Colin Forbes - The Greek Key

All this as Robson closed the door, led the way into the sitting room. The curtains were almost drawn with a gap where they should have met. Tweed sat down at a polished wooden table as Robson gestured and then sat opposite him. His host moved an old-fashioned doctor's bag on to the floor by his side without bothering to close it.

'I've come to arrest you for murder,' Tweed said. 'Quite a few murders. You've probably heard on the news your plan failed. Gorbachev is now in Washington.'

Robson's face crinkled into a smile. His pale blue eyes watched Tweed as he pulled at his straggly moustache.

'I don't follow any of this. You look sane enough.'

'One thing which pinpointed you was your conversation at The Luttrell Arms over dinner. Barrymore referred to the Greek Key. You pooh-poohed the idea. Out of character. When you all had houses like fortresses. Especially this place. I asked my man Nield, who was recording secretly, who was facing him. Barrymore was. So were you. The tape sounded like someone had spotted the tie pin microphone Nield kept fiddling with to get the right angle. And you made the mistake of asking Barrymore if Nield was wearing an earpiece when he met him on the moor. Only a professional would spot that. You spotted it. Hence your strange remark – considering you were all supposed to be scared stiff someone was coming from Greece to avenge the murder of Ionides. ..'

'Gavalas…'Robson stopped. His expression changed. The eyes were blank and cold.

'I never told you Ionides was a Gavalas,' Tweed remarked.

Robson sat very still. The only illumination was a plastic-shaded bulb which hung low above the table. Robson reached down into his bag. He pointed the Luger as Tweed reached inside his jacket.

'Don't bring your hand out with anything in it but your fingers. I still find your reasoning feeble.'

'Winterton – as we codenamed the killer- needed access to a safe phone. You wouldn't like using the one here. Your sister, May, could have overheard you. Where is she?'

'I sent her off for a holiday to my brother's place in Norfolk

'You needed access to a safe phone,' Tweed continued, 'to keep in touch with the Spetsnaz group you'd set up on that bungalow estate, to give orders when they'd moved to their new base. You kept visiting the bedridden old lady down in Dulverton at night. She has an extension upstairs by her bedside. That means the main phone is downstairs – the one you used.'

'Pure guesswork. You're crazy…'

'The first thing which drew my attention to you was when I heard you'd found homes for Barrymore and Kearns on Exmoor. Two reasons would be my guess, as you call it. Camouflage, in case suspicion centred on this area. Three suspects – and you made Barrymore look the most suspicious. I heard in Greece the voice changing the call sign in English over Florakis' transceiver. Very upper-crust. Very Barrymore. You mimicked him. The second reason for bringing your two commando friends here was a genuine fear of the vindictive Petros.'

'Why should I fear him?' Robson moved his left hand and then held it still: he had felt the need of his pipe, his prop.

'Because you murdered Andreas Gavalas on Siros. Another guess. You took a spare knife on the raid to do the job.'

'You'll be accusing me of stealing the diamonds next.'

'Of course you did. Which is why Andreas was killed. He was going to hand them to the right-wing EDES people. Probably you were told by your controller in Cairo to keep the diamonds for future use…'

'And I live in such luxury,' Robson sneered.

'Not for you. But it must have cost Colonel Winterton – again a pointer towards Barrymore – a packet to build that bungalow estate ready for the Spetsnaz group you'd been told to establish. Plus financing them in little businesses to give authentic backgrounds for them when they arrived from Russia. Plus buying the Stinger launchers and missiles from Gallagher, the Lisbon arms dealer. By then those diamonds were worth far more than the original hundred thousand pounds.'

'And what other murders am I supposed to have committed?' Robson enquired sarcastically.

'Stephen Ionides in the Antikhana Building for one. There was a lot of blood. My guess – again – is you wore an Army waterproof buttoned to the neck to save your uniform.'

'Oh, really? Entering the realms of fantasy now, are we? I suppose you worked out how I escaped when there wasn't even a convenient fire escape?'

'Poor Sam Partridge worked that out. There was a strong iron rail elevated above the wall on the roof. You took inside a briefcase – or something – a length of knotted rope. When you had cleaned up the blood from your hands in the bathroom you went back on the roof. You dropped the rope over the rail on the native quarter side – an equal length on either side. You shinned down the wall, holding both pieces of rope with the knots. Reaching the empty street, you simply hauled one length of rope down and coiled the lot in a loop. Very easy to lose that inside the available native quarter.'

'Any reason for all these acrobatics? And my killing Ionides?'

'Commandos are acrobatic. And Ionides – who was really Stephen Gavalas – had become suspicious of the killing of his brother, Andreas. You tied up a loose end.'

'Two murders so far. Any more?'

'It's not amusing. Mrs Larcombe's death was a fresh pointer – clue, if you like. She was a careful woman. Who would she let in to her house at night without fear? The local doctor. You said you needed to use her phone for an emergency?'

Robson ran his tongue briefly over his lips. In the dim light there was moisture on his brow, but the muzzle of the Luger aimed at Tweed's chest was steady.

'One thing which put me off the track,' Tweed went on. He had to keep Robson talking. 'Barrymore kept making clandestine phone calls from a public box in Minehead. What was wrong with using the phone at Quarme Manor?'

An unpleasant smile. 'A touch of romance, Tweed. Barrymore has fallen in love with a woman in London, hopes she will agree to marry him. But not sure of his chances. If it doesn't come off he'll still need Mrs Atyeo to run Quarme Manor. So he goes to extreme lengths to make sure she doesn't know anything. She might up and leave.'

'Extraordinary.' Tweed was momentarily non-plussed. 'A small domestic detail I never dreamed of.'

'Like your theories. All bits and pieces…'

'Which complete the jigsaw. And expose the face of Dr Robson. The killing of Sam Partridge on Exmoor was another pointer. The knife was driven in at exactly the right angle, the pathologist told me. A doctor would know how to do that. Much better than ex-commandos who had grown rusty with the passage of time. And Harry Masterson, who visited you, sent me a clue. Endstation. A clever clue. Pointing in two directions – here to your bungalow, Endpoint, and describing the atmosphere down at Porlock Weir, the end of the world. Harry was clever -I think he guessed it was you. He hoped to get confirmation by telling all three of you he was flying to Greece – to see which one of you turned up when he arrived.'

'I didn't.' Robson gripped the trigger of the Luger more firmly under the lampshade. 'I'm holding this gun on you because I appear to face a lunatic with a gun under his own arm.' He glanced at his watch.

'No. You sent a message to Doganis to do the job for you.' Tweed noted the glance at the time – which must be running out. But like a real professional, Robson was curious as to how he had tripped up. 'And,' Tweed went on, 'you fired at my Mercedes, aiming to miss – you couldn't afford the furore which would follow my murder at that stage.'But you aimed – literally – to throw suspicion on Kearns. I'd just left his house.'

'You simply have no proof of these mad assertions.'