more. But I didn't know the man's name – only that he is at the Hotel Jensen. That was all.' Some of his normal cockiness came back as Tweed watched him. `How much is that worth? A good few hundred marks, I'd say…'
`He paid you how much?'
`Five hundred.. Ziggy stopped once more in mid-sentence. An ashen colour had replaced his normal pallor. Not a man who took long walks, Newman was thinking, still holding the Luger.
`I see.' Tweed kept his tone judicial. 'For five hundred marks. Less than two hundred pounds. You sold Ian Fergusson's life…'
`I had no idea…'
`Of course you didn't.' Tweed stood up. He leaned over the table close to Ziggy, dressed only in an oil- stained sweater and a pair of stained corduroy slacks. 'You do realize you could be charged by the German police as an accessory to murder?'
`Oh, God, no.' The Pole shrank back from Tweed looming above him. 'I've helped you many times. I can help you again…'
`You might just do that. You still have that concealed cine-camera in the back wall inside the cupboard – the one you use to take porno movies? Don't play with me, Ziggy.'
`I do have a camera. Yes.'
`So, if this Schmidt comes back you could arrange with a bit of help to have him photographed?'
'I wouldn't dare.' He cast a sideways glance at the large petrol drums standing against the wall.
`Then you could always stand your trial for complicity in the murder of Ian Fergusson..
`I'll do what I can. Promise. Can I have a bit of money?' `Your thirty pieces of silver?'
Tweed thrust his hands inside the pockets of his lightweight Burberry. Newman had never seen him look so grim. Ziggy's eyes dropped, he threw his pudgy hands out in a gesture of despair.
`What else could I have done…'
`You could have kept your mouth shut about Fergusson coming to see you.'
The blond was going to burn me…'
'And I won't tell you what will happen if you tell anyone I've been here to see you. Now, you can atone a little for what you have done. Describe this blond giant. Nationality?'
'German.' Ziggy hesitated. Tweed continued staring. 'He was a Saxon. Nasty people, the Saxons. I could tell that from the way he spoke German. I think he's from the East. I can't describe him…'
'Why not? He was standing in front of you. There's not all that much space in this den of iniquity.'
'I can't!' Ziggy protested. He glanced at Newman who was still leaning against the wall, still holding the Luger. 'He wore a woolly cap – like sailors wear – pulled down over his head, huge tinted glasses and a silk scarf pulled up over his chin…'
'Yet you say he was blond,' Newman pointed out.
'A tuft of the blond hair protruded from the back of his cap when he was leaving. He was over six feet tall, built like a house.'
'Age?' Tweed demanded.
'Thirty. Thirty-five. I couldn't say. I'm going by how he spoke. He had a big nose. Clean-shaven. A killer. That I'm sure of. Which is why I was so frightened…'
'Stay that way. Stay frightened. Of us,' Tweed advised and turned on his heel without another word.
Eight
At one o'clock in the morning they sat in Tweed's room at the Four Seasons, drinking black coffee ordered from room service. A double room, it had a separate sitting area, divided off from the sleeping area by a graceful arch.
`Did we learn much?' Newman asked. 'And when we came out of that Pole's -slum I noticed Kuhlmann standing in a doorway alcove, cigar unlit…'
'I know. I wonder when he sleeps? Yes, we learnt what poor Ian Fergusson was trying to tell me. Berlin isn't the city at all – he's the mysterious Dr Berlin who, I understand, spends a part of the year in the ancient city of Lubeck on the Baltic. And that links up with Ian's reference to Hans.'
Tweed finished his cup and refilled it. Newman guessed he was being tantalizing. He liked to keep people guessing.
`All right,' he said, 'tell me how it links up. I'm damned if I see any connection..
`Not easy.' Tweed settled himself in his arm chair. 'Ian was trying to say Hansa – maybe Hanseatic. In the twelth century a number of northern ports formed a protective association – they reckoned there was strength in alliance. So they formed the Hanseatic League. Lubeck was a leading member of that League. Hamburg, too, for that matter. Ian was pointing the finger at Lubeck, specifically the Hotel Jensen..
`All being information provided via Ziggy by Blondie,' Newman pointed out.
`Yes, but Ian wouldn't have known that. And what do you know about the recluse, Dr Berlin?'
`As much as anyone, I imagine. I once interviewed him – at his house on Priwall Island near Lubeck. As a young man of eighteen he started out in Africa – Kenya, I think. He looked after the natives, a second Dr Schweitzer up to a point. That's over twenty years ago..
`And how did he come to settle in Lubeck?'
`That's a weird story. Berlin didn't want to talk about it too much. I did get out of him that he disappeared from Kenya and the locals thought a wild animal had got him. He made treks into the jungle and had a mission station in a remote spot. Eighteen months went by. Everyone assumed he was dead.'
Tweed sat absorbing the data as Newman refilled his own cup. He drank half the strong black liquid and put down the cup.
`You're intriguing me,' Tweed prodded.
`He turned up in Leipzig – behind the Curtain in East Germany. As you mentioned, he's something of a recluse, a secretive man. I was lucky to get that interview, short though it was. He'd been treated at the School for Tropical Diseases for a rare complaint. Recovered, he crossed over to the West and turned his energies to helping refugees in Schleswig-Holstein. His parents had come from what is now East Germany. After he arrived in the West he said he had slipped across the border. The East German lot said he'd been permitted to go where he liked because of his international reputation. End of story..
`Not entirely satisfactory,' Tweed observed. 'What does he look like?'
`Has a black beard. He first grew that in Kenya. A fanatic for work, he couldn't be bothered wasting time shaving each day. And while I was in the Lubeck area I stumbled over something else you might find intriguing.'
`Try me.'
`In summer – at just this time of year – there's a British colony afloat at Travemunde, the port on the Baltic near Lubeck.'
`Afloat? What does that imply?'
Newman grinned. 'Thought that would get you. They live on a collection of yachts and power cruisers. While at Travemunde they moor at the marinas – for the summer, as I said. And where do you think they hail from? Kenya. They're old hands, relics from the British Empire. Summertime, they sail from the Mediterranean to the Baltic to escape the tourist crowd which infests the Med. Wintertime, they sail up through the Kattegat, down the North Sea, through the straits of Gibraltar and back into the Med for the warmth. Mostly to the Greek islands, some berth in Port Said, others get as far as returning to Mombasa in Kenya through the Suez Canal.'
`They sound a curious crowd…'
`They are! Straight out of Maugham and Noel Coward. The one place they don't like is Britain.' Newman changed his voice, mimicking a plummy falsetto. 'My dear, the place has changed so much you'd never recognize it. Simply awful.' And they never pay one penny tax.'
`How do they manage that? I think I can see but…'
`They're careful never to be resident in any country for more than a few months. That's why I said afloat. They wander over the oceans – literally ships in the night. Some of them are pally with Dr Berlin…'
