Free The Persian Price by Evelyn Anthony

saluted. The Colonel sat back, told the driver to go on, and sniffed at his pocket handkerchief. He used a strong cologne and it drove the smell of sticky blood away as he breathed into the handkerchief.
    The one-tenth instinct had not failed him. Nor would the other nine. A man called Habib Ebrahimi had been butchered in a mean little room in a poor quarter. The name was of no significance to the Colonel, but he had instantly recognized the face. It was the waiter who had served him at the oil company’s reception for Minister Khorvan. The same waiter he had seen hovering round the Minister and Logan Field. It was not coincidence. He knew that. It was a piece in a jigsaw puzzle. Half an hour later he was sitting in his office, talking very patiently and gently to Habib Ebrahimi’s wife.
    Peters had hired a Ford Cortina from a car-hire firm at Victoria. He drove to Eaton Square a little after nine that morning. Madeleine looked rested and she was smartly dressed in a dark blue suit, with a coloured scarf over her hair.
    â€˜They ought to come out soon,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s very warm; I wouldn’t take a child walking in this wind.’
    Peters looked at her and for a moment he smiled.
    â€˜You’re not English,’ he said. ‘They believe in fresh air.’
    Time passed; a delivery van from an exclusive grocers came to the door and a box of goods was taken down the area steps to the entrance below.
    Peters saw it was ten past ten on his watch. A traffic warden was patrolling the street, checking the cars. Peters’s hand grabbed Madeleine’s knee. His fingers bit into her leg so hard that it gave no pleasure.
    â€˜Look!’
    The door of Logan Field’s house was open. A man wearing a white jacket backed down the short steps, carrying the top half of a pram. Holding the handle and taking the minimum of weight was a middle-aged woman in a brown coat and hat. The pram was gently set down on the pavement; the manservant went back into the house. The woman went round and straightened the covers. A small girl, wearing a pink beret and coat sat upright, a cover over her legs. She was holding a white teddy bear.
    â€˜That’s her,’ Peters said quietly.
    Madeleine didn’t answer. She saw the woman, the pram and the little girl.
    He went round and got into the driver’s seat. The pram was moving down the street towards them in the direction of Belgrave Place. Peters started the engine and sped past them. At the top of the road he turned and followed them, driving carefully now.
    â€˜We’ll follow,’ he said. ‘I guess they’ll go to the Park. Then you can start the operation.’
    The nanny moved at a brisk pace. It relieved her feelings to walk quickly, steering the pram. She crossed the busy road to the rear of Buckingham Palace and headed for St James’s Park. It was her favourite walk. That morning the crowds of tourists irritated her, gawping at the scarlet uniformed sentries, staring mindlessly at the Palace windows, although the Royal Standard was not flying and any fool knew the Queen was not in residence. The child was very sensitive to her moods; she knew when to ask questions and when it would provoke an angry command to keep quiet. There was a little plastic bag full of crumbs in the bottom of the pram. For twenty years the nanny had been bringing other women’s children to the lake in St James’s Park and showing them how to feed the birds.
    She found a vacant seat and sat down; her back ached and she had tired herself walking so fast.
    â€˜Nanny,’ Lucy Field ventured. ‘Get out?’
    â€˜In a minute,’ she said. ‘Just wait a minute, like a good girl.’
    She couldn’t believe what had happened. She had gone down to see Mrs Field, prepared to make her position plain and expecting unconditional surrender. She really couldn’t have her mothers walking in and waking up the