by Len Deighton
By that time I was so hyped up that I didn’t care about anything except the proof of my theory. ‘Look, Werner,’ I said. I had already spotted the most conclusive discovery of all. ‘I didn’t want the farmers to see this.’ I climbed down into the ditch again and used a twig to hook up my find. I wanted to show Werner what it was, but I didn’t hold it up high in case the farmers were looking back at us.
‘What is it?’ said Werner. ‘Is it a gun?’
‘It’s the final link with Prettyman,’ I said. ‘This is the gun that killed Thurkettle.’
‘Funny-looking gun,’ said Werner. ‘It looks like a toy.’
‘Yes, it does. We live in an age when toy guns look like the real thing, and the real guns look like toys. But a plastic gun like this is deadly. Expendable and non-ferrous so it goes through airport security checks. Hatchwork all over the grips so that no fingerprints can ever be found on one. The triangular cartridge cases fit tight, and are supplied in short strips. Rapid fire: pull the trigger and it goes like a machine gun. I should have guessed what it would be, when I saw the gouge marks in the bottom of the document case.’ I laid the white plastic gun alongside the document case. ‘When fired, the metal bullet snaps out of its triangular polyethylene cartridge casing. One round must have nicked the bottom of the case. The whole story is right here before us, Werner.’
‘Are you going to take the gun along?’ asked Werner.
‘It’s evidence,’ I said. ‘You can see what happened. Prettyman came here to meet Thurkettle and pay him. Perhaps they quarrelled; about the payoff or about going to the plane instead of letting Thurkettle drive away. Prettyman holds the case like this … like a tray. He holds it high and with one hand to conceal the gun he’s got under it. I remember you doing that, Werner, when we got into that little problem in Dresden back in … oh I forget when … Prettyman fired the gun at point-blank range. Prettyman is no kind of marksman, but with the muzzle almost touching Thurkettle’s guts he didn’t have to be. Thurkettle drops instantly, and he tips the body into the ditch. Prettyman must have had it figured in advance. I think he enticed Thurkettle to a position near the ditch, so that he didn’t have to drag the body over here.’
‘You make him sound very cold-blooded,’ said Werner, as if unconvinced.
‘Prettyman. I know him very well, Werner. He is cold-blooded. We’re talking about a bastard who went through Thurkettle’s pockets and took Tessa’s sapphire brooch. And then gave it to his fancy girlfriend in Moscow.’
‘If it was the same brooch.’
‘I don’t make mistakes like that, Werner. I recognized Tessa’s sapphire as soon as I clapped eyes on it. And Prettyman admitted taking the brooch. He puts it in his own pocket, tosses gun and document case into the ditch, jumps into the camper and drives back on to the Autobahn and into the West. Cold-blooded? He’s cold-blooded all right.’
‘Very clever, Bernie. But aren’t you forgetting one little thing?’
‘What?’
‘He drives away in the camper. What about the car he arrived here in? The farmers didn’t see any other car parked here. If there was no car, how did Prettyman get here?’
‘Mrs Cindy Prettyman. That’s the answer to that one, Werner. Everything has fallen into place for me. I talked to the Swede before he was killed. He said a woman came to him that night. She collected from him the box file she’s been talking about. It was intended for Prettyman: his payoff, no doubt. Swede asked her for ID and she showed him a UK passport in the name of Mrs Prettyman. I’d say that was conclusive enough, wouldn’t you? She brought Jim here and then drove off to the plane, while Prettyman drove away in the VW camper.’
‘Jesus,’ said Werner.
‘Yes, your friend Mrs Prettyman. You think she’s all sweetness and bright light, but she’s always been able to look after herself.’
‘You can’t prove any of that.’
‘The camper’s not here now, Werner,’ I said sarcastically. ‘The Swede is dead. You can’t get anything more from him.’
‘I don’t need him,’ I said. ‘I know just about everything I need to know. I know Uncle Silas briefed Prettyman and Prettyman sent Thurkettle on his mission.’
‘If you take that plastic gun back to London I’ll bet you anything you care to bet that London will accuse you of the killing.’
‘Me?’ I said.
‘Bernie, they already suspect that you are deeply involved in all this. I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again: they think that your wild accusations are made to cover up your guilt. You take that gun and tell them where we found it and they will say you arranged the killing of Thurkettle. They will say that you left the gun here and planned this excursion so that I would witness the “discovery” and so back you up.’
‘Frame me?’
‘No, Bernie. I’m not saying that London Central would frame you. But to them it will make you look guilty. I believe your theory about Prettyman. At one time I thought you were going crazy but now I believe you. But you won’t make your case any more convincing by taking this document case and plastic gun back to show them. You need people to give evidence. Failing that, you need signed and witnessed statements. A gun without fingerprints, and your story about where you found it, won’t mean much. Let it go, Bernie. We know what happened. Now let it go.’
Maybe Werner was right. He was sober and level-headed in a way that I would never be. He was often able to see things more clearly than I could. I dropped the gun and the document case back into the ditch and kicked them well down and out of sight. I could see another metal artefact there too. Werner hadn’t seen it. I didn’t prod at it, or dig it out from where it was half-hidden in the earth. It was my father’s Webley pistol. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I said. ‘I’ve had enough of this for one day.’
‘You did it, Bernie,’ said Werner to cheer me up.
We reached the car and Werner slid behind the wheel. I got in the passenger seat and Werner started the engine. ‘Do you think those two farmers will report us?’ I asked him.
‘No,’ said Werner. ‘It will be all right.’ As we got to the top of the ramp, and joined the traffic on the road back to Berlin, there was a sudden fierce downpour of sleet that obscured the glass. Werner flicked the control to increase the speed of the wipers.
‘What did you say to them?’ I asked.
‘I told them you were a trouble-making foreigner but that they could take your Western money and keep it. I told them that I was a secret policeman, assigned to keep watch on you. I told them that if they mentioned anything they had seen, I’d make sure they went into a prison camp.’
‘A foreigner? Did they believe that?’ I looked at him. His face was solemn as he stared at the road and at the blizzard that obscured the windshield and buffeted the car.
‘You think your German is perfect,’ said Werner. ‘But you have an English accent that you can cut with a blunt knife. Any German can hear it.’
I aimed a playful swipe at his head. He knew how to goad me. ‘How can you be sure they believed you were a secret policeman?’
‘Don’t I look like a secret policeman?’
‘I suppose you do.’
‘I demanded one of the fifties back and put it in my pocket. That convinced them. They know a Stasi man’s technique when they encounter it.’
‘Brilliant, Werner. That was a stroke of genius. And don’t forget you owe me fifty marks.’
No sooner had I said it than a police car with flashing light came speeding along the Autobahn towards us.
‘They must have phoned,’ I said anxiously.
‘Watch to see if it goes down the ramp,’ said Werner.
‘I can’t see. He’s too far back and there’s too much snow.’
‘I’ll put my foot down.’
‘It won’t help, Werner. If those two bastards have sounded the alarm they will be waiting to lift us at the checkpoint.’
‘It will be all right,’ said Werner. In the old days we would have
enjoyed the danger of it, but the old days had gone. Werner was sweating and I was swearing. We didn’t say much but we were both thinking of what kind of gruesome and incriminating exhibits were going to be produced in court before the prosecutor got his unchallenged verdict. If the guards at the checkpoint had plucked us out of the car and grilled us, I’m not sure how composed we would have been.
As it was, they waved us through without coming out of the box. One pressed his nose against the glass and made a thumbs-up sign. There was something to be said for the blizzard and the freezing cold after all.
I don’t know which of the two of us gave the deepest sigh of relief as we rolled across the checkpoint into Nikolassee, so close to Werner’s new home. He stopped the car near the station. ‘I promised Zena I would buy oranges and milk,’ he said. Zena was a health freak. ‘Why not come back to the house?’ he suggested. ‘We’ll have coffee and relax.’
‘I’d rather get back to my place and shower,’ I said. The heat in the car had made me aware of my dirt-caked hands, and the stinking offal into which I’d been groping.
He looked at me and my soiled coat and hands. ‘I’ll run you back there,’ he said.
Before he started the engine I said: ‘You haven’t been entirely frank with me, Werner.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘That gun. That plastic gun. You had it.’
‘What gun?’
‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Werner. We’re friends, aren’t we?’ He grinned nervously. I said: ‘You received a package containing that gun.’
‘I can’t answer that, Bernie. It’s official business.’
‘That plastic gun that you were pretending you’d never seen in your life before – you handled it. You acted as a letter-box. You took the gun and delivered it to Jay Prettyman.’
‘Who says so?’
‘I say so.’
‘No,’ said Werner.
‘What do you mean: no? What are you – Prettyman’s lawyer? What’s got into you? Why don’t you tell me the truth? That plastic gun is the last remaining link that puts Prettyman there at the Autobahn meeting and killing Thurkettle.’
‘You know how these things work,’ said Werner in an unnaturally calm and lowered voice. ‘It’s need-to-know, Bernie. I can’t confirm it without breaking every promise I made.’
‘Screw you, Werner. You’re a sanctimonious bastard.’
‘You’ve put it all together with superhuman skill,’ said Werner, without reflecting any of the anger I’d shown him. ‘Be content.’
‘I’ll get a cab,’ I said, and climbed out of the car and walked away.
‘You’re forgetting your binoculars,’ called Werner.
I went back and climbed into the car. Werner started the engine without saying a word. He drove me into the centre of the city and to Lisl Hennig’s hotel. I didn’t speak to him again, except to say thanks when I got out of the car.
I knew it was as far as I was going to get with him. I would have to be content with that grudging affirmation. Werner had a stubborn streak that was unassailable. He’d always been like that, ever since we were at school together.
11
The SIS offices, Berlin
Even before the First World War, the joke about ‘count the dumplings, and divide by ten’ had been doing the rounds. The dispositions of Rommel’s Afrika Korps had several times been betrayed by a ‘dumpling count’, and no doubt all the belligerents had, at some time or other, infiltrated spies into the enemy catering arrangements to equal effect. So I suppose I should not have been surprised when London’s questions about the radium diggings at Schlema were solved by means of an intelligence method even older than blowing trumpets at the walls of Jericho.
Larry Bowers, a long-term Department employee, had brought it in to me. Bowers was an enigmatic fellow. A young good-looking Oxbridge graduate who always landed buttered side up. For a long time I had regarded him as someone on a postgraduate fling, someone doing his stint of service to the Crown before leaving to start his real career, someone who would eventually wind up with a dozen undemanding directorships and a Rolls-Royce with a personalized licence plate. But I was proved wrong. Larry Bowers fell desperately in love with Germany and stayed on. It was a fatal attraction, as I knew to my cost. And for people like Bowers, who went freely from West to East, protected by his military identification, Berlin had no rivals. Here was the only city in the world with three renowned opera houses, a dozen symphony orchestras, theatres of all shapes and sizes, countless cabaret clubs, three universities and even two zoos.
Larry Bowers put the report on my desk on Tuesday afternoon. Some agent unnamed had reached Schlema and gained access to the kitchens of the ore miners’ canteen and even survived the eating arrangements. Bowers had had the report beautifully typed. He’d bound it with a bright yellow cover, and put his name on the front in a typeface large and clear enough to be read from the far side of the office. Bound into the back of the report, there were photocopies of documents from the mine cashier: food accounts, the licences, ration documents and delivery manifests. The report was as comprehensive as can be, apart from not mentioning the name of Werner Volkmann, who had supplied a considerable part of the material and been the principal contact for the informant. I liked Larry Bowers, but he could be very show-biz when it came to screening the credits.
I read the report carefully. Flour, coffee and potato consignments for the month of November were all that we needed. There were no records of beer or mineral water, but the figures were enough to convince anyone that there were no more than thirty or forty men and women eating at the miners’ canteen each day, and that included the kitchen staff. The uranium mine was obviously on an upkeep and maintenance schedule. Safety men to work the pumps and the fans, keep the conveyor belts lubricated and operate the lifts from time to time. The German Democratic Republic was not noted for its labour-saving mining technology. Even if it had been, a mine like that can’t be worked by shifts of a dozen or so men.
At noon Frank came steaming into my office as I knew he would. He was waving his abbreviated copy of the report. ‘I’ll tell London there is nothing doing there?’ he said, holding the paper up to his face, so he could read it without his glasses.
‘That’s it,’ I said, passing some additional sheets of figures to him.
‘You file them,’ he said, without taking them to look at. Frank was a cunning old fox. He wasn’t going to tell London that his belief that the Schlema workings were not producing uranium was based upon any kind of ‘cold dumpling estimate’. And making sure that I filed the notes away would enable him to deny that he knew the source. Should the estimates prove incorrect, I would face London’s angry questions about the source.
‘Going to Werner’s housewarming party?’ asked Frank.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to answer in that guarded manner. I’m going too. At least, I was thinking of going. I was wondering what sort of a gathering it will be. Big? Small? Very formal? Dinner suit? Sit-down? What’s he planning?’
It took me a moment to digest this shattering turnabout in the always turbulent social history of the Berlin office. Frank Harrington had long pursued what I had heard described as a ‘vendetta’ against Werner. An additional obstacle to the relationship came from the short but intense love affair that Frank had had with Zena. Not one of Frank’s pull up your pants and run affairs. It had been very earnest. He’d even found a love nest for her: a comfortable house tucked away in the leafy northern Berlin suburb of Lübars. ‘It’s not entirely a housewarming,’ I said.
‘I thought …’
‘Rudi Kleindorf’s new club. This is a launch party for it. The decorators are not finished at the club premises. Rudi persuaded Werner to hold it at his house and combine it with a housewarming.’
‘I noticed Kleindorf’s name in small print. So that’s it?’
‘Gold-edged invites with colour … you can bet a lot of them have been sent
out. I can’t imagine a printer wanting to do that kind of job a dozen at a time.’
‘Always the detective, Bernard,’ said Frank, without putting too much breathless admiration into it.
‘I try, Frank.’
‘You were right to bring Werner back, and put him on the payroll,’ said Frank. ‘I had doubts at first – especially about him having an office – but I decided to let you do it your way.’ He provided a significant pause during which I could worry about what was coming next. ‘And it’s worked out very well, hasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I was tempted to point out the way that Werner’s bare, bony and much-calloused hands had pulled the Schlema chestnuts out of the embers. And wonder aloud why his name was nowhere to be found in that report. But I didn’t.
‘I don’t want to offend him,’ said Frank vaguely. I could tell he was seeking an excuse to go to the party. Frank loved parties. He loved planning them, giving them and attending them. He loved talking about them and hearing about them. It was an element of what made him so influential and effective in Berlin, for this was the greatest party town in the world. Forget New York or Paris or London. You had only to see the elaborate fancy costumes in the Berlin stores when Fasching celebrations brought party time around, to know that this was the place where the party had been refined to an art form for big spenders. Party time was always the highlight of Frank’s year. I remember a German visitor to his office asking Frank what they did in England at Faschingszeit. Frank replied: We eat pancakes; it’s what we call pancake day. The German visitor laughed heartily. Too heartily. I knew him well: both his parents had died in the RAF firestorm raid on Dresden in 1945. I knew Germany well enough to know that for some Germans Shrove Tuesday was best remembered as the anniversary of that night.
There was another reason for Frank’s interest in the Volkmanns’ party. It would provide an opportunity for him to see Zena again. She’d been away in Switzerland for quite a while; perhaps he still carried a torch for her. Frank was practised in the alchemy that transmuted lovers into friends. ‘You heard that Rensselaer and his entourage are in town? At least, on their way,’ he amended, looking at his watch. ‘They are finished in Frankfurt.’
