Walking to the baggage container section, he chose one at random, opened the door, shoved the hold-all inside, adjusted the mechanism to a twenty-four hour period, fed in coins, locked it and took away the key.
At the station canteen he bought a doughnut, asked them to put it in a paper bag and walked off. Ten minutes later he stood on the footbridge crossing the Rhone near the Hotel des Bergues. With one hand he fed pieces of bun to swooping gulls, with the other he dropped the plastic bag into the tumbling current. A pair of gloves could give information about the size of his hands – and one was spotted with blood. The bag sank into the torrent, was followed by the baggage container key.
Klein walked straight back to Cornavin Gare. Shutting himself inside a phone booth, he dialled the number of the Hotel de la Montagne. Hipper answered almost at once.
'Klein here. The delivery is on the way, should arrive before dawn.'
'I shall be here to receive it,' the soft pedantic voice replied.
'Don't forget to give the driver his reward. I shall be there sometime tomorrow.'
'Our friend from the south has arrived…'
'I'll see him…'
'He is restless…'
Klein broke the connection without comment. Short phone calls were a strict maxim with him – even from a public call box. He returned to the baggage container section, took out another key and collected the Samsonite case he had deposited earlier. He checked his watch. He'd have to keep moving.
He carried the case to the men's lavatory, locked himself inside a cubicle and perched the case on the toilet lid. Ten minutes later he came out again. He had entered the cubicle dressed like a businessman. He emerged looking like a holiday-maker.
He was now wearing a windcheater and a pair of clean blue denims. Horn-rimmed glasses completed the transformation. He bought a second-class ticket to Basle and was just in time to board the express. When a girl came along with a trolley he bought a carton of coffee as the train left Geneva far behind. He enjoyed the drink. It had been thirsty work. And once again he had the satisfaction of not having left a single clue behind.
Half an hour after the Basle Express left for northern Switzerland a woman cleaner noticed the toilet in the stationary express at Cornavin which said Occupe. It bothered her – a passenger could be ill inside. She called a guard.
The guard produced a bunch of keys, chose a flat ended instrument and eased back the lock. Taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door and the cleaning woman peered inside. That was when she began to scream and scream and scream…
15
'We may well be chasing a phantom, a man who doesn't exist any more,' Tweed told Paula as the Swissair machine continued its descent.
'Has this phantom a name? Or am I asking the wrong question? I do realize I'm very much the new recruit.'
'Igor will do. Another Russian based in Geneva swears he saw him in the city four weeks ago. I have to decide whether he's right or not. More I can't tell you. Yet… '
He had given Paula the window seat and she was peering out of the window as the plane completed a right-angled turn and headed straight down the centre of Lake Geneva. They were due to land at midday.
'What a marvellous view,' she enthused. 'Those mountains over there. What are they?'
'The Jura.'
The aircraft was half-empty in first-class. The seats behind and in front were empty, so they were able to talk freely as the descent continued. Paula looked at her Swiss watch.
'I wonder where this was made?'
'Probably at La-Chaux-de-Fonds. A town up in those Jura mountains. Funny place. None of your old-fashioned Swiss chalets with window-boxes. More like a child's town built of bricks – then enlarged to normal building size. A bit stark.'
'Do I get to meet this Russian? The one who says he saw this phantom? He knows you're coming?'
'I'll see him first. And no, he doesn't. I'm hoping to catch him off balance.'
He glanced at Paula who was staring out of the window again. She was dressed perfectly for the occasion. A classic two-piece suit with pleated skirt and a pussy bow at the neck of her blue blouse. Would he have to unleash her on Sabarin he wondered? He doubted it. Bloody waste of time, the whole trip. He looked glum as the aircraft descended on the final run-in to Cointrin Airport.
Yuri Sabarin agreed to come immediately to the Hotel des Bergues when Tweed phoned the number Lysenko had given him. Which made Tweed even more sceptical. The Russians normally took their time – to emphasize their self-importance, to show how busy they were. Paula waited in her own room while Tweed paced back and forth in his bedroom. The second surprise was when the Russian arrived on time. The third was his opening remark after he met Tweed.
This is an appropriate place for our discussion. It is here where I saw Zarov.'
'Actually in this hotel?'
Yuri Sabarin was a small, wiry, lean-faced and energetic man who, Tweed estimated, would be in his thirties. He was also dressed smartly in a pale grey suit, blue-striped shirt and a pale blue tie. One of the new breed Gorbachev was using? His command of English was excellent.
'No, outside this hotel,' Sabarin smiled. 'If we could go downstairs to the small restaurant I could show you exactly – Le Pavilion.'
On the spur of the moment Tweed changed his mind, phoned to Paula, asked her to come to his room. Sabarin was not what he had expected. He introduced Paula and they went downstairs in the elevator. Sabarin led the way through the reception hall and into the restaurant Tweed knew well.
It faced the street with windows overlooking the Rhone beyond. 'Watch to see if you think he's telling the truth,' Tweed whispered as they followed the Russian who seemed at home in one of Geneva's best hotels. The PM had allocated a generous budget for what Tweed still felt was a useless exercise.
Sabarin made for an empty window table. They were almost the only customers at three in the afternoon. The Swiss eat early and get back to their desks, abhorring the long business lunch. He pulled out a window chair for Paula and Tweed intervened.
'Why are we sitting here?'
'Because I was – when I saw him…'
'In which chair?'
'This one.' It was the chair he had offered Paula. Tweed shook his head. 'Then I want you sitting there – so we can reconstruct exactly how it happened…'He heard himself speaking and it reminded him of his days back at the Yard in the days when he was investigating a murder case. 'Paula can sit opposite you,' he continued. 'I will sit alongside -so I get a similar view. Ah, here is the waitress. Coffee for everyone. Good, that's settled.'
He sat alongside Sabarin and looked out of the window without speaking for a short time. The sidewalk was immediately beyond the window and passers-by walked close to the glass. He kept up his silence, wanting to unsettle the Russian, to undermine some of his confidence. Thankfully, Paula followed his lead, saying nothing as she also stared out towards the swift-moving waters of the Rhone. Tweed waited until coffee had been served.
'It was after dark when you think you saw him?' he suggested.
'No! It was just about this time of day. That is why I wanted you to come down.' Sabarin checked his watch. 'He walked past this window at 3.10 p.m. exactly.'
'How do you know the time so precisely?'
'Because I looked at my watch before I jumped up and rushed outside. Through the main exit. I was too late. He had disappeared. I came back in here…'
'Wondering whether you'd been mistaken?' Tweed pressed.
'No! It was him. Igor Zarov. There's only one.'
'How was he dressed?'
'Dark blue two-piece suit, blue-striped shirt, plain blue tie. No hat…'
'Colour of shoes?'
'No idea,' Sabarin responded promptly. 'Couldn't see.'