`He could be the key to the whole labyrinthine business. He's phoning me here at five and we'll meet him this evening. Better pack a small case for both of us – essentials for an overnight stay…'
`Why?' she asked suspiciously.
`Seidler sounds even more trigger-happy than Novak. My guess is he'll fix a rendezvous point a long way off – some place we can just reach in time after his call by driving like hell. That way he'll hope we won't have time to alert anyone else. He smells like a man who trusts no one.'
`Oh, by the way, Bob,' she said casually, 'Novak knows I'm visiting the Clinic today. I phoned him while you were out. I got lucky. That creepy old bitch, Astrid, must be off duty. A man answered the phone and put me straight through to Novak. And he told me Kobler is away some place.'
`Kobler's not at the Clinic?' Newman asked quickly.
`That's right. Neither is Grange. Novak did ask me if you would be coming. He sounded anxious that you would be. Can we leave soon?'
`After I've kept a brief appointment with someone in the bar. I met him on my way in. One of your own countrymen – a Lee Foley…'
`And who might he be?'
`A killer…'
He left her on that note, driving home again that she had better watch her step if she wanted to live.
The tall American with the thatch of white hair stood up courteously as Newman came across to his table inside the bar. He already had a drink in a tall glass crammed with ice. Newman said he would have a large Scotch and sat down on the banquette alongside Lee Foley who wore an expensive blue business suit, a cream shirt and a smart blue tie with small white checks. Gold links dangled from his cuffs.
`You're staying at the Bellevue, Lee?' Newman enquired.
`For the moment, yes. Unfinished business.' He raised his glass. 'Cheers! I've just had a visit from that bastard Federal policeman, Beck. I could feel sorry for the gentleman – he can't find a reason to throw me out of the country…'
`Not yet…'
By then I'll be gone…'
`You still keep up your flying – piloting a plane?'
`Just light aircraft. Pipers, stuff like that…'
`What about a Lear executive jet?' Newman suggested.
`Now you're reaching.' Foley smiled his dry smile which was not reflected in the ice-blue eyes. 'Beck,' he continued, 'is concerned with the way the body count is rising. Two so far. The little man you and I talked with – and now some Englishman…'
`Three,' Newman amended. 'An American woman has just died outside the Berne Clinic…'
`I know. Just goes on climbing, doesn't it?'
`I get the impression,' Newman ruminated, 'that Clinic is a place needing a lot of protection. They could afford someone expensive…'
`You'd better apply for the job…'
`More your line of country, I'd have thought…'
Foley put down his glass and stared at it. 'Remember that night we took the town apart on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg? You're the only man who ever drank me under the table…'
`The night you took the town apart,' Newman amended. `Do you still speak good German?'
`I get by. You know something, Bob? The West is getting too civilized. There was a time when the Brits. stopped at nothing when survival was at stake. I'm thinking of Churchill ordering the sinking of the whole goddamned French fleet at Oran – to stop the Nazis getting their hands on some real sea-power. Ruthless. He was right, of course…'
`You're trying to tell me something, Lee?'
`Just having a drink with an old friend, making a few random observations…'
`You never made one of those in your life. I have to go now. See you around, Lee…'
Newman let Nancy take the wheel of the Citroen for the drive to the Clinic. She handled the car with the confident ease of an expert driver along the motorway. In his wing mirror Newman kept an eye on the black Audi behind them which maintained its distance. Beck's minions were on the job.
`We're approaching the turn-off,' he warned.
`And who is driving this goddamn car?'
`You are, I hope – otherwise we're in trouble…'
`How did you get on with that man you went to meet in the bar? What was his name?'
`Lee Foley. I'm still trying to work out why he wanted to see me. He's a cold-blooded sod. As much a killing machine as that Leopard 11 we met. What I can't yet decide is who he is working for. If I knew that I might have the final piece of this enormous jigsaw in my hand.'
`We're both meeting some interesting people,' she observed as she turned off the motorway. He checked the mirror. Yes, the Audi kept on coming. 'This morning while you were out doing God knows what,' Nancy went on, 'I was having coffee in the reception hall with an intriguing little man, another Englishman. He seemed so mild and yet I sensed, under the surface, a very determined personality. Tweed, his name is.'
`What did you talk about?'
`I told him about the Berne Clinic…' There was a touch of defiance in her tone, challenging him to criticize her indiscretion. He said nothing as she chattered on. 'He's a very sympathetic type – easy to talk with. He advised me to be very careful…'
`He did what!'
I've just told you. He explained that as I was a foreigner I ought to tread carefully…' She glanced at Newman. `… that I should stick close to you from now on…'
`And just how did the Berne Clinic subject crop up?'
`No need to get piqued. He's a claims investigator for a big insurance company. It's weird, Bob – last month another American woman, a Hannah Stuart, died under similar circumstances to Mrs Laird. Why always women?'
`I've wondered that myself. Too many unanswered questions. And here we are. Brace yourself…'
They had arrived at the gatehouse to the Berne Clinic. But this time their reception was in surprising contrast to their previous visit. A man they had never seen before came out of the gatehouse, checked their passports, gestured towards the gatehouse and the automatic gates opened.
No sign of a guard, a Doberman, as they proceeded up the drive across the bleak plateau. It always seemed more overcast, more oppressive at Thun than in Berne. Newman thought it could have something to do with the big mountains holding the cloud bank.
`Novak told me to park the car in the lot at the side of the main building,' Nancy remarked. 'And I don't get the same feeling of being watched this time…'
`Maybe with both Grange and Kobler being away the hired help has gone slack. Or maybe they just want to give us that impression. Nancy, park the car in fresh snow…'
`Anything you say. I'm only the bloody chauffeur…'
`And when you get out disturb the snow as little as possible.'
`Christ! Any more instructions?'
`I'll let you know when I think of some…'
Waldo Novak, his fair hair blowing in the wind, came out of the glassed-in verandah entrance and down the six steps to meet them. Alone. No sign of the come-hither Astrid.
`I'll take you straight in to see him,' Novak told Nancy as he shook her hand. He stepped back alongside Newman to let her go first and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Newman, on your way out, ask Mrs Kennedy to go to the powder room. That will give me the chance to tell you something.'
There was a male receptionist behind the counter, a man who took no interest in them. No nonsense about filling in visitors' forms. The same business with Novak's computer card keys to let them into the corridor and then inside the room where Jesse Kennedy sat propped up in bed against several pillows.
`Hold everything a minute,' Newman warned.
Taking off his coat he hung it from the hook, sealing off the mirror window. From his jacket pocket he extracted a compact transistor radio he had purchased for the purpose. He switched it on low power to some music, bent down and placed it next to the wall grille. That neutralized the hidden tape-recorder. He straightened up.