Colin Forbes - The Main chance

Max fetched a dustpan and brush, began scooping up the pieces of the smashed mobile phone. He was stopped in his tracks by Doubenkian's next order. `Your next job is to kill Robert Newman, who is staying at Hengistbury.' `Why Newman? He's an international news reporter. Don't see the point,' Max protested.

Which is why I'm where I am and you are where you are,' Calouste sneered. 'He is now one of Tweed's key team members, but every now and again he writes a big article. It is syndicated all over the world. The moment he finds out I am involved he'll write another sensational article – so then all my plans to control Britain through capturing the main financial centres will be ruined. I want him dead. Preferably due to an apparent accident. But dead however you manage it. He's staying at Hengistbury.' `I'll get down there in the morning.'

`Not thinking of mountaineering, Bob?' Paula teased.

It was the following morning after breakfast. Newman was standing at the end of the corridor beyond the second-floor apartment he had been given. By his side stood Paula while Lavinia, her arms crossed, stood on his other side. `Bob climbed the Eiger in Switzerland to strengthen his muscles,' Paula explained. 'Can you believe it?' `Pike's Peak may not be the Eiger,' Lavinia commented, 'but it has already killed three people who attempted to reach the summit. I gather there's only one so-called safe side for an ascent. You can see from here it is like an enormous smooth cone. Nothing grows on it. The rock is brittle so you can't hammer in pitons to hook a safety rope through. It's not so bad, apparently, for the first one hundred feet. Above there it's a death-trap.' `Sounds like a challenge,' Newman replied with a grin. `That's the attitude which kills men,' Lavinia warned. `With a good pair of binoculars,' Newman persisted, `the summit would be a perfect look-out point to scan The Forest, to see if anything funny is going on.' `What can you do with men like this?' Lavinia remarked with a sigh.

She turned to study Newman. Early forties, she guessed. She liked his fair hair, his strong head with handsome features, his grey eyes which often had a quizzical expression. His shoulders were broad, his body well built. Everything about him suggested strength and determination. She rather liked him. `Can you see it from Gladworth?' Paula enquired, hoping the answer would be a negative. 'Bob and I are going in to town on a mission for Tweed.' `That's where you get the best view,' Lavinia explained. 'You walk down Pegworth Lane, opposite the Pike's Peak Hotel, where you can get the best lunch. The cone rises sheer above you. I've done a bit of climbing in the Italian Alps but you won't get me attempting Pike's Peak.' `Excuse me a minute,' said Paula. 'I want to go and check something with Tweed…'

Left alone with Lavinia, Newman seized the opportunity to chat her up. He found her hypnotically attractive. Her mysterious large blue eyes seemed to swallow him up when he gazed into them. `Don't you get bored sometimes, locked up in this great mansion?' he suggested with a smile. `Sometimes,' her appealing voice replied. `Then why not come up to my place in South Ken? We could paint the town red. Or at least go out to dinner, say at the Savoy?' `I've been there,' she said, still staring at him. `Well, what about the Ivy?' he suggested with a wide smile. `I'd prefer the Savoy,' she countered. `Anywhere in London that catches your fancy. Here's my card. If I'm out it won't be for long. I have an answer-phone,' he pressed. `So I leave a message. "It's me. At the Savoy,"' she teased him. `Well, here's my card…' `My hands are sticky from cleaning up the kitchen.' Her smile was wicked. 'Slip it inside the top pocket of my blouse.'

Without hesitation he tucked it inside the pocket. Lavinia's flirtatious personality underwent the swiftest change as she heard the clack-clack of Paula's ankle boots re-entering the room. `I had got it right,' she told Newman. 'Thought it best to check. Lavinia looks dressed for more housework. We had better get moving, Bob.' She smiled briefly at Lavinia, whose face was now expressionless.

`We'll go in my Merc,' Newman said firmly as they walked down the steps from the terrace. 'Better than flying madly along in that macho-style Porsche.' `I do happen to be a member of the Advanced School of Motoring,' she snapped back. sensed you were taking more than a brotherly interest in the glamorous Lavinia. I thought back in town your girlfriend was Roma.' `She's getting serious, so I'm beating a hasty retreat. I never saw the ambulance last night taking away poor Bella.' `Practical Lavinia had told them to park at the back of the manor. Same thing with the police cars bringing that technical team from London. She said it was amazing how the locals heard bad news and gathered like ghouls outside the gates.'

Newman had started the engine when the rear door was opened. Someone jumped into the back, slammed the door shut. It was Crystal. Too late to consider throwing her out: the gates, presumably operated by Snape, were already opening. `This is great!' Crystal called out as she leaned close to both of them. 'Escape from Belmarsh!' her voice was normal: buoyant and bubbling.

Paula twisted round. Crystal's flaming thick red hair was neatly brushed. She was clad in a riding jacket zipped up to her long neck, jodhpurs tucked into riding boots. Her wide mouth with full scarlet lips was open, exposing her sharp little teeth. She pulled a face at Paula before asking her question. `Looks like we're headed for Gladworth. We are? Goody. I have loads of shopping to do. Why are you going there?' she demanded, sagging back in her seat.

Girl can't keep still a minute, Paula thought. `We are also going in to Gladworth to do some shopping,' Paula replied. `I'm going to sleep till we get there,' Crystal said. Newman closed the window separating the two compartments. The glass was soundproof.

A moment later a courier on a motorcycle appeared from behind them. He slowed alongside Newman's window and Newman halted the Merc. `Sorry to bother you,' the courier began. `I'm looking for a Hengistbury Manor. Can you help?' `You came past it,' Newman told him. 'Turn round, go back about three miles. Keep an eye open for tall wrought-iron gates on your right. You may have to use the speaker-phone.' `Thanks a lot, guy.' `He'll have the will,' Paula whispered as they drove on.

'We'll miss the fireworks. Any idea who inherits?' `Not a clue. Bella was a wily lady.' `Expect there'll be a queue on the terrace when he arrives,' Newman mused. `Lavinia will take charge. See it reaches Tweed first. He has already spoken to her.' `All that money. All that greed,' Newman mused again.

Way of the world.' `And they're all being paid huge salaries, I'm sure,' Newman remarked. `People always want more, more, more.' `I don't,' he protested. 'That book gave me all I need.' `They should put you in a museum. The Man Who Doesn't Want More. It's why you're so contented. I've noticed.' `Did you notice we had hardly any talk from Warner Chance?' `Another contented man. Just a minute. I could be so wrong.'

Why?' Newman asked.

He never got a reply. They suddenly emerged from the dark tunnel hemmed in by massive firs on both sides and their dense branches overhead into the village of Gladworth. The sun was blazing and a few shoppers strolled the pavements.

Driving slowly towards them was a brown Ford. The driver had a deerstalker hat pulled down over his face, and was clad in country clothes which helped him to merge into the atmosphere of a country town. Max pulled into the kerb and watched the Merc, waiting.

Patiently, he observed. Newman had parked in front of a hardware shop. Attached to its window was a notice. Climbing Equipment For Your Swiss Holiday. He saw Newman going into the shop, a man easily recognized from pictures he'd seen in the papers when an article of his in Le Monde had been published while he was in Paris. A few days ago, he'd taken his picture secretly when he'd left the Park Crescent building.