Colin Forbes - Double Jeopardy

The attendant opened the door which he had locked after the passenger had left. Tweed stepped inside followed by Flandres. The Englishman raised the wash-basin lid.

'The soap is untouched. She hardly used the place…'

'The bed has not been slept in,' Flandres pointed out. `So she sat up all night…'

`Waiting until she reached Stuttgart,' Tweed said thoughtfully. 'I don't like this, Alain, I don't like it at all. Why should she book a sleeper, spend the night in it from Paris to Stuttgart and then get off? This business of feeling ill is nonsense.'

`Well, she is off the train – and we are moving again, thank God. I hate these stops. Let us go back and check with Howard and our American colleague…'

It was only a two-minute stop at Ulm. An essential element in the overall security was that at each stop one of the security chiefs climbed down on to the platform to check who was leaving or boarding the public section of the train. As they made their way back through the restaurant car Tweed asked his question.

`Who was watching the platform at Stuttgart?'

`O'Meara volunteered for the job…'

`And he wouldn't recognise Irma Romer,' Tweed remarked. 'He has never seen her.'

'And there was a fair amount of activity at Stuttgart. It will remain a mystery.

In the first-class day coach a woman passenger sat reading a copy of American Vogue. Her hair had a tinted rinse and she wore horn-rimmed glasses which were also tinted. She was dressed in an American trouser suit and perched on the luggage rack above her was a case with a bright tartan cover.

She was travelling on an American passport in the name of Pamela Davis and her occupation was given as journalist.

Taking out a pack of Lucky Strike she lit a fresh cigarette. By her side the ash-tray was crammed with half-smoked butts – but on top in view were fully-smoked stubs.

After complaining to the sleeping-car attendant of feeling ill, Reinhard Dietrich's mistress, Klara Beck, had got off the express at Stuttgart carrying her large Gucci suitcase. It was, she knew, a twelve-minute stop. She made her way to the ladies' room.

She had changed into the trouser suit behind a locked toilet door. She had used a hand-mirror to adjust carefully the rinsed wig which concealed her dark hair. Inside the large Gucci suitcase were some expensive clothes but it was mainly occupied by a smaller, tartan-covered case.

She had used a steel nail-file to force the locks on the Gucci. When it was found it would be assumed it had been stolen, certain contents taken and then abandoned in the toilet. There was no way the suitcase could be linked with its owner.

She had put on the tinted glasses, filled her new handbag with the contents of the one she had carried earlier, and substituted the Pamela Davis American passport for the Irma Romer Swiss passport. In her handbag was a fresh ticket purchased in advance from Stuttgart to Vienna. The transformation was now complete.

Klara Beck had overlooked nothing. Her actions had neutralised any check which she felt pretty sure would be made on the occupants of the sleeping-car. She was now ready for the final stage of the operation.

Normally Tweed would have been standing on the platform at Ulm during the two-minute stop – and Tweed was the man capable of recognising Claire Hofer. Martel had not only given him a verbal description of the Swiss girl during their meeting at Heathrow; he had backed this up with the passport photo attached to the special card. Instead it was Howard who checked passenger movement.

Claire was waiting on the platform when the Summit Express came in. She carried a small suitcase and her handbag. And she wore a pair of glasses with plain lenses which gave her a studious air. When the train stopped she approached the entrance to the first-class coach and showed her ticket to the waiting official.

'And your passport, Madame – or some other form of identity,' another uniformed official requested.

Claire produced her Swiss passport and this immediately satisfied the German. She climbed aboard and began moving along the corridor glancing into each compartment. The first one with only a single passenger was occupied by a tall man wearing lederhosen – the leather garb seen so often in Bavaria. His hat was tipped over his eyes and he appeared to be asleep.

She went inside, closed the door and heaved her case up on to the-rack. The fact that it was a smoker had influenced her choice. And she wanted a quiet compartment so she could think. Inside the next compartment – only a few feet further along the corridor – sat another lone passenger, a woman carrying a passport in the name of Pamela Davis.

'What a pleasant surprise, Miss Hofer…'

She nearly jumped out of her skin. Her hand slid to the flap of her handbag which contained the 9-mm pistol. The tall man tipped back his hat as he spoke softly.

'No need for protection. I'm quite harmless,' he continued. Stupefied, she stared as Erich Stoller stared back at her. The express began moving east again. It was exactly 8.07 am.

Wednesday June 3: o800-o845 hours

'The Blumenstrasse cemetery. I haven't much time…' Martel told the Bregenz cab-driver. 'Where you're going they have all the time in the world… The cab-driver's response was typically Austrian, taking life as it came – and went. But Martel's urgency communicated itself to him and he drove away from the solid wall of buildings along the lakeside at speed.

The Englishman made an effort to contain his impatience. Away to the north the Summit Express was speeding across Germany and, if on schedule, was approaching Ulm. At the eastern end of Lake Konstanz a grey drizzle blotted out the mountains. Through the open window moisture drifted in and settled on his face.

Arriving at the entrance to the cemetery, he paid the fare, added a generous tip and told the driver to wait. Then he plunged into the sea of headstones, his eyes scanning the maze. It was such a long shot -a remark made to him by a gravedigger when he had last been in Bregenz.

But it was the right day. He checked his watch. It was also the right time. 8 am.

'She comes every week without fail,' the gravedigger had told him. 'Always on the Wednesday and always at eight in the morning when no one else is about…'

Martel buttoned up the collar of his raincoat against the rain. The only sound was the low whine of a wind. Clouds like grey smoke were so low you felt you could reach up and touch them.

As the mist parted occasionally there were brief glimpses of the forest on the precipitous Pfander mountain. Then he saw behind a headstone the crouched form of the gravedigger. He was levering his spade, adding to a mound of freshly dug earth.

'Back again, sir.'

The old man had straightened up and turned. His moustache dripped moisture and his cap was soggy. He regarded Martel's expression of surprise with amusement.

'You didn't startle me. Saw you coming soon as you entered the Friedhof. Thank you kindly, sir…'

He pocketed the sheaf of Austrian banknotes Martel had earlier counted from his wallet, then leaned on his shovel. Martel had one hand clenched behind his back, the nails digging into his palm to conceal his frustration. It was no good asking direct questions immediately: that was not the way of the Vorarlberg.

'You work in all weathers?' Martel enquired.

'They don't wait for you on this job…' The gravedigger then surprised him. 'Looking for that woman who comes here each week? She's just coming through the main gate. Don't turn round – the slightest change of atmosphere disturbs her…'

Martel waited and then glanced over his shoulder. Beyond the pallisade of large headstones a woman wearing a red head-scarf was walking briskly. She wore a fur coat and carried a spray of flowers as she headed in a diagonal direction away' from them.