The Janus Man (13 page)

`Said to the barman he was going out to meet a new girl friend. I checked his dress. He was wearing jeans and a white polo-necked sweater. No shabby two-piece suit. And then I checked the parking lot. He doesn't have a motor-bike. Travels around in a hired BMW. Yellow job..

Did you say yellow?'

`I did. Why?'

`Nothing. I didn't catch the word first time …'

'So it looks like he's out on the town — maybe for the whole night. Not our boy, I'd say. At least today is ending quietly. Be in touch. If anything develops …'

Thirteen

The phone began ringing in Tweed's bedroom. He swore in the bathroom, his face covered in lather, put down the old- fashioned razor he'd used for years, grabbed a towel and ran into the bedroom. Always when he was shaving. The bloody phone. He lifted the receiver.

`Hugh Grey here. Not too early for you, I'm sure. Bright as the proverbial lark, eh, Tweed?'

Grey sounded horribly buoyant and Tweed could just imagine his plump face, the ruddy flush of his skin, the eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. It was a bit much, first thing in the morning.

`What can I do for you?' Tweed asked, wiping soap off his chin.

`I've heard about last night. A nasty experience for you. Not what you're used to...' A reference to the fact that Tweed's place was behind his desk. 'Can I send in the troops?' Grey went on energetically, 'I like to be supportive. Some back-up. OK?'

'No,' said Tweed. 'Thank you, but no,' he said emphatically. `And I'm quite all right, thank you. Leave things the way they are. Anything to tell me?'

'Not over the phone. Business is very active. Results expected shortly. I'll keep London informed. Don't forget — you need anything, call HQ at Frankfurt. Keep chipper. 'Bye for now. My three minutes is nearly up...'

Tweed put down the phone and sighed. The jargon got on his nerves.
Can I send in the troops?
What did Grey think he was? A bloody field marshal commanding an army? He went back into the bathroom to finish his shave.

He knew the real purpose of the call. To inform Tweed that he was on the ball. Grey must have an informant inside Lübeck — maybe even inside police HQ at Lübeck-Süd. He'd heard about the scuffle in Kolk damned fast. But Lübeck was on the border — an obvious place to watch closely.

He told Newman about the call over breakfast at an isolated table. The reporter finished chewing a piece of roll before he commented.

`How did Grey know you were here?'

`Oh, they all know. I'd much sooner the two of us handled the problem on our own — but I had to let Howard know where they could contact me. New boys, only six months as sector chiefs — I have to be available if something tricky crops up. Hugh Grey is just so bouncy first thing...'

`You have to admit he's efficient. This is his sector. The fact that he knows what's going on so quickly is a tribute to his organization...'

`You're right, of course. Well, we have something positive to look forward to this afternoon. Dr Berlin's party. Diana is late for breakfast.'

`She told me she was sleeping on the Südwind last night. It saves her driving back and forth. We get there a bit early and pick her up off the cruiser before crossing to Priwall. She's going to introduce us to people at the famous party. I'd like to get there really early,' Newman went on, 'if that's OK by you. I want to interview Ann Grayle at greater length. That lady talks...'

`Endlessly. And we have company. Kuhlmann has just walked in. Something tells me we have a busy day coming up …'

The breakfast room at the Jensen was at the back of the hotel. You helped yourself from a buffet. Kuhlmann took a plate, piled on four rolls, a quantity of butter, three canisters of marmalade and sat down.

`I've been up all night,' he announced. There was a pause as he broke a roll in two, plastered it with butter and marmalade, consumed it rapidly and ordered coffee. 'A litre of it...' He looked fresh and alert, his thick black hair was neatly combed, but his chin was a black stubble. It reminded Tweed of Harry Masterson who, by midday, had a blued chin, the five o'clock shadow at noon, as Masterson called it. 'I should grow a beard,' he often joked, 'but then anyone could pick me out a mile off...'

Kuhlmann devoured his roll, swallowed a whole cup of coffee, refilled it. Newman lit a cigarette, studying the German. His sixth sense told him Kuhlmann had news.

`Why up all night?' he asked. 'Get anywhere with Franck?' `Forget Franck. Another blonde has been carved up and raped. Sometime round midnight...'

`On Priwall Island again?' Tweed asked quietly.

'No. On the beach at Travemünde Strand. Incredible. That he was able to get away with such butchery on an exposed beach...'

`Who was the victim?'

`An Iris Hansen. A Dane from Copenhagen. Personal assistant to a senior civil servant. So now Bonn has the lines buzzing between there and Copenhagen — and the calls are still coming in from Stockholm about Helena Andersen. The poor devil of a pathologist had just finished putting Andersen's remains together when we presented him with another parcel of meat. His phrase. He worked through the night. Out at Travemünde panic has turned to frenzy. Men are going out buying hunting knives, rolling pins, anything that can be used as a weapon...'

`Two murders,' Newman mused. 'Both blondes...'

`Three,' Kuhlmann amended. 'The Dutch girl at Frankfurt six months ago. It's the same killer. He proceeds with his grisly work in the same way. Don't ask me to go into details until I've settled my breakfast. You should have seen the Hansen girl lying on the beach. She, too, must have been attractive...'

`Must have been? Past tense,' Newman queried.

`He slashes their faces, cuts off... Never mind. You can always go and see her in the hospital for yourself if you're thinking of following up the story. Want me to sign a chit?'

`Not just now. Thanks all the same. Is there any connection between the three killings?'

`The connection I need is who was in Frankfurt six months ago and is here now.' He looked at Tweed. 'The two names the computer has come up with so far are you and Newman.'

`Except that you know both of us were in the middle of Lübeck at 10.45 p.m. I thought you said Iris Hansen was killed round midnight …'

'I did. We parted company about 11 o'clock. At that hour it is a fast drive to Travemünde. No traffic. Twenty minutes and you're in Travemünde Strand.'

`So both of us are suspects?'

'I have to report all the facts to Wiesbaden.' Kuhlmann took his time demolishing the last roll, then his wide mouth broke into a cynical grin. 'But the night man here on reception told me when I came in this morning you both went to your rooms at 11.10. He happened to check the clock. No one can get out of this place without passing him. You both have watertight alibis...'

'How very fortunate,' Tweed replied coolly. 'And now you've had your fun, maybe I could ask a favour? I need a totally safe phone to make several calls.'

`Police HQ, Lübeck-Süd,' Kuhlmann said promptly. 'It's outside town. There's a room there with a scrambler phone. I'll drive you there now. And you've got that look on your face.'

'What look might that be?'

'A very worried man. Something disturbing has struck you.'

Lübeck-Süd. Not at all what Newman had expected. A huge modern fourteen-storey complex of buildings, joined together and with a black central tower. All perched on top of a small hill, looking down on slopes of trim green lawns decorated with rose beds.

Kuhlmann drove off the main highway past a one-word sign. POLIZEI. He parked the car outside, led the way into the entrance hall and showed his folder to a police officer in shirt-sleeves inside a glass box to the left. They exchanged a few words and the officer handed Kuhlmann a key.

Kuhlmann took them by elevator to the tenth floor. Half way down a long corridor he handed Tweed the key in front of a closed door which, unlike all the others, had no number.

'Newman and I will find some coffee in the canteen at the end of the corridor. Come and join us when you're finished. That phone inside there is one of the safest in the whole Federal Republic. It's used by the BND,' he ended, referring to counter-espionage.

Inside Tweed found a small bare room, walls lined with steel filing cabinets, a table, two chairs. A white telephone sat on the table. He pulled out one of the chairs, made himself comfortable and dialled a Frankfurt number from memory. A girl answered immediately, repeating the number he had dialled and adding the digit nine.

`Hadrian calling,' Tweed said. 'The Hadrian Corporation. I'd like to speak with Mr Hugh Grey.'

They were using Roman emperors this month for the call-sign — Howard's idea, of course.

`I'm afraid he's away negotiating a deal for a few days,' the girl responded.

`When might I get him?'

`He didn't say. I don't think he knew himself.'

`Thank you...'

Tweed broke the connection. Grey could have called him from anywhere in West Germany— Münich, Stuttgart, Cologne. Anywhere. And it was strictly against the rules to ask for a contact number. A rule Tweed himself had laid down when he had tightened security six months earlier.

He next dialled Harry Masterson in Vienna. The same reaction. Masterson was out of town. No, they had no idea when he'd be back. Patiently, Tweed went on. He dialled Bern, to speak to Guy Dalby. A third negative. He sighed. The last one now — Copenhagen.

The girl answered in perfect English, which was just as well. Tweed spoke no Danish.

`He is not here at present. If you would care to leave a message?'

`No message...'

Tweed stared at the phone. Zero out of four. There was nothing strange about it. He had personally trained all four to get out of their offices, into the field, to keep close personal contact with their agents. In a way it was a good sign. So why was he so disturbed?

He found Kuhlmann and Newman sitting at a table in an empty canteen. The German said would he like some coffee? Tweed shook his head and sat down as Kuhlmann continued what he had been saying to Newman.

`... So a team of psychiatrists is on the way from Wiesbaden. I could do without those gentlemen. Most of them are nut cases.'

Their reports — the bits you
can
understand — read like the ravings of madmen. Which doesn't help — considering we're all hunting someone who has to be stark raving mad...'

`Or a sadist,' said Tweed.

`Which comes to the same thing. They draw up a profile — a portrait of the personality of the killer...'

`I'm beginning to build up my own profile of him,' Tweed remarked. 'How can we most easily get to Travemünde from here?'

`By using me as a chauffeur. I'm on my way there myself.'

`Oh, thank God you've come, Tweedy. I rang the Jensen but they said you'd gone out. Isn't it too horrible... another girl... and a blonde again... I'm blonde...'

Diana Chadwick was shaking as Tweed arrived on board the
Südwind
. She ran forward as he stepped off the gangplank, threw her arms round him and sank her golden head into his chest. He patted her back, squeezed her, realized for the first time how slim she was. She cried a little. Tears of relief. Then she released him, dabbed at her eyes with an absurdly small lace handkerchief, and drew herself erect.

`I'm making a perfect fool of myself. Do forgive me. Let's have something to drink. Coffee? Something stronger?'

`Why not coffee. Under the circumstances?'

`You're so right. Alcohol will make me go to pieces again. Come down into the galley with me while I make the coffee. I don't like being alone for a second at the moment...'

He followed her down the companionway into the galley, perched on a narrow leather couch and looked around while she busied herself with the percolator.

'I was actually on deck here when that girl was killed,' she said.

`How do you know that? You heard something?'

`Oh, nothing horrible — like screams. But it's all over the town. The fact that she was killed about midnight. I was sitting watching the lights, waiting to feel sleepy.' She turned to face him, leaning against the counter while she waited for the coffee to be ready. Her face looked whiter than ever.

`Actually, Tweedy, I did hear something about a quarter past midnight. I didn't think much of it at the time …'

`And what was that?'

`The sound of a dinghy crossing the channel from the beach on this side to Priwall Island..

`Diana...' Tweed was leaning forward, watching her intently, his eyes alert with interest behind his glasses. `... exactly what do you mean? A dinghy doesn't make any noise.'

`I'm not explaining this very well.' She brushed a lock of hair back over her finely-shaped forehead. `I mean a dinghy equipped with an outboard motor. I even saw its wake — quite a distance beyond the marina. It disappeared behind a headland on Priwall Island. I thought it was a bit late for someone to be going home and then it went out of my mind — until I heard the news this morning.'

`Have you told the police?'

`God, no! They never stop questioning you.' She was leaning back so the curve of her hips showed clearly against the close- fitting white dress she wore. 'Coffee's ready,' she said and poured two cups. They went back up on deck.

`It's so claustrophobic down in that galley,' she said.

Tweed recognized the symptoms. She couldn't stay in one place for long. The symptoms of shock. They sat in the chairs on deck, the sun shone down, and she had no protection to shade her face. Badly shaken, Tweed said to himself. Understandable. But why this intense degree of shock?

`Will Dr Berlin be cancelling his party this afternoon?' Tweed wondered aloud. 'In view of what has happened?'

`Oh, no, I'm sure he won't. He's a wonderful man, but he is hardly aware of what is going on outside his own private orbit. I noticed that when I first met him in Kenya.'

`How did you first come to know him?'

`I must have been no more than eighteen. Everyone worshipped him — the work he was doing to help the natives. He had a hospital in the bush. Today everyone thinks of him as a second Dr Albert Schweitzer. He was a bit out of touch with the real world from what I've read. I drove a truck with medical supplies into the hospital in the bush. I was very idealistic in those days.'