`Yes.' Novak had gone sullen. 'That was part of my contract.'
`And the Swiss doctors?'
`They go -home. Look, Newman, I work very long hours for my money. I'm on call most of the year..
`Calm down. Have another drink. What about the staff – the guards, cleaners, receptionists. Where do they come from?'
`That's a bit odd,' Novak admitted. 'Grange won't employ anyone local – who lives in Thun. They also live on the premises. Most of them are from other parts of Switzerland. All except Willy Schaub. He goes to his home in Matte – that's a district of Berne near the Nydeggbrucke. Goes home every night.'
`What job has he got?' Newman asked, taking out his notebook.
`Head porter. He's been there forever, I gather. The odd job man. Turns his hand to anything. Very reliable…'
'I'll take his address…'
Novak hesitated until Newman simply said, 'Foley,' then he changed his mind. 'I do happen to know where he lives. Once I needed some drugs urgently and since I wa-sin Berne I picked them up from his house. Funny old shanty. Gberngasse 498. It's practically under the bridge. There's a covered staircase runs down from the end of the bridge into the Gerberngasse. He probably knows as much about the Clinic as anyone – except for Grange and Kobler…'
`Thank you, Novak, you've been very accommodating. One more thing before I go. I'll need to see you again. Will you be attending the medical reception at the Bellevue Palace?'
`The Professor has asked me to be there. Most unusual… `Why unusual?'
`It will be the first public function I've been to since I came out here.'
`So you'll be able to slip away for a short time. Then we can talk in my bedroom. I may have thought of some other questions. Why are you looking so dubious? Does Grange keep you on a collar and chain?'
`Of course not. I don't think we ought to be seen together much longer…'
`You could have been followed?' Newman asked quickly.
He looked round the restaurant which was filling up. They appeared, from snatches of conversation, to be farmers and local businessmen. The farmers were complaining about the bad weather, as though this was unique in history.
`No,' Novak replied. 'I took precautions. Drove around a bit before I parked my car. Then 1 walked the rest of the way here. Is that all?'
`That laboratory you've never been inside. It has a covered passage leading to it from the Clinic. You must have heard some gossip about the place.'
`Only about the atombunker. You probably know that the Swiss now have a regulation that any new building erected, including private houses, has to incorporate an atombunker. Well, the one under the laboratory is enormous, I gather. A huge door made of solid steel and six inches thick – the way it was described to me made it sound like the entrance to a bank vault in Zurich. It has to accommodate all the patients and the staff in case of emergency..
So that could explain something else innocently which Newman -had thought sinister – the covered passage to the laboratory also led to the atombunker. Despite all his questions, there was still nothing positively wrong on the surface about the Berne Clinic. It was an afterthought: he asked the question as he was slipping on his coat.
`You thought then that you might have been followed?'
`Not really. Kobler said he had been going to suggest I took the evening off. He urged me to spend the night out if I felt like it…' Novak paused and Newman waited, guessing that the American had made a mental connection. 'Funny thing,' Novak said slowly, tut the last time he did that was the night when Hannah Stuart died…'
Twenty-One
Newman walked into a silent, freezing cold night. Deserted streets. He waited until his eyes became accustomed to the dark. He was about to light a cigarette when he changed his mind. Nothing pinpoints a target more clearly than the flare of a lighter. And he had not forgotten that one of the weapons Beck had reported stolen was a sniper-scope Army rifle – from the Thun district.
Checking for watchers, he strolled to the Sinnebrucke. He was still not convinced that Novak had told him everything. The American could have been sent by Kobler – to lure Newman to Thun. Later, after too much drinking, Novak might have decided to take out insurance by talking to him. Newman was convinced of one fact – he could trust no one.
Water coming in from the lake lapped against the wall below the bridge. Then he heard the sound of an approaching outboard motor chugging slowly. The small craft was flat-bottomed. As it passed under a street lamp he saw it was powered by a Yamaha outboard. One man crouched by the stern.
Newman stepped back into the shadows, unsure whether he had been seen. The man lifted a slim, box-like object to his mouth. A walkie-talkie. They had been watching film from the one area he had overlooked – the river. It would have been easy to observe Newman and Novak sitting at the window table inside the illuminated restaurant. Was he reporting that Newman had just left the restaurant?
Berne is like a colossal ocean liner built of rock and stone, rearing up above the surrounding countryside. Thun's centre lies on the island in a basin. Newman glanced up at the northern bank where the forested hillside climbed steeply, a hillside where the lights of houses glittered like jewels. He left the bridge, crossed the street in the shelter of one of the numerous smaller arcades – smaller than Berne's.
He followed a roundabout route to where he had left his car parked in the Balliz. He was looking for a red Porsche, any sign of Lee Foley, any sign of more watchers. With its network of waterways Thun is like a tiny Venice or Stockholm.
Looking south, at the end of a street he saw the vague outline of a monster mountain, its upper slopes white with snow. He continued walking slowly, listening. He passed one of the old covered bridges on his right and had a view to the north. On the highest point immediately above the town reared the great walls and turrets of the ages-old Schloss, a sinister, half-seen silhouette in the starlit night. The only sound was the slosh and gush of the river flow. He made up his mind.
Newman had not only been checking for watchers: he had taken his lonely stroll while he wrestled with a decision. He could not get out of his mind something Novak had said. Kobler said he had been going to suggest I took the evening off… the last time he did that was the night when Hannah Stuart died.
He walked swiftly back to where the Citroen was parked, got behind the wheel, fired the motor and drove off through the empty streets uphill towards Thun-Nord, towards the Berne Clinic.
The horrific scene jumped towards Newman's headlights as he came over the brow of a hill. He had followed a route which would take him to the main gatehouse of the Berne Clinic – coming in from the north-west. To his right alongside the narrow road was the wire fence guarding the Clinic's extensive grounds which, at this point, included some rough country. He had crossed the snow-line some time earlier and he knew the laboratory was beyond the fence, hidden by a fold in the landscape.
In his headlights he saw a gate in the wire fence wide open. Two police cars, the blue lights on their roofs flashing and revolving, were parked in the road by the gateway. A woman inside the grounds was running up the rocky slope towards the gateway, a woman wearing some kind of robe. Behind her in the gloom a vague shape bounded after her. One of the bloody Dobermans. The woman ran on, a stumbling run. In front of one of the police car's lights stood two people. Beck and, Oh, Christ! Nancy…'
The Doberman was going to get her, the running woman. She was just too far from the open gateway. Jesus! It was a nightmare. Newman pulled up near the gateway as Beck raised both hands and stood very still. He was gripping a gun. Behind him a third car appeared. Not a police car. It braked savagely and someone jumped out. That was the moment when Beck fired. The dog leapt vertically into the night, seemed to stay there in suspension, then flopped to the ground. So much was happening it was difficult to take it all in.