Deception ht-3

by Adrian Magson

  ‘Ja?’ It was the same voice.

  ‘It’s Tate. I’ll be at the church in two minutes.’ He switched off and continued walking. When he arrived at the car, an elderly woman was standing alongside it, as if keeping guard. She had grey hair and was poorly dressed in a thin coat and worn, faded shoes, although she carried herself with a certain dignity. Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows, and Harry thought she looked sick.

  ‘Herr Tate?’ The old woman’s lower lip was trembling slightly, and she looked frightened. Harry wondered what she had to be concerned about.

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied. But before he could say anything else, the old woman turned and walked away at a surprising clip, leaving him to follow. He had no choice but to hustle after her.

  The woman led him down a narrow walkway between houses and gardens, and stopped near a large block of flats. The building was old, unlike its neighbours, and made of concrete; a throwback, it seemed, to another era, and called a Plattenbau, Harry remembered. Originally for workers, most had been torn down or renovated.

  The old woman beckoned him inside. A flight of bare concrete steps led upwards, and she wheezed ahead of him, then motioned him along a landing and opened a door. She ushered him inside and pointed to a clean, sparsely furnished room with a table and three hard-backed chairs. The flat smelled musty, and the light was poor, blocked by heavy net curtains. He sat down on one of the chairs.

  ‘You must wait,’ the old woman told him in heavily accented English. ‘He comes soon.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ Harry asked, but she shook her head and walked through into a small kitchen area, where she put a saucepan of water on to an ancient stove. Then she produced a small tin of coffee from a cupboard and with almost genteel care, set down a clean mug before him. Her eyes gave nothing away, although he could have sworn the trembling in the old woman’s frame might have been generated by some kind of expectation or excitement, rather than the frailty of old age.

  While the water was boiling, he tried in his limited German to get some response from her, conjuring up phrases from his time in Berlin.

  ‘When’s he coming. . Wann kommt er?’

  But she refused to play, staring instead at the saucepan as if too nervous to meet his eyes. When the water was boiled, she made the coffee, then placed sugar alongside his mug. There was no milk. After stirring the saucepan, she poured the black mix into the mug, sniffing in evident pleasure as she did so.

  ‘Danke.’ He stood up and walked to the window, mug in hand. The coffee was very strong, good, pure Colombian. If he was at all suspicious, he would have begun to think this was all turning into a wild goose chase. But since when did con artists drag someone across Europe, then leave the mark alone with a little old lady to ply him with expensive coffee?

  The view of the houses opposite showed cracked walls and peeling window frames. There were no vehicles in the street, merely a bicycle propped against a house further down. Just above the houses rose the church spire, where his car was parked. By leaning close to the glass he could see the length of the street, and, beyond it, the roofs of the town centre.

  As he watched, a car drove by. It was a dark-blue Passat with a white mark on the front wing.

  Harry felt the hairs move on the back of his neck. ‘I have to go out,’ he said, putting down the mug.

  The old lady looked alarmed, and he raised both palms to reassure her. He struggled for the words, hoping they were right. ‘Ich bin gleich wieder da. .’

  She seemed to understand, but there was no way of knowing. He left the flat and ran down the stairs, startling a child sitting on a front step. By the time he reached the end of the street, there was no sign of the Passat. He walked back to the church, staying close to buildings, and stopped at the corner. He could see the area in front of the building, and his car. Nearby was a beer delivery truck with the driver hauling himself into the cab.

  No sign of the Passat.

  Harry wondered if his nerves were getting the better of him. Yet he was certain he’d recognized the car just a few minutes ago. As he turned to leave, the beer truck started up and pulled out on to the street. Behind it was the dark-blue Passat. It was empty.

  Harry froze and waited. He wondered if he was being watched right now from another vantage point, and resisted the temptation to turn and scan the surrounding buildings. Moments later a large man in jeans and a leather jacket emerged from a narrow side street and walked over to the Passat. He stood for a moment, staring at Harry’s VW, all the while talking on a mobile phone.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When he returned to the flat, Harry found a bear of a man sitting at the table drinking coffee. Although several years younger than the woman, he looked drawn, as if he had not slept in a long time. But he stood up readily enough and offered his hand.

  ‘Ulf Hefflin,’ he said, and looked awkward, as though he wasn’t sure what to say next. He shrugged and murmured to the old woman, who poured more coffee for Harry before slipping into her coat and leaving.

  Hefflin studied Harry from beneath heavy eyebrows. The look was steady, and gave Harry the impression of a sharp mind, in spite of the tired exterior.

  ‘Did you bring money?’

  Harry nodded, relieved that the man was getting to the point. The coffee was strong enough to float a brick and he was already beginning to feel the effects of the caffeine pounding through his system.

  Hefflin stood and took a small cardboard box from the top of a cupboard near the kitchen sink. He took out a burgundy-coloured passport and placed it on the table with what seemed almost reverence, then took a mobile from his pocket and placed it alongside.

  Harry picked up the passport and turned to the back. Barrow’s photo stared up at him.

  ‘Where did you get them?’ he asked quietly.

  Hefflin motioned him to sit down. ‘Please. . I will tell you what I know.’ He crossed his hands on the table in front of him and looked squarely at Harry. ‘Sylvia, my sister,’ he said, nodding towards the door, ‘has cancer. She needs drugs. Drugs we do not have here. I can get them. . but not easily.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Is that why you want money?’

  ‘Harry — I may call you Harry?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank you. I am Ulf. You have heard of the Staatssicherheitsdienst, Harry?’

  ‘The Stasi? Yes.’

  ‘They employed many people. Young, old. . ordinary people, some of them. Their job was to watch others. Spies for the state, spying on foreigners, on travellers, dissidents, artists. . but mostly each other.’ He tapped the table nervously. His fingers were strong but clean and smooth, Harry noticed. Not a labourer’s hands.

  ‘Sylvia and Claus — her husband — both worked for the Stasi,’ Ulf continued. ‘Until the change, of course.’

  Harry nodded. ‘They were disbanded. I know.’

  ‘Disbanded, yes. But life for them is not easy. Many became known after the Wall came down. They suffered — some disappeared. Sure, they did wrong. . they spied on their friends, even their own families. But it was the way of life here. You worked for the state. . and sometimes you found you were working for the Stasi, also.’

  ‘What has this to do with this passport?’

  ‘Sylvia worked in a weapons factory. Research and development. The safety systems were non-existent. They were exposed to chemicals.’ He sighed deeply and stared through Harry, remembering.

  ‘What about you?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Me?’ Ulf grunted. ‘I was a doctor in the army. Sometimes with the East German army, sometimes with the Russians. . we went where we were told.’ He studied Harry’s face. ‘You were military, too, I think?’

  Harry nodded. ‘Yes.’ Ulf being a doctor explained his command of English and the smooth skin of his hands. ‘How much do you want for these?’ he asked, indicating the passport and mobile.

  ‘Five hundred dollars.’ The answer was calm, unemotional, with just a hint of a reservati
on in the tone, as if it might be asking too much. . or too little.

  Harry counted out the money and pushed it across the table. Added another two hundred. Ulf let it lie, as if good manners wouldn’t allow him to touch it.

  ‘It is for Sylvia,’ he explained. ‘You understand?’

  Harry nodded. ‘Of course.’ He gathered up the passport and phone, adding, ‘For the extra money, I need to know exactly where they were found. Can you take me?’

  Ulf looked puzzled and wary. ‘Of course. But why do you want to go there?’

  ‘Because things like these don’t just appear as if by magic. Someone left them, lost them or threw them away. I’d like to find out which it was.’

  On the other side of the street, in the shadow of a doorway, the driver of the Passat watched as Harry Tate and another man came out of the block of flats and walked back towards where Tate had parked his Golf. The watcher hurried back to his car. He was already dialling the number of the man who had hired him.

  Ulf refused to say more as Harry drove, other than giving directions. Towards the river, he said. Towards the border. Other than that, he slumped in his seat, rubbing his hands on his knees and staring out at the passing countryside, his expression troubled.

  A few minutes later, they left the streets behind them and entered a narrow track leading into open countryside. The land was lower here, and Harry caught a glimpse of water in the distance. The surface was deeply rutted and puddled by recent rain, and the vegetation on either side brushed against the wings of the Golf with a soft hissing sound. When they came in sight of some trees, Ulf signalled for Harry to stop.

  ‘People do not come down here now,’ Ulf said quietly. ‘Only the young who do not care for history. For others there are too many bad memories still. Just beyond the trees is the border and the river Oder. It is not encouraged to approach. But there is one man named Wilhelm who walks here often. He found a coat containing the phone and the passport. Someone had thrown it away.’ He looked at Harry. ‘We should not be here, Harry. For Wilhelm, who found the coat, it is OK. . because everyone knows he is a little mad.’

  Harry got out of the car and stood for a moment, scanning the surrounding countryside. It was pleasant enough, although a little bleak compared with the other side of Schwedt, but that may have been due to the circumstances. He tried to imagine what would have brought Barrow and his passport and phone down here, and where he’d been going.

  There was only one way to find out.

  He walked along the track away from the car. It was overgrown and showed signs of little use, and any tyre tracks further back were no longer evident. Behind him, he heard Ulf open and close the car door.

  ‘Where did he find the jacket?’

  Ulf explained, pointing towards some bushes near a strand of pine trees. A clutch of crows in the upper branches watched as Harry approached, then took off with a clatter of wings and coarse cries of alarm.

  Harry checked the bush, but saw nothing to indicate why the jacket had been left here. He shivered. It wasn’t cold, but the atmosphere here, close to the pine trees, was suddenly gloomy, as if a dark cloud had drifted across the sky above them.

  Or maybe it was the crows, and what might have happened here.

  He turned as Ulf joined him, and walked towards the trees. Trees and crows, he thought, remembering a small village in south-western Kosovo. That had been a pleasant place, once. A place for picnics and children playing, a secluded spot in the evenings for lovers to walk and find each other. But horror had come calling early one morning as dawn was breaking, and everyone in the village had disappeared. Several days later, in a copse of pine trees just outside the village, someone from a neighbouring hamlet scouting for pine cones had reported a gathering of crows. An investigation by UN personnel had found the trees were now concealing a mass grave.

  Harry found the body moments later. The grass leading up to it had been disturbed, the flattened path pointing like an arrow. The first thing he saw was the blaze of pale flesh and the darkened crust of dried blood where the birds had been feasting on the soft tissue of the face and chest. There had been no real attempt to bury the man or conceal what had been done here.

  ‘Ulf,’ he called, and pointed to the flattened area leading up to the body. The doctor joined him, treading carefully, and muttered an oath.

  ‘This is the man?’

  Harry nodded. ‘It’s him.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Thirty minutes later, the scene was the focus of attention of a cluster of local police vehicles and an ambulance, all bustling for space on the narrow track. While waiting for them to arrive, Harry had taken a look around the immediate area and found the pickup truck with a map on the dashboard. The paper was too fresh to have been here long, and he knew it must have belonged to Graham Barrow. Other than that, the pickup was clean.

  At first Ulf had argued about the wisdom of calling the police. But Harry had prevailed, explaining that Barrow may have been a deserter, but he’d been a soldier first. It would be the only way he would ever return home.

  It would also bring to the attention of anyone watching that the body had been discovered. As a precaution, he had called Ballatyne and explained what he’d found.

  Ballatyne seemed unperturbed at Harry’s decision to involve the police. ‘Probably the best outcome. Keeps it officially believable. What cover story are you using?’

  ‘I’ll use the WO-Two cover, chasing down a missing squaddie.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get on to the MOD and our embassy in Berlin and prep them. Tell the cops you’re operating out of London. It’ll save any of our bases being dragged into it.’

  The senior uniformed officer nodded at Ulf and the two men had a brief exchange. Then Ulf turned to Harry. ‘I know this man. I have worked with him. He is from the local state police. He has asked me to look at the body before they move it.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Harry looked at the policeman. ‘Thank you.’

  A few minutes later, Ulf stood up from the body and said, ‘He was shot once. It came near the heart. No other wounds that I can see. Only the. . the birds.’

  Before he could say more, another vehicle arrived. Two men climbed out and approached the trees. Their arrival seemed to have an effect on the other officers present, and Harry heard Ulf take in a sharp breath.

  ‘Bundespolizei,’ he murmured. ‘Federal investigators. They have responsibility for the borders and will take over from the local police. They will not approve of us being here.’

  The first man, short and balding, stepped forward and spoke to the senior uniform, leaving his younger colleague, who had a ginger tinge to his hair, studying the body.

  ‘You are?’ the short man said, turning to Harry. His English was unhesitating and fluid.

  Harry considered his response, but there was only one way to play it.

  ‘My name’s Tate,’ he said, and handed over his passport. The policeman flicked through it and passed it to his colleague.

  ‘For your information, my name is Drachmann and my colleague is Muller. Why is an Englishman here — ’ he gestured around him at the trees and bushes, and then at the body — ‘in such a quiet place?’ His eyes flickered coolly across to include Hefflin in his words. ‘Perhaps you do not know, but this is a restricted area, Mr Tate. Do you not have restricted areas in England?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said carefully. ‘That was my fault. I put pressure on Mr Hefflin, here.’ He indicated Ulf, who looked relieved but still worried.

  ‘Pressure?’

  ‘Yes.’ He produced the Warrant Officer card and passed it over. ‘I came looking for a member of our military who has gone missing. Mr Hefflin was handed his passport and a mobile phone, and called my number. I came to see if the soldier was in the region.’ It was as near to the truth as he wanted to get, and he hoped Ballatyne had the clout with the British Embassy in Berlin to back it up when the official questions progressed further along the diplomatic and police lines.

/>   ‘And why would this. . man be here?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘We can only make a guess at that. He left his unit and disappeared, that’s all we know.’

  ‘A deserter?’ Drachmann looked faintly disapproving.

  ‘Technically, yes. But there may have been extenuating circumstances. He has been under severe stress recently.’

  ‘Afghanistan?’

  ‘Yes. We wanted to find him before he did anything drastic. My job is to persuade men like this to return to their units.’

  The policeman nodded and pursed his lips. ‘It is understandable. He is important, this man?’

  Harry hesitated. Drachmann was quick on the uptake. ‘He has — had — specialized knowledge, yes. We wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.’

  ‘Of course. I understand.’ Drachmann nodded slowly. ‘But I have two questions: how did you know he was here? And how did Herr Hefflin know to contact you?’

  Harry took a deep breath. This could be tricky and he hoped Hefflin was quick on the ball. ‘I was in London. I was keen for Barrow to get in touch with me, so I left a voicemail message with my number. When Mr Hefflin called me to say he’d found the passport and phone, it seemed reasonable to come and look around. I thought Barrow might have been in a car accident. I asked where the items had been found, and when Mr Hefflin told me, I persuaded him to bring me down here. Any blame for him being here is mine.’

  The policeman lifted his eyebrows, but did not seem overly impressed. ‘You did not think to work through the proper channels? We have a common interest here.’

  Harry smiled briefly. ‘I was impatient. I thought if I could find Sergeant Barrow and persuade him to go back, it would involve the minimum of fuss. . for him as well as us. I’m sorry if I’ve gone about this the wrong way, but I’m sure you understand.’

  To his surprise the man nodded and handed back his passport. ‘And is this definitely Barrow? You can formally identify him?’

  ‘Yes. It’s Graham Barrow.’ Harry handed him Barrow’s passport.