`Who?' Howard pounced.
`The helper's safety – survival – may depend on secrecy, total secrecy. The person concerned knows Switzerland well.'
`You're being very coy about their sex,' Howard observed.
Coy. Tweed winced inwardly at the use of the word. Taking off his glasses, he polished them with his handkerchief until Monica gave him a paper tissue. Howard stared at Monica.
`Does she know?' he snapped.
`She does not. You can leave the whole matter in my hands.'
`I don't seem to have much choice. When do you leave?'
`This evening..' Tweed decided he had been very cavalier with Howard. 'I'm catching the nineteen hundred hours flight to Geneva. It arrives twenty-one thirty local time Then the express on to Berne. At that hour anyone watching the airport is likely to be less alert.'
`You'll contact Beck, I suppose?'
`Frankly, I have no idea what I'm going to do.'
Howard gave it up as a bad job. He walked stiffly to the door and then paused. It occurred to him that if Mason had been murdered this could be a dangerous one. If anything did happen to Tweed he'd regret an abrupt departure.
`I suppose I'd better wish you luck.'
`Thank you,' Tweed replied politely. 'I think I'm going to need a lot of that commodity…'
On the first floor of the Berne Clinic Dr Bruno Kobler had finished checking the medical files when the door to his office opened. A large shadow entered the room which was lit only by the desk lamp despite the darkness of the afternoon. Kobler immediately rose to his feet.
`Everything is ready for tonight,' he informed his visitor. `We are nearly there,' the huge man wearing tinted glasses commented in his soft, soothing voice. 'One more experiment tonight and then we shall be sure. Any other problems?' `There may be several. Newman for one…'
`We can deal with extraneous matters after the medical congress and the reception at the Bellevue Palace,' the large man remarked as though referring to a minor administrative detail.
His bulk seemed to fill the room. His head was large. He was plump-faced and had a powerful jaw. His complexion was pallid, bloodless. He stood with his long arms close to his sides. He created the impression of a human Buddha. He had a capacity for total immobility.
He wore a dark business suit which merged with the shadows. The huge picture windows were smoked plate glass, which deepened the gloom. He wore tinted glasses because strong light bothered his eyes. He was a man who would dominate every room he entered without speaking a word. And his powers of concentration were phenomenal.
`Once the medical reception at the Bellevue is over they will all go home,' he observed to Kobler. 'Then will be the time to clear up loose ends. Then we shall present Terminal as a fait accompli. Tous azimuts,' he concluded. The dream of a generation of the General Staff will be reality.'
He stared out of the window at the distant mountains. The massive butte, rugged and brutal, rearing above the low cloud bank. The Stockhorn. There was a similarity between the rock which had dominated Thun for cons and the man who stood, still quite immobile, staring at it.
`This is the subject I have chosen for tonight's experiment,' Kobler said, walking round his desk to show the open file, the photo of the patient attached to the first page. 'You approve, Professor?'
Twenty
For the rest of the day Newman encouraged Nancy to explore Berne with him. Anything to get her outside the hotel. He had not forgotten her remark, You make me feel like a prisoner. He expected to be away for a long time in the evening, interviewing Dr Novak in Thun. He wanted to be sure she did stay inside the Bellevue Palace.
Their exploration was also therapy for himself. He needed to clear his mind of two tense interviews which had already taken place. The trip to the morgue with Arthur Beck, followed by their conversation in his office. And his encounter – it had seemed like that – with Rene Lachenal kept running through his mind. Why was the normally cool Lachenal worried? Something, Newman was convinced, was preying on the Intelligence man's mind.
It was bitterly cold as they wandered along the arcades, stopping while Nancy gazed in shop windows. He took her the full length of the main street, the cobbled Marktgasse with an ancient tower at either end, continued along the Kramgasse and the Gerechtigkeitsgasse.
They were walking down the centre of the peninsula towards its tip at the Nydegg bridge where the Aare swings in a huge hairpin bend and sweeps on parallel with its earlier course on the other side of the city. Gradually the streets began descending until the arcaded walks were elevated above the street below. Slim, pointy-nosed green trams rumbled past but otherwise there was little traffic.
They reached the approach to the Nydeggbrucke and Newman peered over a wall down at a huddle of weird old houses that fronted on a street at a lower level. Nancy stared down with him.
`They must have been here for centuries…'
`It's the Matte district. No wars, you see. So the past is preserved. Let's hope to God it continues that way – it would be a crime for this lovely old city to be touched…'
He vetoed her suggestion that they should visit Jesse. She didn't argue the point when he explained.
`It could scare off Novak from coming to meet me this evening. I sensed he was nervous enough about the whole idea as it is…'
`I wonder why?'
`I think he's a frightened man. Frightened but at the same time desperate to talk to someone he can trust.'
`There seem to be a lot of frightened men. Manfred Seidler is another. What do I do if he calls while you're out?'
`Tell him I'm sticking to the arrangement we made. If he'll call me tomorrow, I'll meet him tomorrow..
They had lunch at the Restaurant Zum Ausseren Stand inside the heated Zeughauspassage off the Marktgasse. First, they walked through the snack place which was full of people eating and watching the Winter Olympics at Sarajevo on a colour television set.
The restaurant was comfortably furnished with heavily- upholstered green arm chairs, the walls covered with posters of Yugoslavia. Again, Sarajevo. They had an excellent soup, a plate of superbly-cooked chicken and finished the meal with ice cream which Nancy pronounced 'Gorgeous. And even the coffee is first-rate.'
`It has to be good, if an American approves…'
He watched her glowing eyes and didn't want the evening to come. For almost the first time since they had landed in Geneva there was a carefree atmosphere. Cynically, he hoped it wasn't the prelude to something quite different.
Newman timed it so they arrived back at the Bellevue Palace at 6.15 pm. Dusk had crept in over the city. The lights had come on-in the streets and on the bridges. He wanted her to be alone for the shortest possible period. Following her into the entrance hall where people were circulating back and forth, he paused.
`I'm off to Thun,' he told her. 'I suggest a leisurely dinner, a good bottle of wine. Expect me when you see me – I've no idea how long this will take. The longer I'm away the more information I'll be getting…'
He stopped speaking, staring over her shoulder. Lee Foley had just stepped out of the lift. The American appeared not to have seen him, turning right and disappearing down the staircase in the direction of the bar. Nancy also had turned to see what he was looking at.
`Is something wrong, Bob?'
`No. I was just making up my mind about something. You'd better know now I'm meeting Novak at a hotel called the Freienhof in Thun…' He spelt it out for her. 'The phone number will be in the directory. Just in case you have to reach me urgently. I'm off now…'
`Take care…'
The tall thin man hurried across the Kochergasse to one of the phone booths near the Hertz car hire offices. He had been waiting inside the cafe opposite the Bellevue for ages, pretending to read the Berner Zeitung, ordering three separate pots of coffee and making each last while he watched both the main entrance and the way in to the coffee shop. He dialled a number and spoke rapidly when he heard the voice at the other end.