The Secret of Spandau

by Peter Lovesey

  Jane had a town map open. ‘Keep going for a bit. Regency Square faces the West Pier.’

  They parked in the King’s Road on the front, close to where Dick had stopped before.

  To locate Salter-Smith, they had to make a tour of the elegant Georgian entrances, looking at the names against bell-pushes, a familiar exercise to them both. Salter-Smith’s, when they found it, was not handwritten, nor even typed, but printed on a visiting-card. Damian Salter-Smith CBE.

  ‘It sounds better than Stones,’ said Jane.

  ‘It doesn’t suit him so well.’

  Dick pressed a bell marked Maggie, Davina and Ruth.

  Jane frowned at him. ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘You never know your luck.’

  She gave him a dig with her elbow, but not too hard, because it was the first real attempt at humour she had heard him make.

  The footsteps on the other side of the door promised someone the size of a Sumo wrestler, and whether it was Maggie, or Davina, or Ruth who opened the door, or all three of them in one set of clothes, the promise was fulfilled. Her folded arms were like two small pigs asleep on the shelf of her stomach.

  ‘Er, Miss Salter-Smith?’ tried Dick in all solemnity.

  She shook her head. ‘Salter-Smith? Upstairs.’ She gestured with her thumb without unfolding her arms.

  Dick thanked her, guided Jane across the threshold – not easy in the circumstances – and stepped inside himself. The reason for the stratagem dawned on Jane as they started up the stairs: if Salter-Smith had come to the front door, they might not have got past it.

  He had another of the visiting-cards neatly mounted in a gilt frame on his door. Dick knocked.

  The door opened slightly. It was secured with a safety-chain.

  ‘What the devil …’ piped the ex-MI5 man.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Dick, at the same time sliding his foot inwards to prevent the door being slammed. ‘Haven’t brought a Daily Mail this time. Brought a young lady to see you instead.’ He motioned to Jane to step into Salter-Smith’s narrow strip of vision. ‘Miss Jane Calvert-Mead. The Court and Diary correspondent on my paper, and very well connected.’

  ‘I hear you’re a writer,’ Jane remarked in a piercing cocktail-party voice. ‘Is the book published yet? It sounds a super subject. I simply adore books about the secret ser-’

  ‘Not here!’ Salter-Smith cut her off in alarm. ‘You’d better come in.’ He unfixed the chain.

  He was wearing a faded blue overall that rather tarnished his MI5 image.

  There was a sharp chemical smell in the apartment that Jane recongnized as soon as she saw a squadron of model aircraft suspended from the ceiling in the hallway: modelling-cement. They were shown into a living-room where Salter-Smith had been at work. A balsa-wood castle was partly erected on a table covered with newspaper.

  ‘Colditz, isn’t it?’ Dick observed, aided by the glossy photos pinned to the wall above the table. More aircraft waged a dogfight above their heads, and battleships were at anchor on the window-sills. A framed press picture of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at one of their wartime conferences hung over what looked like a victory procession of handmade soldiers on the mantelpiece.

  ‘I thought I made it abundantly clear when we last met that I didn’t want this kind of intrusion,’ Salter-Smith barked accusingly at Dick, at the same time brushing wood-shavings off a chair for Jane. ‘How do you like your sherry, my dear?’

  With an amused glance in Jane’s direction, Dick made a tactical retreat to an armchair the other side of Colditz. A video of Reach for the Sky was running on the television.

  So the initative passed to Jane. She decided to lead the ace right away. ‘I’d give anything to read your book,’ she said. ‘You chaps in the security services are the real heroes of our time, and you have to put up with so much ill-founded criticism from the media.’

  ‘Can’t defend ourselves because of the Official Secrets Act,’ Salter-Smith said resignedly, basking in the flattery. He poured her a large amontillado, ignoring Dick. ‘Hope it’s all right. Never touch the stuff myself. Have to keep a clear head at all times.’

  ‘Of course. It’s no accident that your work is known as intelligence. Did you get a very good degree? I expect it’s all in the book.’

  ‘As much as I felt I could disclose in the national interest. I think it makes a damned good read. Do you read for a publisher, Miss Calvert-Mead?’

  Jane hesitated, and then countered well. ‘That’s amazing! Hardly anyone ever gets my name right the first time. I suppose it’s your training. Actually everyone calls me Jane. Do you have a photographic memory, Mr Salter-Smith?’

  ‘Damian.’

  All this was encouraging to Jane, but there was calculation in the way her new friend Damian watched her. They were definitely in a contest, sparring, looking for openings, and none were coming. She kept nudging him back to the topic of his book.

  ‘It would be interesting to your readers to know how you trained your memory.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to see a copy of the script,’ he suggested. ‘Do you have an hour to spare? I dare say you’ve been through one of those rapid reading courses.’

  ‘What a wonderful suggestion, Damian.’

  ‘Perhaps you can help me to find a decent publisher.’

  ‘Well, I won’t make any promises, but if I could take a copy back to London …’

  He took hold of one of her hands and placed his palm over it affirmatively. ‘You shall read it here. Garrick can watch the film and I’ll carry on assembling Colditz.’ He crossed the room to a writing-desk and fussed behind the flap. When he turned back towards Jane, he wasn’t holding a manuscript, but a gun, a large black automatic. ‘Garrick, come out and join the lady,’ he ordered. ‘I’m damned if I’m risking a bullet through my castle.’

  Dick was as surprised as Jane. He moved around the table and stood beside her. ‘Who do you think we are?’ he said. ‘We haven’t come to do the place over.’

  ‘Say precisely what you want from me.’

  ‘At the point of a gun?’

  ‘It’s in good working order. I keep it ready for emergencies like this.’

  Jane kept very still. This was bizarre and dangerous. You didn’t take chances with a nervous old man holding an automatic, and she hoped Dick wouldn’t try anything rash.

  Wisely, he decided on the reasoned approach. ‘What you know about us is the truth. Jane is on the team with me investigating the Hess story. When you and I met on the beach, I handled it badly. I wanted a second …’ He hesitated. ‘… shot.’

  Salter-Smith grinned. ‘Fire away.’ The grin was no comfort. He had a very unreliable look to him.

  Dick talked on, trying to sound unalarming. ‘I came away with the impression that you felt Hess has been unjustly treated by our people.’

  ‘So you still believe there’s some great mystery?’

  ‘We’re both convinced of it.’

  ‘And you think I can help solve it?’

  ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘I never met Hess.’

  There was an interval of silence. Dick appeared stunned by the admission.

  Jane stepped in. ‘But you were in the service,’ she insisted. ‘Is there anyone in MI5 who might be willing to help us?’

  Salter-Smith shook his head. ‘They’re all gone. They were senior people, not youngsters, as I was then.’ He broke off for a moment, his eyes losing their sharp focus as his mind wandered.

  ‘There is someone?’ Jane asked him eagerly.

  He rubbed his chin with his free hand. ‘No, I was reminded of something else. An incident in Bedfordshire …’ He was distracted again. The gun was starting to dip towards the floor. Then his concentration returned. He eyed Jane and Dick in a calculating way. ‘If I were able to recall the details, would you guarantee to answer a question truthfully?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Jane at once.

  ‘Of course!’ Dick confirmed.


  ‘Let’s try it, then. From what your editor has told you, what chance does my book have of being published? A straight answer. No fudging.’

  Dick took a deep breath and answered, ‘No chance at all.’

  Jane confirmed it with a nod.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Salter-Smith gravely. ‘Very difficult to get an honest answer. Made a fool of myself.’

  ‘No less than we did,’ Dick commented.

  ‘That’s permissible in the young. Old men should be wiser, or shut up.’ He placed the gun on the writing-desk.

  Jane glanced towards Dick and then told Salter-Smith, ‘I feel ashamed. It must be obvious that I haven’t been very honest.’

  He gave a bleak smile. ‘That was obvious from the beginning, my dear. I bear no malice. Pretty young women don’t often deceive me these days. I think I will have a drop of sherry. Let’s all imbibe, and then I’ll keep my side of the bargain, for what it’s worth.’ When each of them had a glass, he picked up his own and said, ‘First, a toast. To one very old man who has kept his dignity. I think you know who I mean.’

  They drank.

  He went on, ‘This is the only thing I can recollect. In 1941, when Hess parachuted into Scotland, I was a very junior MI5 officer based in Bedfordshire, supposed to keep a lookout for Fifth Columnists in the civilian population. It was dreary, I can tell you. Until one night in June, five or six weeks after Hess arrived. I got a message telling me to report to Luton Hoo because two Germans in civvies had been detained by the Special Branch. Well, they were Germans all right, and pretty damn scared by the time I questioned them in the police cells. They’d parachuted in during an air-raid. Still had the harness-marks on their shoulders. They were wearing German-made suits with the labels ripped out. And they were carrying maps. They had Cockfosters marked – that was the RAF interrogation centre, you know – and also Dungavel.’

  ‘The Duke of Hamilton’s house?’ said Jane in excitement.

  ‘Yes. It was fairly obvious that they’d been sent to locate Hess, though whether to rescue him or murder him I never discovered. They were SS men, quite young and pathetically inept. They tried telling me they were part of a peace mission, and it didn’t impress me much, but one of them did claim to have come to Britain three months previously. His story seemed fantastic to me. He said he’d been part of a German delegation that came in via Dublin to negotiate a peace. He’d actually remained in Dublin while the senior members of the party flew into Britain.’

  Dick stared at Salter-Smith. ‘Germans in Britain in 1941?’

  ‘I know it sounds a tall story,’ said Salter-Smith apologetically, ‘and there may be nothing in it, but the fellow swore it was true. He told me how to verify it. Came up with the name of the British pilot who met the group in Dublin and flew them out.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A Warrant-Officer Perry. Out of interest, I checked. There was a pilot of that name based at Kidlington, in Oxfordshire. The next day, after these chaps had been taken over by pukka MI5 interrogators, I tried phoning Perry. He wasn’t available, but my call was intercepted, and within the hour I was carpeted and warned off by my boss. Whatever Perry had been engaged in, it was top secret. So I never met him. But I did hear indirectly that he had some bad luck later. Lost both legs in an air-raid. From time to time I’ve wondered about him, whether it was just a tall story from a frightened German, or not.’

  ‘What happened to the two SS men?’ asked Jane.

  ‘They were interrogated by B Division of MI5 at Latchmere House in Surrey and executed.’

  ‘Without trial?’

  ‘Those were the rules of war, my dear.’

  30

  6.00 a.m. on Sunday morning. The temperature already rising. It had been a warm night in Berlin. Heidrun lay sleeping on her stomach, naked under the sheet, her face, puffy with heat and sex, cradled in one of her plump arms. She was breathing lightly and evenly, and Red was lying with his back to her, eyeing the china ashtray on the floor on his side of the bed. It contained three used stubs.

  Another Sunday. He thought of London and the paper. The late edition on the vans. The satisfaction of studying the rival papers and picking holes in their stories. He could almost get nostalgic for subbing.

  Our Berlin correspondent, Red Goodbody. In his Fleet Street days, fresh from cutting his journalistic teeth on The Cornishman, listening wide-eyed to the old hands telling stories in ‘The Grapes’, would he have seen himself, even in his wildest dreams, spending Sunday night on assignment in an energetic fraulein’s bed? In the event, he was wondering how much longer it had to last. He was not averse to lustful women. His equipment still functioned as it should, even under heavy pressure. But that was how it was with Heidrun. Mechanical. Now you can do it to me again, Red.

  Since he had got back from England, his thoughts kept returning to Jane, and that one short time in the early morning in Cedric’s house. Jane’s love-making was no less positive than Heidrun’s, yet it managed to be cerebral as well as physical. She whispered and talked and coaxed as they made love, and it came over as a complex mix of associations: schoolgirlish curiosity, puritan guilt, assertive feminism and quaint social snobbery. The effect on Red was intensely stimulating. It had galvanized the act of intercourse. Each pass of his hand across her breast, each movement he made within her, had elicited intimate phrases, confidences, expressions of ecstasy. No one could really know Jane without making love to her.

  He stretched and looked at his watch. Soon he would make an excuse to leave. He had only himself to blame for the present situation. He had let it develop. It had seemed the obvious thing to do when Heidrun had got suspicious. He had needed to get close to Cal, and Heidrun was Cal’s minder. He hadn’t reckoned on her appetite for sex, though. And he hadn’t mastered the logistics of getting time alone with Cal, either. Heidrun was so domineering, and Cal so evasive. There was always a fresh shift coming up at Spandau. The previous evening, they had played a home match against Siemensstadt and won decisively, humbling the opposition in straight games. Red had watched it, counting on a euphoric celebration – if only over skimmed-milk and apfelstrudel. But Cal had packed his things into his sportsbag and left before the tables had been taken down. The victory rites had devolved on Red.

  ‘What time is it?’

  Christ, she was awake. ‘Early.’

  ‘Before seven?’

  ‘Long before seven. Get some more sleep.’

  ‘I’m awake now, and so are you.’

  ‘Mm.’ He tried to sound ready for sleep again.

  A few seconds passed.

  Then she said, ‘I would like you to do it to me.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Red?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Do it to me, please.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘It’s another day now.’

  Ten minutes later, another cigarette-butt joined the three in the ashtray.

  When he woke next, it was 9.15. He got up and showered. He could hear Heidrun in the kitchen. Appetizing fumes of grilled bacon wafted upstairs. Red put on his things and went down the spiral staircase.

  ‘Smells good.’

  Heidrun was wearing shorts and an apron that barely covered her breasts. She said, ‘Don’t expect too much. I’m not used to cooking.’

  ‘I’ll have to go after this,’ he told her while they were eating.

  ‘Why? You can stay if you like.’

  ‘I have to earn a living.’

  ‘On Sunday?’

  ‘It’s a Sunday paper.’

  ‘Idiot!’

  ‘I’d still like to finish that interview with you and Cal. I scarcely know the guy.’

  ‘He’s difficult to know.’

  ‘Do you think we could fix a session this afternoon?’

  ‘With Cal? I can try. He should be off duty, unless the shift has changed again. Where would you like to see us?’

  ‘How about the garden at Charlottenburg?’

&
nbsp; The doorbell chimed suddenly.

  ‘The Palace garden? Yes, it should be quiet there,’ said Heidrun. ‘Excuse me. I’d better see who that is.’

  She tightened the neckstring on her apron and went out.

  Red heard a man’s voice in the hall. In the bedroom, there was a photo of a guy who had signed it All my love, darling, Erich. Was this the amorous Erich? Could be embarrassing. It wasn’t a good morning for a punch-up.

  Heidrun brought her visitor in and he definitely wasn’t Erich. He was middle-aged and silver-haired, with tinted glasses and an expression suggesting he didn’t care for the smell of bacon. Or something.

  ‘Kurt Valentin: Red Goodbody,’ Heidrun announced in a subdued voice. ‘Kurt advises me about tax and things,’ she explained to Red.

  ‘I was about to leave,’ said Red. ‘I’ll call you later about that meeting, love.’

  She came to the door with him. ‘He’s a boring old man, I wish I could get rid of him.’

  ‘I was leaving anyway,’ repeated Red.

  They kissed perfunctorily, and Heidrun closed the door and went back to Valentin.

  He was still standing in her kitchen, grotesquely out of place in his pale linen suit, red cravat and matching pocket handkerchief. The fine line of his mouth was turned down at the ends in disapproval. The glasses flashed.

  ‘Who was that?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you. Red Goodbody.’

  ‘I heard his name,’ Valentin rasped. ‘He was eating breakfast. You slept with him last night.’

  She started to busy herself tidying the table. His manner scared her.

  ‘Answer me!’ said Valentin.

  ‘What is the question?’

  He reached out and knocked the plates from her hands, smashing them at her feet. ‘Slut! Who is he?’

  She backed away a step. ‘Some fellow from England. A sports reporter. He’s writing a piece about Cal and me.’

  ‘So you let him screw you, eh? Where did you meet him?’

  ‘In the sports-hall.’

  ‘What paper does he work for?’

  ‘A Sunday paper.’ She hesitated, thinking back to the first meeting with Red. ‘Well, he may be freelance,’ she added, her voice betraying the sickening realisation that Red might have lied to her. ‘His work is syndicated all over the world.’