Codename Omega Read online

  ‘Any sign of the driver?’ Stone asked.

  ‘Not since we got here,’ the other man replied.

  They scrambled down to the car and looked inside. There was no sign of blood; in fact, the interior seemed relatively undamaged. The ground round about it, though soft from the recent rain, showed no footprints.

  ‘Bailed out before it went over the edge, at a guess,’ Nick commented.

  They climbed back to the track. It ran on round the edge of the pit and disappeared into an area of open country.

  ‘Where does that go?’ Stone asked the two local men.

  ‘Nowhere in particular,’ one of them told him. ‘It splits up into various public footpaths. He could have gone four or five ways.’

  ‘Get on your radio and call the control room,’ Stone told him. ‘Tell them to send out some dogs and get mobile patrols to block off all the lanes in this area. He can’t get far on foot.’ He turned to Nick. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  They set off at a steady jog along the track, but the ground here was too well drained to show footprints and before long they found themselves at the point where three different paths diverged. Between them the bracken grew waist-high. Nick looked around.

  ‘He could be hiding up anywhere.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re wasting our time,’ Stone agreed. ‘We may as well wait for the dogs.’

  The dogs, when they arrived, picked up the trail without difficulty, but after a mile or so they came to a low-lying pathway where the wet soil had been churned into mud by the passage of horses. Even to the humans the smell of horse hung rank in the air. The dogs cast up and down for a while, but at length their handler had to admit defeat. The long summer day was almost over and under the trees it was already dusk; and Stone’s stomach was reminding him that he had had very little to eat that day except some turkey sandwiches. They decided to call off the search until morning and rely on patrolling the lanes around the area.

  Stone and Nick spent the night back at the station, taking turns to sleep on a camp-bed in an empty office; but they were both awake when a call came through a little before seven from a village about four miles from where they had found the Peugeot.

  ‘Just had a report from one of the local milkmen,’ the sergeant told them over the phone. ‘Apparently, he went to deliver milk to an isolated bungalow about two miles away. When he got there, he saw that a light in one of the rooms was being switched on and off, making an SOS signal. He managed to gain entry and found the elderly couple who own the place tied up to chairs in the living-room. The old chap had managed to work his chair across the room to an electric point where a lamp was plugged in, and he was switching it on and off with his toe. According to the story he got from the old people, a man answering the description of the bloke we’re looking for turned up on their doorstep late yesterday evening and said his car had broken down and could he use their phone. When they let him in he pulled a gun on them. He forced the lady of the house to cook him a meal, then tied them up and calmly went to sleep in their bedroom. They were too terrified to try anything while he was there, in case he woke up. About 5 a.m. he got up, helped himself to breakfast, took the keys of their car and shoved off.’

  ‘What kind of car?’ Stone asked.

  ‘VW Polo, registration number PYG 665V.’

  ‘And where has this little piggy gone, I wonder,’ muttered Nick.

  *

  A visit to the hospital where the two old people had been taken to recover confirmed beyond doubt that their visitor had been Slattery; but in spite of an ever-widening net of police check points it was two days before the VW was discovered in the station car-park at Cheltenham. Stone and Marriot met Pascoe at a hotel near the town for a conference.

  Once they were seated Pascoe placed his elbows on the arms of his chair and laced his fingers together in his familiar pose.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, what next?’

  Nick shook his head. ‘God knows, sir. He could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ Stone said thoughtfully, ‘he could still be somewhere quite close.’

  Pascoe looked at him. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, doesn’t the station car-park strike you as a bit obvious?’ Stone inquired. ‘Maybe he just wanted us to think he’d got on a train.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ Pascoe nodded, ‘and it happens to fit with another bit of information I have. I spoke to Leonora this morning and she remembers Reilly telling Connor that he wanted him to go to Gloucestershire. She says that from the way he spoke she got the impression that Connor already knew why.’ The two men opposite him simultaneously straightened in their chairs and cast off their look of despondency.

  ‘So, the trail’s not cold yet,’ Nick said.

  ‘Not quite,’ Pascoe agreed. ‘The next question, of course, is what are Reilly and Slattery and Co. after in Gloucestershire?’

  The answer came from both men in unison. ‘GCHQ?’

  ‘It seems an obvious possibility, although it’s hard to see quite what they aim to achieve. They are, after all, terrorists, not spies. However, I have already warned GCHQ to take extra security precautions; and the same warning has gone out to all other military or governmental installations in the area. Our job is still to find Slattery and the others before they get a chance to put their plan, whatever it is, into effect. I’ve already spoken to local police chiefs and they are going to institute an exhaustive search of all likely hiding-places. There will be a door-to-door check on all hotels and boarding-houses in Cheltenham itself and the surrounding area; and enquiries are going to be made through local house agents about properties which have been rented out in the last three months. You two are the only people who can actually identify the men we want, so you will coordinate the search and check out any possible sightings. Understood?’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  As they rose to leave Nick hesitated.

  ‘How is Leonora, sir?’

  Pascoe gave him a characteristic look, which suggested that any personal questions about a fellow operative were in poor taste. Then his face softened momentarily. No one knew better than he the spell which both men were under.

  ‘She’s well. She’s been resting down at her cottage.’

  ‘With someone keeping a discreet eye on her, I hope,’ Stone said.

  ‘Oh, very discreet,’ Pascoe murmured.

  ‘There’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Stone said. ‘The people who knew her in London – where do they think she’s been all this time?’

  Pascoe raised his heavy-lidded eyes. ‘The employees at the agency think that Laura Cavendish is in New York, setting up an American branch. They get postcards every now and then, speaking of the good progress she’s making. And if you had read your gossip columns, you’d know that Leonora Carr left England in April for a long stay in a Swiss clinic. Opinion varies as to whether she’s drying out, slimming down or simply having a face-lift.’

  Stone and Nick exchanged looks.

  ‘What a perfectly ridiculous suggestion!’ Nick commented, as they headed for the door.

  *

  The painstaking house-to-house search continued for four days but although there were one or two false alarms it did not produce even a hint of Slattery’s real whereabouts. On the morning of the fifth day Nick, glancing through the paper over breakfast, exclaimed suddenly,

  ‘’Allo, ’allo, ’allo! What are they up to now?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Stone asked, with his mouth full of toast.

  Nick passed him the paper. It contained a photograph of a very attractive blonde, arrow-slim in an elegant black dress, descending the steps of an air liner. The caption read ‘Lovely Leonora Flies Back to London’.

  ‘Well, I suppose she had to come back sometime,’ Stone commented.

  ‘Yes, but why now, I wonder?’ Nick murmured.

  The answer to his question came over the scrambler from Pascoe about half an hour later.

  ‘I’m
sending Omega down to help you,’ he said. ‘She has a theory that I think might be worth following up. You’re to carry on where you are, Stone, and Marriot is to liaise with Omega. You’ll find her booked into the Regency Hotel under her usual name. Marriot will be booked in too as chauffeur/secretary. She’s expecting you about four.’

  Stone put the phone down and looked at Nick.

  ‘Jammy devil!’ he said softly.

  *

  Nick showered and shaved with extra care, put on a suit – a rarity for him – and presented himself at the Regency Hotel. The desk clerk gave him a look of scarcely concealed envy and informed him that Miss Carr was in the Jane Austen Suite and was expecting him.

  As he knocked on the door his heart was beating as if he had run up the stairs instead of coming up in the lift. He smiled at the voice which answered – low, seductive, beautifully modulated, very different from the harsh tones of Elizabeth Walker. She was sitting in an easy chair by the window, with a magazine on her lap. The cropped hair was concealed by the elegant blond wig which recreated the image of the beautiful star who, with one film, had become the symbol of the ideal, unattainable woman for millions of men. Her make-up was immaculate and the deceptively simple blue dress was cut to flatter her slender body. Only the mischievous grin was the same as ever as she rose and crossed the room to meet him.

  ‘Nick! It’s lovely to see you again!’

  Her arms were round his neck. He held her close.

  ‘Not half as lovely as it is to see you – looking so marvellous, too.’

  He kissed her. She drew her head back and looked at him.

  ‘I’m sorry I had to be such a bitch to you the last few times we met – especially that business in Liverpool. I know what you must have been through.’

  ‘Yes, well…’ he murmured. ‘Let’s not talk about that.’

  He kissed her again, and this time she responded wholeheartedly.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ she said, leading him to a settee.

  ‘You look fantastic!’ he marvelled. ‘What have you been doing this last week?’

  ‘Not a lot!’ she said, with a laugh. ‘Lying in the sun – going for long rides on Dippy. In fact, it was that that gave me the idea.’

  ‘What idea?’ he asked.

  ‘About where to look for Slattery.’ She settled back into the corner of the settee and became practical. He wished he’d somehow asked a different question. ‘Would you like some tea?’ Leo offered, reaching for the phone.

  ‘Let me,’ he said. ‘As chauffeur/secretary that would be part of my duties, wouldn’t it?’

  He called room service and ordered tea.

  ‘Well?’ he asked, sitting back.

  ‘Well,’ she echoed, ‘I started wondering about the horse – the one they brought over from Ireland – and Slattery’s code-name, the Horseman. So I rang Control and got them to check out his background. He’s always been associated with horses. He was an apprentice jockey at a stable in Newmarket for some time, until he got involved with a shady betting syndicate and got the push. After that he worked as a groom or a stable-lad all over the place. Then, about six months ago, he suddenly came into some money, nobody quite knows from where, and went back to Ireland where he set himself up as a dealer, buying horses over there and shipping them to England for resale.’

  An ideal cover for an IRA man wanting to pass backwards and forwards between the two countries,’ Nick commented.

  And not only for him,’ Leo agreed. ‘I got the impression when they were working me over in that horse-box, that they had some way of concealing a person, or a body, in it. I suspect it has been fitted with a secret compartment, somewhere. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that there must be more to it than just a way of getting into the country without raising suspicions. Why did Reilly and Connor take a horse-box trailer with them to Beeston? Presumably, they intended to take not only Slattery but the horse back with them – or a horse.’

  ‘What would they want with a horse?’ Nick asked.

  Leo shrugged. ‘Search me. Cover again, perhaps. Anyway, the point is if they are using Slattery’s horse-dealing business as a cover for something else, they must be living in a place where there is some form of stabling.’

  ‘You’re assuming that they’ve all met up now, I take it,’ Nick said.

  ‘Reilly told Connor to tell Slattery to meet them “at the next rendezvous”. I’m sure that must be some place around here that they’ve set up as a safe house.’

  ‘So we start looking for houses with stables,’ Nick concluded.

  ‘I think I’ve got a better idea,’ Leo told him. ‘This area is thick with stud farms and training stables – not only racing stables, but people training show-jumpers and eventers. A lot of them are what used to be called “landed gentry” who’ve gone into it to preserve the ancestral acres. They’re the sort of people who still come up to London for “the season” and I’ve met them at dinner parties and night-clubs etc. I got quite friendly with some of them and when they found out I was a keen horsewoman one or two of them invited me down for long weekends. There are two couples particularly, living not far from here, who are really at the centre of everything that goes on in the horse world in this part of the country. If Reilly has set up as a dealer or bought a stable they’re bound to have come across him.’

  ‘But you can hardly go and call on them, as Leonora Carr, and say, “Oh, by the way, I’m looking for a suspected IRA terrorist. Have you come across a small, fair Irish horse dealer lately?” Nick objected.

  Leo laughed. ‘No, I thought we’d be a bit more subtle than that. I decided I’d tell them that I’m thinking of backing a new film, but it’s a story about a horse and unless we can find exactly the right animal the whole thing’s off. That ought to give us a good excuse for nosing around any stables.’

  ‘What’s the film?’ Nick asked, amused.

  ‘Would you believe a version of the legend of Perseus and Andromeda? We’re looking for a big, grey horse to play Pegasus. You know – the flying horse.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘I don’t see why. It’s been done before.’

  ‘Anyway, why a grey horse? I thought you’d want a white one.’

  ‘Ignoramus!’ She prodded him with a fingertip. ‘No one who knows about horses ever refers to them as white, even when they are. They’re always known as grey.’ She grinned at him ‘You’d better keep quiet and let me do the talking. Still,’ she added philosophically, ‘I could have been worse off with Stone. He probably thinks a fetlock is some kind of judo hold.’

  After tea Leo phoned her friends and made appointments to call on them the following morning. Then they spent some time going through lists of stud farms and riding-schools which Leo had brought with her, and working out an itinerary in case they drew a blank there. They had dinner in the hotel and afterwards Leo suggested that they should have coffee and brandy sent up to her suite. As they settled on the sofa again Nick murmured, ‘You know, I haven’t checked into my room yet. I don’t know where they’ve put me, even.’ Leo curled her legs up and settled into the crook of his arm.

  ‘Your room’s through there,’ she said, nodding at a connecting door. ‘But I can’t think why you’re bothered about it…’

  *

  They set off early the next morning, Leo now dressed in beautifully cut jeans and a silk shirt, managing to combine glamour with casual elegance. Their first appointment took them to a lovely Georgian manor-house where their host and hostess greeted Leo with cries of delight and Nick with an amused tolerance which was only just the right side of condescension. They were shown round the stables, but the owners had to admit, with regret, that they had nothing suitable for Leo’s purpose. Over coffee Leo remarked,

  ‘By the way, someone told me that there’s an Irish chap somewhere in this area who’s importing some very good horses from the Republic. I thought I might try him. Do you happen to know where he hangs out?�
�

  Their hosts looked puzzled. They knew of no one who fitted that description. Leo and Nick took their leave and headed for their next appointment.

  Here they had to wait while the young man who owned the farm tried out a new horse over some jumps. Leaning on the fence of the paddock Leo watched with a practised eye.

  ‘Useful animal,’ she commented.

  Nick looked at her. ‘Haven’t you ever wanted to get involved with this sort of thing yourself?’

  ‘Show-jumping?’ She shook her head. ‘No, it’s too limited – and not good for the horses in the long run. I wouldn’t mind having a go at eventing, though.’

  ‘Eventing?’

  ‘Three-day event. Dressage on the first day, to prove that the horse is supple and well-balanced and absolutely obedient to the slightest movement of the rider. Second day – cross-country; a long course over very big jumps. Takes a horse with a lot of scope and courage. Then on the third day show-jumping, to prove that the animal isn’t completely knackered after the cross-country.’

  ‘Oh yes, got you,’ Nick assented. ‘I’ve seen it on the box. Have you ever tried it?’

  ‘Once or twice, at a fairly elementary level. Dippy isn’t really good enough for the big time, and even if he was I haven’t got the time to get us both into proper training. It’s exciting, though, specially the cross-country.’

  ‘From what I saw it looks bloody dangerous,’ Nick said.

  She grinned at him. ‘Look. You drive fast cars for fun. Stone jumps out of aeroplanes. What’s the difference?’

  The rider cleared the last fence and cantered over to them.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said as he handed the reins to a girl groom. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Once again Leo explained what they were looking for, and once again there was nothing suitable in the stable. Over sherry Leo introduced the subject of the Irish dealer; and once again they drew a blank.

  The young man suggested they should try some friends of his. Here they were given lunch, but nothing in the way of useful information except a further recommendation to a lady who had a reputation for buying and selling a wide variety of horses.