The Janus Man tac-4

by Colin Forbes

  `What have you found out?' Tweed enquired.

  `His code-name. Balkan. I know it isn't much. But I have also heard Balkan has arrived in Lubeck very recently. I thought you should be warned.'

  `Where does this information come from, Erich?'

  `I can't identify my informant, of course. Let us say I made a quick flight to Oslo recently. An interesting city – and of course just north in the mountains is the great NATO base.'

  `I see…' Tweed was silent for a short while. He was pretty sure he knew what Lindemann was saying. Norway. In the far north there was a curious area close to the Barents Sea where a section of the Norwegian frontier ran next to Soviet Russia. It would take a brilliant agent to cross from Russia – but Lindemann was a brilliant sector chief.

  `This Balkan,' Tweed continued, 'have you even the hint of a clue as to where he comes from?'

  `Not the trace of a hint. I am told that only Lysenko himself is privy to his real identity. That gives you some idea of the power Balkan wields. Life and death, according to my informant. There is one other thing. He has been in place, holding that position, for a long time – probably many years…'

  `Strange we've never heard of him before…'

  `No, that's understandable. One other tiny item.' Lindemann was pacing slowly between Newman and Tweed. 'Lysenko changes the code-name at intervals. But he has been called Balkan for some time. I was also told he is very mobile.' He checked his watch. 'And that, Tweed, I am afraid is it. I'd better board my train in a minute…'

  `Thank you for coming, Erich. And for the information. I sense we now have movement by the opposition…'

  `Don't forget my offer,' Lindemann said as he opened the door of an empty compartment. 'If things get overheated down here, phone me and I'll meet you in Copenhagen off the express. Don't fly. Oh, it's possible Balkan is based in Oslo.'

  The door slammed shut before Tweed could react. They decided to go for a walk along the country road since their train back to Liibeck wasn't due. Newman glanced back at the express which was still standing in the station and then a bend in the road hid it from view.

  'Lindemann is all brainpower,' Newman remarked as they bent their heads against the wind.

  `And a man of many parts. You'd never dream that when he was a few years younger his main relaxation was amateur theatricals. He could have made his living on the stage, I heard…'

  `I didn't recognize him immediately when he came out of that compartment. He's still pretty good at disguising his appearance. I was also intrigued by the few snippets he's picked up about this Balkan. It's a thin comparison, I know, but he reminded me of someone else we've heard about recently…'

  `Are we thinking on the same lines?' Tweed wondered aloud.

  `Dr Berlin…'

  `Exactly. Why?'

  `Lindemann said Balkan has held his position for a long time, that he is very mobile. Diana told us Berlin is like a grasshopper, jumping all over the place. No one knows where he disappears to. Also he lives like a hermit, won't normally be interviewed. He gave me mine a couple of years ago to shut the others up, I'm sure. The weird thing is when I was talking to him I felt I'd met him before…'

  `The trouble is one fact blows a hole right through such a theory. Diana Chadwick. She knew him way back in Kenya – that was twenty years ago. He can hardly have been Balkan then.'

  `I suppose you're right.'

  They walked in silence, each man mulling over his thoughts, for some time. Tweed checked his watch and said it was time to get back to the station. They were on board the train, travelling south, again in an empty compartment, when Newman said it.

  `Tweed, we've got a lot to think about – and do. I have to check the backgrounds of Diana Chadwick and Dr Berlin. And all at once there are developments coming thick and fast. The party on Priwall Island the day after tomorrow. This business of the mysterious Balkan turning up. And, the imminent arrival of the killer Masterson called The Cripple..

  `Should be enough to occupy us when we get to Lubeck,' Tweed agreed.

  He didn't realize it, but he had just made the understatement of the year. The situation at Lubeck had exploded.

  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. The
re 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.