Nightfall Berlin

by Jack Grimwood

  Don’t turn your back, Amelia had said.

  FitzSymonds limped towards the cage.

  If the animal hadn’t been old, half blind and lame itself, the matter would have been settled. Instead, FitzSymonds just made it. Dragging himself through the door, the old man pulled it shut as the wolf slammed into it. The beast lunged for his fingers, its teeth scraping metal. And FitzSymonds jerked his hand away, grabbing for the little car and holding it tight.

  In reaching for the car, he let go of the door.

  The wolf nosed at the gap and snarled as FitzSymonds yanked it shut. The old man tried to reach the bolt but the wolf reared, yellow teeth snapping. They closed on air as Fitz stumbled back.

  The door began to swing open again.

  ‘Shoot it,’ he told Amelia.

  ‘I like wolves,’ she said.

  ‘Tom … for fuck’s sake. Kill the thing.’

  Reaching for his spare magazine, Tom thumbed free all rounds but one and held it up. ‘Still want the memoirs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You wanted the memoirs. Remember? If you’ve changed your mind, you could swap them for this.’

  Fitz clutched the car tighter.

  As he did, the door to his cage swung further open and the old wolf turned at the creak of its hinges. It stalked towards the widening gap and FitzSymonds grabbed for the door, dragging it shut.

  The wolf lunged for his hand.

  Letting go again, FitzSymonds tumbled backwards, swearing as he landed on his wounded leg. The door began to swing open.

  ‘Here,’ FitzSymonds said. ‘Here.’

  He hurled the car at Tom.

  Scooping it up, Tom tossed FitzSymonds the clip and turned away as the wolf pushed its way into the cage.

  ‘Shit,’ FitzSymonds said. ‘Shit …’

  Slamming the clip into his pistol, he jacked the slide just as the wolf sunk on to its haunches. There were eyes watching Tom as he walked to the cage where Amelia waited to bolt its door behind them. There had always been eyes watching him. He heard a shot and Fitz began screaming. He’d fired at the wolf. Quite possibly he’d hit the animal. It was a mistake.

  He should have shot himself.

  108

  The death of Harry FitzSymonds from a heart attack in Berlin was respectfully reported in The Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Mail. The Guardian was altogether less respectful but still managed to avoid suggesting that he was anything more than a man lost in a world that had moved on when he had not.

  No mention was made of Amelia Blackburn or Tom Fox.

  The arms talks were postponed to take account of both the death of Dmitri Luzhin, one of the Soviet negotiators, and the unexpected resignation of an American senator, who wanted to spend more time with his family. There were, however, firm plans for later meetings to go ahead.

  A photograph of Maya Milova, one of the world’s most famous dancers, was runner-up in the British National Photographic Awards. It showed her leaning against the bonnet of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Coupé. The caption referred to beauty being timeless. A piece in Spare Rib, from a well-known feminist activist, lambasted the exhibition for reducing the life of a Red Army sniper, gulag survivor and prima ballerina to a matter of looks.

  Maya Milova agreed.

  Epilogue

  There were people in Heathrow Arrivals hall watching and Tom didn’t care. Scooping up the boy who came running, he hugged Charlie so tightly that Charlie looked momentarily worried, then grinned and hugged him back. As Tom gripped his son, he thought of a lake in Cumbria, and a young girl who’d popped up beside him wanting to borrow binoculars. He could still remember the scream that the sight of her grandfather’s exploding boat had dragged from her body.

  He hugged his son tighter.

  ‘I thought you were in Berlin,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I was,’ Tom told him.

  ‘Then why did we meet a Moscow plane?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘That’s what Mummy said.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Tired …’ Charlie hesitated, the first part of his conversation not yet finished. Charlie liked maps. He particularly liked that the world was a spherical jigsaw made of countries. He consulted his mental map and looked puzzled. ‘Isn’t it longer to fly from Berlin via Moscow?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘But sometimes simpler.’

  ‘Who was the lady?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Woman,’ Charlie’s grandfather corrected. ‘Unless she has a title.’ He caught Tom’s stare and shrugged, looking almost apologetic. ‘Caro would have corrected him,’ he offered as a defence.

  ‘A friend of mine. Amelia. She studies wolves.’

  Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘Does she keep them as pets?’

  ‘I’m not sure wolves would make good pets.’

  ‘Is she Russian?’

  ‘Scottish,’ Tom said.

  Charlie looked disappointed. Then he brightened. ‘Wax Angel says I must stay with her in Moscow. Next holiday. If that’s all right with you. She says I’m very good at picking locks. Many of her friends are good at picking locks too.’

  Lord Eddington gave Tom a pointed stare.

  ‘I brought you a present,’ Tom said, ignoring his father-in-law. He held out a toy car bought in Moscow airport, and watched Charlie’s face light up.

  ‘It’s a jeep,’ Charlie said.

  ‘It’s a Soviet UAZ-3151.’

  ‘It looks like a jeep.’

  ‘Better not tell the Russians that. And I brought Grandpa this.’

  Lord Eddington took the toy Trabant and examined it quizzically.

  Around them, passengers flowed into the Arrivals hall and shook the hands of their drivers or fell into the arms of their families. And Tom stood in his little huddle, away to one side, with the son he wasn’t sure he still had until Maya Milova, whom he still thought of as Wax Angel, telephoned to tell him that Charlie was safe.

  ‘Its windows are missing.’

  ‘They weren’t very well fixed.’

  The microfiche had burnt nicely on the floor of the cage he’d shared with Amelia, while the old wolf was finishing its meal. Duty to Eddington, and promises to Marshal Milov apart, Tom owed Wax Angel that.

  ‘A souvenir from Berlin?’

  ‘A memento.’

  ‘Thank you, Tom.’ Eddington glanced to where Charlie raced his Soviet jeep along the back of a bench, which was thankfully unoccupied. ‘I realize there should be a proper inquest into Patroclus,’ he said. ‘I accept that. And I’d like to be able to tell you that there will be, but …’

  ‘But what?’ Tom said.

  ‘The main players are dead. And the Prime Minister is keen to avoid any suggestion of scandal. Its files are now classified.’

  ‘Under the thirty-year rule?’

  ‘Sevent—’ Eddington stopped.

  That was how Tom knew that Charlie was back. So Tom asked Caro’s father the only question that really mattered anyway. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Caro? As well as can be expected,’ Eddington said carefully.

  ‘What about … C. H. E. M. O?’

  ‘They can’t do that again yet,’ Charlie said. ‘Can they, Grandpa?’

  His grandfather smiled sadly. Gesturing towards the exit, he said, ‘In a few weeks perhaps. We should go. Mummy’s expecting us.’

  Amelia Blackburn was standing beside Lord Eddington’s Range Rover, her expression unreadable. That was her default, Tom realized. Some people smiled, some frowned, others scowled. Her face revealed nothing.

  ‘I thought that this might be yours,’ she said.

  Lord Eddington looked at her. ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘I guessed.’

  ‘You’re the wolf woman,’ Charlie said.

  Amelia’s eyes widened.

  ‘I told him you liked wolves,’ Tom said hastily.

  ‘I watch them,’ Amelia said. ‘Study how they behave. Did your dad tell you we saw some?’
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br />   ‘Really?’ Charlie sounded excited.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Lord Eddington asked.

  Digging into her pocket, Amelia produced the envelope she’d wanted Tom to post and that he’d later returned to her. ‘You may want to give this to the Chief Scientific Officer,’ she said. ‘It’s a copy of a first-hand report from Chernobyl. Don’t worry, it’s not radioactive. But you can tell him the person who wrote it died within a day. It has details, data. Your government has no idea what happened there. It’s probably best you do. That way you can stop it happening here.’

  ‘You sound like one of those women from Greenham Common.’

  ‘I am one of those women from Greenham Common.’

  ‘If you’d excuse me, sir?’ Tom said.

  He led Amelia to one side, aware that his father-in-law and his son were watching, and that Amelia wasn’t the sort of person you lead.

  ‘For all you know he’ll simply sit on it.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’ll show it to the CSO, then sit on it.’

  ‘And that doesn’t worry you?’

  ‘It’s one copy,’ she said. ‘I’ve made others.’

  A tug disturbed Tom’s sleeve. And he wrapped his arm round Charlie’s shoulders and felt the small boy lean into him. ‘Grandpa says that we should probably go now.’

  ‘I hope your mum feels better,’ Amelia said.

  ‘I do too.’ He looked at her, wide-eyed. ‘You really saw wolves?’

  ‘Lots of wolves.’ She dropped to his level, grunted slightly.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Charlie sounded worried.

  ‘A bad man shot me.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘The wolves ate him for me.’

  Charlie’s eyes widened. ‘They ate him?’

  ‘He was a very bad man,’ Amelia said. ‘Very bad indeed.’

  Charlie thought about it. ‘I like wolves,’ he said. And Tom knew he meant it. His son’s mind had been made up on the subject of wolves. He would like them for life. ‘I need to go now though,’ Charlie said.

  He put his hand out.

  ‘I’m Charlie Fox,’ he said politely. ‘Bye bye.’

  Acknowledgements

  Nightfall Berlin is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are the products of my imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, etc …

  That said, this is a hard subject to write about, and I’m grateful to those who have talked on and off the record. As I’m also grateful to those who shared their experiences of working behind the Iron Curtain.

  My thanks to Jonny Geller, my agent at Curtis Brown, who fixed the deal; and Rowland White, my editor at Penguin Random House, for believing in the book. Thanks to Sarah Gabriel for her edit, Mark Handsley for his copy-edit and Nick Lowndes for not minding that I was never in the right place to receive the proofs!

  As ever, gratitude to my partner, Sam Baker, who put up with me vanishing off to Berlin and Paris while she was stuck in London working like a lunatic on The Pool.

  Thank you.

  And finally, no thanks at all to easyJet, who hooked everyone off a flight from Berlin, provided zero information, took off insanely late, landed at Gatwick just in time for the last Express into London but not to make any onward connections, and then refused to accept any responsibility – because it was God’s decision to throw a crow at the front of their plane.

  Having said that, walking across Westminster Bridge at four in the morning, in ice cold, utterly clear weather, with a pitch-black sky and lights on the river, was an unexpected joy. (And will undoubtedly turn up in a novel somewhere …)

  Edinburgh

  December 2017

  THE BEGINNING

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  MICHAEL JOSEPH

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  First published 2018

  Copyright © Jack Grimwood, 2018

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Brandenburg Gate © Getty Images, barbed wire ©Shutterstock

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-405-92173-2