'You located Telescope's base?'
'It is in southern England near Guildford in the county of Surrey.'
'How do you know that?'
Litov explaine d how he had seen the red bus with the destination Guildford on the front. Horn seemed more interested in the pillar box where letters had been collected. What time of day had the postman collected? Had he seen anyone post a letter in the box? The barrage of questions went on and on — almost as though Horn were hoping to catch him out in a lie. Litov couldn't understand the ferocity of the cross-examination.
'How were you able to time the flight of the helicopter in both directions?' Horn demanded at one stage.
'Fortunately they let me keep my watch.'
'They let you keep your watch? You had it with you all the time? The watch you are wearing at this moment?'
Litov barely concealed his irritation, but remembered the cold, detached look in Horn's eyes and the cold pressure of the p istol against the back of his neck. 'Yes,' he said. 'While I was at the house near Guildford the interrogator, Carder, even mentioned the watch once. He said it would stop me becoming completely disorientated if I knew the time.'
Horn went on asking Litov again and again to repeat the story of his experiences since his capture in Brussels. Then it ended abruptly. Horn stood up and came round to the front of his desk, staring down at Litov as he polished his rimless spectacles.
'Wait here,' he said suddenly. 'On no account attempt to leave this room.'
Horn hurried out into the hall followed by the girl who shut the sound-proof door. They went into a room at the back and sat facing each other across a table. 'What do you think?' Horn asked, removing his skull-cap.
'The bus convinces me.'
'We must send a heavy detachment of specialized troops by air to locate and destroy that base.' He stopped speaking as the front door-bell rang. Sonia Karnell slipped into the hall and returned shortly. 'It is Danny.'
Waiting in the hall was the cab-driver who had transported Kellerman from Kastrup to Nyhavn when they followed Serge Litov.
Max Kellerman had settled himself into Room 1014 at the Royal Hotel — but he was ready for an emergency departure. He chose the quick-service restaurant — where the service lived up to its name and the food was on a par with the service — for several reasons. It was part of the shopping and reception hall complex, which meant that as he ate he was able to observe the reception counter from a discreet distance. This could pay life-saving dividends — as Kellerman had discovered in the past. It enabled you to observe who booked in at the hotel after your own arrival. A method of assassination employed all over the world was for the hired killer to take a room in the same hostelry as his victim.
If — as Kellerman had done — you left your room key with reception while you ate and watched you could sometimes spot a caller making an enquiry about you. The receptionist would swivel his head to see whether your key was on the hook. It was impossible to be sure the receptionist had checked your key but if you were already suspicious it was added confirmation.
Kellerman lingered over his meal, savouring the Scandinavian food. He was already beginning to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere he sensed in the Danes who inhabited Copenhagen, which was refreshingly free of the normal multitude of high-rise blocks. The multi storey Royal Hotel, oddly enough, was an exception. Jules Beaurain and Louise Hamilton arrived at the reception desk at precisely 10.30 p.m.
*
'Louise, I've been to the scene of the murder aboard the barge near Bruges there was a witness, a boy who spends half his time in a tree-house he's built.'
'Hold on a minute, Willy, here is Jules.'
The call came through at the Royal Hotel in response to an earlier call from Beaurain to Willy Flamen at his home address. Flamen had been on his way home and his wife had promised that he would call back the moment he arrived. Beaurain emerged steamily from the bathroom where he had just taken a shower.
'It's Willy Flamen,' Louise told him. 'About that bar gee and his wife. He says he's found a witness.'
'I'll take it. You go downstairs and keep Max from feeling lonely. He's still drinking coffee in that restaurant, watching reception.'
Time you gave up,' she said to the German when she had joined him and had ordered coffee. Only one man on duty now and a general atmosphere of boredom and closing-down for the night.
'It comes when you least expect it,' he replied.
'What does?'
'The breakthrough. The incident which means nothing at the time and everything later on. Waiting is the key to success. Any policeman will tell you that.'
'And when you were a lawyer in Munich did you meet a lot of police?'
A flicker of pain crossed his face. He responded in a slightly grating voice behind which she detected a hint of menace — not for herself, but for some unknown killer. She really had blown it. 'I'm sorry, Max. It was in the Munich shoot-out that your wife was killed. What was she like?'
'Irreplacea ble.'
'Sorry again. I'll keep my big mouth shut.'
'You don't have to,' he assured her. 'And I'm sitting here for a reason I don't understand why the Syndicate mob didn't have more back-up at Kastrup Airport when I arrived with Serge Litov.'
'Where is Louise?' asked Beaurain, slipping into the chair alongside Kellerman in the ground floor restaurant.
'She took off after someone.'
'What the hell are you talking about?' asked Beaurain, his face devoid of expression.
'It's strange,' the German commented. 'I was just saying it comes when you least expect it. A breakthrough. I was just coming up to your room to tell you. We were sitting here when a girl went up to the reception counter and we saw the clerk turn round and look towards where my key was hanging. She rolled his pen onto the floor behind the counter to keep him busy while she checked the register of guests. She could have been anything European. She had a distinctive hairdo — very black hair cut short and close to her head — like a helmet. What's wrong, Jules?'
Beaurain's eyes were hard. I'm waiting for you to get to the point,' he said with an unnerving quietness.
'After she had gone outside, Louise followed her and waited at the door for my signal.'
'Why not the other way round? Why didn't you take the tail job?'
'For a reason I'll give you in a minute.' The German met Beaurain's gaze levelly. 'I went up to the receptionist and spun him a story about thinking I'd recognised the girl as a friend of my wife's. He opened up immediately — strange coincidence and all that. The girl was looking for a man who had dropped a wallet her husband had picked up. She described me perfectly and said her husband thought I'd come into this hotel. He — the fictitious husband — had been rushing to a business appointment and would come back in the morning.'
'So she got your name?'
'She got that — and my room number.'
'And Louise?' asked Beaurain.
'I gave her the go-ahead. The 'black helmet' girl got into a car and Louise followed her in the car you hired. I couldn't — just in case I was recognised from the incident at Kastrup.'
'I've just heard someone else call the girl Black Helmet, and since it was an intelligent child's description it is likely to be accurate. She was visiting a couple on a barge near Bruges just before they were murdered.'
Chapter Nine
Kellerman was shaken by Beaurain's news. He sat staring at the reception counter where the girl they had christened Black Helmet had played her tricks on the receptionist.
