Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

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- Munich, 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 Travemunde 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 Sudwind. 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.'

`And now?'

`I suppose I've seen too much of men to be idealistic any more. It can be a curse being a blonde. They all think… well, you know. Dr Berlin isn't like that though. He's only interested in his work, his work for the refugees now..

`But surely the refugees who fled from East Prussia and the other territories after the war are settled, have made a life for themselves?'

'On the surface, yes. Underneath, it can be very difficult. Divided families on both sides of the border. He negotiates with the East Germans at times. They accept him as a neutral, probably because his parents were born in Leipzig.' She gave Tweed a fresh cup of coffee.

`That's enough about me – and Dr Berlin. Why is Bob Newman hobnobbing with Ann Grayle? I saw him over there walking on to her landing stage…'

`You know these reporters. Always love talking to people, hoping for something they can turn into a story…'

`I spent the morning, Mr Newman, going through my bags looking for my gun,' Ann Grayle said as they sat on the deck of the sloop, drinking gin and tonic.