Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

`It's only a short walk into town,' Tweed said, his legs moving like pistons, his body leant forward. Tweed in full cry, Newman told himself. Weeks of doing very little and then some development would electrify him. 'I checked it on the map before we started out,' he went on. 'The next stop is Travemunde Hafen. The harbour area. Beyond that is Travemunde Strand, people tanning themselves on the beach and all that nonsense. Burning themselves red, unable to sleep for nights. What they call having a good holiday. Approaching the town this way, I can get the feel of the place. Look, we're close now…'

The single spire of a church speared the azure sky. Beyond it other buildings began to appear. They, were leaving the dock area behind. Tweed was dressed in his new tropical drill slacks, his safari jacket.

`Hoping we meet Diana?' Newman joshed him.

`These clothes will help me merge into the background. You must admit I look as though I'm on holiday..

`Tweed, you could never look as though you were on holiday.'

`If anyone asks what I do I'll say insurance. Just so you know.'

`An executive of the General and Cumbria Assurance Co – your dummy outfit back at Park Crescent?'

`Only if I have to. This must be Travemunde.'

Standing well back from the waterfront was a row of old double-storey buildings. The usual assortment of cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops. Holidaymakers, mostly German, drifted along in the aimless way of men and women not sure what to do next. Many of the buildings had the steep gables characteristic in that part of the world.

`Let's cross the road when we can,' said Tweed. 'You can do your reporter act, get people talking..

`While you listen…'

`And watch.'

The waterfront was a tangle of masts, a variety of vessels were moored to the bollards, jammed in hull to hull. Yachts, pleasure craft, the odd expensive-looking power cruiser looming above the small fry. At a nearby marina landing stages projected out into the channel between Travemunde and a forested shore a. short distance away. Tweed pointed at the forest.

`And that will be Priwall Island.'

`I know. I came here once to interview Dr Berlin…'

`And the small car ferry takes no more than a few minutes to cross from here to Priwall…' Tweed hardly seemed to hear a word. Newman said. He was like a dog which has picked up the scent. `… When you leave the ferry you walk straight into the Mecklenburger-strasse. There are houses – including Berlin's mansion – on the right. They face the forest laced with a network of paths – the forest where that poor Swedish girl was found almost at the edge of the water. What was her name? Helena Andersen. That: was it. They say the murderer must have been disturbed. He was going to throw her into the channel – there was a trail of blood where he'd dragged her through the undergrowth.'

`How do you know all this?' Newman enquired. 'You couldn't pick that detail up from a map…'

He was watching a sleek white liner approaching from the Baltic. It cruised through the channel where there didn't seem to be room, blanking out the island briefly, but it made safe passage and sailed on towards the docks.

'A combination of listening to Diana,' Tweed said. 'Asking the odd question. Then linking up what she said with the map. Let's explore the marina so you can do your stuff.'

`And you seem to' know a lot more about the Helena Andersen killing,' Newman probed as they strolled through the crowds towards the marina.

`Kuhlmann phoned me while I was shaving before breakfast. He called from the local police station here. He'd been over every inch of the ground himself early this morning. Otto never sleeps as far as I can see. Here we are. After you…'

`Thanks a bundle.'

Newman surveyed the marina, the various craft moored hull to hull. You could step from one craft to another. He walked down a landing stage towards a large sloop, a sixty-footer, he estimated. A slim woman in her sixties sat in a captain's chair, a pair of rimless glasses perched on her nose as she sat reading a hardback. Gone With the Wind. This was probably a good place to start. She looked up as Newman approached, removed the glasses and laid the book in her lap.

Slim, she had dark hair, thick and silky, cut short, and aristocratic features. A handsome woman, there was a cynical twist to her mouth, an air of competence, increased when she spoke in an upper crust accent.

`Robert Newman? I am right? Recognize you from pictures in the papers. Welcome aboard. Take a pew. Your friend can come, too. Come to hear all the gory details? So you can write up a really lurid story? Blood on Priwall Island. There, I've given you your headline…'

`I might use it.' Newman settled himself in a canvas chair while Tweed lowered himself gingerly into its twin facing the waterfront. 'This is my friend, Tweed…'

`And I don't think you miss much either – not with those eyes.' She stared hard at Tweed who smiled faintly. 'Care for some coffee? Ben, the hired help, will provide…'

`Ben will provide coffee – but he's not the bloody hired help.'

A white-haired man with a weather-beaten face appeared at the top of a companionway. Six foot tall, he was thin and wiry and stooped in the way Newman had noticed tall sailors were apt to. Blue eyes studied the new arrivals above a great beak of a nose.

`Coffee for three?' Ben asked. 'Make up your minds, do… `Yes, please,' Tweed said promptly. 'No milk or sugar for either of us.'

`Black as sin? And there's plenty of that on Priwall.'

The head disappeared and Tweed slipped a Dramamine in his mouth. The damned boat wouldn't keep still, which made the mainland seem to move. The water was only choppy but he knew he'd feel queasy if he didn't take precautions.

`Sin on Priwall?' Tweed enquired.

`And walking over there along the waterfront,' the aristocratic woman commented.

Tweed had already seen Diana Chadwick strolling towards the marina. The wide-brimmed straw hat, the elegant movement of her body were unmistakable.

`Diana Chadwick,' Tweed prompted.

`You know her?' Their hostess crossed her legs and her cream skirt dropped into its natural pleats. 'I'm forgetting my manners. I'm Ann Grayle. My husband was in the Diplomatic Service. I buried him in Nairobi five years ago. Always said when that happened I'd take a lover. The right man never turned up. Not until now.' She stared at Newman, a hint of amusement in her pale grey eyes.

`Diana Chadwick,' Tweed prompted her again before Ben arrived with coffee.

`A promiscuous tart.'

`The noun alone expresses your meaning,' Tweed said mildly.

`Oh, if that's the way of life someone wants, who am I to object? The veteran of a hundred beds. Especially back in Africa. Her husband was the last person to know – as always…'

`He did get to know?'

`No, which is the point of my remark. He died with his illusions intact. Which is more than his wife was. A bank director, pillar of the club, so popular no one had the guts to say a word to him. He was gored to death by an irritable rhino. That was supposed to have happened to Dr Berlin. But they found the body of Luke – Diana's spouse. If you know her you could have a good time. They do say she's an expert. All that experience…'

`He – Luke – left her well off?' Tweed enquired.

`Penniless. Oh, I know – a bank director. You'd think he'd be a good provider. Didn't leave a sou. Lived up to his very last penny. Hunting big game is an expensive pastime.'

`How does she survive then?' Tweed asked.

`That's the mystery. She always has plenty of new things to put on her back. Of course, she's a good friend of Dr Berlin. Creepy old horror in my opinion…'

`You mean he provides her with an allowance?'

`Now I didn't say that, did I?' Mrs Grayle sat erect in her chair. 'Unlikely, I'd say. Berlin is as mean as muck. Good, here at last is Ben. Not that we need him – but the coffee is essential.'