Rhinoceros

wrists closer together, digging the chain into his air passage.

She was on top of him, his head pressed down on the table. She held on as he struggled, lifted an arm to reach the knife he had dropped on the table. His fingers touched it, pushed it over the edge. She held on, staring down at him as he choked, his eyes bulging out of his head.

'Bastard!' she shouted. 'Bastard! Bastard!'

The arm that had reached for the knife slumped on the table with a heavy thump. His movements were becoming feeble, pointless. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the chain even tighter. He opened his mouth to scream and no sound emerged. She held on, watching him closely. Spittle appeared on his lips. He made one final effort to heave her off him, but it was a faint muscular movement. His eyes closed and he lay still. She continued to hold the chain tight against his bruised throat where streaks of blood had appeared. Only when she was quite sure he was dead did she lift herself off, standing on the floor. She was breathing heavily with the supreme effort she had made. Then her breathing returned to normal.

'God! What I wouldn't give to have a shower, a complete change of clothes.'

CHAPTER 30

'Lisa has gone. She just vanished. I should have kept a closer eye on her. We've got to find her.'

Pete Nield was in the Grosse Strasse. Tweed had never seen him look so panic-stricken. He was staring everywhere, his face distraught.

'Calm down,' said Tweed as they were joined by Paula and Newman. Marler and Harry arrived a moment later. 'Now where was she when you last saw her, Pete?'

'I dropped my Walther out of my pocket. I stooped to get hold of it and out of sight before anyone saw it. When I looked for her again she'd gone. I seem to remember she walked on ahead of me.'

'Harry, Marler, you come with me,' Tweed ordered. 'I want the rest of you to stroll up and down this section. She could have gone into a shop.'

'No, she wouldn't do that,' Nield protested. 'Not without telling me.'

'She walked ahead of you.' Tweed repeated what Nield had recalled. 'So we'll go that way slowly…'

He led the way while Harry and Marler followed close behind him. Tweed was walking slowly, trying to reconstruct what could have happened. It did occur to him that Delgado, Barton and Panko could be within the area. He stopped by an archway, looked through it, saw the small square beyond.

'This looks nice. Could have attracted her attention.'

He continued plodding along, frequently looking down at the ground. He passed the Tourist Office, went on through another archway. His old instincts from the days when he had been a detective were coming back. His eyes missed nothing. He'd glanced into the Tourist Office but hadn't expected to see her there.

'She'd be entranced by the beauty of this square,' he said aloud. 'Then she'd arrive here. What's that?'

Just beyond an entrance to an alley he'd seen a spot of colour at the foot of a closed wooden door. He picked up a handkerchief with lace edging and a bluebell in one corner. From his own pocket he took out a replica, complete with a bluebell in a corner. He showed it to Harry.

'In the car I wanted to blow my nose, found I hadn't got a handkerchief. Lisa gave me one. She's in here.' He pushed at the closed door but it was as solid as a rock. 'We've got to get in there and quickly.'

'Leave it to me,' said Harry.

He moved the short distance to the other side of the alley, took a deep breath, then threw his bulk against the wooden door. It gave way, came off the hinges, the whole door falling inwards, exposing a long stone staircase. Tweed walked in over the door, his Walther in his hand, listened. He heard nothing. Harry shone the powerful beam of the torch he'd taken out of his satchel. It illuminated a closed door at the top of the long flight of steps. Tweed ran up them, followed by Harry and Marler.

They made a lot of noise hurrying up the old stone steps. Standing by the door Tweed heard a faint knocking, then an equally faint voice.

'Help me. I can't get out. Help me…'

'Stand well back from the door,' Harry shouted. 'As far back as you can…'

He had no space to manoeuvre and Tweed was now holding his torch. Harry put his shoulder to the door on the opposite side to the hinges. He leaned into it with all his strength. The hinges held fast but the door split on the other side, flew open. Tweed walked in and Lisa was standing at the far end. She pointed to what lay on the table.

'It's Delgado. I killed him. He was going to torture me. I strangled him with the handcuffs he'd put on my wrists. I found the key in his pocket and freed myself.' she said calmly, too calmly for Tweed's liking.

'Marler,' he said quickly, 'take her back to Paula, then… get back here fast…'

'This is a problem,' he said to Harry when Marler had escorted Lisa out of the building. He felt Delgado's neck pulse and there wasn't one. 'The problem is someone could notice the smashed door downstairs, come up and find the body. We want to be well clear of Flensburg before that happens.'

'We'd better get rid of the body, then.'

'How?'

Harry was examining the thick canvas sack that had fallen over, spilling caulk. Then he went over to the strange double doors on the far side of the table. He fiddled with a rusty metal catch, carefully opened both doors, looked down.

'This is one of those ancient warehouses,' he told Tweed. 'They used to – ages ago – bring cargo in on horse-drawn wagons and haul it up here for storage.'

Tweed went over, looked down the drop into a deserted street. Then, without hope, he cranked a wheel attached to the wall. It was stiff, but it turned. Rust fell on the floor and outside a hook at the end of a chain began to descend. He stopped turning the wheel.

'Newman brings the car round into this street,' Harry suggested. 'Parks it below here. I can put the body into that sack, attach the hook to it, lower the sack into the boot of the car.'

'It's risky…'

'It's more risky leaving the body here…'

Three-quarters of an hour later Newman had found his way through the labyrinth of old streets and parked the car below the hoist. In the meantime, Tweed had held open the large sack while Harry thrust the body inside. He then added sections of old chains he'd picked up off the floor.

'Why the chains?' Tweed asked.

'There's a river or a harbour nearby. The chains are to add weight so when we dump the sack in the water it will sink immediately.'

'That won't be easy…'

'None of this is easy but we've got to do it…'

Marler had explained the situation to Newman, who had co-opted Nield to stand as watchdog in the street with a whistle Harry had produced from his satchel. He would sound the alarm if anyone was approaching. Harry had tied up the top of the sack firmly with lengths of rope lying on the floor. They were now coming to the really nerve-racking part – lowering the sack attached to the hoist's hook down into the open boot of the car below. Tweed had dropped the handcuffs which had imprisoned Lisa into the sack.

Harry kept looking down as he motioned Tweed to operate the hoist. The sack swung out of the open doorway and Tweed cranked the handle. Would the hoist work properly? Would it stick half way, leaving the sack suspended in mid-air? Tweed secretly wished, as he started to crank the handle, that he hadn't agreed to this mad idea. The sack swung out into space. It stayed there. Tweed grabbed the crank handle with both hands, gave it a mighty twist.

Without warning, the handle started turning at high speed and Tweed had to let it go. The sack plunged down, landed just above the boot of the car with a heavy jerk. The sack and contents had ripped free from the now suspended hook. Newman closed the boot quietly, his hands dripping with sweat. Tweed had peered down the long drop, hardly able to believe they had managed it.

Then he started to reverse the handle to haul the chain back up. The handle wouldn't move. Harry, wearing