Shutting it, Tom pushed the booklet into his pocket, glanced round to check he wasn’t under observation and went back to watching the hotel, while wondering if the Greek letters beside the names might be as significant as the names themselves.
One of the girls was looking at him again. It could be nothing. The fact a woman who’d glared at him for discarding a papirosa butt was also looking could be nothing too. The men at the table had stopped talking. One of them pushed back his chair.
Tom felt hairs rise on the back of his neck.
Stubbing out his cigarette, he folded his newspaper, tucked it under his arm and clambered to his feet, heading for a path at the side of the hotel. No one shouted, none of the couples coming towards him suddenly unclasped hands to become police officers. No shots came from behind.
He hurried all the same.
32
Tom sat in silence in a barber’s on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, feeling clippers scrape his skull. Outside, two kids kissed at a tram stop, looking pretty much like kids everywhere. He found it hard not to envy their youth, innocence and blind ignorance of what life could be like. They were gone by the time the barber finished repairing the mess Tom had made cropping his own hair that morning.
Tom looked more like a squaddie than ever.
A sergeant maybe. A soldier on leave.
As long as he didn’t look like himself that was fine. The Stasi would be out hunting. He didn’t have enough knowledge to judge how hermetically sealed East Berlin was, how much news bled in from the West. But, unless the East Germans had decided to try to keep Sir Cecil’s death under wraps, he had to face the fact they might have shown his mugshot on TV already. He half expected to turn a corner and come face to face with his Wanted poster.
He followed three punks down some river steps. Their hair was dyed black and their jeans were ripped at the knees. He wondered how much trouble they attracted. Whether their families were powerful enough to let them get away with dressing like that in a city like this. Overtaking, he took fresh steps back to street level, stopping at the top to light another papirosa, while he glanced around him.
No one watching. At least, not obviously.
He had to hope that he’d slipped safely into anonymity. Just another Berliner in a cheap leather jacket, carrying that day’s Neues Deutschland, chain-smoking his way through a packet of foul cigarettes. It was essential that he blended in and remained under the radar while he came up with a plan.
Keep moving, keep thinking, be aware of everyone around you.
When an old boy with a Trabant engine in a wheelbarrow caught Tom’s eye, he followed the man down Spandauer Strasse, until he cut under train tracks to reach open ground. Tom stopped, shocked at how quickly the city changed. Open space stretched either side of a narrow road, where an old bombsite had been scraped free of rubble, sown with grass and planted with sickly linden trees.
Battered Trabants were parked in a line, the nearest with its bonnet open. There was a space where the 600cc two-stroke would go. In the distance, a tram rolled along a mostly empty street, and beyond it, squeezed into a gap between apartment blocks, stood a café with two metal tables and five chairs at the front.
It reminded Tom that he was hungry.
Soup of the day. Beef with onions. A Hungarian stew. Rabbit with mushrooms. Three kinds of omelette. The menu was impressive. The third time Tom was told that unfortunately his choice was off, he asked what the woman did have.
She pointed to the sausages.
‘What else?’
She pointed to the sausages again.
Tom laughed, ordered the sausages, asked for a Pilsner and complimented her on her Russian, only realizing his mistake when her face clouded. She’d have been tiny when Hitler came to power, just into her teens when Berlin fell. A bad place for a teenage girl. The frontoviki’s revenge for what the Wehrmacht had done in the USSR was so brutal that it even shocked its own officers.
‘You don’t look Russian,’ she said.
‘Who knows what that looks like?’ Tom said. ‘Tall, short, squat, thin, dark, fair …’ He smiled at her. ‘And that’s just my own family.’
She laughed and lifted a mesh cover, impaling a bread roll on a chrome spike, with a slightly obscene twist of her wrist, before scooping a sausage from simmering water and squirting bright yellow mustard inside the roll. She slid the sausage after it and put Tom’s lunch in front of him.
‘Another beer?’ she asked.
Looking at his bottle, Tom realized it was empty.
‘Want one yourself?’
Her smile said she wondered what he was after. There were a couple of answers to that. Neither of them what she imagined, probably. First off, he needed somewhere to sit, and this was good. He had a clear view all the way to the railway arches. Second … he’d get to that. Maybe.
A thickset teenager was loading empty beer bottles into a crate with agonizing slowness. ‘Your son?’
‘Grandson. My son died.’
‘I’m sorry …’
She shrugged, as if to say it wasn’t that big a deal, although the way that she turned away told him it was.
‘Do you know,’ he asked, ‘someone who does rooms?’
The woman looked troubled. For a moment, he thought she was going to ignore his question but she glanced at the boy filling crates, then at her unsold sausages as if they were part of the question.
‘You mean without having papers?’
‘There’s this girl …’
Much of the tension left her face.
In Moscow earlier that year, Tom had found that fixing a hotel room was next to impossible. All hotels needed to be booked in advance. Proof of ID was required and the desk recorded your details. Richer teenagers and married lovers used couchettes on a river boat, the only beds in the city that could be bought without trouble. East Berlin was undoubtedly the same …
‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Men …’ She glanced at iron steps probably leading to a flat above. ‘No,’ she said to herself. ‘Carl would hate that.’
‘He’s sweeping up?’
She scowled to say Tom shouldn’t listen in on her thoughts but nodded all the same. ‘He doesn’t like change.’
‘You were going to let me use his room?’
‘I have a better idea.’ She nodded to the back of the bar and a sign reading Toilette. ‘Down the stairs, straight on. See what you think.’
He pushed back his chair …
‘This girl,’ the woman asked. ‘She’s pretty?’
‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘I think so.’
The woman chuckled.
The room on offer had been built as the cellar. These days it doubled as a boiler room, with a badly rendered end wall hung with a pickaxe, a garden fork and a reel of plastic hose. Shelves below were stacked with enough bottles of industrial alcohol to start a small revolution.
‘It’s ideal,’ he told the woman.
She tried not to look surprised and Tom shrugged.
‘What time will you come back?’ she asked.
‘I’ll need it for a week.’
The woman blinked. ‘I was thinking an evening. Perhaps overnight.’
‘I’m going to need it for longer.’ He pulled out a roll of GDR banknotes and hesitated … ‘I have Western currency if you’d rather. In my job it’s important.’
‘Your job?’
‘Deutschmarks or US dollars?’
Her sour smile said she knew he was dodging her question. ‘I’ll take both,’ she told him.
‘Dollars can get you into trouble.’
‘I’m already in trouble. I’ll be in trouble until I die. My husband wasn’t good at keeping his mouth shut.’
And yet you run this? Tom thought.
An old and not very popular bar but a bar all the same.
Since the state allocated jobs, someone somewhere still had her back.
‘He was a party member?’ Tom asked.
‘In the war.’
That
took balls. A communist during the Third Reich. Tens of thousands of politicals had died in the camps. Many had been worked to death or simply put against a wall and shot. A few had been publicly beheaded. Even the suspicion of sympathizing with communists had seen entire families slaughtered in the dog-days of the war. Maybe, in letting her keep the bar, the state felt its debt had been repaid. ‘I’ll need a key,’ Tom said.
He peeled off five $20 notes, watching her eyes widen.
On top of that he added enough GDR marks to buy her silence all over again, or compromise her totally, depending on how you looked at it. He nodded towards the back, making clear which door he needed a key to.
‘There’s an alley beyond?’
‘A yard. You’ll need the key for that too.’
33
It was her cropped hair, dark glasses and painted boots that gave Amelia Blackburn away. Tom was back on the Spreepromenade, when he glanced across the narrow river to see her scowling up at the Berliner Dom.
The GDR had finally started repairing it in the 1970s, on the understanding that repairs to the cathedral should include removing as many crosses as possible. Tom doubted that bit was mentioned in her guidebook. Or the fact that as the scaffolding went up at the front, workmen at the rear took down the Kaiser’s chapel with dynamite.
Stepping aside, Tom let a couple pass, keeping his gaze on Amelia, while simultaneously checking that the couple kept walking and didn’t immediately stop to admire the view. This being what they’d do if they were there to keep an eye on him. Paranoia was dangerous. It also kept you alive.
And that was what made it addictive. Because paranoia’s logic said that the more paranoid you were, the more likely you were to stay alive. Tom had seen for himself that this didn’t hold true. Being careful, now. That was different.
Even that could get you killed, though.
Having said something to her minder, Amelia headed for a women’s lavatory and vanished into its tiled underworld. Realizing her minder was engrossed in a guidebook, Tom quickly crossed the short bridge and followed. He needed to talk to her. He really needed to talk to her.
The lavatory was large, clean, white and apparently empty.
There was no hatchet-faced Toilettenfrau collecting coins and handing out a regulation two sheets of stiff paper. For that he was grateful. One cubicle was shut and he waited, relieved when the cistern finally flushed. Amelia Blackburn blinked to see him. Tom waited for some flare of recognition and when she still stared, he pushed out his hand, which she ignored.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said in English. ‘About your father.’
‘You couldn’t wait outside?’
‘I’m not a hack.’
‘Then what are you doing in here?’
‘I needed to get to you away from your minder.’
‘You’re from the bloody embassy? You’ve ignored two messages so far.’
Had they now? Tom considered that.
‘Why didn’t you simply visit them?’
The woman’s face darkened. ‘I’m here as a guest of the East German government. An indication of their willingness to let my father return home. They’ve been keeping me busy while he’s recovering.’
‘He’s dead,’ Tom said. ‘You know that.’
He watched her eyes widen. And realized that if she was still pretending her father had had a heart attack, then the news of Sir Cecil’s murder hadn’t been released and that meant his own mugshot hadn’t yet been on TV.
That was something.
‘How do you know?’
‘You called the embassy from your hotel?’
‘Where else would I call them from?’ Amelia demanded.
‘And they answered in English?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Good English?’
‘Perfect.’ He watched her face cloud. For the first time Dr Blackburn looked uncertain. ‘Almost too perfect.’ She reassessed Tom’s question. ‘Oh shit. They wouldn’t, would they?’
‘This is East Berlin,’ said Tom. ‘Of course they would. I’m told the Stasi have offices at the hotel. That the twenty-five largest guest rooms …’
There were sounds from the stairs.
Amelia looked outraged as Tom suddenly pushed her towards the stall she’d just vacated. He raised his finger to his lips and for a second he thought she’d punch him. She looked more than capable. Then he heard her name called and she was the one to bolt the door behind them.
‘Dr Blackburn …’
Pushing Tom into the far corner, Amelia Blackburn sat herself. Anyone glancing carelessly under the door would have thought her busy.
‘Are you all right?’ Frau Eisen asked.
‘A stomach upset,’ Dr Blackburn replied. ‘If you could wait upstairs.’
‘No problem. I can wait here.’
‘It would embarrass me,’ Dr Blackburn said.
A heavy sigh came beyond the door. ‘There’s nothing embarrassing about bodily functions. They are part of the natural order …’
‘All the same,’ Amelia said.
‘If I must …’ They heard heavy steps and Amelia stood, flushed the lavatory, and opened the door carefully, peering through. When she turned back, it was to say, ‘How long had you been following me?’
‘I haven’t been.’
‘I saw you across the river a minute ago. I recognized the jacket. It’s too hot for leather.’
‘This is Berlin,’ Tom said. ‘They probably wear leather to the beach. I have been hoping to see you, though.’
‘This is about my father?’
‘Yes. I’m really sorry …’
‘I barely knew him,’ Dr Blackburn said flatly. ‘I was only just in my teens when he left and he was rarely home before – Christ,’ she said suddenly.
Her face twisted and for a second she was frozen with terror.
Then she backed out of the cubicle, and bumped into the missing Toilettenfrau’s table with its saucer of change as she turned for the stairs. Without thinking, Tom dipped for a coin that fell to the tiles.
A gesture so banal it apparently reassured her.
‘I didn’t kill your father,’ he promised.
‘I saw you leaving …’
‘If I had it wouldn’t have been like that.’
He could see her thinking that through. She stepped back another pace, but it was to take a better look. ‘You’re not embassy, are you?’
Tom shook his head.
‘Why run if it wasn’t you?’
‘I had a message to meet …’ Tom hesitated ‘… his mistress. He was dead and she wasn’t there. I’m the man who was meant to take your father home. Would you have believed me? We need to talk …’
‘About what?’
‘Who might want him dead.’
‘He abandoned his family. His country. Now he’s abandoning those who took him in. Take your pick.’
‘Did you want him dead?’
Her voice was flinty. ‘For much of my childhood I thought he was. That’s what my mother told me. Daddy’s dead.’
‘When did you learn the truth?’
‘Fifth form. At breakfast. They brought round the papers and there was my father standing next to the East German premier. Bloody man …’
Tom wasn’t sure which of them she meant.
‘There’s a café in Hackescher Markt,’ he said. ‘Under the bridge and past the parked cars. Meet me there later if you can.’
‘And how do you suggest I escape Frau Eisen?’
‘Tell her you have gut rot and need an early night?’
‘You’ll be there?’
‘If I’m not, say you’re waiting for Tomac. The old woman will be expecting you.’
Dr Blackburn looked surprised.
‘I needed a room and told her I was having an affair. She thinks I’m Russian. She’ll think you’re the person I was talking about.’
‘And who were you really talking about?’
‘Nobody. I needed a room. I lied.�
�
34
Darkness was settling when Amelia Blackburn appeared under the railway arches near Hackescher Markt, hesitated for a second and then began heading for the café. She stopped only once, removing a trainer, and pretending to shake a stone from it as she turned to check no one was following.
Tom was impressed.
There were couples walking. The old man he’d seen with the wheelbarrow was now sponging a dusty Trabant in the half-dark. A traffic policeman, by the bridge, was talking to two men who stood by a truck with its bonnet up. One was shaking his head, the other smoking.
The sound of a football match on TV came from flats behind the café. Someone groaned and, seconds later, half a dozen people cheered, their cheers echoed from other open windows. Amelia resumed walking.
She was doing her best to look confident.
Her clothes were well chosen. Nothing too outrageous, nothing obviously Western. She’d solved the problem of her cropped hair by wearing a scarf, which made her look slightly dowdy. Tom imagined that was the effect she was after.
He stood as she approached, gripped her shoulders and kissed her warmly on both cheeks, hugging her tight for a second. He felt her tense, and then hug him back when she realized they were being watched.
‘A beer?’ Tom suggested.
‘Do they have wine?’
‘Beer’s probably safer.’
He ordered himself another Pilsner and one for her.
The old woman nodded, looked at Dr Blackburn and then came closer to take a better look, nodding approvingly. Amelia Blackburn blushed and the old woman chuckled, tossing a comment to Tom as she walked away.
‘What did she say?’
‘That I shouldn’t let your husband find out.’
‘She really thinks you’re Russian?’
‘She speaks Russian the way half the Berliners in West Berlin speak English. Well enough to make sense. Not well enough to tell if I’m a native speaker.’
The old woman gave Amelia a clean glass and settled herself behind the counter to watch them. She had only two other customers. Young men in mechanics’ overalls who wandered in, nodded to the television on a crate in the corner and, receiving permission, turned it on and began fiddling with the aerial until the football match appeared through a blizzard of snow.
Nightfall Berlin Page 11