Colin Forbes: Deadlock

'What kind of rumours? And this fruit salad is some of the best I've ever tasted.'

'Take you to Cockley Cley – the other village. That is, if you will stay on a few days. I've a friend there, a Mrs Massingham who knows all the gossip.'

There's a hotel in Blakeney?'

'Hotel! I have a guest bedroom. Bit of a box, but you can bed down there.'

'You're tempting me.' Tweed paused.

'Box room for you then.' She smiled. 'It was good of you to come. Have you got your complete picture now?'

'You've missed out a vital bit. Something about someone going round with a photo of you, asking where you lived.'

That was yesterday. Creepy- like Breckland. A woman friend who lives up the street warned me. Told her some yarn about visiting his cousin and he'd lost the address. Showed her a photo of me. She sent him off with a flea in his ear – but he went on to see Mrs Piggott. She'll tell anybody anything.'

'Any description from your friend?'

'Yes, and she's observant. Short, stocky build, in his forties at a guess. Wears pebble glasses which gives him a sinister look. A face like a lump of dough. Plump. His clothes hanging off him – and messy into the bargain. Spoke English with a foreign accent. Mittel-European, Cathy thought.'

'Observant, Cathy, as you said…'

'Oh, and the description reminds me of the man who met Foley with the Porsche off the coaster.'

' If it was Lee Foley. I deal in facts. Talking about facts,' he continued casually, 'your vetting for joining the Service came up Al. If you're still interested.'

'That's marvellous.' Her grey-blue eyes glowed. 'I can sell the business at any time for a good price. I held off till I heard the verdict.'

'Hold off a bit longer,' Tweed advised. 'I'd like to think about it a bit longer. The fact that you come from a military family helped.'

'Sounds rather snobby…'

'Oh, don't worry. That was just background. We're looking for a different type these days. Excellent linguists. The fact that you can speak French, German and Italian like a native was the key qualification. Let's sleep on it. We can talk more tomorrow – things will look clearer then.'

'Sleep well…'

Tweed didn't sleep well. He lay awake in the tiny bedroom at the front, overlooking the harbour. Some time after midnight he heard a great surge of water. The tide was going out. He remembered a remark a restaurant owner had made to him at Brancaster, further along the coast towards King's Lynn. It's like pulling the plug out – one moment the sea's there, then it's gone. Nothing left but the empty creeks. The surging sound ceased abruptly. Tweed fretted about the Mittel-European who had enquired about Paula's address. Why should they want to know where she lived -whoever they might be? The episode had sinister implications. Of course, they'd got her photo from the cine-film taken by the Porsche driver, Foley.

At some ungodly hour he fell into a troubled sleep. He woke suddenly, alarmed. Broad daylight. He checked his watch. 7 a.m. Stupid. He heard the sound of movements downstairs – Paula was up.

He went to the window, pulled back the curtains. Black clouds above. Below, beyond the road, a channel of water vanished to the west, towards the North Sea. Beyond the channel a maze of muddy creeks snaked away between large elevated banks of sour grass. At high water in March the spring tides would submerge the lot.

He was in the bathroom at the back of the house, dressed in pyjamas as he washed and shaved when a hand looped round the door, placed a cup and saucer on a shelf. Paula sounded brisk and businesslike.

'Room service. First cup of coffee. No milk. No sugar. Do I score?'

'Ten out often…'

He dressed quickly, ravenous for breakfast. He was walking down the stairs when Paula appeared from the kitchen. Looking up, she smiled as she continued towards the front door.

'I've just remembered the fresh milk. The trouble with not being used to having a man in the house. Now, what's this?'

She had opened the front door as Tweed reached the foot of the stairs. She stood quite still for a moment, staring down. As she stooped forward she called over her shoulder.

'Well, who can this be from? Someone's left me a present…'

' Don't touch it for Christ's sake…! '

Tweed ran along the hall, wrapped his right aim round her, hauled her upright and backwards. Her right hand had been on the point of closing over a large plastic carrier bag standing on the doorstep. He propelled her back towards the rear of the house.

'Go into the kitchen, out of the back door and into the yard.. .'

She obeyed without asking a single question. Tweed stared at the bag from which the fronds of a plant protruded. There was a card with writing on it. By the side of the bag stood a pint bottle of milk. He closed the door carefully, ran back into the kitchen as she opened the rear door, holding her handbag. She kept moving as she waved the handbag.

'I've got my passport…'

'Is there a way out of this back yard?' he demanded.

'Yes, a gate leads to a side road…'

'Move! We have to warn the village. The whole sea front must be closed off. I think it's a bomb…'

Panic, confusion, movement took hold of Blakeney for the next half-hour. Tweed sent Paula to warn the villagers, to evacuate houses on the front. It was Tweed who walked on the far side of the harbour road by the deep-water channel past the plastic bag perched on Paula's doorstep to stop all activity where a large crane was unloading a coaster.

Some of the men ran up a side road, carrying the warning; others fled out on to the open marshland. It was Tweed who found a house with a phone in the side street and called the Bomb Squad at Heathrow. He had a few minutes' frustration identifying himself until Jim Corcoran, chief security officer at the airport, vouched for him. He gave curt instructions to a Captain Nicholls, chief of the Bomb Squad.

'… you've understood? You fly your team to the private airfield at Langham in a chopper, land, and I'll have two cars waiting. Langham's only a couple of miles from here…'

'Understood. On our way…'

It was Tweed who then called the American air base at Lakenheath in Suffolk and had a far more frustrating conversation with an American sergeant who thought it was a hoax call. Tweed at last blew his top, shouting down the phone.

'Put me through to your commander at once or you'll find yourself on the next bloody flight back to the States. I said I was Special Branch – our equivalent of your FBI…'

The high-ranking officer he was transferred to was equally dubious of Tweed's motives. The Englishman adopted different tactics and spoke with cold vehemence. Eventually the officer responded – to an extent.

'I'll first have to check your identity with that phone number you gave me before I can…'

'Check it, for God's sake. But alert your Bomb Squad first.'

There are procedures…'

'Bypass them. Then get moving.' Tweed paused for a few seconds. 'If this is a bomb, if it detonates, if it kills, imagine what the press reports will do to Anglo-American relations. And I wouldn't want to be in your shoes…'

He slammed down the phone, insisted on paying the stunned woman who owned the house, thanked her and ran out to check that the danger zone was sealed off.

It was. He found Paula had alerted the local police who had acted quickly. Improvised barriers had been erected, lengths of rope closing off both ends of the front. Uniformed constables stood well back, guarding the barriers. A woman ran out of a house in the main street.

'You lookin' for Paula? You Mr Tweed?'

'Yes to both questions…'

'She's in the car park – where you left your lovely Mercedes. Is it a bomb?'

'Quite possibly…'