Free Cross of Fire by Colin Forbes

the Iron Man.'
    'Go on about Joseph. What happened next?'
    'After the six hours they hauled him up out of the well. He was kept in the military hospital at GHQ and then discharged from the Army with a big pension.'
    'What sort of state was he in?' Newman asked gently.
    'I wasn't allowed to visit him in hospital. When he came home both thumbs were horribly distended. My doctor examined him and said he would be a cripple for life. Nothing could be done for him. Joseph was a very active man and they'd reduced him to a wreck. That's what he said to me, "I'm a shipwreck for ever."'
    'What did his parents say? Do?'
    'Joseph was an orphan. We had been living together in an apartment. A very unpleasant officer, a Major Lamy, told him just before he left hospital that if he ever told anyone what had happened his pension would stop at once.'
    'What was Joseph's reaction?
    'At first he thought we could get married and live on the pension.'
    'Which is why he kept quiet about the atrocity?'
    'There was more to it than that...'
    She paused as the waiter served the grilled red mullet and pommes natures they had both ordered. Newman disliked the way the fish's head leered at him. He cut it off, hid it under the tail.
    'You were saying?' he coaxed her.
    'Joseph was very self-conscious about his handicap. He thought it made him look like a freak. The idea of being interviewed by reporters - then photographed - horrified him.' She gulped, drank more wine. Something even grim mer was coming Newman sensed. She ate for a few minutes, then put down her knife and fork.
    'He became very depressed. There was so much he was unable to do for himself. I knew something was going to happen when we stopped making love. He said he was no good to me any more. I argued that was nonsense. One evening after dark he said he was going to go out by himself, to have a drink in a bar, to learn to lead a normal life. I was glad.'
    She drank more wine and stared at Newman as he refilled her glass. She was nerving herself to tell him something. He let her take her time.
    'Joseph fooled me with his story about going to a bar. He had secretly bought two heavy iron weights from a hard ware shop. He drove to a bridge over the Garonne, got out, attached the weights with rope to each ankle, lifted himself and the weights somehow over the side of the bridge, and went down into the Garonne. Divers brought up his body later that night. A woman had seen him go over and called the police. So, you see, General Charles de Forge is a murderer.'
    'How long ago?' Newman asked, for something to say.
    Two years. It seems like two weeks. I lived for revenge until I met Henri. And now Henri is gone - murdered by the Government's DST. What is happening?'
    Newman changed the direction of the conversation, ask ing her about herself. She had returned to living at home with her mother in a Bordeaux apartment. At the moment her mother was visiting relatives in Arcachon, a port and seaside town on the Atlantic coast west of Bordeaux.
    She worked as an account executive for an agency. Yes, she was young to hold such a job, but they had found women directors of client firms preferred dealing with their own sex. Especially when they were advertising women's clothes and underwear.
    'You must earn a good salary,' Newman suggested.
    'Far more than most girls my age. Which is perhaps why I have few friends.'
    'Is there somewhere private we could go to chat and be sure we're not overheard?'
    Newman looked round. The restaurant was filling up. At tables close by every chair was taken. He wondered why it was called a bar and voiced the question aloud.
    'They have a large bar downstairs which is very popular. As to somewhere quiet...' She considered, watching Newman while she drank the rest of her coffee. 'I told you my mother has gone to Arcachon - so there is no one at the apartment. We could go there ...'

    At Isabelle's suggestion - when he said he disliked parking in the street - he drove the Citroen