The Janus Man tac-4

by Colin Forbes

  Kuhlmann was short, broad-shouldered, had a large head and a wide mouth, his thick lips clamped on his cigar which was unlit. Dark-haired, his eyebrows were thick and his manner and speech suggested a very tough character. In his forties, Newman estimated.

  `Not to worry,' Tweed said. 'And let's play it my way. Low profile. Incidentally, normally this would be a case for the local police. How was it they brought you in?' Tweed turned to Newman. 'Chief Inspector Kuhlmann is from the Federal Police in Wiesbaden.'

  `Because they have a bright police chief here,' Kuhlmann told them. 'Name on the deceased's passport rang a bell. He put it through the computer at Cologne. Fergusson came up as one of your people. So, I phoned you. Which is why I'm here, why you are here. This case could have international implications…'

  `Then the BND could get involved.' Tweed sounded bothered as he referred to the German counter-intelligence HQ at Pullach just south of Munich. 'Low profile,' he repeated.

  `Let's go see the doctor who attended Fergusson,' Kuhlmann said impatiently. As they walked down a clinically spotless corridor he continued explaining. 'Two uniformed policemen on night patrol saw Fergusson's body floating up against the lock-gates leading from the Binnenalster to the Elbe. Hauled him out with a boat-hook, found he was still alive, rushed him to this hospital. He died an hour later..

  `How did he come to get into the water?' Newman asked.

  `Blow on the side of the skull. Could have slipped, caught his head on the stone wall before he hit the water, so they say. Accidental death would have been the verdict.' Kuhlmann chewed at his cigar, unhappy that he couldn't light up inside the hospital. 'Accidental death,' he repeated. 'Except your people don't have accidents. Here's the doctor's office. Schnell is his name. Speaks good English. Take your choice of language.'

  Dr Schnell, a small, plump-faced man, wearing a white coat, rose from behind his desk and Kuhlmann made brief introductions, then launched straight into his interrogation.

  `How did Ian Fergusson die?'

  'He stopped breathing…'

  `That's not funny. Tweed here was a close friend of his.'

  'I had no intention of treating this tragedy humorously, Mr Tweed. But it's up to the pathologist to answer that question. Fergusson's body has been transferred to the morgue.'

  'I quite understand.' Tweed paused, glancing at a dark haired nurse who stood behind Schnell, an attractive girl in her late twenties. 'Who was present when he was close to death?'

  'Myself and Sister Bruns. That is why she is here.'

  'He was still alive when he was brought in, I gather. Did he say anything? No matter how unimportant it might seem, I need to know everything – if he spoke.'

  'Well, yes he did.' Schnell picked up a pencil and turned it slowly between sensitive fingers. 'It made little sense to either of us, I'm afraid…'

  'He spoke in English or German?'

  Tweed's gaze encompassed both Schnell and Sister Bruns who was watching him closely. He had the strong impression the girl wanted to speak but was inhibited by Schnell's presence.

  'In English – which we both understand. He was in a bad way – the blow on the side of the head plus being half-drowned when the two policemen dragged him out. So he was pretty incoherent. I may not even have heard correctly…'

  'Try and tell me,' Tweed coaxed.

  `He had trouble getting the two words out which he repeated – if, I emphasize, I really did understand. First he said "Berlin". He repeated the name of the city twice. Then he repeated a man's name – "Hans" – and that, I'm afraid, is all he said…'

  `You agree?' Tweed turned to Bruns and stared hard at her as she shook her head. 'There was something else?'

  She took a deep breath. Beneath her uniform her breasts heaved. 'He was trying to say something before "Berlin". I'm quite sure of it…'

  `Just having trouble speaking at all,' Schnell objected.

  `No!' Bruns was vehement, holding Tweed's gaze. 'He said the word three times – and three times he tried to say something before it. Then when he said "Hans" he tried to say something else. After "Hans". Again it happened three times. I could not possibly be mistaken…'

  `Really?' Schnell was ironic.

  `I am quite sure of what I say. My hearing is very acute and I was watching him closely. Believe me, Mr Tweed, I am right.' `I believe you,' said Tweed.

  At the morgue Tweed stared down at the white sheet covering the body of a man lying on the dissecting table. Kuhlmann had introduced Martin Kosel, the pathologist, an ascetic-looking man in his fifties who might have been displaying furniture for sale. Kosel pulled back the sheet and exposed the head and neck.

  `That's Ian Fergusson,' said Tweed. 'He can't have been in the water long…'

  `I couldn't comment before I've completed my examination,' Kosel replied, covering the corpse with the sheet again.

  `But you will,' Kuhlmann growled. He produced a folder, shoved it under the pathologist's nose. 'Federal Police. We need an educated guess. Now. Assuming you are educated…'

  `I resent that…'

  `Noted for the record. The pathologist showed resentment. Now, let's get to it. When we checked his personal effects his passport was hardly damp…'

  `It was inside the breast pocket of his jacket,' Kosel pointed out. 'And he was wearing a raincoat buttoned to the neck.. `A lightweight raincoat. His wallet, tucked inside his other breast pocket wasn't even moist. And the police patrol dragged him out when he was half-submerged under the water. I'd say he was found within five minutes of being dumped into that outlet from the Binnenalster. They came as close as that to catching the killer.'

  `Killer?' Kosel protested. 'I haven't established the cause of death..

  `You think he walked off the edge for an early morning swim? He was found floating by the lock-gates not five minutes' walk from the Jungfernstieg landing-stage on the Binnenalster. That whole area is well-lit by street lamps…'

  `Maybe he was drunk…'

  Tergusson never touched alcohol,' Tweed remarked mildly. 'So cancel that one,' Kuhlmann said.

  The corpse smells strongly of alcohol – whisky I would say.'

  'So, we can make some educated guesses?' Kuhlmann grasped Kosel by the arm and smiled grimly. 'You're doing fine. Keep it up. Now, let's come to the blow on the side of the head.'

  `Encrusted with dried blood. He could have hit his skull on the stone wall when he went in.'

  `Sure!' Kuhlmann waved his cigar like a conductor's baton. `He's crossing the bridge near the lock-gates. He climbs over the rail, then dives head first for the wall. Is that really what you're saying? That it is even physically possible?'

  `It would seem unlikely…'

  Newman intervened. 'He was a first-rate swimmer, too. If he had fallen in he'd have found a way out.'

  `That information is useful,' Kosel responded primly.

  `Your unofficial opinion would be also useful,' Kuhlmann pressed. 'Other people's lives may be at stake. Or do you want this place to be standing room only?'

  `I can't be pressured…'

  `Try me,' Kuhlmann challenged. 'We can take what's lying under that sheet away from you – bring someone in from Wiesbaden.'

  `If he never drank… Kosel paused. He frowned as he looked at Tweed. 'It is beginning to seem someone made it look like an accident. The front of his clothes was soused with alcohol…'

  `That's it,' said Kuhlmann. 'Take this card, keep it to yourself. Send your report to that address when you've done what you have to do.'

  `Wiesbaden? It must be submitted to the Hamburg chief of police…'

  `Hans Lenze, who is a close friend of mine, who knows I'm here, who told me about you. Do it any way you damn well wish – but that report goes to Wiesbaden. Now, let's get out of here and go look for fresh air.'

  Seven

  `Hans!' Newman waved his hand in a gesture of disgust. `There must be a million men with that name in Germany…'

  `If that is what Fergusson really said,' Tweed replie
d and wandered over to the window, then stood there, sipping his glass of cognac. He drank rarely but the sight of Ian Fergusson lying in the morgue had shaken him.

  Vier Jahreszeiten. The Four Seasons Hotel. One of the finest hostelries in all Germany. They were ensconced inside Room 412, Tweed's room, almost the size of a small de-luxe apartment. The view from the window was magnificent. The sun was shining in the late afternoon, reflecting with a glitter off the lake, the Binnenalster, beyond the road running below the window.

  Tweed stared out over a line of trees in full foliage – a room on the fourth floor gave a clear view of the water where white single deck passenger craft cruised towards the landing-stage at the end of the lake. Little more than a few metres from where Fergusson's body had been found in the water at five in the morning.

  `What else could he have meant?' Newman asked and finished off his cognac. It gave off a better aroma than bloody hospitals and all things medical he disliked so much.

  "That could be the key to the mystery,' Tweed replied. `Maybe we shall know more tonight when we visit St Pauli…'

  `The Reeperbahn? Anything can happen there after dark. I'll stick close to you. No argument.'

  `Agreed.' Tweed had a dreamy look as he continued to watch the fussy water-buses plying back and forth. Fergusson came here to see Ziggy Palewska. I think he saw him the night he was killed.'

  `What makes you think so? And who is this Ziggy person?'

  `Because of this.' Tweed produced a small black notebook, one of the personal effects handed to him at the morgue. It had been found inside Fergusson's buttoned back trouser pocket and its pages were crinkled from exposure to water. He prised apart two pages and showed them to Newman. The notation, written in small neat script, was brief.

  Ziggy. Berlin. Hotel Jensen.

  `So, Ziggy told him something about the Hotel Jensen in Berlin. I've never heard of it.'

  `Neither have I. And you asked about Ziggy. His father came from Poland. He married a girl from East Prussia – that is, Ziggy's mother. Both parents are dead. Near the end of the war they fled from Konigsberg – as it was called then – with Ziggy who was only ten years old. They ended up in Schleswig- Holstein, the German province – or Land – which was flooded with refugees. That fact has dominated Ziggy's life – not always for the best.'

  `Which means?'

  `The positive side – from my point of view – is he has always kept in touch with the underground network which links the refugees. He can be an invaluable source of information. But hi is very tricky. Thinks only of money. He'll work for anyone who pays – sometimes for both sides at the same time.'

  `Sounds like a one-way ticket to eternity…'

  `Oh yes, he walks a tightrope. So far with great cunning and skill. The time may come when he falls off…'

  `That could be a long drop,' Newman commented.

  `The final drop, I fear. Tonight I intend to put more pressure on him than I've ever done before. He must know something.' `And the negative side?'

  `He's mixed up in various squalid activities. Porno movies.

  Even drug-trafficking. Swears he only trades in marijuana – but I have my doubts.'

  `A piece of the world's flotsam. Floating on the surface. Like scum? The Reeperbahn sounds just his cup of tea. Kuhlmann said he'd have a gun for me when we meet later…'

  `I don't like guns. I don't know why I agreed when Kuhlmann made the suggestion on the phone to London. On the other hand…'

  `You don't know what you're walking into. Maybe Kuhlmann does. Has he really told us everything?'

  `I doubt it. Likes to hold something back. As bad as me,' Tweed remarked, and Newman knew the cognac was working. It was the first time since he'd returned from Paris that Tweed had cracked anything approaching a joke. 'Let's go for a walk. I always find when I get abroad I have to force myself out of a hotel. It's too easy to act the hermit…'

  Newman had the room next to Tweed's. He made the remark as they went down in the elevator.

  `It's in a hotel like this I'm glad I made all that money out of my bestseller, Kruger: The Computer That Failed. A foreign correspondent can work a whole career and never see money like that. I really got lucky…'

  In the reception hall Tweed paused to examine the tapestries on the walls, the fine long-case clocks adorning the place, the superb rugs laid on the floor. They walked out of the entrance, turned right along the Neuer Jungfernstieg, the tree-lined promenade by the lake.

  `It really is the most beautiful city,' Tweed commented. 'Look back at that colonnade which runs behind the hotel. We cross here.'

  `We're going somewhere definite?'

  `My feet seem to be heading in one direction – towards the Rathaus…'

  In the pure warmth of a sun shining out of clear skies the two men strolled past the end of the lake, past the landing-stage where tourists queued for giant ice-cream cones. A holiday atmosphere, thought Tweed, and Ian Fergusson lying in the morgue.

  They turned down the Alsterarkaden, an arcaded walk alongside a canal-like stretch of water leading from the lake.

  Fashionably-dressed women stood gazing into high quality shops. Tweed crossed half-way over the bridge and stopped in the middle, looking down.

  `It's such a clean city,' he observed.

  `Show me,' the growly voice behind them said, 'show me how any man could dive in there at five in the morning and hit the side of his head on the wall. He'd have to be a bloody acrobat…'

  It was Kuhlmann, of course. Newman had an idea they'd better get used to the Federal policeman surprising them. He stood gazing into the water, holding a brief-case in his right hand.

  `These goddamn pathologists,' Kuhlmann continued. 'If they'd stop playing God for a while, get out in the fresh air, even take a look at the scene of the crime. Then they might understand what this business is all about. And in the fresh air you can smoke a cigar. Tweed, it was murder. I don't have to wait for that dumbo's report. Even you can see that, Newman.'

  `What's it like round here at five in the morning?' the Englishman asked.

  `Quiet as the grave – which is why Fergusson found his grave within feet of where you stand. I checked back with the two patrolmen who hauled him out. Jogged their memories a little. A yellow BMW drove across that bridge over there minutes before they walked down here. And, Newman, I have your gun inside this brief-case. Plus a hip holster. 7.65 mm. Luger. You can handle it?'

  `I've practised with it, yes…'

  `Get close to the border and you may get plenty for real… `And why,' Tweed enquired over his shoulder, 'should we find ourselves near the border, Otto?'

  `You never can tell.' Kuhlmann shrugged. 'You're exactly thirty miles away from a Soviet tank battalion now…'

  `And the Luger,' Newman enquired. 'Do I have a permit?'

  `Take this.' Kuhlmann produced a folded sheet from his jacket pocket. 'You get into a shoot-out, show this to the state police. They won't like it but they'll check with Wiesbaden – confirmation will come back fast.'

  `Which will keep me out of gaol?'

  `No guarantee.' Kuhlmann grinned, a wide grin showing all his teeth. 'Depends who you shoot, the where and the when…'

  `You're such a comfort…'

  'Who knows? I'll probably be pretty close to you. Use your own judgement. Your reputation is good. How else do you protect our friend? Now, if you've finished staring at that stretch of water, let's get back to the Four Seasons. I'll hand over the weapon – with ammo – in your hotel room.'

  They took a cab to the St Pauli district from a stand near the Jungfernstieg landing-stage at ten at night. Tweed had told Newman he didn't want the cab driver to be able to say they had come from the Four Seasons.

  `And things don't warm up in Ziggy's place till getting on for midnight. If my timing is right, he'll be there, but not yet involved in his nefarious enterprises…'

  The taxi cruised along the Reeperbahn, the neon of the nightclubs a weird glow in gathering dusk, then t
urned right into the side streets. Newman caught sight of a street sign which read Seiler-strasse, and then lost all sense of direction.

  They alighted in little more than a wide alley, Tweed paid off the driver, and led the way with a confident tread. How he was able to find the place Newman could never fathom. In the late afternoon, at Tweed's suggestion, Newman had gone shopping, purchasing German clothes – shirt, tie, sports jacket, slacks, and a pair of socks and shoes.

  'A couple of Englishmen might be too much for Ziggy,' Tweed had explained. 'If what I suspect happened, I will have a hard time getting him to talk…'

  At that early hour – for the Reeperbahn – the alley was almost empty. A few sailors from a Spanish ship, resplendent in walking out uniform, strolled aimlessly, looking for trouble without too much certainty as to what brand of trouble they were interested in.

  Followed by Newman, Tweed mounted two worn stone steps, pushed open an ancient wooden door and walked into a blast of Louis Armstrong trumpeting On the Sunny Side of the Street. Sleazy nightspot, Newman assumed, and then found he was wrong. He stared in amazement.

  A powerful smell of oil and resin assailed his nostrils. He appeared to have entered a ship's chandler's office. Tackle of all types for ships was stacked round the walls of the cellar-like room. The place was lit dimly by oil-lamps and coils of rope like snakes in the gloom hung from the cracked ceiling.

  The music, Louis trumpeting endlessly on, came from various hi-fi speakers slung at crooked angles from the walls. Ziggy Palewska sat on a three-legged stool behind a bare wooden table, the surface smeared with a variety of dirt. He looked up and his face froze when he saw Tweed.

  `Ian Fergusson is dead,' Tweed said, drawing up a ramshackle chair to face the Pole across the table. 'He came here, talked with you, left – and was murdered. I'm not pleased, Ziggy, so don't, please, waste my time…'

  `I don't know any Ian Fergusson.' He looked at Newman. 'I have not seen this man before, Mr Tweed.'

  Ziggy Palewska was short in stature. He made up for his lack of height by his width. Both facially and bodily he reminded Newman of a monkey. Impossible to guess his age. His brown hair was thinning over his rounded skull. His skin was worn and gnarled, like that of a veteran seaman. His eyes shifted rapidly from one visitor to another. He spoke German with an atrocious Polish accent.