Spy Hook

by Len Deighton

  The car dropped us at Victoria Station so that we could catch one of the direct trains for Gatwick Airport. A porter took the carton of chinaware on a barrow, with Werner fussing around to make sure it didn’t get knocked. The train was almost empty. We had no difficulty finding a place to ourselves. Werner was wearing a new suit – a lightweight grey mohair – and looking rather more rakish than the sober fellow I’d known so well. But he hung his umbrella so it would drain on to the floor, carefully folded his raincoat and placed his hat and his briefcase on the rack. No matter how rakish he looked Werner had been house-trained by the indomitable Zena. ‘Plates and cups and so on,’ said Werner, touching the carton delicately with the toe of his polished shoe.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I could think of nothing to add.

  Once the train started its journey he said, ‘In Berlin I suppose you’ll be going to see Koby?’

  ‘Lange Koby? Maybe.’ Koby lived in a squalid apartment near Potsdamer Platz and held court for foreign journalists and writers who were writing about ‘the real Berlin’. I didn’t enjoy my visits there.

  ‘If this Dodo worked for him, Lange might be able to tell you something.’

  I didn’t tell Werner that I’d seen Prettyman or grappled with Dodo; I hadn’t told anyone. ‘Perhaps. But that was all a long time ago, Werner. Dodo was just a nasty little spear-carrier. I don’t see how Lange can know anything about Bret and the money and all the things that really matter.’

  ‘Lange usually knows all the scandal,’ said Werner without admiration.

  I leaned forward to him and said, ‘I told the old man everything I know…damn nearly everything,’ I amended it. ‘From now onwards it’s the D-G’s problem, Werner. His problem, not my problem.’

  Werner looked at me and nodded as if thinking about it. ‘Does that mean you’re going to drop the Bret business?’

  ‘I might,’ I admitted.

  ‘Let it go, Bernard. It’s eating you up.’

  ‘If only I knew what part Fiona played in that fiddle.’

  ‘Fiona?’

  ‘She had her hands on that money, Werner. I remember seeing the bank papers – statements – in the drawer where she kept her household accounts and money for Mrs Dias our cleaning woman.’

  ‘Before Fiona defected, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, years ago. I was looking for the car keys…Schneider, von Schild und Weber…I knew that damned name was familiar, and last night I remembered why.’

  ‘Why would Fiona have the Berlin Bank accounts?’

  ‘At the time I thought it was some stuff from the office…forgeries even. There were a lot of zeros on those sheets, Werner. Millions and millions of Deutsche Marks. Now I realize it was real and the money was hers. Or at least, in her keeping.’

  ‘Fiona’s money? A secret account?’

  ‘Banks send the statements to the account holder, Werner. There is no getting away from that.’

  ‘It’s too late now,’ said Werner. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘I told the old man everything I know,’ I said again as if to remind myself of what I’d done. ‘From now onwards it’s his problem, Werner. His problem, not my problem.’

  ‘You said that already,’ said Werner.

  ‘I left Ingrid out of it. There was no point in telling him all that rigmarole about her mother and Dodo.’

  ‘Nor the stuff about your father,’ said Werner.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Do you think I should have told him that?’

  ‘Either the Department authorized what Bret has been doing with the money, or Bret and Fiona have been stealing it,’ said Werner with his usual devastating simplicity. ‘Didn’t the old man give any indication of knowing?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s the greatest actor in the world, but it seemed like he was hearing it all for the first time.’

  ‘They say he’s meshugga.’

  ‘No sign of that today.’

  ‘You did the right thing, Bernie. I’m sure of it. Now forget it and stop brooding.’

  I looked at his big package. ‘So what did you buy in London that I couldn’t be trusted with?’

  He smiled. ‘We felt we couldn’t use you like a courier service.’

  ‘I’m in Berlin every week the way things are now. I’ll bring whatever you need.’

  ‘Ingrid wants the hotel to look more homely. She likes all these English fabrics and English china; little floral patterns. She says the hotel is too inhospitable-looking, too institutional.’

  ‘It’s a Berlin hotel; it looks German.’

  ‘Times change, Bernie.’

  ‘I thought Lisl told you her sister was childless,’ I said. ‘What did she say when Ingrid arrived?’

  He nodded, and then said, ‘Lisl knew about Ingrid but Ingrid is illegitimate. She has no legal claim on the hotel.’

  ‘Are you in love with Ingrid?’

  ‘Me? In love with Ingrid?’

  ‘Don’t stall, Werner. We know each other too well.’

  ‘Yes, I’m in love with Ingrid,’ said Werner somewhat apprehensively.

  ‘Does Zena know?’ I asked.

  ‘Zena will be all right,’ said Werner confidently. ‘I’ll give her a lot of money and she’ll be satisfied.’

  I said nothing. It was true, of course. It was a bleak comment on Zena and her marriage but there was no arguing with it.

  ‘Zena’s in Munich. I keep hoping she’ll meet someone…’ Werner looked at me and smiled. ‘Yes, me and Ingrid…We’re happy together. Of course it will all take time…’

  ‘That’s wonderful, Werner.’

  ‘You never liked Zena, I know.’

  ‘Ingrid is a very attractive woman, Werner.’

  ‘You do like her?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘She’s never been married. She might find it difficult to adjust to married life at her age.’

  ‘You’re both young, Werner. What the hell…’

  ‘That’s what Ingrid says,’ said Werner.

  ‘Gatwick Airport’ said the voice of the train conductor over the speakers; the train was slowing.

  ‘Thanks, Bernie,’ he said. ‘You’ve helped me.’

  ‘Any time, Werner.’

  The plane took off on time. It was a small private company, Dan-Air, and the stewardesses smile and they give you real coffee. Once above the clouds the sun shone brightly. Despite the emptiness of the train the plane was filled. I asked Werner about his progress with Lisl’s hotel and I unleashed a long and enthusiastic account of his hopes and hard work. And Werner wasn’t too selfish to include Ingrid Winter’s contribution. On the contrary, his praise and admiration for her were very apparent. At times he seemed to be giving her too much credit but I listened patiently and made the right noises at appropriate times. Werner was in love and people who are in love are good company only for their beloved.

  I looked at the landscape passing below. Germany: there was no mistaking it. The people of Europe may grow more and more alike in their choice of cars, their clothes, their TV programmes and their junk food, but our landscapes reveal our true nature. There is no rural West Germany. The German landscape is ordered, angular and built-upon, so that cows must share their Lebensraum with apartment blocks, and forest trees measure the factory chimneys. Towns are allotted foliage under which to hide their ugly shopping plazas but huntsmen must stalk their prey between the parked cars and swimming pools of an unending suburbia.

  But once across the East-West frontier the landscape is lonely and tranquil. The Democratic Republic enjoys an agricultural landscape not yet sullied by shiny cars and new houses. Here the farms are old and picturesque. Big breeds of horses have stubbornly resisted the tractors and men and women still do the hard work.

  It was a lovely evening when we landed in Berlin, this glittering little capitalist island, with its tall concrete office blocks and sparkling streets, set in a vast green ocean of grassy communism. The sun was low and orange-coloured. Tall cumulus dominated the eastern sk
ies, while to the west the grey storm clouds were smudged and streaked across the sky as if some angry god had been trying to erase them.

  I came down the steps from the plane carrying Werner’s briefcase while he staggered under the weight of the chinaware. Ahead of us the other passengers straggled on their way to customs and immigration.

  Berlin-Tegel is in the French Sector of occupied Berlin. This small airport is technically under the control of the French air force. So the incongruous presence of four British military policemen was especially noticeable, if not to say disturbing. They were dressed in that unnaturally perfect way that only military policemen can manage. Their shoes were gleaming, their buttons bright and their khaki had knife-edge creases in all the places where creases were supposed to be.

  And if the incongruous presence of British ‘redcaps’ was not enough, I now noticed that one of them was a captain. Such men are not commonly seen standing and staring in public places, for MP captains do not patrol airports to make sure there are no squaddies going around improperly dressed. A quick glance round revealed two British army vehicles – a khaki car and a van – drawn up on the apron. Behind them there was a blue van bearing the winged badges of l’armée de l’air. A few yards behind that there was a civilian police car too. Inside it there were a couple of cops in summer uniforms. Quite a police presence for a virtually empty airport.

  As we walked across the apron the four British MPs straightened up and stared at us. Then the captain strode forward on a path that intercepted us.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said the British captain. He was a diffident young man with a large moustache that was less than bushy. ‘Which of you is Mr Samson?’

  Always afterwards I wondered exactly what made Werner unhesitatingly say, ‘I’m Bernard Samson. What is it, Captain?’

  Werner could smell trouble, that’s why he said it. He could smell trouble even before I got a whiff of it, and that was very quick indeed.

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to come with me,’ said the captain. He glanced at the sergeant – a burly forty-year-old with a pistol on his belt – and the looks they exchanged told me everything I needed to know.

  ‘Come with you?’ said Werner. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s better if we sort it out in the office,’ said the captain, with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

  ‘I’d better go with him, Werner,’ said Werner, continuing the act.

  I nodded. Surely the soldiers could hear Werner’s German accent. But perhaps they hadn’t been told that Bernard Samson was English.

  As if demonstrating something to me, Werner turned to the captain and said, ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘Well…’ said the captain. He’d obviously been told that arresting a man in public was something of a last resort, something you only did when sweet talk failed. ‘No. That is…Only if you refuse to come.’

  ‘We’ll sort it out at your office,’ said Werner. ‘It’s a stupid mistake.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ said the captain with marked relief. ‘Perhaps your friend will take the package.’

  ‘I’ll take it,’ I said.

  The captain turned to one of the corporals and said, ‘Help the gentleman, Corporal. Take the parcel for him.’

  I had Werner’s briefcase in my hand. It contained his passport and all sorts of other personal papers. If they took Werner to their police office, it might take an hour or two before they discovered that he was the wrong man. So I followed the corporal and Werner’s parcel of chinaware and left Werner to his fate.

  With the military policeman acting as my escort my passage through customs and immigration got no more than a nod. In the forecourt there were lines of taxi cabs. My cab driver was an unshaven youngster in a dirty red tee shirt with the heraldic device of Harvard University crudely printed on the front. ‘I want an address in Oranienburger Strasse. I know it by sight…go to the Wittenau S-Bahn station.’ I said it in slow German, in earshot of the soldier. It would give them a confusing start, for Oranienburger Strasse stretches across town from the airport to Hermsdorf. Not the sort of street in which you’d want to start a door-to-door inquiry.

  Once the taxi was clear of the airport I told the driver that I’d changed my mind. I wanted to go to Zoo Station. He looked at me and gave a knowing smile that was inimitably berlinerisch.

  ‘Zoo Station,’ he said. It was a squalid place, the Times Square of West Berlin. ‘Alles klar.’ In that district there was no shortage of people who would help a fugitive to hide from authority of any kind. The cab driver probably thought I was outsmarting the army cops, and he approved.

  Yes, I thought, everything is clear. No sooner had I finished talking to him than the bloody D-G had signalled Berlin to have me arrested. It was artful to do it in Berlin. Here the army was king. Here I had no civil liberties that couldn’t be overruled by regulations that dated from wartime. Here I could be locked away and forgotten. Yes, alles klar, Sir Henry. I am hooked.

  22

  Don’t ask me what I hoped to achieve. I don’t know what I was trying to do beyond gain time enough to collect my thoughts and see some way of extricating myself from this mess.

  My mind worked frantically. I dismissed the idea of picking up the Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 and five hundred pounds’ worth of mixed currency small denomination paper money that I used to keep in Lisl’s safe but now kept in a twenty-four-hour safe-deposit box in the Ku-Damm. Neither ready cash nor flying lead would help me if the Department was after my blood. I dismissed too the Austrian passport that was sewn into the lining of a suitcase in a room in Marienfelde. I could become Austrian, if I raised my voice an octave and kept a tight grip on my nose. But what for? By Monday they would have good recent photos of me circulated, and being a phoney Austrian wouldn’t help.

  A taxi took Werner’s box of china round to the hotel with a note for Ingrid Winter that I’d gone with Werner to the cinema. For anyone who knew us well, the idea of such an excursion was absurd. But Ingrid didn’t know us very well, and it was the only excuse I could think of that would prevent her making inquiries about us for two or three hours.

  Some of my actions were less well reasoned. As if driven by some demon from my over-active past, I took a second cab and asked for Checkpoint Charlie. It was almost night by now but my world was tilting towards the sun and it was not dark. My cab edged through the traffic as battalions of weary tourists wandered aimlessly around the neon and concrete charms of the Europa Centre and chewed popcorn and ‘curry-wurst’.

  ‘Checkpoint Charlie?’ said the driver again just to be sure.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Once clear of the crowds we headed for the Canal. This quiet section of the city provides the shortest route to Checkpoint Charlie. No tourists walked the gently curving banks of the Landwehr Canal and yet there was more history in this short stretch than in the entire length of the Kurfursten Damm.

  It was not always such a neglected backwater. The street names of yesterday tell their own story. Bendlerstrasse, from which the Wehrmacht marched to conquer Europe, is now named after Stauffenberg, architect of the failed anti-Nazi putsch. But is there some militaristic ambition burning deep inside the town planners who keep Bendler Bridge still Bendler Bridge?

  Here on the canal bank is the building where Admiral Canaris, Hitler’s chief of military intelligence, sat in his office plotting against his master. And into these murky waters the battered body of Rosa Luxemburg was thrown by the army’s assassins.

  Soon the dark tree-lined canal was left behind and the taxi was in Kreuzberg, speeding past Leuschner’s Café and along Koch Strasse – Berlin’s Fleet Street – and to the Friedrichstrasse intersection that provides a view into the heart of East Berlin.

  I paid off the cab and made a point of asking the American soldier on duty in the temporary hut, which has been positioned there for forty years, what time the checkpoint closed. It never closed, he told me; never! It was enough to make sure he remembered me passing th
rough. If I was going to leave a trail that the MPs would follow, it would be better to make it wide and deep. The Department would not be fooled, but on past performance it would take a little time to get them into action. A Friday evening: Dicky Cruyer would have to be got back to his office from somewhere where the fishing and shooting was good and the telephoning demonstrably bad.

  On the Western side of Checkpoint Charlie you’ll find only a couple of well laid-back GIs lounging in a hut, but the Eastern side is crowded with gun-toting men in uniforms deliberately designed in the pattern of the old Prussian armies. I gave my passport to the surly DDR frontier guard who showed it to his senior officer who pushed it through the slot under the glass window. There it was photographed and put under the lights to find any secret marks that previous DDR frontier police might have put there. They gripped my passport with that proprietorial manner that all bureaucrats adopt towards identity papers. For men who man frontiers regard passports and manifests as communications to them from other bureaucrats in other lands. The bearers of such paper are no more than lowly messengers.

  As a thinly disguised tax, all visitors are made to exchange Western money for DDR currency at an exorbitant rate. I paid. Guards came and went. Tourists formed a line. Buses and private cars crawled through and were examined underneath with the aid of large wheeled mirrors. A shiny new black Mercedes, flying the flag of some remote and impoverished African nation, was halted at the barrier behind a US army jeep that was demonstrating the victorious armies’ right to patrol both sides of the city. The DDR guards did everything with a studied slowness. It all takes time: here everything takes time. And some of the victors have to be kept in their place.

  East Berlin is virtually the only place to find a regime staunch and wholehearted in its application of the teachings of Karl Marx. Why not? Who could have doubted that the Germans, who had given such unquestioning faith and loyalty – not to mention countless million lives – to Kaiser Wilhelm and Adolf Hitler, would soldier on, long after Marxism had perished at its own hand and been relegated to the levelled Führerbunker of history.