`That was the first man I have ever killed,' Gerda suddenly remarked in a choked voice.
Newman laid a hand on hers. 'Try not to dwell on it. Remember, we'd probably all have ended up dead if you hadn't acted. I do understand how you must feel…'
`Leave her alone,' Falken broke in roughly. 'He was an enemy.'
`No need to get so tough about it,' Newman snapped back.
Gerda grasped his hand, squeezed it. 'You are a nice man, but he is right. Sympathy can undermine resolution. We have to be hard to survive…'
`And you,' Falken told Newman, 'may have to be hard before you cross the border again. I have decided we must leave this place early. Tonight, in fact. The people who sent Schneider may come looking for him. Your schedule is speeded up…'
`And what about the body?' Newman demanded.
`That is a problem. I am still trying to solve it…'
It was a novel problem for Newman. He'd never realized before just how difficult it was to dispose of a corpse so it would not be discovered.
Twenty-Eight
`Yes, what can I do for you, Mr Ted Smith?' asked Kuhlmann. `I have got the name correct?' he went on in English.
He was sitting in the interrogation room on the tenth floor of the Lubeck-Sud police headquarters. Outside it was dusk, would soon be dark. Reception had called him. An Englishman, a tourist, had called at the building, wanted to see someone about the Kurt Franck poster he'd seen outside the local police station at Travemunde.
Ted Smith, in his late twenties, was dressed in hiking shorts, an open-necked shirt, trainer shoes, and when he'd entered the room he'd dumped an incredibly heavy-looking backpack on the floor at Kuhlmann's suggestion. If that was enjoyment, they'd better keep it.
Kuhlmann sensed the young man was nervous. He tried to put him at his ease by fiddling with his lighter, pretending he was having trouble lighting up the cigar.
`Yes, you have,' Smith replied. 'This may all be about nothing…'
`Tell me about it. We welcome information of any kind. On holiday'?'
`Yes. Hitch-hiking. Then partly by train with a rail-pass. I came up from Hamburg three days ago. Decided to splash out a bit here. Took a room at the Movenpick.'
`Very nice, too.' The lighter flared. 'There, got it going.' Kuhlmann puffed at the cigar. 'Do you smoke?'
`The occasional cigarette. Four a day. Trying to give it up. Er, mind if I smoke too?'
`Go ahead.' Kuhlmann lit Smith's cigarette. 'Now what is this about Kurt Franck?'
`We… that is, I, saw him. About three weeks ago it would be. I went on by train to Copenhagen when I first arrived. Came back to Hamburg, then back again to here. I like Lubeck.'
`You saw Kurt Franck three weeks ago. Where exactly?' `At the edge of a river on the way to Travemunde. He pushed a motor-bike into the river. We… I… thought that was a funny thing to do.'
`You keep saying 'we'. Is it a girl? No law against having a girl friend in Germany, you know.'
`Well, yes, it is. An American girl. Suzanne Templeton.' `Where is she now?'
`Well, actually, she's waiting in the Volkswagen I hired – downstairs. Outside the police station. You see, we saw this poster in Travemunde and wondered whether we ought to do something about it. Then we were driving past here and we saw the Polizei sign. Sue told me to drive in.'
`Sensible girl. Let's have her up here. You don't mind? I find two pairs of eyes are better than one. She was with you when you saw Franck?'
`Actually, she was.' Smith hesitated. Fresh-faced, clearly his American girl friend was the one who had urged him to report what they had seen. Kuhlmann phoned reception, asked for the girl to be brought up, and sat puffing his cigar until a policewoman opened the door and showed a tall slim girl with a good figure into the room. Kuhlmann's eyes narrowed. She was blonde-haired.
Half an hour later Kuhlmann was driving his car along the road towards Travemunde which ran not so far from the river Trave. Sue Templeton, who sat beside him, had proved a great deal franker and more confident than Ted Smith. Yes, they had been making love in the deep grasses close to the river when they'd heard someone coming on their side of the river.
`He'd gotten this motor-cycle,' she'd explained in the interrogation room. crouched on my knees, hoping he wouldn't see us as I peered over the grasses. A Suzuki, Ted said. He stopped the engine and pushed it the last few yards. He had a suitcase strapped on the back. He took that off and then pushed the machine into the river. We got dressed quickly…'
`We thought it was funny, you see,' Ted intervened. He looked uncomfortable and Kuhlmann guessed he wanted to skip over what they had been up to. 'Then he walked along the path at the edge of the river…'
Sue interrupted him. 'He was carrying the case. That might be important – because of what happened later.'
`What did happen?' Kuhlmann enquired.
`He walked about a mile along the footpath. We followed him at a distance – the path winds which made it easier and the tall grasses hid us from him until he reached this small power cruiser and went on board.'
`You didn't happen to notice the name of the cruiser?' `The Moorburg,' she said promptly.
`Please describe him again.'
`Six foot tall. At least. Blond-haired. Early thirties and well-built. A tough-looking guy…'
That was when Kuhlmann asked them if they would accompany him in the car, try to find the place where the motorcycle had been pushed into the water. Ted Smith had been reluctant, Sue had insisted it was their civic duty, as she had phrased it.
Kuhlmann drove slowly, giving her the best chance of locating the track they had wandered down to find some privacy. She was sure she could find it – even in the dark. Behind Kuhlmann a second police car followed, carrying the police team he had organized before they set out.
The American girl leaned forward in her seat, her breasts pushed against the safety belt as she stared along the headlight beams. An attractive young woman, she had the confidence and assured manner Kuhlmann had noticed before in many girls from the States.
`Slow down! Yes, it was here. Down this track!'
Kuhlmann swung the wheel, crawled along the track. In the headlights he could see the single wheel gulley impressed into the cinders by the motor-cycle. He pulled up a short distance from the river, took a torch from the glove compartment and they got out. He bent down as the second car halted behind them, examining the wheel mark. Too wide for a bicycle. Just right for a motor-bike. They walked on to the edge of the river, followed by two men in frogman's suits.
Now, Sue,' Kuhlmann asked, 'from the marks it looks like this was where he pushed it in. Would you agree?'
`This is the place…'
They went back to the car and waited. Within five minutes the frogmen emerged, dripping water, hauling out a Suzuki motor-cycle in the beams of the headlights. Kuhlmann used the radio to call up reinforcements, left one man with the machine and then followed the other car as it backed to the highway.
`If there was a landing-stage where the Moorburg was moored,' he remarked as he drove on towards Travemunde, `there will be a track leading to it. We just have to keep on trying. Any way you could identify that landing-stage where he threw the suitcase into the river before taking off towards Travemunde?'
`Yes,' she said promptly again, 'it was in two sections – the one nearest the cruiser sagged, the end was under the water…'
God give me more witnesses like this one he thought as he drove on. Sue identified the first track they checked and the landing-stage at the end. Kuhlmann ordered the frogman who had travelled in the other car to dive in again. This time it took about ten minutes. The frogman emerged, holding a suitcase in both hands. Kuhlmann
