the Solent with about a couple of weeks between them. Neither of them returned. No wreckage washed up.'

`The weather at that time?' Tweed queried.

`Heavy fog. The idiots…' He glanced up, saw Paula's expression, changed his description. 'Neither of those yachtsmen enquired here about conditions. And here is number five – including your Harvey Boyd. Middle-aged chap called Benton, friend of your Sir Gerald Andover.' He looked at Tweed. 'He went out in a small powerboat beginning of February. And before you ask – again in a dense fog. No sight or sound of him or his vessel since he sailed for the River Beaulieu.'

`Five missing boats in a year?' Tweed emphasized the note of incredulity. 'Surly there's been an investigation? Questions asked?'

`Comes in cycles.' Walford closed the ledger with a snap, his expression mulish. 'In previous years you get not a single accident for ages. More youngsters can afford a yacht these days.'

`Benton wasn't a youngster,' Tweed pointed out.

`And that reminds me. Shouldn't you phone Sir Gerald Andover, seeing as he's the only relative of this Boyd?'

`You don't phone news like that when he's close enough to break the news to him face to face. You were going to show us how to get to his house. And I presume there'll be a search for any wreckage from Boyd's powerboat?'

'Coastguard's already been informed.' A gleam of triumph in Walford's eyes. 'Of course they can't go out tonight. Fog's getting worse. And I've a map here I can mark so you'll find Andover. Not easy to locate in the Forest.'

He spread out on the scrubbed wooden table an Ordnance Survey map he'd hauled off the same shelf after replacing the ledger. Holding a biro, he looked up in surprise as Paula stood beside him.

`I'm a good navigator. On land, anyway,' she explained. `You drive back into Lymington, take the Brockenhurst road here…'

His biro followed the route, which was complex, warning her where she could easily go wrong. She thanked him as he handed her the map.