Terminal (33 page)

`It was not a proper diagnosis, of course,' Nancy replied promptly. 'It was carried out under the least ideal conditions. I was surrounded with not only policemen but also armed soldiers. It was dark. I used a torch borrowed from one of the police. You understand?'

`Perfectly...'

`One factor I had to take into consideration was exposure. It was a bitterly cold night. The temperature was sub-zero. Mrs Laird was wearing only a pair of pyjamas and a thick dressing-gown. She may have run quite some distance before she reached the road.'

`Death due to exposure?' Kleist asked. 'That was what you concluded?'

`No!' Nancy began talking more rapidly. 'I had the strong impression she died from some form of asphyxiation. And the complexion of the face showed distinct traces of cyanosis. Her mouth was twisted in the most horrible grimace — a grimace consistent with cyanosis.'

`May I ask, Anna,' Beck intervened, 'what is your reaction to Dr Kennedy's on the spot conclusions?'

When she sat at the table Kleist had taken a scratch pad from a pocket of her pale green gown and she now produced a ball-point pen and began doodling on the pad. Newman guessed it helped to concentrate her thinking. She continued her doodling as she replied in her soft voice.

`My examination so far confirms precisely Dr Kennedy's impression. We have taken blood samples and they, in time, may tell us more...'

`How much time?' Newman demanded. 'That may be a commodity we are very short of — time.'

`A week. Possibly only a few days. Another pathologist is dealing with that aspect. I have requested that he give the matter the most urgent priority...'

`So we just have to wait,' Newman commented.

`I did find something else, something which puzzles me greatly,' Kleist went on. 'There are unexplained lacerations round the neck and over the crown of the skull...'

`You mean she could have been strangled?' Beck probed.

`Nothing like that. It is almost as though her neck and head had been bound in cloth straps...' She was still drawing something on her notepad. 'One explanation — although it seems bizarre to say the least — is that shortly before she died she was wearing some kind of headgear...'

`Some kind of mask?' Beck queried.

`Possibly,' she agreed, with no certainty in her tone. '1 can only be positive at this stage about the asphyxiation...'

`An oxygen mask?' Beck persisted. 'That would fit in with the equipment you'd expect to be available in a clinic. Maybe the oxygen supply was turned off, causing asphyxiation?'

Kleist shook her head. 'No. You have forgotten — she was seen running some considerable distance according to what you told me. It is the
agent
which caused death we have to isolate and identify. There we have to wait for the results of the blood tests.' She frowned. 'It is those lacerations which 1 find so strange. Still, I am probably saying far too much at this early stage. After all, I have not yet completed the examination.'

`You said she was a Mrs Holly Laird from Houston,' Newman remarked. Did you get any further information from Kobler about this woman's background? How old was she, by the way?'

`Fifty-five. And yes, I did press Kobler for more details. He was reluctant to say much but also, I sensed, wary of not appearing to cooperate fully. Mrs Laird is the nominal head of a very large oil combine. She was brought to the Berne Clinic by her step-daughter in one of the company's executive jets...'

`Any information on her husband?' Newman said quickly.

`He's dead. I couldn't obtain any further details.' She glanced at Beck. 'I had to use your name to get that much out of him...'

`Another similar case,' Newman commented.

`And what might that mean?' Beck enquired.

`I'll tell you later.' Newman stood up. 'And now I think we have taken up more than enough of Dr Kleist's time. I appreciate her frankness at this early stage...'

`My pleasure...' Kleist hesitated, staring at Newman. 'It is just possible I may be able to tell you more by morning.'

`You're working through the night?' Newman asked with a note of incredulity.

`This man...' Kleist also stood up and linked her arm in Beck's, `... is the most unfeeling taskmaster in Switzerland. You do realize that, Arthur?' she added mischievously.

Beck shrugged and smiled. 'You would do the job, anyway, but I appreciate your dedication. And I have the same premonition as Newman — time is what we don't have...'

`Dr Kleist,' Newman said as they were about to leave, wonder if you would mind if I took your doodle? I collect them...'

`Of course.'

She tore off the sheet, folded it and handed it to him. He slipped it inside his wallet and she watched him with a quirkish smile.

Beck drove them back to the Bellevue Palace in a police car and in silence. Nancy had the impression the experiences of the night had exhausted everyone. She waited until they were inside their bedroom before she asked the question.

`What is on that sheet of paper you took off her?'

`Exhibit A. When they doodle, clever people sometimes reveal what is in their subconscious. Prepare yourself for a shock. The Kleist is very clever. Here you are...'

`Oh, my God!'

Nancy sank on to the bed as she stared at the doodle the Swiss pathologist had drawn while she talked. It showed a picture of a sinister-looking gas-mask.

Twenty-Four

Tweed sat down on the sofa and Blanche Signer arranged a cushion behind him, treating him like a favourite uncle. She was very fond of Tweed. He was a nice man, a kindly man. He watched her as she disappeared inside the kitchen, walking with agile grace.

Settling himself against the cushion, he looked round the sitting-room to see if anything had changed since his previous visit. Then he spotted the silver-framed portrait of a late middle-aged man in the uniform of a colonel in the Swiss Army. He blinked, got up and moved swiftly across to examine it more closely.

`That's my stepfather,' Blanche called out as she returned and flourished a bottle behind his back. 'He adopted me when my mother — who died recently — remarried.'

`I don't think I've ever seen him before,' Tweed remarked slowly. 'He's a handsome-looking man.' He made a great effort to speak casually.

`Look!' she said exuberantly. `Montrachet. Especially for you, this one. See!' She held out the bottle for his inspection, so he could note the year. He felt it and the bottle was as chilled as the waters of the Aare. was going to ask for coffee...'

`No,' she told him firmly, 'you've had a beastly journey. All the way from Geneva — from London, in fact. And it's well after midnight. You need something relaxing.'

`I'm sorry to be so late...'

`But you phoned me first...' She was pouring wine into the two elegant glasses already waiting on a low table. `... and like you, I'm an owl, a creature who prefers the night, who perches on branches and hoots a mournful sound!'

I think I'd have trouble getting up a tree these days,' he observed. 'Cheers! And this is very welcome. Do you see your stepfather often?'

`Hardly ever. We don't see eye to eye on anything. He goes his way, I go mine. He doesn't even know what I do to earn my living — at least I don't think so. He is the sort of man who seems to know about almost everything that's happening in Switzerland. He's not regular Army.'

`I see,' said Tweed, and left it at that. imagine it's far too early for you to have found out anything about the man whose name I gave you?'

Shoeless, she was wearing her black leather pants with a white blouse which, even in the dim light of shaded table lamps, displayed in all its glory her cascade of titian hair. She had perched herself next to him on the arm of the sofa, her long legs crossed. He suspected she was capable of teasing him and for a moment wished he had such a daughter, a lively, mischievous girl you could carry on an intelligent conversation with for hours.

`I do already have some possible information about Manfred Seidler,' she said. 'The trouble is ethics are involved — and you were cryptic on the phone. Could I trace a man who had flown in from Vienna very recently on a private Swiss jet. And could I also get any info. on this Seidler type. Are they the same person?'

`Frankly, I don't know,' Tweed replied evasively. 'The man who flew in from Vienna is important. Seidler is purely an inspired guess on my part. I know a lot about him and his activities. Always close to the borderline of legality and, sometimes, probably over the edge.' He drank more of his wine and she refilled his glass. 'This is really excellent. What's your problem about ethics? Not another client?'

`You cunning old serpent..' She ruffled his hair. He couldn't remember when he had last let a woman do that to him but Blanche made it seem the most natural, affectionate gesture in the world. 'Yes, another client,' she said.

`It's important — to my country,' he said, gazing at the photo. 'So probably to yours. We're all in the same boat.'

`You know, I'd hate to be interrogated by you. You're too damned persuasive by half.'

He waited, sipping his wine. She had dropped her hand so it rested on his shoulder. He glanced up from behind his glasses and she was staring into space. He still kept quiet.

`All right,' she said. 'It means breaking a confidence with a client for the first time, but I'm assuming you wouldn't let me do that unless it was something very serious. I'm placing all my integrity in your hands. For me,' she continued on a lighter note, 'that's equivalent to entrusting you with my one-time virginity...'

`That's safe enough with me,' he said drily.

`Bob Newman, foreign correspondent. He asked me only this week to trace a Manfred Seidler. I may have got lucky - but I'm not sure. I have an address—and a phone number—for a Manfred. No guarantees issued that he's Seidler, but he does sound like him...'

`Address, phone number...'

Tweed had his small notebook on his lap, his old-fashioned fountain pen in his hand. She gave him both items of information out of her head. He knew that both would be correct. Like himself she only had to see a face once, hear a name, read an address or phone number, and it was registered on her brain for ever.

`What I've given you,' she went on, 'are the details of a girl called Erika Stahel. She may be Seidler's girl friend. Incidentally, Stahel is spelt...'

`It sounds as though he may be holed up in Basle,' Tweed suggested. 'If it is Seidler...'

`I've no idea. I have an idea I'm going to regret giving you this information.'

`You expect to see this foreign correspondent, Newman, again soon?'

`Why?' she asked sharply.

`Just that I wondered whether you had any idea what story he is working on...'

`You're going too far!' The annoyance showed in her tone and she didn't care. She stood up from the sofa arm, walked across to a chair and sat facing him, crossing her legs again. He gazed into her startling blue eyes and thought how many men would be clay in her slim hands, clay to mould into any shape she wished. She spoke angrily.

`Again you ask me to betray a confidence. Are you really working for the Ministry of Defence in London? I keep your secrets. If I give away other people's, you should cease trusting
me
!'

`I spend most of my life in a thoroughly boring way — reading files...'

`Files on people I have helped you track across Europe...'

`Files on people who are dangerous to the West. Switzerland is now part of the West in a way it never has been before. No longer is neutrality enough...'

He took off his glasses and started polishing them on his pocket handkerchief. Blanche reacted instantly, tossing her mane of hair as she clicked her fingers. He paused, holding the glasses in his lap.

`You're up to something!' she told him. 'I always can tell when you're plotting some devious ploy. You take off those glasses and start cleaning them!'

He blinked, thrown off balance for a moment. She was getting to know him too well. He put away the handkerchief and looped the glasses behind his ears, sighing deeply.

`Is Newman interested in the Berne Clinic at Thun?' he asked quietly.

`Supposing he was?' she challenged him.

`I might be able to help him.' He reached inside his pocket, brought out Mason's notebook and handed it to her. 'In there is information he might find invaluable. You type, of course? I suggest you type out every word inside that notebook. He must not see the notebook itself. Give him your typed report without revealing your source. Make up some plausible story — you are perfectly capable of doing that, I know. I'll collect the notebook when next I see you.'