A Patriot in Berlin

by Piers Paul Read

  They were alone in the lift as it went up to the tenth floor. In the harsh fluorescent light Gerasimov noticed a faint line of speckled grey at the roots of her hair. He adjusted upwards his estimate of her age.

  In his room he went to the minibar. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Later, perhaps.’

  He turned back. Inge came towards him, raised her arm and loosened his tie. ‘Five hundred marks. OK?’

  Gerasimov swallowed and opened his mouth but did not speak.

  Inge pulled his tie away from his neck and started to undo the top buttons of his shirt. ‘It’s usually more,’ she said.

  He nodded.

  ‘If you would give it to me now, it would make me more relaxed.

  Gerasimov reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, took out the grubby envelope containing a month’s expenses and counted out the banknotes.

  She took the money and handed Gerasimov a condom in exchange. ‘You won’t be disappointed.’

  She was as good as her word. She did not have blue eyes, blonde hair or long legs, and her breasts and skin had the slackness of a woman well over forty, but her underclothes were clean and lacy, and she smelt superb. Deftly, she slipped off her own clothes and helped Gerasimov out of his, and when they started to make love, her movements and murmurings persuaded him that she was transported against her will. Her eyes became bleary, her murmuring became groans, her groans gasps, until finally involuntary cries came for her mouth – yes, yes, yes, ja, ja, ja; or was it – he could not believe it – not ja, ja, ja but da, da, da! With a grunt, he collapsed. She eased out from under his body and went to the bathroom.

  ‘You’re Russian?’ he shouted in Russian.

  ‘Konechno. Sure.’

  Gerasimov groaned and hid his face in the pillow.

  Chastened by the fiasco of the night before, Gerasimov spent the next morning reading through Inspector Kessler’s file. As he proceeded through its many pages, he felt a certain patriotic pride at the way Orlov and his team had frustrated the pedantic investigators of the German police. There were no footprints or fingerprints, only the bullet that had killed Grigori Maslyukov and the fragments of tobacco from the cigarettes that might have been used to burn his wife.

  The bullet had come from a Beretta and they must know that Berettas were sometimes used by the KGB. But they were a common enough weapon: if it was just that that had led them to invite Gerasimov to Berlin, then Inspector Kessler and his friends were clutching at straws.

  The cigarette burns surprised him. Orlov was trained for any eventuality but torture seemed uncharacteristic. The woman must have known something that he was determined to find out. Orlov smoked – it was in his file – probably BTs when he could get them: but then so did several million others from the former Soviet Union, not to mention Bulgaria itself and other neighbouring countries. Gerasimov did not know about Partovsky, or Kastiev, the Chechen. Partovsky seemed even less likely than Orlov to have stubbed cigarettes out on the wretched woman. It was proably the Chechen: those savages from the Caucasus thought nothing about that kind of thing.

  The papers from the file were spread out over Gerasimov’s unmade bed. The whore’s scent lingered on the sheets to remind him of his humiliation. He wished now that he had made her give the money back but she might have made a fuss, brought in some pimp, caused a rumpus in the hotel that would get back to Kessler who might complain to Interpol so that eventually it would come to Savchenko’s ears which would mean demotion, possibly dismissal – certainly the end to assignments abroad.

  The bitch. With some relish, Gerasimov began to visualize stubbing cigarettes out on her flaccid skin: more than the pretence that she was German, he resented the cool way she had led him to believe that she was going to give him a free ride. All the same, even if she was not worth DM500, she had learned some tricks of the trade in Berlin: she was in a different class to the bumpkins in the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow.

  Gerasimov went back to the files. The junior detective, Dorn, had checked the coming and going from Schönefeld airport, but they must know that no trained agent from the First Chief Directorate would fly in from Moscow on a Russian passport, murder the Maslyukovs and then fly out again the next day. Orlov had almost certainly travelled as the German Hans Lauch and would now be in Switzerland as Franz Grauber, France as Marcel Jeanneret or even the United States as Edward Burton. The best way to trace him would be through hotel registers, apartment rentals or car-hire companies. There might also be bank accounts in any of these names. The bulk of the Maslyukovs’ money, if he had retrieved it, would be in a secret numbered account, but he would have to have established some facility for his everyday requirements.

  The names would have to wait. If he gave them now to the Berlin police, they might find Orlov within a week or at any rate before he did, and Savchenko’s orders were most emphatic. On no account was Orlov to be allowed to talk to the German police. Gerasimov must find him and if necessary kill him, and the best way to do that was through the Volkswagen dealer in Leipzig. But that, too, could wait.

  That night, Gerasimov went to the movies – Terminator II. He turned in early and was ready in the lobby of his hotel at eight the next morning when Inspector Kessler came to fetch him and take him out to Zehlendorf to visit the scene of the crime.

  ‘Were you able to read the file?’ asked Kessler.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Your investigations have been most thorough.’

  ‘Could it be the work of this man you call Ivan the Terrible?’

  Gerasimov shrugged. ‘As you know, there are no real clues to point in any particular direction.’

  ‘There is the tobacco …’

  ‘Yes. Bulgarian tobacco. A favourite smoke in the Soviet Union. But also in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary …’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It seems extraordinary,’ said Gerasimov, ‘that if large numbers of icons were stolen, they have not reappeared in the art market.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Kessler. ‘That’s why we think it’s not a simple burglary.’

  ‘I see that the Maslyukovs had foreign bank accounts?’

  ‘We assume so. Numbered bank accounts in Liechtenstein and Switzerland.’

  ‘Is there no way to discover whether anyone has used them since the murder?’

  ‘We don’t even know the numbers or where they are.’

  ‘And could anyone, knowing the numbers, make withdrawals?’

  ‘With a certain type of numbered account, yes.’

  ‘To obtain the numbers was perhaps the reason for torturing the Maslyukov woman?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kessler paused, then said bluntly: ‘The job was so expert that some have suggested an intelligence angle.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Perhaps Maslyukov was a conduit for funding secret operations?’

  ‘For the CIA?’ asked Gerasimov innocently.

  ‘Or perhaps some Soviet organization?’

  ‘The KGB?’

  ‘Is it possible?’

  ‘I gather some of their people have been involved in icon smuggling …’

  ‘And they use Berettas.’

  ‘Yes. But then so does James Bond.’

  Kessler grunted. ‘You heard nothing in Moscow?’

  ‘The KGB never did confide in the militia and now, as you may know, there is no KGB. However, the influence of the Lubyanka is still there, and I would not have been sent here if the KGB had anything to hide.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It seems more likely, in my opinion, if this really has the hallmark of an intelligence operation, that it is the work of some former officers in the Stasi who have been obliged by their reduced circumstances to turn to crime.’

  Kessler scratched his cheek. ‘We thought of that. The hypothesis was rejected.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The ex-Stasi agents are under surveillance.’

  ‘All one hundred thousand of them
?’

  ‘The important ones. Anyway, there’s no evidence to suggest it.’

  They arrived at the house in the Dubrowstrasse where the Maslyukovs had been killed. The house was empty. Kessler opened the front door. ‘It was only rented by the Maslyukovs,’ he said. ‘The owners have tried to let it but until now …’ He sniffed the musty air. ‘It still smells of murder.’

  They did a tour of the house. Kessler pointed out to Gerasimov where Grigori Maslyukov’s body had been found, and where Vera Maslyukov had been tied to the chair. The chair had been removed to the police laboratories; so had the tape deck and cassettes. The two men went to the kitchen, then to the bedroom. ‘Their correspondence?’ asked Gerasimov.

  ‘At the lab … what there was of it.’

  ‘Some of it in Russian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It might be useful if I looked through the letters.’ Another timewaster.

  ‘Very well.’

  They came down the stairs. ‘It’s a pity,’ said Gerasimov, ‘that we weren’t informed earlier.’

  ‘Applications through Interpol take time.’

  ‘Of course. And I don’t wish to suggest that our technical expertise is equal to yours. However, trails are more difficult to follow when they are cold.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Our friend, Ivan the Terrible –’

  Kessler frowned. ‘You think it might have been him?’

  ‘It’s certainly a theory worth pursuing.’

  ‘We shall see what we can do when we get your file on Ivan the Terrible from Moscow.’

  ‘Of course. And in the meantime I might pursue some enquiries among the Russians living here in Berlin. You never know. They may be willing to tell things to a compatriot that they would not say to the German police.’

  Kessler left Gerasimov at the police laboratories to look through the Maslyukovs’ correspondence, then drove back to his office in Schöneberg where he summoned Dorn.

  ‘The Russian tart. What did she say?’

  ‘That he claimed to be a Canadian called Turner and thought she was German. She said she charged him two hundred DM but she had five hundred in a roll in her purse. I tell you, chief, if that man’s KGB, then no wonder the Soviet Union went down the drain.’

  ‘Are you sure she isn’t a contact?’

  ‘For the clap?’

  ‘For the KGB.’

  Dorn shrugged. ‘Ask your friend in the BfV. From where I stand, she’s a shop assistant who moonlights as a part-time whore.’

  ‘Odd that he should choose a Russian.’

  ‘Berlin’s crawling with them.’

  ‘All the same …’

  ‘He spent yesterday in his bedroom. The maid said that there were papers spread out all over the bed. In the evening he went to see Schwarzenegger …’

  ‘Did he meet anyone in the cinema?’

  ‘No. Unless he slipped a note to the person sitting next to him. Our man was three rows behind.’

  ‘So he may be just what he seems?’

  ‘What do the BfV say?’

  ‘Leave him on a long leash. Go on with surveillance but keep it discreet.’

  Dorn left. Kessler called Grohmann. ‘So far, he’s behaving as if he’s just what he says he is, a plodder from the Moscow militia.’

  Grohmann did not reply.

  ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m thinking.’

  ‘We keep an eye on him, right?’

  ‘Yes. But he mustn’t know. If the Maslyukov murders were one of their operations, he’ll do what he can to throw dust in our eyes. Or simply obstruct by inaction …’

  ‘That seems to be his tactic so far.’

  ‘What about this Ivan the Terrible?’

  ‘Nothing on our files. But then there are new groups from Russia arriving all the time.’

  ‘We’ve nothing to lose by leaving him to his own devices if that’s what he wants. Check on everyone he goes to visit. If there is an Ivan the Terrible, he may find him. If it was a KGB operation, he may expose it by trying to cover up the trail.’

  ‘I don’t have the men for twenty-four surveillance,’ said Kessler.

  Grohmann hesitated, then said: ‘I’ll see if I can arrange some help.’

  FOURTEEN

  It quickly became known in the Excursus office that Dr McDermott and Dr Serotkin were now more than colleagues and friends. Francesca tried to act normally in Andrei’s presence, but inevitably gave herself away – not to the men like Günter Westarp or Julius Breitenbach, or even to that dedicated academic, Frau Dr Koch; but Dora and Gertie, the two secretaries, were quick to note her changed manner and passed on their discovery to the incredulous Julius with whom they were on gossiping terms.

  The first person to get confirmation of the suspicions that she had harboured for some time was Sophie Diederich. She realized at once that there could be no other explanation for Francesca’s metamorphosis in so short a space of time from a brisk, ambitious academic to a gentle, dreamy, cosy girlfriend who, instead of rabbiting on about Kandinsky and Malevich, brought every conversation back to Serotkin.

  ‘So you are more than just good friends?’ Sophie said to Francesca one day when they met for lunch.

  ‘Can you be more than good friends?’ asked Francesca with a sly smile.

  ‘Yes, of course you can. Stefi and I were friends, and then we were more than friends. We were lovers.’

  ‘Isn’t it better to be friends first, and then lovers?’

  ‘I suppose so. Unless he is also a friend of your husband’s.’

  ‘I haven’t got a husband.’

  ‘So?’ Sophie waited.

  Francesca nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re lovers?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He only wants an American passport,’ Sophie blurted out.

  Francesca looked offended. ‘That hasn’t come up.’

  ‘So what does he want?’

  ‘Me, I guess.’

  ‘Don’t believe it.’

  ‘Thanks!’

  ‘I don’t mean that you aren’t attractive but …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stefi mistrusts him.’

  ‘He’s certainly mysterious.’

  ‘If … if he fancied you,’ said Sophie, ‘then why did he wait for so long?’

  ‘I was the one who waited.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’

  Francesca sighed as she considered. ‘I don’t know. Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point, I guess.’

  ‘I don’t understand French.’

  ‘That’s Pascal. The heart has its reasons that reason cannot comprehend.’

  ‘I admit that he’s handsome,’ said Sophie reluctantly.

  ‘Dashing,’ said Francesca.

  ‘And he did save you from those Turks …’

  ‘That must be it,’ said Francesca, laughing, ‘I just melted before his machismo except …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was the one who took the melting. I had to hit him when he was down.’

  ‘You seduced him?’

  ‘It’s always the woman who decides.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He was sick, in bed. I … ministered to his needs.’

  ‘When he was sick?’

  Francesca smiled as she remembered. ‘He was getting better.’

  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Kill or cure.’

  Sophie shook her head. ‘But what do you know about him?’

  ‘Next to nothing. But I like that. In America, men give you their life story on the first date and, by and large, never talk about anything except themselves. Unless they feel they have to give you a turn to get you into bed.’

  ‘So what does the professor talk about when you are alone together? Kandinsky?’

  ‘Yes. Kandinsky. And his own ideas about life and history, Russia, women. He re
cites poetry. He has a phenomenal memory. He can quote whole chunks of writers like Dostoyevsky. Again, in America, art historians only talk about art.’

  ‘So you love him for his mind?’

  ‘His body’s not so bad.’

  ‘Francesca!’

  Francesca’s expression became serious. ‘You should understand, Sophie, because there’s something mysterious about Stefi, too.’

  ‘Of course. And the trouble with Paul was that he was so honest and transparent that you always knew what he would think and what he would say.’

  ‘So you got bored.’

  Sophie shrugged. ‘Yes. I did.’

  ‘Love only lasts if there is mystery.’

  ‘And will yours last?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Will you marry him?’

  ‘He hasn’t proposed.’

  ‘He will.’

  Francesca frowned. ‘I’m not so sure. He seems decisive, but inside there are areas where he’s really confused. I mean, here he is, an expert on modern art, yet I get the impression from some of the things he says that he actually hates it. He loves me, but hates America: he seems to agree with Dostoyevsky that there’s not much to choose between emigrating to America and committing suicide. He loves Russia. He hates the suffering of the Russian people. But he’s ambiguous about the reforms …’

  ‘He doesn’t like Gorby?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’d like to rebuild the Berlin Wall?’

  Francesca laughed. ‘No. I’m sure he wouldn’t go as far as that. He just loves Russia and its traditions and its values, and I guess he’s afraid they’ll now get swamped as it opens up to the Western world.’

  ‘Shall I tell you something interesting?’ said Sophie. ‘That is just what Paul used to say about the DDR.’

  ‘Would he say that now?’

  ‘I don’t know. We only talk about arrangements for the children. But a friend said she had heard him preach at Bechtling, and he was warning his congregation of Ossies against the fleshpots of the West!’

  Andrei Serotkin now slept in Francesca’s flat. He kept a pair of pyjamas in the cupboard in her bedroom and a toothbrush in her bathroom. The Odol and the Polyman Color remained in his flat on the ninth floor.

  After sleeping alone for so long, Francesca found it difficult to get used to sharing her bed with a man. Andrei did not snore, and he had the decency not to smoke in bed, but he slept fitfully: often, she would wake up at three or four in the morning and see in the dim light that came through the blinds from the street lamps that he was lying on his back, his arms clasped behind his neck, staring at the ceiling.