Colin Forbes - The Stockholm syndicate

"I will confirm that you may be expected in Leningrad aboard SK 732 from Arlanda tomorrow."

As the door closed Rashkin shut the folder embossed with a small gold star indicating its extreme level of secrecy, pushed back his chair and swore aloud. "Five minutes in this place and I'm screaming to get out again. Bristle-Brush is becoming impossible to live with."

*

"I can do nothing more, Jules. I have received specific orders that our distinguished guests are not to be interfered with in any way on the contrary, while visiting this country they are to be granted every courtesy and consideration. The trouble is, Sweden stands to gain a considerable amount of international business while hosting this conference."

"They admit a conference is taking place?"

Harry Fondberg and Beaurain were again in the Swedish security chief's office at police headquarters. But on this second occasion the atmosphere was quite different. To Beaurain's astonishment, Fondberg's manner was formal, as though he were covering up a deep sense of embarrassment.

"There has been a reference to a conference, yes," Fondberg admitted.

Beaurain stood up. "I presume this means I can no longer rely on you for any assistance? That is the situation, is it not?"

The plump-faced, capable Swede paused, clearly reluctant to let his old friend leave. "There was a message for you, by the way," he said. "It was phoned through to me just before you arrived. I was not able to persuade her to leave her real name."

" Her? "

"Yes, it was a woman. The message for you was simply, Offshore from the port of Trelleborg. A hydrofoil. Champagne." Fondberg excused himself as the phone rang. He listened, spoke a few words and then replaced the receiver, his expression sombre. "There has been, a death at the Grand Hotel. An important lady."

"The Countess d'Arlezzo,"

Beaurain made it a statement and Fondberg's sensitive ear did not miss the inflection. He stood up behind his desk, his eyes alert, his mouth hard as he met the Belgian's grim gaze. Beaurain continued, "Earlier today I was talking with Erika — the Countess — in her suite at the Grand. I have known her for a long time. She told me she had been threatened by the Stockholm Syndicate. That phone call tells me roughly where the conference of the Syndicate will take place. We had arranged she should use the code-word champagne to identify herself. I believe I passed the person who must have been keeping an eye on her for the Syndicate, a waiter pushing a trolley."

"One of the Grand Hotel's regular staff — a waiter — has been found trussed up and stuffed inside a broom cupboard."

"How did she die?"

Beaurain walked over to the window with hands clasped behind his back while he waited for the reply, and stared out at the sunlight which Erika would never see again. His eyes were quite still.

Fondberg was beginning to feel very uneasy. He cleared his voice before he spoke. "She was found hanging from the shower in the bathroom. She used her bath-robe cord, a common…"

" I would be found… hung and twisting like a side of meat turning in the wind." Beaurain repeated for Fondberg's benefit the words Erika had used. The Swede sank into the chair behind his desk and stared dully into the distance, tapping the stubby fingers of his right hand on the desk top, a sure sign that he was deeply disturbed. He listened while Beaurain related the whole of his conversation with the woman who had been one of the most powerful figures in Western Europe.

The Belgian's voice grew harsher as he concluded his version of his last meeting with Erika. "So these are the people to whom you are extending every courtesy and consideration that was the phrase, was it not? And they — all these members of the Stockholm Syndicate — are as guilty of Erika d'Arlezzo's murder as if they personally had tied round her neck the cord of her own bath-robe and strung her up to that shower."

"I said nothing about a murder." Fondberg wriggled uncomfortably behind his desk and, for the first time in their long friendship, he was unable to meet Beaurain's gaze.

"Christ Al-bloody-mighty!" Beaurain's fist smashed down on the desk-top. "You are not going to stoop so low that you will allow them to get away with this faked suicide?"

" No! " Fondberg came out of his mental daze and stared straight at Beaurain. "Of course I know it wasn't suicide! Had you understood Swedish you would have known I was speaking to the forensic expert who has already arrived at the Grand. I told him to send his report to me personally at the earliest possible moment. No-one else will be permitted to see it. I shall myself announce its findings to the international press now gathering here hoping for news of the "business" conference. It will cause a bombshell!"

"The Syndicate will come after you," Beaurain warned his old friend, but, he admitted privately to himself, he was also testing him. Such was the quicksand atmosphere of treachery and fear the unseen organisation had generated. Fondberg's reaction made him feel a little ashamed.

"Wrong, my friend. I am going after the Stockholm Syndicate! In committing this murder they have made a big mistake. They hoped their influence was strong enough to squash any attempt at a legitimate investigation. They overlooked the fact that I might intervene."

Events moved at bewildering speed during the next few days. On receipt of Beaurain's urgent signal sent by Stig Palme from a transceiver hidden in the basement of a house in the town of Strangnas, Captain "Bucky' Buckminster left his anchorage off Copenhagen and proceeded south and east into the Baltic.

"We have to wait off the coast near Trelleborg," he told Anderson, the chief pilot of the giant Sikorsky which they carried on the helipad. "Just below the horizon so we cannot easily be seen from the Swedish shore."

"Any exercises once we get there?" Anderson enquired.

"Yes. Intensive training with the power-boats and dinghies equipped with outboards in fact all the fleet of craft in the hold. Another activity Beaurain wants toned up is the training of frogmen in underwater warfare."

"The Countess d'Arlezzo, president of the well-known group of banks, who was discovered hanging from the shower in the bathroom of her suite in the Grand Hotel was, in the opinion of the well-known pathologist, Professor Edwin Jacoby…'

Harry Fondberg, who was addressing a press conference called at very short notice — other reporters were still arriving, pushing their way into the crowded room was possessed of a certain dramatic sense which he now used to the full. Beaurain watched him from a position at the back of the room. Heads craned as the pause was stretched out. Most of the western world's leading newspapers, TV stations and magazines were represented.

'… was MURDERED!"

Pandemonium! The small plump chief of Sapo waited as men and women milled in the room — some already rushing for phones to catch editions about to go to press with the staggering announcement. The Countess d'Arlezzo's beauty had been compared with that of Sophia Loren; her business influence with that of Onassis. As the initial reaction subsided, Fondberg ruthlessly piled on the drama. Now it was too late for anyone to try and hold down the lid on the case. It was his first promised blow at the Stockholm Syndicate.

"In a moment Professor Jacoby will tell you his reasons for stating that in his opinion the alleged suicide was faked, could not have taken place in the way meant to fool the police. Or, shall we say, certain powerful criminal groups with international connections believed their influence was so great that no-one would ever dare reveal the truth?"

Louise whispered to Beaurain. "God: That's really blasted the case wide open. Whoever Hugo is, he's going to go crazy!"