by Colin Forbes
She tilted her head, held up her right cheek. He bent down and kissed it, perched himself on the arm of her chair. It was an unusual place for him to sit but he sensed she was putting herself out to be seductive. Her long legs were crossed.
'Not so long since we had a drink in the Hummer Bar in Zurich. Where is Gaunt?' Tweed asked.
'Oh, the Squire? God knows. He's a pain in the proverbial. Disappears for hours, days. He told me he'd seen you here. I have the strong impression you're a very reliable man – by which I mean a man a woman can rely on.'
'Depends on the woman, the circumstances.'
'And I thought you liked me.'
She twisted round – as she had on the stool in the Hummer Bar – clasped her strong slim hands and rested her forearms on his leg. She gazed up at him pleadingly.
'Let's say I do like you,' Tweed suggested. 'What comes next?'
'I'm frightened. I'm being followed by someone. They appear when I'm least expecting it. As I'm leaving a shop just before closing time when it's dark outside. When I'm getting my keys out to enter the apartment Gaunt has near Bankverein. It takes a lot to scare me but I admit I'm really worried about this shadow man.'
'Describe him.'
She took hold of his right hand. Holding it between both of hers she continued gazing up at him.
'I said describe him,' Tweed repeated in a hard voice.
'Wears a black wide-brimmed hat, tilted down over his face. About five foot six tall. I might be wrong about his height. He also wears a long black overcoat and a woollen scarf.'
Without showing it, Tweed was taken aback. Jennie had just given almost exactly the same description of the man seen leaving Klara's apartment in Rennweg after she had been garrotted. Her words were almost precisely those used by Old Nosy who occupied the ground-floor apartment in the Altstadt building where Klara had been murdered.
'You are talking about Basle?' he checked. 'This man is following you here in Basle?'
'Yes. The Shadow Man.' She shivered. 'It's getting on my nerves. Which is ridiculous considering the jobs I've had.'
'What jobs might those be?' he asked gently.
'I had a training as an accountant. Found it frantically boring. Then I got a big job with a huge firm in New York. They checked up on the financial stability of firms all over the world for a fabulous fee. Also on prominent individuals. I had to bluff my way into offices and private apartments to check on the lifestyle of certain individuals. That's how I saved quite a packet. I left them when one target threatened me with a gun. Felt my luck was running out. I came back to Britain, to London.'
She was interlacing her fingers with Tweed's as she spoke. He thanked Heaven that Paula wasn't there to see him. She'd pull his leg unmercifully.
'And then you met Gaunt?' he suggested.
All the time she told him the story of her life she was gazing at him, her glowing eyes almost hypnotizing him. Watch it, he warned himself.
'No, Gaunt came later,' she went on. 'Back in London I got a job with a private investigation agency. That lasted six months and was sordid work, but it led me to Gaunt.' She paused.
'Go on, I'm still listening.'
'You make a good audience. My last job at the agency was to check up on Walter Amberg.'
Again Tweed was taken aback. Again he maintained a poker-faced expression, but stared back at her to try and penetrate her character. Her voice was soft and soothing, which added to the hypnotic effect. Gaunt was mad not to grab her. For the first time since his wife had left him years ago for a Greek millionaire Tweed wondered about throwing overboard his solitary life. He pulled himself up sharply. This was a job he was working on, the most dangerous he'd ever encountered.
'Who asked the agency to check on Walter?' he enquired.
'Julius Amberg. He came to the London office once with Gaunt – which is how I met Gaunt.'
'When you were checking up on Walter Amberg what aspect were you looking for? Did you come to Switzerland?'
'Yes to the second question. As to what I had to check on, Julius was very precise. Had Walter an expensive apartment in another city? Now what else was there?' She played with the string of pearls looped over her sweater with her free hand. 'I remember. Was he keeping a mistress? If so, was she expensively dressed and had she her own car? Had Walter any other cars which he kept in other cities? Stuff like that. I drew a blank -except for his visits to a girl in Basle. I never reported that because I'd had enough. There was another reason. Gaunt asked me to come and live with him. I love Cornwall, the sea and the cliffs.'
'I'm going to ask you some more questions. I want you to answer them quickly. Your jobs must have made you unusually observant. First question, describe the face of the Shadow Man.'
'Can't. Never saw it.'
'How did he walk, move?'
'Body language. Can't say. He was always motionless.'
'But you saw him several times.'
'I did. Looked up, saw him, paid for what I'd bought. Then he'd gone.'
'Outside the Bankverein apartment, finding your keys?'
'He stood at a corner. When I looked again he was gone.'
'You're saying you never actually saw him move?'
'Never.'
'Ever see him in Zurich?'
'No. Always here in Basle.'
'How many times have you seen him?'
'Five. Six. No more.'
'Within what space of time?'
'Couple of days.'
'Is his surveillance on you getting more frequent?'
'Yes, it is, Tweed. What the hell am I going to do?'
'You're staying at the Bankverein apartment with Gaunt?'
'Yes. He's not always there. As I told you.'
'You're going back there now. I'll get a taxi for you. Stay inside until Gaunt returns. Tell him about the Shadow Man.'
'You have to be joking. He'd say it was a figment of my imagination.'
'I'll get that taxi…'
The concierge, who had just returned on duty, phoned and a taxi arrived in five minutes. Tweed accompanied Jennie outside into the icy cold – it seemed even more Siberian. She kissed him on the cheek before leaping inside.
'We must see each other again,' were her last words.
Tweed remained standing outside on the pavement for a short time. He wanted to be sure no one was following Jennie. He was also beginning to think she was telling the truth. Her story about the Shadow Man bothered him. He was turning to go inside when a white BMW appeared, pulled up in front of the hotel with a jerk and screeching brakes.
Gaunt jumped out. He handed the car keys to a porter who had come out through the revolving doors.
'Park my car for me. I'm staying here. Gaunt is the name.' He clapped Tweed on the shoulder.'What a splendid welcome. You guessed I was coming! Brrr! It's cold out here. Forward march to the bar. The drinks are on me…
Two double Scotches,' he told the barman when they were comfortably seated in an otherwise deserted bar. 'And hurry them up. Need some internal central heating, my good man.'
'No Scotch for me,' Tweed said firmly. 'Mineral water.'
'Can't cope with alcohol, eh? A man of your experience. Shame on you, sir.'
'You ought to take more care of Jennie,' Tweed told him bluntly. 'She's scared out of her wits – someone is following her, someone I don't like the sound of.'
He waited while Gaunt doled out money to the barman and added a meagre tip. Gaunt raised his glass.
'Here's to survival of the fittest. Down the hatch.'
'I said Jennie is being followed by an unknown man. He's tracking her, prior to something pretty unpleasant happening, I fear.'
'Stuff and nonsense! She gets these fancies. She's an attractive-looking filly. Of course men notice her, try to get to know her.'
'Gaunt!' Tweed hammered his glass down on the tabletop. 'Keep quiet and listen. In Zurich a girl called Klara was foully murdered – her head was damned near severed from her neck. Garrotted. Someone saw
the murderer leaving. Their brief description fits the man following Jennie. Don't you care a fig?'
He watched Gaunt closely. His visitor had worn a camel-hair coat which now lay thrown across a chair. He was clad in a check sports jacket, a cravat with a design of horses' heads, corduroy trousers and hand-made leather shoes. His sandy hair was windblown. His grey eyes above a strong nose stared back at Tweed. His mood had suddenly become serious and his firm mouth was tightly closed. Tweed thought he glimpsed the ex-Military Intelligence officer.
'Think I read something about that murder in the paper. Before I left Zurich. Can there really be a link-up between that murder and this man who is supposed to be following Jennie?'
'Who is following Jennie.'
'How do you know all this?' Gaunt asked brusquely. 'Has Jennie phoned you?'
'She's been here. Was telling me about it not five minutes before you turned up. Hadn't you better get back to your apartment near Bankverein? Make sure she's all right? Now, I suggest,' Tweed said emphatically.
'She'll be safe.' Gaunt stared hard at Tweed. 'We leave early tomorrow morning for Colmar in Alsace. We'll be out of Basle by daybreak.'
'Why Colmar?' Tweed asked quietly.
'Because that's where Amberg's gone to. Place called the Chateau Noir. Up in the Vosges. I've just come from a brief visit to Mrs Kahn, his assistant at the Zurcher Kredit here in Basle. Had to put a bit of pressure on her to get that information. Thought maybe you'd like to know. Amberg must know something about his twin brother's last visit to Tresillian Manor. No one kills a guest in my house and gets away with it. I'm going now. Remember what I said. Survival of the fittest.'
Gaunt stood up, shoved his arms into his coat, walked out. Tweed sat thinking before returning to his room. Gaunt didn't strike him as a man who ladled out information without a purpose. And had there been a hint of a threat in his last remark?
32
'Norton here,' the American reported when he was connected with the President. He gave him the phone number of the Hotel Bristol. 'When you want tq contact me get Sara to leave a coded message. I'll come back to you as soon as I can…'
'Like hell you will. I need the number I can reach you at pronto. There's been a development.'
That's my best offer,' Norton snapped.
'OK, if that's the way it has to be,' March agreed in a deceptively amiable tone. 'Now pin your ears back. I've had a fresh message from the man with the growly voice. About the exchange. The big bucks for the film and the tape. Where are you? Basle?'
'No, Colmar, France. On the edge of the Vosges mountains.'
'Ever heard of a dump called Kaysersberg? I'll spell that to you. ..'
'No need. I was driving through it an hour ago.'
'Really? Department of Sinister Coincidence.'
'I don't get that… Mr President.'
'Say it was a joke. There's some crappy hotel in this Kaysersberg. L'Arbre Vert. I'll spell that. Sara says it means the Green Tree…'
'No need to spell it out. I noticed it, passing through.'
'You take a room there. Under the name of Tweed
'You can't mean it.'
'Growly Voice says you do. You wait for a call. You have the big bucks where you can lay your hands on them? The call may come tomorrow morning. It's up to you to get the film, the tape – and Growly Voice. In a box. Laid out nice and neat. You're running out of days. I said you had a deadline. Time is flying. I'm counting on you, Norton…'
'You can rely on me, Mr President…'
He was speaking into the air. March had gone off the line. Norton swore to himself as he left the phone cubicle in Colmar railway station. He'd deliberately given the Bristol number – where he'd never spend a night. He could call for messages. No way was he going to give the number of his small hotel at the edge of a stream in Little Venice.
He climbed in behind the wheel of his parked blue Renault. Switching on the ignition, he turned up the heaters. He didn't like the arrangement March had agreed one little bit. Registering as Tweed, goddamnit! Why? The blackmailer with the film and the tape had to be someone who knew Tweed, knew he was in the area.
Norton would make a list of everyone his unit had reported as having been seen with Tweed. One of those names on that list had to be Growly Voice.
When Bradford March had put down the phone he clasped his hands behind his bull neck and stared at the marble fireplace on the opposite wall without seeing it. He was in a vicious rage.
The blackmailer was playing games with him – with Norton, too. This constant switching of locations from one Swiss city to another – and now he'd moved the whole operation to France. Norton, persuaded to 'resign' from the FBI because the Director hadn't liked his tough, ruthless ways, was being led around by the nose. Growly Voice was running circles round him.
March looked up as Sara entered the Oval Office. He didn't like her expression.
'Very bad news, boss. Just heard about it.'
'Heard about what?'
'Harmer. Who gave you that large sum of money, then said he needed it back to pay off a bank loan. I guess he sure did.'
'What the hell are you talking about? Give, Sara.'
'Harmer committed suicide a few hours ago. Took a load of sleeping pills, then drank a lot of bourbon.'
'So.' March spread his hands, exposing their hairy backs. 'Problem solved.'
'If you say so.'
'Are you hinting he left a note?'
'For his wife, yes, he did.'
March leaned forward. 'C'mon. We'd better find out what he said in that note.'
'I know. I rang his wife to offer my sympathies. I also said you were shocked and sent your deepest sympathies.'
'Great. Don't have to write my own dialogue with you to do it for me. Just a moment. What did the note say?'
'The usual thing. He was so sorry, he loved her dearly, but the pressure of his responsibilities had proved too big a burden. She read it out to me over the phone before she broke down in a flood of tears.'
'Bye-bye Mr Harmer. It happens. All is well.'
'I hope so. I do hope so, Brad. For your sake.'
The Three Wise Men were assembled in Senator Wingfield's study. Again the curtains were closed, concealing the grounds of the estate. The lights were on. The banker and the elder statesman had been called urgently to the Chevy Chase mansion by Wingfield, who looked grim. He stared round the table at his guests.
'I am sorry to summon you here at such short notice, but the situation inside the Oval Office is not improving.'
'I heard about Harmer's suicide,' the banker commented. 'That's a big loss to the party. He not only contributed generously himself – more important still, he was a genius at fund-raising.'
'Let's face it,' said the elder statesman, gazing at the Senator through his horn-rimmed glasses, 'politics is a mobile situation. Harmer must have managed his affairs badly. He's replaceable.'
'I have a personal letter from Harmer,' Wingfield informed them. There was an edge to his cultured accent. 'I know the real reason why Harmer took his life. Read that…'
He tossed a folded sheet of high-quality notepaper on the table. The statesman read it first before handing it on to the banker.
Dear Charles: By the time you read this I'll have gone to a better place. I hope. Bradford March asked me to loan him fifteen million dollars. Don't know what this large sum was for. I did so. When I wanted it back to repay a bank loan on demand he refused to speak to me. Sara Maranoff phoned his message. The money was no longer available. Go to hell was the real message. Maybe I'm going there. Someone has to stop the President. Only The Three Wise Men have the clout.
'What could March have wanted that money for?' queried the banker.
'We'll probably never know,' the statesman told him. 'I hold the same view. It's not enough – for impeachment.'
'That letter could be passed to the Washington Post,' the banker suggested.
'Definitely not,' Wingfield said quietly. 'Ned,
can't you imagine how March would play it? He'd get handwriting experts to prove it was a forgery. Then he'd rave on about a conspiracy – about how the three of us were trying to be the power behind the throne. Give him his due, he's a powerful orator. He'd destroy us. It's not enough for us to make a move.'
'Then what the hell is?' burst out the banker.
'Cool it,' the elder statesman advised. 'Politics is the art of the possible. I worked on that basis when I held the position I did under a previous president.'
'There's the business about him dismissing the Secret Service,' the banker continued, his anger unquenched. 'I understand he has a bunch of his own thugs guarding him now. Unit One, or some such outfit.'
'Which is the paramilitary force I told you about at an earlier meeting,' Senator Wingfield said quietly.
'It's against all tradition,' protested the banker.
'Bradford March is breaking a lot of traditions, Ned,' Wingfield reminded him. 'Which is another popular move in the present mood of the American electorate. We can only wait.'
'For what?' demanded the banker.
'For something far worse, Ned. Pray to God it doesn't surface…'
The tall figure of Jeb Galloway created distorted shadows on the walls of his office as he paced restlessly. Sam, his closest aide and friend, watched him, undid the jacket button constraining his ample stomach.
'Heard from your mystery man in Europe yet, Jeb?' he asked.
'Not a word. I think he's on the run.'
'Which means someone is running after him. Which means someone over there knows he exists. You're playing with fire. This gets back to March and he'll smear you for good. He's an expert. Part of how he got where he is. Trampling over other people's bodies. That's politics. March is the original cobra at the game.'
'There's no way anyone can connect my informant with me. And there's a safe way he can contact me – if he's still alive.'
'I think you should forget him, Jeb,' Sam warned.
'No. I have a duty. To the American people.'
Tweed was proved right when he passed through the Swiss, then the French, frontier controls at Basle station. The counters were deserted, the shutters closed; no one was on duty.