appointment for three in the afternoon so he left the Bellevue in the Citroen half an hour earlier.
One of the great advantages of Berne, he reflected, was that it was not to difficult to throw off a tail. The place was such an intricate network of streets – and with a little audacious driving the trams could be exploited.
At 2.50 pm he was driving along the Aarstrasse with the river on his right. He drove on past the sluices, into the Schifflaube which brought him deep into Matte where everything was centuries-old. Continuing on into the Gerberngasse, he slowed down as he approached the Nydegg bridge and slid into an empty parking slot.
On both sides of the street ancient houses formed a continuous wall, a huddle of misshapen edifices – several storeys high – which protruded at intervals. The street was deserted in mid-afternoon and the mist, which had withdrawn earlier, was coming back. It was very silent in the canyon and Willy Schaub's place was on the left, overshadowed by the bridge high up. 2.55 pm. Newman peered up a covered wooden flight of steps which ran up to the bridge alongside it and went back to Schaub's house. He pressed the bell alongside Schaub's name and wriggled his shoulders. He was still very much aware of the automatic nestling inside the holster under his left armpit.
A short barrel-shaped man, late middle-aged and holding a bottle of beer in his left hand which, Newman reflected, explained his large belly, opened the creaking door and stared suspiciously at his visitor. Wisps of white hair stuck out from his turnip-like head and his only small feature was the wary eyes peering at Newman.
`Willy Schaub?'
`Who wants to know?' the man asked truculently in German.
`Robert Newman. You're expecting me. Three o'clock…' 'Got some identification?'
Newman sighed audibly. `It might not be too bright keeping me out here on view, you know.' He produced his passport, opening it at the page which showed his photograph, closing it again and holding up the cover which bore his name.
'You'd better come inside, I suppose.'
The interior was gloomy and strangely constructed, stepped up on different levels because it climbed the steep hillside on which it was built. Newman followed the wheezing barrel up three twisting staircases and the place had a musty smell. He wondered whether Schaub lived on his own and they entered a weird, box-like room with the far wall occupied almost entirely by a grimy window broken up into large panes of glass. A, decrepit roller blind ran across the top of the window.
`We'll sit here and talk,' Schaub announced. `Beer?'
`Not just now, thank you,' Newman replied, noticing the grubby glass on the table.
It was only when he walked over to the window and gazed up the slope of terraced garden that he realized he was inside one of the old houses he had looked down on with Nancy the previous Thursday when he had walked her to the Nydegg bridge and told her this was the Matte district. When he turned round Schaub was seated at the table in the middle of the room, guzzling beer from the upturned bottle. He reached up and pulled the roller blind down to cover the upper half of the window.
`What you do that for?' Schaub demanded. 'I like to look at the view…'
`This room is very exposed.' Newman took a folded five- hundred franc note from his pocket and placed it on the table. `That's for answering questions about the Berne Clinic. You've worked there long enough – you have to know just about everything that goes on there…'
`Novak said you'd pay more…'
Newman produced a second five-hundred franc note and sat down alongside Schaub, facing the window. The porter was wearing a baggy pair of stained corduroy trousers, an open-necked shirt and shoes which hadn't seen polish in months. He shook his head at the second note.
`More…'
`This is the lot. No more haggling…' Newman produced a third note and placed it with the others. 'What goes on inside that laboratory for starters…'
`More…'
`Forget it!' Newman reached slowly for the notes but Schaub beat him to it, grabbing all three in one scoop and thrusting them inside his trouser pocket. 'All right, answer the question…'
`Never been inside the lab…'
The bullet shattered a pane in the window and blew the beer bottle Schaub had left on the table into small pieces. Newman put his hand against Schaub's shoulder and shoved the porter's considerable weight off the chair, toppling him onto the wooden planks of the uneven floor.
`Keep down you fat slob or they'll kill you!' he yelled.
Newman had dropped to the floor as he shouted. His shout synchronized with the second bullet which shattered two more panes and thudded into the rear wall. Newman could never recall how the automatic found its way into his right hand but he realized he was holding it as he scrambled low down across the floor to the window – just in time to see the muzzle of a rifle disappearing over the top of the wall on the street leading to the bridge.
`Get behind that cupboard! Stay behind it! I'll be back in a minute…'
He rushed, stumbled, half-fell down the bloody staircases, threw open the front door, the automatic inside his pocket now. Running along the empty street, he turned up the covered steps leading to the bridge. There were a hell of a lot of steps, treads worn in the centre by the feet of ages. Why do people always walk straight up the middle? The useless question flashed through his mind as, panting, he reached the top and came out on to the street.
He glanced in both directions. Nothing. Not even a pedestrian. He walked a few paces towards the centre of Berne, then scooped up off the pavement an ejected cartridge which he pocketed. No sign of the other one. The killer must have collected one and departed in a hurry.
Newman leaned over the wall at the point where the cartridge had fallen and stared down direct into Schaub's living-room. If he hadn't lowered the blind the porter would now be a bloated corpse. He looked towards the city centre again and saw a man standing outside a shop who was watching him.
`Thought I heard something,' Newman remarked in German as he joined the portly man who wore no overcoat. `Sounded like a shot, two shots…'
`Or a couple of backfires.' Newman smiled. 'I arranged to meet a girl at the top of the staircase. A brunette – a slim girl in a pant suit, maybe wearing a windcheater. I wondered whether you'd seen her?'
`That description fits half the girls in Berne. I only came out to check this window I'm dressing. No, I haven't seen your girl. All I saw after the backfires was the red car…'
`Red.? What make? A Porsche? A Mercedes?'
`Couldn't say – I just saw the flash of red as it roared out of sight across the bridge. Exceeding the speed limit, too…'
Returning to the house, Newman found Schaub still crouched behind the cupboard, a shivering jelly of a man. He looked up, his beady little eyes terrified.
`Have they gone?'
`Yes. I'll give you two minutes to pack a small bag – just your pyjamas and shaving kit. I'm taking you where no one will dream of looking for you. Hurry it up…'
`But my job at the Clinic…'
Newman looked at him with a stare of sheer amazement. 'I thought you'd have grasped it by now. The people at your Clinic are out to kill you…'
Newman drove the Citroen up to Schaub's front door and the porter did what he had been told to do. Running in a crouch, he dived inside the rear of the car through the door Newman had opened, hauled the door shut and pressed his bulk close to the floor. To all outward appearances the Citroen was occupied only by the driver.
In the centre of Berne Leupin, behind the wheel of a Fiat, a car Newman had not seen in the Juras, followed one car behind the Citroen. Marbot sat alongside him.
`I wish we could have got closer to that house in Gerberngasse,' Leupin remarked.
`Then he would have spotted us. We'll have to find out who lives there,' Marbot replied. 'Beck will want to know that – but first let's find out where Newman is going. He seems to be leading us round the houses…'
`My thought, too…'
Newman glanced in his rear-view mirror again. The Fiat was still there. He timed it carefully, slowing down as he came up to the intersection. The tram which had stopped in the main street to his right began to move forward
