Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

Falken came forward. His right arm was coiled round the neck of a huge goose, his hand clasping it behind the nape of its neck. He stopped a few feet from Newman. It had a pink beak, pink webbed feet. It was honking like mad, making enough noise to wake half the district it seemed to Newman. Falken made odd sounds and Newman realized he was talking to the thing, quietening it.

`A grey lag,' Falken told him. In England they'd call it an Eastern Grey Lag. You have the Western variety. See the ring on its leg? It has escaped from one of the sanctuaries.'

`What the devil is happening?' Gerda had come running down the beaten pathway. 'What is it?' Falken repeated what he had told Newman.

`We will keep it,' he said. 'As long as I hold it like this, there is no danger of your being pecked while driving,' he assured Newman.

`Why take that with us?' Gerda demanded.

`Camouflage. If we are stopped. I do belong to the Conservation Service. In any case I would want to rescue it. One wing is slightly injured. It needs attention.'

`And why, therefore,' Gerda demanded, her voice pitched higher than normal, 'are we hanging about?'

`Because of that,' Newman replied, pointing to the lake.

The goose had quietened down. On the surface of the lake the canvas-wrapped body floated, still only half-submerged. Gerda stared in horror. God, was it going to stay like that? The same thought was in the mind of the two men as they stood and gazed at the floating hump.

It was suddenly terribly silent. The goose remained still in Falken's grip. Then the hump rolled away from them, sliding slowly below the surface. There was a ripple -no more -marking where it had descended to the depths. The ripple also vanished and the black water was again smooth as a sheet of oil.

Gerda gasped with relief. 'Let's go. Now. Get away from all this

…'

`We shall soon be at Radom's farm,' Gerda called out from the back of the car. 'And I've just remembered – they have geese. Won't there be a problem with Pinky?'

Pinky was the nickname she had given to the grey lag. Newman was behind the wheel as they drove on along the deserted highway through the night. Falken, sitting beside him, still held the goose in the same manner, its beak turned away from Newman. It seemed quite happy with Falken and hadn't honked once since they'd got back inside the Chaika.

Newman guided the car round a long bend. Beyond it was a long straight stretch. Red lights, winking, stood in the highway about half a kilometre ahead. He reduced speed, staring at the lights. Three cars, nose to bumper, were parked across the full width of the highway.

`Trouble,' Newman said as the red lights came closer. `Road block,' Falken commented. 'Checkpoint. Who are they looking for, I wonder?'

Munzel was feeling pleased with himself. He had provided himself with good cover. Just by keeping his eyes open, by taking the opportunity when it presented itself. Now he felt safe. In Lubeck. In Travemunde. He thought about the police. Up yours!

Boarding the train at Puttgarden, he had wandered slowly along the corridor, looking for an empty compartment. He had passed one with only a girl inside when the idea came to him. From her way of dressing he could tell she was German. And a brunette. Not a blonde.

As he'd glanced in she'd looked up. She'd more than looked – she'd held his stare, then looked slowly away. One knapsack on the rack above her pretty head. He went back, opened the door.

`Do you mind if I sit in here?' he had asked at his most polite, giving her an engaging smile.

`Please do. I'm only going to Lubeck. Then you can have the compartment to yourself.'

'But I'm going to Lubeck too…'

Heaving his backpack on to a corridor seat, he'd sat opposite her. He put himself out to be amusing, to make her laugh. She liked the look of him, he could tell.

`I'm a trainee for hotel management at a place in Hamburg,' she told him. 'I've just come down from Copenhagen. It is so nice there – but the last week I thought I'd like some German food…'

She was small and slim with a good figure and a fine pair of legs. She wore jeans and a flowered blouse. A red windcheater lay on the seat beside her.

Ten minutes before they reached Lubeck he had persuaded her to team up with him. She had laid down conditions. A room of her own. Naturally, he had agreed. His mind churned. That presented a problem when he registered at a hotel. He wanted the best possible cover, re-entering Lubeck. Then he had his brainwave.

Alighting at the Hauptbahnhof, he asked Lydia Fischer if she would watch his backpack while he phoned his parents. There were no police in the entrance hall as he went inside a booth and dialled Martin Vollmer's number. Vollmer immediately asked where he had been. 'I took a vacation,' Munzel snapped. Code terminology for going into hiding. 'Any news of Tweed?' he'd continued. 'I'm back in Lubeck.' Vollmer had said no, and would Munzel call in daily at noon?

Munzel chose the nearest hotel, the International, across the street from the station. Inside the reception hall he left Lydia with his backpack in a chair and walked to the reception counter. The night clerk looked sleepy and bored.

He registered as Mr and Mrs Claus Kramer, explained he had just caught a dose of the flu which he didn't want to pass on to his wife, so he booked two rooms – a double for himself, a single for his wife. When he'd got beyond the infectious stage they'd both occupy the double. The clerk showed no interest in his explanation and reached for two keys.

They had eaten in the hotel dining-room. The place wasn't cheap but Munzel had wads of money, mostly 100-DM notes. No travellers' cheques. After the meal Lydia had said she was tired and she had gone straight to bed. Munzel had a drink in the bar and went to bed himself.

Now, lying in bed, he couldn't sleep. He felt exhilarated, an arrogant pleasure in his own cleverness. About three weeks earlier clean-shaven Kurt Franck – with a trim haircut – had stayed at the Movenpick by himself. Who would associate the bearded man with the golden locks and the hiker's outfit with Franck? Especially as he had become a couple. Mr and Mrs Kramer – and staying at the International, a mere couple of hundred metres from the Movenpick further up the street? A nice bluff, he congratulated himself. Now all he had to do was phone Vollmer each day. Vollmer had told him they were confident Tweed would be coming back.

He stretched his long thick legs under the duvet, then sat up, swung his feet on to the floor and unstrapped the sheath containing the broad-bladed knife from his leg. This was what had been keeping him awake. He slipped the sheath with the knife inside under his pillow, stretched out again and was asleep in a few minutes.

Inside the room they shared at the Movenpick, Sue Templeton stood naked under the shower, shampooing her blonde hair. She bathed daily and revelled in the hot jets of water spiking her skin. They were stimulating her.

`Ted!' she called out. 'Fetch me a towel. I forgot it…'

`You'll forget your pantyhose one of these mornings.' Handing her the towel, he felt her grasp him by the forearm and just had time to slide off his dressing gown before she hauled him inside with her. 'Stupid cow,' he told her. 'But I could get to like it…'

`And who didn't want to report that killer to the police?' she teased him. 'I like that too..

`You don't know he's a killer. They just want to question him. Bet you wouldn't recognize him if you ever saw him a second time.'

`Oh, yes I would. Even if he'd grown a beard and wore a false moustache.'

`Stupid cow. Why would he grow his beard and stick on a false moustache?'

`I don't know. Men do funny things. You're doing a funny thing now.'