by Colin Forbes
Seated in the back of an unmarked police car neither Beck nor Newman said a single word during the short journey. Newman peered out of the window and realized they were driving along the Aarstrasse in the direction of the Nydeggbrucke. In the darkness lights across the river reflected in the water.
A tram was crossing the Kirchenfeld bridge high above them just before they passed under its span. Very little traffic at that hour. Then, ahead, he saw a line of parked police cars, their blue lamps flashing on the roofs. The car slowed down at a barrier which had been erected at the entrance to the Badgasse, the street which runs immediately below the Munster Plattform.
Beck opened the window as a uniformed policeman approached and showed his identity card without saying a word. The barrier was raised and they passed up a narrow street into the ancient Badgasse. Here there was frenetic activity.
More police cars, more winking blue lamps. Flash-bulbs lighting the street in brief blazes of brilliance. Newman was reminded of the strobe lights in a disco. They drove slowly to a point near the far end of the Plattform wall on their right which faced old houses on their left. A high canvas screen had been erected around something. The car stopped. Beck grasped the door handle.
`This is pretty nasty,' he warned.
Newman stepped out of the warmth of the car into the raw chill of the night. He felt slightly ridiculous in Beck's blue overcoat and the ill-fitting hat. Fortunately the glasses he wore were only lightly tinted. Police milled around. A grim- faced man in plain clothes pushed his way through to Beck.
`This is Chief Inspector Pauli of Homicide, Cantonal Police,' Beck remarked without introducing Newman. 'Pauli, would you kindly repeat the message you received over the phone?'
`The caller was anonymous,' Pauli reported in a clipped voice. 'He said we'd find a body in the Badgasse. He also said that a Robert Newman had been seen arguing with the deceased earlier this evening in the Munstergasse.
`Pauli is from Hauptwache – police headquarters on the Waisenhausplatz,' Beck commented. `He came at once and this is what he found…'
Behind the canvas shield a Ford station wagon was parked at a right angle to the base of the wall, facing outwards ready to be driven away. The hideous mess which was the remains of Julius Nagy lay spread all over the roof, his head twisted at an impossible angle, one eye staring at Newman like the eye of a dead fish in the beam of a searchlight mounted on top of a police car.
Newman recognized the mangled corpse as Nagy by the Tyrolean hat rammed slantwise across the crushed skull, a hat with a tiny blood-red feather. But it was not really the colour of blood – the real colour, much darker and coagulated, smeared the Ford's windscreen in snake-like streaks.
A man in civilian clothes, carrying a black bag, climbed down a ladder which had been perched against the far side of the car. Removing a pair of rubber gloves, he shook his head as he gazed at Beck.
`Dr Moser,' Beck said briefly. 'Cantonal police pathologist.'
`I'd say every other bone in his body is broken,' Moser commented. can tell you more later – or will you be taking over?'
`I will be taking over,' Beck informed him.
`In that case, it's a pleasant night's work for Dr Kleist – and better her than me. I'll send over my written report…'
`Any suggestion – an educated guess – as to how it happened?' Beck enquired.
`I never guess.' Moser stared upwards at the wall towering above them. 'Of course, he'd hit the car like a cannon-ball from that height. Obviously it was either murder, suicide or an accident.' Moser paused. 'There are pleasanter ways of ending it all. And I managed to extract this envelope he had in his overcoat pocket.' He handed a crumpled envelope to Beck and glanced at Newman. 'I'll be off to start work on my report. Another late night – and my wife is already beginning to wonder why I get home so late…'
Beck produced a cellophane packet, held the envelope by one corner and slipped it inside the packet. 'Probably useless for fingerprints but one goes through the motions. What idea are you playing with now in that fertile brain of yours, Newman?'
The Englishman was staring up into the night where the massive wall sheered up. At intervals huge flying buttresses projected. It was vertiginous – even gazing up the terrifying drop. He looked at Beck as they stood alone with the pathetic and horrifying crumpled form which had once been a living, breathing man. At that moment Moser returned briefly.
`One suggestion, Beck. I'd cover the top of the Ford with a waterproof sheet and have it driven slowly to the morgue. Kleist will find she has to scrape some of the remains clear of the car. He's practically glued to the roof. Enjoy yourself…'
I think,' Newman said after Moser had gone, 'it might be an idea to go up to the Plattform by the lift at the corner. If I remember rightly it doesn't stop working until eight thirty pm.'
`You have a remarkable memory for details about the Plattform.'
It's up to you…'
`I'll get the car to drive round and meet us at the exit… `No. Near the top of the Munstergasse…'
`If you say so…'
They emerged from the canvas shelter into hectic activity in the Badgasse. Uniformed police in leather greatcoats, 7.65-mm. automatics holstered on their right hips, walking up and down to no apparent purpose that Newman could see. Beck spoke briefly to his car driver and followed Newman who was striding to the distant corner of the wall.
The ancient lift is a small cage which ascends vertically inside an open metal shaft to the top of the Plattform. Newman had bought two 60-rappen tickets from the old boy who attended the lift when Beck arrived. They stood in silence as it made its slow ascent.
On a seat was perched a piece of newspaper with the remains of a sandwich and the interior of the lift smelt of salami. The old boy had moved from the entrance door to the exit door at the opposite end of the cage. Beck watched Newman as he stared out of the window overlooking the Aare, then switched his gaze to the facing window where he could see the slope terraced into kitchen gardens, the continuous walls of houses along the Munstergasse running into the Junkerngasse. In one of those houses Blanche would be in her apartment, probably phoning the man who would develop and print the films. At all costs he had to keep her name out of this horror.
The lift door was opened by the attendant after it reached the tiny shed at the corner of the Plattform. Newman did not make any move to get out. He spoke casually.
– 'You won't have many passengers at this time of night. Can you recall anyone who used the lift at about six thirty pm? Maybe six forty-five?'
Tor sixty rappen you want me to answer foolish questions?'
Beck said nothing. He produced his identity folder and showed it to the attendant, his face expressionless. Returning it to his pocket he stared out of the open doorway.
`I am sorry..' The attendant seemed confused. did not know. That awful business of the man who fell…'
`That's what I'm talking about,' Newman said amiably. 'We think he may have had a friend – or friends – who could identify him. Someone who was so shaken they took your lift down after the tragedy. Take your time. Think…'
`There was a big man by himself.' The attendant screwed up his face in his effort to concentrate. 'I didn't take all that notice of him. He carried a walking stick…'
`How was he dressed?' Beck interjected.
`I was eating my supper. I can't remember. A lot of people use this lift…'
`Not at this time of night,' Newman pointed out gently. 'I imagine you can remember the time?'
`Seven o'clock I would say. No earlier. The lift was at the bottom – he called it up – and I heard a clock chime…'
Beck walked out of the cage and Newman followed. In the distance, almost at the end of the thigh-high stone wall protecting them from the drop, uniformed policemen with torches searched the ground. A section was cordoned off by means of poles with ropes. The point, Newman guessed, where Nagy had gone over.
`Nothing, sir – at least as yet,' on
e of the policemen reported to Beck who shrugged.
`They're looking for signs of a struggle,' Beck remarked. `God, the wind cuts you in two up here. And it wasn't an accident,' he continued. 'There's no ice on the stones he could have slipped on…'
Newman placed both hands on the top of the wall close to the roped-off section and peered over. Vertigo. The great wall fell into the abyss. He studied the area, looking along the wall in both directions. His hands were frozen.
`Interesting,' he commented.
`What is?' Beck asked sharply.
`Look for yourself. This is the one place where there are no buttresses to break his fall. He'd still have been seriously injuredbut he might just have survived. He went over at the very place where it was certain he'd be killed…'
He looked round the great Plattform which was divided up into four large grassy beds. Stark, closely trimmed trees reared up in the night which was now lit by the moon. Behind them the huge menacing spire of the Munster stabbed at the sky. Newman thrust his hands into his pockets and began walking towards the exit he knew led into the Munsterplatz. Beck followed without comment.
Emerging from the gateway, Newman stood for a moment, staring round the cobbled square and across at the Munstergasse. The arcade on the far side was a deserted tunnel of light and shadow. He walked diagonally across the square and inside the arcade. He continued walking until he reached the Finstergasschen, the narrow alley leading towards the Marktgasse, one of the main streets of Berne. He checked his watch. Five minutes. That was the time it had taken for him to walk from the place where Nagy had died to the Finstergasschen.
The patrol car Beck had sent on ahead was parked by the kerb. Newman climbed into the rear seat without a word as Beck settled himself beside him He gave the driver a brief instruction.
`Not the front entrance. We'll take the long way round to my office.'
`Why?' asked Newman when the policeman had closed the partition dividing them from the driver.
`Because the front entrance may well be watched. I rushed you into the car on the way out but I don't want anyone to see you come back – even in those togs…'
Togs. Newman smiled to himself. During his stint in London Beck had picked up a number of English colloquialisms. He left the talking to Beck who continued immediately.
`Do you know that pathetic crumpled wreck back there?'
`Julius Nagy,' Newman replied promptly. 'The Tyrolean hat. He was wearing it when he followed me about in Geneva..
He had to admit that much. He had no doubt Beck had contacted Chief Inspector Tripet of the Sfirete in Geneva. Beck turned to face the Englishman.
`But how did you identify him in Geneva?'
`Because when I was last here I used him. He deserved a better death than that. He was born to a poor family, he hadn't enough brains to get far, but he was persistent and he earned his living supplying people like me with information. He had underworld contacts.'
`Here in Berne, you mean?'
`Yes. That was why I was surprised he had moved his sphere of operations to Geneva…'
`That was me,' Beck replied. 'I had him thrown out of the Berne canton as a public nuisance, an undesirable. I too felt sorry for him. Why did he risk coming back is what I would like to know…'
Again Newman refused to be drawn into conversation. They were approaching the building close to the base of the Marzilibahn when Beck made the remark, still watching Newman.
`I am probably one of the very few people in Switzerland who knows that what you have just seen is the second murder in the past few weeks.'
`Who else knows?'
`The murderers…'
The atmosphere changed the moment they entered Beck's office from the hostility which had lingered in the air during Newman's earlier visit. A small, wiry woman whose age Newman guessed as fifty-five, a spinster from her lack of rings, followed them inside with a tray. A percolator of coffee, two Meissen cups and saucers, two balloon-shaped glasses and a bottle of Remy Martin.
`This is Gisela, my assistant,' Beck introduced. 'Also she is my closest confidante. In my absence you can pass any message to her safe in the knowledge it will reach my ears only.'
`You're looking after us well,' Newman said in German and shook hands as soon as she had placed the tray on the desk.
`It is my pleasure, Mr Newman. I will be in my office if you need me,' she told Beck.
`She works all hours,' Beck commented as he poured the coffee. 'Black, if I recall? And it is a swine of a night – on more accounts than one. So, we will treat ourselves to some cognac. I welcome you to Berne and drink your health, my friend. You must excuse my earlier reception.'
`Which was about what?'
`That bloody anonymous phone call to Pauli reporting you were seen in the vicinity. Someone wants you off the streets. We have procedures – and my immediate purpose was to close off the cantonal police. I can now tell Pauli I cross-examined you and am fully satisfied you had nothing to do with the death of our late lamented Julius Nagy. He minutes the file – sends it over to me and I lock it away for good.'
He wheeled his swivel chair round the desk to sit alongside Newman. They drank coffee and sipped their cognac in silence until Beck started talking, the words pouring out in a Niagara.
`Bob, in the last twelve hours there have been no less than five incidents all of which worry me greatly. They form no clear pattern but I am convinced all these incidents are linked. First, a mortar was stolen from the military base at Lerchenfeld near Thun-Sud. The second mortar stolen within a month…'
`Did they take any ammo. – any bombs?'
`No, which in itself is peculiar. Just the weapon. The second incident also concerns the theft of a weapon. You know that all Swiss have to serve military service up to the age of forty-five, that each man keeps at his home an Army rifle and twenty-four rounds of ammunition. A house was broken into while the owner was at work and his wife was out shopping. A rifle – plus the twenty-four rounds- has disappeared. Also the sniper-scope. He was a marksman…'
`Which area? Or can I guess?'
`Thun-Sud. Late this afternoon the third incident occurred on a motorway. The driver of a snowplough was viciously attacked and his machine later found on the motorway. You want to guess the area?'
`Somewhere near Thun?'
`Precisely. Always Thun! The fourth incident you know about. The murder of Julius Nagy…'
`And Number Five?'
Tee Foley, alleged ex-CIA man, has disappeared today from the hotel we traced him to. The Savoy in the Neuengasse. Bob, this American is one of the most dangerous men in the west. I rang a friend in Washington – woke him up, but he's done the same to me. I wanted to know whether Foley really has left the CIA and he said he had. I'm still not totally convinced. If the job was big enough Foley could get cover right to the top. He's a member – a senior partner – in the Continental International Detective Agency in New York, so I'm told…'
`For argument's sake,' Newman suggested, 'let's suppose for a moment that is true. What then?'
`It does nothing to ease my anxiety. Foley is a skilled and highly-trained killer. That poses two questions. Who has the money to pay a man like that?'
`The Americans…'
`Or the Swiss,' Beck said quietly.
`What are you hinting at?'
Beck glanced at Newman and said nothing. He took out of his jacket pocket a short pipe with a thick stem and a large bowl. Newman recognized the pipe and watched as the police chief extracted tobacco from a packet labelled Amphora. He began packing tobacco into the bowl.
`Still wedded to the same old pipe,' Newman remarked.
`You are very observant, my friend. It's made by Cogolet, a firm near St Tropez. And the tobacco is the same – red Amphora. The second question Foley's presence poses is Who is the target? Identify his paymaster and that may point to who he has come to kill…'
`You're convinced that is why he is really here?'
`It is his tr
ade,' Beck observed. 'Why have you come to Berne?'
So typical of Beck. To throw the loaded question just when you least expected it. He had his pipe alight and sat puffing at it while he watched Newman with a quizzical expression. The Englishman, who knew Beck well, realized the Swiss was in a mood he had never seen him display before. A state of fearful indecision.
`I'm here with my fiancee, Nancy Kennedy, who wanted to visit her grandfather.' Newman paused, staring straight at Beck behind the blue haze of smoke. 'He's in the Berne Clinic.'
`Ah! The Berne Clinic!' Beck sat up erect in his chair. His eyes became animated and Newman sensed a release of tension in the Swiss. 'Now everything begins to come together. You are the ally I have been seeking…'
Beck had poured more coffee, had freshened up their glasses of cognac. All traces of irresolution had vanished: he was the old, energetic, determined Beck Newman remembered from his last visit to Berne.
`I noticed something strange when we were at the Clinic this afternoon,' Newman said. 'Is that place by any chance guarded by Swiss troops?'
The atmosphere inside the bare, green-walled office illuminated by overhead neon strips changed again. Beck gazed at his cognac, swirling the liquid gently. He took a sip without looking at his guest.
`Why do you say that?' he asked eventually.
`Because I saw a man inside the gatehouse wearing the uniform of a Swiss soldier.'
`You had better address that question to Military Intelligence. You know where to go…'
Beck had withdrawn into his shell again. Newman was aware of a sense of rising frustration. What the hell was wrong with Beck? He allowed his irritation to show.
`If you want my cooperation – you mentioned the word "ally" – I need to know what I'm getting into. And how much freedom to act has the Chief of Federal Police given you? Refuse to answer that question and I'm walking away from the whole damned business.'
`Plenipotentiary power,' Beck replied promptly. 'Incorporated in a signed directive in that locked cabinet.'
