'Are you all right?'
Beaurain was on his feet, tugging the Smith amp; Wesson from its holster. He was too late. Otto Berlin had sprinted round the corner. Beaurain turned to Louise who was brushing dirt off her clothes. Her voice was shaky.
'I'm OK.'
'The station…'
Beaurain shoved the revolver out of sight. Not a soul had appeared so far. The Hoogste van Brugge seemed accustomed to grenades. Or perhaps the unseen inhabitants had found it paid to mind their own business.
'Why the station?' Louise asked as Beaurain grabbed her arm and hustled her back the way they had come.
'Because I think he could be heading there to get the hell out of Bruges. And I saw a cab rank in the T'Zand Square.'
'Why didn't the Volkswagen driver take him?'
'How the devil do I know? Maybe Berlin wanted him out of town fast in case the car had been recognised.' They entered the T'Zand Square. 'We'll take this cab,' Beaurain said.
He only relaxed when the cab was moving. 'If only we could get hold of one of the three men Goldschmidt gave us we could crack this thing. Otto Berlin would be perfect. You're sure you're all right?'
'I seem to be in one piece.' She said nothing more until they arrived at the station. Beaurain was taking money out of his wallet when she grabbed his sleeve. 'Look! There's Berlin just going into the station. He's still carrying his case,'
Running from the cab, they were able to pass straight through the barrier with their return tickets. An express to Brussels was just about to depart. Among the last-minute passengers scrambling aboard they saw the fat figure of Otto Berlin entering a compartment near the front of the train. They just managed to get aboard as the express started moving. Beaurain peered out of the window to make sure Berlin had not jumped off again. The platform was empty. He looked at Louise as they stood in the deserted corridor.
'This is an express. One stop before Brussels — Ghent, which is half an hour away. We've got him — he can't leave a train moving at seventy miles an hour.'
Chapter Seven
'We search the whole express — but I want to find Berlin without him seeing us. So we can track him. We start at the front of the train and work our way back. You go first, I'll trail behind you. That way he's less likely to spot us.'
The express was about half full. They walked rapidly to the front of the train but neither of them saw Berlin. They began working their way back towards the rear of the express checking every passenger.
'I'll check each lavatory as we go through,' Beaurain told her. 'If one is occupied we wait at a discreet distance and see who comes out.'
They had over fifteen minutes to go when they reached the end of the train. No Berlin. Standing in the corridor Beaurain lit them both cigarettes and they looked at each other. Outside the windows the sunlit countryside flashed past — and again they saw a canal and barges with TV. masts and washing-lines.
'I can't understand it,' Louise said. 'You checked every lavatory. We've both seen every passenger aboard so what the devil has happened to him? He can't have just vanished into thin air.'
'Except that he appears to have done just that.'
The stop at Ghent gave no help in solving the mystery. People got off. More passengers boarded the express. No-one even remotely resembling Dr. Otto Berlin appeared. As the train left Ghent they made their way to the front, found an empty compartment in the coach behind the engine, sat down and stared at each other.
'Do we search all over again?' Louise suggested. 'We must have missed something.'
'We stay here until the train reaches Brussels,' Beaurain said firmly. 'At Nord we get out pretty sharp, wait by the barrier and check everyone off. No-one can board a train and disappear in a puff of smoke.'
At Nord the express emptied itself. Standing a short distance away from Beaurain, Louise watched the passengers trailing past, many of them with luggage and obviously travellers from Ostend and the ferry from England. A squabbling family already tired from their journey and the heat; a crowd of locals wearing berets and chattering away in French; the inevitable priest with his suitcase.
They watched the last person off the express and then joined each other and walked towards the exit. Beaurain spoke as they came outside the station into brilliant sunshine. 'We'll take a cab to Henderson's sub-base and see how the tracking of Litov is proceeding. Better than our efforts I hope.'
He arranged for the cab to drop them a few minutes from the sub-base and they continued on foot. When they arrived in the first-floor room with the wall-map Beaurain only had to take one look at Henderson's face to know a disaster had occurred.
Pierre Florin, the sergeant you wanted to interview, has been found murdered at his apartment,' Henderson informed them. 'Commissioner Voisin is anxious to see you as soon as possible.'
'How do you know about Florin?' Beaurain enquired.
'I phoned your apartment to see if you had arrived back — and Chief Inspector Willy Flamen of Homicide answered the phone.'
'And what the hell was he doing inside my apartment?'
'I wondered that too,' said Henderson, 'until he told me the place had been broken into. He called there to give you Voisin's message. And Flamen wants to see you — but he'll be waiting at his own apartment. I told him I was a friend and got off the line.'
Beaurain had hoped for so much from his interview with Florin: above all, who had paid him to be absent from the reception desk at the vital moment. Or should the question be who had frightened him so much that he had risked his whole career? Terror, Goldschmidt had said vehemently, terror was one of the Syndicate's main weapons.
' How are you getting on with Litov?' he asked the Scot.
'He's boarded a flight for Scandinavia he bought a ticket to Helsinki. Max was right behind him and is now aboard the same flight — a Scandinavian Airlines plane flying to Stockholm via Copenhagen.' Henderson nodded towards the wall-map. 'It's marked there with the red line.'
'So his final destination could be Copenhagen, Stockholm or Helsinki,' Beaurain suggested.
'That's the way I see it,' the Scot agreed. 'Unless he's being clever and gets off at Kastrup or Arlanda and switches to another destination. If he does that, I have gunners at both airports to track him. And we always have Max Kellerman travelling in the same first-class cabin as him.'
'Where are they now?'
Henderson checked the clock. 'En route to Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen. Within half an hour of landing.'
'We'd better get over and see Willy Flamen.' Beaurain stood up, uneasy about something. How the devil had they let Otto Berlin slip off the Ostend Express? Henderson swung round in his chair.
'Maybe I didn't make myself clear, sir. It is Commissioner Voisin who is anxious to see you. Asked particularly would you give him some idea of your arrival time.'
'You made yourself quite clear. We're still going to call on Willy Flamen first. I'll contact you later to find out what's happening to Litov. Come on, Louise.' Beaurain had reached the door when he turned and gave a final order. 'One more thing, put all our people inside Brussels on a red alert immediately.'
Louise waited until they were sitting in the Mercedes before she asked the question. The Belgian had a brooding look and had not yet signalled to the guard to open the gate.
'Jules, what was that about a red alert? That means everyone has to expect an emergency at any moment, doesn't it?'
'The request from Commissioner Voisin to go and see him immediately…' Beaurain signalled the guard, gunned the motor and drove out of the archway into heavy traffic. Louise noticed his eyes were everywhere: checking the mirror; glancing at both sidewalks; checking the mirror again. 'Plus the fact that Voisin wants me to
