The Waiting Time

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘Hello, Captain Christie here. Good evening. . . I’m sorry, Mrs Barnes, very sorry, but she’s not available . . . What? Could you speak up? . . . No, I can’t say why. I can only say that Corporal Barnes is unable to come to the telephone.. . Afraid I don’t know when she’ll be available. Goodnight, Mrs Barnes . . .‘ At every door on the corridor a face was watching him. He said, loudly, that if there were more calls from Corporal Barnes’s mother, she was to be given the camp number and extension number of the Adjutant’s office, manned through the night. . . The lie hurt him, hurt him as deeply as seeing bloody Johnson handling the underwear she wore against her skin.

  Christie smiled, spoke gently. ‘It’s Karen, isn’t it? Come here, please. I’m not going to bite you. Actually, I need a bit of help.’

  The girl soldier with the fat ankles came, hesitating, forward.

  ‘Corporal Barnes is in, I have to say it, a packet of trouble. Yes, you’ve heard, everybody’s heard. I want to help her, but for me to help her then you have to help me. Please . . . did something happen this morning, anything, anything unusual? I need your help.’

  The blurted answer. ‘Nothing was different, it was all just usual. There was all the din in here at get-up time . . . You know how it is. Downes was bawling she was late with her period, Geraghty was giving out she’d got no clean knickers, Smythe’s got a new CD player that’s a right blaster. All bloody noise in the corridor. I went to her room, lost my tie. She gave me her spare. She was just sitting on the floor, hadn’t got her skirt on, quiet as a mouse, in front of the fire. She was humming that bloody song, so old, what she always sings. She was all gruff, about the tie, but it’s only an act. She comes over all heavy, but that’s not real. She lent me the tie, she didn’t give out that I was late on paying her what I owe her, what I borrowed last week. Under the gruff she’s all soft. I owe her, half the girls in the block owe her, but she doesn’t chase it. But for all that she won’t be friends with us. I asked her to come with us to the pub tonight, no chance. Just sits in her room. She’s done nothing in that room to make it her own like the rest of us have. No mess, no muck in there, everything tidied. She’s older than the rest of us, right? Keeps herself to herself. We don’t know nothing about her. Just her work, all she seems to live for, no boys, no fun. She pushes you away, but you get underneath and she’s really kind . . . I brought her over a message from Admin this afternoon, for you. She was down on the floor with your dog, she was feeding him the biscuits she keeps in the safe. She was singing to the dog, same song. . . Some old Irish thing . . . She’s sort of sad, really. She makes out she doesn’t need us, doesn’t need anyone. That’s sad, isn’t it? I can’t help you, Captain, honest. Your question, there was nothing different about her. . . I’m sorry.’

  She fled down the corridor, past the watching faces.

  He let himself into the room. He stepped over the bent-back vinyl. The sweat ran on Johnson’s forehead. Johnson pointed to a board, lifted it and a section came away cleanly, as if the work of loosening it had been done long before. He reached into the hole and lifted out the black and white photograph protected in Cellophane wrapping. Greyed buildings, a greyed street, greyed and broken pavings, a greyed road sign. The light was in Tracy’s face and on her cheeks and at her eyes, the love light. A boy held her, grinning as if proud to have her close to him. They were the brilliance in the greyness of a street, buildings and a pavement.

  ‘Sorry,’ Perry Johnson said. Seemed so damn tired. ‘Old eyes aren’t what they were, can’t read that street sign.’

  Ben Christie held the photograph close to his face, squinted at it. ‘The sign is for the junction of Prenzlauer and Saarbrucker...’

  ‘Thought so. Give it me back, please.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  Up from his knees, Johnson brushed his uniform trousers. ‘Berlin. Prenzlauer Allee runs east from Alexanderplatz. A bit further up than Karl Marx Allee, on the other side, is Saarbrucker Strasse. She looks rather young — I’d say it’s ten years old. The junction of Saarbrucker Strasse and Prenzlauer Allee, ten years ago, was in East Berlin. That’s the wrong side of the Wall, that’s enemy ground. . . Oh, God...’

  ‘Do we hear skeletons rattling?’

  ‘Shit, man, do we need imbecile banalities?’

  The room was to be sealed.

  She had not moved, knees tucked against her chest and arms around her knees.

  The drip of Johnson’s questions: ‘You were posted to Berlin, start of ‘eighty-six to end of ‘eighty-nine? . . . This photograph was taken between the start of ‘eighty-six and end of ‘eightynine?. . . Who are you with in the photograph?.. . How did you know of former Stasi official Dieter Krause? . . . You accused Krause of murder, the murder of whom?’

  No word from her, staring back at them, no muscle moving on her face.

  Christie wanted only to give her comfort. ‘Tracy, you have to see that you’re not helping yourself. If something happened in Germany, involving Krause, tell us, please.’

  Away down the corridor the radio played quietly on the sergeant’s desk.

  ‘You’re a bloody fool, young woman, because the matter will now pass out of our hands, out of the hands of the family of the Corps.’ Johnson walked out of the cell.

  Christie looked back at her. He looked for her anger, or for her bloody-minded obstinacy, or for fear, or for the cheek in her eye. She stared through him, as if he were not there.

  Chapter Two

  He was in the bathroom, standing at the basin in warm flannel pyjamas with his mouth full of toothpaste when the telephone rang downstairs in the hail. It was Albert Perkins’s night as standby duty officer (home). He spat out the toothpaste, rinsed his mouth and hurried downstairs.

  ‘Perkins here . . . Good evening, Mr Fleming. . . No, not inconvenient . . . Hadn’t gone to bed . . . How can I help? Secure? Just hold a moment, please...’

  There was a switch at the side of the base of the telephone and he nudged it forward. All section heads, like Mr Fleming, and all stand-by duty officers (home), like Albert Perkins, had the equipment at home to make and receive secure calls.

  ‘On secure now, Mr Fleming. How can I help? . . . Yes, I’ve paper and a pen..

  He listened. He scrawled on a pad: ‘TEMPLER BARRACKS, ASHFORD — INTELLIGENCE CORPS. KRAUSE, DIETER, exMfS — RYKOV, PYOTR, col, DefMin staff — WUSTROW base, w. of ROSTOCK.’

  The grin formed on his face. ‘She did what?’

  He wrote the name, ‘BARNES, TRACY, cpl.’

  ‘In the officers’ mess? That’s choice. . There’s a fair few I know who wish they’d the bottle, kick the Hun where it hurts — sorry, Mr Fleming. What it’s all about? Is that it? No problem . . . I’ll come in and get some files and then get down there . . . I have authority, I take the reins, yes?. . . No, I haven’t been celebrating, I can drive. I’ll be there about three, I’ll call you in the morning... No problem at all, Mr Fleming, goodnight. . .‘ He pushed back the Secure switch.

  He climbed the stairs. He dressed. Work suit, that day’s shirt and tie, clean socks. He hadn’t had a drink that evening at home, just a Coca-Cola with the take-away pizza, and a coffee. In the kitchen, on the sideboard, were the four birthday cards, from his wife, Mr Fleming, his friend in the Supporters’ Club and Violet in the typing pool. He had not been out to celebrate his fiftieth birthday because Helen was still at the art class she taught that night of the week and she usually stayed for a drink with her class, and he wouldn’t have had alcohol, anyway, if he was standby duty officer (home). He tore the note from the pad beside the telephone and pocketed it. Then he ripped out the four sheets of blank paper underneath, as was his habit, took them into the living room and tossed them on the low fire behind the guard. He wrote a brief note of explanation on the pad to his wife and offered his love. He double-locked his front door.

  It was a damn awful night, and he thought the roads might have gone icy by the time he reached Ashford. His car was an eight-year-old Sierra, pa
rked on the street so that Helen could use the drive when she returned home. Three things mattered in the life of Albert Perkins, aged fifty that day. His wife Helen, Fulham Football Club, the job. He ignored Helen’s indifference to his work. He coped with the catastrophic results of Fulham FC, as he would with a disability that must be lived with. He adored his work, dedicated himself to the Service. It had never crossed his mind that he might have told Mr Fleming that he was already undressed for bed and asked whether it could wait till the morning.

  He left the 1930s mock-Tudor semi-detached house, his and Helen’s home in the Hampton Wick suburb south-west of the capital, and headed for central London. He would be at Vauxhall Bridge Cross, in Library, by midnight; an hour later he would be at Defence Intelligence and digging in their archive. He hoped to be out of London by two in the morning, and at Ashford by three.

  He drove the emptied streets, and he wondered where the choice story would lead him. It would lead him somewhere, and he’d be there, at the end of that road. Mr Fleming would have called him out because he’d have known that Albert Perkins would follow a scent to the end of any road.

  There wasn’t an officer at Templer who would have described Perry Johnson as imaginative. He didn’t read fiction, he didn’t listen to music and he didn’t look at pictures.

  He was called to the gate. Under the arc lights, the far side of the heavy iron barrier, was a green Sierra. Ten past three in the morning. The man behind the wheel had a pinched weasel face, a small brush of a moustache, combed and slicked hair in a perfect parting, and his skin had the paleness of one who avoided sunlight and weather. He got out of the car, carrying a filled briefcase, and threw his keys to the sentry. He didn’t ask where he should park, merely assumed that the sentry would do the business for him.

  Perry Johnson thought that the man came to the barracks just as a hangman would have come to a gaol at dead of night. He shivered and his imagination rioted. The briefcase could have held a rope, a hood and the pinion thongs of leather.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The man spoke with what Johnson thought was a common voice and the accent held the grate of West London.

  ‘Johnson, Major Perry Johnson.’

  ‘What’s your involvement?’

  ‘I’m Corporal Barnes’s commanding officer. She does my typing.’

  ‘Thought you people did your own typing, these days, or are some too idle to learn how to use a keyboard?’

  ‘There’s no call. .

  The man smiled, without humour. ‘There were a few old contemptibles in my place who tried to hang on to their typists so they wouldn’t have to learn the new skills. They were booted out. Where’s Krause?’

  ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘Hadn’t given it you. Take me to Krause. I gather you found a photograph, please. I’ll have it. I’m Albert Perkins.’

  Johnson took the picture from his tunic pocket, offered it. They were under a light. It was examined. Perkins took a buff file from his briefcase and opened it. He read from the file and looked again at the photograph, put both back into the briefcase, and walked on. Johnson felt the fear a prison governor would have experienced when meeting for the first time a hangman coming in the emptiness of the night. He led. The rainclouds had gone.

  He babbled, ‘I’m wondering if our tracks haven’t crossed. Face seems to register from way back. There was a Perkins, a Six man, working out of the Naafihaus, Helmstedt, would have been mid- seventies. Up and down to Berlin on our military train, debriefing autobahn people. Was it...?’

  ‘I find that really boring — “Weren’t you? By Jove, so was I. God, small world. Remember?” Tedious.’

  They reached Sick Bay and went into the dim light of the waiting area.

  Perkins said, ‘My advice, Major, don’t go playing all uptight because I’ve been sent here, because your people are whining that they’re out of their depth, don’t. I’ll tell you why I’m here, words of one syllable. They’re the power and the glory. We bend the knee to them. We grovel rather than offend “greater” Germany. We slobber at the ankles of their Chancellor, their Central Bank, their foreign ministry, their industrialists. They are premier and we are division three. They deign, kind of them, to throw us crumbs, to send us a prime intelligence asset, who gets the warmest of welcomes. She called him a murderer, correct? They’re hardly going to enthuse when we name that prime asset as a killer who should be before their judges. Not on a junket, not bathing in the limelight, but in handcuffs and in court. They won’t be happy people. So, we’re all smiles and apologies. Got me?’

  There was a sentry on the inner door. Perkins went past him, didn’t acknowledge him. The bright light of the room lit the paleness of his face.

  Krause sat on a hard chair. The wounds were cleaner than when Johnson had last seen him, but the scratches were deep. As if drilled, the minders each took a step forward from the wall to stand either side of their man.

  The smile beamed on Perkins’s face. ‘The name is Perkins, I’ve come from London — try and sort this dreadfully embarrassing business out. I want to express our most sincere apologies.’

  ‘I am Doktor Raub. We wish to go. We are being kept here. We wish to leave.’

  ‘What I heard, it was thought advisable, on medical grounds, to suggest you waited.’

  A mocking voice. ‘I am Herr Goldstein. On medical grounds, was it necessary to have a sentry at the door?’

  ‘So sorry, put it down to tangled wires, no intention to delay you. A hotel in London, yes? And you are...?’

  His voice tailed away. Perkins stood in front of Krause.

  ‘I am Doktor Dieter Krause. I wish to go.’

  A voice of silken sweetness. ‘Then go you shall. Just one point, excuse me...’

  They were standing, waiting on him. Perkins took his time and the younger minder flicked his fingers in impatience. Perkins rummaged in his briefcase and took out the photograph. He held it carefully so that his thumb was across the face of Corporal Tracy Barnes. He showed the photograph, the face of the young man.

  ‘So good of you to wait. A young man, we’ll call him Hans. Hauptman Krause, did you kill that young man? In cold blood, did you murder him, Hauptman Krause?’

  In raw fury: ‘What is your evidence?’

  And Perkins laughed lightly. ‘Please accept our apologies for what happened this evening — safe back to your hotel, Hauptman.’

  He stood aside. He allowed them past. The sentry would take them to the cars.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In the cells, the guardhouse,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Take me.’

  It was easy for Albert Perkins to make an image in his mind. This was among the skills that his employers in the Service valued.

  He saw a briefing room, modern, carpeted, good chairs, a big screen behind a stage. An audience of officers and senior NCOs, civil servants bussed down from London, talking hushed over their coffee and nibbling biscuits before the Colonel’s finger rapped the live microphone.

  Probably . . ‘Whether we like it or not, whether our political masters would acknowledge it or not, the Russian Federation remains in pole position as our potential enemy. While that country, with such awesome conventional and nuclear military power, remains in a state of convulsed confusion we would be failing in our duty if we did not examine most rigorously the prime and influential power players in Moscow...’

  Photographs on a screen of Rykov, Pyotr, whoever he might be, on a wet November morning, and a background brief on previous appointments. Had to be Afghanistan, had to be a military district in Mother Russia under the patronage of a general weighted down with medals, and command of a base camp up on the Baltic coast. Photographs and voice tapes, but all adding to sweet fuck-all of nothing.

  Lights up, the Colonel on his arse, and stilted applause for the honoured guest, for the friend of Rykov, Pyotr, for the former enemy, for the old Stasi creature . . . Albert Perkins made the image, saw it and heard it.


  Krause at the podium, no scars on his face, no cuts in his head and no bruising at his balls.

  Probably . . . ‘I was Pyotr Rykov’s friend. We were close, we were as brothers are. We fished together, we camped together. There were no microphones, no surveillance. He talked to me with trust. I tell you, should the state collapse, should the Russian Army assume control, then the most powerful man in Moscow would be the minister of defence and a step behind the minister is my friend, my best friend. I wish to share my knowledge with you of this man...’

  Drooling they’d have been in the briefing room, slavering over the anecdotes, and all the stuff about former enemies and former Stasi bastards flushed down the can. The red carpet rolled out for the walk in the rain to the mess, best crystal for drinks, silver on the table for dinner afterwards. Except . . . except that some little corporal, little bit of fluff, had gatecrashed the party, fucked up the evening. Wasn’t a bad story, not the way that Albert Perkins saw it and heard it. Must have been like a satchel of Semtex detonating in the hallowed territory of the mess.

  The manufacturing of images had always been among the talents of Albert Perkins.

  They walked on the main road through the camp, towards the gate and the guardhouse. When the headlights came, powering behind them, Johnson hopped awkwardly off the tarmacadam for the grass but Perkins did not. Perkins made them swerve. The two cars flashed their lights at the gate sentry and the bar lifted for them. It was a rare cocktail that the man, the hangman, had served them, Johnson reflected. Apologies and insults, sweetness and rudeness. In three hours it would be dawn. Then the barracks would stir to life, and the gossip and innuendo would begin again. The target would be himself. By mid-morning coffee break, the barracks would know that Perry Johnson had been a messenger boy through the night for a civilian from London. They went into the guardhouse. The corridor was unlocked for them. He frowned, confused, because the cell door was ajar. They went in.