The Janus Man

Eleven

`All hell has broken loose at Travemunde.'

Kuhlmann, wearing the same sober dark grey suit, stood by the window in Tweed's bedroom at the Jensen, staring at Newman and Tweed. Beyond the window dusk was gathering, a purple glow hung over Lubeck, the street lights had an eerie, dream-like quality.

`And how did you know where to find me?' Tweed asked.

`Had you both followed to the Hauptbahnhof in Hamburg. My man watched you board the Copenhagen Express. First stop Lubeck. A phone call to police HQ here at Lubeck-Sud. Your hotel registration comes through. The Jensen..

`And what has happened at Travemunde?' Newman interjected.

`Another horrific murder of a foreign blonde girl. Rape and then sheer butchery. Found in the woods on Priwall Island. A Swedish girl. Another foreigner. That makes it Federal business.'

`You keep saying "another",' Newman commented.

`Six months ago in Frankfurt a Dutch girl was found in the early hours of the morning on the banks of the river Main. Same modus operandi – if you can dignify such manic frenzy with the term…'

`Could you be a little more specific?' Tweed pressed.

`Good job you've just had your dinner. All right, let's get a little more specific. First, both are blonde girls. This maniac slaughters them with a broad-bladed knife – really cuts them to pieces like a butcher chopping a side of beef. Then, for God's sake, he rapes them. Out at Travemunde they're barring their doors, battening down the hatches at the marinas. Panic isn't the word for it.'

`Surely you're making a very general assumption,' Tweed persisted. 'Look at the distance between Frankfurt and here…'

`I had the dubious pleasure of seeing both corpses in the morgues. It's the same killer. So, now we check on who was in both cities at the time of the killings. Surprise, surprise! Both of you were…'

`That's a bit ridiculous,' Tweed said mildly.

`Puts me in a funny position, Tweed. Word comes from the lady at the top in London direct to Chancellor Kohl in Bonn. Would he allocate his best man to keep a fatherly eye on you…'

`Fatherly eye. Oh, for God's sake,' Tweed protested.

`Haven't finished.' Kuhlmann removed his cigar and grinned to lighten the atmosphere. 'Now I have you down on the list of suspects…'

`You can't be serious,' Newman broke in.

`I'm serious about checking who was in both places at the wrong time. All hotel registrations in Lubeck and Travemunde are now being collected up to send to Cologne. One hell of a job, but it has to be done. The Cologne computer then cross-checks with the list of people in Frankfurt six months ago. That way we should end up with something…'

`You hope,' said Newman.

`I hope,' Kuhlmann agreed. 'And now I have to get over to the morgue. The pathologist here works faster than that snail we had in Hamburg. I'll have a report by the morning…'

`When was the Travemunde murder committed?' Newman asked.

`First indications say last night. Some of the Wandervogel fanatics back-packing it through the woods found her middle of this morning. Girl by the name of Helena Andersen. Ring any bells?'

No. Should it?'

`Just that she happens to be the daughter of an ex-Cabinet Minister. So the lines are buzzing between Stockholm and Bonn. Let you know about that pathologist's report in the morning…'

Tweed had a couple of cognacs sent up from the bar after Kuhlmann left. He raised his glass to Newman, took a sip and set the glass down on a table.

`I'm getting to be a regular toper on this trip,' he remarked. `Are you thinking what I'm thinking9'

`Tell me what's inside your sceptical mind and we'll see.'

`Kuhlmann correctly placed us in the locations of both these ghastly murders. He doesn't know there is a third possible suspect to add to his list. Hugh Grey. He was in Frankfurt – that was the night he spilt whisky over my best suit. And when he came to see us at the Four Seasons in Hamburg over breakfast the topic of that murder in Frankfurt came into the conversation. I mentioned it myself.'

`The same thought crossed my mind. It could be worse than you realize. Mind you, it's a very long shot. I was there for a conference of the four newly-appointed sector chiefs. Not only was Hugh in Frankfurt. Harry Masterson and Guy Dalby attended the same meeting along with Erich Lindemann..

`But you spoke to Masterson on the phone from the, Hauptbahnhof here at midday. That was when Masterson warned you about The Cripple heading this way. And,' Newman reminded him, `Masterson was speaking from Vienna…'

`But it didn't sound like it. I told you it sounded far more like a local call.'

`Then there's Erich Lindemann.' Newman paused while he sipped at his cognac. `We only have his word he climbed aboard the express at Puttgarden. Supposing he did board the train at Lubeck just before it left?'

`Go on.'

`We didn't actually see Lindemann leave on the express when it rolled on to the train ferry prior to crossing the Baltic to Denmark. It was still in the station when I looked back as we walked out of sight of it along that country road…'

`Your scepticism is reaching unprecedented heights. Flights of fancy, Bob. To change the subject, I think tomorrow we might spy out the land at Travemunde before we attend Dr Berlin's party the day after.'

`It would be an ideal moment,' Newman replied.

`Ideal? I'm not with you…'

`That's because you're not a newspaper reporter. Think of the atmosphere out at Travemunde. A brutal, motiveless murder has occurred. Kuhlmann himself made a reference to the boat people battening down the hatches. They'll all be jumpy – but ready to talk their heads off about the murder to almost anyone. In daylight at any rate. There's a ghoulish element in human nature. I predict we'll get to know more people in a day than we would normally in a month.'

`You could be right. Well, we'll see…' Tweed's thoughts seemed to be miles away and he gave the impression of replying automatically.

`What's the matter?' Newman asked.

`Your flights of fancy. They're crazy, of course, but I find them disturbing. If by a million-to-one chance you were right it opens up vistas infinitely more horrific than the murder itself…'

`It was the same bastard – the Frankfurt maniac.'

Kuhlmann made the statement as he walked with Tweed and Newman past the crooked gate towers towards the station the following morning. He had caught them leaving the Jensen on their way to Travemunde.

`How do you know for certain?' Newman asked, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun.

`Two things. The Frankfurt pathologist's report came in over the teletype. The local pathologist checked his own findings against it. We were up all night while he did his job on that Swedish girl. His report checks with the one from Frankfurt.

It looks like the same weapon was used to carve her up.' `What kind of weapon?' Tweed asked.

`Wrong word, really. Comes to the same thing. A chef's knife is the opinion of both pathologists. The kind of knife you find in any reasonably well-equipped housewife's kitchen.'

`Not much help,' Tweed suggested.

`No bloody help at all.'

No one said anything more until they were entering the booking hall. Tweed went to the window to buy the tickets to Travemunde, leaving the other two outside a bookshop.

`What do you expect to find at Travemunde?' Kuhlmann asked.

`I'll know when I see it. This second murder is a complication we hadn't expected..

`Fourth murder,' Kuhlmann corrected. 'The Dutch girl in Frankfurt. Ian Fergusson in Hamburg. Followed by Ziggy Palewska. Now this Swedish victim. The body count is rising, Newman.'

`Reminds me of East Anglia, the area round the Wash,' Tweed said, looking out of the window.

They had left Lubeck and its suburbs behind and the local train was passing through open country. Newman looked up from a newspaper reporting the Swedish girl's murder.

`Does it? In what way?'

`Look at those long green banks beyond those fields. They are just like the dykes at the edge of the Wash. The locals in East Anglia actually call them "banks". And these flat fields below the railway line. Again, just like the Wash countryside.'

The train stopped and Tweed hurried out on to a high platform elevated above the surrounding countryside. Newman followed, closed the door, looked around and then called out to Tweed who was half-way towards the exit. They were the only passengers to alight and the train was moving again.

`Hey! This isn't the right stop..

A huge platform sign carried the legend Skandinavienkai. Scandinavian Quay. He had to walk fast to catch up with Tweed who was descending a flight of steps to a main highway below. To the east Newman gazed at a complex of docks beyond a large staging area.

By the wharf-side was moored a large white passenger liner, and close to that a huge car ferry. The rear maw was open – reminding him of Puttgarden – and a great queue of vehicles was lined up waiting to drive aboard. Private cars, campers, big trucks.

`That's the liner waiting to leave for Sweden,' Tweed informed Newman. 'You can see from the name on the hull… `Why get off at this stop?'

They were walking along a wide pavement by the side of the main highway. The verge was lined with a dense wall of trees which blotted out the view to the docks. Shrubberies of wild roses grew at the edge of the verge and it was very quiet under the sun beating down on them.

`It's only a short walk into town,' Tweed said, his legs moving like pistons, his body leant forward. Tweed in full cry, Newman told himself. Weeks of doing very little and then some development would electrify him. 'I checked it on the map before we started out,' he went on. 'The next stop is Travemunde Hafen. The harbour area. Beyond that is Travemunde Strand, people tanning themselves on the beach and all that nonsense. Burning themselves red, unable to sleep for nights. What they call having a good holiday. Approaching the town this way, I can get the feel of the place. Look, we're close now…'

The single spire of a church speared the azure sky. Beyond it other buildings began to appear. They, were leaving the dock area behind. Tweed was dressed in his new tropical drill slacks, his safari jacket.

`Hoping we meet Diana?' Newman joshed him.

`These clothes will help me merge into the background. You must admit I look as though I'm on holiday..

`Tweed, you could never look as though you were on holiday.'

`If anyone asks what I do I'll say insurance. Just so you know.'

`An executive of the General and Cumbria Assurance Co – your dummy outfit back at Park Crescent?'

`Only if I have to. This must be Travemunde.'

Standing well back from the waterfront was a row of old double-storey buildings. The usual assortment of cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops. Holidaymakers, mostly German, drifted along in the aimless way of men and women not sure what to do next. Many of the buildings had the steep gables characteristic in that part of the world.

`Let's cross the road when we can,' said Tweed. 'You can do your reporter act, get people talking..

`While you listen…'

`And watch.'

The waterfront was a tangle of masts, a variety of vessels were moored to the bollards, jammed in hull to hull. Yachts, pleasure craft, the odd expensive-looking power cruiser looming above the small fry. At a nearby marina landing stages projected out into the channel between Travemunde and a forested shore a. short distance away. Tweed pointed at the forest.

`And that will be Priwall Island.'

`I know. I came here once to interview Dr Berlin…'

`And the small car ferry takes no more than a few minutes to cross from here to Priwall…' Tweed hardly seemed to hear a word. Newman said. He was like a dog which has picked up the scent. `… When you leave the ferry you walk straight into the Mecklenburger-strasse. There are houses – including Berlin's mansion – on the right. They face the forest laced with a network of paths – the forest where that poor Swedish girl was found almost at the edge of the water. What was her name? Helena Andersen. That: was it. They say the murderer must have been disturbed. He was going to throw her into the channel – there was a trail of blood where he'd dragged her through the undergrowth.'

`How do you know all this?' Newman enquired. 'You couldn't pick that detail up from a map…'

He was watching a sleek white liner approaching from the Baltic. It cruised through the channel where there didn't seem to be room, blanking out the island briefly, but it made safe passage and sailed on towards the docks.

'A combination of listening to Diana,' Tweed said. 'Asking the odd question. Then linking up what she said with the map. Let's explore the marina so you can do your stuff.'

`And you seem to' know a lot more about the Helena Andersen killing,' Newman probed as they strolled through the crowds towards the marina.

`Kuhlmann phoned me while I was shaving before breakfast. He called from the local police station here. He'd been over every inch of the ground himself early this morning. Otto never sleeps as far as I can see. Here we are. After you…'

`Thanks a bundle.'

Newman surveyed the marina, the various craft moored hull to hull. You could step from one craft to another. He walked down a landing stage towards a large sloop, a sixty-footer, he estimated. A slim woman in her sixties sat in a captain's chair, a pair of rimless glasses perched on her nose as she sat reading a hardback. Gone With the Wind. This was probably a good place to start. She looked up as Newman approached, removed the glasses and laid the book in her lap.

Slim, she had dark hair, thick and silky, cut short, and aristocratic features. A handsome woman, there was a cynical twist to her mouth, an air of competence, increased when she spoke in an upper crust accent.

`Robert Newman? I am right? Recognize you from pictures in the papers. Welcome aboard. Take a pew. Your friend can come, too. Come to hear all the gory details? So you can write up a really lurid story? Blood on Priwall Island. There, I've given you your headline…'

`I might use it.' Newman settled himself in a canvas chair while Tweed lowered himself gingerly into its twin facing the waterfront. 'This is my friend, Tweed…'

`And I don't think you miss much either – not with those eyes.' She stared hard at Tweed who smiled faintly. 'Care for some coffee? Ben, the hired help, will provide…'

`Ben will provide coffee – but he's not the bloody hired help.'

A white-haired man with a weather-beaten face appeared at the top of a companionway. Six foot tall, he was thin and wiry and stooped in the way Newman had noticed tall sailors were apt to. Blue eyes studied the new arrivals above a great beak of a nose.

`Coffee for three?' Ben asked. 'Make up your minds, do… `Yes, please,' Tweed said promptly. 'No milk or sugar for either of us.'

`Black as sin? And there's plenty of that on Priwall.'

The head disappeared and Tweed slipped a Dramamine in his mouth. The damned boat wouldn't keep still, which made the mainland seem to move. The water was only choppy but he knew he'd feel queasy if he didn't take precautions.

`Sin on Priwall?' Tweed enquired.

`And walking over there along the waterfront,' the aristocratic woman commented.

Tweed had already seen Diana Chadwick strolling towards the marina. The wide-brimmed straw hat, the elegant movement of her body were unmistakable.

`Diana Chadwick,' Tweed prompted.

`You know her?' Their hostess crossed her legs and her cream skirt dropped into its natural pleats. 'I'm forgetting my manners. I'm Ann Grayle. My husband was in the Diplomatic Service. I buried him in Nairobi five years ago. Always said when that happened I'd take a lover. The right man never turned up. Not until now.' She stared at Newman, a hint of amusement in her pale grey eyes.

`Diana Chadwick,' Tweed prompted her again before Ben arrived with coffee.

`A promiscuous tart.'

`The noun alone expresses your meaning,' Tweed said mildly.

`Oh, if that's the way of life someone wants, who am I to object? The veteran of a hundred beds. Especially back in Africa. Her husband was the last person to know – as always…'

`He did get to know?'

`No, which is the point of my remark. He died with his illusions intact. Which is more than his wife was. A bank director, pillar of the club, so popular no one had the guts to say a word to him. He was gored to death by an irritable rhino. That was supposed to have happened to Dr Berlin. But they found the body of Luke – Diana's spouse. If you know her you could have a good time. They do say she's an expert. All that experience…'

`He – Luke – left her well off?' Tweed enquired.

`Penniless. Oh, I know – a bank director. You'd think he'd be a good provider. Didn't leave a sou. Lived up to his very last penny. Hunting big game is an expensive pastime.'

`How does she survive then?' Tweed asked.

`That's the mystery. She always has plenty of new things to put on her back. Of course, she's a good friend of Dr Berlin. Creepy old horror in my opinion…'

`You mean he provides her with an allowance?'

`Now I didn't say that, did I?' Mrs Grayle sat erect in her chair. 'Unlikely, I'd say. Berlin is as mean as muck. Good, here at last is Ben. Not that we need him – but the coffee is essential.'

Tweed could have guessed Ann Grayle was a diplomat's wife. She carried an air of authority of a woman used to organizing other people's lives. And woe betide the wives of the junior staff if they didn't know their place.

`I heard you slandering Diana,' Ben remarked as he served the coffee. Tweed drank some quickly to make sure the pill had gone down.

`Eavesdropping again?'

`You don't seem to realize how your voice carries. They could have heard you in Lubeck.' Ben sagged into a chair and turned to Tweed. 'And I'm sure Diana doesn't live off Dr Berlin.'

`Ah!' Ann Grayle's eyes lit up. 'She has a defender. I wonder what service she rendered Ben to get him on her side?' `You have the mind of a sewer,' Ben stated calmly. `That's because the world is a sewer.'

`You said Luke's body was found and implied Dr Berlin's wasn't,' Tweed remarked.

`Which is perfectly true. They did find a blood-stained jacket in the bush, but no positive identification that it ever belonged to Berlin. The next thing we hear is he's turned up in a hospital for tropical diseases in Leipzig.' She frowned over the rim of her cup. And I recall that was about the time that funny Russian attache paid a visit to Nairobi. Caused quite a stir. We'd never seen a Bolshevik before.'

`You seem to have a good memory,' Tweed coaxed. 'Could you remember his name?'

`Began with an "L".'

`Lysenko?'

`Yes! That was it. We all gave him the cold shoulder. Never knew why he came. He vanished again after about a week.'

Tweed finished his coffee, refused another cup, and said they wouldn't impose on Mrs Grayle any longer. She rose to her feet.

`And I thought we'd be chatting about that horrible murder…'

`Maybe I could come back soon?' Newman suggested.

`Welcome any time. Except between two and four. Always have a nap then. Keeps me young. Bring Tweed with you.' She smiled, a dry smile. 'Diana is waiting for you.'

The large sleek white power cruiser Tweed had observed Diana Chadwick boarding was berthed at the edge of the marina, nearest to the opening to the Baltic. She was sitting on deck shaded by a parasol, reading a German fashion magazine.

`Well,' she greeted them, throwing aside the magazine, `has the cat torn me to pieces?'

`Mrs Grayle?' Newman asked.

`Who else. She hated me in Nairobi. She detests me in Cannes. She loathes me in Lubeck. Apart from that, we get on terribly well. Plonk yourselves. That swing couch is comfortable.'

Tweed sat down and thanked God he had swallowed the Dramamine. The large power cruiser, Sudwind, bobbed slowly up and down, insidiously. The added movement of the swing couch was not welcome.

`Midday!' Diana was in fine form. 'We can have a drink. A drop of cognac? Maybe two drops…'

Newman looked round the vessel while she served the drinks and said, 'Down the hatch!' It would travel a long distance; fully fuelled, was capable of traversing the North Sea. He lifted his glass and asked the question.

`All this is yours?'

`God, no! Wish to heaven it was. Belongs to Dr Berlin. He lets me sleep on it, even live here if I want to. In return, I clean the brass trimmings. Even swab down the deck when I've the energy. Take a look around if you like. I'll stay up on deck and sip my poison.'

Newman led the way up into the wheelhouse and closed the door. Tweed gazed at the instrument panel, peered closer at the various dials. His eyes lighted on the transceiver, a high-powered instrument of the latest kind.

`You can see the waveband Berlin tunes to,' he pointed out to Newman. 'See that tiny scratch mark? Let's check it…'

`I didn't know you were mechanically minded.'

`I did a signals course once. I'll turn down the volume – then Diana won't hear…' He switched a dial, then adjusted the waveband control. There was a crackle, followed by a voice talking in a foreign language, a continuous flow of words.

`Interesting,' said Tweed.

`What the devil is it? I don't recognize the language.'

`Russian. I know just enough to be able to tell what the gist is. It's the Soviet marine control. Weather forecast for the Baltic and the North Sea. Not German – so not from the DDR.

It has to be coming from Kaliningrad. Very intriguing. Let's turn it back to where it was…'

`This job could go a long way.'

`How far? You know more about boats than me.'

`Several hundred miles.'

`Do me a favour, Bob. Show me how to operate it. I've messed about with cruisers on the Broads, but it was a long time ago…'

He listened while Newman explained the functions of the various instruments. The reporter went over everything three times until he was sure Tweed had absorbed his instruction.

`And if you ever have to take a boat like this out, remember one thing if you forget everything else..

`Which is?'

`Keep your eyes glued for'ard – what lies ahead of you. OK. Look back at the stern occasionally. But it's what's ahead you have to watch. And in misty conditions that means the radar-scope. You seem to have mastered that.'

`I think I hear voices. We'd better get back to Diana.'

Her voice warned them as they opened the door, calling up to them in a voice which carried a note of strain. They had a visitor.

`Gentlemen,' Diana called out, 'we have company. May I introduce you to an acquaintance. Kurt Franck.'

The tall blond German, clad in windcheater, jeans and a leather belt round his middle, his feet shod in trainers, waved a large hand in welcome.