Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

The hair was plastered down over the head and the expression was saturnine. Self-satisfaction oozed from every pore. Devilish. That was the word which sprang to mind. And the only visible eye, the left one, stared through Tweed.

`Is this really how you see your colleagues?' Tweed asked. Masterson shrugged. 'I'm no Gauguin, as you must realize by now. It's a bit of fun. Next one coming up.'

He performed the same conjuring trick, standing with his back to them after he had substituted a third painting for Dalby's. Then he stood aside and picked up his champagne glass and drank the rest of the contents.

Tweed heard Diana stifle a gasp. Another head suspended alone in space, if you could use the term 'head'. A grinning skull gazed at Tweed, ice-blue eyes embedded in the sockets. Against a background of a cloudless Scandinavian-type sky with extraordinary clarity of light. But it was Erich Lindemann. Stripped to the bones.

`A cold fish,' Masterson commented.

`Portrait painters,' Tweed remarked, 'always do a self- portrait. That I'd like to see.'

`It's not finished.'

Masterson, brash and abrasive, was abnormally defensive. `I'd still like to see it,' Tweed insisted. He pointed to a canvas facing the wall.

`Don't miss a trick, do you? If I must…'

`You must.'

Masterson followed his previous pantomime, but hurriedly. He concealed the new canvas until it was perched on the easel, then stepped aside.

A fourth head, three-quarter view like Dalby's portrait, all seen against the background of a huge yellow sunburst. The single eye visible was cynical, mistrustful of the world. Beneath the strong nose the mouth curved in a sensual smile.

Tweed was reminded of a satyr. What impressed him most was the sheer brutal physical energy of the painting, emphasized by the sunburst radiating tremendous heat and drive.

`Pretty bloody awful,' Masterson commented.

`No association with the sea,' Tweed remarked.

`You noticed that? The wave behind Hugh Grey's picture – the sea mist background for Guy Dalby. Boaty types. They can keep it.'

`You're not attracted by messing about in boats?' Tweed suggested.

`God, no! The sea never keeps still. Give me dry land any time. Another drink?'

`Thank you, no. We'll have to be going soon.'

He looked at Diana who was staring round the cluttered studio. She frowned and shook her head slightly, a gesture Masterson caught. He grinned.

`Bit of a pigsty?'

`You need a good woman to look after you,' she told him. `I'd sooner have a bad one.' He grinned again, wickedly. 'Do you qualify?'

Not really. I'm a hopeless housewife,' she fended him off, picked up her handbag, accepted his offer to use the toilet so, for the first time, Tweed and Masterson were on their own. Their host sat down in a chair close to Tweed and dug him in the ribs. 'That's what you need to lighten your life. A bad woman. She's made to order.'

`Actually, she's pretty top drawer, Harry.'

`Better still.' Masterson smiled cynically. 'A niece you said. She's too old and you're too young. You'd make a good team.

Think about it…'

When Diana returned Tweed said he'd also like to use the toilet. He left them alone for a few minutes, thinking about what he had seen. When he returned Diana was standing up, smoking a cigarette in her long ivory holder and pacing slowly round while Masterson sat on the settee.

`Don't forget what I said,' he reminded Tweed as he accompanied them to the garden gate and opened it. He was still standing by the gate a few minutes later when Tweed drove slowly past the cottage.

`Wrong way for London,' he shouted.

`Going to show Diana the creeks,' Tweed called back. 'See you…'

Diana glanced over her shoulder and waved through the window at the rear of the Cortina. Then she tapped ash from her cigarette in the tray and concentrated on the view ahead.

`That was funny,' she remarked.

`What was?'

`When I looked back he looked furious, a real grim expression. He made a pass at me while you were in the loo. I told him to grow up.'

'That's Harry,' Tweed replied and continued driving slowly, peering to his right. In a few minutes he slowed down even more, then stopped. They were heading for Bosham and through the trees he could see a forest of masts. Boating country. He released the brake and turned right along a well- defined track, stopping by a landing-stage at the edge of open water. A large power cruiser like the Sudwind was moored to the side of the landing-stage. No one about. Tweed checked his watch. Precisely seven minutes from Masterson's cottage.

'Is he married?' Diana enquired.

`He was. Now he has a harem. One society beauty, one owner of a chain of hairdresser salons, one Sloane Ranger. They are girls…'

`I've heard of them. They have fun. That makes him a bit of a challenge.'

Tweed, to his surprise, felt a twinge of jealousy. It must have shown in his expression. She grasped his arm.

`Only joking. It's the champers – brings out the worst in me.'

Tweed stepped out of the car, jumped nimbly over the gap from landing-stage to power cruiser and began prowling around. He peered inside the wheelhouse. The craft had a brand new wheel from its appearance. He grunted, returned to the car. Painted on the hull of the cruiser was its name.

Nocturne.

He backed the car down the track to the main road, then turned away from Masterson's cottage to return to London by a roundabout route. Through the trees the sun sparkled on the blue water.

`What was your impression of Masterson?'

`This is where I sing for my supper? A man for many women, as you said. But behind all that dazzle I sensed a ruthless personality. He'd let nothing stand in his way if he was after something. Which is probably what appeals to his girl friends. I thought his paintings quite horrible. Like the work of a madman.'

`And those are the other people you're going to meet.. `One of them I'm not looking forward to.'

She didn't say which one.

Before he stepped across the gangplank on to Ann Grayle's sloop Kuhlmann dropped his cigar into the water. He wouldn't have done it for anyone else, but he'd gathered the imposing Englishwoman did not approve of his cigars.

She sat in her canvas chair on deck by the side of Ben Tolliver, the owner of a small cruiser who looked after the sloop. A man in his mid-sixties, sinewy and tall, his skin had a leathery look and he stared at the German from under white bushy eyebrows. Kuhlmann came aboard with a slim documents case tucked under his arm.

`Coffee, Mr Kuhlmann?' Grayle asked in her most upper crust voice. 'Black? No sugar?'

`That would be welcome,' he replied in English.

`Ben, please oblige.'

Tolliver heaved himself out of his chair and disappeared down the companionway leading to the living quarters. She patted the vacated chair and Kuhlmann sat down, glancing briefly at her crossed legs. An attractive woman. Was Tolliver, retired plantation owner from Ceylon – Sri Lanka these days – her lover? He doubted it. She could do better.

`You're sure that tall blond man you saw on Miss Chadwick's cruiser…'

`Dr Berlin's,' she corrected.

`As you say. Was that blond man the same as the hiker with the backpack you saw later on the waterfront here?'

`Quite certain.' Her tone had a whiplash quality. 'I don't make mistakes. I'm trained to remember people's faces, their names. In the Diplomatic Service you can't afford to forget. You do meet the most objectionable people and they're always the touchy ones. Have you got the Identikit picture from the description I gave your artist in the local police station?'

Kuhlmann produced a printed poster from the documents case and handed it to her. She stared at the picture, at the wording in German. Kurt Franck. Wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Iris Hansen.