by David Laws
“There’s no trick he won’t perform in public. Climbing up cranes, putting on silly hats and gawping with that stupid grin into any lens he can find. I swear to you, he seeks out cameras like a ferret chases rabbits.”
His fireside companion chuckled. There was an amenable atmosphere to the place, an easy conviviality between friends. “You’re in early tonight, Christopher. No national crises to keep you at your desk?”
“Westminster, it’s a desert of a place on a Friday. Start of the great British weekend, don’t you know.”
Another guffaw, then a momentary hesitation. “No disrespect intended – but isn’t that what any politician wants? I mean, headlines and votes?”
The man in the waistcoat considered his drink. Glenfiddich, the best in the house. “There are some of us who take a more responsible approach to affairs of state. Take serious matters seriously.” Looking up at the figure on the screen, he added, “He is, despite all his antics, the occupant of very high office.”
“Quite. Mind you, I have heard it said, in some quarters, you understand, that the man’s antics aren’t the worst of it. That the reason the Establishment really hate him is because he makes them look dull, grey and boring.”
“A foolish thought, Justin, quite unworthy of you.” The man in the waistcoat sighed deeply and looked with distaste out of the window. A line of pigeons occupied a neighbouring rooftop. “Our job is to keep the nation on a safe and secure footing without any ignorant, foolish leaps into the dark.”
“I’m surprised, then, that you can bear to sit in the same Cabinet Room with him.”
A grunt, a drawing of deep breath. “More’s the pity.”
Chapter 4
Suffolk; 27 days to go
As the key went into the lock at Number 21, Harry could smell damp and decomposition. He didn’t consider himself house-proud, but when he saw what greeted him he slumped into an armchair.
The Chair of Despair, he thought immediately – headlines came easily to mind – as he stared in mute disbelief at the chaos of his living room.
Cupboards had been pulled from the wall and lay face down amid a scatter of broken glass, books were strewn with abandon among the detritus of his life, desk drawers pulled out and emptied with methodical ruthlessness. Some of his favourite photographs lay in a jumbled heap. Harry glanced into the kitchenette where the contents of the fridge obscured the red quarry tiles. He could just see the Camembert and the Pecorino lying together. They’d done a thorough job of trashing the place, and the sheer destructiveness of it posed a question: was it random, or had they targeted him personally? Did they see the name on the door and decide that today it was Harry Topp’s turn for misery?
What hurt most was the torn photo of his mother. Some vindictive instinct had led them to take it down from the windowsill and smash the frame on the floor. Harry grimaced, but vowed that no putrid little jerk of a burglar would get him down. He knew his father wouldn’t collapse at such a moment. The man would simply get on, clear it up and talk about having pity on the inadequate personalities responsible for the intrusion. Just get a grip, Harry admonished himself. At least they hadn’t smashed the big Apple Mac on his desk; nor had they touched his other treasure, the Mont Blanc Meisterstück platinum-coated fountain pen kept in a special box.
Then another thought came to him: nothing of obvious resale value had been taken. Like the TV. Or the music centre, or the half-decent watch left on the kitchen table. Or even the £5.25 for the milkman, still sitting as if nothing had happened in its usual place behind the clock on the mantelpiece.
He even grinned at that moment, conjuring up a past comment from Hector, the publican at the Old Cannon pub next door: “You’re lucky still to have a milkman.”
Just then, a knock and a female voice, a tone of inquiry. “Hello?”
The next shock of Harry’s day. The face of Erika, his ex, appeared in the hallway.
“The front door was ajar,” she said, breaking off when she saw the chaos. “My God, what have you done?”
Harry’s eyelashes flickered, a confused mix of emotions crowding in. He was all at once surprised, pleased, anxious and on his guard. What was his funny, extrovert, morose, fascinating, censorious and baffling enigma of a former lover doing here? Many times he had longed for her. Many times he’d wished she were back – but just now? Right in the middle of this mess?
He hunkered down in his chair, drew in a long breath and waited, anticipating one of her uninterruptible harangues. An avalanche of words on the subject of incapable men living in a permanent state of bachelor chaos.
But there was no icy blast. Instead she said, “Good grief, Harry, this is worse than any mess you could have made. Someone’s really turned you over. Looks like a war zone.”
He exhaled, recalling the day they parted – what was it now? At least a year, perhaps less. She’d made it plain back then she didn’t want him near her. No contact, no more talk, friendship at an end. So, he wondered, why was she back?
“Oh dear, your very own crime scene. No longer the writer, Harry, now you’re the victim, you poor man.”
Stupid man, more like, he told himself. The cynic in him rose to the fore: it was money, of course. Doubtless she was skint with some tale to tell.
He dragged his eyes from the mess in front of him and looked at her closely. Not beautiful, perhaps, but striking. She still set his pulse racing. That brunette hair tied back, a turned-down mouth and a level gaze some people found intimidating. Especially when she gave them her unblinking stare. The woman he had known, on and off, since his student days in Leipzig.
She was scanning the room, muttering incredulously at the chaos. “Really awful. A bad, bad day.”
Strange – no hostility, no tone of condemnation. Instead, exclamations of apparent sympathy.
“You haven’t seen the kitchen yet,” he said.
Two desertions on, how did he feel about her? Once he had been destroyed by her absence, utterly defeated that she had walked out on him. But now he knew he was in limbo-land; comfortable in his own company, tolerating if not accepting of his lot. He still kept the flat tidy. Admittedly, toothbrushes were no longer required to be at thirty degrees north, the spoons pointing east, or a fresh damp towel on the back doorstep to trap the dust on the bottom of his shoes. But he had not yet turned into a slob.
She came close. By the door Harry could see the boy, standing back aghast at his former home. Or was it just embarrassment? Silently lurking?
“This makes everything so much worse,” Erika said in a tone of concern that continued to mystify and confuse.
“Worse than this?”
“Much worse.”
“How so?”
“I came to ask your help,” she said. “A big ask, I know.”
He looked at her warily. What more could he do? He was up to his overdraft limit as it was.
“Something dreadful is happening here,” she said, “and we need to get together to deal with it.”
He waited – partly in astonishment and partly with caution.
“This mess just confirms what I feared,” she said. “All this destruction… it was not intended for you, Harry. You are not the target.”
“Not for me?”
“No. It was meant for me.”
“For you?” He shook his head in bafflement. “Why you?”
“Yes, for me. You see, Harry, that’s why I’m here. Because someone is trying to kill me.”
They were in the snug at the Old Cannon, once a regular haunt from the days when they were together. One more look at the state of his flat had convinced Harry. He couldn’t stand staring at the shambles any longer. She could, he suggested, explain over a pint of Gunner’s Daughter just what the devil she was talking about.
All three of them tumbled through the pub door, in past the huge stainless-steel brewing pots
of the in-house brewery, and on to the picnic-style tables that were almost empty of customers at this time of day. Just one, in fact.
“Hi, Harry!”
It was Nathan, almost bald but with huge ginger sideburns.
Harry waved a greeting. “How’s the younger generation doing these days?”
“Oh, they’re fine,” Nathan said. “It’s the parents who are the problem.”
Harry chortled. Here in the snug there was order and routine, a kind of reassuring sense of continuity, his sort of continuity, of darts, chalk and corned-beef sandwiches drenched in pickle.
However, remembering Erika’s previous lack of enthusiasm for the place, he puzzled at the ready manner in which she had agreed to go. “Fine,” had been her reaction. “Much the best. A wise move to get out of this flat.”
Drinks were bought – a whisky and a lemonade, plus the customary pint of Gunner’s Daughter – before Harry asked, “Well, why should I get out of the flat? And who’s out to get you?”
“Don’t say it as if you think I’m making it all up.” She glared back with a flash of the old hostility, and he opened both palms in a gesture of surrender. “There were men hanging round the school yesterday, asking for me by name. By both our names: Schilling and Topp.”
“Did you see them? They see you?”
“No, a friend spoke to them, played dumb, then phoned to warn me.”
“Who were they? What did they want?”
“Didn’t say, but they had strange accents. Probably European, my friend Mary said. And they mentioned that I’d just come back from Germany. Asked several people at the gate if anyone knew where I lived.”
“Oh?” he queried.
“I have,” she said, “just returned from Germany.”
“Ah… but what’s that got to do with anything? Or me? With my flat being turned over?”
Her expression changed. “That’s what I need to explain.” She sighed and was suddenly almost contrite. She took a deep breath, and Harry had a bad feeling about what might come next. “You know I’ve always been worried that some day Karl might turn up to try and claim Stefan.”
Harry glanced across at the boy, who was clutching his lemonade with a straw, the familiar blank expression in place. Not an empathetic child then, and no improvement since. Harry nodded and wondered if any runaway father was likely to turn up to claim this morose child – apparently doing well at school out in the satellite village of Great Barton, close to the tiny cottage Erika rented. They had history, Erika, Stefan and Harry. First met in Leipzig when the boy was just a baby, had a year together while Harry studied at the city’s university, and got together again in the UK four years ago at the Cannon Street flat. Finally, a second parting of ways just a year back. Eventful and varied was how he’d describe their history.
Maybe Erika was reading his mind. She said, “Now, thinking about it, I don’t believe this business of the men outside the school is anything to do with Karl at all.” She looked away. “He wouldn’t come mob-handed. Not with a team.”
Harry snorted. “Once upon a time, if you remember, he was Stasi. That’s just the way they operated.”
“Not any more. That’s all long ago in the past.”
“What then?”
Erika put on one of her looks of deep sincerity and embarked on a detailed explanation of the workings of the Stasi archive, the secret files left behind by the defeated and defunct Communist regime on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Shortly after the Wall came down and the regime imploded, a hot debate broke out over what to do with all the toxic secret police records kept on millions of East German citizens.
She didn’t get far with all this, however, before Harry interrupted. He’d heard it all before. “I know all about this,” he said, “I’m a journo, remember? I did freelance stuff over there, and I’ve done stories on the archive since.” And just to prove he hadn’t forgotten the details, he finished her own story for her: “Everyone’s entitled to go and visit the archive and examine the entries in their own file, right?”
He stopped then, seeing her expression, and added, “But of course, you couldn’t resist?” He sighed. “That’s why you’ve been back, isn’t it? To sniff out the informers.”
She remained calm. Didn’t react. “That’s not really the point.”
“It isn’t?”
“The important thing is all the formality you have to go through,” she said. “Lots and lots of red tape.”
Every visitor to the archive had to prove entitlement to view as a citizen of the former East German republic, plus details of their new life, including current address.
“So?” Harry asked.
She looked apologetic. “Sorry, Harry, very sorry.”
“Which address did you provide?” But already he was guessing the answer.
“Yours,” she said, and shrugged, even though she’d long since moved out. “It sounded better than mine.”
“Thanks!” Harry stared back at her. “Still doesn’t make any sense. What’s that got to do with my burglary?”
“Don’t you see? That’s the link.” She waved a distraught arm. “This goes all the way back to 1989. Right back to our women’s protest committee. Anneliese, Renata and me. And what we did when we got inside Stasi headquarters.”
This was too much. Harry put down his mug and held up a hand. “Hang on a minute. Not so fast. You’re getting way ahead of yourself and making connections where none exist. Why would anyone care about all that now? Why would anyone be bothered enough to trace you and come looking for you – you in particular, among all those other millions – in Bury St Edmunds, England, nearly thirty years on?”
She swallowed, and he began to worry.
“That’s what I need to talk to you about, Harry.”
“More riddles!”
“It’s to do with what I didn’t tell you about that day. What we did. What we collected, as you might say.”
“You’re making absolutely no sense at all.”
“It was what I took from the Stasi headquarters back in ’89. During the Leipzig demo.”
“For heaven’s sake, what?”
Erika looked down and began to fiddle with her big leather bag. Then she looked up at Harry. A long, lingering, forlorn look that could have been guilt or regret, but who knew with this woman?
Then she lifted on to the table a slim blue folder.
Harry stared at it for several long seconds, examining the stark blue cover overlaid with a hammer-and-compass symbol enclosed in a ring of rye. It was a symbol he recognised right enough. The folder lay on the table before them, untouched, as if it might contaminate anyone with whom it came into contact. Then he looked up, tight-lipped, his expression incredulous.
“Just what have you done?” he said.
“An echo from the past,” she said.
Eventually he leaned forward and picked up the folder, still weighing it, still mesmerised by the blunt, intimidating and chiselled capital letters below the hammer and compass symbol announcing the DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIK.
“First time I’ve touched one of these,” he said, and gave her another incredulous look before turning to the first page. It was a list. Strange names in more capitals: EICHE, KIEFER, LARCHEN. Then he read across and drew in his breath. This time familiar names, English names, and some that he recognised immediately: Larkspur, Abercrombie, Tresham. He read closely and pointed. “Some of these are Government people. This Tresham, he’s the Home Secretary.”
She didn’t reply, had her hand over her mouth, as if fearful of letting slip some further dangerous news.
He looked down again, examining the names, picturing Tresham in particular. The man with the mark of Gorbachev; the port-wine birthmark that stained his scalp. “And academics,” Harry added. “A lecturer, a professor… and this one, Frederick Rivers, he
sounds familiar but I can’t place him.”
He turned another page, flicked through to the end, then returned to the first page. “Says here it’s a master list, payments in Section B.” He looked up. “Do you have Section B as well?”
She shook her head.
“You realise what this is, don’t you?” Harry paused, then said, “It’s obvious. These code names – I get it! I remember. They’re oak, pine and larch – they’re names to hide the identities of the people listed in here. They’re their cover names.” He picked the folder up and waved it at her. “This is a list of spies, for God’s sake. Stasi spies in England. Names and addresses, the lot!”
She nodded. “I guessed.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled. “And you’ve been sitting on this, all this time, for the past… how many years?”
She nodded. “I knew you’d be angry.”
“But why? Why not show me before? Why not tell me when you first had it? This stuff is… is explosive.”
“All those names. I just hid it away. Too dangerous to know.”
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“I was scared. I guessed it was dangerous and I didn’t want you dipping into it.”
He gave her a stare of incredulity.
She put up a palm as if to ward off blows. “Look, Harry, sorry and all that, but you’re a journalist, right?”
“So you remembered!”
“You’d have got all excited and started writing about it in your newspaper.”
“Dead right I would.”
“And that would have brought all hell down on our heads.” She made a conciliatory gesture with her hands. “Look, I did read bits of it, realised it was dangerous, these were important people, one was a Sir, and they could have made big trouble for us. Remember, I’d just flown my home. I’m a refugee from my country. I have to think of my boy! I wanted quiet. I wanted peace and a new start for both of us, and what I didn’t want was you making trouble.”