Tweed went over, looked down the drop into a deserted street. Then, without hope, he cranked a wheel attached to the wall. It was stiff, but it turned. Rust fell on the floor and outside a hook at the end of a chain began to descend. He stopped turning the wheel.
'Newman brings the car round into this street,' Harry suggested. 'Parks it below here. I can put the body into that sack, attach the hook to it, lower the sack into the boot of the car.'
'It's risky…'
'It's more risky leaving the body here…'
Three-quarters of an hour later Newman had found his way through the labyrinth of old streets and parked the car below the hoist. In the meantime, Tweed had held open the large sack while Harry thrust the body inside. He then added sections of old chains he'd picked up off the floor.
'Why the chains?' Tweed asked.
'There's a river or a harbour nearby. The chains are to add weight so when we dump the sack in the water it will sink immediately.'
'That won't be easy…"
'None of this is easy but we've got to do it…'
Marler had explained the situation to Newman, who had co-opted Nield to stand as watchdog in the street with a whistle Harry had produced from his satchel. He would sound the alarm if anyone was approaching. Harry had tied up the top of the sack firmly with lengths of rope lying on the floor. They were now coming to the really nerve-racking part – lowering the sack attached to the hoist's hook down into the open boot of the car below. Tweed had dropped the handcuffs which had imprisoned Lisa into the sack.
Harry kept looking down as he motioned Tweed to operate the hoist. The sack swung out of the open doorway and Tweed cranked the handle. Would the hoist work properly? Would it stick half way, leaving the sack suspended in mid-air? Tweed secretly wished, as he started to crank the handle, that he hadn't agreed to this mad idea. The sack swung out into space. It stayed there. Tweed grabbed the crank handle with both hands, gave it a mighty twist.
Without warning, the handle started turning at high speed and Tweed had to let it go. The sack plunged down, landed just above the boot of the car with a heavy jerk. The sack and contents had ripped free from the now suspended hook. Newman closed the boot quietly, his hands dripping with sweat. Tweed had peered down the long drop, hardly able to believe they had managed it.
Then he started to reverse the handle to haul the chain back up. The handle wouldn't move. Harry, wearing the gloves he'd put on to deal with the body, grabbed hold of the handle, tried to force it to rewind the chain. It wouldn't move an inch.
'We can't leave the chain dangling over the street,' said Tweed.
'We can't do anything else,' Harry told him. 'We just want to get the hell out of here so Newman can drive us to the river, wherever it is. You go down now and get into the car. I'll close the doors.'
'Where are Lisa and Paula?' Tweed asked Marler who had just re-entered the room.
'In a restaurant in the pedestrian street. Lisa's OK now. I'll go and fetch them.'
'Don't say anything about what's in the boot,' Tweed warned.
'And you get out of this damned room,' Harry growled.
When they had gone, he was very careful closing the double doors. He didn't want them giving way and collapsing down into the street. He gave a sigh of relief when he'd closed them. Leaving the room, he stood outside on the top step and pulled open gently the door he'd broken. It was still held by the hinges and swung shut without any trouble. It might be splintered but he couldn't do anything about that. He used his torch to see his way down. The last thing he needed now was a sprained ankle.
As he walked over the flattened street door Marler arrived with Paula and Lisa. Tweed had the car door open for them to get inside. Lisa looked up at the hook at the end of the chain swinging just above her head.
'What's that?'
'Don't ask silly questions,' Harry said quietly. 'Get in the car. We're leaving Flensburg.'
Guided by Tweed, who had the street plan open on his lap, Newman drove round the end of the hafen – or harbour – and along Hafendamn. They had entered a new world. The town was across the water from them and there were hardly any buildings on this side of the water. Instead, they had a view of little old houses across the water, houses freshly painted and well looked after.
'The body's in the boot, isn't it?' Lisa suddenly asked.
Tweed turned round and looked at her. She seemed to be her normal self. Her brain was ticking over very well. 'Yes, it is,' he said. 'We lowered it, using an old hoist, into the boot. Inside a canvas sack. Then I couldn't manage to haul the chain back up again, the one you saw hanging over the street.'
'How are you going to get rid of it?'
'Dump it in the harbour, which is why we drove round here.'
'So it will be gone.' She sounded relieved. 'For ever…'
A little further on they passed a cluster of fishing craft, then some pleasure boats. No one was about on the barren shore. Newman drove on and then slowed. A group of ramshackle huts and sheds stood just off the road on the harbour side. He stopped behind them, masked from the houses on the distant shore opposite.
'Did you see what I saw?' he asked.
'Yes,' Harry replied. 'A large old rowboat. Ideal for the purpose. Let's get on with it…'
At Tweed's suggestion Paula left the car with him and they strolled further along the road. Behind them Lisa followed with Nield. It gave a reason for the car stopping, just in case someone across the water had noticed. Marler had stayed behind to help Newman and Harry.
They first inspected the rowboat, lying behind the first hut.
'Looks pretty ropy,' Newman observed. 'The bottom could fall out.'
'We'll have to risk it,' replied Marler, opening the boot.
Between them they lifted the heavy weight out of the boot, transferred it to the inside of the boat. Harry checked the top of the sack. When the sack had been lowered to within six feet of the boot it had ripped itself away from the hoist's hook. That was when the hoist stopped working. Harry decided the top of the sack was very secure.
'It's a narrow beach,' Newman reported, 'but it's made up of pebbles and stones. They could rip the bottom out before we reach the harbour.'
Harry had found a pair of old rubber boots behind the hut. He managed to get them on. He got back to the others in time to hear Newman's remark.
'So,' he told them, 'we carry the boat to the water. I'll take the stern, one of you takes the port side, the other the starboard. Do let's get on with it.'
In the blazing heat it was a physical ordeal as the three men slowly carried the boat with its cargo towards the water line. When they reached it and the prow was in the harbour, Newman and Marler, still holding on, moved further back. The boat was in the water when Harry, in his boots, kept pushing, then gave it a mighty shove. He nearly went under as the slope shelved steeply. He stepped back quickly, joined the others on the shore as they watched.
'Lord,' said Newman, 'it's keeping going, heading for the far shore. This harbour leads out into the Baltic. There could be a current keeping it moving.'
It was another nerve-racking experience as the boat drifted steadily across the harbour. Newman took out a pair of binoculars and scanned the opposite shore. No one was in view in front of the neat little houses but there was a restaurant with people sitting outside at tables. Luckily a deep blind obscured their view. Not that this would make any difference if the boat reached the shore.
'Sink, you devil. Sink,' Harry growled.
It must have heard him because at that moment, watching the boat through his binoculars, Newman saw the bottom give way, the sack plunging down out of sight. With no bottom, the boat began to break up and soon was no more than shards of driftwood.