by Colin Forbes
'Maybe desperate would be a better word.' Kuhlmann waved his cigar and grinned for the first time. 'His real name is Stahl. He has entered France from here - Switzerland - under an assumed name with forged papers. He may escape undetected. Stahl's mother was French, his father German. And he comes from Alsace which, as you know, is a real hotch-potch of French and German names.' He turned to Paula. 'Hotch-potch? Is that right?'
'Perfect, Otto.' Paula placed a reassuring hand on his thick wrist. She knew he prided himself on his English, on mastering colloquialisms. 'Just as all your English has been since we started talking.'
'Why are you telling me all this?' Tweed asked briskly. 'Why me?'
'Because I know you have established an excellent network of agents inside France. There you are ahead of us.
I'm hoping if Stahl fails you will succeed. Providing you agree to help.'
'I agree. Paula. Show Otto that photograph you have of yourself and your friend.'
Paula blinked, opened her shoulder bag, took out an envelope from a zipped pocket. Inside the envelope was the only photo she had of Karin Rosewater - taken while she had spent time with Karin on holiday in Freiburg near the Black Forest. She passed over the envelope to Kuhlmann.
He extracted the photograph, held it in the palm of his large hand. The only reaction was his teeth clamping tighter on his cigar. He looked at Tweed, at Paula.
'You know the girl with you in this snap?'
'Do you, Otto?' Tweed asked quietly.
Kuhlmann stubbed out the cigar, began to eat the superbly cooked veal and the speciality Swiss potato which was so crisp and tasty. He drank some of the champagne Tweed had ordered earlier. Paula pursed her lips, glancing at Tweed. Kuhlmann put down his knife and fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin.
'Yes, I know her,' he said eventually. 'What puzzles me is how you know her. It seems an amazing coincidence.'
'I have bad news for you, Otto.'
'Tell me.' Kuhlmann put down the glass he had been about to drink from.
'She is dead...'
Kuhlmann listened with an impassive expression as Tweed related tersely what had happened in Suffolk. He also referred to the mysterious 'authority' Karin had mentioned to Paula.
'She was talking about me.' Kuhlmann said grimly. 'I remember now, Paula, you were at that party at the Nato base in southern Germany when Karin was there. That was why I was also there. To protect her cover she never came near Wiesbaden. We'd meet for a few minutes at a party -prearranged. Chat like acquaintances for just a short time. She reported to me, I gave her fresh instructions.'
'You weren't going to mention her,' Tweed commented. 'Only Stahl.'
'Deliberately. I was fond of her - and she was a brave lady. Want to hear how I recruited her?'
'I'd like very much to hear that.' Paula broke in.
'She was a brilliant linguist. Her husband, Victor Rosewater, is with British Military Intelligence. He has had occasion to visit Wiesbaden in connection with his work. I was invited to their home. One day when I arrived Karin was on her own. She told me she'd worked for the BND at Pullach near Munich ...' Tweed glanced at Paula. The BND was German counter-espionage. 'She pressed me to let her help with my work,' Kuhlmann continued. 'Karin could be very persuasive. And I was needing an operative to back up Stahl. She seemed the perfect choice. I regret I hired her to check on the situation in France - working with Stahl.'
'Did her husband know what she was doing?' Tweed asked.
'Victor Rosewater? I warned her not to tell him. And there the arrangement fitted so well. Rosewater spends a lot of time away from home - tracking the IRA units operating in Germany, I gathered.'
'Anyone else except yourself and Stahl know what she was doing?' Tweed persisted.
'No one. Security seemed watertight.'
'Why didn't the Chancellor involve the BND in this?'
Kuhlmann waved a dismissive hand. 'They are up to their necks checking dubious characters infiltrating from Eastern Europe since unification. Also, for some reason the Chancellor seems to trust me. God knows why.'
'Because you're so reliable, like a bulldog which never gives up,' Paula said and gave him her warmest smile. 'Now do get on with your meal.'
'We'll do what we can to unravel this mystery.' Tweed assured. 'If you want to let me know how we can contact Stahl it would be helpful. It's up to you.'
Kuhlmann took out a notepad, tore off a sheet, rested it on the cardboard back so there would be no impression, wrote rapidly, gave the folded sheet to Tweed.
'Thank you for your offer of help. We need it. That gives you Stahl's present address, the name he's operating under, his phone number. The codeword which will identify you as safe is Gamelin. Now maybe we can relax - even if only for tonight. I return to Wiesbaden tomorrow. One more thing - Stahl reports Siegfried have hired the most ruthless assassin on the continent. Someone called Kalmar.'
'That's a new name.'
'To me, too. And Stahl said contact between Siegfried and Kalmar is maintained here in Geneva. Now, I'm going to finish this excellent meal...'
At Kuhlmann's suggestion they left separately as they had arrived. Tweed asked the waiter to phone for a taxi. Paula kissed Kuhlmann on the cheek, told him to take care of himself. Just before they left, Tweed leaned close to the German, whispered.
'Warn Stahl that however he communicates with you not to use a radio transmitter. Detector vans could locate him.'
'You have a reason for that advice?'
'I have ...'
Kuhlmann left the restaurant ten minutes after Tweed and Paula were driven away in a taxi. Tweed had insisted on paying the bill. The German did not call for a cab. He walked in the drizzle through the silence and the dark of the Old Town. He chose to descend by a route opposite to the way the cab had brought him to the foot of the tunnel below the Cathedral. Walking down the deserted Grand Rue, his mind was full of the death of Karin Rosewater. But as he pursued a devious route through side alleys he kept a lookout for the motorcyclist who had followed him earlier.
He had seen no sign of the tracker when eventually he crossed the Rhone footbridge to the Hotel des Bergues. Tweed had really said very little, but the German felt now resolving the crisis depended largely on the Englishman.
Chapter Six
Seen on a street plan Bordeaux is a city going nowhere. Driving round the city Newman had the same impression. Moving along a main street leading from the Gare St Jean towards his hotel, the Pullman, small narrow streets led off on both sides, radiating like the sails of a windmill.
The ancient city comprised old blocks, five or six storeys high, built of grey stone. The walls were stained with the grime of ages, hadn't been cleaned for years. Shutters hung at drunken angles. Nowhere was there any sign of paint being used for a decade. Some were uninhabited ruins, stark walls which looked like the relics of bombing, but he suspected they were simply relics of neglect.
It was like driving through a monstrous prison as he jammed on the brakes once again. Traffic everywhere, filling the streets, parked nose to tail on the sidewalks. Most bore signs of collisions - dented chassis, battered doors. The leaden sky added to the atmosphere of dreariness.
Newman had a room at the Pullman, one of the better hotels. But he had also taken a room at a small dump of a lodging house where he'd been able to register in a false name. All the old biddy who ran the place wanted was money in advance. He had bought a shabby suitcase from a sleazy second-hand shop, had filled it with a selection of clothes taken from his suitcase at the Pullman, carried to his car in one of the ubiquitous plastic bags.
It was a precaution - taking a room at the lodging house.
The murder of Francis Carey had made him take certain precautions. Now he was driving to a rendezvous with Isabelle Thomas, Carey's girlfriend. He had phoned her at the address provided by Tweed, they had agreed to meet at a bar named by Isabelle, the Bar Rococo, at six in the evening. She had told him how she would be dressed. He turned down
the street she had named, saw a car leaving a 'slot' on the sidewalk, drove in fast. A woman with a fur round her neck behind the wheel of a Renault leaned out of her window.
'That was my slot, you bastard. Get out of the way.'
Newman gave her a broad smile. 'First come, first served,' he rejoined.
He locked his car and waited to make sure she wasn't going to follow up her insult with physical damage to his vehicle. She made an obscene gesture, drove away. Bordeaux drivers' manners...
The Bar Rococo was of a higher class than he'd expected. Large bulbous pots stuffed with green ferns obscured a clear view inside. The tables had clean red check cloths. The waiters' green aprons were also spotless. He wandered among the ferns and stopped. She fitted her description, but again he was surprised - she was so attractive and well dressed. Could this be her?
'Isabelle Thomas?' he enquired politely in French.
'Yes.' Her tone was guarded.
'Good, I'm Alain Dreyfus,' he went on, giving the code name Paula had arranged with her from London. 'May I sit down?'
'Certainly, Mr Robert Newman. And we can speak in English,' she continued in that language.
It was his third surprise. She smiled as she saw his expression when he was sitting opposite her.
'Actually, I recognize you from pictures I've seen in the foreign press. You are Robert Newman, aren't you? And your profession?'
She was covering herself again, wondering if she had made a bad mistake. He smiled reassuringly. Inwardly he felt annoyed she had penetrated his real identity so quickly.
'I am Robert Newman, foreign correspondent. Is it safe to talk here?'
'That is why I chose this rendezvous. It early. We are almost the only people here. And, as you see, the heavy lace curtains conceal us from the street.'
She was more than attractive, she was beautiful, Newman was thinking. She had a mane of titian hair, a slim, tall neck, good bone structure, greenish eyes, and a dear complexion. Very little make-up: just a touch of red lipstick on her firm mouth. She struck him as a woman of character. In her late twenties. And what she said about the place was true - there was no one else anywhere near them.
'An aperitif?' he suggested as a waiter hovered.
'Why don't we go straight on to a bottle of wine? You choose. Doesn't matter what we decide to eat as far as I'm concerned.'
'We'll have a 1979 red Bordeaux,' he told the waiter in French. 'Leave the menu. We'll order later.'
'Pushing the boat out a bit, aren't we?' she teased him.
'I've had a long day.'
'Do you mind if I start talking about what happened?'
'I wish you would. But first, let me ask you something. Was Henri your first serious boyfriend?'
'No.' Her expression changed, became intense. 'I was engaged to be married to a soldier with the Third Army Corps. A tank commander. It ended tragically.'
'You want to tell me how?'
'Someone should know about General Charles de Forge.' Her tone dripped contempt. 'Joseph Roux was his name, would have become mine - Roux. I have never told this to anyone. As a foreign correspondent you might like to add to your experience. It's a pretty horrific story. I don't want to spoil your meal.'
'I've developed a pretty strong stomach. Go on.'
'Joseph was very independent-minded. De Forge has what he calls the punishment well...'
'I've heard some details about it.'
'You have? Your contacts must be pretty good. Joseph was among a group of troops addressed by the General one day. De Forge likes the sound of his own voice. He was damning the Jews, said they ought to be eliminated from French life. After he'd finished speaking he asked if there were any questions. You're not supposed to react to that. Joseph did.'
'What did he say?'
'That he thought he was in the Army. That politics was nothing to do with the military. And in any case he had two good friends who were Jews. He said that anti-Semitism was a curse, that it was anti-French. De Forge was livid. He gave the order at once.'
She paused, drank some wine, her hand trembled slightly. She tightened her grip on the glass, was careful to stand it back on the table without trembling.
'What order?' Newman asked quietly. 'If you want to go on with this.'
'Now I've started,' she said firmly. 'They took him to the punishment well immediately. Joseph was hung in the well by his thumbs.' She leaned forward, her gaze intense. 'Can you imagine hanging for six hours by your thumbs? And Joseph was a big man.'
'Quite horrible - and barbaric.'
'That's how de Forge maintains what he likes to call iron discipline. Some of his officers call him 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 grimmer 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 hardware 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, asking 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 perh
aps 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 round the end of the grey apartment block inside an alley leading to a courtyard. He parked the car out of sight of the street.
She was waiting for him, one of the huge tall double doors unlocked, closed it behind him and led the way across an interior yard. The apartment was on the first floor at the top of a flight of bleak stone steps. He realized it overlooked the street when she ushered him inside. Lace curtains masked the tall windows.
'Don't switch on any lights in here,' he warned.
'OK. But why?'
'The place will look empty from the street. We need somewhere not overlooking it.'