Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

She stood to one side and turned the door handle. Palme walked into the room and stared at the gun aimed point-blank, then his gaze swivelled. He closed the door.

"Isn't it sickening," she said as lightly as she could, but she didn't fool the Swede as she slipped the gun back inside her shoulder-bag. He said the one thing which could have lightened the atmosphere.

"I think the management will agree to changing your room."

There was a second knocking on the door. Stig Palme motioned her to slip into the bathroom, which was a mistake because it was even more hideous there than in the bedroom. She gritted her Teeth, then thankfully heard Beaurain's voice, a sharp tone. "Where's Louise? Has she seen…?"

"She's in the bathroom. I sent her in there when…"

He found her sitting on the bathroom stool with her legs crossed, one arm supporting the other as she gazed directly at him and calmly smoked the cigarette she had just lit, her only concession to the experience she had just undergone.

"Only a sick mind…" she began.

It was — if possible — even worse in the bathroom. An aerosol paint spray had been the weapon used — used with such diabolical skill that Beaurain suspected the perpetrator must be a trained artist. Sprayed over every surface in the bathroom were obscene pictures involving a woman indulging in every type of perversion imaginable. And in every instance the face depicted was a caricature — but immediately recognisable — of Louise Hamilton.

The bedroom walls and every other available surface had been similarly treated. Beaurain watched her smoking her cigarette and then reacted in just the right way.

"We must at once reserve another bedroom on a different floor and with an entirely different layout. In actual fact, as long as we stay at this place I suggest you spend each night in my room. God knows the bed is big enough."

"Thank you," she said gratefully.

"Can I have a word with you in a minute?" Palme asked Beaurain.

"After we've got the room business sorted out."

"What are you going to tell the manager?" Louise enquired.

Beaurain knew instantly what was worrying her that the manager was bound to wonder what sort of people she knew who could act in this way. She felt besmirched by such vile obscenity. Again he knew exactly the right reply. "That my ex-wife is insanely jealous and has already in another country been charged with the same type of offence. Also," he paused to smile, 'that she will by now have left Sweden to escape the attention of the police."

Fifteen minutes later they had ensconced Louise in an entirely different room, this time on the second floor. It overlooked the street up which marched the mounted horse troops after the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace, explained an assistant manager who was obviously going out of his way to make her forget her recent experience. At the door he paused before leaving.

"May I take it that Madame had not propped her door open for a short time while she left the room?"

Louise smiled, her face still bloodless: "No, I certainly had not propped the door open in any way."

"Of course! Madame does not, I trust, mind my asking? Thank you. Ah, here is a bottle of champagne. Please accept it as a small present from the management."

Stig Palme was conferring with Beaurain as they sat in the Swede's Saab parked outside the hotel. The choice of locale for their conversation had been Palme's.

"This way we know we are not being recorded. You have seen how the bedroom doors lock, how from the outside you must turn the key before you can enter the room? I think," Palme continued, 'it is possible the Stockholm Syndicate have committed their first major blunder — opening up a trail I can follow which just might blast their organisation wide open."

"It's going to be a race against time," Beaurain warned. "I have the strongest feeling Hugo is going to launch an all-out offensive to wipe us out."

"Because we've just lost him his major heroin delivery?"

"Partly — but maybe even more because of this." Beaurain nodded towards a large Mercedes which had just glided to a halt outside the Grand Hotel. Out of the rear door a short stout man holding a brief-case had emerged while two other men, who had left the car seconds earlier, took up positions near the foot of the steps and were staring in all directions.

"Who is the little fat man who needs armed guards?" Stig asked.

"That is Leo Gehn, president of the International Telecommunications and Electronics Corporation of America. One of the richest and most powerful industrialists inside the States — they say he contributed a million dollars to the President's electoral campaign. Maybe he contributes even larger sums to the Stockholm Syndicate."

"I don't follow, Jules."

"After leaving the marina we returned to police headquarters — to see if Fondberg's Sapo people had any further information. They had. A whole list of European and American power elite are arriving aboard a stream of aircraft — some aboard scheduled flights, some in their private jets — putting down at Arlanda. They seem to be staying at two hotels — the Saltsjobaden Hotel and here at the Grand. So far, apart from Leo Gehn, the presidents or chairmen of five of America's biggest corporations have flown in to say nothing of men like Eugene Pascal from Paris and a score of others. Fondberg suspects they are here for the secret meeting of the Stockholm Syndicate that they're all men who have either voluntarily contributed money in return for the vast profits they'll gain from international crime or they have been subjected to the most hideous intimidation. I need just one I can crack, Stig just one."

Taking the cigarette out of his mouth, he stared through the windscreen at the person alighting from another chauffeur-driven limousine at the entrance to the Grand Hotel. Out of the rear door stepped one of the most elegant and striking women Palme had ever seen, her jet-black hair piled up on top of her head.

"I said I needed just one! That, Stig, is the Countess d'Arlezzo,"

"But surely her husband is the man who will run their affairs?"

"Her husband, Luigi, was bought by Erika for his aristocratic connections. She personally runs the banking empire she inherited from her father. Wait here."

The Countess lingered on the sidewalk at the foot of the flight of steps, dismissing all attempts to hurry her inside with a casual wave of her slim hand while she drank in the view of the Royal Palace and the Houses of Parliament. Beaurain grinned to himself as he saw the gesture; how like Erika. He was within a few feet of her when a heavily-built man in a dark suit stood in his way.

"Stay back an' 'old da position," he ordered.

"Out of my way or I'll break your arm," Beaurain said politely and smiled.

"Jules!" The woman, in her early forties, had swung round at the sound of his voice and stepped forward. Impetuously she embraced him while the guard stared in confusion.

"You must come up to my suite," she continued, linking her arm in his. "Luigi? I expect he's somewhere with a bottle — didn't you know? These days he's hardly ever sober."

When her cases had been brought up and they were alone she took him by the hand and was about to lead him into the bedroom. He shook his head, turned on the radio loud to counter any possible concealed microphones and faced her as he threw the question in her teeth.

"I take it that your banking consortium has contributed money to the coffers of the Stockholm Syndicate?"

"The equivalent of several million pounds," she replied without the slightest hesitation. "It is supposed to be a loan but I don't regard Hugo as a particularly good risk."

He studied her for a moment. She stood very erect and, while she spoke, inserted a cigarette in a long holder. He lit it for her. Of all the people caught up in the labyrinth of the Syndicate, she was possibly the only one with the nerve to tell him the truth without a second's hesitation. So why had she given in to them in the first place?