‘Have a pleasant chat?’
‘You can cut that out,’ Werner snapped. He took the map from his overcoat pocket and sat down. ‘She didn’t buy the story about the freight container.’
‘Are you surprised? She’s a professional, not some two-bit amateur sent by one of your rivals.’
‘Did Kyle–’
‘It’s all done,’ Hendrique cut in. ‘All you have to do is give the word.’
Werner opened the map and traced his finger along the train’s intended route. ‘Next stop’s Domodossola. Then it stops again at Vergiate, about fifty miles north of Milan. You’ll have to make the call at Domodossola, we can’t afford to waste any more time.’
‘Excellent. That just leaves the other one. I’ll deal with him personally.’
‘I don’t want any shooting on the train.’
‘Who said anything about shooting?’ Hendrique held out his hand. ‘Have you got the number?’
Werner unzipped his holdall and withdrew a newspaper. ‘It’s written across the top of the front page.’
Hendrique took the newspaper and returned to his own compartment.
The conductor rapped on the compartment door as the train drew into Domodossola station, its first stop after the Simplon Tunnel.
Hendrique opened it. ‘What?’
‘I spoke to the driver. He says he’ll wait five minutes here for you, then he’s leaving.’
Hendrique grabbed him by the lapels and forced him up against the narrow built-in wardrobe.
‘I’m paying you well to make sure my few requests are carried out without any hitches. You make sure this train waits for me, no matter how long I am.’
‘It’s the driver–’
‘I don’t care about the driver. This train will wait for me. Understand?’
The conductor nodded nervously, then scurried away down the corridor.
Hendrique turned up the collar of his parka as he stepped out into the lightly falling snow and crossed the platform to the public telephone mounted in a cubicle outside the station cafeteria.
He dialled the number written in red at the top of the newspaper then fed four hundred-lire coins into the slot.
The receiver was answered at the other end.
‘I’d like to speak to Captain Frosser,’ he said in German.
‘Captain Frosser’s busy–’
‘Tell him it’s about the Rauff murder. I’m calling long distance from a public telephone.’
‘One moment, sir.’
‘Hello, Captain Frosser speaking,’ a voice said seconds later.
‘The woman you’re looking for in connection with the Rauff murder is travelling on a train bound for Rome. It should reach Vergiate within the hour. Her name’s Sabrina Cassidy.’
Hendrique dropped the receiver back on to its cradle, then tossed the newspaper into the wire bin on the platform on his way back to the train.
Bruno Frosser stared at the receiver after the line had gone dead, then reluctantly replaced it.
‘What is it, Captain?’
Frosser sat back and clasped his hands behind his head. He looked at his assistant, Sergeant Sepp Clausen, a policeman much in the same mould as he had been in his late twenties. Ambitious and determined. Except Clausen had more hair than he did at that age.
Frosser, at forty-three, had barely any hair now apart from the little that curled down above his ears to meet at the nape of his neck. It had never bothered him that the little hair on his head was brown and that his thick moustache was grey or that his fellow officers constantly teased him by patting his ample stomach and asking when the baby was due. All that ever bothered him was his work and his chances of promotion.
‘Where the hell’s Vergiate?’ Frosser asked in his gravelly voice.
Clausen didn’t know but he knew better than to say so and reached for the atlas in the bottom drawer of his desk.
‘Vergiate, Vergiate,’ Clausen muttered as he traced his finger down the index. There was no listing. He reached for the telephone.
‘I’d like an answer today if possible.’
Clausen ignored the sarcasm. He had come to learn that it was the closest Frosser ever came to humour.
Frosser stroked his moustache as he thought about the case. It was certainly one of the most baffling he had ever come across since his promotion to the Fribourg CID five years before. It had started with an anonymous caller, almost certainly English-speaking, who had tipped him off in broken German about the body in the warehouse. Then, within an hour of the local radio and TV stations broadcasting details of the murder, two boys had come forward to say they had seen the body. They had also made up an identikit of the woman they thought had called herself ‘Katrina’. Sabrina was close enough for him. There were still too many unanswered questions, like, who was the black-haired man the boys had seen loading beer kegs into a deserted wagon the day before the murder? Barrels that weren’t there when he arrived at the warehouse. Why had the skip been sprayed with bullets? Who was the second anonymous caller who had told him she was on the train? And even if she was the killer, where did the two men fit into the puzzle?
‘Vergiate’s in Italy, sir,’ Clausen announced, his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘It’s about fifteen miles from Varese.’
‘That’s near Milan isn’t it?’
‘Near-ish,’ Clausen replied, screwing up his face.
‘Get a helicopter on standby. I want to fly to Vergiate as soon as possible.’
‘It might take some time, sir.’
‘So might your chances of promotion if you don’t get me a helicopter pronto.’
Frosser dialled the private line of a senior detective with the Milan CID he had known for the past twelve years. He wanted a deputation party waiting to board the train once it arrived at Vergiate.
‘Do you want some more coffee?’ Sabrina asked, pointing to Graham’s empty cup.
‘Yeah, why not? There isn’t much else to do on this damn train.’
She caught the waiter’s attention. ‘Possiamo avere un altro caffè, per favore.’
The waiter replenished both cups and brought them a fresh jug of milk. The standard of the food had surprised them. Although the portions were small they were delicious. It reminded her of a gem of a restaurant she had found in New York’s Greenwich Village. The building’s exterior was bleak and the decor appeared shabby but the preparation and presentation of the food were comparable with any of the city’s leading restaurants. It was one of the few places she could get away from her Yuppie friends.
‘Vergiate,’ Graham said as the train passed the first of the signposts on the approach to the station.
‘What?’ she asked, her thoughts interrupted by his voice.
‘We’re arriving at Vergiate,’ he said.
‘I wonder what they’re doing here?’ she asked, pointing out of the window.
‘Who?’ he asked, craning his head to follow the direction of her pointing finger.
‘La polizia. There, on the platform.’
‘Maybe there’s a murderer on board. It might liven things up a bit.’
‘I can think of a couple, present company excluded of course.’
‘Of course,’ he said, feigning a look of shock.
When the train came to a halt the rear end of the dining car was facing the four policemen.
She suddenly became aware of the contempt and disdain on Graham’s face as he stared out of the window at them. She knew he disliked dealing with the police but she had never asked him why. She decided to do so now, knowing it could well backfire on her.
‘I don’t like people I can’t trust. There are too many cops on the take these days, especially back home. What infuriates me most of all is that these bent cops aren’t protecting the public who pay their wages, they’re protecting the criminals who pay their bribes.’