Deadlock

'What's the matter now?'

'It's Arthur Beck again. Chief of the Federal Police. Waiting in the lobby to see me. At this hour. I suppose we'd better take him up to my room. Although what he can want I can't imagine.'

Seated on a couch by herself in Tweed's room Paula studied Beck. Not a bit like my idea of a top policeman, she thought. Dressed in a light grey business suit, a blue-striped shirt, a blue tie which carried a kingfisher emblem woven into the fabric, he looked more like a clever banker. Plump-cheeked, his most arresting feature was his alert grey eyes beneath thick dark brows the same colour as his thick hair. In his mid-forties, she guessed, his complexion was ruddy, that of a man who spent as much time as possible outdoors.

His movements were quick and he fiddled with a silver pencil as he watched Tweed, who had already made introductions. He showed rare surprise when Tweed spoke.

'I should tell you, Arthur, that I'm now a commander with the Anti-Terrorist Squad at Scotland Yard. Here is my warrant card.'

'I don't believe it.' Beck stared at the card and handed it back. 'You mean you've left the Service?'

'More complicated than that.' Tweed was mildly pleased with the shock he'd given his old friend. 'I also still hold my position with the Service. I'm working on a weird investigation. What I would like to know is why you took the trouble to fly from Berne to see me. And how you knew I was here.'

'Answer to first question, I didn't. I'm working on a murder case. A bit grisly.' He glanced at Paula. 'Answer to second question, the Passport Control man at Cointrin thought your name rang a bell, checked it against his list, called me.'

'What murder case?' Tweed enquired. 'You don't get many of them here.'

'Well…' Beck smiled slightly. 'Seeing as you're now also with Scotland Yard means I can talk to you about anything.' Again he glanced at Paula.

'You used the word "grisly",' she said. 'Not to worry. I've a pretty strong stomach.'

'Funny business. Murdered chap discovered in a train at Cornavin which had finished its journey. Cleaning woman finds a lavatory locked, calls guard. He opens up. Inside, parked on the lavatory seat lid is this body of a man. Small and fat, head lolling to one side, mouth open…' He was looking towards Paula again. '… his throat slit from ear to ear, blood all down his shirt front…'

'Like a butchered pig,' Paula said, looking straight back at him. 'Like some more champers? Of course you would…'

'Why champagne?' Beck asked.

'To celebrate the company of such an agreeable guest,' she said, still gazing at him when she'd refilled his glass.

My God, Tweed thought, she's got him eating out of the palm of her hand. Arthur Beck! He saw the Swiss' hand rise from his lap and fall again. He'd been going to check his tie was neat, had stopped himself just in time.

'Any identification?' Tweed asked for something to say.

'Oh, yes. Which doesn't help. Research Director of Montres Ribaud, one of the top watch manufacturers up at La-Chaux-de-Fonds. Most brilliant watch designer in the country – the inner workings, I mean. A great loss.'

'Any clues?'

'Not yet. Only happened yesterday. Had a one-way first-class ticket in his pocket from Vevey to Geneva. That in itself is odd. No one at Ribaud can guess what he was doing in Vevey. The only thing there is the Nestle Group HQ. We may know more tomorrow.'

'Why?'

'He had a private safe in his office. No one else knows the combination. I've got one of my chaps working on it now.'

'Got any further with the Russian Gang?' Tweed asked casually.

'Hell's teeth. How do you know about that? We've done a job keeping it out of the papers.'

'Someone told me. Can't reveal their identity. I also heard the UTS mob were the culprits. Strikes me as strange. What do you think?' Tweed asked.

'I thought the same thing,' Beck admitted. 'It was a highly skilled operation – not what you would associate with freaks like the UTS crowd. A free Ukraine! What a hope. A good idea, of course – it would enormously weaken Russia. A lost cause, though. Another thing about those two bank robberies. A special explosive was used to blow open the vaults.'

'What explosive?'

'No idea. One victim was the Zurcher Kredit Bank -and they have one of the so-called safest vaults in Switzerland. We put an army explosives expert on the job -happens to be a director of the Zurcher, and a colonel in the reserve. Tomorrow I fly to Basle by chopper to hear his report. Want to come with me?'

'Not in a chopper.' Tweed grimaced. 'Dislike the things. But we could go there by train, meet you in Basle.'

That's arranged. Where can I contact you?'

'At the Hotel Drei Konige. What time of day?'

'Late afternoon, if that suits,' Beck replied. 'I'm waiting for Blanc's safe to be opened. Gaston Blanc, the murdered man found in the train. I have little hope.' He finished his second glass of champagne and stood up, thanking Paula profusely, shaking her hand as he smiled warmly. He threw the question at Tweed without warning.

'Why are you on my patch? Investigating what?'

'Rumours circulating Western Europe about some huge criminal operation being planned.'

'Really?' Beck looked surprised. 'Pure gossip. I wonder that they send someone of your rank on a wild goose chase.'

'I wonder that myself,' Tweed confessed.

'Oh, one more question, you mentioned staying at that hotel in Basle as though you'd already decided to go there.'

'I had. Those robberies intrigue me.'

Tweed accompanied Beck in the lift, saw him to the front exit of the hotel. The Swiss turned to him as a driver opened the door of a parked car.

'I like your new assistant, Paula.' His eyes twinkled. 'You will have trouble concentrating on your job with her around.'

The relationship is strictly professional,' Tweed replied.

'Oh, really? That's a new version.' He dug Tweed in the ribs, said he could be contacted at the local police HQ and climbed into the back of the car.

Explosives. The team. Finance. Tweed handed Paula the short list he'd scribbled on a hotel pad. 'Make anything of that?'

'Not a thing,' she said after studying it. 'Stop playing cat and mouse with me.'

Tweed eased himself more comfortably into the armchair. 'Let us just suppose there is something behind these rumours. The first item-explosives…'Without mentioning Lysenko he told her about the truck of explosives which had crashed the Turkish border and then disappeared. About the Greek ship Lesbos – which had left the Golden Horn and also disappeared. About the Armenian dragged out of the Bosphorus.

'I still don't get it,' Paula said eventually, 'I must be more than a bit thick.'

'Hardly. You're organizing some very big operation. You have the explosives. Next you need the team – to hire a bunch of cutthroats – professionals. All that costs money. Where is the finance going to come from?'

'A major gold robbery?'

'It's just possible. No more than that.'

'How would the organizer convert gold bullion into cash – he'd need to do that to pay the members of the team.'

'I have no idea,' Tweed admitted. 'Also, you heard about this murder of Gaston Blanc, found with his throat cut from ear to ear? That was how the Armenian truck driver who brought out the explosives into Turkey was killed. Then Charvet tells us they dragged a member of the UTS gang out of the Rhine – with his throat slashed from ear to ear.'

'Could be sheer coincidence.'

'You're right.' Tweed used a box of hotel matches to set light to his list, watched it burn in an ash-tray, emptied the relics down the toilet and flushed it. Paula was waving the empty champagne bottle when he came back.

'Like me,' Tweed said. 'Nothing in it. I admit frankly I really am floundering – just checking anything that catches my attention. We'd better get some sleep – see what the morning brings.'