Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

`Newman here. Don't worry about Diana – I can see her from this box. I brought her with me. What's up?'

`Do you know whether Dr Berlin has returned again to his place on Priwall Island?'

`You're in luck. I met Kuhlmann who is still prowling round Travemunde, mostly interviewing people at the marina. He told me Dr Berlin is still missing. Kuhlmann has men watching that mansion night and day…'

`Thank you. That's very interesting. Call me should he come back. I don't think he will. Everything all right?'

`A weird trivia. Diana has decided to take a secretarial course. Typing and shorthand. Now, don't fuss, I take her to the school in Lubeck, leave her there. I know when she leaves and I'll be waiting for her.'

Did she say why?'

'A sudden whim. I was surprised myself…'

`Shorthand and typing? In German?'

'At the school, yes. She has dug out some old training manuals for Pitman's in English. She's teaching herself in English. She has bought a small portable. Keeps it hidden away inside a locker aboard the Sudwind. Apart from that, nothing new…'

'I should be with you in a week or so. Watch your back. Something is stirring in that part of the world.'

'Not much sign of it so far.'

'What about Kurt Franck?'

'Vanished into thin air…'

'Watch out for cripples,' Tweed said and put down the phone.

'Now!' Monica sat erect in her chair. 'Have you got five minutes? Good. What's going on? You've left Europe wide open – no sector chief on the continent. The deputies don't have the grip of the sector chiefs – and you know it.'

'Strategy,' said Tweed. 'Europe wide open, as you say. And I would bet money Lysenko will know it within hours. It will encourage him to make a move. I'm sitting back to see what move he will make. The field will seem clear – I'm tempting him into taking advantage of that fact. When he does move I'll know what he's up to. Meantime I'm going to visit Masterson at his cottage down at Apfield near Chichester, Lindemann at his flat in town, and Dalby – presumably coping on his own at Woking now he's separated from his wife who has gone off to France.'

'You seem to put great hopes on seeing them in their homes…'

'They'll be more relaxed. Someone is going to make a mistake, give me the lead I'm seeking. And why do you think someone like Diana Chadwick would suddenly take up a secretarial course?'

'Because she expects soon to have to earn her own living.'

Tweed looked thunderstruck. He stood up and paced his office, hands clasped behind his back. Then he stood looking down at Monica.

`What would I do without you?'

`Did I say something?'

`Oh, nothing momentous. You just gave me another sign that a truly bizarre theory I've hesitated to take seriously could be the whole key to Balkan.'

`Diana Chadwick will be aboard Flight BA 737, departing Hamburg 18.20, arriving Heathrow 18.50, London time. Please have her met.'

Newman's voice was crisp, almost brusque. Tweed gripped the receiver tightly and took a deep breath.

`Bob, you can't do that…'

`Diana has agreed. I'll see her aboard the flight at this end myself. Today. I can't be handicapped by having to guard her…'

`What the devil do you think you're up to?' Tweed demanded. `No arguments. I have a job I must do. On my own. I repeat – Diana will be aboard that flight…'

`I don't like it…'

`I didn't ask you to like it. You'll have her met?'

`I'll go myself – if I must…'

`You must.'

The connection was broken before Tweed could respond. He sat back in his chair and stared at Monica. She raised her eyebrows, cocked her head on one side like a bird.

`Newman has gone maverick again,' Tweed rasped. 'I have to go and collect Diana Chadwick off the Hamburg flight at 18.50 this evening. He's just put her aboard like a parcel…'

`Let's hope she doesn't have to travel cargo.'

`It almost sounded like that. He's freeing himself of the responsibility of guarding her so he can do his own thing. God knows what his game is – you know what he is when he's got the bit between his teeth.'

`Highly effective.'

`He takes too many risks for my liking.' Tweed stood up and walked over to the window, hands thrust inside his jacket pockets. 'On the other hand, with Diana being in England, she might just be the key I need to unlock the mystery of Balkan's identity…'

Peter Toll, an officer in the BND, arrived in Lubeck from his Pullach HQ near Munich, the day before Newman made his phone call to Tweed.

Toll, an old friend of Newman's, walked into the Hotel Jensen, found that Newman was in his room, and sent up his card inside a sealed envelope. The reporter was chatting with Diana over a glass of wine when the porter brought up the envelope. He opened it, then looked at Diana.

`Would you excuse me for a few minutes? I want to get rid of this chap quickly. He's a nuisance.'

`Who is he?'

`An informant I've used in the past. He's become unreliable. You'll stay here till I get back? Don't open the door to anyone except me. I'll rap like this…'

He beat a tattoo on the table, left the room, waited outside the closed door until he heard her turn the key, then took the lift to the lobby. Peter Toll was tall and lean, clean-shaven, in his early thirties, a man who smiled easily and was one of the most quick-witted men Newman had met. He wore rimless spectacles and moved agilely. They shook hands.

`Care for a stroll along the river?' Toll suggested.

`Why not?' Newman waited until they were outside and walking beyond where the tables with people drinking stood on the pavement. 'How did you know I was here? Where to find me?'

Toll pushed his glasses further up his long nose, a gesture Newman remembered. 'It's my job to know when suspicious foreigners arrive in the Federal Republic,' he joked.

`Come off it, Peter, you want something. You haven't travelled all the way from Pullach just to pass the time of day.'

`What a cynical chap you are,' Toll continued in English. 'I could be here checking a situation and decided to call in on an old friend …'

`Get to the point, I don't want to be away from the hotel too long.'

`Of course not, Diana Chadwick is a fascinating woman so they tell me.'

`How did you know I was here?' Newman repeated. `Through Bonn…'

`Don't you mean Wiesbaden?'

`Kuhlmann would never inform me of your presence – not without pressure from the Chancellor. Kuhlmann is strictly concerned with the hideous killings of foreign girls. He's Criminal Police.'

`Now we're getting somewhere. What made Kuhlmann pick up the phone to Pullach?'

`Your continuing interest in Dr Berlin. Plus the arrival of Tweed.'

`And what is your interest in Dr Berlin?'

They had reached the point alongside the old town where an old hump-backed pedestrian bridge spanned the river. Toll led the way over the bridge and up a path between trees past a boathouse.

`Frankly, I wish I knew. Let's talk in German now.' Toll had switched to his native language.

`Vague answers don't interest me,' Newman replied in German. 'What's wrong with Dr Berlin?'

`On the surface nothing. He's got a world-wide reputation as a saint, a man dedicated to the welfare of the have-nots. But he keeps disappearing for long periods. Our best men have tried to keep track of his movements. He's a bloody conjuror – and plays the trick on himself. The vanishing trick. And he's so close to the border – it's at the end of the Mecklenburgerstrasse – the road he lives on…'

`I know. You have to have something more solid than that.'

`Leipzig. Twenty years ago he played the same vanishing trick in Africa. One morning he's in Kenya, the next he's disappeared. Reported dead in the jungle. Then he pops up in Leipzig. Treated for some obscure tropical disease. Hey presto! Eighteen months later another vanishing trick. He appears in the Federal Republic. First you see him, then you don't. People like that worry Pullach.'