Terminal (27 page)

`I can't imagine why you say that,' Lachenal commented eventually.

`It's obvious,' Newman rapped back quickly. 'You referred to the civilian group being very influential — your own words. Influence suggests power, power suggests money, money suggests bankers.'

`Theories are abstract, abstractions are misleading,' Lachenal said brusquely.

Newman stood up to leave and slipped on his coat. He chose the moment deliberately. Lachenal was a brave, very able man but he was also sensitive. He had just spoken almost rudely and Newman knew he would regret it. Lachenal followed his visitor as the latter put his hand on the door handle.

`You must realize, Bob, that none of us really believe_ you are here on holiday. You have to be working on a story..

`I am here with my fiancée for the reason I gave,' Newman said coldly. 'Check up on me, if you wish to...'

`Instead of that, let us have dinner together one evening. I am truly glad to see you again. But you must admit that your reason for being here would make an excellent cover story...'

Newman paused in the act of turning the handle, looking back at Lachenal. The Swiss was one of the shrewdest, most intuitive men he knew. He took the hand Lachenal had extended and shook it.

I accept your invitation with pleasure. Rene, take care of yourself …'

Tous azimuts
. That had been the key phrase, Newman felt sure as he descended the marble steps and walked out of Bundeshaus Ost. And Lachenal was genuinely deeply worried about something. Newman had the strongest hunch that if he knew what that worry concerned it might unlock the whole strange business.

Nancy came running towards him as he pushed his way through the revolving doors inside the Bellevue Palace. She had been sitting where she could watch the entrance. Looping an arm through his, she guided him quickly to an obscure corner table.

`Now we have the Swiss Army on our backs,' he told her. 'I don't like the way things are developing..

`I've got something to tell you, but what are you talking about. Who have you seen?'

`A high-ranking Swiss Army officer, an old friend. We had coffee at that restaurant across the street. Don't ask me his name. I think he was warning me off the Berne Clinic...'

`You said an old friend. If he's that he should know the one way to encourage you to go on is to threaten you...'

`That occurred to me. Curious, isn't it? Now, I can see you're agog to tell me some news...'

`There's been a phone call from a man called Beck. He says will you go and see him at once. He said it was very urgent.'

Nineteen

`Newman, do you know this man?'

Beck was hostile again. His manner was stiff. His voice was flat, toneless. His official voice. Three people stood in the morgue. The room was cold. The floor and walls were tiled. The place had all the comfort and cheerful atmosphere of a public lavatory, a spotless public lavatory.

The third person was Dr Anna Kleist, Federal Police pathologist. A tall, dark-haired woman in her late thirties, she wore a white gown and watched Newman through tinted glasses with interest and a sympathetic expression. He had felt she liked him from the moment they had been introduced.

Newman gazed down at the body lying on the huge metal drawer Dr Kleist had hauled out for his inspection. The sheet covering the corpse had been partly pulled back to expose the head and shoulders. The head was horribly battered but still recognizable — mainly from the sodden moustache. Newman suddenly felt very angry. He turned on Beck.

`Am I the first person you have asked to identify him?' `Yes...'

`Well, Beck, you had better know I am getting fed up. Why choose me? This is the second time you've dragged me to view the wreck of a corpse...'

`Just answer the question. Do you know this man?'

`He told me his name was Tommy Mason. That he was engaged on market research. Medical. Something to do with clinics — Swiss clinics...'

`You do know this man then? You were using him as a contact?'

Tor Christ's sake, Beck, shove it. I was brought here without a hint as to what was waiting for me. I've answered your question. If you want to ask me anything else we'll go straight back to the Taubenhalde...'

`As you wish...'

Beck turned away to leave the room but Newman lingered. Dr Kleist had considerately closed the drawer. A tag was attached to the handle by a piece of string, a tag bearing a number. Tommy Mason was no longer a person, only a number.

`Dr Kleist,' Newman requested in a normal voice, 'have you any idea how he died — or is it too early?'

`He was found floating...'

`Anna!' Beck broke in. 'No information...'

`And why not, Arthur?' She removed her glasses and Newman saw she had large pale blue eyes with a hint of humour. 'Mr Newman has answered your question. And remember, I am in control here. I intend to answer Mr Newman...'

`You have the independence of the devil,' Beck grumbled. `Which is why you had me appointed to this position.' She turned her attention to Newman. 'The body was found in the river. His injuries are due in part to the fact that for some time before he was found he was caught in one of the sluices below the Munster.'

`Thank you, Dr Kleist.'

As he left the room Newman hoped she would get married and leave this place before her emotions became as dead as the body she had just shown him.

He said nothing to Beck during the drive back to the Taubenhalde. Inside the building the same routine. The ascent to the tenth floor. Beck producing the key which unlocked the lift. Outside Newman gestured towards a punch-time clock on the wall.

`Do you still clock in and out morning and night? The Assistant to the Chief of Police?'

`Every time. It is the regulation. I am not exempt...'

Beck was still stiff and unbending but once inside the office he did ask Gisela to make them coffee and then please leave them on their own. Newman, his mind still focused on his interview with Captain Lachenal, made a great effort to push that into the past. He needed all his concentration on this new development. Beck stared out of the window, hands clasped behind his back, until Gisela brought the coffee on a tray and left the office.

`I'm sorry, Bob,' he said, walking wearily round his desk and sagging into his chair before attending to the coffee. 'You see, this is the second body you have been directly linked with. First, Julius Nagy...'

`You said that was an anonymous phone call to Pauli...'

`This was an anonymous phone call to Gisela. A man. Someone who spoke in broken German — or pretended to. Last night you were seen with Bernard Mason, or so the caller alleged...'

`
Bernard?
'

`Yes, I noticed you called him Tommy in the morgue. When we fished him out we found he carried his passport in a cellophane folder which protected it to some extent against the water. He is — was — Bernard Mason. How did you come to know him, Bob?'

`In the bar at the Bellevue Palace. I went in for a drink and he turned round with his glass in his hand and bumped into me. The contents of the glass spilt over my jacket and he insisted on buying me one to compensate. We sat talking for maybe five minutes. That's how I know him. It's also how I know the data I gave you on him back at the morgue. He told me. A chance acquaintance...'

I wonder...'

`And what do you mean by that?'

`Could he have spilt his drink over you deliberately — to contrive this chance acquaintance? Chance always worries me.'

How could he have contrived anything?' Newman demanded. only decided to pop in there for a drink at the last moment. Any more questions?'

`I'm only doing my job, Bob. And I'm getting a lot of flak from the British Embassy. A chap called Wiley. He's a British citizen and was apparently an influential businessman. First, this Wiley wants to know exactly how he died...'

`How did he die?'

I think it was murder. I called the Embassy to see if they had any information on him. Wiley asks a lot of questions — then he puts in an urgent request for the minimum of publicity. So who was Mason is what I keep asking myself. And, like it or not, two men have now died in peculiar circumstances — both less than a kilometre from the Bellevue Palace, both who had links, however tenuous, with you..

Newman emptied his coffee cup and stood up. Beck watched while he slipped on his coat, buttoned it up. The Swiss also stood up.

`You haven't asked me why I think this Mason was murdered.'

`That's your job...'

`He's number two. Julius Nagy ends up at the bottom of the Plattform wall, which faces the sluice where Mason was found floating. Mason was thirty-three — I got that from the passport. He ends up in the river. You think he stumbled into the Aare? Two very convenient accidents. Were you outside the Bellevue late last night?'

`Yes, as a matter of fact I was. I went for a walk along the arcades. I couldn't sleep. And no one saw me. May I go now?'

`Gisela, what is it?' Beck asked his assistant who had opened the door to the connecting office where she worked most of the day.

`He's on the phone. Would you like to take it in here?'

Newman waited while Beck disappeared into the next room.
He
would be the Chief of Police, he imagined. Gisela asked if he would like more coffee but he refused and asked her a question, keeping his voice low.

`Mr Beck tells me you took that mysterious call reporting that I knew Mason, the man they dragged out of the river. I gather the caller spoke in broken German?'

`Yes, I had only just arrived. I ran to the phone, expecting it to stop ringing before I got there. The voice sounded muffled — like someone talking through a handkerchief. I had to make him repeat what he said, then he rang off. I've just realized something — I think I detected a trace of an American accent.'

I should tell your boss that,' Newman suggested. 'Had Beck arrived in the building when the call came through?'

`No. He came in about a quarter of an hour later.,,'

`Thanks. Don't forget that bit about an American accent. I was leaving — tell Beck I couldn't wait any longer. I'm in a rush …'

Lee Foley was humming Glenn Miller's
In the Mood
as he drove the Porsche back along the motorway towards Berne. He had spent the night in a
gasthof
, had breakfasted in Thun, made the agreed call to Berne, and now he was coming into the open.

Despite his almost infinite capacity for patience, he found it highly stimulating that the time for action had arrived. He had most of the data he needed, the equipment, he thought he knew at long last what was going on. The moment had come to stir things up, to raise a little hell. He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and let the Porsche rip.

`Who was that on the phone?' Newman asked as he came into the bedroom. 'And you left the door unlocked again...'

`A wrong number.' Nancy had replaced the receiver. She came towards him with an anxious expression. 'Forget about the door — I've been worried sick. What did the police want?'

`Pour some of that coffee. Sit down. And
listen
!' `Something is wrong,' she said as she handed him his cup and sat down, crossing her legs.

`Everything is wrong,' he told her. 'On no account are you to take the car and visit the Berne Clinic on your own...'

`I'll do so if I want to. And I do want to see Jesse today. You have your date with Dr Novak tonight in Thun. You won't want two trips...'

`Nancy, listen, for God's sake. There's been another killing. At least, that's the theory the police are working on. This time some Englishman — and he was staying at this hotel. They hauled his drowned body out of the river in the middle of the night. A man called Mason. There's something odd about him — the British Embassy is making too much fuss.'

`That's dreadful. But that is a problem for the police...'

`Nancy! We can no longer trust the Swiss police. I have also visited an old friend in Swiss Army Intelligence — counter-espionage it comes to the same thing. We can no longer trust Army Intelligence. They're both trying to manipulate me. I'm almost certain they're using me as a stalking horse — and that is very dangerous. For you as well as for me.'