Colin Forbes - The Janus Man

Lindemann was scribbling away on his pad with the red pencil. Which one was that? Tweed was too far away to see. Lindemann laid down the pencil, folded his hands.

`Nothing I can think of.'

Typical, Tweed thought. Dry as dust. No wonder he'd earned the nickname of The Professor. While they all waited he removed his glasses, deliberately took his time cleaning them on his handkerchief. At a side table Monica sat taking notes for the minutes she'd type later. Now she also watched Tweed with a puzzled expression. Not like him to prolong a conference. He regarded most meetings as a waste of time, to he got over with as soon as possible. Pressure, Tweed was thinking. That was what the psychiatrist, Dr Generoso, had said would drive a man leading a double life to panic eventually. He was putting on the pressure now. The silence became oppressive. Someone shuffled their feet. He glanced round the table again.

Grey sat with a smile of anticipation on his pink face. He was expecting another pronouncement. Masterson smoothed his gleaming hair again while Tweed went on polishing his glasses. Dalby sat with his arms folded, quite motionless as he stared at his chief. Iron self-control. Lindemann was scribbling on his pad, this time with the green pencil. Did he change the colours for each sector chief? Nutty way of going on. Tweed replaced his glasses, spoke suddenly, watching them closely.

`Dr Berlin.' Another loaded pause. 'Any information any of you can get on him. Supposed to be the Light of the World, the guardian of refugees, the protector of the helpless everywhere.' His tone was heavy with irony. 'I just wonder.' He held up a hand to silence Grey who had opened his mouth, anxious to make a contribution. 'No comments, please. Just dig. Deep as you can go into his background.'

Tweed clasped his hands on the table, studying each man in turn. Janus was here, at this very meeting, concealing himself behind a mask. The man who looked both East and West. And possibly a mass murderer. Unless I've got it all wrong.

No, I'm damned if I have. One of these faces sent Fergusson to his death. That's for certain. And they were all in Frankfurt, attending the meeting I held just after promoting them. The night the Dutch girl was slaughtered. And they were all in Europe – whereabouts unknown – when Helena Andersen, the blonde Swedish girl had been cut to pieces on Priwall Island. As was the case when Iris Hansen, the girl, again a blonde, from Copenhagen had met the same grisly fate.

But most telling by far was the two-year-old unsolved killing of Carole Langley in East Anglia on the night of July 14. The four men he was looking at had attended Hugh Grey's birthday party at Hawkswood Farm. Too much coincidence. It gave him an eerie feeling to be sitting with these four men. They all looked so normal. Dr Generoso again. He'd said such a person might well appear completely normal for long periods. Tweed stood up.

`Meeting ended.'

`Tweed is coming back… flying to Hamburg… within forty-eight hours…'

The caller, using German, was speaking from a phone booth in the Post Office near Leicester Square. Martin Vollmer, in his apartment in Altona, took the message, thanked the caller, but already the connection was broken.

Vollmer cradled the receiver, waited a few seconds, lifted it again and dialled a number. He had to wait for the phone to ring five times before it was answered by the girl he was calling.

`Tweed is coming back…'

For the second time the wires were humming across West Germany. Always the same message, couched in exactly the same words. Until it reached the office of a lawyer in West Berlin. He took the call, put down the phone, told his secretary he had to go out, and walked the short distance to Checkpoint Charlie where he crossed into East Berlin.

`What's happened? Why are you looking so smug?' demanded Lysenko as Wolf put down the phone. He had just entered the room.

`As I predicted, Tweed is coming back. Flying in to Hamburg. I predict something else. He will make straight for Lubeck. I have arranged for Munzel to be informed. You don't look so smug yourself…'

`The timing!' Lysenko barked. 'It's going to be close. We have a major operation under way.'

`What major operation? Or does it, by chance, not concern me?'

`It does not. You have enough on your plate. The timing? How many times do I have to ask you a question? I don't like this at all. Tweed is a menace.'

`I probably know more about Tweed than you do,' Wolf commented. 'As to timing, he's expected in Hamburg about two days from now according to the report from Balkan.'

`Then Tweed has to be eliminated quickly…'

`I have already sent a message to Munzel – who is waiting for his arrival in Lubeck.'

`We can't be sure he'll go back to Lubeck,' Lysenko snapped.

`Which is why I've also alerted our man at Hamburg Airport – Tweed will be followed from the moment he comes through Customs.'

`Munzel made a hash of the job before. This time he must do the job. And fast.'

`He will deal with the problem as soon as he can. More than that I cannot guarantee. How much time would you say he has?'

`A week. Two at the outside.'

`I think you can sleep well tonight.'

Inside his hotel room at the International, facing Lubeck's main station, Erwin Munzel sprawled in bed as Lydia Fischer, the German girl he had picked up on the train from Puttgarden, took a shower. He was finding her very satisfactory – and not only as a cover. He reached for the phone as it began ringing.

`Vollmer speaking…'

The voice paused. Munzel had to think of the code word after his recent enjoyable experience with Lydia.

`Sylt is the place I've booked for the holiday,' he said. `Listen. Tweed is coming back. Flying in to Hamburg within the next two days. Call me at noon as usual. You have three days to complete the deal after the customer arrives.' `I don't work to time schedules…'

`You do on this one. Or lose your job.'

Vollmer had gone off the line before Munzel could protest. He lay staring at the ceiling for several minutes. When Lydia came out of the shower he went into the bathroom and took a quick shower himself. He dressed quickly, talking as he did so.

`You wanted to do some shopping on your own. How about doing it now? I have some business calls to make.'

He waited until she had left the room, then packed half his clothes in the suitcase he had recently purchased. Leaving the International, he walked in blazing sunlight past the Movenpick and continued on over the bridge on to the island.

He paused outside the entrance to the Hotel Jensen, peered in, saw there was only a girl on reception – not the manager – and walked in. He booked himself a room in the first name that came into his head. Hugo Schmidt from Osnabruck. Ascending in the lift, he unlocked the door of a room at the back.

It took him only a few minutes to put his clothes inside the wardrobe and a couple of drawers. He left toothbrush, paste and shaving kit in the bathroom. Then he went back down in the lift and walked out of the hotel, the key of the room still inside his pocket.

He was second-guessing Tweed, gambling that if he did turn up in Lubeck he'd go back to the Jensen. The English were conservative, habit-ridden. Now all he had to do was to wait for Vollmer to warn him Tweed was on the way.

They were in the middle of Leipzig and Gerda sat alongside Newman. He needed her to guide him. He drove slowly along the Gerberstrasse at eight o'clock in the evening. Peering through the windscreen, he twisted his head to look up. An immense modern slab-like building soared into the sky.

`What's that place?' he asked. 'Must be thirty storeys high.'

`The Hotel Merkur. The best place to stay for miles around. It has three restaurants.'