"I can't, Jules."
"Why the hell not!" The exasperation was genuine. This was not like Erika.
"Because of Luigi. If I disappear they will kill him. He is in Rome."
"One phone call and I can have him scooped up and flown out of Italy."
"No, Jules!" She put her index finger over his mouth, removed it as he relapsed into silence and kissed him full on the lips. He found he could even remember her taste. "I must act normally, go to the meeting but if you give me a phone number I will call you and tell you where the meeting is being held as soon as I know."
Beaurain didn't like it. He felt uneasy but he couldn't budge her. Eventually he gave her Harry Fondberg's private phone number and the code-word champagne which she must use if she found it was impossible to reach Beaurain; then she could leave a message. As he walked out of her room and closed the self-locking door, he passed a man who was slowly pushing a service trolley along the corridor. The trolley's contents were concealed under a large white cloth. It was only later that he remembered the man. Too late.
Stig Palme drove his compact car up the steep road alongside the Royal Palace and turned into Stortoret, the main square where an ancient stone pump stood protected by stone bollards. A few minutes later he parked the Saab close to the entrance to one of the maze of alleyways in this medieval quarter of Stockholm.
The tiny shop he was visiting was situated half-way along the deserted alley, cobbled underfoot and so narrow he could have easily reached out his arms and touched both sides. He entered without ceremony, noted that the place was empty except for the owner and shut the door. He then turned the card hanging against the glass to indicate Closed.
Outside the shop over the door hung a huge key symbol. And the man who supplied master keys in Stockholm was its owner, Tobias Seiger. The price varied according to the status of the hotel and Seiger's estimate of how much he could screw out of the buyer. In return, complete secrecy was guaranteed. It was this wall of secrecy Stig Palme had to break down.
His mission was not helped by the fact that Seiger knew and disliked Palme. A short, bull-headed man, Seiger had a jeweller's glass in his right eye when Palme entered. Observing Palme's action in closing his shop Seiger carefully removed the jeweller's glass and placed it in an open drawer below Palme's eye level. Palme moved. His left hand whipped over the counter, gripped the pistol Seiger had been feeling for and pocketed it. Seiger found himself staring into the barrel of Palme's own gun.
"I have very little money on the premises," he began.
"We're going to talk, Tobias." The locksmith stood in a permanent stoop, brought on by years of cutting keys. His manner was a mixture of aggressiveness and oily persuasion. He had the morals of a brothel-keeper. "The Grand Hotel…"
"Did you say the Grand?"
The shop was cluttered with cupboards and there was dust and grime everywhere, including a film of dirt on the outside windows so it was very dark. Even so Palme's sharp eyes caught the brief flicker of expression which vanished off Seiger's slack-lipped face almost before it appeared. Alarm. Terror? This was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated.
To overcome Seiger's fear he was going to have to produce an atmosphere of hideous terror to prise open the oily bastard's mouth. Palme pressed the muzzle of his gun into Seiger's left ear.
"I can make you a key — the master key," Seiger babbled.
"Don't get naughty with me, Tobias. You know exactly what I'm after — I saw it in your eyes. The identity of the person who has recently asked you to do just that supply him with a master key for the Grand Hotel."
When discussing the horrific vandalisation of Louise's room, both Beaurain and Palme had realised only one explanation was possible. The culprit had obtained a copy of the master key and probably from a nearby source. And, Palme thought to himself, where could be nearer than the establishment of Tobias Seiger in Gamla Stan just across the water from the hotel itself?
"I cannot tell you! It would cost me my life. The people involved are ruthless, totally ruthless."
The terror was in Seiger's eyes, in his tone of voice, in the way he physically cringed away from Palme until the wall prevented him retreating any further. Palme's left hand caught hold of Seiger's necktie and tightened it, his knuckle pressed against the locksmith's Adam's apple.
Seiger would have screamed with the pain but the pressure of the knuckles made it impossible for him to utter a sound. The gun muzzle was pressed lightly against his right eye and the large Swede loomed over the stoop-shouldered shopkeeper.
"You can always leave Stockholm until the trouble is ended," he said with an engaging smile. "When did you last have a real holiday? Ages, I expect. An honest man like yourself, plying his trade, deserves a holiday."
He released his grip on the necktie suddenly and Seiger collapsed in a heap against the wall, his legs spread out at an absurd angle across the stone-paved floor. He used one hand to massage his bruised throat, glaring up at the intruder, then when he saw what Stig Palme was doing his expression changed, he tried to climb to his feet, found he hadn't the strength and held up a hand as though to ward off a blow. What words had not managed a gesture was achieving. Terror!
Stig Palme stood over the collapsed figure, doing what he was doing with great deliberation and with out a glance down at the locksmith. He was screwing a silencer onto the muzzle of his Luger.
The atmosphere in the tiny shop was nauseating. On entering the place Palme had been aware of a musty, damp odour a smell associated with a place which never sees the sun and where the ventilation leaves much to be desired. Added to this now was the stink of sweat streaming down Seiger's body, staining his armpits, moistening his face, the smell Palme had encountered more than once before, the stench of terror.
"These people kill!"
"We are aware it is the Stockholm Syndicate. I need a name, an address," said Palme matter-of-factly.
The latter he had no hope of — the most was a name, the least a description he could circulate in the Stockholm underworld and hope to come up with something.
"The alternative is I blow you away."
And Tobias Seiger, who spent most of his life in this pit of semi-darkness, came up with pure gold.
"A blond-haired man I can't give you a name. It was strictly a cash transaction, of course… fair-haired with sideburns… The hair was thick on the back of his neck… and he wore gold-rimmed spectacles. A little shorter than yourself but not small… about five foot eleven. We conversed in French. I have seen him twice before
… I know where he lives."
Stig Palme was careful to maintain a perfectly blank expression. It increased the pressure, keeping a sense of detachment when he was screwing on the silencer. Christ Almighty, Seiger was actually describing Dr. Theodor Norling, one of the three men controlling the directorate of the Stockholm Syndicate. Why had he not sent some minion to get the master key? Then he recalled Beaurain telling him that Norling had an apartment not far away in the posh area near St. Gertrud's Church. When Seiger came to, I know where he lives Palme forced himself to keep silent. In interrogation the art was so often to know when to keep your mouth shut.
'… it was a strange coincidence," the locksmith babbled on, "I could hardly believe it myself when I saw him on my way to work… I often spend the night with my sister who lives in Strangnas… Driving in on the E3 highway I had an urgent call of nature. I stopped by the roadside… can I have a drink?"
"No!"
It was such a delicately poised thing: any pause could stop the flow of words if Seiger thought better of what he was doing. And what the hell was all this about the E3 and out in the country? Norling's apartment was in Gamla Stan. Denied a drink, the voice, now cracked, railed on.