Sir Cecil stood at the head of the stairs, smiling benignly.
His hand was already out to envelop Tom’s. First one soft hand, then another, as he did that double shake meant to indicate friendship or power. He was older than his pictures, in a lightweight tweed jacket, cotton shirt and needle-cords.
‘I’m Cecil Blackburn,’ he said. Although he must have been aware that Tom didn’t need to be told. Peering over Tom’s shoulder, he said, ‘Frederika …’
‘Had to run an errand,’ Evgeny said.
Sir Cecil sighed.
Tom was led into a room that looked as if it belonged to an Oxbridge college. There was a Persian rug, frayed at both ends and threadbare in one corner. A leather sofa had a Turkish throw across the back. A Moroccan poof had camel stitching and hide so waxed it was black. Empty packing cases lined one wall. An old-fashioned typewriter stood on a table, with a sheet of paper ostentatiously left in the roller. A fat typescript sat beside it.
‘My memoirs,’ Sir Cecil said.
‘You’ve finished them?’ Tom asked.
‘All except the appendices.’
Tom looked beyond the typewriter and froze.
‘Isn’t she striking?’ Sir Cecil said.
It wasn’t the oval miniature of a heavily jawed woman that had stopped Tom in his tracks. It was the toy car by its side. He’d had one of those once. Despite himself, he bent to take a closer look.
‘Jaguar 2.4,’ Sir Cecil said.
‘Original?’
‘Of course,’ Sir Cecil said. ‘I collect them. I was going to give you this later.’ He pulled a tiny Trabant from his pocket. It had a cream body and doors that opened, jewelled headlights and slightly tinted windows.
‘Thank you,’ Tom said.
He pushed the model car deep into his pocket.
‘A souvenir from East Berlin. It’s not Corgi, of course. I have more toy cars in the study, if you’re interested.’
‘There’ll be time for that later.’ Frederika stood in the doorway. She looked altogether more relaxed than earlier.
‘You managed to get my coffee?’
‘Not this trip.’ She smiled brightly. ‘But I definitely will next time. I’m off to have a shower. Why don’t you two discuss our move to London while Evgeny makes you some tea?’
That was the last anyone saw of her for an hour. And when she did reappear, it was to say she’d been asked to take a class. So could Evgeny drive her to the gymnasium and wait? She’d be back in time for supper.
21
The route to the restaurant where Sir Cecil wanted to eat took them past the Soviet embassy, which turned out to be the bastard child of a Babylonian ziggurat and one of Stalin’s famous wedding cakes. A building so solid it squatted like a sullen toad. Tom couldn’t deny it was imposing, though. It reminded him of the Masonic Temple in central London; although he doubted that his father-in-law would thank him for observing the likeness.
‘And now for the Gate.’
‘My love. He doesn’t want the full tour.’
‘Of course he does.’ Sir Cecil pulled an envelope triumphantly from his pocket. ‘I’ve acquired permission.’
Frederika looked across, and Tom noticed Evgeny’s shoulders stiffen. The Russian was in the front, his eyes more on what was happening in the back of the car than on any danger from outside.
‘A short stop,’ Sir Cecil said. ‘Then supper.’
The driver had obviously known all along where they were going because he pulled up at a stone guardhouse.
‘I’ll just have a quick word,’ Sir Cecil said.
A green-uniformed sergeant stamped out. His hand was on his rifle but the fact it was an official car gave him pause. He listened to what Sir Cecil said, listened again because he obviously hadn’t understood it the first time, and disappeared.
The officer he returned with was the one who had barriers moved so they could reach the ruined grandeur of the Brandenburg Gate.
Beyond the Gate stood the Wall, constructed from concrete slabs and topped with rusting metal. Behind them, tank traps cut off Unter den Linden, the impressively grand boulevard they’d driven down.
‘The Gate looks lonely,’ Frederika said.
Tom had to agree with her.
‘Seen enough?’ Sir Cecil asked.
Six guards, a watchtower, the Gate’s shabby greatness and the Wall itself, sweeping out in a half-circle so as not to cramp the triumphal arch that had been cramped by barriers anyway. Tom nodded.
‘Good,’ Sir Cecil said. ‘Then let’s eat.’
The restaurant was on the corner with Friedrichstrasse, opposite the site of a half-built hotel intended to be several times larger than London’s Savoy. A vast hoarding showed an artist’s impression. The East German flag flew proudly from the hotel’s huge roof, smart black limousines were drawn up in a line, uniformed commissionaires ushered fur-clad guests inside.
‘For foreigners,’ Frederika said. ‘Hard currency only. It will have its own gymnasium, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a beauty salon …’
‘And Stasi,’ Sir Cecil said. ‘Lots of Stasi.’
‘You haven’t left yet,’ Frederika said.
‘Ah yes,’ said Sir Cecil. ‘Of course. They’re my friends. Aren’t they, Evgeny? You’ll be sure to tell them that, won’t you? And I really do need to talk to Tom about this suggestion that I return.’
Suggestion?
Sir Cecil saw Tom watching him and smiled blandly.
Inside the restaurant, a party of middle-aged men looked up and one waved. Frederika smiled and waved back. Her limp was less obvious, and Tom realized she was working hard not to let it show. A glass of Rotkäppchen Sekt appeared the moment Sir Cecil sat, and disappeared just as quickly. Sliding from the shadows, a waiter refilled his glass. ‘They know me,’ Sir Cecil said.
Tom wondered if he meant the waiters or the other diners. Given the obvious size of the man’s ego, quite possibly he meant both.
‘You know why we came here?’
Sir Cecil was addressing Tom, obviously enough.
‘It’s not bugged. You know why? Because we’re all good party members. Senior ones at that. God forbid anything we say goes on record.’ He reached for the menu and Frederika caught Tom’s gaze, shrugged and reached for a menu in turn, skimming it with the carelessness of someone who knew it by heart.
‘You’re a party member?’
‘Long term,’ Sir Cecil said.
‘They back-dated his membership,’ Frederika said sourly. ‘To when he said he first became a communist.’ She looked at Sir Cecil. ‘Wasn’t that what you told me? He told me a lot of things, you know. In the early days.’
Sir Cecil scowled at her.
Evgeny poured Frederika the water she asked for, his fingers just brushing hers as he steadied her glass. It could be accidental. Then again … A bottle of Riesling and a bottle of Bulgarian red arrived shortly after.
They didn’t help Sir Cecil’s mood either.
He sat sullen and silent, only speaking to vent his outrage about whatever imagined insult or privation came to mind. Tom wondered if he’d noticed Evgeny’s fingers brush Frederika’s hand, because whatever had upset Blackburn it wasn’t the things he was talking about. At one point he was almost shaking with fury. A moment later he looked close to tears.
‘You know the waiting list for a Trabant?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Thirteen years. For a two-stroke you wouldn’t use to power a lawnmower.’
‘They gave you a Trabant?’
‘Of course they didn’t give me a bloody Trabant. They gave me an EMW.’ Sir Cecil saw Tom’s puzzlement and sighed. ‘East German version of a pre-war roadster. Beautiful machine. Should be. They stole BMW’s assembly line.’
Silence returned for as long as it took Sir Cecil to finish his Swabian stew, which he did with angry mouthfuls he appeared not to taste and which sometimes fell from his fork, landing back on the plate.
That done, he launched into a dissertation on the Hohenzollern family,
Berlin’s rise under Frederick the Great, its glory years as Bismarck’s capital, how it defined the newly created German empire. He stopped with the abdication of the Kaiser, which was either unusually delicate of him or the end of his historical interest. Tom suspected the latter.
The Kaiser’s abdication coincided with the arrival of a tray of Königsberger marzipan; and that Sir Cecil did taste, closing his eyes to savour each mouthful and looking disappointed to find the dish finally empty. The waiter asked if they wanted coffee and Sir Cecil rejected the offer without asking the others first. Then he pushed back his chair, and hesitated …
Here it comes, Tom thought.
Everything about the meal had been strained.
‘What?’ Frederika asked.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Sir Cecil said. He sat back in his chair, looking old and suddenly obstinate. The way he folded his arms suggested he never intended to move again.
‘You want coffee after all?’
‘No, you little fool. About London. I’m not going. I’m staying here.’
22
Writing out the phone number, Tom pushed the form across the wooden counter in the Palasthotel’s reception and watched the receptionist pick up a telephone to get clearance to place the call. A few seconds later the telephone rang and he watched her glance at him and wondered what the Stasi officer on the other end said.
There couldn’t have been many guests who asked her to place a call to a member of the British government. The call would be recorded. There was nothing strange in that. Tom imagined that all calls in and out of the Palasthotel were recorded. The same went for all East German hotels.
‘I’m sorry for waking you,’ Tom said.
‘Everything all right?’
‘I’m calling from the Palasthotel.’
Silence greeted his statement. If the conversation wasn’t being recorded at Eddington’s end before this, it was now.
‘You’re in a room?’
‘In a bank of phone boxes next to reception.’
‘I see … How are things going?’
‘This evening was a little less fun than I expected.’
Tom could almost hear his father-in-law wonder how to frame the next question.
‘Anything in particular?’ he asked finally.
‘I’ve never really liked cold feet.’
‘Cold feet?’
‘Frozen.’
‘Oh God …’
‘I wouldn’t make any arrangements for a welcome-home party,’ Tom said, ‘because, as things stand, you’ll be missing guests.’
‘Christ, Tom …’
‘Not everyone wants to come.’
‘I don’t have to tell you who has an interest in this.’
The Prime Minister. Yes, he’d said. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Intelligence services. Tom’s father-in-law too, for reasons he hadn’t really made clear. Unless pleasing the PM was enough.
It was for half her Cabinet.
Tom hadn’t forgotten how his job had expanded from accompanying Sir Cecil to bringing him back at all costs. He needed to know how that actually translated.
‘We could cancel the party games,’ Eddington said suddenly. ‘If that’s the problem. Perhaps even have presents.’
‘No tears before bedtime?’
Eddington hesitated. ‘Bloody man. Do his friends know about this?’
He thought about what he’d just asked and answered his own question. ‘Of course they do. And if they don’t, they will soon …’
23
Two days after the meal at Casper’s on Unter den Linden, a butterfly fluttered against the glass of a window in Nikolaiviertel, increasingly frantic to find its way blocked to the world outside. Stunned, it dropped to the windowsill and rested there, wings quivering. Then it rose and skittered up the glass, brought short once again by the top of the window. This time it crawled over the lip and found itself free, in the brightness of a Berlin afternoon, where a stiff river breeze cooled Nikolaiviertel, and teenagers crossed the bridge towards Spandauer Strasse, having just been released from school.
The house into which it had ventured and from which it had just escaped was older than most; much older than the replicas around it. It had survived fires, riots and floods, and all that before the First War came, never mind the Second. A war so terrible few other buildings survived unscathed.
The butterfly knew nothing of this.
It was three days from dying, and already in the embers of its life, having hatched from a chrysalis three weeks earlier. Caught on the breeze, it let itself be swept westwards, past the Komische Oper and over Potsdamer Platz and the wasteland both sides of the Wall. It landed in Tiergarten, West Berlin’s famous park, and settled on the wrist of a child, who froze in delight and was quieter and stiller in those few seconds than she’d been all day.
And then, refreshed, it took off again and headed for the bright blaze of a flower. On the small girl’s wrist it left pollen, soot and infinitesimal traces of the human blood on which it had been feeding all those miles and minutes before.
24
There were a number of things that Frau Eisen didn’t like about the English woman she’d been ordered to meet at Schönefeld airport, and deliver to Comrade Sir Cecil Blackburn’s house in Nikolaiviertel, so she could accompany her father home to London. Her clothes were a disgrace for a start.
No woman her age should go without a bra.
Obviously, the human body was a marvellous thing, and skinny-dipping, naturist beaches and naked camps were an integral part of East German life, for young people comfortable with that kind of thing. But a teenager who went out dressed like this would be in trouble.
That a grown woman …
The stern-faced Stasi officer sniffed. Amelia Blackburn might not be wearing a bra. She was, however, wearing patchouli, black lipstick, torn jeans and a T-shirt with a tiger on it. Her army boots had flowers painted on them, which Frau Eisen regarded as the final insult. Nonetheless, from the moment she met Amelia’s flight at noon until now, as they walked between workmen laying cobbles on the riverfront at Nikolaiviertel, she’d performed her task with quiet efficiency.
Dr Amelia Blackburn had hated her on sight.
When the German woman put her finger to Sir Cecil’s doorbell, Amelia said, ‘I’ll go up by myself. There’s bound to be a café where you can wait.’
Frau Eisen shook her head.
‘We go up together.’
Amelia Blackburn scowled.
She barely remembered her father, having been thirteen when he left, and already at boarding school. She was twenty-eight now and not sure why anyone, especially her mother, would want him back. She’d been in Kiev, taking a year out from Imperial, studying wolves, when Chernobyl imploded. She should be there now, recording the effects of the fallout, not letting herself be blackmailed into going to Berlin to play happy families.
Hold his hand when you get off the plane.
When she’d asked her mother if she was serious, Amelia had been reminded that appearances mattered. They did. Amelia was willing to admit that. They just didn’t matter in the way her mother imagined. Ten years of studying and teaching Zoology had taught her that.
‘I’ll go up by myself,’ Amelia said firmly.
Before Frau Eisen could answer, the door opened and a leather-jacketed man blinked to see them. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he pushed rudely between them, put his head down and strode towards a bronze statue of St George killing the dragon, which workers were repairing.
Frau Eisen stared angrily after him.
‘Which floor?’ Amelia asked her.
The Stasi woman consulted a red file.
The first two floors seemed entirely normal. On the third, a woman came to the door when she heard steps, decided they weren’t who she expected and went back inside. On the fourth, an old man at the bottom of the stairs to the fifth simply stepped back without a word.
‘I saw nothing,’
he said.
Frau Eisen hesitated. ‘Wait here,’ she told Amelia.
‘No way.’ Pushing past her, Amelia hurried up the last flight of stairs and stopped abruptly at the feral stink. She’d been around animals most of her adult life. She recognized the smell of death, both natural and violent. This smelt of predators and predated. Of blood, flesh and voided bowels.
The door to her father’s flat had been crowbarred open. A man lay just inside. He was young, shaven-headed and thickset.
‘Don’t touch,’ Frau Eisen ordered.
Amelia ignored that too.
There was blood on the back of his skull, a dressing-gown cord tight around his neck. His face was purple and his tongue protruded. A puddle of urine spread around him. Amelia wondered how quickly he’d died. His broken fingernails said not quickly enough. She checked for a pulse anyway.
‘Dead,’ she pronounced, stepping over him.
In the sitting room, embers glowed in the hearth despite that afternoon’s heat. The ghost image of burnt pages still visible in their ash.
‘Scheisse,’ Frau Eisen said. Grabbing a poker, she hooked at the ash, cursing as the ghost pages disintegrated, black butterflies rising in a flock.
It was the body in the study that stopped Amelia in her tracks.
She didn’t scream or burst into tears. She simply put up a hand to try to catch the vomit that splattered through her fingers. Shock, she told herself. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Frau Eisen told her.
Amelia couldn’t help herself.
The crowbar used to break the front door’s lock had been used on her father’s head. In case that wasn’t enough, its hooked end was buried in his chest. He’d been hit there more than once to judge from the pulp where his ribs should be. Blood was blackening the carpet beneath him.
His room was in ruins.
A Chinese vase had been smashed. A leather armchair was savagely torn where someone had sunk the crowbar into its arm and ripped it free. Did that mean her father had been sitting, Amelia wondered. A collection of toy cars littered the floor like wrecks in a junkyard. Framed pictures of Premier Honecker and her father lay smashed to splinters, torn paper and shards of glass.
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