`I'd like you to check on this Dr Berlin, Bob. Gives you a good reason for what your role is...'
`That means going to Lübeck.'
`Which is my next port of call. Literally.' The phone rang. `Who can that be?' Tweed wondered. 'And at this hour?'
`Ziggy here, Mr Tweed. I'll prove I am trying to help. While you're in Hamburg you should contact Martin Vollmer. He has an apartment in Altona. Here is the address...'
Tweed scribbled the instructions on a pad. As he finished he heard a click. Ziggy had gone off the line. 'And that was Ziggy Palewska,' he told Newman. 'I was just going to ask him how he knew I was at the Four Seasons.' He flung down the pencil. `I find it uncanny. Everyone seems to know where I am, where I'm going to before I get there. Gives me an eerie feeling.'
`Get some sleep,' Newman advised, standing up. `I'm bushed. In the morning everything will seem different:'
In the morning as they sat at breakfast Hugh Grey walked into the dining-room.
`I didn't ask you to contact me,' Tweed said quietly as Grey sat facing them.
`I came in on the late flight last night. Howard asked me to look you up, see how you were coming along and all that... `I'm not an invalid,' Tweed said coldly.
`Oh, you know what I mean.' Grey was full of bounce, his pink face flushed with good health. 'After all, this is my territory, so it's the least service I can render, to do the honours and all that. I say, any chance of a pot of coffee? Steaming hot is how I like it. First thing in the morning, need something to get the old motor humming...'
`The old motor appears to be humming only too well.. Tweed reluctantly summoned a waiter, gave the order. 'And the coffee is always steaming hot here. This is the Four Seasons...'
`Not a bad doss-house, I agree...'
Oh, Jesus, Tweed muttered under his breath. He forced a trace of a smile. 'You know Robert Newman?'
`I'll say. Old drinking buddies...'
`Once,' Newman replied. 'At a bar in Frankfurt. You spilt a double Scotch over my best suit...'
`Must have been half-smashed...'
`You were all of that.'
`We'd had a long meeting.' Grey turned to Tweed. 'Remember? Eight hours non-stop. Crisis time.'
'I do recall it, yes,' said Tweed and continued eating.
`That was the night that attractive blonde girl was raped and murdered,' Newman remarked. 'They found her floating in the Main the following day. A horrific one, that.'
`Which caused the hold-up when we were leaving Frankfurt Airport,' Tweed said. 'The most thorough interrogation I've ever been subjected to. Made me realize what it's like to be in the other chair. Hugh, talking of Frankfurt, you'll be on your way back there today, I take it?'
`Trying to get rid of me?' Grey smiled broadly. 'You're saying you can cope on your own?'
`I might just manage.'
`Found out anything about Fergusson? Can I be of assistance?'
`No to both questions.'
`Dead end?' Grey poured himself coffee.
`It was for Fergusson...'
`You do sound grim this morning. Not at all chipper …'
`Under the circumstances, I'm hardly likely to feel chipper, as you put it. And I did ask you about your future movements.'
`Sorry. Wrong mood. Under the circumstances. Frankfurt here I come. This afternoon. I get the feeling I'm de trop — as the French so delightfully put it.'
He paused, stared at Tweed expectantly, as though waiting for contradiction. None came.
`Ziggy Palewska was cremated at four this morning.'
Kuhlmann made his announcement standing in Tweed's bedroom, hands clasped behind his back, cigar in the corner of his mouth as he watched both Tweed and Newman who were sitting in arm chairs. The man from Wiesbaden had appeared as soon as Hugh Grey left the dining-room.
He had asked for a quiet word and they had taken him up to the bedroom. Tweed stared back at the German whose expression was bleak. Newman kept his own expression blank and left Tweed to do the talking.
`What the devil does that mean?'
`His place of business — if you can call it that — went up in flames. That heavy wooden door you pushed to get inside to see the Pole last night jams. Palewska was trapped inside. Burnt to one black cinder. An accident, the state police are saying...'
`But how could it happen?'
`You tell me. You were there a few hours earlier. Notice anything especially inflammable?'
`There were two drums of petrol in one corner,' Tweed said slowly. 'The room was full of stuff which could catch light — once a fire started. But how would it start?'
`I thought you might tell me. People who live in that stinking alley say he used to turn up the hi-fi full blast. Had a passion for Louis Armstrong, they say. The eye-witness descriptions make a good horror story...'
`What kind of a horror story?' Newman asked, feeling he should say something.
`Imagine a fiery inferno. Flames shooting sky-high. And that bloody hi-fi still blasting out Louis on his trumpet. Turned as high as it would go, they said. Any comment?'
`I don't think so,' Tweed replied. 'You tell us …'
`Place was lit by oil lamps. So, the vibrations topple one of those oil lamps by the petrol drums. There was a big explosion which was probably one — maybe both — of the petrol drums. People who work nearby told me the oil-lamps alone worried them. When he had that hi-fi going they'd sit talking with Ziggy, watching the damned lamps shivering on top of whatever he'd perched them on. The thing which puzzles me is those petrol drums — a neighbour saw them earlier that evening. Never seen petrol in there before.'
Kuhlmann sat down and waited. He expected a reaction — and he had seen both of them leaving Ziggy's place the same night. Tweed grunted, cleared his throat.
`What are you saying was the cause of this new tragedy?'
`State police call it an accident — subject to the report from the arson brigade. That's the second so-called accident involving you in less than twenty-four hours. First Fergusson, now Mr Ziggy Palewska. Maybe we have a specialist in town.'
`A specialist in what?' Tweed asked.
`Murder made to look like accident. I've already put that
modus operandi
through the computer. I'm waiting for the result.'
`We were there, as you say, earlier in the evening. And I did notice the petrol drums...'
Tweed gave Kuhlmann a brief outline of their visit, omitting a great deal. No reference to Lübeck or Dr Berlin. Kuhlmann never took his eyes off him as Tweed spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
`So,' the German said, `there was a definite link between Fergusson and Palewska? Why would Fergusson fly to Hamburg to see a man like that?'
`Because he has been one of my contacts over the years. You realize there is a limit as to how much I can tell you?'
`No limit on murder.' Kuhlmann pointed his cigar at Tweed. Fergusson was murdered — that I know. Fergusson had visited Palewska an hour or two before he's found floating. Now Ziggy goes up in smoke. That's a direct link if ever I met one. Who was that man who joined you for breakfast'?' he asked suddenly.
`Hugh Grey. I neither expected or wanted to see him. He's a nuisance …'
`His face is familiar. Care to enlighten me a little more on Mr Hugh Grey?'
`Not really.' Which was a pointless answer. Tweed was aware that Kuhlmann would also put Hugh Grey through the computer. But he was playing for time. 'Someone else you might put through that computer of yours,' he suggested. 'A blond giant — over six foot tall. Ziggy told me he was the man who brought those petrol drums. No name, so I don't know where you'd start...'
`With a fuller description.'
`I asked Ziggy for that myself. The blond wore a woolly sailor's cap, large tinted glasses and a silk scarf pulled up over his chin. Oh, yes, he had a large nose...'
`That's one hell of a description. Tell me everything else Ziggy said about this blond.'
Tweed told him. Kuhlmann took out a well-used notebook, wrote a few words in it, put it back in his pocket and stood up.
`You'll be staying in Hamburg — both of you?'
`Is that a request?'
`A question...'
`We shall be staying in North Germany for the moment. More than that I can't be sure of...'
`Stay here long enough and one of you could end up having a very nasty accident …'
`What is it with Kuhlmann?' Newman asked when they were alone. 'Two major crimes — if he's right — have been committed in Hamburg. Surely the Hamburg state police should be handling the case? And he looked very pleased about something when he left.'
`Normally the Federal Police wouldn't get within a mile of it,' Tweed agreed. 'But from something he said at the morgue he's pally with the local police chief. That helps the Federals a lot in Germany. Also, I suspect he hasn't told us all he knows. And that look of satisfaction stems, I'm sure, from the arrival on the scene of that blond giant who visited Ziggy.
He
thought he smelt of East Germany — I'm sure Kuhlmann has the same idea. That would bring in Wiesbaden overnight. And Otto is one of the best men they have. He's supposed to have the ear of the Chancellor — an open sesame to anywhere in the Federal Republic...'
`Before Kuhlmann marched into the dining-room, I was going to ask you, is Hugh Grey as big an idiot as he seems.'
`No. It's a pose which has fooled a lot of people. He finds it useful. Abroad he's a foreigner's idea of a typical Englishman — so they underestimate him. At home, when he's playing politics with Howard, his old boy network act goes down well.'
`A regular stinker, as they used to say. Now what do we turn to next? Visit Martin Vollmer at Altona, that contact Ziggy phoned you about early this morning?'
`I think we'll give Vollmer a miss. I want to get out of Hamburg today, poke around on our own for a bit. This is a dense area...'
`Dense?'
`Office jargon for a zone crammed with enemy agents. The Old Guard used to call it a full pack — they played a lot of cards. I suggest we pack our bags, pay the bill quietly and catch the 11.15 Copenhagen Express for Lübeck.'
`The Hotel Jensen?'
`Exactly. And the mysterious Dr Berlin.'
Nine
By train from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof it was a forty-minute run non-stop to Lübeck. In his anxiety to leave the city, Tweed had arranged it so they arrived at the Hauptbahnhof fifteen minutes before the express came in.
They bought single tickets, crossed the high bridge over the tracks and descended the staircase to the platform. To pass the time, Tweed paced up and down the platform with Newman. On the open bridge above them Martin Vollmer stood watching them.
A thin-faced man with pale eyes and small feet, he waited until they had boarded the express — until the express started moving north. He then ran to the nearest phone booth and dialled a number.
In his bedroom at the Hotel Movenpick in Lübeck Erwin Munzel, alias Kurt Franck for registration purposes, again sat by the phone. He snatched up the receiver on the second ring.
`Franck speaking...'
`Martin here. From Hamburg. Aboard the 11.15. Copenhagen Express. Bound for Liibeck. Arrives 12.05.
Accompanied by companion
. Tweed is coming...'
Munzel slammed down the phone without a word of thanks. Hotel telephones were tricky — you never knew when a bored switchboard operator was listening in.
He had arrived in good time back in Lübeck. After paying his final call on Ziggy Palewska he had caught the 7 a.m. express from Hamburg. The train's ultimate destination was far distant Oslo — via Copenhagen and the Elsinore train ferry which transported it across the arm of the Baltic to Sweden.
Accompanied by companion. That had been a cryptic warning — Tweed was not travelling alone. Well, that was OK. He'd be at Lübeck Hauptbahnhof to take a good look at this companion. He extracted a picture of Tweed from the inner lining of his executive brief-case, a glossy head-and-shoulders print. 'I'll know you, my friend,' Munzel said to himself, replaced the photo and stretched out on the bed. From the Movenpick it was no more than a five-minute walk down the road to the station.
Inside the phone booth Vollmer dialled another number. While he waited for his connection he took out the ticket he had purchased for Puttgarden. He crushed the unused ticket and dropped it. He had stood behind Tweed at the ticket window to hear his destination.
`Dr Berlin's residence,' a throaty voice said. He was through to the mansion in the Mecklenburger-strasse on Priwall Island. `Martin speaking. Tweed is coming..
`Await further instructions.'
The connection was broken before Vollmer could respond.
Bighead
, Vollmer said aloud and slammed down the phone. Back to Altona. To await further instructions. From Balkan. The man he had never seen.
Aboard the Copenhagen Express they had a first-class compartment to themselves. They sat in corner window seats, facing each other. The express thundered north across the North German plain, through neatly cultivated fields of ripening wheat. The land stretched away under a clear blue sky. It was going to be another lovely summer's day.
`This must be the most dangerous problem you've ever faced,' Newman remarked as he lit a cigarette. 'One of your four sector chiefs is a rotten apple.'
`I'm afraid so, Bob. That is the only fact I have to go on so far...'
`Any suspicions? Grey, Dalby, Lindemann, Masterson?'
`None at all. They have all been vetted up to their eyebrows. They come out pure as driven snow. It's rather depressing.'
`And you still think General Vasili Lysenko is behind it?'
`I don't think. I know. I can sense his fine Russian hand. All the hallmarks of the supreme professional...'
`How do you propose to go about it — smoking out Lysenko's tame hyena?'
`I suggest you concentrate on finding out everything you can about Dr Berlin. The philanthropic guardian of refugees intrigues me. The fact that he lives on the border. You know the history of Priwall Island?'
`No,' said Newman.
`Once in Lübeck I met a British ex-tank commander who served under Monty. He told me a memorable story. At the end of the war he was at the head of his armoured unit — in the very first tank to reach Travemünde and be ferried across to Priwall Island. He was racing the Russians to seize the whole strategic island — which controls the seaward entrances to Lübeck on its east and west coasts. He was exactly half-way across that island when he saw a Soviet tank approaching from the other direction. The Red Army tank commander held up his hand to halt our chap. The British tank commander did the same thing — held up his hand to stop the Red Army in its rush to seize Lübeck itself, even take over Denmark if they could. And that was where the border was drawn. At the precise point where those two tank commanders met …'