Terminal

Twenty-Four

Tweed sat down on the sofa and Blanche Signer arranged a cushion behind him, treating him like a favourite uncle. She was very fond of Tweed. He was a nice man, a kindly man. He watched her as she disappeared inside the kitchen, walking with agile grace.

Settling himself against the cushion, he looked round the sitting-room to see if anything had changed since his previous visit. Then he spotted the silver-framed portrait of a late middle-aged man in the uniform of a colonel in the Swiss Army. He blinked, got up and moved swiftly across to examine it more closely.

`That's my stepfather,' Blanche called out as she returned and flourished a bottle behind his back. 'He adopted me when my mother – who died recently – remarried.'

`I don't think I've ever seen him before,' Tweed remarked slowly. 'He's a handsome-looking man.' He made a great effort to speak casually.

`Look!' she said exuberantly. `Montrachet. Especially for you, this one. See!' She held out the bottle for his inspection, so he could note the year. He felt it and the bottle was as chilled as the waters of the Aare. was going to ask for coffee…'

`No,' she told him firmly, 'you've had a beastly journey. All the way from Geneva – from London, in fact. And it's well after midnight. You need something relaxing.'

`I'm sorry to be so late…'

`But you phoned me first…' She was pouring wine into the two elegant glasses already waiting on a low table. `… and like you, I'm an owl, a creature who prefers the night, who perches on branches and hoots a mournful sound!'

I think I'd have trouble getting up a tree these days,' he observed. 'Cheers! And this is very welcome. Do you see your stepfather often?'

`Hardly ever. We don't see eye to eye on anything. He goes his way, I go mine. He doesn't even know what I do to earn my living – at least I don't think so. He is the sort of man who seems to know about almost everything that's happening in Switzerland. He's not regular Army.'

`I see,' said Tweed, and left it at that. imagine it's far too early for you to have found out anything about the man whose name I gave you?'

Shoeless, she was wearing her black leather pants with a white blouse which, even in the dim light of shaded table lamps, displayed in all its glory her cascade of titian hair. She had perched herself next to him on the arm of the sofa, her long legs crossed. He suspected she was capable of teasing him and for a moment wished he had such a daughter, a lively, mischievous girl you could carry on an intelligent conversation with for hours.

`I do already have some possible information about Manfred Seidler,' she said. 'The trouble is ethics are involved – and you were cryptic on the phone. Could I trace a man who had flown in from Vienna very recently on a private Swiss jet. And could I also get any info. on this Seidler type. Are they the same person?'

`Frankly, I don't know,' Tweed replied evasively. 'The man who flew in from Vienna is important. Seidler is purely an inspired guess on my part. I know a lot about him and his activities. Always close to the borderline of legality and, sometimes, probably over the edge.' He drank more of his wine and she refilled his glass. 'This is really excellent. What's your problem about ethics? Not another client?'

`You cunning old serpent..' She ruffled his hair. He couldn't remember when he had last let a woman do that to him but Blanche made it seem the most natural, affectionate gesture in the world. 'Yes, another client,' she said.

`It's important – to my country,' he said, gazing at the photo. 'So probably to yours. We're all in the same boat.'

`You know, I'd hate to be interrogated by you. You're too damned persuasive by half.'

He waited, sipping his wine. She had dropped her hand so it rested on his shoulder. He glanced up from behind his glasses and she was staring into space. He still kept quiet.

`All right,' she said. 'It means breaking a confidence with a client for the first time, but I'm assuming you wouldn't let me do that unless it was something very serious. I'm placing all my integrity in your hands. For me,' she continued on a lighter note, 'that's equivalent to entrusting you with my one-time virginity…'

`That's safe enough with me,' he said drily.

`Bob Newman, foreign correspondent. He asked me only this week to trace a Manfred Seidler. I may have got lucky – but I'm not sure. I have an address-and a phone number-for a Manfred. No guarantees issued that he's Seidler, but he does sound like him…'

`Address, phone number…'

Tweed had his small notebook on his lap, his old-fashioned fountain pen in his hand. She gave him both items of information out of her head. He knew that both would be correct. Like himself she only had to see a face once, hear a name, read an address or phone number, and it was registered on her brain for ever.

`What I've given you,' she went on, 'are the details of a girl called Erika Stahel. She may be Seidler's girl friend. Incidentally, Stahel is spelt…'

`It sounds as though he may be holed up in Basle,' Tweed suggested. 'If it is Seidler…'

`I've no idea. I have an idea I'm going to regret giving you this information.'

`You expect to see this foreign correspondent, Newman, again soon?'

`Why?' she asked sharply.

`Just that I wondered whether you had any idea what story he is working on…'

`You're going too far!' The annoyance showed in her tone and she didn't care. She stood up from the sofa arm, walked across to a chair and sat facing him, crossing her legs again. He gazed into her startling blue eyes and thought how many men would be clay in her slim hands, clay to mould into any shape she wished. She spoke angrily.

`Again you ask me to betray a confidence. Are you really working for the Ministry of Defence in London? I keep your secrets. If I give away other people's, you should cease trusting me!'

`I spend most of my life in a thoroughly boring way – reading files…'

`Files on people I have helped you track across Europe…'

`Files on people who are dangerous to the West. Switzerland is now part of the West in a way it never has been before. No longer is neutrality enough…'

He took off his glasses and started polishing them on his pocket handkerchief. Blanche reacted instantly, tossing her mane of hair as she clicked her fingers. He paused, holding the glasses in his lap.

`You're up to something!' she told him. 'I always can tell when you're plotting some devious ploy. You take off those glasses and start cleaning them!'

He blinked, thrown off balance for a moment. She was getting to know him too well. He put away the handkerchief and looped the glasses behind his ears, sighing deeply.

`Is Newman interested in the Berne Clinic at Thun?' he asked quietly.

`Supposing he was?' she challenged him.

`I might be able to help him.' He reached inside his pocket, brought out Mason's notebook and handed it to her. 'In there is information he might find invaluable. You type, of course? I suggest you type out every word inside that notebook. He must not see the notebook itself. Give him your typed report without revealing your source. Make up some plausible story – you are perfectly capable of doing that, I know. I'll collect the notebook when next I see you.'

`Tweed, what exactly are you up to? I need to know before I agree. I like Newman…'

The data from that notebook will keep him running.'

`Oh, I see.' She ran a hand through her hair. 'You're using him. You use people, don't you?'

`Yes.' He thought it best not to hesitate. 'Isn't it always the way,' he commented sadly. 'We use people. We all use each other.'

Reaching inside his breast pocket he brought out an envelope containing Swiss banknotes. He was careful to hand it to her with formal courtesy. She took it and dropped it on the floor beside her chair, a sign that she was still annoyed.

`I expect it's too much for what I've done,' she remarked. Her mood changed as the blue eyes watched him. Uncrossing her legs, she pressed her knees together, clasped her hands so the fingers pointed at him and leaned forward. 'What is it? Something is worrying you.'

`Blanche, I want you to take great care during the next week or two. There have been two killings, probably three. What I am going to say is in the greatest confidence. I think someone may be eliminating anyone who knows what is going on inside the Berne Clinic…'

Will Newman know?' she asked quickly.

`He is one of the world's top foreign correspondents. He will know. Providing him with that typed report may well be a form of protection. What I am getting at is this – no one must connect you even remotely with that Clinic. I am staying at the Bellevue Palace. Room 312. Do not hesitate to call me if anything happens that worries you. And use the name Rosa- not your own.'

She was astonished and perturbed. It was out of character for Tweed to reveal his whereabouts, let alone to suggest that she could call him. Always before he had called her. She gave a little shiver as he stood up to go and then ran to help him on with his coat.

`It's time you bought yourself a new sheepskin. I know a shop…'

`Thank you, but this is like an old friend. I hate breaking in new things – coats, shoes. I will be in touch. Don't you forget to call me. Anything unusual. An odd phone call. Anything. If I'm out leave a message. "Rosa called…" '

`And you take care, too.' She kissed him on the cheek and he squeezed her forearm. He was glad to see that before opening the door she peered through the fish-eye spyglass. `All clear,' she announced briskly.

As he trudged homeward up the Junkerngasse through the silent tunnel Tweed's mind was a kaleidoscope of conflicting and disturbing impressions. Berne was like a rabbit warren, a warren of stone.

As the raw wind fleeced the back of his head exposed above his woollen scarf he remembered standing by the Plattform wall, staring down at the frothing sluices where poor Mason had been found. Mason had done his job so well – the notebook was a mine of suggestive information.

But the image which kept thrusting into his mind was that silver-framed portrait of Colonel Signer in Blanche's sitting-room. That had been the greatest shock of all. Victor Signer who was now president of the Zurcher Kredit Bank, the driving force behind the Gold Club.