by Colin Forbes
Lee Foley had his arm round the neck of the smaller man. The American was dressed in an English check suit, a checked cap. A walking stick held in his free hand completed the outer trappings of an Englishman. The small man he held in a vice-like grip was Julius Nagy.
`This little creep has been tracking you all over town,' Foley said. 'Time we found out who his employer is, wouldn't you agree?'
Before Newman could react Foley thrust Nagy inside the alcove formed by a doorway. Shoving him back against the heavy wooden door, he suddenly lifted the stick, held it horizontally and pressed it against Nagy's throat. The little man's eyes bulged out of his head. He was terrified.
`Who is your paymaster?' rasped Foley.
`Tripet..' Nagy gasped as Foley relaxed the stick slightly. `Who?' Foley rasped again.
`Chief Inspector Tripet. Surete. Geneva…'
`That came too easily,' Foley growled. 'Geneva? This happens to be Berne. You're lying. One more chance. After a little more persuasion…'
`Watch it,' Newman warned. 'You'll crush his Adam's apple.'
`That is exactly what I'm going to do if he doesn't come across.'
Nagy made a horrible choking sound. He beat his small, clenched fists against Foley's body. He might as well have hammered at the hide of an elephant. Newman glanced down the alley. Still empty. By the glow of the lamp he saw Nagy was turning purple. Foley pressed the stick harder. Feebly, Nagy's heels pattered against the base of the wooden door, making no more noise than the scutter of a mouse. Newman began to feel sick.
Foley eased the pressure of the stick. He pushed his cold face within inches of Nagy's ashen skin, his ice-blue eyes watching the little man's without pity, without any particular expression. He waited as Nagy sucked in great draughts of cold night air. It was the only sound in the stillness of the night.
`Let's start all over,' Foley suggested. 'One more chance – I simply don't have the time for lies. Who is your employer?'
`Coat pocket… phone number… car registration… Bahnhof…'
`What the hell is the jerk talking about?' Foley asked in a remote voice as though thinking aloud.
`Wait! Wait!' Newman urged.
He plunged a hand inside Nagy's shabby coat pocket, scrabbled around. His fingers felt a piece of paper. He pulled it out urgently – Foley was not a man who bluffed. He stepped back a few paces and examined the paper under the lamp.
`There is a phone number,' he told Foley. 'And what looks like a car registration number. It is a car registration… Newman had recognized the car registration. The figures were engraved on his memory. The letters too. 'Let him talk,' he told Foley. 'Ease up on him. What was that reference he made to the Bahnhof?'
`Your employer,' Foley said to Nagy. 'This time we want the truth – not some crap about the Geneva police…'
`The other coat pocket…' Nagy was looking at Newman. `Inside it you'll find a camera. I took a shot of a man getting into that Mercedes – outside the Bahnhof. He came in off the one fifty-eight pm express from Geneva..
Foley held the walking stick an inch from the little man's throat while Newman scrabbled around inside the other pocket. His hand came out holding a small, slim camera. A Voigtlander. Three shots had been taken. He looked up and caught Nagy's expression as the little man stared straight at him over the bar of the walking stick.
`I only took two shots,' Nagy croaked. 'The man getting into the car – and the Mercedes itself.' He switched his gaze to Foley. 'I think that man is the boss, my employer – and somebody important. There was a chauffeur with the car.'
`Mind if I take out the film?' Newman asked. 'I'll pay for it…'
`Jesus Christ!' Foley exploded. 'Take the film. Why pay this shit?'
Newman broke open the camera after winding the film through. Extracting the film, he dropped it inside his coat pocket, shut the camera, took a banknote from his wallet and replaced camera with banknote inside Nagy's pocket.
`I'll get it developed and printed,' he told Foley. 'Now let our friend go…'
`Break an arm- just to teach him not to follow people…'
`No!' Newman's tone was tough and he took a step towards the American. `He was following me, so I decide. I said let him go…'
With a grimace of disgust the American released Nagy who felt his injured throat, swallowed and then straightened his rumpled tie. He seemed oddly reluctant to leave and kept eyeing Newman as though trying to transmit some message. Foley gave him a shove and he shuffled off down the alley, glancing back once and again it was Newman he stared at.
`You and I have to talk,' Foley said. It was a statement. 'I want to know what's on that film – and on that piece of paper..
`Not now. I'm late for an appointment. Thanks for spotting my shadow, but you play pretty rough. Sometimes you get more if you coax..
`I coax with the barrel of a gun, Newman. I'll call you at the Bellevue. Then we meet. Inside twenty-four hours. You owe me.
`Agreed…'
Newman walked rapidly away down the Munstergasse and continued along the Junkerngasse, which is also arcaded, but without shops. Crossing the cobbled street which was now running downhill, he looked back. No sign of Foley, but that didn't surprise him. The American was too fly to follow him. He reached the closed door with three bell-pushes, a recently- installed speak-phone, a name alongside each bell-push. He pressed the one lettered B. Signer.
Blanche had taken his advice or, woman-like, she had hoped – expected – he would turn up. Her quiet voice came to him through the speak-phone grille clearly when he announced himself.
`I thought it was you, Bob. Push the door when the buzzer buzzes…'
Beyond the heavy wooden door, which closed automatically behind him on the powerful sprung-hinge, a dim light showed him the way up a flight of ancient stone steps, well-worn in the middle. On the first floor landing he noticed another new addition in the door to her apartment. A fish-eye spyhole. The door opened inward and Blanche stood there, wearing only a white bathrobe.
He sensed she had nothing on underneath as she stood aside and the bathrobe, loosely corded round her waist, parted to expose a bare, slim leg to her thigh. She closed the door, fixed the special security lock and put on the thick chain.
`Blanche, I have another film for you to develop and print.' He handed the spool to her. 'Only three shots – the third one intrigues me. The party who gave it to me said there were only two…'
`Because someone else was present? Tomorrow you have prints and negatives along with my own contribution. No, don't sit there. In here…'
Here was a tidily-furnished bedroom with one large single bed. He paused and swung round to face her. She had closed the door and stood facing him, brushing the cascade of titian hair slowly, her face expressionless.
`No, Blanche,' he said. 'I've come to tell you to forget all about the Berne Clinic. Too many pretty tough characters keep turning up. You could get hurt – that I won't risk…'
`You'll hurt me if you don't…'
She pushed him suddenly, a hard shove. The edge of the bed acted as a fulcrum against the back of his legs and he sprawled on the white duvet. She flicked the cord round her waist free, dropped the bathrobe and he had guessed right about her lack of attire. She was on top of him before he could move.
`I'm engaged,' Newman protested as she spread herself. `Of course you are – engaged in battle…'
She giggled as her slim hands industriously burrowed, whipping open the buttons of his coat, the buttons of his jacket underneath, unfastening his tie, his shirt buttons. He had never known a woman's hand operate with such skill and agility. He sighed. When it's inevitable… relax… enjoy…
Julius Nagy was livid with rage and resentment. He shuffled back along the deserted Finstergasschen. They never expected you to come back the same way. This was twice he had been subjected to violent abuse. First the obscene experience with that thug in the lavatory aboard the express to Zurich. Now the same thing had happened again at the end o
f this alley.
The injury to Nagy's dignity hurt him even more than the injury to his throat. Only the Englishman, Newman, had treated him like a fellow human being. Well, he would get his revenge. He emerged from the end of the alley and peered cautiously both ways along the Munstergasse. No one in sight anywhere. Pulling up the collar of his shabby coat against the bitter cold, he turned left towards the Munster.
`Make a sound and I'll blow your spine in half…'
The violent threat, spoken in German, was accompanied by the equally violent ramming of something hard against his back. A gun barrel. Nagy froze with sheer fright, standing quite still.
`Keep walking,' the voice ordered. 'Don't look round. That would be the last mistake you'd made. Cross the street. Head for the Munsterplatz…'
There was still no one else about. It was still the interval between the workers going home and the night revellers appearing. Nagy crossed the street, the gun muzzle glued against his back, and walked down under the other arcade, praying a patrol car would drive down the street.
`Now walk round the Munsterplatz – on the pavement…'
The gunman knew what he was doing, Nagy realized with growing terror. Following this route they stayed within the dark shadows. On the far side of the square the huge bulk of the front facade of the Munster sheered up. The great tower was enclosed inside a series of builder's boards – like tiers in a theatre. Above that speared the immense spire, all knobbly and spiky.
Nagy began to suspect what was their ultimate destination – the Plattform. The large garden square alongside the Munster which overlooked the river Aare. He was pushed and prodded through the gateway and guided across the square towards the far wall. The naked trees in the garden were vague skeletal silhouettes, the only sound the crunch of two pairs of feet on the gravel. Nagy, sweat streaming down his face despite the cold, was trying to look ahead to predict the next move. His mind wouldn't function.
`I need information,' the voice growled. 'Here we can talk undisturbed…'
So that was it. The raw wind beat across the exposed heights of the Plattform, sliced at his face. No one would come out here on such a night. His attacker had worked it out well. And this was the third time! A hint of fury welled up, faded into fear again. His feet walked with leaden step. Then they reached the wall near the corner furthest from the lift which descended to the Badgasse. Nagy was pressed against the wall.
`Now I will tell you what we want to know. Then you will tell me the answers to the questions I put to you…'
Nagy stared out beyond the wall which was thigh-high, stared out at the lights of houses twinkling in the chilling night on the Bantiger, the hill which rises from the far bank of the Aare. The gun had been removed from his back. Suddenly Nagy felt two hands like steel handcuffs grasp his ankles. He was elevated bodily and projected forward over the wall. He screamed. His hands thrust out into space. The earth, one hundred and fifty feet below, rushed up to meet him. The scream faded into a wail. Then it ceased. There was a distant thud. Steps retraced their path across the gravel.
Fifteen
Newman took the devious route to the Taubenhalde (the Pigeon Hill) which houses Federal Police Headquarters in Berne.
He was becoming almost neurotically wary of shadows – and not only the shadows which cloaked the arcades. He had heard Nagy's footsteps but he had missed Lee Foley's cat-like tread. So, when he walked back up the Munstergasse from Blanche's apartment, made his way back past the Casino and crossed to the Kochergasse, he quickened his pace.
He proceeded on past the entrance to the Bellevue Palace, stopped to light a cigarette while he glanced back, checked the far pavement, and disappeared down an alley leading to the Terrasse in front of the Parliament. At that hour the elevated walk was deserted. Beyond the walk the ground fell away, sloping steeply towards the Aare. Ahead he saw the funicular – the Marzilibahn – which travels down the slope almost to river level. The small red car had just reached the top of the slanting rails. He broke into a run.
Sixty centimes bought him a ticket from the attendant inside the small building at the top of the funicular. The car, very new and toy-like, was empty and the door slid shut as soon as he stepped inside. It began its steeply-angled descent down a pair of ruler-straight rails.
Newman stood at the front, surrounded by windows, his hands on a rail. In the dark the lights across the river were sharp as diamonds. The descent continued and Newman felt exposed inside the illuminated car. He realized his hands were gripping the rail tightly.
The lower station came up to meet him. The car slowed, slipped inside, stopped. The moment the door opened he stepped out and left the cover of the base station. The wind blasted along the river and hit him in the face. He kept walking as he turned up his coat collar. There appeared to be no one about.
He passed one of the original wooden cars, preserved as a monument and perched on a tiny hill. The Taubenhalde was still some distance when he entered a modern building and presented his passport to the receptionist.
`I have an appointment with Arthur Beck,' he said. 'Seven o'clock…'
Seated behind his counter, the receptionist examined the passport, stared at Newman and then at the photo. He opened a file and took out a glossy print which Newman recognized as a photograph of himself taken the previous year during the Kruger affair. They were careful inside this place.
`You know the way to the Taubenhalde, M. Newman?' the receptionist asked as he returned the passport. 'It is a little complex…'
`I know the way. I've been here before..
From this building a long subterranean passage leads to Pigeon Building. Newman walked along it while behind him the receptionist picked up the phone and spoke rapidly. At the end of the passage a travelator – an 80-metre-long moving staircase – ascends to the main entrance hall to the Taubenhalde. Newman stood quite still, working out what he would tell Beck, as the travelator carried him upwards.
He had come a long way round to reach this entrance hall – by doing so he avoided being recognized by any watcher checking who entered the building through the main doors. The moment Newman entered the hall he knew something was wrong. Arthur Beck was waiting for him by the reception counter where normally all visitors filled in a detailed form.
`I will deal with the formalities,' Beck told the receptionist curtly and pocketed a pad of forms. He walked to the lift without even greeting Newman. Inside the lift the policeman pressed the button for Floor 10 and stood in silence as the lift ascended. Reaching 10, the lift door remained closed until Beck inserted a key into a slot and turned it. The security inside the place, Newman recalled, was formidable.
Beck still said nothing as he unlocked the door of his office and stood aside for Newman to enter. It was unnerving – especially the business downstairs about not filling in any form. Beck explained that as he went round to the far side of his desk, sat down, and gestured for Newman to occupy the chair opposite.
`Officially, you may never have been here. We shall see..'
Beck was plump-cheeked, his most arresting feature was his alert grey eyes under thick brows. His manner was normally recessive, observant. He moved his hands and feet quickly and his complexion was ruddy. He was one of the cleverest policemen in western Europe.
Dressed in a navy blue business suit, blue-striped shirt, a blue tie which carried a kingfisher emblem woven into the fabric, he fiddled with a pencil, watching Newman. No welcoming words, nothing to indicate that they were old friends. Suddenly he threw down the pencil. His voice was abrupt.
`Can you tell me where you were this evening between six fifteen and seven o'clock?'
`Why?' Newman demanded.
`I'm asking you if you have an alibi for those forty-five minutes?'
`Alibi?' Newman's tone expressed astonishment, irritation. `What the hell are you talking about?'
`You haven't answered the question.'
`Is this something to do with the crisis you mentioned in your note dr
agging me over here?' Newman realized his mistake. 'It can't be – I got that note earlier…'
`It is my duty to put the question to you once more formally. Think before you reply…'
Newman was thinking. There was no way he could tell Beck where he had been. That would mean dragging in Blanche. He wasn't going to do that. Not because of the possible publicity. Not because of Nancy. Because of Blanche. He was surprised by the strength of his own decision.
`I'm not prepared to answer the question until I know exactly what this is all about.'
`Very well.' Beck stood up stiffly. 'I will show you what it is all about. I think you had better wear some different clothes – to avoid the chance of recognition…'
Newman carefully said nothing as Beck opened a cupboard, took out a dark blue overcoat and handed it to Newman. 'Put that on. Leave your sheepskin here. We shall be coming back afterwards.'
`After what?' Newman enquired. 'And this coat is pretty floppy. You're fatter than I am…'
`It will do. You look fine. Now try on this hat…'
Beck slipped on a fawn raincoat he took from the cupboard as Newman put on the hat. The police chief slammed the cupboard door shut, picked up the phone and spoke rapidly.
`Be sure the car is ready. We're coming down now…'
`The hat is too big,' Newman commented. 'Your head is fatter than mine…' ! You look fine. Put on these dark glasses. Please do not argue. It is very important that you are not recognized – and God knows there will be enough people hanging around…'
`Hanging around where? I want to know where you're taking me before I move from this office.'
`Not far, Bob. This is just as unpleasant and unsettling for me as well as for you. It blew up in my face very recently. I ask you to say nothing, to talk to no one but me. If you don't do as I request you may well regret it…'
`Request- that's a bit more like it. Try and push me around and we won't be cooperating on anything ever again. You do know that, I hope, Beck?'
`I know that. Time is precious. The car is waiting. We have only a very short distance to go. Not five minutes' walk from the Bellevue Palace. Something terrible has happened…'
