“Thanks Kurt. What about Geneva?”
“Nothing. This is it. But I’m still being watched. The kill order is off, so by whom eh?”
“Be careful,” Quayle warned.
“Always!” he chuckled, the buccaneer still there. “I’m going to pull them in. Get them rousted by the police in the morning. Then we see who gets them out, and maybe get a link that way. Call tomorrow afternoon. Say you’re looking for Annie. If Bremen says ‘lemon’ try the post restante at Fredrichstrasse. There will be a couple of leads for you. What name?”
“Collins,” Quayle replied. Eicheman nodded and smiled, then stood and moved back down towards the doors.
Quayle gave him twenty minutes and then left by the fire exit, its old worn crash bar unlocked as he knew it would be. The Federal Government might have put up with filthy porn theatres, but they were very strict on fire precautions.
On the street he moved carefully for a mile, then took a taxi back to the hotel.
The man he would need to visit lived in Goch, about an hour’s drive away towards the Dutch border – so, the following morning, he checked out of the hotel, hired a car and took the main autobahn north-west. By 9am, he had reached the village.
Steiner’s home was a solid old farmhouse outside the village, tucked into a stand of evergreen trees, remnants of the huge forest where Hitler’s SS had once hidden an entire Panzer division before the push into the lowlands.
Parts of the Goch area were often off-limits to NATO personnel from nearby RAF Larbruch because of strong ties to the SS that dated back to the war, and some evenings the strains of the Horst Wessel anthem could be heard from the cellar bars as old grey-haired men remembered another time.
Remaining hidden, Quayle watched for an hour, but the late model Opel remained in the driveway and their were no visitors. A pair of Wellington boots stood by the kitchen door and smoke drifted lazily up from a chimney towards the front of the house.
Finally, he left the car behind and, having walked the last few yards to the front door, knocked loudly.
It was opened by a surprised, portly individual of around Quayle’s height.
“Ja?”
“Herr Steiner?” Quayle asked, using his northern accent.
The man paused for a second, as if considering the question.
“Ja. But who are you?”
“We have mutual friends. May I come in?”
The florid-faced man looked at Quayle suspiciously and finally swung the door back to allow him to enter. Inside, the hall was dominated by a large Jacobean dresser and a coat rack festooned in jackets and scarves. Quayle followed the man into a large living room where a fire burned brightly in the hearth, dark smoke pluming up the chimney. A bright rug was spread between two large chairs and, on the floor beneath the dining table, a big antique Qashqai carpet gave the room a warm tone. The table itself was covered in papers, and shelves of books took up one entire wall. A stag in a hunting print gazed balefully down of another.
“Nice Shiraz Qashqai,” Quayle said, pointing to the big red carpet under the dining table.
“Yes it is. So what can I do for you?”
“You can tell me where Herr Steiner is for starters,” Quayle said, smiling nicely.
“What?” he replied indignantly. “I am Steiner. I own this house!”
“Bullshit. That carpet is very valuable. It’s a real Qashqai, not a shiraz. No owner, however modest, would let me malign it. You are a big man. The boots and the coats are all small. And the fire burns brightly because you’re burning paper. Paper that isn’t yours…” Quayle swung his arm at the dining table. “You’re not Steiner. So where is he? I won’t ask again – and, if you’re co-operative, you may just walk away from here. Vershtun?”
The man looked into Quayle’s eyes, the contact lenses giving him a slightly crazed look.
“He has gone. I was looking for him also.”
“Why are you burning his stuff?”
“We are partners on many projects. I don’t want any material falling into the wrong hands. Publishing is very competitive,” he said, raising his hands defensively.
“Where do you think he is?”
“I think, I think he may be dead...” The man stopped. “It’s the cat. He didn’t feed the cat for three days or more. He used to phone me and ask me to come over to do it if he was going away. He was always sticking his nose into things that were dangerous. Well, this time he stuck it in too far. Where do I think he is? I think he is dead! Some partner! Stupid little fool. Now I am making sure that nothing he has here will bring them to me!”
“Bring who?”
“Whoever it was that did for him…”
“Who might that be?” Quayle asked, his voice low and laced with menace.
“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” he answered childishly.
Quayle dug into his pocket. “Did he ever wear a ring like this?” He held it up for the other man to see.
“No.”
This man was lying and Quayle knew it. He reached forward, took a hold of the man’s cheek between two fingers and squeezed.
“Yes, yes, he did!” the man squealed. “Let go please, please...”
“When?”
Quayle let go and the man rubbed the red spot on his cheek with three fingers. “He stopped about a year ago. But he wore it often for three or four years before that.”
“What was its significance?”
“I don’t know. I asked once and he laughed. He said they would feel the might again.”
“Who would?”
“Liberals, greenies, communists, the anti-nuclear people. He hated the lot of them, he said they were weak. A cancer. Then he stopped wearing the ring. He was bitter, angry. His work was also affected. He was like a boy who had his toys taken from him. Sulky.”
So, thought Quayle, he got thrown out of whatever
