‘Don’t give me all that crap,’ I said. ‘You left the building with Rensselaer at seven-fifteen. You were in his Bentley when he drove out of the garage. Then I discovered he’d left the reception desk at the Connaught as his contact number for the nightduty officer.’
‘You haven’t lost your touch, darling,’ she said with ice in every syllable. ‘Once a field man, always a field man – isn’t that what they say?’
‘It’s what people like Cruyer and Rensselaer say. It’s what people say when they are trying to put down the people who do the real work.’
‘Well, now it’s paid off for you,’ she said. ‘Now all your old expertise has enabled you to discover that I had dinner at the Connaught with Bret Rensselaer.’
‘So why do you have to lie to me?’
‘What lies? I told you I had to do some work for Rensselaer. We had dinner – a good dinner, with wine – but we were talking shop.’
‘About what?’
She pushed past me into the front room and through into the dining room that opened from it in what designers call ‘open plan’. She picked up the clean plates and cutlery that had been left for me. ‘You know better than to ask me that.’ She went into the kitchen.
I followed her as she put the plates on a shelf in the dresser. ‘Because it’s so secret?’
‘It’s confidential,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have work that is too confidential to talk to me about?’
‘Not in the grillroom of the Connaught, I don’t.’
‘So you even know which room we were in. You’ve done your homework tonight, haven’t you.’
‘What was I supposed to do while you’re having dinner with the boss? Am I supposed to eat cold chicken and watch TV?’
‘You were supposed to be having a beer with a friend, and then collecting the children from their visit to my parents’ house.’
Oh, my God! I forgot. ‘I clean forgot about the children,’ I admitted.
‘I phoned mother. I guessed you’d forget. She gave them supper and brought them here in a minicab. It’s all right.’
‘Good old Mum-in-law,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to be bloody sarcastic about my mother,’ said Fiona. ‘It’s bad enough trying to have an argument about Bret.’
‘Let’s drop it,’ I said.
‘Do what you like,’ said Fiona. ‘I’ve had enough talk for one night.’ She switched off the light in the dining room, then opened the door of the dishwasher, closed it again, and turned it on. The sprays of the dishwasher beat on its steel interior like a Wagnerian drumroll. The noise made conversation impossible.
When I came from the bathroom, I expected to see Fiona tucked into the pillow and feigning sleep; she did that sometimes after we’d had a row. But this time she was sitting up in bed, reading some large tome with the distinctive cheap binding of the Department’s library. She wanted to remind me that she was a dedicated wage slave.
As I undressed, I tried a fresh, friendly tone of voice. ‘What did Bret want?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t keep on about it.’
‘There’s nothing between you, is there?’
She laughed. It was a derisory laugh. ‘You suspect me…with Bret Rensselaer? He’s nearly as old as my father.’
‘He was probably older than the father of that cipher clerk – Jennie something – who left just before Christmas.’
Fiona raised her eyes from her book; this was the sort of thing that interested her. ‘You don’t think she…? With Bret, you mean?’
‘Internal Security sent someone to find out why she’d left without giving proper notice. She said she’d been having an affair with Bret. He’d told her they were through.’
‘Good grief,’ said Fiona. ‘Poor Bret. I suppose the D-G had to be told.’
‘The D-G was pleased to hear the girl had proper security clearance, and that was that.’
‘How broad-minded of the old man. I’d have thought he would have been furious. Still, Bret isn’t married. His wife left him, didn’t she?’
‘The suggestion was that Bret had sinned before.’
‘And always with someone with proper security clearance. Well, good for Bret. So that’s why you thought…’ She laughed again. It was a genuine laugh this time. She closed her book but kept a finger in the page. ‘He’s going through the regular routine about the danger of security lapses.’
‘I told him about Giles Trent,’ I said. ‘I kept Tessa out of it.’
‘Bret has decided to talk to everyone personally,’ said Fiona.
‘Surely Bret doesn’t suspect you?’
Fiona smiled. ‘No, darling. Bret didn’t take me to the Connaught to interrogate me over the bones of the last of his season’s woodcock. He spent the evening talking about you.’
‘About me?’
‘And in due course of time he will take you aside and ask about me. You know how it works, darling. You’ve been at this business longer than I have.’ She put a marker in her book before laying it aside.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘If you don’t believe me, darling, ask Bret.’
‘I might do that,’ I said. She waited until I got into bed, and then switched out the lights. ‘I thought there was protein in cheese,’ I said. She didn’t answer.
9
Dicky Cruyer was in Bret Rensselaer’s office when they sent for me on Wednesday. Cruyer had his thumbs stuck in the back pockets of his jeans and his curly head was tilted to one side as if he were listening for some distant sound.
Rensselaer was in his swivel chair, arms folded and feet resting on a leather stool. These relaxed postures were studied, and I guessed that the two of them had taken up their positions when they heard me at the door. It was a bad sign. Rensselaer’s folded arms and Cruyer’s akimbo stance had that sort of aggression I’d seen in interrogating teams.
‘Bernard!’ said Dicky Cruyer in a tone of pleasant surprise, as if I’d just dropped in for tea, rather than kept them waiting for thirty minutes in response to the third of his calls. Rensselaer watched us dispassionately, like a passing taxicab passenger might watch two men at a bus stop. ‘Looks like another jaunt to Big B,’ said Dicky.
‘Is that so?’ I said without enthusiasm. Bret was jacketless. This slim figure in white shirt, bow tie and waistcoat looked like the sort of Mississippi riverboat gambler who broke into song for the final reel.
‘Not through the wire, or anything tricky,’ said Dicky. ‘Just a call into our office. An East German has just knocked on Frank Harrington’s door with a bagful of paper and demands to be sent to London. Won’t talk to our Berlin people, Frank tells me.’ Dicky Cruyer ran his finger through his curls before nodding seriously at Rensselaer.
‘Another crank,’ I said.
‘Is that what you think, Bernard?’ said Rensselaer with that earnest sincerity I’d learned to disregard.
‘What kind of papers?’ I asked Dicky.
‘Right,’ said Cruyer. But he didn’t answer my question.
Rensselaer took his time about describing the papers. ‘Interesting stuff,’ he stated cautiously. ‘Most of it from here. The minutes of a meeting the D-G had with some Foreign Office senior staff, an appraisal of our success in tapping diplomatic lines out of London, part of a report on our use of US enciphering machines…A mixed bag but it’s worth attention. Right?’
‘Well worth our attention, Bret,’ I said.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Cruyer.
‘For anyone who believes in Santa Claus,’ I added.
‘You mean it’s a KGB stunt?’ said Rensselaer. ‘Yes, that’s probably it.’ Cruyer looked at him, disconcerted by his change of attitude. ‘On the other hand,’ said Rensselaer, ‘it’s something we ignore at our peril. Wouldn’t you agree, Bernard?’
I didn’t answer.
Dicky Cruyer moved his hands to grip the large brass buckle of his leather cowboy belt. ‘Berlin Resident is worried – damned worried.’
‘Old Frank is always worried,’ I said. ‘He can be an old woman, we all know that.’
‘Frank’s had a lot to worry about since he took over,’ said Rensselaer, to put his loyalty to his subordinates on record. But he didn’t deny that Frank Harrington, our senior man in Berlin, could be an old woman.
‘All stuff from here?’ I said. ‘Identifiably from here? Verbatim? Copies of our documents? From here how?’
‘It’s no good asking Frank that,’ said Dicky Cruyer quickly before anyone blamed him for not finding out.
‘It’s no good asking Frank anything,’ I said. ‘So why doesn’t he send everything over here?’
‘I wouldn’t want that,’ said Rensselaer, his arms still crossed, his eyes staring at the Who’s Who on his bookshelf. ‘If this is just the KGB trying to stir a little trouble for us, I don’t want to get their man over here for interrogation. It would give them something to gloat over. Given that sort of encouragement, they’ll try again and again. No, we’ll take it easy. We’ll have Bernard go over there and sort through this stuff and talk to their guy, and tell us what he thinks. But let’s not overreact.’ He snapped a desk drawer shut with enough force to make a sound like a pistol shot.
‘It will be a waste of time,’ I said.
Bret Rensselaer kicked his foot to swivel his chair and faced me. He uncrossed his arms for a moment, snapped his starched cuffs at me and smiled. ‘That’s exactly the way I want it handled, Bernard. You go and look it over with that jaundiced eye of yours. No good sending Dicky.’ He looked at Dicky and smiled. ‘He’d wind up talking to the D-G on the hot line.’
Dicky Cruyer thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, scowled and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t like Rensselaer saying he was excitable. Cruyer wanted to be a cool and imperturbable sort of whizz kid.
Rensselaer looked at me and smiled. He knew he’d upset Cruyer and he wanted me to share the fun. ‘Go through the Berlin telex and make a note of what references they quote. Then go and see the originals: read through the minutes of that meeting at the FO, and dig out that memo about the cipher machines, and so on. That way you’ll be able to judge for yourself when you get there.’ He glanced at Dicky, who was looking out the window sulking, and then at me. ‘Whatever conclusion you come to, you’ll tell Frank Harrington it’s Spielzeug – garbage.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘Take tomorrow’s RAF flight and have a chat with Frank and calm him down. See this little German guy and sort through this junk he’s peddling.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I knew Bret would find a way of getting me to what Dicky called ‘Big B’.
‘And what’s the score with Giles Trent?’ I asked.
‘He’s been taken care of, Bernard,’ said Rensselaer. ‘We’ll talk about it when you return.’ He smiled. He was handsome, and could turn on the charm like a film star. Of course Fiona could fall for him. I felt like spitting in his eye.
I caught the military flight to Berlin next day. The plane was empty except for me, two medical orderlies who’d brought a sick soldier over the day before, and a Brigadier with an amazing amount of baggage.
The Brigadier borrowed my newspaper and wanted to talk about fly fishing. He was an affable man, young-looking compared to most Brigadiers I’d ever met, but that was not much of a sampling. It wasn’t his fault that he bore a superficial resemblance to my father-in-law, but I found it a definite barrier. I put my seat into the recline position and mumbled something about having had a late night. Then I stared out the window until thin wisps of cloud, like paint-starved brushstrokes, defaced the hard regular patterns of agricultural land that was unmistakably German.
The Brigadier began chatting to one of the medical orderlies. He asked him how long he’d been in the Army and if he had a family and where they lived. The private replied in an abrupt way that should have been enough to indicate that he’d prefer to talk football with his chum. But the Brigadier droned on. His voice too was like that of Fiona’s father. He even had the same little ‘huh?’ with which Fiona’s father finished each piece of reckless bigotry.
I remembered the first time I met Fiona’s parents. They’d invited me to stay the weekend. They had a huge mansion of uncertain age near Leith Hill in Surrey. The house was surrounded by trees – straggly firs and pines, for the most part. Around the house there were tree-covered hillsides so that Fiona’s father – David Timothy Kimber-Hutchinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, wealthy businessman and farm owner, and prizewinning amateur watercolour painter – could proudly say that he owned all the land seen from the window of his study.
There is surely a lack of natural human compassion in a host who clears away Sunday breakfast at 10.30. Fiona’s father did not think so. ‘I’ve been up helping to feed the horses since six-thirty this morning. I was exercising my best hunter before breakfast.’
He was wearing riding breeches, polished boots, yellow cashmere roll-neck and a checked hacking jacket that fitted his slightly plump figure to perfection. I noticed his attire because he’d caught me in the breakfast room getting the last dry scrapings of scrambled egg from a dish on the electric hot plate while I was barefoot and clad in an ancient dressing gown and pyjamas. ‘You’re not thinking of taking that plate of oddments’ – he came closer to see the two shrivelled rashers and four wrinkled mushrooms that were under the flakes of egg – ‘up to the bedroom?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am,’ I told him.
‘No, no, no.’ He said it with the sort of finality that doubtless ended all boardroom discussion. ‘My good wife will never have food in the bedrooms.’
Plate in hand, I continued to the door. ‘I’m not taking it up there for your wife,’ I said. ‘It’s for me.’
That very early encounter with Mr Kimber-Hutchinson blighted any filial bond that might otherwise have blossomed. But at this time the idea of marrying Fiona had not formed in my mind and the prospect of seeing Mr David Kimber-Hutchinson ever again seemed mercifully remote.
‘My God, man. You’ve not even shaved!’ he shouted after me as I went upstairs with my breakfast.
‘You provoke him,’ Fiona said when I told her about my encounter. She was in my bed, having put on her frilly nightdress, waiting to share the booty from the breakfast table.
‘How can you say that?’ I argued. ‘I speak only when he speaks to me, and then only to make polite conversation.’
‘You hypocrite! You know very well that you deliberately provoke him. You ask him all those wide-eyed innocent questions about making profits from cheap labour.’
‘Only because he keeps saying he’s a socialist,’ I said. ‘And don’t take that second piece of bacon: one each.’
‘You beast. You know I hate mushrooms.’ She licked her fingers. ‘You’re no better, darling. What do you ever do that makes you more of a socialist than Daddy?’
‘I’m not a socialist,’ I said. ‘I’m a fascist. I keep telling you that but you never listen.’
‘Daddy has his own sort of socialist ideas,’ said Fiona.
‘He refuses to do business with the French, loathes the Americans, never employs Jews, thinks all Arabs are crooked, and the only Russian he likes is Tchaikovsky. Where is the brotherhood of man?’
‘A lot of that tirade was directed at me,’ said Fiona. ‘Daddy’s been angry ever since I got a reference from old Silas Gaunt. That’s Mother’s side of the family and Daddy’s feuding with them.’
‘I see.’
‘When I hear my father going on as he did last night at dinner, I feel like joining the Communist Party, don’t you?’
‘No. I feel like suggesting your father join it.’
‘No, seriously, darling.’
‘The Communist Party?’
‘You know what I mean: workers of the world unite and all that. Daddy pays lip service to the idea of socialism but he never does anything about it.’
‘You wouldn’t escape him by joining the CP,’ I said. ??
?Your father would write out a cheque and buy it. And then he’d sell off its sports field as office sites.’
‘Come back to bed,’ said Fiona. ‘Now that we’ve missed breakfast, there’s nothing to get up for.’
Fiona rarely mentioned her father’s politics – and was vague about her own beliefs. Political conversation at the dinner table usually had her staring vacantly into space, or prompted her to start a conversation about children or sewing or hairdressers. Sometimes I wondered if she was really interested in her job in the Department or if she just stayed there to keep an eye on me.
‘We’re about to land, old boy,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Make sure your seat belt is fastened.’
The plane was over Berlin now. I could see the jagged shape of the Wall as the pilot turned on to finals for the approach to RAF Gatow, the onetime Luftwaffe training college. Its runway ends abruptly at the Wall, except that here the ‘Wall’ is a wire-mesh fence and a sandy patch that intelligence reports say has been left without mines and obstacles in case the day should come when units of the adjoining Russian Army’s tank depot would roll through it to take Berlin-Gatow with its runways intact and electronics undamaged.
10
Did you ever say hello to a girl you almost married long ago? Did she smile the same captivating smile, and give your arm a hug in a gesture you’d almost forgotten? Did the wrinkles as she smiled make you wonder what marvellous times you’d missed? That’s how I felt about Berlin every time I came back here.
Lisl Hennig’s hotel, just off Kantstrasse, in the Western Sector, was unchanged. No one had tried to repair or repaint the façade pockmarked by Red Army shell splinters in 1945. The imposing doorway, alongside an optician’s shop, opened on to the same grandiose marble staircase. The patched carpet, its red now a faded brown, led up to the ‘salon’ where Lisl was always to be found. Lisl’s mother had chosen the heavy oak furniture from Wertheim’s department store at Alexanderplatz in the days before Hitler. And long before the grand old house became this shabby hotel.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Lisl as though I’d seen her only yesterday. She was old, a huge woman who overflowed from the armchair, her red silk dress emphasizing every bulge so that she looked like molten lava pouring down a steep hillside. ‘You look tired, darling. You’re working too hard.’