"Sorry again. I'll keep my big mouth shut."
"You don't have to," he assured her. "And I'm sitting here for a reason I don't understand why the Syndicate mob didn't have more back-up at Kastrup Airport when I arrived with Serge Litov."
"Where is Louise?" asked Beaurain, slipping into the chair alongside Kellerman in the ground floor restaurant.
"She took off after someone."
"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Beaurain, his face devoid of expression.
"It's strange," the German commented. "I was just saying it comes when you least expect it. A breakthrough. I was just coming up to your room to tell you. We were sitting here when a girl went up to the reception counter and we saw the clerk turn round and look towards where my key was hanging. She rolled his pen onto the floor behind the counter to keep him busy while she checked the register of guests. She could have been anything European. She had a distinctive hairdo — very black hair cut short and close to her head — like a helmet. What's wrong, Jules?"
Beaurain's eyes were hard. I'm waiting for you to get to the point," he said with an unnerving quietness.
"After she had gone outside, Louise followed her and waited at the door for my signal."
"Why not the other way round? Why didn't you take the tail job?"
"For a reason I'll give you in a minute." The German met Beaurain's gaze levelly. "I went up to the receptionist and spun him a story about thinking I'd recognised the girl as a friend of my wife's. He opened up immediately — strange coincidence and all that. The girl was looking for a man who had dropped a wallet her husband had picked up. She described me perfectly and said her husband thought I'd come into this hotel. He — the fictitious husband — had been rushing to a business appointment and would come back in the morning."
"So she got your name?"
"She got that — and my room number."
"And Louise?" asked Beaurain.
"I gave her the go-ahead. The "black helmet" girl got into a car and Louise followed her in the car you hired. I couldn't — just in case I was recognised from the incident at Kastrup."
"I've just heard someone else call the girl Black Helmet, and since it was an intelligent child's description it is likely to be accurate. She was visiting a couple on a barge near Bruges just before they were murdered."
Chapter Nine
Kellerman was shaken by Beaurain's news. He sat staring at the reception counter where the girl they had christened Black Helmet had played her tricks on the receptionist.
"Who is this intelligent child?" he asked in a toneless voice.
"I was talking on the phone to Willy Flamen when Louise came down to join you. A boy he interviewed had built a makeshift cabin in the branches of a tree overlooking the Darras' barge."
"How does this tie up with Black Helmet?"
"If you'll keep quiet until I've finished, I'll explain," Beaurain told Kellerman coldly.
"This boy lives nearby and he sounds a loner. He makes a habit of creeping out of his bedroom after dark and spending half the night in his hidey-hole. The Darras' barge has been moored to the same place on the towpath for quite some time."
"Perhaps their role was to act as a link for the Stockholm Syndicate."
"That was my thought too. Now, this boy — who impressed Willy, I gather — was hiding in his cabin, probably snooping on what the Darras' were up to, when a car arrives long after dark. He saw a girl visit the Darras', someone shone a lamp full on her face. The description fits Black Helmet perfectly," "It's a long way from Bruges to Copenhagen."
"Well, Louise and I made the trip. Why not Black Helmet? The kid was also there when Darras and his wife were murdered — although he didn't realise what happened at the time. He probably saw the killer and his companion arrive at the barge: an odd-sounding couple from his description."
"This precocious child is a veritable mine of information," Kellerman said cynically, not fully convinced of the danger to Louise.
"The killer," Beaurain continued, ignoring the interruption, 'was dressed like an American according to the kid. Also he wears a straw hat and dark glasses and is of average height and build. His companion is thin that was all Flamen could get on him. They operate in a strange way. The kid actually saw the thin man take from a brief-case what he called "a big gun with a bulging nozzle" and hand it to the "American" as they stepped onto the barge. My own theory — and Flamen is inclined to agree is that Black Helmet called on them a few days earlier, gave them some final instructions, and they then became a liability to Dr. Otto Berlin who ordered the two killers in to deal with them."
Kellerman pushed away his cup which a Filipino waitress had refilled with coffee. "It's all speculation, though. You still haven't conclusively linked them — or the girl — with the Syndicate."
"Black Helmet's description fits perfectly the pictures Dr. Henri Goldschmidt showed us of the two people leaving a house in Bruges. One was Dr. Berlin. With him was a girl. Black Helmet."
"Forty million Swedish kronor worth of heroin," said Benny Horn. "Intriguing how much money you can carry in one suitcase," He was facing Sonia Karnell in the narrow hallway and carried the case in his right hand. On her return she had locked the door behind her and was eager to make her announcement. Horn had been waiting for over an hour, however, and his impatience overrode her sense of the dramatic.
"I have news."
"Tell me quickly. The van for Elsinore is waiting outside. This consignment is so huge I won't be happy till it's outside Copenhagen."
"Armed with Danny's description of the man who followed Litov here from Kastrup, I checked the King Frederik Hotel where Danny left him. His passenger played it clever obviously a professional. He didn't book in at the King Frederik. I had to start hunting, hoping to God he'd chosen a large place and not some fleapit."
"I have understood you so far," Horn said quietly.
"I tried the Palace. Told my story and gave them Danny's description of the man. All I had going for me was that few people book in as late as this. No luck at the Palace. But I struck gold at the Royal Hotel."
"Yes?"
The excitement in her manner made Horn contain his impatience. She must have uncovered something important. Which was a blasted nuisance when he wanted to leave Copenhagen fast. The consignment of heroin had arrived by a small boat, which had briefly docked at the end of Nyhavn while Sonia was out searching for the mysterious shadow.
"He's staying at the Royal," Karnell continued. "Description fits Danny's. But I got a chance to read the register upside down and two more people arrived even later. One is Jules Beaurain, the other Louise Hamilton." Dr. Benny Horn slowly put the suitcase down on the carpet and stared at the girl.
"You have interesting company in town with you tonight, Jules," Ed Cottel of the CIA told him over the phone.
"Viktor Rashkin landed at Copenhagen in his Lear jet after flying from Brussels."
Beaurain sat on the edge of the bed in his room at the Royal Hotel, listening closely to his American friend. He had phoned the Grand Hotel in Stockholm on the off-chance that Ed might have arrived. It occurred to him that Cottel didn't seem to worry much about the security of an open telephone line.
Max Kellerman, perched on the edge of a wooden chair, looked stiff and serious, and Beaurain knew he was worried sick about what was happening to Louise. There had been no word from her since she had followed Black Helmet out into the night.
"Ed," Beaurain replied into the mouthpiece, 'was there anyone with Rashkin when he left the Lear jet at Kastrup?"
"Yes, a girl. Difficult to see at a distance — just as it was with the big R, apparently. She had dark hair, cut short. End of description."
"So where did they go when they left the plane? And is it still at Kastrup, waiting to take him on somewhere tomorrow maybe?"