`You mean we don't tell Kuhlmann?'
`Definitely not. Nor that bastard Peter Toll, who sent you in. Keep it just between the two of us.'
'Why?'
Tweed stirred in his chair, drank some more of the coffee sent up by room service. 'Because if I'm right, if Janus is what I suspect he is, we face the most appalling scandal in London if this ever got out. The press would have a field day. Like the Duke of Wellington, I'm feeling my way forward, tying knots in a rope. If I'm right, how I'm going to solve the problem God only knows. Janus is not only Lysenko's man in London — he may also be a mass murderer.'
`Janus? You've used that name twice...'
`The codeword I cooked up with Monica for the rotten apple sitting in my own barrel. Janus, like the January god. The man who looks both ways — to the East and the West.'
Tweed checked his watch. 3 a.m. He stood up, felt his legs were normal, walked into Newman's bathroom and quietly opened the window, gazing down into the well. Men in plain clothes were moving about. Kriminalpolizei. The body was covered with a tarpaulin. Through the open door beneath his own window he saw more men arriving, two carrying a stretcher. He shivered, closed the window silently.
`They're about to take Franck away,' he said, sitting down again. 'In the middle of the night. No one in the hotel will be any the wiser. Kuhlmann has been very cooperative — covering up the whole business, which is what I want.'
`So they won't know in Leipzig? They'll go on thinking Franck is still after you?'
`Exactly that. Also Pete Nield came over with me. Someone — as I expected — followed me from the airport. Butler followed them to an apartment in Altona. I have the address in my wallet. I'm giving it to Kuhlmann in the morning. He may find a way of neutralizing this character. He could just be the main link in the communications system Lysenko must have between here and East Germany.'
`And I caught sight of Harry Butler in the restaurant when I first arrived. You've brought over the big battalions.'
`I think we may need them. I sense we're close to the climax of this business...'
`Which I still don't understand,' Newman remarked. 'Janus is the traitor in the Park Crescent setup. Balkan is the controller of Markus Wolf's spy network in West Germany..
`Lysenko has deliberately made it complex. I'm convinced their set-up is diabolically simple. I think Janus and Balkan are the same man. A stroke of genius on the part of our Russian friend.'
`But that would mean the same man — Janus in London, Balkan over here — is controlling both our network and theirs. Theoretically, he'd be fighting himself...'
`But only theoretically,' Tweed pointed out. 'He'd be in a unique position to manipulate my agents the way he wanted to. Lysenko had pulled off an unprecedented coup.'
`Had?'
'I'm going to locate Janus and destroy him — and bring down Lysenko with him.'
Tweed's expression was grim as he stood up again and went to the bathroom. He came back after peering out of the window.
`I can go back to my own room, get a bit of shut-eye. They have gone, taken away the body. We'll talk about how we'll go about it in the morning.'
Tweed was finishing his breakfast in the room at the back of the Jensen when Newman reappeared and sat down, looking at Diana who was inserting a cigarette in her holder.
`You should have seen the meal he's had,' she said. 'Five rolls, lashings of butter, tons of marmalade. Nothing much wrong with his stomach today.'
`I was ravenous,' admitted Tweed. 'But I'm a new man now. Time to get cracking. And where have you been?' he asked Newman.
`To hire a car. An Audi. I foresaw something like this. We ride everywhere today. No walking.'
`Is Tweed all right?' Diana asked.
`Last night Bob insisted on getting a doctor in,' Tweed said quickly. 'He diagnosed a mild bout of food poisoning. Silly quack said I shouldn't walk more than two hundred metres for the next two days. The trouble is, Bob has taken him seriously.'
`I should think so, too,' Diana agreed forcefully. 'When you eventually came back to the restaurant last night you looked really out of sorts. And you couldn't eat anything. By the way, you said you had an appointment this morning. I think I'll go shopping, spend some of my ill-gotten gains...'
Tweed looked up sharply at the remark, then cursed himself for his mistake when she replied.
'I was only joking. You looked quite severe...'
Tut it down to lack of sleep. Yes, you go shopping, enjoy yourself. This afternoon we're going to Travemünde.
`Can I come too?' she asked eagerly. 'I left some things I need on the Südwind— and I'm simply dying to see Ann Grayle's face when I tell her we've been to London. I can tell her?'
`Why not?'
Tweed stood up with Newman, glanced across to where Butler was lingering over his coffee. This morning he wore an open-necked blue shirt, cinnamon-coloured slacks and wrapround tinted glasses. Even Tweed found him difficult to recognize; Diana certainly wouldn't spot him when he followed her.
`Where are we going?' Newman asked as he settled himself behind the wheel of the hired Audi.
`Lübeck-Süd police headquarters. Kuhlmann phoned before I came down to breakfast. He has news. But first we'll call in at the Movenpick. You drive past the Hoistentor and I'll guide you. I want a word with Pete Nield, send him over to help Butler keep an eye on Diana.'
`Dr Berlin is back. I told you I had news,' Kuhlmann announced with satisfaction. 'That's only for openers.'
At Lübeck-Süd Kuhlmann had taken them up in the elevator to the locked room where Tweed had used the scrambler phone on his previous visit. Newman and Tweed sat at the table, drinking coffee from the canteen. Kuhlmann remained on his feet, waving his cigar, about to continue, when Tweed spoke.
`Where is Dr Berlin now? What time did he get back?'
`In his mansion on Priwall Island. Gates closed. Guards posted. Dogs patrolling the grounds. He arrived back at precisely 11.30 p.m. last night, travelling inside his black Mercedes. They brought the ferryman back to take him over — he has that kind of clout.'
`Any chance of a second raid on that mansion — if I wanted it?' Tweed asked.
`No chance. I got my backside paddled about that. Berlin has clout in Bonn. He's a friend of Oskar Graf von Krull, the banker. I can't even put close surveillance on that mansion any more. Unless, of course...' He puffed at his cigar. 'I was provided with iron-clad evidence of a crime. Iron-clad.'
`Not to worry. You've managed to keep the Franck episode quiet?'
`That I've managed. He's from the East. All his identity documents checked out — except the driving licence. The computer showed its owner died six months ago in a crash. And Peter Toll of the BND is on his way here — flying in from Münich.
`I'd like to see him. As soon as he arrives,' Tweed said tersely.
The phone rang. Kuhlmann listened, spoke briefly, put the receiver down. He turned to Newman.
`They're ready to take your statement about Franck. Room 10. Ground floor. You can find your own way?'
`I can...'
`The statement should be as we agreed last night. Not one word more.'
He waited until he was alone with Tweed. 'I don't know where Newman has been...' He paused, but Tweed remained silent... but he's a changed man. Something has happened to him.'
`He's grown harder,' Tweed agreed. 'At one time he'd have punched it out with Franck. He didn't hesitate to jerk him out of that window...'
`Knowing he'd end up spread over the floor of that well like a mess of goulash. But Franck did pull a knife — and that's something else I wanted to tell you. In confidence.'
`Of course.'
`Franck murdered those blonde girls. That knife fits the murder weapon. We've got our psycho...'
`Are you sure?' Tweed frowned, startled.
`I'm always sure. The pathologist is checking it now. Is something wrong?'
`A major theory I had just went out of the window — the way Fran
ck did.'
`What's your next move?'
`I think I'll go back to Travemünde — ask a few more questions. Those boat people who commute between the Med and the Baltic fascinate me...'
The phone rang again. Kuhlmann listened, told them to send him up. 'Peter Toll has arrived,' he told Tweed. 'I'll leave you alone with him.'
*
Toll started out bright and breezy, adjusting his glasses as he sat opposite Tweed, who stared back without any particular expression. Then Tweed let rip, castigating the BND chief for sending a British civilian across the border.
`He went voluntarily,' Toll protested. 'And where is my man, Pröhl? I've had a talk with Newman downstairs. He's given me invaluable information — about a changed code. And he was very concerned as to the fate of a girl called Gerda. That we may not know for months. We're having a longer chat later...'
`You are not. Newman went through hell behind the Curtain. He was almost caught several times.'
`I regret that. In future I check with you first. But I didn't know he was your employee,' he pointed out.
`He isn't. And I've phoned London — Pröhl is flying back to Germany.' Tweed stood up. 'I think in time we will cooperate well together. Let us say goodbye on that positive note.'
He was alone for barely a minute when Kuhlmann returned, sat down and crossed his stocky legs.
`I left you alone until he'd gone.'
`And how did you know he had gone?'
`There's a pressure pad under the carpet outside the door. Someone steps on it, a light is activated in another room.'
`Tricky little place you've got here,' Tweed commented. 'You were talking about Franck.'
`He had a beard. Long hair, too. But the main thing is the beard.'
`I don't quite follow you.'
`Explains something which had puzzled me. Why did Franck go underground for as long as about a fortnight? Now I've got it — he had to hide away while he grew that beard.'
`Say that again.'
`I thought I spoke clearly.' Kuhlmann looked miffed, then he nodded his head. 'Of course, you're still suffering from that mescaline — it was mescaline; Dr Rimek phoned me the results of the analysis this morning.'
He took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth. He spoke with slow, deliberate emphasis. 'I said, why did Franck go underground for about a fortnight? He had to hide away while he grew that beard.'
`I've been an idiot — not seeing it earlier..
`Not seeing what?'
`Wait! You said Dr Berlin is back — did your man actually see him clearly inside that Mercedes?'
'No. I checked that. He has those amber-coloured net curtains inside the car. They were drawn. The chauffeur was driving. He saw a vague outline of a figure in the back, a man who wore tinted glasses — the type Berlin wears..
`So,' Tweed pressed, 'he had no clear and visible view of the passenger in the back?'
`No.'
'I thought not.' Tweed's tone expressed deep satisfaction. 'I predict we won't be seeing Dr Berlin for about another ten days yet.'
`You wouldn't care to explain all this? No? I thought not. Incidentally, you'll be on your own from now on. I have to get back to Wiesbaden. I only stayed here to track down the murderer of those blonde girls. Thanks to Newman, case closed.'
Fifty
`Five hundred kilos of heroin,' Tweed said to Newman as they strolled along the Travemünde waterfront. 'That would cause havoc in Britain. Worse, in some ways, than a couple of atom bombs. Could you load that amount aboard a cruiser like the Südwind?'
`Yes, if you stacked it to the gunwales. Bit of an exaggeration, but it could be done.'
`Do you think that cruiser you saw approaching the Wroclaw was the Südwind?'
In the distance, wending her way among the crowds, Diana, wearing a cherry-coloured dress, was heading for the vessel Tweed had named. Behind her ambled Harry Butler, his blue shirt concealed beneath a white lightweight Marks & Spencer sweater. Pete Nield strolled on the opposite side of the road.
Butler and Nield had followed Newman's hired Audi in their own hired Fiat on the drive from Lübeck to Travemünde. Newman shrugged in answer to Tweed's question.
`There are so many of these power cruisers in this part of the world now. It could have come from a marina anywhere along the Baltic — here, Kiel, Flensburg. And don't ask me if I could identify the chap in the balaclava who brought his cruiser alongside the freighter. I couldn't.'
`Lack of evidence.' Tweed grunted. 'And now Kuhlmann is going back to Wiesbaden — although I think he's wrong. I can see Ann Grayle. Let's have a chat with her.'
As usual, Ann Grayle was smart as paint. She wore a cream linen V-necked sweater, a navy blue pleated skirt, court shoes and a rope of pearls. Her right hand clasped a glass as she welcomed them aboard.
`And how are you, Bob? Fully recovered?' She eyed Tweed with a dry smile. `So, the claims investigator has come back too — with the delectable Diana. Sit down somewhere — and would you like a drink? It's a punch. I'd better warn you — it carries one hell of a kick.'
`Not for me,' Tweed said hastily. 'Perhaps a glass of orange juice?'
`I'll risk the punch,' Newman said.
`Ben! One glass of punch, one orange juice.'
The head of Ben Tolliver appeared again above the companionway, curious to see who'd come aboard, then vanished. She talks to him like a servant, Tweed thought. Grayle was at her most upper crust as she arranged herself in a canvas seat, crossing her shapely legs.
`This old tub is getting like Piccadilly Circus. I bet Bob didn't tell you he slept on board here two nights ago.'
`Really?' Tweed pretended innocence. 'I'm sure he found it to his liking.'
`And that's a dirty remark if ever I heard one. Piccadilly Circus, I said. I had the oddest visitor the night Bob came aboard — not thirty minutes before he arrived.'
`Who was that?' Tweed enquired.
`I don't know. Said his name was Andrews, but I didn't believe that. Nearly scared me over the side. All those bandages.'
`Bandages?' Newman interjected.
`Yes, like someone just out of hospital. Maybe he was. His whole face was covered in them — except for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. Said he was a reporter, asked me questions about Dr Berlin. Oh, things are livening up. The august Dr Berlin is back. I suppose he'll be meditating in his locked study.'
`He'll be doing what?' Tweed asked.
`Oh, didn't you know?' She paused as Ben appeared with the drinks on a silver tray. 'Ben, that tray could do with a good clean.'
`Then you'll be having a little job waiting — when you can get round to it.'
She glared as Ben served the drinks and disappeared down the companionway. Tweed had studied Tolliver as he handed round the glasses. The red complexion, the blue-veined nose of the hardened drinker. Whisky, probably. The tropics encouraged its consumption, the way of life he'd enjoyed in the 'good old days'.
`As I was saying,' Grayle continued, 'whenever he returns from one of his mysterious trips to God knows where, Dr Berlin locks himself in his study and meditates. None of your bogus guru nonsense which was popular not so long ago. He simply wants to be alone. Like Garbo, I suppose.'
`How do you know this?' Tweed enquired.
`He sacked one of his servants. A German who drank like the proverbial fish. He told Ben all about it in a bar one night. Shortly after that, he disappeared. Never been seen around since.' She raised her eyebrows, took a sip of her punch. 'A sinister disappearance some people said.'
`And what about this stranger with the bandaged face? Was he really English?'
`I'm sure he was. From his voice. Said he'd been in a car crash. Only superficial injuries, but mauled all over a bit. I'd have told him to leave — I pretended to fetch a handkerchief, left the drawer open, the one where I keep my gun. And Ben was aboard, doing something to the wheel. I have an alarm button concealed under the bunk I was sitting on. So I wasn't too bothered. And he intr
igued me — his questions about Dr Berlin.'
`What sort of questions?'
`Had he returned to Priwall Island? Did I know him? When I said no — except twenty years ago in Kenya — he wanted to know his timetable. How much time he spent here. How long he was away. When he was away. In the end I told him I was a diplomat's wife, not a bloody walking encyclopaedia. He pushed off soon afterwards, limping back across the gangway.'
`He was lame? Could you describe him?'
`This is getting a bit much. No, I couldn't describe him. He said the strong light hurt his eyes, so I turned them down with the dimmer. About Bob's height and build, I think. He wore one of those floppy duffel coats, so it was hard to tell. That was the night the strange power cruiser put in here.'
`Strange?'
`Never seen it before. It moored at the landing-stage beyond the Südwind. It arrived a few minutes before this so-called Andrews appeared like a genie out of a bottle.'
`It's still here?' Newman asked.
`No. It must have moved off during the night. It was gone by morning. The Nocturne.'
Tweed froze, his glass half way to his mouth. He frowned, trying to recollect where he'd heard the name before. She misinterpreted his expression.
`I do know what I'm talking about. I was just going below when I saw it berthing. I used my night-glasses to read the name on the hull. Nocturne. I suppose,' she continued, 'as an insurance man all you know about is statistics. Nocturne, I said. Chopin composed them.'
`I have heard of Chopin...'
`Good for you. Oh, look whom we have here. We are honoured. How are you, Diana, darling? Care for a drink? You've never been known to say no.'
`You're looking marvellous,' Diana said as she came aboard. `This old thing?'
`I meant the outfit, not what's inside it...'
`Really?' Grayle placed her glass carefully on the table, rose slowly to her feet, her expression icy, as Tweed stood up quickly, staring at Diana. Grayle opened her mouth, closed it without saying anything, and studied Diana before speaking.
The Janus Man Page 43