`I've been up all night,' he announced. There was a pause as he broke a roll in two, plastered it with butter and marmalade, consumed it rapidly and ordered coffee. 'A litre of it…' He looked fresh and alert, his thick black hair was neatly combed, but his chin was a black stubble. It reminded Tweed of Harry Masterson who, by midday, had a blued chin, the five o'clock shadow at noon, as Masterson called it. 'I should grow a beard,' he often joked, 'but then anyone could pick me out a mile off…'
Kuhlmann devoured his roll, swallowed a whole cup of coffee, refilled it. Newman lit a cigarette, studying the German. His sixth sense told him Kuhlmann had news.
`Why up all night?' he asked. 'Get anywhere with Franck?' `Forget Franck. Another blonde has been carved up and raped. Sometime round midnight…'
`On Priwall Island again?' Tweed asked quietly.
'No. On the beach at Travemunde Strand. Incredible. That he was able to get away with such butchery on an exposed beach…'
`Who was the victim?'
`An Iris Hansen. A Dane from Copenhagen. Personal assistant to a senior civil servant. So now Bonn has the lines buzzing between there and Copenhagen – and the calls are still coming in from Stockholm about Helena Andersen. The poor devil of a pathologist had just finished putting Andersen's remains together when we presented him with another parcel of meat. His phrase. He worked through the night. Out at Travemunde panic has turned to frenzy. Men are going out buying hunting knives, rolling pins, anything that can be used as a weapon…'
`Two murders,' Newman mused. 'Both blondes…'
`Three,' Kuhlmann amended. 'The Dutch girl at Frankfurt six months ago. It's the same killer. He proceeds with his grisly work in the same way. Don't ask me to go into details until I've settled my breakfast. You should have seen the Hansen girl lying on the beach. She, too, must have been attractive…'
`Must have been? Past tense,' Newman queried.
`He slashes their faces, cuts off… Never mind. You can always go and see her in the hospital for yourself if you're thinking of following up the story. Want me to sign a chit?'
`Not just now. Thanks all the same. Is there any connection between the three killings?'
`The connection I need is who was in Frankfurt six months ago and is here now.' He looked at Tweed. 'The two names the computer has come up with so far are you and Newman.'
`Except that you know both of us were in the middle of Lubeck at 10.45 p.m. I thought you said Iris Hansen was killed round midnight…'
'I did. We parted company about 11 o'clock. At that hour it is a fast drive to Travemunde. No traffic. Twenty minutes and you're in Travemunde Strand.'
`So both of us are suspects?'
'I have to report all the facts to Wiesbaden.' Kuhlmann took his time demolishing the last roll, then his wide mouth broke into a cynical grin. 'But the night man here on reception told me when I came in this morning you both went to your rooms at 11.10. He happened to check the clock. No one can get out of this place without passing him. You both have watertight alibis…'
'How very fortunate,' Tweed replied coolly. 'And now you've had your fun, maybe I could ask a favour? I need a totally safe phone to make several calls.'
`Police HQ, Lubeck-Sud,' Kuhlmann said promptly. 'It's outside town. There's a room there with a scrambler phone. I'll drive you there now. And you've got that look on your face.'
'What look might that be?'
'A very worried man. Something disturbing has struck you.'
Lubeck-Sud. Not at all what Newman had expected. A huge modern fourteen-storey complex of buildings, joined together and with a black central tower. All perched on top of a small hill, looking down on slopes of trim green lawns decorated with rose beds.
Kuhlmann drove off the main highway past a one-word sign. POLIZEI. He parked the car outside, led the way into the entrance hall and showed his folder to a police officer in shirt-sleeves inside a glass box to the left. They exchanged a few words and the officer handed Kuhlmann a key.
Kuhlmann took them by elevator to the tenth floor. Half way down a long corridor he handed Tweed the key in front of a closed door which, unlike all the others, had no number.
'Newman and I will find some coffee in the canteen at the end of the corridor. Come and join us when you're finished. That phone inside there is one of the safest in the whole Federal Republic. It's used by the BND,' he ended, referring to counter-espionage.
Inside Tweed found a small bare room, walls lined with steel filing cabinets, a table, two chairs. A white telephone sat on the table. He pulled out one of the chairs, made himself comfortable and dialled a Frankfurt number from memory. A girl answered immediately, repeating the number he had dialled and adding the digit nine.
`Hadrian calling,' Tweed said. 'The Hadrian Corporation. I'd like to speak with Mr Hugh Grey.'
They were using Roman emperors this month for the call-sign – Howard's idea, of course.
`I'm afraid he's away negotiating a deal for a few days,' the girl responded.
`When might I get him?'
`He didn't say. I don't think he knew himself.'
`Thank you…'
Tweed broke the connection. Grey could have called him from anywhere in West Germany- Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne. Anywhere. And it was strictly against the rules to ask for a contact number. A rule Tweed himself had laid down when he had tightened security six months earlier.
He next dialled Harry Masterson in Vienna. The same reaction. Masterson was out of town. No, they had no idea when he'd be back. Patiently, Tweed went on. He dialled Bern, to speak to Guy Dalby. A third negative. He sighed. The last one now – Copenhagen.
The girl answered in perfect English, which was just as well. Tweed spoke no Danish.
`He is not here at present. If you would care to leave a message?'
`No message…'
Tweed stared at the phone. Zero out of four. There was nothing strange about it. He had personally trained all four to get out of their offices, into the field, to keep close personal contact with their agents. In a way it was a good sign. So why was he so disturbed?
He found Kuhlmann and Newman sitting at a table in an empty canteen. The German said would he like some coffee? Tweed shook his head and sat down as Kuhlmann continued what he had been saying to Newman.
`… So a team of psychiatrists is on the way from Wiesbaden. I could do without those gentlemen. Most of them are nut cases.'
Their reports – the bits you can understand – read like the ravings of madmen. Which doesn't help – considering we're all hunting someone who has to be stark raving mad…'
`Or a sadist,' said Tweed.
`Which comes to the same thing. They draw up a profile – a portrait of the personality of the killer…'
`I'm beginning to build up my own profile of him,' Tweed remarked. 'How can we most easily get to Travemunde from here?'
`By using me as a chauffeur. I'm on my way there myself.'
`Oh, thank God you've come, Tweedy. I rang the Jensen but they said you'd gone out. Isn't it too horrible… another girl… and a blonde again… I'm blonde…'
Diana Chadwick was shaking as Tweed arrived on board the Sudwind. She ran forward as he stepped off the gangplank, threw her arms round him and sank her golden head into his chest. He patted her back, squeezed her, realized for the first time how slim she was. She cried a little. Tears of relief. Then she released him, dabbed at her eyes with an absurdly small lace handkerchief, and drew herself erect.
`I'm making a perfect fool of myself. Do forgive me. Let's have something to drink. Coffee? Something stronger?'
`Why not coffee. Under the circumstances?'
`You're so right. Alcohol will make me go to pieces again. Come down into the galley with me while I make the coffee. I don't like being alone for a second at the moment…'
He followed her down the companionway into the galley, perched on a narrow leather couch and looked
