This United state

'It's all right now. Do you understand me?'

'I understand.'

'What's happened?' Tweed asked Nield.

Clearing his throat, Nield told them, in as few words as possible, his experience since reaching the top of the stone staircase. As he listened, Tweed bent down, checked the neck pulse of the body on the floor. He turned round, mouthed the word 'Dead' without saying it aloud.

'Good,' said Nield with grim satisfaction.

He then continued telling them what had happened up to the moment his knife had flown through the air like a dart. Marler whispered to him, 'Bull's-eye.'

'So,' Nield concluded, 'after the ape hits the floor you lot come charging in when you're not needed.' He grinned. 'I'm joking.'

'Could you tell me, please, who you are?' Tweed asked, turning back to the old woman, still sitting in the chair.

'You haven't said anything to me,' she told him in a clear voice.

'General Guisan,' Marler said suddenly.

'So, you are the right man,' the old lady replied. 'Kurt said you would come. You have come.'

'I come with bad news,' Marler said quietly.

'I know.' The old woman put a hand on her heart. 'I felt it here. Kurt, my husband, is dead.'

'I am sorry. He died very quickly.'

'I am Helga Irina,' she went on. 'Many years ago I was Russian. I met Kurt in the cheap bar. We fell in love then. He was clever man. He helps me to escape from Moscow. Terrible life. He takes me out to Finland. Secret route. To Helsinki. Then to West Germany. We come here, his home. We marry. He was the great man. He tell me if he loses his life his friend, the Englishman, comes. I know him if he says General Guisan. This KGB kind of man on floor follows Kurt. One day in a bar Kurt talks to his Swiss friend. This KGB man sees them. When Kurt goes his friend is made drunk by this man. Barman tells Kurt later. In his drink friend tells Kurt has wife, Irina. Me. Must be how torture man found me. The week later, after friend of Kurt is dragged from river, his head smashed.'

'Can I make sure you get home safely?' Tweed suggested. 'You have had a terrible time. I am sorry.'.

'No!' Irina jumped up from the chair quickly, looked at Marler. 'Kurt tells me give the little black book to the Englishman who says General Guisan.'

She staggered as she began to walk. Tweed grasped her arm, helped her to walk. After a few paces her legs moved normally. She went to the wall to one side of the stove, her gnarled right hand reaching up to a section of the wall. Her fingers worked with surprising agility, Tweed noticed, as she slowly eased out a stone which appeared to be firmly embedded in the wall. She seemed to read Tweed's thoughts.

'I was seamstress in Russia. I am seamstress in Basel when Kurt has married me. It gives me good money to live with.'

She had released the oblong stone which Tweed took from her. Behind where the stone had rested was a cavity. Reaching inside, she brought out a small black book with a faded cover. She walked across the room, handed it to Marler. Behind her back Tweed took out his wallet, extracted ten one-thousand-franc Swiss banknotes, put them in his coat pocket.

'Thank you,' said Marler, taking the notebook from her.

'That is what I would never give to the torture man – no matter what he does to me. Kurt says it has important information.'

'I must pay you the fee Kurt earned.'

'No! It is his gift for you.'

Staring at Marler, Tweed jerked his head towards the door. It was a gesture Marler grasped immediately.

'Now I will take you safely home,' Tweed said.

'It is not needed,' Irina protested. 'I know the way.'

'There may be more bad men outside. I will take you home,' insisted Tweed.

'The stove!' Irina turned, walked to it, bent down and turned something. 'Now it goes cool, then out.'

'We'll deal with that,' said Marler.

'Get out of here as soon as you can,' Tweed whispered to Newman. 'If the police arrive that dead body would take some explaining.'

'Will do…'

Irina had picked up her coat which lay in a heap behind the chair she had sat in. Marler presumed the thug had torn that off her, thrown it down before he began his foul work. He waited until Tweed had escorted Irina halfway across the square and then slipped outside. It was his job to shadow them, then keep out of view while he followed Irina to her home – to make sure she arrived there safely.

'You said at one moment your name was Helga Irina,' Tweed began. He was steering her mind into another direction, hoping it would help her to forget the dreadful ordeal she had suffered. 'Irina is Russian,' Tweed went on as they continued walking. 'Helga is German. I do not understand.'

'You are the boss? The Englishman's boss?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Thank you for what you save me from. I did not thank that nice young man who save me. Please give him my love.'

'I will do that.'

'You were asking me about Helga.' She had slipped her arm inside Tweed's, so he knew he had at last established her confidence in, him. 'My mother was Russian,' she explained. 'She met a German prisoner-of-war who escaped from Stalin's gulag. They fell in love and were married secretly by a priest who had an underground church. So I am Irina for my mother, Helga for my father. They worked for the anti-Communist opposition. I was told by a friend they were trapped trying to escape from the meeting in a cellar. Both were shot dead. I was ten years old.'

What hellish lives some people have led, Tweed was thinking. They had crossed another deserted silent square and eventually walked into the Rheinsprung, high up and close to the Minster. Irina slipped her arm free of Tweed's and stopped. As she did so he pushed the folded banknotes into the pocket of her coat. She frowned, slid her hand inside the pocket, feeling what he had put there.

'This is a lot of money. Too much. The black book was a gift from Kurt. I leave you here, but I give back the money.'

Tweed moved away from her so she couldn't hand him anything. He spoke briefly before he began to make his way back down the Rheinsprung, knowing it would lead him to the hotel.

'Kurt earned a big fee. He gave us very valuable information. You cannot give back what Kurt earned. Take care…'

Then he was walking carefully down the steep cobbled slope, wary of its icy surface. He knew that Marler would be somewhere close by, the Invisible Man making sure Irina reached her home safely. Arriving at the bottom, passing the Alley of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, he stopped as Newman appeared out of nowhere.

'She's on her way home,' Tweed told him. 'Marler is secretly following her to make certain she gets there.'

They were crossing the empty street, stepping over the tramlines, when Nield and Butler appeared, also out of nowhere. Tweed spoke rapidly before they entered the hotel.

'Pete, you did a great job, saving that poor lady from hell. Now, all of you, we must keep away from that area.' He took a notebook from his pocket, opened it at a certain page, handed it to Nield. 'Pete, that's the phone number of Beck's temporary headquarters. Could you call him, disguise your voice, give him the address? Tell him he'll find a corpse there. Be brief – so he can't trace where you're calling from.'

Entering the hotel, he met Paula who had just emerged from the lift. She lowered her voice.

'Keith Kent has arrived. He's in your room. He told me the Americans are going berserk.'

22

Paula unlocked the room door with the key Tweed had left with her. He had asked her to stay behind in case Kent arrived during his absence. They all followed her inside, with the exception of Nield, who said he was going to his room to make a phone call.

Keith Kent was sitting in an armchair. In his hand he nursed a glass of brandy. Introductions were not necessary. They all knew the visitor. Kent lifted his glass.