The Janus Man

by Forbes, Colin

  `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 …'

  `So that's why Priwall Island is cut in half — with the Soviet minefield belt extending across its middle?'

  `Exactly. At least the western channel to Travemünde is under Western control. So passenger ships from Sweden and Finland can cross the Baltic and berth there. It's one of the weirdest spots on earth. And that, I remember reading, is where Dr Berlin has his residence,' Tweed remarked.

  `The odd thing is he only spends part of his time there. He's like a grasshopper. I remember some of the old Kenya hands used that very word. Hops all over the world, they said. But no one knew where..

  `Then you'd better find out. I think we are coming in to the outskirts of Lübeck. I wonder what it holds for us?'

  The taxi ride from the Hauptbahnhof to the Hotel Jensen was only a few minutes. They could have walked it. Approaching the bridge crossing the river on to the island Lübeck sits on, they passed a curious pair of medieval towers, leaning precariously and topped with witches' hat turrets.

  `The famous Holstentor,' Tweed remarked. Lübeck's trademark. That and marzipan...'

  They met the blonde-haired woman as they carried their cases inside the Jensen. In her early forties, Newman estimated, she was tall, slim and had a pointed chin and startling blue eyes which stared straight at him.

  He stood aside to let her pass and she smiled, still staring, then disappeared into the outside world. Newman looked back at her and the man behind the reception counter grinned.

  `You know her, sir?' he asked in English.

  `Unfortunately, no. She's staying here?'

  `Oh, yes. A guest each year during the summer season. That is Diana Chadwick. A very popular lady...'

  `With any normal man, I should imagine...'

  `I shouldn't say it, perhaps.' The man paused and smiled again. 'Very popular with most men, yes. But not always so popular with the members of her own sex. They fear the competition, I sometimes think.'

  `Diana Chadwick,' Newman repeated while Tweed filled in his own form. 'I've heard that name somewhere...'

  `She used to be a famous society beauty in Africa many years ago.' He smiled a third time. 'Not too many years, I hasten to say...'

  `Not Kenya by any chance?' Newman asked.

  'I think possibly it was Kenya. Go to Travemünde, ask some of the British boating crowd there. She spends a lot of her time with them. Thank you, sir,' he said to Tweed, and pushed the pad towards Newman for him to register.

  General Lysenko had insisted they moved their centre of operations to a fifth-floor office in the seven-storey concrete block of a building in Leipzig. He stood by the window now while Markus Wolf arranged his files brought up from the basement.

  `I felt like a bloody mole trapped underground in that basement,' he snapped. 'We're likely to be here sometime, I take it.'

  `Munzel can move very quickly,' Wolf replied in his slow deliberate voice. 'Witness how he dealt with the British agent, Fergusson, and that piece of garbage, Palewska. On the other hand, with a man like Tweed he will take his time. Patience is so often the key to success, I find.'

  The Intelligence chief glanced at Lysenko to see if he had got the message. No, he hadn't, he decided. He explained at greater length.

  `First, Munzel has made his second report via the Eichholz watch-tower. He has signalled the arrival of Tweed at the Hotel Jensen in Lübeck. We spun out a string for Tweed to follow — and he is following it. Second, Munzel will want to study his target, get to know his habits, his way of going about things.

  Only when he has a complete picture of Tweed will he strike.

  And in any case, Balkan will soon arrive in Lübeck. Our eagles are gathering...'

  `There is a time limit.'

  `No, General, there is no time limit.' Wolf's graven image of a face became bleaker. 'From my informant inside the Berliner Tor in Hamburg I hear both the deaths of Fergusson and Palewska are regarded as accidents. That shows Munzel's great competence. It is only this pest of a Federal policeman, Kuhlmann, from Wiesbaden, who is unconvinced. A clever man, Otto Kuhlmann …'

  'He may have to be eliminated...'

  `God forbid!' Wolf was appalled. 'An intimate of Chancellor Kohl himself? I understood from you the General Secretary warned there must be no incidents — only accidents.'

  'And yet,' Lysenko sneered, turning away from the window, 'you tell me Munzel is an expert on accidents...'

  'Bonn would never believe Kuhlmann had an accident. More than that, Kuhlmann would smell Munzel as coming from the DDR a mile off. Fortunately he has no suspicions in that direction.'

  'And why is Munzel known as The Cripple? He's as fit as a Nazi storm-trooper. Looks a bit like one.'

  `Because he often adopts the guise of a cripple on a mission. Who suspects an apparently blind man? Or a man in a self- propelled wheelchair? It is some such technique he will use when he eventually deals with Tweed. Now, if you don't mind, I'll continue arranging my files...'

  `Ah, the files. Yes, do be sure they are in order,' Lysenko urged in a sarcastic tone.

  For the next week Tweed seemed to Newman to have lost his sense of direction and purpose. They wandered round the island of Lübeck in the sunshine and the heat which had become torrid. Lübeck was full of holidaymakers, which worried Newman. Too many crowds.

  Mostly Germans, they sat at pavement cafés, drinking and chatting. The Jensen was a small, well-run establishment and Tweed's window overlooked the twin towers of the Holstentor across the river. Across the road from the hotel pleasure boats moored and picked up passengers for river cruises. It was a lazy, relaxed atmosphere.

  Tweed spent some time talking with the Jensen's manager, a man who liked the English and was both shrewd and knowledgeable about conditions on both sides of the border. Newman got to know the blonde woman, Diana Chadwick, who wore her hair short and reminded him of pictures he'd seen of girls in the '30s before the war.

  `You simply must come to Travemünde,' she said to him over a drink outside the Jensen as they sat at a pavement table. 'There is the most divine crowd there. Boaty people and tremendous fun. You'll get an idea of what life used to be — when every day we enjoyed ourselves. None of your creepy machines — computers or whatever they're called...'

  `They are called computers...'

  `And if you live in England now they have you all listed in one of their beastly machines. No privacy any more. Just like a police state, I say. Credit cards and all that. Came from America, of course. Everything awful comes from America. I hate the place.'

  `You have been there, then?'

  'Once. New York. Those dreadful canyons. Why go to Arizona — or wherever the Grand Canyon is? New York is full of them. I did have the most marvellous time, actually. Everyone asked me to lots of parties. But I felt I was an exhibit. "Look, we have a Brit. girl. Isn't she quaint? Love to hear her talk — so different from us." ' She finished her Bloody Mary and said yes, she'd love just one more. 'So different from us,' she repeated. 'Thank God, I thought. Who'd want to be like you?' She smiled and studied her companion. 'Bet you think I'm t
he most awful snob. Which I am, of course...'

  'You mentioned Travemünde,' Newman reminded her. 'Isn't that where Dr Berlin lives?'

  'Only part of the year. He's away at the moment. Expected to join the fun any time...'

  'Where is he then?'

  `God knows. He goes off without telling a soul where. But he has his refugee work. He's bonkers over that. Can't understand why. People must cope on their own. I've always had to...'

  'Where were you born?' Newman lifted his glass to her.

  Diana Chadwick had slim, well-shaped legs, a small waist and a good figure, not over-full. She wore an attractive summer dress with polka dot design, a high neck and a pussy bow. Very feminine. Her bone structure was well-defined, a straight nose above a firm mouth suggesting character, a trait reinforced by the pointed chin.

  Her most striking feature was her sapphire blue eyes which held a hint of wickedness which also showed when she smiled and stared direct at Newman. He thought he could listen to her soft voice all night long. Above all it was her personality, her air of cool assurance which appealed.

  `Hampstead, London,' she said, knocking ash from her cigarette into the tray. `My father was in the Colonial Service — so we moved around the world from place to place. My education was, to say the least, spotty. A term in Kuala Lumpur, another in Hong Kong, then on to Nairobi in Kenya. Both my parents were killed in a car crash when I was eighteen. By nineteen I was married. It was in Kenya where I first met Dr Berlin. He wasn't much older than me — but even by then he had become a legend.'

  `Quite a coincidence — that you should bump into him again here in Lübeck of all places...'

  `Mr Newman.'

  `Bob will do...'

  `Diana. Bob, would you by any chance be interviewing me — doing a piece on Relics of the Empire?'

  `I'd hardly call you a relic...'

  `You're dodging the question.' She waved her cigarette — held in an ivory holder — at him, took the sting out of her remark with her smile.