Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

"Thank you, Henri. You have been more helpful than you may ever realise. From now on, be very careful."

At the far side of the T'Zand Square they entered the Zuidzandstraat, a narrow street which was almost deserted. "Prepare for trouble," Beaurain said as they arrived at the entrance to the gloomy Hoogste van Brugge. It was empty, little more than a cobbled alley hemmed in between two walls of old terrace houses. Beaurain paused, checking house numbers on both sides of the corridor of stone. At the far end was parked a Volkswagen taking up most of the width of the alley.

"I reckon No. 285 is by that car," Beaurain said.

"Which could be the car from which the dummy grenade came?"

"Just might be. Again, be ready for trouble."

They started walking down the alley side by side, their rubber-soled shoes making no sound on the ancient cobbles. The walls of the lifeless houses s eemed to be closing in on them. Although only a minute's walk from the bustling T'Zand Square they were in a different world.

They were half-way to the Volkswagen when Beau-rain made a swift gesture. He pressed himself in the recess of a doorway on the left and Louise chose a doorway in the right-hand wall. Beaurain's acute hearing had caught the sound of a door being unbolted. They waited.

A man came out of a house on the right-hand side, glanced down the alley, then turned away and hurried to the Volkswagen. A tall, thin man with a springy step, he bore no resemblance to the description of Otto Berlin. They waited until he got inside the car and drove round the corner. Beaurain nodded and they started up the street again.

Another man, carrying a suitcase, emerged from the same house. A fat man with greasy black hair and a moustache whose ends curved down round the corners of his mouth. A man who waddled like a duck. He saw them, stopped, took something from his pocket, made a quick pulling movement and hoisted his right hand like a bowler throwing a cricket ball.

"My God! That's Otto Berlin!" Louise called out.

" Drop flat! "

Louise reacted instantly, sprawling on the cobbles. Beaurain fell on top of her, protecting her body. The missile Berlin had hurled fell on the cobbles about forty feet from where they lay. The silence lasted four seconds. It was followed by an ear-splitting blast as the grenade exploded. Chips of stone flew all over the place. As Beaurain and Louise remained prone the shock wave passed over their heads. Beaurain felt a stone sliver whipping through his hair, but Berlin had miscalculated the distance and dropped the grenade too far away to hurt them. Provided they had luck on their side. They had.

"Are you all right?"

Beaurain was on his feet, tugging the Smith amp; Wesson from its holster. He was too late. Otto Berlin had sprinted round the corner. Beaurain turned to Louise who was brushing dirt off her clothes. Her voice was shaky.

"I'm OK."

"The station…"

Beaurain shoved the revolver out of sight. Not a soul had appeared so far. The Hoogste van Brugge seemed accustomed to grenades. Or perhaps the unseen inhabitants had found it paid to mind their own business.

"Why the station?" Louise asked as Beaurain grabbed her arm and hustled her back the way they had come.

"Because I think he could be heading there to get the hell out of Bruges. And I saw a cab rank in the T'Zand Square."

"Why didn't the Volkswagen driver take him?"

"How the devil do I know? Maybe Berlin wanted him out of town fast in case the car had been recognised." They entered the T'Zand Square. "We'll take this cab," Beaurain said.

He only relaxed when the cab was moving. "If only we could get hold of one of the three men Goldschmidt gave us we could crack this thing. Otto Berlin would be perfect. You're sure you're all right?"

"I seem to be in one piece." She said nothing more until they arrived at the station. Beaurain was taking money out of his wallet when she grabbed his sleeve. "Look! There's Berlin just going into the station. He's still carrying his case,"

Running from the cab, they were able to pass straight through the barrier with their return tickets. An express to Brussels was just about to depart. Among the last-minute passengers scrambling aboard they saw the fat figure of Otto Berlin entering a compartment near the front of the train. They just managed to get aboard as the express started moving. Beaurain peered out of the window to make sure Berlin had not jumped off again. The platform was empty. He looked at Louise as they stood in the deserted corridor.

"This is an express. One stop before Brussels — Ghent, which is half an hour away. We've got him — he can't leave a train moving at seventy miles an hour."

"We search the whole express — but I want to find Berlin without him seeing us. So we can track him. We start at the front of the train and work our way back. You go first, I'll trail behind you. That way he's less likely to spot us."

The express was about half full. They walked rapidly to the front of the train but neither of them saw Berlin. They began working their way back towards the rear of the express checking every passenger.

"I'll check each lavatory as we go through," Beaurain told her. "If one is occupied we wait at a discreet distance and see who comes out."

They had over fifteen minutes to go when they reached the end of the train. No Berlin. Standing in the corridor Beaurain lit them both cigarettes and they looked at each other. Outside the windows the sunlit countryside flashed past — and again they saw a canal and barges with TV. masts and washing-lines.

"I can't understand it," Louise said. "You checked every lavatory. We've both seen every passenger aboard so what the devil has happened to him? He can't have just vanished into thin air."

"Except that he appears to have done just that."

The stop at Ghent gave no help in solving the mystery. People got off. More passengers boarded the express. No-one even remotely resembling Dr. Otto Berlin appeared. As the train left Ghent they made their way to the front, found an empty compartment in the coach behind the engine, sat down and stared at each other.

"Do we search all over again?" Louise suggested. "We must have missed something."

"We stay here until the train reaches Brussels," Beaurain said firmly. "At Nord we get out pretty sharp, wait by the barrier and check everyone off. No-one can board a train and disappear in a puff of smoke."

At Nord the express emptied itself. Standing a short distance away from Beaurain, Louise watched the passengers trailing past, many of them with luggage and obviously travellers from Ostend and the ferry from England. A squabbling family already tired from their journey and the heat; a crowd of locals wearing berets and chattering away in French; the inevitable priest with his suitcase.

They watched the last person off the express and then joined each other and walked towards the exit. Beaurain spoke as they came outside the station into brilliant sunshine. "We'll take a cab to Henderson's sub-base and see how the tracking of Litov is proceeding. Better than our efforts I hope."

He arranged for the cab to drop them a few minutes from the sub-base and they continued on foot. When they arrived in the first-floor room with the wall-map Beaurain only had to take one look at Henderson's face to know a disaster had occurred.

Pierre Florin, the sergeant you wanted to interview, has been found murdered at his apartment," Henderson informed them. "Commissioner Voisin is anxious to see you as soon as possible."

"How do you know about Florin?" Beaurain enquired.

"I phoned your apartment to see if you had arrived back — and Chief Inspector Willy Flamen of Homicide answered the phone."

"And what the hell was he doing inside my apartment?"