Colin Forbes - Double Jeopardy

'She's not short of a schilling,' the gravedigger whispered to Martel. 'Saw her in town once – my wife said that fur is sable.' 'Whereabouts in Bregenz?'

'Coming out of a house in Gallus-strasse. Now's your chance.'

The woman was crouched with her back to them laying the flowers on a grave. Stooping low, Martel ran among the maze of headstones which reminded him of huge chess-pieces.

His rubber-soled shoes made no sound as he came up behind her and stopped. It was the same grave. In Cones Frieden. Alois Slohr. 1930-1953. The woman stood up, turned and saw him.

'Dear God!'

Panic! A slim, shapely hand clutched at her mouth as she stifled a scream. Large luminous eyes stared at Martel in sheer fright. A reaction which was hardly justified. Startled – yes, Martel would have expected that. But her reaction was too extreme – like that of someone whose dreadful secret had been discovered. He spoke in German.

'I have to ask you certain questions…'

'Questions?'

'Police.' He produced the special pass which gave him access to the Summit Express and showed her only a glimpse. Documents were designed to delude the innocent. 'Security from Vienna…'

'Vienna!'

“I need information on Alois Stohr – as he is called on the headstone…'

Afterwards he could never have explained why instinctively he chose this approach – only another trained interrogator would have understood. 'Seventh sense,' Tweed would have commented tersely.

'Why do you say that?' There was a quaver in the woman's voice. She would be in her late forties, Martel estimated. Still a very handsome woman. She must have been a beauty at eighteen, say. In 1953 when Alois Stohr was buried. 'I come here to put flowers on the grave of an old friend,' she went on.

'A friend who died nearly thirty years ago? You come here each week after all this time? To recall the memory of a friend? The man who died in 1953 when the Vorarlberg was under occupation…' The words poured out of Martel in a torrent as he aimed blind, hoping to strike a sensitive spot. He went on, saying the first thing which came into his head… occupation by French troops – that is, French officers and Moroccan other ranks…'

He stopped.

He had struck home – he could tell by the brief flicker of alarm in her eyes which vanished as swiftly as it appeared. Martel felt he had a lousy job to carry out but there was no other way.

'You know then?' she asked quietly.

'I am here,' he replied simply. One wrong word would lose her.

'I keep a taxi waiting…' She stooped and gathered up the loose cellophane wrappings in which she had brought the flowers. The cellophane was printed with the name of a florist and was moist with the mist. 'You want to come back with me?' she continued quietly, her voice soft and weary. 'Here…' she gestured at their surroundings… is hardly the place.'

'Of course…'

Her taxi was waiting behind his own at the gate, the drivers chatting together. Martel paid off his own driver and climbed into the back beside the woman who gave an address in Gallus-strasse.

The bookseller Martel had talked to on his previous visit had informed him it was one of the wealthier residential districts. As they drove away Martel recalled a remark the gravedigger had made about the woman. Not short of a schilling. It was all beginning to make hideous sense.

The four-storey villa in Gallus-strasse had cream-washed walls, brown shutters and was a square, solid edifice. Eight steps led up to the front door. Alongside the door were eight names, each with its own bell-push. There was a speakphone grille. One of the names, Martel noticed as she unlocked the door, was Christine Brack.

She had an expensively furnished apartment on the second floor. When she offered to make coffee he refused – he was desperately short of time. She removed the head-scarf, the sable coat, and underneath she was wearing a dark dress with a mandarin collar. As he had expected, she had an excellent figure.

Sitting down on a chair close to his own and facing him, she used both hands to shake loose long black hair. She was a very attractive woman.

`I suppose I have been waiting for you to arrive all my life – ever since it started…'

'May I smoke?' Martel asked.

`Please do. You can give me one…'

Was it a reaction to the state of extreme tension affecting him? He felt a wild desire to pick her up and carry her to the bed he could see through a half-open door. She followed his glance and crossed her shapely legs.

`Will the money stop now?' she asked. 'Not that I really care. It has felt like blood money all these years. And going to the Post Office to collect the envelope seemed undignified. Does that make sense, Mr…?'

'Stolz, Ernst Stolz…'

`You know, of course, I still retain my maiden name, Brack?'

`Yes, and I understand the blood money feeling; Martel probed cautiously. `Although I think you are wrong…

`We were deeply in love, Mr Stolz. When the accident happened we had just got married…'

'It was an accident?'

He was – to use another of Tweed's phrases – creeping over thin ice. She looked startled.

`But of course. My husband was driving the American jeep alone on a dangerous road in the Bregenzerwald and it was winter. He skidded over a precipice…'

`Who confirmed it was an accident?'

Perplexity mingled with suspicion in her expression as Martel struggled to draw her into the web of revelation. 'The two security men who brought me the news,' she replied.

`They wore civilian clothes? Had you ever seen them before? Do you speak French?'

`In the name of God what are you suggesting?' she demanded.

'It would help if you answered the questions…'

`Yes! They wore civilian clothes. No! I had never seen them before. And no! I do not speak French…'

`So, from the way they spoke, you would not be certain whether these two men were really French – because naturally you conversed in German?'

`That is correct. They explained to me how important it was for my husband's death to remain a secret – he was part of a long-term anti-Soviet operation. They said I owed it to his memory that his work should continue – probably for many years. They told me that his real rank was much higher than the one he had borne – that of lieutenant – and that each month I would therefore receive via the post a generous sum of money as a pension. From the amount I get he must have been a colonel at least…'

'What about the burial? Who identified the body?'

'I did, of course! In a private mortuary in the mountains. He had broken his neck but there were few other injuries.'

'And who was buried in the grave? Alois Stohr?'

'My husband, of course…' Christine Brack was shaking. 'He was buried under a different name because the long-term anti-Soviet operation depended on pretending he was still alive. They told me he would have wanted me to agree to the deception…'

They had committed two murders, Martel reflected. The man whose neck had been broken – and some poor devil of an Austrian whose body had probably been weighted and dumped in the nearby lake. It had been vital to kill and remove the unknown Stohr because of the death certificate regulations and so on – when all they had needed was his name.

Christine Brack, too, would have been killed except for one snag. A third murder might have loaded the dice against the conspirators. Instead they had told her black lies and provided money. He was now at the crux of the whole business. As he reached into his coat pocket for the envelope he realised his palm was moist.

'I want you to look at these photographs and tell me if you recognise anyone. Prepare yourself for a shock. These photos were taken recently.'

Martel waited, concealing a sensation of turmoil. Everything depended on what Christine Brack said during the next minute. She spread out the glossy prints on her lap and then uttered a little exclamation. Her expression was frozen as she held out one photograph.