Deadlock

18

'Let's take a tram,' Tweed said as they walked out of Basle Bahnhof into the sunshine. 'I seem to remember it's a Number Eight we want. Drops us almost outside the Drei Konige.'

'I like trams – but why?' asked Paula. 'You have a reason, I sense. You know Basle well, it seems.'

'Spent a month here once. There's the tram stop over there. Yes, I have a reason. One stop en route is Bankverein. I want to see where those robberies took place.'

Less than a hundred yards from the ancient facade of the Bahnhof, they waited on an island between streets busy with traffic. Tweed checked with the driver he was right and they boarded a Number Eight. It trundled off and Tweed chose a seat on the right-hand side facing the way they were going.

The green tram curved along its track between venerable old buildings. Tweed told Paula many of them were erected between 1100 and 1200 AD. The loudspeaker system announced the next destination before they reached it. In a few minutes they heard the driver's voice again. Bankverein. The tram stopped. Tweed peered out.

'There's the Zurcher Kredit Bank,' he whispered. He looked round as passengers alighted, got on board. More heavy traffic. Just as he remembered it. Then the tram was on the move again.

'It beats me,' he said.

'What does?'

Twelve million francs of gold bullion. How they got away with it. This is the centre of the city. Unless it was on a Sunday. The streets are deserted then…'

They got off a few stops further on and Paula saw The Drei Konige, The Three Kings, another ancient building. As they crossed the street Tweed pointed out the Rhine to her. Trams were cruising across a bridge over the wide river. Unlike Geneva, which had an air of excitement, Basle seemed peaceful despite the traffic.

The message was waiting for them in the room allocated to Tweed.

'Saucy,' Tweed said when Paula came along to his bedroom ten minutes later. He indicated a spray of flowers with a message written on a card. 'Those are for you – as though we're sharing a room.'

'Maybe he thinks we should,' Paula said after reading the note. Welcome to Basle, Paula. Tweed, call me at this number… Arthur Beck. 'The flowers are beautiful. Isn't that nice of him? And you've got the same marvellous view I have.'

She went across to the window which led on to a balcony. The Rhine flowed immediately below beyond a narrow walled walk for pedestrians. More trams rumbled over the bridge as a barge chugged under one of the spans, heading downstream. A great canvas cover masked the hold and the wheelhouse was close to the stern.

'I once spent a holiday with a boyfriend on a barge -smaller than that,' Paula said wistfully. 'We cruised down the Canal de l'Est from Dinant in Belgium on through France via the Canal de la Marne au Rhin – and emerged on to the Rhine itself just south of here. When are you going to call Beck?'

'I've called him.' Tweed stood beside her, watching the barge slide past without really seeing it. 'He'll be here any moment. And he's bringing Colonel Romer with him – the chap who lost the largest share of gold bullion in the robbery. Boss of the Zurcher.'

'Should I make myself scarce when they…'

The phone rang. Tweed shook his head as he went to pick up the receiver. 'You might as well stay. You could spot a point I miss.' He spoke rapidly in German, put down the receiver. 'As you probably gathered, they're on their way up.'

Beck ushered in a tall, well-built man with a trim moustache and wearing a navy blue business suit. His thick hair and brows were grey and he carried himself with a military stance. Beck made introductions. 'Commander Tweed… His assistant, Miss Paula Grey. ..'

Romer stared hard at both of them, decided they were trustworthy, plunged straight into the topic. 'You've heard we lost twelve million? That is, with the other bank. Chief of Police here is baffled. Are you?'

'What day was the robbery?' Tweed asked.

'Sunday. Middle of the night.' He laid a brief-case on one of the tables.

'How might they have got away with that weight of gold?'

'Put your finger on it,' Romer said crisply, sitting down at Tweed's invitation. 'Local police first thought they used the airport. A Fokker Friendship aircraft took off. They worked out the timing. It seemed right if trucks transported the gold. Seemed right at the time.'

'But not now?'

'Seemed right,' Romer continued, 'because the Fokker had a flight plan to fly to Orly, Paris. Never arrived. The manifests were checked, proved to be forged. Vanished into thin air. Literally. The aircraft.'

'A Fokker could have carried that weight in gold?'

'Put your finger on it again.' Romer's tone expressed confidence in Tweed. Behind his back Beck nodded to Paula: the Colonel was not an easy man to impress. 'I had that point checked myself,' Romer went on. 'No Fokker could have taken the whole load. I think it was a smokescreen – to divert our attention from how they did move the gold.'

'How would a gang like that dispose of the gold? You're a banker. ..'•

'Good question. Asked it myself times without number. A crooked banker – or bullion merchant – is the only answer. Mind you, they wouldn't get anything like the twelve million – the robbers. Eight if they were lucky – and had the right contacts. You'd find the answer in Luxembourg City or Brussels. Better still, in London. I'll give you a name.'

He extracted from his wallet a blank white card, wrote on it rapidly in neat script, handed it to Tweed. 'Mention my name. For obvious reasons it's not on the card. He'll phone me for confirmation, then talk to you.'

'Who would buy the gold – the ultimate customer, I mean.'

'Russia,' Romer said promptly. 'At the head of the list. I probably overdid it when I said the bastards who took the bullion would get eight million. Six more likely. The go-between wants his cut. Then Russia – if it was them -gets four or five million francs for nothing. Hard currency for nothing when they sell it again.'

'I don't know much about bullion,' Tweed persisted, 'but I understood each bar of gold is stamped with its origin?'

'Quite so. So, the go-between has it melted down, destroying the distinguishing mark, then cools it, resolidifies it. No trace of origin left. Of course, he'd need all the facilities. That chap in London will know more.' He opened his brief-case. 'Now, Beck tells me you want to know about the explosive used.'

'It would help?'

'Not much, I'm afraid.' He handed Tweed a sheaf of typed papers. 'It's in English – for your experts. It's a new type of explosive. That's really all we can say. There's a lot of chemical analysis stuff there that doesn't mean a thing to me. All our chaps had to go on was smears taken from flashpoints inside the vault. Oh, the mechanism of the bomb was a bit diabolical. Caused implosion – if you know what that means.'

'Designed so the whole force of the explosion goes in one direction…" Tweed glanced at Paula who had lost colour. Took ninety per cent of the vault door,' Romer went on, 'nine inches of cold steel

…' He took a slim executive case out of the bulky brief-case, handed it to Tweed with a key.

'Inside is a plastic bag containing pieces of debris our boffins scraped off the floor of the vault. Maybe your people can make something of it. God knows they've had enough experience with the IRA crowd. I think that's it.'

Beck produced an envelope, handed it to Tweed. 'Copies of the blueprints found inside Gaston Blanc's safe at Montres Ribaud. Colonel Romer says they are designs for timers – and control boxes. Take them, too. Just about all we can do now.'

There is one more thing,' Tweed said. 'I'd like to look at that barge harbour further down the Rhine where you dragged out a second body…'

'Let's all go,' Romer said. 'In my car.' He glanced at Beck. 'Your friend, Tweed, has that look in his eye.' 'What look?' 'A bloodhound. Never gives up.'

Romer led the way, followed by Tweed and Paula, Beck brought up the rear as they picked their way over a complex of rail tracks. The barge harbour was protected from the Rhine by a peninsula on which stood several large silos. Behind them oil storage tanks reared up like large white cakes.

Barges were moored three abreast alongside the river. There was a stench of oil and tar and resin Tweed associated with waterfronts. Romer paused, called back to Paula to join him. 'You've charmed the Colonel, too,' Tweed whispered.

'Phooey!' She went ahead and Romer took her arm. Using his other hand which held a baton he pointed across the oily, gliding river. 'That's France over there on the far bank.'

'And over there?' She pointed eastward. 'Germany?'

'On the nose, as you say. The dredger is still at work, I see.. .'

Tweed and Beck joined them near the tip of the peninsula. On the other side of the entrance to the harbour a line of cypresses screened a factory complex. Workmen in stained boiler suits trudged steadily about their labours.

'The dredger which hauled up the second body?' Paula asked.

'Yes,' said Romer.

He was watching Tweed who stood, hands in his coat pockets, staring fixedly at the dredger. Its dragline emerged dripping from the water, carrying a load of rocks. Nearby a barge was heeled over, its bow partly submerged. Men were working, attaching fresh cables to the stricken vessel.

'This harbour is drained regularly for silt?' Tweed enquired. The entrance is very narrow – and the Rhine flows past it.'

'Good Lord, no!' Beck explained. 'That barge carrying rocks capsized. Hence the dredger working – to haul up the cargo, clear the depths. Pure chance the first thing the dredger brought up was the body. Not a pretty sight. Bloated to an extraordinary size after long immersion.'

'And normally the harbour is never dredged for silt?' Tweed asked again.

'No. Look at the current. Sweeps straight past. So, no debris to fetch up.'

'Then how did that body drift in here?'

There was a long silence before Beck replied. Paula noticed Romer was watching Tweed closely, tugging at his moustache. A habit of his when he was intrigued, she suspected.

'We assumed it must have done,' Beck said eventually. The local police put that in their report…'

'And where was the other body dragged out of the river?'

'By the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen. A long way upstream. So the natural assumption was the second body had floated down to here. Both were UTS men, both had street plans of Basle with the two banks marked.'

The corpse recovered here was identified because he had his papers in a waterproof wallet. What about the one at Schaffhausen?'

'Same thing. He also had his papers in a new waterproof wallet.. .'

' New? '

'Yes. Purchased in Munich. We even traced the shop.'

'Didn't that strike you as odd?' Tweed suggested. 'That the killer should leave both wallets on his victims? He could so easily have taken them away-then no connection with the UTS would have been made.'

'Yes, it did,' Beck admitted. 'We couldn't think of an explanation

…'

'The killer wanted the connection with the UTS established – in case the bodies surfaced. To point you in the wrong direction – and away from the real reason the bullion was stolen.'

That's an assumption,' Beck pointed out.

'And a very valid one, I'd say,' Romer intervened.

'Where exactly was this corpse found here in the harbour?' Tweed asked.

'Under the very lee of that far side of the harbour. The very first time the scoop was sent down it brought up this body and one large rock. We were lucky – the dredger must have scooped up the big rock first, then lifted the body. Had it been the other way round the corpse would have been smashed to a pulp – maybe never even noticed. You see the rocks it is bringing up being dropped into the barge alongside.'

Paula turned away, as though examining the inner harbour. She had a sudden vision of a corpse bloated to at least twice its original size, the huge rock smashing down and bursting it like a pricked balloon. She swallowed, took a deep breath. Beck had changed the subject.

'I don't suppose it means anything, but a bloodstained coat was discovered in a luggage locker at Cornavin Gare. Probably worn by the man who killed Gaston Blanc. Forensic have estimated his probable height and weight. Giant of a man. Here are the details.'

He handed Tweed a folded sheet which Tweed tucked in his wallet without looking at it. 'Time to go?' he suggested, still watching the dredger, the barge alongside.

'Nothing more here for us,' Beck agreed. He talked as he joined Tweed in the walk back to the car while Paula chatted to Colonel Romer behind them. 'You like all the bits and pieces, I know. Gaston Blanc's car was discovered abandoned by the roadside near Broc, the place where the Nestle factory is. God knows why!'

'Interesting,' remarked Tweed.

'Is it? Oh, a final titbit. My assistant who sorts reports before I see them is on holiday. I've got a fool of a girl who dumps everything on my desk standing in. The titbit? A Nestle truck and its Turkish driver has gone missing en route to make a delivery to Brussels. Big deal, as the Americans would say.'

'I think we'll fly back to London tomorrow,' Tweed said, stretching out his legs in the armchair in his bedroom. They had enjoyed a good dinner and Paula had joined him for a final chat.

'You still think we're chasing phantoms and ghosties?' asked Paula.

'I've moved into a neutral zone, but there are connections which keep bugging me.'

'Such as?'

'Four men now with their throats cut ear to ear. Dikoyan, the Armenian who crashed the explosives truck into Turkey. Then two members of the UTS dragged out of the Rhine. Same method. Including dumping them in water. The fourth, Gaston Blanc – who made timers and control boxes…'

'You don't know he'd made them. He might have just been going to start making them.'

True. But why was he murdered before he'd done the job?'

'That's the lot?' Paula asked.

'The explosive technique used on the bank vaults. I saw your expression when Romer used the word implosion. Took you back to Blakeney, didn't it?'

'Yes. It's a long way, though, from Basle to Blakeney. And I wonder how Bob Newman is getting on?'

'We'll hear when he's good and ready. One question bothers me more than any other. I feel it could be the key to the entire conspiracy – if there is one.'

'What's that?'

'We may know more after Bellenger has examined those pieces of debris in the executive case Romer gave me…" 'You can be the most annoying man. What was the question?'

'How the gold bullion was smuggled out of Basle – and what was its ultimate destination?'

Waiting for Paula, who was collecting the air tickets for the return to Heathrow, Tweed sat staring out of the window at the sheen-surfaced Rhine, watching the occasional barge glide past. She returned when he was dialling the number of the Zurcher Kredit Bank, calling Romer.

'Colonel, Tweed here. One more question I'd like the answer to. You seem au fait with all the action the police took the night of the robbery. I presume they set up road-blocks?'

'The moment they were alerted. The gang cut out the alarm system – but missed one box. Of course it had to be the defective one – reacted half an hour after it activated. It was tested by experts and did the same thing. Went off a half-hour after activation.'

'And the road-blocks?'

'Set up immediately. They reckoned they missed the large truck later found abandoned at the airport – with traces of gold on the floor. That's why they were so sure the Fokker Friendship plane took out the bullion.'

'What I want to know is how far out they set up their road-blocks?'

'Oh, on the outskirts of the city, of course. Ten to fifteen kilometres from this bank, I gather…'

'No road-blocks were set up closer in, then? Near the centre of the city?'

'No. It seemed pointless. A Sunday night, the streets deserted, a half-hour start.'

Thank you.'

Tweed put down the receiver and explained the conversation to Paula as she handed him his ticket. Paula listened, then frowned.

'I don't get the significance of your question.' 'It's odd,' Tweed responded dreamily. 'I find myself thinking like a detective again. All the old training, the experience comes back. A weird feeling.. .'

'You didn't answer my question,' Paula pointed out. 'I don't believe I did. But I'm like a man wandering through a fog – seeing silhouettes I can't identify yet.' 'And you can be the most maddening man to work for.' 'Monica would agree with that. Next stop, London.. .'