Hope

by Len Deighton

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve made it official. George. We’ve notified the Warsaw embassy to request a copy of the death certificate. The D-G just nodded it through; there was no argument or discussion.’

  ‘Was Dicky there?’

  ‘For the morning meeting, yes.’

  ‘Dicky is obsessed about proving George Kosinski’s contacts with the Stasi. He’ll chalk it up as a success story. I suspect he’ll use the Polish death certificate to turn over everything George owned or had contact with.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s in the new Police and Criminal Evidence Act. He’ll use the certified death to support a claim that an arrestable offence has been committed. On that basis he could claim that all George’s property is “of substantial value to the investigation”. His one-time property too. Nothing could stop Dicky seizing, searching and entering anywhere he fancies, and grabbing what he wants to look at.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Are you forgetting that this apartment would be included in that description?’

  ‘He wouldn’t dare.’ She paused. ‘Would he?’

  ‘I don’t like it, Fi.’

  ‘Because you don’t like Dicky,’ she declared categorically.

  ‘No, not because I don’t like Dicky. I don’t like it because I don’t believe this is Dicky. I think Dicky is acting on instructions.’

  ‘From above? Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. Who has he been with recently?’

  ‘No one. He came in for the first meeting and then said he was too ill to work and went home.’ She was still standing. Remembering her tonic water, she sipped some as if it was medicine, and then put the glass on the table, sliding the note from Mrs Dias under it to prevent ring-marks on the polished table-top.

  ‘I thought that he was suddenly taken ill because the Polish beds were too hard and there was no central heating.’

  ‘No, it was genuine,’ she said.

  ‘Genuine hypochondria. Well, that’s a step in the right direction. Should you see a doctor about that back of yours?’

  ‘Dicky says George is dead. He wants to put a notice in the newspapers. What do you think?’

  ‘About Dicky or about George?’

  ‘Dicky wants them to repatriate George’s body. But I said George is a Swiss resident. What would be the legal position? Is there any member of George’s family who might be persuaded to request the return of the body you saw?’

  ‘We saw no body. Just a lower leg and foot.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ said Fiona. ‘It’s the burial I’m thinking of.’

  ‘You sound like Dicky,’ I said. ‘Examining a leg is inconclusive. No one files away records of toe-prints. And most hospitals amputate far more legs than arms, so it’s often possible to buy a leg from some unscrupulous incinerator man or theatre orderly.’

  ‘How disgusting. Why do they amputate more legs than arms? And why couldn’t anyone see it had been surgically amputated?’ This was Fiona as she used to be; argumentative and challenging.

  ‘It hadn’t been surgically amputated; it had been crudely hacked away from the upper leg.’

  ‘Doesn’t that rather overturn your theory that it came from a hospital?’

  ‘On the contrary; it strengthens it. The reason hospitals amputate more legs than arms is due to the way that circulatory problems more commonly affect the legs when patients become unable to walk or exercise. Such limbs are dead and blackened, but these jokers needed a good-looking leg – that means one amputated because of physical damage… in a traffic accident or whatever. But such a limb would have come complete with the trauma, the damage. To make it convincing they would have to cut it off at the knee, and that’s what they undoubtedly did. Anyway it wasn’t George, rest your mind on that. The foot wouldn’t have fitted into George’s shoe.’

  She was still standing, resting her hands on the back of the chair. She stared at me for a moment: ‘No one else noticed that?’

  ‘That’s why they’d hacked off the big toe. And anyway it was all too phoney: the flesh obviously hadn’t suffered that kind of damage while the shoe was still on it. The shoe was in relatively good condition. Obviously they got one of George’s shoes afterwards, then they saw it was too small for the foot, so they hacked the big toe off the foot. That meant they had to make the injury look as if it had been chewed by an animal. So then they had to make the shoe look like some animal had bitten into it while the foot was still inside it. It would be a difficult piece of fakery even if it was done in a laboratory. Far beyond those jokers.’

  ‘Is that conclusive? Perhaps the leg you saw wasn’t George’s leg, but that doesn’t prove that George isn’t dead.’

  ‘I know I’m right,’ I said in a way that perhaps I wouldn’t have chosen except for the last drink or two. ‘And no killer would have had time enough to dig a grave into that icy rock-hard ground. Then he’d have to dispose of the spade. How? Worry about fingerprints and other traces? No way. You’d be crazy to think about burying a corpse when you could simply toss it into the river and let it be carried away for miles. Or hide it somewhere it would never be found. That whole forest is a tangle of old bunkers, trenches and decaying fortifications.’

  ‘Did you discuss all this with Dicky? He seems certain that George is dead.’

  ‘He didn’t ask me. He didn’t ask because it suits him to believe it.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you either.’ She was still standing behind the chair, gripping the back of it so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  ‘No, you didn’t, but I’m telling you anyway. I’m telling you because I think your ownership of this apartment might be in jeopardy.’

  ‘Why should you care? You hate this apartment. I can see it in every move you make.’

  ‘You are my wife and I love you: that’s why. And I don’t hate this apartment.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. How could you? You’re hardly ever here.’

  ‘I’m trying to help you.’

  ‘This belief that Dicky is about to barge in here and ransack the apartment… Is that anything to do with the suitcase you removed and took with you yesterday?’

  ‘There were personal things of mine that I’ve now stored elsewhere. Things I wouldn’t want Dicky rummaging through.’

  ‘Things the Department might not approve of?’

  ‘About a thousand quid in foreign currency, plus fifty gold sovereigns my father left me. My father’s moth-eaten army tunic. Some forged identity papers, some documents that could incriminate old friends, or get them into bad odour. My parents’ wedding photos and a leather-bound copy of Die schöne Müllerin that was a present from the von Munte library. A couple of hand-guns – one of them Dad’s army-issue Webley – and some ancient ammunition.’

  Her face softened. ‘I didn’t mean to pry, Bernard. I’m sorry. I get upset.’ She pulled out the chair, sat down and sipped more of her tonic water. Then she gave me her attention in a softer and more friendly way. ‘What’s it all about, Bernard? Why would they want to sequester George’s possessions? What do you think might be behind it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Fi, and that’s the truth. But it’s probably something to do with Tessa’s death. That’s the only connection that could link George to the Stasi.’

  ‘You were there when Tessa was killed,’ said Fiona.

  ‘We were both there,’ I pointed out gently. ‘But why was Tessa there?’

  ‘You brought her with you in the van.’

  ‘I know, but she was meant to be there, Fi. Soon after I left the party at Tante Lisl’s there was a man looking for her. He had a motor bike and he turned up at the Brandenburg exit. I think he’d arranged to take Tessa there.’

  ‘But why was she there?’

  ‘She had some strange friends, Fi, you know she did. And she was taking some kind of dope. I think it was coming to her through one of the Stasi people. Someone wanted her there and arranged for her
to be there, but whether the man on the motor bike was one of our people I still don’t know. He might have been one of Tessa’s casual affairs. You know how batty she could be.’

  ‘I let the family down,’ said Fiona. ‘If I’d been here with her, it might have all turned out differently. Yes, she probably was on some kind of dope. I’ve been reluctant to face it, but it goes back a long time…’

  ‘Stasi agents talked to George in Zurich. Polish Bezpieca too, I suspect.’

  ‘That’s what Dicky said.’

  ‘George was moved so smoothly from Zurich to Warsaw. Really professional job. No trace of tickets or paper or witnesses.’

  ‘Dicky has our people in Berne still looking.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath: Berne will find nothing. It was beautifully done; not in their league.’

  ‘Not so beautifully done, if you tracked him down to his brother’s house.’

  Clever, logical Fiona; I wondered if she was going to bring that up. ‘A lucky guess. I picked up the trail. Suddenly I hear about him getting drunk in Warsaw bars and making a nuisance of himself. He must have broken away from his minders.’

  ‘Wouldn’t his minders have grabbed him back?’

  ‘Not if they were Germans. Germans, even Stasi, tread warily in Poland. And George’s brother Stefan is still influential there. I think George escaped from his Stasi minders, and made such a nuisance of himself that they backed off to watch what happened.’

  ‘And killed him?’

  ‘There’s nothing conclusive to say that George is dead. Everything we saw in Poland points to a lot of phoney clues to make us think he’s dead. Or make someone else think that.’

  ‘Clues left by his Stasi minders? But you were not fooled.’

  ‘Pros who can spirit George out of Zurich to Warsaw without leaving a trace are not the sort of dudes who leave a wrist-watch, a laced and tied brogue shoe and a decomposing foot as evidence of death.’

  ‘So who arranged it?’

  ‘It could be George himself.’

  ‘How could George arrange for the death certificate?’

  ‘Oh, Stefan is in on it, of course. Stefan has a lot of clout and Stefan’s wife is the daughter of some top-brass Party official. And this is Poland we’re talking about. Germans are not popular there, German communists are heartily despised. If a big-shot like Stefan wants a death certificate so that his brother can escape the clutches of the Stasi, what Pole is going to say no?’

  ‘Dicky will riot when he hears all this,’ she said sadly. Despite all her experience, Fiona was reluctant to believe that death certificates could be fixed; even in Poland. Sometimes I wondered whether it was university education that produced that kind of unquestioning belief in signed pieces of paper.

  ‘So don’t tell him,’ I suggested.

  ‘But darling…’

  ‘This is Tessa’s husband we are talking about. If George wants to be written off as dead, he must have a good reason for it. He’s family.’

  ‘It’s not right to mislead Dicky,’ she said.

  ‘No one’s misleading him, he’s chock-full of theories. If you persuade Dicky that George is alive, Dicky will rush out a long and elaborate report saying so. Dozens of people will have access to it. One word in the wrong place could put George in jeopardy.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, the faked death won’t fool any experienced Polish police investigator for longer than two minutes.’

  ‘That depends on whether the Polish investigator wants the truth to be known. Stefan is a fixer. He no doubt fixed the cops at the same time as he fixed the death certificate.’

  She sighed. ‘I suppose you could be right. But I feel very uneasy keeping this from the Department. We’re supposed to be loyal employees. We’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, and our contracts… I mean, darling!’

  ‘I went to see Harry Strang.’

  ‘With the children?’

  ‘Yes, with the children.’

  ‘I wondered how it could have taken you so long to get to your mother. How was he?’

  ‘Up to his eyebrows in pig-shit, but he seems to like it.’

  ‘Some people do. And let’s face it, would that make much of a change for any of us?’ Wow – this was Fiona showing her feelings; something that didn’t happen often. ‘And his son was with him?’

  ‘Son?’

  ‘The retarded one. Tommy. He must be grown up by now.’

  ‘I didn’t know Harry had a son.’

  ‘How can you be so thick, Bernard? Harry’s wife had a nervous breakdown after the baby’s condition was diagnosed. That’s why they split up. It’s every mother’s nightmare. There wasn’t any kind of a row between the two of them; his wife just couldn’t take it. Little Tommy. It was a tragedy. After that, Harry gave every spare minute of his life to looking after the child.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said.

  ‘So why did you go down there? He obviously isn’t your closest old pal.’

  ‘Over that period… That time when they brought you out of the DDR, Harry Strang was filling in as the personal assistant to the D-G.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Morgan was sick.’

  ‘He had an arse filled with lead shot. Harry says the old man had no meetings about you, or your escape.’

  ‘But would Harry tell you?’

  ‘He’d been warned off, I think. Top-floor alarm bells have been ringing. Recently.’

  ‘If you’ve been roaring around making enquiries about how they brought me out… Of course they are alarmed. I’m not surprised at that.’

  ‘No meetings, Fi! Are you listening? The D-G had no meetings. I’ve already had one of the Night Duty people go to his office and take a look at the old man’s appointments and desk diary, and that confirmed it.’

  There came a sharp intake of breath to let me know that getting a pal to sneak a look at Sir Henry’s personal appointment book and diary was not playing the game, so I didn’t tell her that I’d also phoned Mrs Porter, Uncle Silas’s housekeeper, and discovered that there were indeed meetings – one particularly long meeting – between Silas and the D-G immediately before they spirited Fiona out of the East.

  Fiona asked: ‘So what am I supposed to say now?’

  ‘Don’t you see, Fi, it means the D-G was keeping everything outside the office.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a leap in the dark, isn’t it, darling?’

  ‘Meetings with Uncle Silas, for instance.’

  ‘You can’t be sure.’

  ‘Of course I can’t be sure, but Harry hinted. Uncle Silas and the D-G hatched it up together. I’d love to hear what they said about Tessa.’

  ‘I wish you’d drop it all, Bernard. Tessa’s dead. You know how much I’d like to see her given a decent burial, but that doesn’t mean I want to turn the Department upside-down. I’m worn down with it. Perhaps it would be better to let her rest.’

  Well, well. This was quite a change of heart from the woman who conspired to send Timmermann to investigate her sister’s death on a freelance basis. I said: ‘Suppose that the plan was to kill Tessa? Would you still prefer to let it go?’

  Fiona was good at controlling her feelings. Perhaps our marriage would have benefited from her being less good at it. ‘You always go off at a tangent, darling. How does this connect up? What has it got to do with George going to Poland?’

  ‘It’s a part of the same business, it’s got to be.’

  ‘George went willingly, didn’t he? You’re not going to tell me they drugged him and rolled him in a carpet or something?’ Since working in the East, Fiona had become less condemnatory about our enemies, or perhaps more realistic would be a fairer way of describing it.

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, he went willingly. George employed that fellow Timmermann. Timmermann was killed and then George goes away, covering his sudden disappearance by making sure Ursi his housekeeper girl wasn’t too alarmed.’

  Fiona stroked the arm of her fur coat while she thought about it. />
  I said: ‘Those Stasi hoodlums took Tessa’s engagement ring to Switzerland to show it to George.’

  ‘What?’ She almost jumped out of her skin. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I went to the jeweller in Zurich. George took the ring there for cleaning. I saw it; a heart-shaped diamond with four small diamonds. It was Tessa’s engagement ring all right.’

  ‘Why would George take it to be cleaned?’

  ‘You know how distrustful George can be. I think it was a way to find out whether it was a paste copy without actually asking them.’

  ‘But it’s real?’

  ‘It’s real.’

  ‘I won’t tell Dicky or anyone about your thinking George is alive. At least for the time being. After all, it’s only your theory, it’s not as if you’re withholding evidence.’

  ‘No,’ I said. Fiona had now assuaged her middle-class anxieties of being disloyal to the Crown. ‘There’s no hard evidence; it is just my theory. If I persuaded Dicky to say George is alive, and then suddenly the body arrived, Dicky would have something to complain about.’

  ‘Very well, darling. But I want you to be honest with me in future. You’re awfully secretive, Bernard, and that’s putting a terrible strain on your career, and on this marriage too.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and drank some whisky and smiled at her. This was not the time to remind her that she had plotted and planned her defection to the East for years, and never included me in the secret. But that if I wait forty-eight hours before telling her that Dicky’s wide-eyed acceptance of George’s fake death is just one more example of his stupidity, I get scolded for marital infidelity.

  Perhaps Fiona guessed what I was thinking, for she avoided my eyes and turned away. ‘I’ll have a biscuit,’ she said, and reached into the kitchen drawer for a packet of oatmeal cookies that are there for Mrs Dias’s sole use, and are replenished faithfully. I didn’t know Fiona was hooked on them too. ‘Fancy one?’

  ‘No.’ We sat there for a long time, each thinking our own thoughts until I said: ‘Remember Cindy Prettyman?’