They both laughed.
“And I must be going,” Vladimir said when the bout had subsided. “I’ve been in this country long enough. Three days is a long time.”
“Another vodka, perhaps?”
“Most kind, but no. I’ve a long, tedious flight ahead.”
“You’ve said nothing about the genetic virus.”
“Because there’s nothing to say. Success is as far away as ever. Whoever stole that sample all those years ago, took the one and only original batch. And all documentation was destroyed with the lab. It’s a start from scratch.”
“We thought we had a possible candidate, but the trail has gone cold. There was a vague rumour that the actual thief was shot, and that the vial might have been broken…”
“In which case, he would have been infected, and possibly dead by now.”
“Or infected, and alive.”
“His DNA would be interesting…”
“And a good source. We had many likely candidates whom we believed to be the thief. We are, of course, not the only ones looking.”
Vladimir nodded. “I know. And your candidates?”
“All dead.”
“Naturally?”
“Unnaturally.”
The man called Vladimir pursed his lips briefly. “I see a cul-de-sac. And the remaining candidate?”
“We mistakenly tried to eliminate him, for other reasons.”
“Which were?”
“He is related by marriage to Müller.”
“Ah! But are you certain he is the candidate?”
“No.”
“Then if I may suggest, I would leave him be for now. Müller is no fool, as you have reason to know. In fact, I would also suggest leaving Müller alone for now. Let him relax. Let him lower his guard. There are indirect ways to get him. Work with Adams on this, instead of against him. We all owe our allegiance to The Semper. Never forget.”
“And if Müller continues to get too close?”
The man called Vladimir rose from the comfortable armchair. “Then,” he said, “like a moth to a flame, he will be burnt. Now I really must go. Thanks for the vodka.”
“I do not like being countermanded.”
Vladimir paused. “It this addressed to me?”
“Certainly not. I am thinking of Adams.”
There was a diffident knock on Adams’ door. He recognised it.
“Come in, Mary-Ann.”
She entered with uncertain steps. Adams was at his desk, staring at the golf bag with a thunderous expression.
“Everything…everything alright?” she asked as she approached him.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he remarked, looking at her. His expression softened.
She went round the back of the desk until she was behind him. With the ease of familiarity, she began to massage his shoulders.
“Mmmm,” he said, shutting his eyes in pleasure. “You’re so good at this.”
She pulled his chair slightly away from the desk, then moving to his front, she hitched up her skirt, spread her legs, and straddled him.
“I’m good at this too,” she said, kissing him.
“The door,” he said against her lips.
“I locked it.”
It would be half an hour before she would leave the room.
One of the doors along the carpeted corridor was opened, and a man in shirtsleeves came out. He went to Adams’ door, knocked, then began to open the door. It did not move.
“What the hell…?” he began. He knocked louder. “Toby? Toby! Some news!”
There was no reply.
“Damn! Where the hell is he now that I need him?”
The man strode along the corridor to the reception area. The blonde swung her chair round to look, and gave him her searchlight smile.
“Mr. Roberts! Can I help?”
“Mary-Ann, have you seen Mr. Adams? Has he gone out?”
The eyes that looked back at Roberts were vacuous, betraying little brain activity. The voice did not help either.
“Haven’t seen him, Mr. Roberts…and if he went out, he didn’t come this way. I’ve been here all the time.”
“I see.” Roberts appeared distracted. “Alright. Thank you.” He began to turn away.
“Oh, Mr. Roberts.”
Roberts paused.
“He had a visitor.”
Roberts frowned. “A visitor?”
She nodded, pleased to have a secret to divulge. “She said…”
“She?”
“Yes, Mr. Roberts. She said she was Colonel Bloomsfield…”
“A colonel?”
“I was surprised too. But Mr. Adams treated her like an old friend. They went into his office. I made them coffee.”
“I see. Thank you, Mary-Ann.”
The searchlight smile was back on. “You’re welcome, Mr. Roberts.”
Roberts went back along the corridor, a bemused expression upon his face, and returned to the room he had come out of.
Carey Bloomfield knocked on Müller’s door.
“In!”
She entered, carrying a travel bag. “Sorry I’m a little late. Thought I might as well check out…if the offer of a room still stands.”
Müller got up from behind his desk. “It does. No escort?”
“If you mean Miss Hawkeyes, no. But I did have an escort.”
“Oh?”
“One of your new sergeants. He was by the front desk. I met him before with Pappi. Hammer…Hammer something.”
“Hammersfeldt.”
“That’s it. Pappi had to tell him to stop staring at me.” She smiled. “’I know she’s very pretty’ I remember Pappi saying, ‘but it’s rude to stare’:”
“You’ve got a fan,” Müller said.
“Hammersfeldt is young,” she said deprecatingly, “and it’s summer.” She touched her wet coat. “When it decides to make an appearance. Well? Are we ready to go?”
“We’re ready. Your coach and 450 horses await.” He went up to her, and took the bag.
“I am grownup, Müller,” she said. “I can carry my own bag. I carried it all the way here. Well, no. Hammersfeldt carried it.” But she made no attempt to retrieve it.
“There you go,” Müller said.
They did not speak again until they were in the lift, descending to garage level.
“So?” Müller began. “Is Toby Adams in town?”
“He is.”
“And?”
“I said nothing about the picture. But I did tell him someone tried to take a shot at me. He was horrified.”
“Genuine?”
She nodded. “I’m certain of it.”
Müller studied her expression. “Something in your voice tells me you’re puzzled.”
“He sounded…kind of annoyed.”
“Annoyed? That’s an odd reaction.”
“I thought he sounded annoyed by the timing…not by the act itself.”
“Are you suggesting it was no surprise to him that someone would try this?”
“Maybe I’m getting a little paranoid.”
“At the right time and place, a little paranoia can be good for the health. Does he suspect you know anything about him that you should not?”
She shook her head slowly, but said nothing. She seemed deep in thought.
The silence stayed with them as they got out of the lift and walked to Müller’s parking bay. It stayed as Müller squeezed the remote to unlock the car, reached down by the driver’s seat to press the switch on the door sill to open the luggage compartment at the front. It stayed with them when he put the bag into it and gently clicked the bonnet shut. It continued as they got into the car and Müller started the powerful engine.
It was still with them as he drove up the ramp, out of the garage and into the teeming rain, as the armoured door continued rolling upwards.
Then he broke it.
“Kreuzberg,” he said.
“This is it,” Müller said, peering through t
he rain-drenched windscreen at the ungated entrance of a courtyard.
A sign on the left wall proclaimed: Anlieger frei.
“Not being residents,” he continued, “we’re not supposed to drive in here. But…as we are going to see a resident…”
He drove through. The courtyard was bigger than expected; a large square with low-visibility parking bays and seamlessly bordered by renovated buildings with large windows. Very few of the parking bays were occupied.
“Nice place to live,” Carey Bloomfield remarked, peering upwards. “Looks almost Tuscan.”
“A gentrified quarter,” Müller said. “Much of Berlin is still a building site, but some places are being nicely restored. The person I’m looking for used to be the editor of a newspaper.”
“He can afford it, then.”
“Not necessarily. He could have been living here for years, and the renovation came to him. Kreuzberg was a frontline district in the days of the DDR. It bordered the Wall…which, as it was in the American sector, I’m certain you already know. Imagine,” Müller went on before she could make comment. “My father may well have met people here.”
“Spooky.”
“In both senses of the word.”
“Well. Your weird humour is still intact. That’s a good sign. So which one of these ‘gentrified’ places is it?”
Müller pulled into an empty bay, before a house with mahogany-coloured door. “According to my information, this one. Hope he’s home. He will have long retired. You wait. No point both of us getting wet.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gave her a tolerant look as he switched off the engine.
But her attention was elsewhere. “Someone’s coming out.”
Müller turned to check. A middle-aged woman in a dark raincoat with the hood up, was pulling the door shut behind her. Just in front of the house, three small squares, embedded in a neat row among the cobbles, gleamed in the rain.
Müller got out quickly and hunched against the rain, hurried towards the woman.
“Excuse me..”
“Oh!” The woman put a hand to her chest. “You startled me.”
“Sorry.”
“No harm done.” She peered at Müller, glanced at the car, then back to Müller. She had a kind face and eyes. “That’s a pretty car. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Herr Vogel.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. He’s not here. I look after the house for him. His wife died many years ago, you know, so he spends much of his time at his other place.”
“His other place? Where is that?”
“He has a small villa on Wannsee…”
“I don’t believe it,” Müller said to himself.
The woman caught the murmur, but not the words. “What was that?”
“Something I forgot.”
“Ah.” He peered at him from beneath her hood. “You look so disappointed. I’ll tell you what…I’ll get you the address of the villa, shall I?”
“That would be very kind.”
She took out a key, and began to re-open the door. “Come out of the rain while I get it. You look like a nice young man, and from what I can see, you’ve got a lovely young lady in your lovely car. I don’t think you’ll attack me, will you?” She turned her head briefly to smile at him over her shoulder.
“I don’t think so,” he said, smiling back at her.
“He used to be in the newspaper business, you know,” the woman said as they entered a long, narrow hall whose walls were covered with news photographs that spanned many years.
“Yes,” Müller remarked softly. “I can see that. May I look?”
“Help yourself. I’ll go and get you an old envelope with the villa address. Many people write to him, and visit him too. It’s to do with his old job.” She paused. “Sometimes, I think he still does it in a part time way.”
“Do they come here? Or the villa?”
“Here, and the villa. Only yesterday, a man came to see him. I sent him to the villa. American, I think. He spoke very good German, but the accent was definitely American. In the days of the Wall, we had many Americans here, of course. He sounded the same.”
“I see.”
“I’ll get you that envelope.”
“Thank you.”
As she went off, Müller began to walk slowly along the hall, studying the photographs. He was about halfway when he stopped, heart beating.
He stared at a collage of black and white photographs, in a single frame. One was of his parents. Another was of their aircraft, intact, parked at an airport. The third was of the crash site, with wreckage strewn over a wide area. The fourth was of the rockface against which the aircraft had slammed.
Müller felt sick. In this house belonging to a man he did not know, he had found a photo-montage of the last moments in the lives of his mother and father.
“Are you alright?”
The solicitous voice of the woman was suddenly there.
Müller gave a slight start, rousing himself. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
“You look a little pale. I saw you staring at the picture. Do you know those people?”
“My parents,” he said after a while.
She looked distressed. “Oh. I’m so sorry. You poor boy. You must have been very young when it happened.”
“Twelve.”
“Terrible. Terrible. I remember when it happened. So very sad. Everybody was talking about it. Such a wonderful couple too. So you must be the Graf now,” she added, a tone of respect coming into her voice.
Müller nodded, but said nothing. He was still looking at the photograph of his parents.
“Will you please do me a favour?” he said to her.
“Anything, Herr Graf.”
“I don’t want anyone to know I’ve been here. Private, you know.”
“I understand perfectly, Herr Graf.”
“And as for Herr Vogel, as I’m going to see him, anyway, no need to call him.”
“I understand, Herr Graf,” she said again. “I hope he can help you.”
“So do I.”
“Here,” she said. “The envelope with the address.” She handed the postcard-sized envelope to him.
“Once again, my thanks,” he said to her as he took it and slipped it into a jacket pocket. “I’m most grateful.”
“My pleasure, Herr Graf. I am very sorry about your parents.”
“It was a long time ago. One gets over it.”
“But it still hurts.”
“Yes. It still hurts.”
She looked as if she wanted to give him a hug, to say it will be alright.
“Look after yourself,” she told him with sudden gentleness.
“Thank you. I will.”
He went out of the house, leaving her staring after him with a look of concern.
Outside, in the rain, he paused to study the three small squares. There were inscriptions upon them. He read each silently, then hurried back to the car.
“What it is with you and women, Müller?” Carey Bloomfield said as he got in. “It doesn’t matter what age. They fawn over you.” She paused. “You okay? You look kind of strange.”
“I just saw a photograph of my parents in that house.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
He described what he had seen.
“Jesus,” she said.
“That man,” Müller went on, “has had that picture of my parents, on his wall like some trophy, for all these years. One of his great scoops,” he went on, a cold bitterness in his voice. “He’s the bastard who wrote an editorial about their having the morals of alleycats. According to that editorial, my mother deliberately crashed the plane, because she had found out about my father’s supposed affairs. People still believe that was the reason for the crash. It was that editorial that started the smear campaign rolling. Even that woman in there, helpful though she was.”
“She knows?”
“She saw me staring at the photog
raph. Something like that, so unexpected, I could not have helped it.”
“And you told her?”
“Yes.”
“Was that smart?”
“Smart or not, to have denied it after she asked me if I knew who they were, would have felt like betrayal.”
“I guess I can understand that. Sorry you had to see that photo, Müller.”
“One of those things. It was there, and I was led there. I was meant to see it.”
“Was the guy home?”
“No. He’s in Wannsee. She gave me the address. Ironic. I was down there this morning. The person who gave me this address either did not know about Wannsee, or he knew and still chose not to tell me.”
“He wanted you to see that picture?”
“Possibly.”
“We might have got here later, and missed the woman. Then what?”
“But we didn’t. And that, for me, is all that matters.”
“What are those things you were looking at?”
“Stolpersteine.”
“’Stumbling stones’?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They are small memorials. Those three out there have the names of the people who once lived in that house: two adults, and a child; their dates of birth, and of death, and their fate, are written there. Written in stone, if you like. They died in concentration camps.”
“Now he’s living there.”
“Makes you think, doesn’t it?” Müller said as he started the car. “These ‘stones’ are being laid all over Germany. I wonder if Herr Vogel sees the ghosts of those three people. I wonder if he sees the ghosts of my parents.”
“Back to Wannsee?” Carey Bloomfield said tentatively, noting the stillness of his expression.
“Back to Wannsee, and a slight change of plan.”
“Which is?”
“That room I offered…”
“Oh no, Müller. You’re not going to say I’ve got to check back into the hotel.”
“Not that at all. But you’ll have to wait for the organ recital. We’ll not be going back to my place, after Wannsee. But I promise you’ll like your room. You’ve been there before.”
“Aunt Isolde’s?”
He nodded. “So it’s on to Thüringen, and Aunt Isolde’s near Saalfeld. She’ll be very pleased to see you.”
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