`He helps you crew this sloop – when you go south back to the Mediterranean?'
`No, he has his own scuttle boat, the engine's tied together with hits of wire. He has two sons. They help me crew. You'd be surprised, Mr Kuhlmann. I can practically sail this vessel myself. Need a bit of help with the sails sometimes to keep going. Now, I sent Ben off so we could talk.'
`While I remember, if we catch this Kurt Franck would you be willing to identify him?'
`Like a shot. He doesn't frighten me. I know the type. He probably lives off women. What we used to call a gigolo.' `And I think there was something you wanted to say to me?' `Yes. You said no more murders. I suggested the murderer was temporarily absent. Dr Berlin has vanished again.' `So?'
`A vicious character. Arrogant, too. Not at all the philanthropist he pretends to be. I was once waiting at a road crossing over there. The lights were about to change in the traffic's favour. His Mercedes had pulled up. He had the rear window down and I saw those eyes of his, watching from behind his dark glasses, staring straight at me. I quite distinctly heard him say in German to his chauffeur, 'Drive on.' The swine damn near knocked me down.'
`Interesting.' Kuhlmann stood up. 'Thank you for the coffee. I must be going.'
He had reached the gangplank, was just about to walk across it, when she called out to him.
`Mr Kuhlmann, next time you come, do smoke a cigar if you feel like it.'
`Why do you say that? I thought you disliked them.' `Because you're a gentleman. Not too many of them about these days.'
Kuhlmann made his way back along the landing-stage. He would never understand the English. Perhaps it was because they were surrounded by all that water.
`One of those three guards in that watchtower cracked,' Wolf informed Lysenko. 'Hoped to get off more lightly than his two fellow-conspirators, which is what my interrogators played on.'
`And?'
`They were bribed. With gold. No description of the enemy agent who did the job. He wore one of those ski- helmets. Tall and thin. They let one of the BND's agents through. Could have been Newman – his picture has been reprinted and circulated.'
`So, we have done all we can?'
`I haven't.' Wolf was going at full power, like a tracker dog which has picked up the scent. 'I've switched the interrogation team to the Border Police on duty in that area at night. Every man will be subjected to a very tough grilling.'
Karl Schneider of the Border Police, stationed at Wernigerode, was in a filthy temper. The object of his annoyance was his wife, Alma. She never stopped going on at him. He sat up in bed in the tiny flat housed in the huge concrete apartment block.
`Why wake me? I've been on duty all night, you cow… `Don't call me a cow. You should report meeting those two men in the forest at once. At once! Do you hear me?'
`How can I help it? They'll hear you the far side of the block.
Now I'll never get back to sleep…'
He climbed out of bed, felt the stubble on his unshaven chin and started towards the toilet. She blocked his path, a scrawny-faced woman of forty with claw-like hands. He stopped, stared at her.
`You are not going to the lavatory until you've phoned and reported what happened.'
`My bladder is bursting.'
`Let it burst – for all the use it is to me. You have to get your report in first. Someone else may have already caught them.'
`What is there to catch? He was River Police. He showed me his folder…'
`River Police! There's no river for miles round that part of the border. Don't you ever think? You'll lose your pension, you will. And where shall I be – if you're knocked down by one of those big coaches? Penniless. You never think of me. Only of yourself. You'll report those two men now or make your own breakfast. And dinner And supper.
I…'
`All right. Get out of my way, woman.'
Karl Schneider took two decisions as he shuffled in his pyjamas to the phone in the cramped living-cum- dining-room-cum-kitchen. He would report the incident to his superior to shut up Alma – and at the first opportunity he'd respond to the advances made to him by that full-breasted, red-lipped typist in the barracks administrative block.
`Soon. Not yet, but soon…'
Erwin Munzel, alias Kurt Franck, spoke the words aloud although he was alone inside the loft of the barn on Fehmarn Island. He was gazing at his image in a hand mirror. The blond moustache he had grown covered his upper lip, flowed down to the corners of his mouth. The blond beard masked his jaw.
At the back of his head his hair draped his neck. He had almost the appearance of a hippie, but not quite. That would be an error of judgement. The West German police did not look favourably on hippie types.
The steep-roofed barn stood in the fields, half a kilometre outside the hamlet of Burg, the largest collection of dwellings on the lonely island at the edge of the Baltic. Munzel had not gone near the cottage in Burg he had used during his earlier visit. The barn, also owned by Martin Vollmer as part of the small farm, was far more isolated. Even the inhabitants of Burg never came near the place.
During the two weeks Munzel had waited for his moustache and beard to grow, he had lived rough, feeding off canned meat and drinking coffee he boiled on a spirit kettle in the loft. The floor was covered with a thick layer of straw, he had a sleeping bag for nights, and the only access to the loft was a tall ladder he had hauled up behind him when he first entered his hiding-place.
Munzel had retreated to his refuge after making his phone call from Hamburg to Vollmer in Altona. Again he had followed the training of his instructor. Double back on your tracks. The police would never dream he would take a train from Hamburg back to Lubeck and on to Puttgarden.
Munzel was not at all sure they had his description. It all depended on whether Newman or Tweed had recognized him when he'd made his abortive attempt to kill Tweed in the Kolk. Never take a chance on recognition. He viewed himself from different angles in the mirror. Another few days and he'd be unrecognizable. Then he could move out into the open, call Vollmer for the latest news.
When he'd phoned Vollmer from Hamburg his Altona contact passed him a message from Wolf. 'The Captain will return. Then you can meet him again…'
The Captain was the codeword for Tweed. God knew why Wolf was so confident Tweed would return. But Wolf, Munzel knew, had made a special study of the Englishman, had built up a bulky file recording his appearance, his habits, his likes and dislikes. Some of the data had amazed Munzel when shown the file before crossing into the West. Almost as though Wolf had someone who saw Tweed frequently in London …'
Munzel put the idea out of his mind. It was too dangerous even to contemplate. He put down the mirror, raised a hand to smooth down the long hair over the nape of his neck. Just a few more days…'
`Now, as always, we assume the worst,' Falken announced.
`Why do you say that at this moment?' Newman asked.
Falken had driven him with Gerda to the strangest of places to rest up before they proceeded to Leipzig. They had covered a long distance in the Chaika, some of it in broad daylight. Then Falken had turned off a main elevated highway down a track leading alongside a small canal. They had stopped the car and got out at a lock-keeper's cottage, a square, ugly, brick-built building, one storey high and next to an ancient pair of lock-gates.
Beyond the old heavy wooden door, which Falken opened with a large key, a musty damp smell assailed Newman. They walked straight into the living-room which was sparsely furnished with cheap wooden chairs, a wooden table in the centre and framed pictures on the walls of various canals.
`We must conceal the car at once,' Gerda said. 'It is all right, Mr Thorn,' she remarked, addressing Newman. 'Josef and I will deal with it. Maybe you would light the fire?'
Then they were gone and he heard the car start up. Newman picked up a Leipzig newspaper thrown down on a couch which was losing its stuffing at one end. Dated a week ago he noted as he separated several sheets, screwed them up loosely and stuffed them under the pile of logs and twigs inside a smoke-blackened brick fireplace. He used the stubby lighter made in Karlmarxstadt, the place where he was supposed to have been born, to set light to the paper. He had to use a poker to coax the twigs to burst into flames and lick round the logs, and began a
