Deadlock (30 page)

'Maybe after dark?'

'Barges don't travel after dark,' Willy told him. 'It hasn't come back.'

'Then maybe it broke down . . .'

'In that case,' Simone broke in again, 'Broucker would stay with it to give a hand. But we told you - we saw the
Erika
sailing downstream. Broucker's barge . . .' She looked at her husband as he cocked his head. A ship's hooter was tooting. He went up on deck, followed by Newman and Simone.

Newman was glad of the interruption. It gave him a chance to get away from the barge. He still saw nothing significant in their anxieties. Thanking Simone for the coffee, he was about to disembark, when Willy grabbed his arm. 'Wait.'

The hooter had been sounded by a large two-deck cream power cruiser gliding downstream. A short thickset man wearing a navy-blue blazer and grey slacks stood on deck staring at the barge through a pair of binoculars. He waved and Willy gave a brief wave back as the slow-moving vessel turned inshore aft of the barge.

'He knows Klein, too,' Willy said. 'He's another Englishman. A Colonel Ralston. Lives on that boat with his girl friend. Cruises along all the canals. Dead drunk most of the day.'

Newman watched as crew members jumped ashore at a landing stage and made the vessel fast. A small wiry man waited until the gangplank was in position, wheeled a bicycle across it and rode past the barge along the towpath towards Dinant.

'Think I'll go and have a word,' Newman said.

Seen close up, standing at the head of the gangplank, the owner of the
Evening Star
had a brick-red complexion, iron-grey hair and a moustache of the same colour. He stood with hands in blazer pockets, a thumb protruding.

'Who the devil are you?' he greeted his visitor.

'Robert Newman. I'm interested in the Meuse. I gather you know it well?'

'Well, don't just stand there. Come aboard!'

A very upper crust voice, a clipped military-style tone, the manner of a man used to obedience. Newman followed him down a companionway into a spacious saloon. Walls of mahogany, chairs covered with expensive fabric, and at the far end a well-equipped cocktail bar.

Ralston laid a stubby-fingered hand on the polished counter. He swung round and stared at Newman with blue eyes. Small red veins showed on his pugnacious nose. Sign of a hardened drinker.

'Care for a sundowner? And sit.'

'It's a long time before the sun goes down,' Newman remarked. 'Coffee would be welcome, if available . . .'

'Alfredo!' roared the colonel. 'Coffee for our guest. On the double!'

A slim dark-skinned man appeared behind Newman, walked behind the bar and disappeared beyond a doorway. Ralston would be in his ear!y sixties, Newman guessed, his short stature compensated for by the force of his personality; he was close to being a caricature of the military officer. But there was nothing amusing about the cold blue eyes. He poured himself a whisky into a cut glass, added a splash of soda from a syphon, downed half the glass, ran his tongue over his lips.

'That's better. You're the foreign correspondent chappie. Recognize you from your photo. Back of the jacket on that bestseller you wrote. What's your game?'

'I told you

'Playing it close to the chest? Want to see some of the Meuse? Have a berth aboard the
Evening Star
? Cost you - I'm not running a charitable institution.'

'How much?'

'Twelve thousand francs. Belgian.'

Newman had seated himself on one of the banquettes lining the sides of the saloon. A gleaming mahogany table was close enough for him to take a pile of francs from his wallet, lay them on the table, keeping his hand on top of the pile. Twelve thousand Belgian francs. About £200.

'What do I get for that?' he asked Ralston who still stood by the bar; his favourite position Newman suspected.

'Grand tour of the river up to Namur. Then Liege. On the way, maybe a brief call on one of our eminent bankers. You know Belgium well?'

'Not really,' Newman lied.

'Here's your coffee. 'Bout time, Alfredo. Chopchop . . .'He continued in the style of a brisk lecture. 'The Frogs all swim like lemmings for their hols to the French Riviera. Most people don't know about the Belgians. They've got their own riviera - in the south of their country like the French. On the Meuse, in fact. So Millionaireville is just north of here . . .'

'Millionaireville?'

'Riverside mansions of the rich. Estates running down to the Meuse. At Profondeville - where the banker is -and further north at Wepion.'

'Who is this banker?'

'A Peter Brand . . .'

Newman removed his hand from the pile of banknotes. Ralston had been eyeing them as he talked. Newman had the impression his two passions were drink - and money. Nothing in his expression had shown at the mention of Peter Brand.

The
Evening Star
was sailing slowly down the Meuse. Wooded bluffs of the Ardennes rose on either side as Newman drank fresh coffee, left alone in the saloon for a short time. He had met the wiry weatherbeaten man who had cycled past the Bodens' barge.

'My ex-batman, Sergeant Bradley,' Ralston introduced. 'He keeps the whole shooting match moving. Watches the crew and all that. Don't stand for any backsliding, do you, Sergeant?'

'Not my way, sir,' Bradley replied. 'Got to keep them up to scratch.' He turned to Newman. 'Just like the Army. Keep on their tails or they slack off. Same the world over.'

'You must have seen something of the world,' Newman commented to Ralston who was pouring a fresh whisky. He picked up a silver cup inscribed with wording. 'Your unit?'

'Seventh Highlanders. Best regiment in the Army. The times we had in India, Egypt and Italy.' Ralston gazed into the distance. 'Seems an age ago. Now we cruise the canals. Always on the move. Just like the old Army days.'

'You go back to England much?' Newman had ventured.

'Never! Don't pay a penny tax in any country. Advantage of having a floating home. Never stay in one country more than five months. Bradley keeps the log. Ready to show any bloody snooping tax inspector. I can spit in their faces - often feel like doing just that. Have to excuse me. A lock coming up. A bit tricky the navigation sometimes. Like to skipper my own tub . . .'

Left alone, Newman thought it was a queer set-up. Almost as though Ralston was trying to perpetuate his old Army atmosphere. A tall slim girl with a good figure, wearing a formfitting red dress with a mandarin collar, came into the saloon, sat beside Newman.

'I'm Josette. If I wait for his lordship to introduce me we will never meet.'

'You spend a lot of time aboard?' Newman asked.

'I live on the boat. It's like that. You do realize why he invited you aboard?'

'You tell me.'

'To keep an eye on you, of course. He wonders what you're up to. Brand asked him to keep a lookout for strangers,' she whispered. 'Brand pays him a fee, of course. He's mean over money, the colonel. Except with drink. He's never drunk and never sober. I don't think I'm staying with him much longer.' She pulled at her dark hair, staring straight at Newman. 'Do you need a friend?'

'Let me think about it.' Newman paused. Was this a trap? Had Ralston sent her to get him to talk? He didn't think so. They were inside the lock now. Beyond the portholes concrete walls loomed.

'Ever met a man called Klein?' he asked.

'Yes. A friend of yours?'

'Never met him.'

'He's creepy. He's travelled with us several times. And he was very interested in the bargees - and their craft. Asked the colonel a lot of questions. Especially about one called Joseph Haber. Was he married? Did he have a family?'

'And is Haber married - and has he a family?'

'Yes. A wife who lives near Celle, a small village up in the Ardennes. They have a son called Lucien, I remember. It seemed odd to me why this Klein should be interested in things like that,'

"This Klein just travelled back and forth with Ralston?'

'Not all the time. He spent several days at the home of the millionaire banker, Peter Brand . . .'

'Change the subject,' Newman whispered as Sergeant Bradley marched in from the opening behind the bar.

Josette had good bone structure, a well-shaped face and her expression was dreamy, but she was quick-witted. 'I think the Meuse is the loveliest of all the rivers,' she said in a normal voice. 'You really should see the section in France called Les Dames de Meuse . . .'

'Colonel wants you on deck,' Bradley told her. 'He's just noticed you'd disappeared.' He poured more coffee into Newman's cup. 'Next stop Profondeville, sir. We dock there and call on Mr Brand's place.'

26

Tweed missed catching the express to Brussels as he'd planned. He made one last phone call to Lasalle to tell him he was leaving Paris. The Frenchman said he had further information and could they meet?

Inside the DSI chief's office Tweed sat drinking coffee while Lasalle explained.

'After our interview with that Corsican villain, Calgourli, I checked with the police chiefs of all major cities. I wanted data on any unusual happenings. I may have come up with something in Marseilles.'

'That's a long way south . . .'

'Wait, my friend. You recall Calgourli referred to his rival in Marseilles, Emilio Perugini? This is confidential -we have a snout inside Perugini's organization. A man called Klein visited Perugini at his Cassis villa - these rats live high. Through Perugini Klein hired a very hard case called Louis Chabot. Freelance type . . .'

'What type?'

'Bodyguard, killer - you name it. The Marseilles police report Chabot has disappeared from his normal haunts. Vanished into thin air was the phrase used. And he's an expert on explosives, also a professional scuba diver. The qualifications Klein laid down to Calgourli.'

'Sounds like a member of the team Klein is forming.'

'Wait!' Lasalle repeated. There's more. Chabot had a girl friend, a bar girl called Cecile Lamont. Her body was dragged out of the sea. The screws of a large liner sailing for Oran sliced her clean through the middle . . .'

'You think Chabot . . .'

'No, I don't. He was fond of the girl - and his record has no trace of him ever attacking a woman. The post-mortem showed how she died - before she was thrown into the sea. Her throat was cut from ear to ear.'

Tweed sighed. 'That's getting to have a familiar sound. And it sounds like Klein. He's a ruthless bastard,' he said with feeling. 'You can see the pattern. He never leaves anyone alive who could help us. Did you check with Interpol - get them to put Klein through the computer?'

'Yes. Result, a blank. I asked my colleague for any other recent murders. I don't think this is relevant, but they've found a Swiss Nestle truck driver dead in the Ardennes near Clervaux. Turkish driver on his way to Brussels with a delivery from the Nestle factory at some place called Broc . . .' He paused, seeing Tweed's expression. 'What's the matter?'

This Klein is a ghost.' He took a map from his pocket of Western Europe. 'Can we spread this out on your desk? I'd like to see if we can track this ghost . . .'

Tweed talked as he made crosses on the map, starting with Broc in Switzerland, moving on to Geneva, Basle and Clervaux as he explained the events in Geneva and Basle. The murder of the Swiss research genius in watch-making, the bullion robberies in Basle.

He made more crosses on Marseilles and Paris. Then he drew a route line through the crosses, with off-shoots to Marseilles and Paris. Standing up, he tapped the map with his felt-tip pen.

'You see?'

'He appears to be moving north, always north. Where the hell is he heading for? And why the cross on Dinant. That takes us into Belgium.'

'My thanks to you there - for putting me on to Lara Seagrave.' Tweed produced a tissue-wrapped package from his coat pocket, showed Lasalle the
couque
. 'Lara gave me that in Smiths' tea-room. Speciality made in Dinant. I think Klein has reached the Meuse. I've sent Bob Newman to poke around in that area. And I think the bullion stolen from Basle travelled this route aboard a barge . . .' He traced a route south of Basle, along the Canal de la Marne et Haut Rhin, continuing up the Canal de l'Est, crossing the border with Belgium and stopping at Dinant.

'That gold,' Tweed went on, 'I'm convinced was the money which originally financed Klein's operation. You heard what he offered Calgourli. Now, I need the fence who handled the bullion - converted it into hard cash for Klein. I may know who the fence is. What I need now is a link between the fence and Klein.'