She went inside, closed the door and heaved her case up on to the-rack. The fact that it was a smoker had influenced her choice. And she wanted a quiet compartment so she could think. Inside the next compartment – only a few feet further along the corridor – sat another lone passenger, a woman carrying a passport in the name of Pamela Davis.
'What a pleasant surprise, Miss Hofer…'
She nearly jumped out of her skin. Her hand slid to the flap of her handbag which contained the 9-mm pistol. The tall man tipped back his hat as he spoke softly.
'No need for protection. I'm quite harmless,' he continued. Stupefied, she stared as Erich Stoller stared back at her. The express began moving east again. It was exactly 8.07 am.
CHAPTER 28
Wednesday June 3: o800-o845 hours
'The Blumenstrasse cemetery. I haven't much time…' Martel told the Bregenz cab-driver. 'Where you're going they have all the time in the world… The cab-driver's response was typically Austrian, taking life as it came – and went. But Martel's urgency communicated itself to him and he drove away from the solid wall of buildings along the lakeside at speed.
The Englishman made an effort to contain his impatience. Away to the north the Summit Express was speeding across Germany and, if on schedule, was approaching Ulm. At the eastern end of Lake Konstanz a grey drizzle blotted out the mountains. Through the open window moisture drifted in and settled on his face.
Arriving at the entrance to the cemetery, he paid the fare, added a generous tip and told the driver to wait. Then he plunged into the sea of headstones, his eyes scanning the maze. It was such a long shot -a remark made to him by a gravedigger when he had last been in Bregenz.
But it was the right day. He checked his watch. It was also the right time. 8 am.
'She comes every week without fail,' the gravedigger had told him. 'Always on the Wednesday and always at eight in the morning when no one else is about…'
Martel buttoned up the collar of his raincoat against the rain. The only sound was the low whine of a wind. Clouds like grey smoke were so low you felt you could reach up and touch them.
As the mist parted occasionally there were brief glimpses of the forest on the precipitous Pfander mountain. Then he saw behind a headstone the crouched form of the gravedigger. He was levering his spade, adding to a mound of freshly dug earth.
'Back again, sir.'
The old man had straightened up and turned. His moustache dripped moisture and his cap was soggy. He regarded Martel's expression of surprise with amusement.
'You didn't startle me. Saw you coming soon as you entered the Friedhof. Thank you kindly, sir…'
He pocketed the sheaf of Austrian banknotes Martel had earlier counted from his wallet, then leaned on his shovel. Martel had one hand clenched behind his back, the nails digging into his palm to conceal his frustration. It was no good asking direct questions immediately: that was not the way of the Vorarlberg.
'You work in all weathers?' Martel enquired.
'They don't wait for you on this job…' The gravedigger then surprised him. 'Looking for that woman who comes here each week? She's just coming through the main gate. Don't turn round – the slightest change of atmosphere disturbs her…'
Martel waited and then glanced over his shoulder. Beyond the pallisade of large headstones a woman wearing a red head-scarf was walking briskly. She wore a fur coat and carried a spray of flowers as she headed in a diagonal direction away' from them.
'She's not short of a schilling,' the gravedigger whispered to Martel. 'Saw her in town once – my wife said that fur is sable.' 'Whereabouts in Bregenz?'
'Coming out of a house in Gallus-strasse. Now's your chance.'
The woman was crouched with her back to them laying the flowers on a grave. Stooping low, Martel ran among the maze of headstones which reminded him of huge chess-pieces.
His rubber-soled shoes made no sound as he came up behind her and stopped. It was the same grave. In Cones Frieden. Alois Slohr. 1930-1953. The woman stood up, turned and saw him.
'Dear God!'
Panic! A slim, shapely hand clutched at her mouth as she stifled a scream. Large luminous eyes stared at Martel in sheer fright. A reaction which was hardly justified. Startled – yes, Martel would have expected that. But her reaction was too extreme – like that of someone whose dreadful secret had been discovered. He spoke in German.
'I have to ask you certain questions…'
'Questions?'
'Police.' He produced the special pass which gave him access to the Summit Express and showed her only a glimpse. Documents were designed to delude the innocent. 'Security from Vienna…'
'Vienna!'
“I need information on Alois Stohr – as he is called on the headstone…'
Afterwards he could never have explained why instinctively he chose this approach – only another trained interrogator would have understood. 'Seventh sense,' Tweed would have commented tersely.
'Why do you say that?' There was a quaver in the woman's voice. She would be in her late forties, Martel estimated. Still a very handsome woman. She must have been a beauty at eighteen, say. In 1953 when Alois Stohr was buried. 'I come here to put flowers on the grave of an old friend,' she went on.
'A friend who died nearly thirty years ago? You come here each week after all this time? To recall the memory of a friend? The man who died in 1953 when the Vorarlberg was under occupation…' The words poured out of Martel in a torrent as he aimed blind, hoping to strike a sensitive spot. He went on, saying the first thing which came into his head… occupation by French troops – that is, French officers and Moroccan other ranks…'
He stopped.
He had struck home – he could tell by the brief flicker of alarm in her eyes which vanished as swiftly as it appeared. Martel felt he had a lousy job to carry out but there was no other way.
'You know then?' she asked quietly.
'I am here,' he replied simply. One wrong word would lose her.
'I keep a taxi waiting…' She stooped and gathered up the loose cellophane wrappings in which she had brought the flowers. The cellophane was printed with the name of a florist and was moist with the mist. 'You want to come back with me?' she continued quietly, her voice soft and weary. 'Here…' she gestured at their surroundings… is hardly the place.'
'Of course…'
Her taxi was waiting behind his own at the gate, the drivers chatting together. Martel paid off his own driver and climbed into the back beside the woman who gave an address in Gallus-strasse.
The bookseller Martel had talked to on his previous visit had informed him it was one of the wealthier residential districts. As they drove away Martel recalled a remark the gravedigger had made about the woman. Not short of a schilling. It was all beginning to make hideous sense.
The four-storey villa in Gallus-strasse had cream-washed walls, brown shutters and was a square, solid edifice. Eight steps led up to the front door. Alongside the door were eight names, each with its own bell-push. There was a speakphone grille. One of the names, Martel noticed as she unlocked the door, was Christine Brack.
She had an expensively furnished apartment on the second floor. When she offered to make coffee he refused – he was desperately short of time. She removed the head-scarf, the sable coat, and underneath she was wearing a dark dress with a mandarin collar. As he had expected, she had an excellent figure.
Sitting down on a chair close to his own and facing him, she used both hands to shake loose long black hair. She was a very attractive woman.