Colin Forbes: The Greek Key

'Marler and Newman will travel to Greece together. Masterson went alone – and see what happened to him.' He glanced at Paula but she was already recording his instructions.

'Marler's deputy, Harris, can take over the German sector in his absence. Agreed, Marler?' He went on as Marler nodded. 'The investigation covers two very different areas. Greece. Dealt with. Newman reports back to me over Patterson's scrambler phone at the Athens Embassy.'

'Why not Marler?' Howard bleated.

Tweed, in full cry, ignored the interruption. 'I shall drive with Paula to Exmoor and check that area. Pete Nield will come with us in a separate car. He will appear not to know us. He will come armed.'

'Why?' demanded Howard.

'Because I don't know what we're walking into. One man has already been murdered.'

'That has yet to be proved,' Howard objected.

'Everyone I asked believes that. I have an open mind but I'm taking no chances. We start tomorrow – before the scent goes cold. The contents of this cigar box Harry posted me will be checked by our experts in the Engine Room in the basement. I want someone to visit Harry's country cottage in Sussex. What was it called?'

'Clematis Cottage, near Apfield,' said Paula, continuing her writing.

'I will contact Jim Corcoran of Airport Security at Heathrow. He'll check the passenger manifests of all flights to Greece over the past three weeks.' Tweed looked briefly at Howard who had lapsed into silence. 'If we can find which flight Masterson used we may find the name of that Greek girl Monica saw him with in Bond Street.' He turned to Paula. 'How is Monica?'

'Harry Butler took her home. He'll pull her round. Should he go down to check Clematis Cottage?'

'Good idea. And tell him to look at a power cruiser moored at a landing stage a few hundred yards south of the cottage. He turns off to the right along the first track.'

'Is that the lot?' Howard enquired with a hint of sarcasm.

'No. We need photos of Harry Masterson run off by the Engine Room urgently this evening. Newman and Marler will need them when they're tracking his movements in Greece. And I want careful blow-ups of the photo of the Greek girl at Zea. Some for Newman and Marler, some for me to take to Somerset.'

'I think I'm going.' Howard stood up. 'I do have other work calling for my attention. I can't rubber-stamp all this in a memo.. .'

'So you'll have a little extra time for that other work calling for your attention.' Tweed smiled. 'Thank you for your cooperation and attendance.'

Howard withdrew, closing the door behind him as though it were made of glass. Round the table there was a sense of relief.

'I have held back two intriguing points.' Tweed told them. 'Harry made a reference to a friend at court at the Ministry of Defence. I hope to visit him before you leave tonight. I can't imagine why Harry went there.'

'And the other point?' asked Marler

'Endstation.' Tweed looked round the table. 'Like a clue to a crossword puzzle. Mean anything? Suggest anything? The word is written – in Harry's writing – on the back of a British postcard. Just that one word. Endstation.'

'Sounds like Cockfosters, the last station on the Piccadilly Underground,' Paula suggested.

'Which doesn't link up with Exmoor – or Greece.'

The fact that he wrote it on a British postcard points to a connection with Somerset,' Newman remarked. 'Harry liked little tricks like that. And he may well have had in mind that cigar box could have been intercepted.'

'So?' enquired Nield.

'He'd write any clue in code. Some puzzle he'd hope Tweed could unravel.'

'Puzzle is the word for what he sent me,' Tweed commented. 'Paula, book tickets for Marler and Newman to fly to Athens tomorrow…'

'I've already made a note to do just that…'

'But no one moves anywhere, leaves London, until I've seen Brigadier Willie Davies. We need to know why Harry went to the Ministry of Defence.'

Escorted by a male receptionist, Tweed walked down the endless corridor past doors carrying the names of military officers. He clutched in his hand the pass he would have to surrender before being let out of the MOD.

Brigadier Davies, a tall red-faced man with lapel tabs of the same colour, rose from behind his desk as Tweed entered and the door closed behind him. They shook hands.

'Long time no see,' Davies remarked in his crisp staccato voice. 'Take a pew. Long time,' he repeated, sitting down again, 'then we have a queue from your outfit.'

'Harry Masterson, you mean?'

'The great man himself.' Davies tugged at his ginger moustache, ran a hand over thinning hair of the same colour. 'But since you authorized the interview you'll know all about it. Always good for a laugh, Harry. Say anything outrageous.'

'You said I authorized the interview?'

'Course you did.' Davies pushed a sheet of paper with typing across the desk. Tweed glanced at it. A printed heading. General and Cumbria Assurance Company – the cover name for the SIS at Park Crescent. The letter was brief.

Dear Willie – If you could give Harry your cooperation re this one I'd be greatly indebted. At the bottom was Tweed's signature. Forged. Typical of Harry, Tweed thought nostalgically. Break every rule in the book to get what he was after.

'A lot's been happening. My memory must be going.' He phrased the next words carefully. 'The trouble is he took off on a plane without leaving me a report. Just caught his flight after leaving you, I gather. Could you bring me up to date? What he asked, what you told him?'

'Weird case. Going back over forty years.' Davies stood up, extracted a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked a green steel cabinet. 'Took me a while to locate the file for Harry.' He grinned as he pulled out a blue file with a red tab attached and handed it to Tweed. 'Still classified.'

Tweed left the file unopened on the desk. The typed inscription on the front in faded letters carried a brief message. Commando raid on Siros Island, Greece, February, 1944.

It you'd bear with me, Willie, I went off abroad as soon us I'd provided the authorization,' he lied glibly. 'It would help if you could tell me what Harry asked you. I'm not sure exactly how much he knew about this business.'

'Oh, he had his facts all lined up.' Davies clasped his hands behind his long neck. 'I'd offer you coffee but why poison a friend? Harry said he first needed details of that four-man commando raid on Siros in February 1944. I expect you know Siros is a large island in the Cyclades, a strategic stepping-stone to Piraeus, the port of Athens. Couriers passed through Siros from Cairo on their way to the mainland to contact the Greek Resistance. Actually, the Resistance was active on the island. German-occupied, of course. And the HO of the German commander of the Cyclades group. A General Hugo Geiger. All this came from Harry before he looked at that file. And a bit more. I wondered how he'd come about the information.'

'Tell me about the bit more.'

'A four-man commando team made the raid. From Special Operations Executive. Commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel Barrymore. Had with him a Captain Robson, a CSM called Kearns, and the Greek.'

The Greek?'

'You didn't know about him? Chap called Andreas Gavalas. He had got out in a motorized caique, reached Cairo months before. The idea was he knew Siros well. The Resistance lot, by the way, were the Republican crowd EDES. As opposed to ELAS, the Commie faction. Barry-more was taking a fortune in diamonds to hand over to a courier from Athens. Last time Cairo financed them. Turned their cooperation completely to ELAS shortly afterwards. Word was ELAS were doing the real fighting out there against Jerry, even though they were Communists.'

'And that was the extent of Harry's knowledge?'