Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

Kuhlmann drove slowly, giving her the best chance of locating the track they had wandered down to find some privacy. She was sure she could find it – even in the dark. Behind Kuhlmann a second police car followed, carrying the police team he had organized before they set out.

The American girl leaned forward in her seat, her breasts pushed against the safety belt as she stared along the headlight beams. An attractive young woman, she had the confidence and assured manner Kuhlmann had noticed before in many girls from the States.

`Slow down! Yes, it was here. Down this track!'

Kuhlmann swung the wheel, crawled along the track. In the headlights he could see the single wheel gulley impressed into the cinders by the motor-cycle. He pulled up a short distance from the river, took a torch from the glove compartment and they got out. He bent down as the second car halted behind them, examining the wheel mark. Too wide for a bicycle. Just right for a motor-bike. They walked on to the edge of the river, followed by two men in frogman's suits.

Now, Sue,' Kuhlmann asked, 'from the marks it looks like this was where he pushed it in. Would you agree?'

`This is the place…'

They went back to the car and waited. Within five minutes the frogmen emerged, dripping water, hauling out a Suzuki motor-cycle in the beams of the headlights. Kuhlmann used the radio to call up reinforcements, left one man with the machine and then followed the other car as it backed to the highway.

`If there was a landing-stage where the Moorburg was moored,' he remarked as he drove on towards Travemunde, `there will be a track leading to it. We just have to keep on trying. Any way you could identify that landing-stage where he threw the suitcase into the river before taking off towards Travemunde?'

`Yes,' she said promptly again, 'it was in two sections – the one nearest the cruiser sagged, the end was under the water…'

God give me more witnesses like this one he thought as he drove on. Sue identified the first track they checked and the landing-stage at the end. Kuhlmann ordered the frogman who had travelled in the other car to dive in again. This time it took about ten minutes. The frogman emerged, holding a suitcase in both hands. Kuhlmann forced open the soggy object and stared at a length of chain.

`End of the line,' he said and stood up, gesturing for one of his men to collect the sodden case.

'No, it isn't,' Sue said. 'We saw him later…'

`It wasn't him,' Ted objected.

`I tell you it was! You weren't looking when he came out of the shop.'

`Which shop?' asked Kuhlmann.

`After the cruiser moved off we thought we'd lost him. We walked back to the highway and hitched a ride into Travemunde. We were walking along the front, looking for somewhere to eat, when I saw him. I know it was him,' she repeated. `I'm studying law – that teaches you to be observant.'

`So far your powers of observation have amazed me. Go on.'

`He came out of a shop and he was putting on a straw hat. I saw his blond hair just before he put it on. One of those wide-brimmed hats. Ted went off to find a toilet so I followed the blond man. He went into another shop nearby and came out with a pipe in his mouth, one of those little curved things. It was the same man, I am certain. And he was dressed differently.'

`Let's get back inside the car. You are getting goose pimples on your arms…'

The night sky above them was clear, the Prussian blue studded with glittering stars. The balmy warmth of the evening was evaporating and a slight chill descended on the fields. Kuhlmann waited until they were settled inside the vehicle; Sue again sat beside him.

`Dressed differently, you said?'

`When we first saw him pushing the machine into the over he had on a dark blue windcheater, the same colour slacks tucked inside leather boots. Coming out of the shop in Travemunde he wore a light green T-shirt, khaki slacks, white sneakers and a large backpack – one with those chrome rods. He'd become a hiker.'

Kuhlmann sat chewing his unlit cigar. Sue Templeton's description of Franck corresponded exactly with that given to him by Ann Grayle, who had called at Travemunde police station and asked to see him.

Aboard the sloop she had told him how she had seen Franck when she was going for a walk, how Franck had almost bumped into her. That had been almost three weeks ago. At the time Kuhlmann had wondered whether Grayle had been mistaken. He looked up at Ted Smith in the rear view mirror.

Will you be staying at the Movenpick a little longer?' `Until the money gives out. Sue likes Lubeck..

`Don't worry about money,' Sue interjected, 'I've got loads of travellers' cheques. And we're having such a good time. I like a good time.'

The remark jolted Kuhlmann. Shades of Diana Chadwick; the sort of remark she'd have made. Where was she now, he wondered.

`Money's no problem,' Sue went on. 'My father's a state senator.'

Kuhlmann received a second jolt. He looked at her, studying her sheen of blonde hair. In a way he wished they were leaving Germany at once. He looked at Ted again.

`I ought to warn you – in case you couldn't read the German on that poster…'

`We couldn't,' Sue told him.

`Then I must warn you, Mr Smith, that man you saw could be a mass murderer – his speciality is blondes. Three have been horribly killed already. Stick close to Sue. All the time.'

`I'll do that, and I'll buy a weapon.' Smith looked older and more serious than he had before.

`A weapon?' Kuhlmann queried.

`A heavy walking stick. I've seen them in the shops..

`A good idea. And I'm taking you both to dinner at the Maritim Hotel in Travemunde. But first, I must make a report.'

He picked up the mike, called Lubeck-Sud, began detailing the new description of Kurt Franck. The only two points Ann Grayle had not mentioned were the straw hat and the pipe. He must have gone to the shops soon after she'd spotted him.

`Lubeck-Sud? Kuhlmann here. Kurt Franck. New description… persona of hitch-hiker…'

In the loft of the barn near Burg on Fehmarn Island he was now ready to move. For the third time Munzel checked his appearance in the hand mirror. Flourishing blond moustache and beard, more blond hair flowing down the back of his neck. Unrecognizable.

Dressed in a light green T-shirt, khaki slacks and a pair of white trainer shoes, he put down the mirror, hiding it with the spirit kettle under a pile of straw. He hoisted the backpack over his shoulders. It weighed like a hundred kilos, but he'd soon get used to it.

He looked round the loft, checking for traces of his using it as a refuge. There were none. He had cleared up carefully. Reaching down, he picked up the straw hat and rammed it over his head, then took the curved pipe from his pocket – already filled with tobacco – and clenched it between his teeth.

He descended the ladder slowly, arrived at the bottom and ran heavily to the open barn door. He peered out. No sign of life. He went back to the ladder – the only evidence that the loft existed – and hauled it down until he held it parallel to the straw-strewn floor.

His arm muscles felt the strain as he carried it outside and round the back of the barn. Very slowly he lowered it inside the grass-choked ditch which ran alongside the rear of the barn. He spent several minutes straightening the grasses until it disappeared from view, then he returned to the front and started along the track leading to the country road.

An hour later, having caught the bus from Burg, he sat on the platform at Puttgarden station. While he waited for the train to Lubeck he struck matches, lighting and relighting his pipe.

Franck was in a confident mood. With his changed appearance he'd be safe in Lubeck. He'd stay at the hotel opposite the Hauptbahnhof – the International as far as he could remember. From there he would call Martin Vollmer in Altona for news of Tweed's movements.