The Janus Man tac-4

by Colin Forbes

  Newman glanced at Gerda as Falken leapt up. She lay propped on one elbow, the Uzi in her right hand, the inner lining of the windcheater showing where she had grabbed the weapon.

  Falken bent down, checked Schneider's neck pulse. 'He's still alive. Amazing. Give me the gun…'

  He took it from Gerda, walked back to Schneider, placed the muzzle against the side of the German's head after adjusting the Uzi's mechanism. He fired one shot. The head jerked, flopped sideways. Falken checked the pulse again. 'Now he's dead.'

  `The blood!' Gerda scrambled to her feet. 'There must be no blood on the floor..

  Opening a cupboard, she hauled out two grey blankets. With Falken's aid she laid out the blankets on the floor, lifted the body on to them, wrapped it up like a parcel, tucking it in at head and foot.

  Falken picked up the key from the floor, opened the front door, peered into the night, then disappeared. He returned almost immediately carrying a loop of rope. 'The mooring rope for barges,' he explained to Newman. 'Go to the kitchen and check the window…'

  Newman ran into the next room, which was still in darkness, felt his way round the few pieces of furniture, stared through the window. His night vision came to him quickly, helped by the headlights of two cars driving along the highway. No sign of any movement in the fields.

  `Nothing I can see,' he reported, going back into the livingroom. 'I'd better check outside…'

  He must have come in from the fields at the back – he found the Chaika,' Gerda said, bent down over the grisly bundle.

  `You can use a Walther?' Falken asked. 'Good. Take this.'

  Newman released the safety catch, opened the front door, stepped outside quickly and closed the door behind him. The cold of the night hit him after the warmth of the cottage. Holding the Walther in both hands, extended in front of him, he explored round the cottage, down the tow-path to the bank of the canal.

  Then he took the more difficult route to where the canvas covered the tractor and the Chaika. At frequent intervals he paused and listened. The night was heavy with silence, the nerve-wracking silence you only experience after dark in the country. He resumed his walking, heading for the most likely hiding-place for the rest of a patrol. Behind the covered vehicles.

  He was almost convinced Schneider had spoken the truth when he said he'd come alone. But it had to be checked. Assume the worst. An excellent maxim. He found no one behind the canvas hump. But, kneeling down, feeling the ground carefully, he detected flattened rye where Schneider must have waited and watched. For God knew how long. But he'd had the patience of a farmer.

  Newman returned to the cottage.

  The corpse lay on the flagstone floor. Wrapped in two grey Army blankets. Further wrapped in a sheet of canvas. And round two parts – the chest and the knees – the whole parcel was coiled with two heavy, rusting chains. Falken, who had opened the door, went back to the table where Gerda sat, shivering, small hands grasping a mug of steaming black coffee.

  `No one out there,' Newman reported. 'He was on his own.'

  `I knew that,' Gerda said in a cold voice, 'he boasted about it. But you were right to check. There is still coffee in the pot.'

  Newman sagged in a chair opposite Falken. He suddenly felt unutterably weary, drained of energy. He drank some of the coffee Falken had poured, then looked again at the body.

  `Where did you get the chains?'

  `Snow chains. For Norbert's car in winter. We think the body must be weighted. To make it sink.'

  `In the canal?'

  `Out of the question.' Falken's tone was abrupt. 'It might be found. Then old Norbert would be in terrible trouble. We cannot risk that.'

  `Bury it,' Newman suggested. 'During the night.' `Impossible. The ground is too hard. We have to think of something else.'

  `Such as?'

  `I have no idea.' Falken sounded irritable. 'For God's sake let me think.'

  `That was the first man I have ever killed,' Gerda suddenly remarked in a choked voice.

  Newman laid a hand on hers. 'Try not to dwell on it. Remember, we'd probably all have ended up dead if you hadn't acted. I do understand how you must feel…'

  `Leave her alone,' Falken broke in roughly. 'He was an enemy.'

  `No need to get so tough about it,' Newman snapped back.

  Gerda grasped his hand, squeezed it. 'You are a nice man, but he is right. Sympathy can undermine resolution. We have to be hard to survive…'

  `And you,' Falken told Newman, 'may have to be hard before you cross the border again. I have decided we must leave this place early. Tonight, in fact. The people who sent Schneider may come looking for him. Your schedule is speeded up…'

  `And what about the body?' Newman demanded.

  `That is a problem. I am still trying to solve it…'

  It was a novel problem for Newman. He'd never realized before just how difficult it was to dispose of a corpse so it would not be discovered.

  Twenty-Eight

  `Yes, what can I do for you, Mr Ted Smith?' asked Kuhlmann. `I have got the name correct?' he went on in English.

  He was sitting in the interrogation room on the tenth floor of the Lubeck-Sud police headquarters. Outside it was dusk, would soon be dark. Reception had called him. An Englishman, a tourist, had called at the building, wanted to see someone about the Kurt Franck poster he'd seen outside the local police station at Travemunde.

  Ted Smith, in his late twenties, was dressed in hiking shorts, an open-necked shirt, trainer shoes, and when he'd entered the room he'd dumped an incredibly heavy-looking backpack on the floor at Kuhlmann's suggestion. If that was enjoyment, they'd better keep it.

  Kuhlmann sensed the young man was nervous. He tried to put him at his ease by fiddling with his lighter, pretending he was having trouble lighting up the cigar.

  `Yes, you have,' Smith replied. 'This may all be about nothing…'

  `Tell me about it. We welcome information of any kind. On holiday'?'

  `Yes. Hitch-hiking. Then partly by train with a rail-pass. I came up from Hamburg three days ago. Decided to splash out a bit here. Took a room at the Movenpick.'

  `Very nice, too.' The lighter flared. 'There, got it going.' Kuhlmann puffed at the cigar. 'Do you smoke?'

  `The occasional cigarette. Four a day. Trying to give it up. Er, mind if I smoke too?'

  `Go ahead.' Kuhlmann lit Smith's cigarette. 'Now what is this about Kurt Franck?'

  `We… that is, I, saw him. About three weeks ago it would be. I went on by train to Copenhagen when I first arrived. Came back to Hamburg, then back again to here. I like Lubeck.'

  `You saw Kurt Franck three weeks ago. Where exactly?' `At the edge of a river on the way to Travemunde. He pushed a motor-bike into the river. We… I… thought that was a funny thing to do.'

  `You keep saying "we". Is it a girl? No law against having a girl friend in Germany, you know.'

  `Well, yes, it is. An American girl. Suzanne Templeton.' `Where is she now?'

  `Well, actually, she's waiting in the Volkswagen I hired – downstairs. Outside the police station. You see, we saw this poster in Travemunde and wondered whether we ought to do something about it. Then we were driving past here and we saw the Polizei sign. Sue told me to drive in.'

  `Sensible girl. Let's have her up here. You don't mind? I find two pairs of eyes are better than one. She was with you when you saw Franck?'

  `Actually, she was.' Smith hesitated. Fresh-faced, clearly his American girl friend was the one who had urged him to report what they had seen. Kuhlmann phoned reception, asked for the girl to be brought up, and sat puffing his cigar until a policewoman opened the door and showed a tall slim girl with a good figure into the room. Kuhlmann's eyes narrowed. She was blonde-haired.

  Half an hour later Kuhlmann was driving his car along the road towards Travemunde which ran not so far from the river Trave. Sue Templeton, who sat beside him, had proved a great deal franker and more confident than Ted Smith. Yes, they had been making love in the deep grass
es close to the river when they'd heard someone coming on their side of the river.

  `He'd gotten this motor-cycle,' she'd explained in the interrogation room. crouched on my knees, hoping he wouldn't see us as I peered over the grasses. A Suzuki, Ted said. He stopped the engine and pushed it the last few yards. He had a suitcase strapped on the back. He took that off and then pushed the machine into the river. We got dressed quickly…'

  `We thought it was funny, you see,' Ted intervened. He looked uncomfortable and Kuhlmann guessed he wanted to skip over what they had been up to. 'Then he walked along the path at the edge of the river…'

  Sue interrupted him. 'He was carrying the case. That might be important – because of what happened later.'

  `What did happen?' Kuhlmann enquired.

  `He walked about a mile along the footpath. We followed him at a distance – the path winds which made it easier and the tall grasses hid us from him until he reached this small power cruiser and went on board.'

  `You didn't happen to notice the name of the cruiser?' `The Moorburg,' she said promptly.

  `Please describe him again.'

  `Six foot tall. At least. Blond-haired. Early thirties and well-built. A tough-looking guy…'

  That was when Kuhlmann asked them if they would accompany him in the car, try to find the place where the motorcycle had been pushed into the water. Ted Smith had been reluctant, Sue had insisted it was their civic duty, as she had phrased it.

  Kuhlmann drove slowly, giving her the best chance of locating the track they had wandered down to find some privacy. She was sure she could find it – even in the dark. Behind Kuhlmann a second police car followed, carrying the police team he had organized before they set out.

  The American girl leaned forward in her seat, her breasts pushed against the safety belt as she stared along the headlight beams. An attractive young woman, she had the confidence and assured manner Kuhlmann had noticed before in many girls from the States.

  `Slow down! Yes, it was here. Down this track!'

  Kuhlmann swung the wheel, crawled along the track. In the headlights he could see the single wheel gulley impressed into the cinders by the motor-cycle. He pulled up a short distance from the river, took a torch from the glove compartment and they got out. He bent down as the second car halted behind them, examining the wheel mark. Too wide for a bicycle. Just right for a motor-bike. They walked on to the edge of the river, followed by two men in frogman's suits.

  Now, Sue,' Kuhlmann asked, 'from the marks it looks like this was where he pushed it in. Would you agree?'

  `This is the place…'

  They went back to the car and waited. Within five minutes the frogmen emerged, dripping water, hauling out a Suzuki motor-cycle in the beams of the headlights. Kuhlmann used the radio to call up reinforcements, left one man with the machine and then followed the other car as it backed to the highway.

  `If there was a landing-stage where the Moorburg was moored,' he remarked as he drove on towards Travemunde, `there will be a track leading to it. We just have to keep on trying. Any way you could identify that landing-stage where he threw the suitcase into the river before taking off towards Travemunde?'

  `Yes,' she said promptly again, 'it was in two sections – the one nearest the cruiser sagged, the end was under the water…'

  God give me more witnesses like this one he thought as he drove on. Sue identified the first track they checked and the landing-stage at the end. Kuhlmann ordered the frogman who had travelled in the other car to dive in again. This time it took about ten minutes. The frogman emerged, holding a suitcase in both hands. Kuhlmann forced open the soggy object and stared at a length of chain.

  `End of the line,' he said and stood up, gesturing for one of his men to collect the sodden case.

  'No, it isn't,' Sue said. 'We saw him later…'

  `It wasn't him,' Ted objected.

  `I tell you it was! You weren't looking when he came out of the shop.'

  `Which shop?' asked Kuhlmann.

  `After the cruiser moved off we thought we'd lost him. We walked back to the highway and hitched a ride into Travemunde. We were walking along the front, looking for somewhere to eat, when I saw him. I know it was him,' she repeated. `I'm studying law – that teaches you to be observant.'

  `So far your powers of observation have amazed me. Go on.'

  `He came out of a shop and he was putting on a straw hat. I saw his blond hair just before he put it on. One of those wide-brimmed hats. Ted went off to find a toilet so I followed the blond man. He went into another shop nearby and came out with a pipe in his mouth, one of those little curved things. It was the same man, I am certain. And he was dressed differently.'

  `Let's get back inside the car. You are getting goose pimples on your arms…'

  The night sky above them was clear, the Prussian blue studded with glittering stars. The balmy warmth of the evening was evaporating and a slight chill descended on the fields. Kuhlmann waited until they were settled inside the vehicle; Sue again sat beside him.

  `Dressed differently, you said?'

  `When we first saw him pushing the machine into the over he had on a dark blue windcheater, the same colour slacks tucked inside leather boots. Coming out of the shop in Travemunde he wore a light green T-shirt, khaki slacks, white sneakers and a large backpack – one with those chrome rods. He'd become a hiker.'

  Kuhlmann sat chewing his unlit cigar. Sue Templeton's description of Franck corresponded exactly with that given to him by Ann Grayle, who had called at Travemunde police station and asked to see him.

  Aboard the sloop she had told him how she had seen Franck when she was going for a walk, how Franck had almost bumped into her. That had been almost three weeks ago. At the time Kuhlmann had wondered whether Grayle had been mistaken. He looked up at Ted Smith in the rear view mirror.

  Will you be staying at the Movenpick a little longer?' `Until the money gives out. Sue likes Lubeck..

  `Don't worry about money,' Sue interjected, 'I've got loads of travellers' cheques. And we're having such a good time. I like a good time.'

  The remark jolted Kuhlmann. Shades of Diana Chadwick; the sort of remark she'd have made. Where was she now, he wondered.

  `Money's no problem,' Sue went on. 'My father's a state senator.'

  Kuhlmann received a second jolt. He looked at her, studying her sheen of blonde hair. In a way he wished they were leaving Germany at once. He looked at Ted again.

  `I ought to warn you – in case you couldn't read the German on that poster…'

  `We couldn't,' Sue told him.

  `Then I must warn you, Mr Smith, that man you saw could be a mass murderer – his speciality is blondes. Three have been horribly killed already. Stick close to Sue. All the time.'

  `I'll do that, and I'll buy a weapon.' Smith looked older and more serious than he had before.

  `A weapon?' Kuhlmann queried.

  `A heavy walking stick. I've seen them in the shops..

  `A good idea. And I'm taking you both to dinner at the Maritim Hotel in Travemunde. But first, I must make a report.'

  He picked up the mike, called Lubeck-Sud, began detailing the new description of Kurt Franck. The only two points Ann Grayle had not mentioned were the straw hat and the pipe. He must have gone to the shops soon after she'd spotted him.

  `Lubeck-Sud? Kuhlmann here. Kurt Franck. New description… persona of hitch-hiker…'

  In the loft of the barn near Burg on Fehmarn Island he was now ready to move. For the third time Munzel checked his appearance in the hand mirror. Flourishing blond moustache and beard, more blond hair flowing down the back of his neck. Unrecognizable.

  Dressed in a light green T-shirt, khaki slacks and a pair of white trainer shoes, he put down the mirror, hiding it with the spirit kettle under a pile of straw. He hoisted the backpack over his shoulders. It weighed like a hundred kilos, but he'd soon get used to it.

  He looked round the loft, checking for traces of his using it as a ref
uge. There were none. He had cleared up carefully. Reaching down, he picked up the straw hat and rammed it over his head, then took the curved pipe from his pocket – already filled with tobacco – and clenched it between his teeth.

  He descended the ladder slowly, arrived at the bottom and ran heavily to the open barn door. He peered out. No sign of life. He went back to the ladder – the only evidence that the loft existed – and hauled it down until he held it parallel to the straw-strewn floor.

  His arm muscles felt the strain as he carried it outside and round the back of the barn. Very slowly he lowered it inside the grass-choked ditch which ran alongside the rear of the barn. He spent several minutes straightening the grasses until it disappeared from view, then he returned to the front and started along the track leading to the country road.

  An hour later, having caught the bus from Burg, he sat on the platform at Puttgarden station. While he waited for the train to Lubeck he struck matches, lighting and relighting his pipe.

  Franck was in a confident mood. With his changed appearance he'd be safe in Lubeck. He'd stay at the hotel opposite the Hauptbahnhof – the International as far as he could remember. From there he would call Martin Vollmer in Altona for news of Tweed's movements.

  Confident because the police hue and cry would be a thing of the past. Or at the worst they'd have him as a low priority. During his time on Fehmarn Island other crimes would have been committed. The police were like the press. Kurt Franck was yesterday's news.

  Twenty-Nine

  Newman drove the Chaika up the cinder track, the headlights swung in a wide arc as he turned east on to the highway. Behind them the lock-keeper's cottage was in darkness. Beside him sat Falken. Gerda had the dirty end of the stick – cramped in the back. Beside her was propped up the canvas-covered bundle which contained the corpse of Karl Schneider.