by Len Deighton
‘Okay.’ He was right: I wasn’t in a fit state to go pushing anybody anywhere.
He’d brought a good car for us. Not a Trabbie or a Wartburg, nor even a Skoda: this was a metallic-silver-finish Mercedes 500 SEL with red leather seats and brand-new tyres. Even Stasi men need to show their colleagues that they have made good, but I think I’d seen it before. The only jarring note to our departure came from the old man: ‘You mustn’t go, little one,’ he told his son. ‘I only live for you. I couldn’t bear it. You on the other side. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Don’t be a silly old man,’ said VERDI, apparently unmoved by this request.
‘I’m your father,’ said the old man. ‘I love you.’
‘Then let me live my own life,’ said VERDI quietly, and pushed past him to follow me down the stairs.
‘You ungrateful little swine,’ the old man shouted over the stair-rail. ‘I hate you. Go. Stay away for ever. I might as well be dead for all you care.’
‘I came, didn’t I? I got you out of trouble yet again.’
Perhaps the exchange had embarrassed VERDI. He said: ‘They become like children when they grow old.’ When I didn’t answer he added: ‘He let his own parents die still living in the filthy little hovel where he was born. He only went back twice in all those years. He never even sent money.’
At the door a uniformed police lieutenant saluted. A sergeant opened the car door for us to get in. Nothing had been said about any favours owed to anyone. The time long ago, when his men had thrown me off the train instead of arresting me, had put me in his debt. Now the debt was doubled. There was no malevolence, nothing personal. He’d done it all very much the way it was always done when the other side misjudged things. I wasn’t resentful. I figured that had he come into the West and browbeaten Tante Lisl I’d probably have treated him worse than he was treating me. There were two police cars parked in the street outside. Half a dozen men with guns standing around with conspicuous idleness. No handcuffs or rubber truncheons. Just a little show of force and then two cars with flashing lights to lead the way to the crossing point and make sure I would be humiliated in a way that I wouldn’t quickly forget.
He rode with me. He had a plentiful supply of small-talk, larded with a few questions about Frank Harrington and Dicky and other luminaries of the Department, all contrived to demonstrate how much they knew about us. Fiona wasn’t mentioned again, and Gloria not at all, and for that delicate example of professional discretion I was grateful. Although it did leave me wondering exactly what they knew about my domestic problems.
At Checkpoint Charlie none of his tame Grepos, or the plain-clothes men, came anywhere near us. His driver took the car as near to the white wooden US Army hut as he could get without crossing over. Then the driver jumped out and opened the car door for me.
‘Does Timmermann have family?’ said VERDI as I started to get out.
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘If I don’t hear in a couple of days I’ll let them bury him here. Okay?’
I looked at VERDI. He sat back in the soft leather, folded his arms and smiled at me. He knew what I was going to say, but he wasn’t going to make it easier for me. He wasn’t that obliging. ‘What about the woman?’ I said. ‘What about my sister-in-law?’
‘No, no, no. They might want another post-mortem. The coroner won’t release that one.’
‘There is a lot of bad feeling,’ I said. ‘You don’t really want the body do you?’
‘Evidence. They say she was decapitated,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you have the post-mortem documents and the coroner’s reports. The army took care of it. That’s a part of the deal. Didn’t Volkmann tell you that?’
‘I thought she was in a burned-out car. Carbonized. I thought there was very little of her left.’
‘Maybe that’s was how it was supposed to be, Samson. Perhaps someone miscalculated. You’d better explain that to your Director-General too. Or maybe he can explain it to you.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I closed the car door. I could see I’d get nothing else from him. He was a pigheaded brute who’d seen everything. I’d caught him off-guard by tackling his father, but he’d recovered his composure now. Such men were difficult to surprise.
When I walked through the Checkpoint the American sergeant in the box didn’t even look up from his paperback book. I went to the cab rank on the corner and got inside the first cab. It could have been one of VERDI’s people staked out for me but I didn’t think so. What else did he have to gain?
‘Kantstrasse,’ I said. ‘Hotel Hennig.’
I looked back to the Checkpoint. VERDI was still in his silver Mercedes watching me. He hadn’t moved, right up to the time we turned into Kochstrasse and he was lost to view.
While the cab was driving along the bank of the Landwehr Canal, I thought about what VERDI said. I remembered the day they’d fished poor old Johnny Walker from the oily waters of the Canal. My father came home that night and didn’t eat his dinner. That was a most unusual development; my mother thought he was ill. He just sat at the table staring into space. Poor Johnny, he kept saying. Blackmailed by a choice seducer from the KGB’s selection of male prostitutes, he was sure to yield. Johnny was always a pushover for a pretty face, as I knew from being in some of the down-town bars with him. They all recognized him and said hello. I wonder if Dad suspected Walker was selling out to the Russians. And from that I began wondering how long it would take before Werner and Frank Harrington got to hear about today’s fiasco. And while I was thinking of that – in that curious way that one’s brain keeps working ‘background’ while you listen to music or deal with everyday problems – the whole thing clicked into place.
Timmermann. Timmermann! Why had I been so slow to get it? Even when Bret’s cryptic Bible message arrived I still hadn’t understood. What did the message say:
UNKNOWN DEAD NEVERTHELESS REVEALED 4 WIFE’S SERVANT
Timmermann was of course the ‘expert’ field agent that George Kosinski, encouraged by my idiotic father-in-law, had engaged to go and investigate the death of Tessa. And because Timmermann was vain and stupid enough to go in without proper preparation or back-up, he said yes. Or maybe poor old Timmermann was so short of money that he had little alternative. That’s how field agents, driven to such lousy freelance jobs, so often end their days: riskier and riskier assignments for less and less money until the trap closes on your neck. Sometimes I worried that I would end up like that. With the present penny-pinching atmosphere at London Central, and my tenuous employment contract, it was looking more and more likely every day.
VERDI understandably thought Timmermann was from London Central, and no doubt continued to think so despite my denials. But Timmermann was doing a freelance job; he’d been in Los Angeles to be secretly briefed by Fiona. Bret – no fool when it comes to watching what’s going on around him – had tumbled to what was afoot between Fiona and Timmermann.
And that was why Timmermann had avoided getting into conversation with me. In line with Departmental standing orders for operational assignments, my seat on the plane had not been booked until two hours before I travelled; Timmermann must have been dismayed to encounter me on that same flight.
I noticed the way that VERDI said he had shifted blame for Timmermann’s murder on to an unidentified British team. More likely he’d left his masters in no doubt that I had killed Timmermann; VERDI wasn’t the sort of man who submitted don’t-know reports.
Blaming me for the killing was obviously the true purpose of getting both me and Timmerman to Magdeburg that same night. He was devious beyond compare. There was no point in wasting any time wondering how VERDI had discovered that I was on the plane with Timmermann. VERDI was not the sort of man who killed people without squeezing them. And VERDI was an expert with the squeezer, as I knew from personal experience.
16
Had I persisted with my plan to return to the hotel, and to stretch out in my room, nurse my head and recover slowly, everything would
have turned out differently. But as my taxi from Checkpoint Charlie turned off Kantstrasse I spotted Werner Volkmann. He was wearing his ‘impresario’s overcoat’ with its large shawl-collar of curly astrakhan. He was outside the optician’s shop that occupied the ground floor of the Hennig Hotel premises and talking to Tante Lisl. She was attired in a golden-coloured fur coat and matching hat, the highlight of the complete new wardrobe she’d bought to celebrate her successful surgery. They seemed to be arguing, and I recognized the way they were throwing their arms around as the frantic exasperation that precedes the hug of reconciliation. Lisl had lost weight, in compliance with the promise the surgeon had exacted from her. But fur coats didn’t suit her figure or her style. As much as I loved them both, there was no denying that my first impression, of the pair of them gesticulating excitedly, was of a ringmaster trying to control his ferocious dancing bear.
I knew beyond doubt that if I got out of the cab at the hotel entrance they were bound to comment on my being dishevelled and nursing an injured head. They’d ask questions which unanswered would provoke jokes that I was not in the mood to share. I didn’t want to encounter either of them at that moment. I wanted a glass of warm milk, a couple of aspirins, and the chance of going to bed to sleep for ever.
‘Keep going,’ I told the cab driver. It suddenly struck me that it might be a good plan to tell Frank Harrington my version of the events of the day. Any other account of my spontaneous and extracurricular excursion – even an account from someone as well-meaning as Werner – might give rise to a lot of official questions.
I gave the driver Frank’s address in the Grunewald district. Frank was certain to be at home. Even in normal times he was never in his office after four in the afternoon, and lately – as the construction work continued at the Field Unit premises – he’d been working from home all the time.
The door was opened to me by Frank’s valet, Tarrant. I had never liked Tarrant and Tarrant didn’t approve of me. He believed that Frank’s close friendship with my father had made him too ready to overlook my informal and insubordinate manner. And Tarrant was a fearsome upholder of life’s formalities.
‘I have to see Mr Harrington. I know he’s here,’ I added quickly before Tarrant could proclaim that he was not at home and a battle of wills develop as it had done before.
‘The master is dressing – preparing to go out,’ said Tarrant.
‘I won’t need more than five minutes,’ I said.
‘Wait here, sir,’ said Tarrant. He didn’t believe I needed only five minutes; I always said five minutes.
As I stood in the hallway I could hear the murmured voices from somewhere upstairs. When I was permitted to go up and see Frank, he was standing in his dressing room, struggling with a stiff dress-shirt and old-fashioned wing collar that had gone out of fashion and come back without Frank noticing. Behind him there was a long closet, upon the rail of which hung dozens of suits and jackets and pants. Standing six feet high there was a purpose-built rack of shoes, and drawers for linen. One of the drawers was open to reveal more dress-shirts wrapped in soft white tissue paper: Tarrant’s careful hand, no doubt. Frank was wearing his evening suit pants, patent shoes and a black formal waistcoat over a stiff shirt. He was struggling with his heavily starched cuffs and looking at himself in a large mirror while he did so. As I came in he watched my reflection without turning to face me.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Frank,’ I said.
‘Bring Mr Samson a big Laphroaig whisky and water, Tarrant. I’ll have a small Plymouth gin with bitters: two or three dashes of bitters, Tarrant. Laphroaig and ice? Right, Bernard?’ he turned and asked me this with a smile. He was always pleased to remember what I liked to eat and drink; it was Frank at his most motherly. Not wishing to spoil his obvious pleasure, I smiled and said that would be wonderful.
Tarrant brought the drinks on a tray and then hovered. Frank told him: ‘Mr Samson will help me if I can’t manage it.’ Tarrant went away not hiding his resentment at being displaced.
‘I’ve upset him?’ I asked Frank after Tarrant had gone.
‘He’s getting old. We have to indulge him. He’s frightened you’ll leave finger-marks on my nice clean shirt.’
I smiled. It seemed an unlikely reason for Tarrant’s surliness.
Frank went to his defence: ‘You left finger-marks on the front of a shirt I lent you once; about three years ago. The marks never came out: faint brown patches. I think it must have been gun oil. I gave the shirt to Oxfam finally.’
‘I’m sorry, Frank. You should have told me. I must replace it. Do New & Lingwood have your up-to-date measurements?’
‘I’ve got dozens of dress-shirts,’ said Frank, who’d been getting his shirts at New & Lingwood since he was at Eton. ‘I’m still wearing some my father left me. How often do I need a dress-shirt these days?’
‘Going to the opera?’ I knew it was not very likely. Frank was not a keen opera-goer. Jazz was his first choice. It was a waste; his job gave him a chance to see a new opera production every night if he so wished.
‘The garrison. The regiment’s farewell dinner for the commander. I’ll be the only civvy there.’
‘That’s quite an honour, Frank,’ I said, because for Frank being with the soldiers was the ultimate joy. Sometimes I thought that it was the tragedy of Frank’s life that he’d not been a career soldier. Frank loved the British Army, in all its many functions and guises, in a way that even its most dedicated soldiers could not have bettered. But Frank came down from university with a reputation as a Greek scholar, and someone on high decided that he would be wasted in the army.
‘My wife couldn’t make it.’
‘Too bad,’ I said automatically, although I knew that Frank’s wife hated attending army functions. She was one of those English people for whom everything foreign is either alarming or inferior or both. In fact she hated Berlin in every way, and remained in their house in England as much as she could. But it was not unknown for Frank to console himself with accommodating young ladies, of whom he had a considerable selection. At one time he’d even bedded Zena. I suppose Frank’s love-life was an important aspect of Tarrant’s continuing employment; he knew enough to write a book, and was wise enough to resist doing so.
Frank always fell deeply in love with his young lady friends. That was Frank’s style: devotion, sincerity and passion, but it never seemed to last. I sometimes wondered if he took his inamoratas along to any of these exclusive army functions. While Frank’s more usual habitat – Berlin’s Anglo-German fraternity – was a hotbed for gossip, the army could show exemplary discretion about such matters.
‘I’ve plenty of time,’ said Frank. Anyone who had dealings with the English knew that such a declaration was a polite way of saying that he was pressed for time.
‘I went over there today,’ I said. ‘I spoke with a man named Fedosov. Does that ring a bell?’
‘VERDI?’ said Frank.
‘And VERDI’s father too. He of the Number Five Red Banner Party.’
‘Oh, that Fedosov. Are you any good with cuff-links, Bernard? My housekeeper washes these dress-shirts herself; by hand. I think she must pour a ton of starch into each one. It’s like wearing a suit of armour.’
I took the first of the gold torpedo-shaped cuff-links and stabbed it through the starched buttonhole. It was devilishly difficult. ‘He was one of my father’s agents,’ I said very casually. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Not specifically, but it doesn’t surprise me. He had a few people over there that he wouldn’t pass on to anyone. Did you go over there and face the old man with his past then?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘What happened?’ said Frank. He gave me the second cuff-link and lifted his arm to offer the other sleeve.
‘He hit me with a metal crucifix and knocked me unconscious.’
‘Did he?’ said Frank, poker-faced. He could display a caustic wit, especially in response to any of my demonstrated failings, bu
t he restrained it now. ‘And you saw the son? VERDI?’
‘He brought a doctor to look at me. I was unconscious. The old man thought he’d killed me.’
‘Yes, your head. I can see the swelling. Have you seen a doctor on this side?’
‘I’ve only just come back.’
‘I’ll get one of the army people to have a look at you. You should have an X-ray. I say! Are you all right?’
‘Just a nasty turn. I’ll sit down for a moment,’ I said. I had that stomach-turning nausea that often comes before a fainting fit.
‘It’s the reaction. Shock goes like that, Bernard. An hour or two afterwards … I’ll put you on a plane (or London tonight. I don’t like the look of you one bit.’ He picked up the phone and dialled the internal line. When Tarrant came on the phone he told him to call the RAF and tell them to save a seat on their evening flight: top priority, Frank said. And get an extra car and driver this end, and a car and driver at the London end too. ‘Tell London that I want Mr Samson in a bed in the London Clinic or some such establishment. He is concussed. A complete physical examination.’ And Tarrant must go to the airport with me in case there was any problem of identification. The RAF people knew Tarrant.
‘Don’t finish that whisky,’ said Frank, putting down the phone with one hand while using the other to move the malt whisky away from me. ‘That might have been what brought it on.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. At that moment the prospect of being whisked away by magic on the evening plane, and escape from any questions Werner might ask me, away from Frank and the bone-freezing cold in this bleak city, was an attractive proposition.
‘You go straight to the London Clinic or wherever. The driver will have all the necessary documentation. I’ll put a message on the machine for London Central and tell them your arrival time and that you are hurt.’