Rhinoceros (51 page)

'I dropped my Walther out of my pocket. I stooped to
get hold of it and out of sight before anyone saw it. When
I looked for her again she'd gone. I seem to remember she
walked on ahead of me.'

'Harry, Marler, you come with me,' Tweed ordered. 'I
want the rest of you to stroll up and down this section.
She could have gone into a shop.'

'No, she wouldn't do that,' Nield protested. 'Not with
out telling me.'

'She walked ahead of you.' Tweed repeated what Nield
had recalled. 'So we'll go that way slowly . . .'

He led the way while Harry and Marler followed close
behind him. Tweed was walking slowly, trying to reconstruct what could have happened. It did occur to him that Delgado, Barton and Panko could be within the area. He stopped by an archway, looked through it, saw the small square beyond.

'This looks nice. Could have attracted her attention.'

He continued plodding along, frequently looking down
at the ground. He passed the Tourist Office, went on
through another archway. His old instincts from the days
when he had been a detective were coming back. His eyes
missed nothing. He'd glanced into the Tourist Office but
hadn't expected to see her there.

'She'd be entranced by the beauty of this square,' he said aloud. 'Then she'd arrive here. What's that?'

Just beyond an entrance to an alley he'd seen a spot of
colour at the foot of a closed wooden door. He picked up a
handkerchief with lace edging and a bluebell in one corner.
From his own pocket he took out a replica, complete with
a bluebell in a corner. He showed it to Harry.

'In the car I wanted to blow my nose, found I hadn't
got a handkerchief. Lisa gave me one. She's in here.' He pushed at the closed door but it was as solid as a rock.
'We've got to get in there and quickly.'

'Leave it to me,' said Harry.

He moved the short distance to the other side of the
alley, took a deep breath, then threw his bulk against
the wooden door. It gave way, came off the hinges, the
whole door falling inwards, exposing a long stone staircase.
Tweed walked in over the door, his Walther in his hand, list
ened. He heard nothing. Harry shone the powerful beam
of the torch he'd taken out of his satchel. It illuminated
a closed door at the top of the long flight of steps. Tweed
ran up them, followed by Harry and Marler.

They made a lot of noise hurrying up the old stone steps.
Standing by the door Tweed heard a faint knocking, then
an equally faint voice.

'Help me. I can't get out. Help me . . .'

'Stand well back from the door,' Harry shouted. 'As far
back as you can . . .'

He had no space to manoeuvre and Tweed was now holding his torch. Harry put his shoulder to
the door on
the opposite side to the hinges. He leaned into it with
all his strength. The hinges held fast but the door split
on the other side, flew open. Tweed walked in and Lisa
was standing at the far end. She pointed to what lay on
the table.

'It's Delgado. I killed him. He was going to torture me. I strangled him with the handcuffs he'd put on my wrists. I found the key in his pocket and freed myself.' she said calmly, too calmly for Tweed's liking.

'Marler,' he said quickly, 'take her back to Paula, then
. . . get back here fast . . .'

'This is a problem,' he said to Harry when Marler had
escorted Lisa out of the building. He felt Delgado's neck
pulse and there wasn't one. 'The problem is someone
could notice the smashed door downstairs, come up and
find the body. We want to be well clear of Flensburg before
that happens.'

'We'd better get rid of the body, then.'

'How?'

Harry was examining the thick canvas sack that had
fallen over, spilling caulk. Then he went over to the strange double doors on the far side of the table. He
fiddled with a rusty metal catch, carefully opened both doors, looked down.

'This is one of those ancient warehouses,' he told Tweed.
'They used to - ages ago - bring cargo in on horse-drawn
wagons and haul it up here for storage.'

Tweed went over, looked down the drop into a deserted street. Then, without hope, he cranked a wheel attached to
the wall. It was stiff, but it turned. Rust fell on the floor and
outside a hook at the end of a chain began to descend. He
stopped turning the wheel.

'Newman brings the car round into this street,' Harry suggested. 'Parks it below here. I can put the body into that sack, attach the hook to it, lower the sack into the boot of the car.'

'It's risky . . .'

'It's more risky leaving the body here . . .'

Three-quarters of an hour later Newman had found his way
through the labyrinth of old streets and parked the car below
the hoist. In the meantime, Tweed had held open the large sack while Harry thrust the body inside. He then added sections of old chains he'd picked up off the floor.

'Why the chains?' Tweed asked.

'There's a river or a harbour nearby. The chains are to
add weight so when we dump the sack in the water it will sink immediately.'

'That won't be easy
..."

'None of this is easy but we've got to do it . . .'

Marler had explained the situation to Newman, who
had co-opted Nield to stand as watchdog in the street
with a whistle Harry had produced from his satchel. He
would sound the alarm if anyone was approaching. Harry
had tied up the top of the sack firmly with lengths of
rope lying on the floor. They were now coming to the
really nerve-racking part — lowering the sack attached to the hoist's hook down into the open boot of the car below.
Tweed had dropped the handcuffs which had imprisoned Lisa into the sack.

Harry kept looking down as he motioned Tweed to operate
the hoist. The sack swung out of the open doorway and
Tweed cranked the handle. Would the hoist work properly?
Would it stick half
way, leaving the sack suspended in
mid-air? Tweed secretly wished, as he started to crank the
handle, that he hadn't agreed to this mad idea. The sack swung out into space. It stayed there. Tweed grabbed the crank handle with both hands, gave it a mighty twist.

Without warning, the handle started turning at high
speed and Tweed had to let it go. The sack plunged down,
landed just above the boot of the car with a heavy jerk. The
sack and contents had ripped free from the now suspended hook. Newman closed the boot quietly, his hands dripping with sweat. Tweed had peered down the long drop, hardly
able to believe they had managed it.

Then he started to reverse the handle to haul the chain back up. The handle wouldn't move. Harry, wearing the
gloves he'd put on to deal with the body, grabbed hold of
the handle, tried to force it to rewind the chain. It wouldn't
move an inch.

'We can't leave the chain dangling over the street,' said
Tweed.

'We can't do anything else,' Harry told him. 'We just want to get the hell out of here so Newman can drive us
to the river, wherever it is. You go down now and get into
the car. I'll close the doors.'

'Where are Lisa and Paula?' Tweed asked Marler who
had just re-entered the room.

'In a restaurant in the pedestrian street. Lisa's OK now.
I'll go and fetch them.'

'Don't say anything about what's in the boot,' Tweed
warned.

'And you get out of this damned room,' Harry growled.

When they had gone, he was very careful closing the
double doors. He didn't want them giving way and col
lapsing down into the street. He gave a sigh of relief when
he'd closed them. Leaving the room, he stood outside on the top step and pulled open gently the door he'd broken.
It was still held by the hinges and swung shut without any trouble. It might be splintered but he couldn't do anything about that. He used his torch to see his way down. The last
thing he needed now was a sprained ankle.

As he walked over the flattened street door Marler
arrived with Paula and Lisa. Tweed had the car door
open for them to get inside. Lisa looked up at the hook
at the end of the chain swinging just above her head.

'What's that?'

'Don't ask silly questions,' Harry said quietly. 'Get in
the car. We're leaving Flensburg.'

Guided by Tweed, who had the street plan open on his lap,
Newman drove round the end of the
hafen -
or harbour
- and along Hafendamn. They had entered a new world.
The town was across the water from them and there were
hardly any buildings on this side of the water. Instead, they
had a view of little old houses across the water, houses freshly painted and well looked after.

'The body's in the boot, isn't it?' Lisa suddenly asked.

Tweed turned round and looked at her. She seemed to
be her normal self. Her brain was ticking over very well. 'Yes, it is,' he said. 'We lowered it, using an old hoist, into
the boot. Inside a canvas sack. Then I couldn't manage to
haul the chain back up again, the one you saw hanging
over the street.'

'How are you going to get rid of it?'

'Dump it in the harbour, which is why we drove round
here.'

'So it will be gone.' She sounded relieved. 'For ever. . .'

A little further on they passed a cluster of fishing craft, then some pleasure boats. No one was about on the barren
shore. Newman drove on and then slowed. A group of
ramshackle huts and sheds stood just off the road on the harbour side. He stopped behind them, masked from the houses on the distant shore opposite.

'Did you see what I saw?' he asked.

'Yes,' Harry replied. 'A large old rowboat. Ideal for the
purpose. Let's get on with it. . .'

At Tweed's suggestion Paula left the car with him and
they strolled further along the road. Behind them Lisa
followed with Nield. It gave a reason for the car stop
ping, just in case someone across the water had noticed.
Marler had stayed behind to help Newman and Harry.

They first inspected the rowboat, lying behind the first
hut.

'Looks pretty ropy,' Newman observed. 'The bottom could fall out.'

'We'll have to risk it,' replied Marler, opening the
boot.

Between them they lifted the heavy weight out of the
boot, transferred it to the inside of the boat. Harry checked
the top of the sack. When the sack had been lowered to
within six feet of the boot it had ripped itself away from
the hoist's hook. That was when the hoist stopped working.
Harry decided the top of the sack was very secure.