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 Lubeck 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.
`No, I'm just enjoying talking to you. I haven't written one piece for a newspaper in over a year..
`Why not? All that money from your bestseller make you lazy?'
`My wife died…'
`I'm sorry to hear that. I have a gift for saying the wrong thing. I'm sure people ask me to parties to hear me put my foot in it. I say the most outrageous things. I'm going to say one now. Are you looking for a new woman?'
`I might just be doing that…'
Her complexion was flawless, Newman thought. Her skin was dead white. On the chair beside her rested a wide-brimmed elegant hat of straw. Another touch of the 1930s. And the tropics. No girl worth her salt ever exposed her skin to the rays of a Nairobi sun.
`Then again,' she said lightly, 'you might be after an interview with Dr Berlin. Very difficult. I might be able to help you if that is what you're here for…'
`Thank you. I'll bear your offer in mind. Why are you staying at the Jensen when your friends are out at Travemunde?'
`To get away from them, of course!' The wicked smile again.
`I like to be on my own from time to time.' She glanced down. `Damn! I've got some drink on my frock…'
Frock. Newman had only read the word in novels written twenty years or more ago. A German at the next table, a tall blond man of thirty or so, handed her a glass of water.
`Thank you so much,' Diana said. 'That's just what I need…'
`Glad to be of service. Any kind of service…'
`Oh, yes?' Her expression froze and she used a paper napkin dipped in the glass to dab at her dress. The German pushed back his chair, grinned again at her and strolled off.
`A regular charmer,' Newman observed.
`That's Kurt Franck. I saw him arrive at the Movenpick, carrying his bag inside. No, I don't know him. I know of him. He's started hanging round the crowd out at Travemunde, trying to ingratiate himself with them. I think he's a con artist – probably lives off dowagers. Gigolo…'
Newman looked up as Tweed emerged from the hotel. `Off somewhere?' he asked.
`Thought I'd take a walk through the town. It's like a furnace inside.'
Newman introduced him to Diana Chadwick. Tweed took her hand and noticed its beautiful shape, long- fingered and not too wide. The lightest tone of pink nail varnish None of your blood-red horror.
`And are you also on holiday, Mr Tweed?'
`Trying to relax, have a bit of a restful time. For a change.' `I'll come with you for that walk,' Newman said, pushing back his chair. 'Stretch my legs…'
`Maybe you would care to accompany us, Miss Chadwick?' Tweed suggested. 'A little feminine company would cheer me up no end.' He caught Newman's expression. 'Probably have the same effect on Bob, too.'
`I'd love that.' She stood up and pulled on her wide-brimmed hat. 'Two escorts..' She was openly flirting with Tweed. 'I count this my lucky day…'
It went on like that for another ten days; Tweed mooning round the island, looking at the ancient buildings restored to their medieval glory, strolling along the river banks where trees overhung the placid water while power cruisers and more humble rowing boats moved in the torrid atmosphere as the heatwave continued unabated.
`What the hell do you think you're up to?' Newman demanded as they sat one afternoon in Tweed's bedroom, gazing out of the window at the jostling crowds below. 'You told me to hold back on checking Dr Berlin, you haven't made a single positive move to find out what is going on. Two men were murdered back in Hamburg – or have you forgotten?'
`No!' Tweed's tone was curt. 'And I was very fond of Ian Fergusson, so your comment is not welcome..
`Sorry, but I'm getting restless…'
`You have Diana to while away the days…'
`She spends half her time with you…'
`Not my choice. Hers.' Tweed was amused. His tone changed. `If you are getting on edge, what effect do you think it is having on the opposition? Fabius Maximus, the ancient Roman general, called it masterly inactivity…'
`You mean this is deliberate?'
`Oh, quite deliberate. I have been led to Lubeck on the end of a carefully paid-out rope. I get here. I do nothing. Imagine the pressure building up on the opposition. Soon they must show their hand.'
`If it works..
`It will work. I know my friends across the border.'
Ten
`What the bloody hell is Tweed up to?' Lysenko paced round the spartan room on the fifth floor of the building in Leipzig. `You tell me!' he shouted at Wolf, seated behind his desk. 'You and your patience..
`I must admit his behaviour…'
`His lack of it…'
`I was going to say…' Markus Wolf, a tall, heavily-built man who towered over Lysenko, stood up, thrust his hands inside his trouser pockets, and also began walking. 'I was going to say,' he repeated, 'that I'm beginning to be puzzled. Munzel has reported daily over the phone via Hamburg. Apparently Tweed does nothing except act like a tourist. He hasn't even been near the Lubeck-Sild police complex outside the town. And Balkan is now in place..
`We gave him the lead to Dr Berlin through Palewska – a totally reliable contact from his point of view. He hasn't gone near Travemunde – that is, if Munzel is to be trusted and is doing his job.'
`Erwin Munzel,' Wolf said stiffly, 'is the best we've got. I chose him personally for this assignment..
`Munzel is a sadist.'
`Well, he may have his peculiar side. I grant you he enjoys his work. But the point is he is first-rate at his work.'
`Then what are we going to do?' raved Lysenko. 'Soon I shall be getting a phone call from the General Secretary. What do I say to him? Tweed has come, Tweed is having a good holiday. Mikhail Gorbachev will appreciate that, I can tell you…'
`Gorbachev is your responsibility,' Wolf said sharply.
`And killing Tweed is yours. You are in the front line…'
`Oh, I do realize that,' Wolf said ironically. 'Leave all the dirty work to the East Germans! Then if anything misfires the Kremlin has clean hands on the international front. So far, Tweed has stayed in crowded areas – always accompanied by that foreign correspondent, Newman. He doesn't go out after dark and eats dinner at the Jensen's restaurant where he's staying. What chance do you think Munzel has had?'
