by Len Deighton
‘Yes,’ I said immediately.
‘We only have German shepherds.’
‘I like German shepherds.’ A big specimen of this breed emerged from the house. It came within six feet of us, looked at the woman, before hunching its shoulders and growling menacingly at me.
‘You didn’t come to buy a dog,’ she said, looking at my face. Whatever she saw there amused her, for she smiled to show perfect white teeth. So did the dog.
‘I’m a friend of Frank’s,’ I said.
‘Of my Frank?’
‘There’s only one Frank,’ I said. She smiled as if that were a joke.
‘Has anything –?’
‘No, Frank is fine,’ I said. ‘In fact, he doesn’t even know I’ve come to see you.’
She’d been peering at me with eyes half closed, and now suddenly she opened her mouth and gave a soft shout of surprise. ‘You’re Werner’s English friend, aren’t you?’
We looked at each other, momentarily silenced by our mutual surprise. ‘Yes, I am, Mrs Volkmann,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t come here to talk about Werner.’
She looked around to see if her neighbours were in their garden listening. But her neighbours were all safely behind their double-glazing. ‘I can’t remember your name but you are the Englishman who went to school with Werner…Your German is perfect,’ she said, and changed into that language. ‘No need for us to speak English. I’ll put Rudolf in the run and then we’ll go inside and have coffee. It’s made already.’ Rudolf growled. He did not want to go into the run unless he took me with him.
‘During the week, I have a girl to help me,’ said Mrs Zena Volkmann while Rudolf submitted meekly to being pushed into the wired compound. ‘But at the weekend it is impossible to get anyone at any price. They say there is unemployment but people just don’t want to work, that’s the trouble.’ Now her accent was more distinct. Ostelbisch: Germans from anywhere east of the River Elbe. Everyone agrees it is not pejorative, but I never heard anyone say it except people who came from west of the River Elbe.
We entered the house through a pantry. Arranged in rows upon a purring freezer were twelve coloured plastic bowls containing measured amounts of bread and chopped meat. There was a mop and bucket in the corner, a steel sink unit and shelves with tins of dog food, and choke chains and collars hanging from a row of hooks on the wall. ‘I can’t go out for more than an hour or two because the puppies have to be fed four times a day. Two litters. One lot are only four weeks old and they need constant attention. And I’m waiting for another litter any day now. I wouldn’t have started it all if I’d known what it was like.’
She went up a step and opened the door into the kitchen. There was the wonderful smell of freshly made coffee. There was no sign of anything connected with the dogs. The kitchen was almost unnaturally clean and tidy, with gleaming racks of saucepans, and glassware sparkling inside a cabinet.
She snapped off the switch of the automatic coffee-maker, grabbed the jug from the hot plate, put an extra cup and saucer on the tray, and tipped some biscuits onto a matching plate. The cup was as big as a bowl and decorated with the inevitable large brightly coloured flowers. We went to sit in the back room. The rear part of the house had been altered at some time to incorporate a huge window. It gave a panoramic view of a piece of farmland beyond the dog enclosures. There was a tractor making its way slowly across the field, disturbing a flock of rooks searching for food in the brown tilled earth. Only the grey line of the Wall marred this pastoral scene. ‘You get used to it,’ said Mrs Volkmann, as if in reply to the question that every visitor asked.
‘Not everyone does,’ I said.
She took a packet of cigarettes from the table, lit one and inhaled before replying. ‘My grandfather had a farm in East Prussia,’ she said. ‘He came here once and couldn’t stop looking at the Wall. His farm was nearly eight hundred kilometres from here but that was still Germany. Do you know how far from here Poland is now? Less than sixty. That’s what Hitler did for us. He made Germany into the sort of tiny second-rate little country that he so despised.’
‘Shall I pour out the coffee?’ I said. ‘It smells good.’
‘My father was a schoolteacher. He made us children learn history. He said it would prevent the same things happening again.’ She smiled. There was no humour in it; it was a small, polite, modest smile, the sort of smile you see models wearing in advertisements for expensive watches.
‘Let’s hope so,’ I said.
‘It will not prevent the same things happening. Look at the world. Can’t you see Hitlers all round us? There is no difference between Hitler Germany and Andropov Russia. A hammer and sickle can look very like a swastika, especially when it is flying over your head.’ She picked up the coffee I’d poured for her. I watched her carefully; there was a lot of hostility in her, even if it was hidden under her smiles and hospitality. ‘Werner wants me back,’ she said.
‘He knows nothing of my coming here,’ I said.
‘But he told you where to find me?’
‘Are you frightened of him?’ I said.
‘I don’t want to go back to him.’
‘He thinks you are living in Munich. He thinks you ran away with a Coca-Cola truck driver.’
‘That was just a boy I knew.’
‘He doesn’t know you’re still here in Berlin,’ I said. I was trying to reassure her.
‘I never go downtown. Anything I need from the big department stores I have delivered. I’m frightened I’ll bump into him in the food department of KaDeWe. Does he still go there and eat lunch?’
‘Yes, he still goes there.’
‘Then why did Frank tell you where I was?’
‘Frank Harrington didn’t tell me.’
‘You just worked it out?’ she said sarcastically.
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I worked it out. There’s nothing very difficult about finding people these days. There are bank balances, credit cards, charge accounts, car licences, driving licences. If Werner had guessed you were living in the city, he would have found you much more quickly than I did. Werner is an expert at finding people.’
‘I write postcards and have a friend of mine post them from Munich.’
I nodded. Could a professional like Werner really fall for such amateur tricks?
I looked round the room. There were a couple of Berliner Ensemble theatre posters framed on the wall and a Käthe Kollwitz lithograph. The fluffy carpet was cream and the soft furnishings were covered in natural-finish linen with orange-coloured silk cushions. It was flashy but very comfortable – no little plastic bowls or gnawed bones, no signs anywhere of the existence of the dogs. I suppose it would have to be like that for Frank Harrington. He was not the sort of man who would adapt readily to smelly austerity. Through the sliding doors I glimpsed a large mahogany dining table set with a cut-glass bowl and silver centrepiece. The largest room had been chosen for dining. I wondered who came along here and enjoyed discreet dinners with Frank and his young mistress.
‘It’s not a permanent arrangement,’ said Mrs Volkmann. ‘Frank and I – we are close, very close. But it’s not permanent. When he goes back to London, it will be all over. We both knew that right from the start.’ She took a biscuit and nibbled at it in a way that would show her perfect white teeth.
‘Is Frank going back to London?’ I said.
She’d been sitting well forward on the big soft sofa, but now she banged a fist into a silk cushion before putting it behind her and resting against it. ‘His wife would like him to get promoted. She knows that a posting to London would break up his affair with me. She doesn’t care about Frank’s promotion except that it would get him away from Berlin and away from me.’
‘Wives are like that,’ I said.
‘But I won’t go back to Werner. Frank likes to think I’d go back to Werner if and when that happens. But I’ll never go back.’
‘Why does Frank like to think that? Frank hates Werner.’
�
�Frank feels guilty about taking me away from Werner. At first, he really worried about it. That sort of guilty feeling often turns into hatred. You know that.’ She smiled and smoothed her sleeve with a sensuous gesture, trailing her fingertips down her arm. She was a very beautiful woman. ‘I get so bored at weekends,’ she said.
‘Where’s Frank?’
‘He’s in Cologne. He won’t be back until tomorrow night.’ She smiled suggestively. ‘He leaves me alone too much.’
I don’t know if that was the invitation to bed that it sounded like, but I was not in the mood to find out. I was getting to the age when feelings of rejection linger. So I drank coffee, smiled, and looked at the grey line of the Wall. It was still early afternoon but it was getting misty.
‘Then what have you come here for? I suppose London has sent you to buy me off. Do they want to give me money to leave Frank alone?’
‘What kind of books do you read on those long lonely nights when Frank’s not here, Mrs Volkmann? The days when people were paid money for not providing sexual favours went out with policemen in top hats.’
‘Of course,’ she said. A bigger smile this time. ‘And that was fathers, not employers. What a shame. I was hoping you’d give me a chance to jump to my feet and say I’ll never give him up, never, never, never.’
‘Is that what you would have said?’
‘Frank is a very attractive man, Mr – ?’
‘Samson. Bernard Samson.’
‘Frank is an inconsiderate swine at times but he’s attractive. Frank is a real man.’
‘Isn’t Werner a real man?’
‘Oohh, yes, I know. Werner is your friend. I have heard Werner talk of you. You are a mutual admiration society, the two of you. Well, Werner may be a fine friend, but you live with him for a year and you’d find out what he’s like. He can’t make up his mind about anything at all. He always wanted me to decide things: how, when, what, why. A woman marries a man to get away from all that, doesn’t she?’
‘Of course,’ I said, and tried to make it sound as if I knew what she was talking about. The truth was, I wished like hell that I had a few more people in my life wanting to take orders instead of giving them.
‘Have more coffee,’ she said sweetly. ‘But then I must insist that you tell me what this is all about. Mysterious strangers can outstay their welcome too, you know.’
‘You’ve been very patient with me, Mrs Volkmann and I appreciate that. My purpose in seeking you out was to tell you, unofficially, that under the circumstances my masters in London feel that you must be positively vetted.’
‘A security check?’
‘Yes, Mrs Volkmann. There will have to be a security check. You will be positively vetted.’
‘This has already been done when I first married Werner.’
‘Ah, well, this will be quite different. As you know, Frank Harrington is an important British official. We will have to make this what we call a Category Double X clearance. We hope you will understand why this has to be done and cooperate with the people assigned to the job.’
‘I don’t understand. Can’t Frank arrange it?’
‘If you pause a moment, Mrs Volkmann, you’ll see how important it is that Frank doesn’t know about it.’
‘Frank will not be told?’
‘Let Frank keep his private life secret. Frank’s gone to a lot of trouble to do all this…’ I waved a hand vaguely in the air. ‘How would he feel if young men from his own office had to compile reports on where you went, who you saw, how much you have in the bank? And how will he feel if he has to read reports about some old relationship that you have half forgotten and can only cause him pain?’
She inhaled on her cigarette, and looked at me through half-closed eyes. ‘Are you telling me that this is the sort of thing that you investigators will pry into?’
‘You’re a woman of the world, Mrs Volkmann. You’ve obviously guessed that the investigation has already started. None of the agents assigned to you has actually reported to me yet, but you must have spotted my men following you during the past three or four weeks. We don’t assign our most experienced people to these vetting jobs of course, and I’m not surprised that you realized what is in progress.’
I waited for her reaction, but she sat well back on the sofa and looked me in the eyes. She smoked but said nothing.
I said, ‘I should have come to tell you about all this a month ago, but so much work piled up on my desk that I found it impossible to get away.’
‘You bastard,’ she said. There was no smile this time. I had the feeling that this was the real Zena Volkmann.
‘I’m just carrying out my orders, Mrs Volkmann,’ I said.
‘So was Eichmann,’ she said bitterly.
‘Yes, well you know more about German history than I do, Mrs Volkmann, so I’ll have to take your word for that.’
I gulped down the last of my coffee and got to my feet. She didn’t move but she watched me all the time.
‘I won’t go out the back way if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to disturb the dogs.’
‘You’re frightened that the dogs will tear you to pieces,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s another reason,’ I admitted. ‘No need to show me to the door.’
‘Frank will get you kicked out of the service for this,’ she promised.
I stopped. ‘I wouldn’t mention any of this to Frank if I were you, Mrs Volkmann,’ I said. ‘This is a London decision, a decision made by Frank’s friends. If it all became official, Frank would have to face a board of inquiry. He’d have a lot of explaining to do. The chances are he’d lose his job and his pension too. If that happened, Frank’s friends might feel it was all your fault. And Frank has friends in Bonn as well as London – very loyal friends.’
‘Get out!’
‘Unless you’ve something to hide, they’ll be no problem,’ I said.
‘Get out before I set the dogs on you.’
I went back to the car and waited. I decided to give it an hour and a half and see whether my hastily improvised story provoked any comings and goings. At that time on a Saturday afternoon there was not much traffic; something should happen soon, I told myself.
I could see the house from the driver’s seat of the car. It was an hour and a quarter later that she came out carrying a big Gucci suitcase and an overnight bag. She was dressed in a leopard-skin coat with a matching hat. Real skin, of course. She was not the sort of lady who worried too much about leopards. The car arrived even before she closed the garden gate. She got into the front seat beside the driver and the car moved off immediately. I reached forward to turn the ignition key, but I had already recognized the car she climbed into. It was Werner’s Audi and Werner was driving it. She was talking to him with much waving of the hands as the car passed mine. I ducked down out of sight but they were too involved in their discussion to notice me. So much for all her lies about Werner. And so much for all Werner’s stories about her.
No point in chasing after them. Werner would be sure to see me if I tried to follow. In any case, Berlin is well covered. The security officers at the road checkpoints, the airport and the crossing places would be able to tell me where they went.
I went back to the house. I opened the pantry window with a wire coat hanger that I found in my car. She had left hurriedly. The coloured plastic bowls were piled up unwashed in the pantry sink. Frank wouldn’t like that. In fact, he wouldn’t like my putting his lady to flight if he found out what I’d done. There were lots of things he wouldn’t like.
There was a note on the phone. It said simply that Zena had gone away for a few days because of a family crisis and she’d phone him at the office next week. It went on to say that a neighbour would feed the dogs, and would Frank leave one hundred marks on the hall table.
Whatever kind of racket Werner was in, it looked as if Zena was in it too. I wondered if it depended upon getting information from Frank, and what sort of information it was.
13
From Bret Rensselaer’s top-floor office there was a view westwards that could make you think London was all greenery. The treetops of St James’s Park, Green Park and the gardens of Buckingham Palace, and beyond that Hyde Park made a continuous woolly blanket. Now it was all sinking into the grey mist that swallowed London early on such afternoons. The sky overhead was dark, but some final glimmers of sunlight broke through, making streaky patterns on the emerald rectangles that were the squares of Belgravia.
Despite the darkness of the rain clouds, Rensselaer had not yet switched on the room lights. The thin illumination from the windows became razor-shape reflections in all the chromium fittings and made the glass-top desk shimmer like steel. And the same sort of metallic light was reflected up into Rensselaer’s face, so that he looked more cadaverous than ever.
Dicky Cruyer was hovering over the boss, but moving around enough to see his face and be ready with an appropriate answer. Cruyer was well aware of his role; he was there whenever Rensselaer wanted witness, hatchet man, vociferous supporter or silent audience. But Cruyer was not a mere acolyte; he was a man who knew that ‘to everything there is a season…a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing’. In other words, Cruyer knew exactly when to argue with the boss. And that was something I never did right. I didn’t even know when to argue with my wife.
‘You didn’t tell Frank that it was all genuine material?’ Cruyer asked me for the third time in thirty minutes.
‘Frank doesn’t give a damn whether it’s genuine or not,’ I said. They both looked at me with pained shock. ‘As long as it didn’t come dribbling out of his Berlin office.’
‘You’re hard on Frank,’ Bret said, but he didn’t argue about it. He took off his jacket and put it on a chairback, carefully arranging it so it wouldn’t wrinkle.
‘How would you like it wrapped up?’ I said. ‘You want me to tell you that he’s sitting at home every night trying on false whiskers and working out new codes and ciphers just to keep in practice?’ I suppose I was angry at Werner’s rumour about Frank not wanting me to inherit his job. I didn’t believe it, but I was angry about it just the same. The friendship between Frank and me had always been ambivalent. We were friends only when I remembered my place; and sometimes I didn’t remember my place.