Rhinoceros

'Talk, lady. How many men Tweed have?'

'Most were shot. By your men.'

'Good.' Then suspicion came into his yellowish eyes. He came forward, raised his hairy hand as though to strike her yet again. 'You lie.'

'Why should I? What difference, now you've got me?'

He liked that. He grinned. He rubbed his hands together like a man contemplating some great pleasure to come. She read his mind, kept her expression blank. Keep him talking. Buy time.

'I got you,' he said and grinned again. 'Nice for me.'

'All right. What else do you want to know?'

'How many men come with you here Franzburg?'

The ignorant swine couldn't even pronounce 'Flensburg', she thought. How many should she say? Too many might worry him, cause him to attack her and then get away from this strange room.

'Only one. He went to have a long lunch. He was hungry.'

'Only one?' He clenched his right hand into a claw. 'Break his neck. OK?'

'He has a gun.'

'Gun!' Delgado exploded into raucous laughter. He produced a long-bladed knife. 'I cut him. Small pieces. OK?'

'Whatever.'

'Now you talk. Not lie. Nice face.' He gazed at it. 'Not nice if burned. Then you tell truth.'

From a jacket thrown across the end of the large table he extracted a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a match-book. For a moment she was flooded with fear. Then the urge to kill him submerged the fear. She watched as he fumbled with the matches, a cigarette hanging loosely from his cruel lips. He lit the cigarette, puffed at it. The cigarette went out. He wasn't a smoker. And he had made one mistake. Perhaps two.

He lit another cigarette, grinning at her. It went out. He dropped the match-book, bent down, picked it up, stood up. Her legs were already stiffened. She stood up, leapt at him, threw him off balance, toppled him across the table. She hoisted her handcuffed wrists high, brought them down behind his neck, jerked her hands forward, then twisted one wrist over the other. The chain was round his neck, pressing savagely into his throat. She pulled her wrists closer together, digging the chain into his air passage.

She was on top of him, his head pressed down on the table. She held on as he struggled, lifted an arm to reach the knife he had dropped on the table. His fingers touched it, pushed it over the edge. She held on, staring down at him as he choked, his eyes bulging out of his head.

'Bastard!' she shouted. 'Bastard! Bastard!'

The arm that had reached for the knife slumped on the table with a heavy thump. His movements were becoming feeble, pointless. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the chain even tighter. He opened his mouth to scream and no sound emerged. She held on, watching him closely. Spittle appeared on his lips. He made one final effort to heave her off him, but it was a faint muscular movement. His eyes closed and he lay still. She continued to hold the chain tight against his bruised throat where streaks of blood had appeared. Only when she was quite sure he was dead did she lift herself off, standing on the floor. She was breathing heavily with the supreme effort she had made. Then her breathing returned to normal.

'God! What I wouldn't give to have a shower, a complete change of clothes.'

CHAPTER 30

'Lisa has gone. She just vanished. I should have kept a closer eye on her. We've got to find her.'

Pete Nield was in the Grosse Strasse. Tweed had never seen him look so panic-stricken. He was staring everywhere, his face distraught.

'Calm down,' said Tweed as they were joined by Paula and Newman. Marler and Harry arrived a moment later. 'Now where was she when you last saw her, Pete?'

'I dropped my Walther out of my pocket. I stooped to get hold of it and out of sight before anyone saw it. When I looked for her again she'd gone. I seem to remember she walked on ahead of me.'

'Harry, Marler, you come with me,' Tweed ordered. 'I want the rest of you to stroll up and down this section. She could have gone into a shop.'

'No, she wouldn't do that,' Nield protested. 'Not without telling me.'

'She walked ahead of you.' Tweed repeated what Nield had recalled. 'So we'll go that way slowly…'

He led the way while Harry and Marler followed close behind him. Tweed was walking slowly, trying to reconstruct what could have happened. It did occur to him that Delgado, Barton and Panko could be within the area. He stopped by an archway, looked through it, saw the small square beyond.

'This looks nice. Could have attracted her attention.'

He continued plodding along, frequently looking down at the ground. He passed the Tourist Office, went on through another archway. His old instincts from the days when he had been a detective were coming back. His eyes missed nothing. He'd glanced into the Tourist Office but hadn't expected to see her there.

'She'd be entranced by the beauty of this square,' he said aloud. 'Then she'd arrive here. What's that?'

Just beyond an entrance to an alley he'd seen a spot of colour at the foot of a closed wooden door. He picked up a handkerchief with lace edging and a bluebell in one corner. From his own pocket he took out a replica, complete with a bluebell in a corner. He showed it to Harry.

'In the car I wanted to blow my nose, found I hadn't got a handkerchief. Lisa gave me one. She's in here.' He pushed at the closed door but it was as solid as a rock. 'We've got to get in there and quickly.'

'Leave it to me,' said Harry.

He moved the short distance to the other side of the alley, took a deep breath, then threw his bulk against the wooden door. It gave way, came off the hinges, the whole door falling inwards, exposing a long stone staircase. Tweed walked in over the door, his Walther in his hand, listened. He heard nothing. Harry shone the powerful beam of the torch he'd taken out of his satchel. It illuminated a closed door at the top of the long flight of steps. Tweed ran up them, followed by Harry and Marler.

They made a lot of noise hurrying up the old stone steps. Standing by the door Tweed heard a faint knocking, then an equally faint voice.

'Help me. I can't get out. Help me…'

'Stand well back from the door,' Harry shouted. 'As far back as you can…'

He had no space to manoeuvre and Tweed was now holding his torch. Harry put his shoulder to the door on the opposite side to the hinges. He leaned into it with all his strength. The hinges held fast but the door split on the other side, flew open. Tweed walked in and Lisa was standing at the far end. She pointed to what lay on the table.

'It's Delgado. I killed him. He was going to torture me. I strangled him with the handcuffs he'd put on my wrists. I found the key in his pocket and freed myself.' she said calmly, too calmly for Tweed's liking.

'Marler,' he said quickly, 'take her back to Paula, then… get back here fast…'

'This is a problem,' he said to Harry when Marler had escorted Lisa out of the building. He felt Delgado's neck pulse and there wasn't one. 'The problem is someone could notice the smashed door downstairs, come up and find the body. We want to be well clear of Flensburg before that happens.'

'We'd better get rid of the body, then.'

'How?'

Harry was examining the thick canvas sack that had fallen over, spilling caulk. Then he went over to the strange double doors on the far side of the table. He fiddled with a rusty metal catch, carefully opened both doors, looked down.

'This is one of those ancient warehouses,' he told Tweed. 'They used to – ages ago – bring cargo in on horse-drawn wagons and haul it up here for storage.'