Colin Forbes - Terminal

`One more thing,' Mason added. 'Don't imagine it means anything. Robert Newman, the foreign correspondent, booked in here after me. He had his wife with him. I didn't know he was married…'

`He probably isn't. You know the bohemian life those correspondents lead…' Tweed sounded dreamy. 'Keep digging. And stay in Berne…'

Tweed put down the phone and looked at Monica who was sorting files. 'That was Mason calling from the Bellevue Palace. He has data on Professor Armand Grange of the Berne Clinic. Anything on the computer? Just supposing the damned thing is working…'

`It is working. I did check. Not a thing. I tried Medical and came up with zero. So then I tried Industrialists – because of his chemical works. Zero again. I even tried Bankers. Zero. The man is a shadow. I even wondered whether he really exists.'

`Well, at least that has decided me.' Tweed was polishing his glasses again on the worn silk handkerchief. Monica watched him. He was always fingering the lenses. 'I'm going to Berne,' Tweed told her. `It's just a question of timing. Book me on Swissair flights for Zurich non-stop. As I miss one flight, book me on the next one. When I do leave it will be at a moment's notice.'

`What are you waiting for?' Monica asked.

`A development. A blunder on the part of the opposition. It has to come. No one is foolproof. Not even a shadow…'

The coffee shop at the Bellevue Palace is a large glass box-like restaurant perched above the pavement on the side overlooking the Hertz car hire office. Newman gobbled down his steak as Nancy ate her grilled sole. Swallowing his coffee in two gulps, Newman wiped his mouth with a napkin and signed the bill.

`You're going to hire the car now?' Nancy asked. 'I'll dash up to the room and get my gloves. Meet you over there?' `Do that.'

Newman waited at the exit until she had disappeared and then retraced his steps to one of the phone booths near the garderobe, the cloakroom where guests left their coats. It took him one minute to make the call and then he ran back to the exit, along the pavement and into the Hertz office. Slamming down his driving licence and passport he told the girl what he wanted.

`They have a Citroen. Automatic,' he told Nancy when she came inside. 'This chap is going to take us to the car. It's on Level Three…'

In less than five minutes he was driving the car round the sharp curves up to street level. Nancy put on her wool-lined leather gloves, fastened her seat belt and relaxed. An expert driver, she still preferred to travel as a passenger.

The sky was a heavy pall hovering close to the city as they crossed one of the bridges and within a short time Newman was on the four-lane motorway which runs all the way to Lucerne via Thun. Inside forty minutes they should have arrived at the Berne Clinic.

Lee Foley paid a very generous sum in Swiss francs to borrow the red Porsche from his Berne contact. He needed a fast car although normally its conspicuousness would have worried him. But this was an emergency.

He drove just inside the speed limit through the suburbs of Berne, but as soon as he turned on to the motorway he pushed his foot down. The highway was quiet, very little other traffic in mid-afternoon. His cold blue eyes flickered from side to side as he increased speed.

`Watch it on that motorway,' his contact had informed him as he handed over the Porsche which he had brought to the Savoy. 'It's a favourite place for the police to set up speed-traps…'

Foley had driven away from the Savoy so fixed on getting to his destination in time that he for once omitted to check that no one was following him. So he completely missed noticing the helmeted figure who jumped on a scooter parked further along the pavement. The scooter was still with him, little more than a dot behind the Porsche, when he spotted the Citroen ahead.

He kept up his speed, pulling closer to the Citroen until he had a good view of the two occupants. Newman behind the wheel, his woman seated alongside him. Foley breathed a sigh of relief and reduced speed, widening the distance between the two vehicles. Behind him the scooter rider-going flat-out – also slowed down.

Foley drove under a large destination indicator board, one of several at regular intervals. The board carried the legend THUN – NORD.

Inside the Citroen the warmth from the heater had dispelled the bitter cold and Nancy removed her gloves. Her right hand played with the fingers of one glove in her lap. The motorway was in superb condition, its surface clear of snow. But as they left Berne behind, passed the turn-off to Belp, the snow in the fields on both sides lay deeper. Here and there an occasional naked tree stretched gnarled branches towards the dark grey pall overhead. The atmosphere was sullen, unwelcoming. Newman glanced at her restless hand.

`Nervous? Now we're so close?'

`Yes, I am, Bob. I keep thinking about Jesse. And I'm not at all sure they're going to let us in, just dropping on them like this…'

`Leave me to do the talking when we arrive. You're a close relative. I'm a foreign correspondent. A lethal combination for a clinic which wants to preserve its reputation. There's no publicity like bad publicity…'

`What are you going to do?' She sounded worried.

`I'm going to get inside that clinic. Now, have one of your rare cigarettes, stop fiddling with that glove, here's the pack.'

They passed under a fresh sign which indicated two different destinations. THUN – SUD, THUN – NORD. Newman signalled to the huge trailer truck coming up behind him and swung up the turn-off to Thun-Nord. Nancy lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Now they were crossing the motorway which was below them and from this extra elevation she had a view of grim, saw-toothed mountains to the south, mountains only dimly seen in a veil of mist so for a moment she wasn't sure whether she was watching a mirage.

`Those must be pretty high,' she observed.

`They rise to the far side of Thun, to the south and the east. One of them is the Stockhorn. Probably that big brute towering above the rest…'

They were climbing a gradual but continually-ascending slope up a hillside between more fields. An isolated farm here and there, a glimpse of neatly-stacked and huge bales of hay inside barns with steep roofs. The lowering sky created an ominous sense of desolation. Over to the east a great castle perched on a hilltop with turrets capped with what looked like witches' hats.

`That's the famous Thun Schloss,' Newman remarked. `The town is below it, out of sight…'

`You do know the way?'

`We turn off this road somewhere higher up according to that helpful concierge at the Bellevue. Check it on the map I put in the glove compartment if you like – he marked the route…'

`It's creepy up here, Bob…'

`It's just a lousy afternoon.'

But there was something in her remark. They were very close to the snow-line. Earlier sun had melted the snow blanket on the lower fields facing south. Beyond the snow line houses were dotted at intervals towards Thun. Near the top of the ridge a dense forest of dark firs huddled like an army waiting to march. Then they reached the snow-line and here no ploughs had cleared the road. Newman reduced speed, slowed even more as he saw a sign-post. The sign read Klinik Bern. He swung right on to a narrower road, corrected a rear-wheel skid, drove on.

`Do you think that's it?' Nancy asked.

`I imagine so…'

A large, two-storey mansion with a verandah running round the ground floor was perched in an isolated position on the wide plateau which extended to the group of private houses several kilometres to the east. The grounds, which looked extensive, were surrounded by a wire fence and ahead Newman saw a gatehouse. Close behind the mansion the forest stood, a solid wall of firs mantled with snow. He pulled up in front of the stone, single-storey gatehouse beside double wire gates which were closed. Before he could alight from the car large, black dogs appeared and came leaping towards the gate.