Nightfall Berlin

by Jack Grimwood

  ‘You may go,’ he told his men.

  46

  General Rafikov watched flat-eyed as his men departed, waiting until he heard an outside door close. Then he turned, and Tom barely had time to twist away before the cosh grazed his cheek, numbing half his skull.

  The second blow caught his shoulder.

  Pain lancing down his arm to freeze his wrist.

  An abrupt punch knocked Tom from his chair and he tensed his guts half a second ahead of a kick that would have ruptured his liver if he hadn’t. He managed to roll himself out of the way of a stamp aimed at his groin.

  ‘You understand I’m going easy?’

  Rafikov looked at him, and stamped again. Sneering when Tom jerked away to crouch behind a chair. Gregori Rafikov had the look of a cat deciding whether to drag out the killing of a mouse. ‘Maybe I should take you back to Moscow.’

  ‘That would be good,’ Tom muttered.

  General Rafikov’s gaze sharpened.

  ‘I have friends in Moscow.’

  ‘Your embassy won’t help. They won’t even know.’

  ‘Not at the embassy,’ Tom said. ‘Russians …’

  ‘You’re saying you’re a double agent? You’re one of ours?’

  The general swung his cosh against his own hand, looking thoughtful. He seemed to be judging Tom’s words and its weight at the same time. Perhaps he was simply wondering how thick Tom’s skull was.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘God forbid.’

  ‘God’s dead. Didn’t anyone tell you?’

  Tom spat, seeing blood-flecked saliva. When he checked his lip with his tongue it felt fatter than he’d imagined. He could feel sweat under his arms and smell fear on himself. He wondered if the general could smell it too.

  Reaching for his pistol, General Rafikov jacked its slide and curled his finger around its trigger. ‘Get up,’ he ordered.

  Tom crawled to his feet.

  ‘Sit down.’

  As before, the man came to stand behind Tom. This time he kept his distance, until Tom felt the Makarov touch his skull. ‘Don’t worry,’ Rafikov said. ‘You won’t feel a thing.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true.’

  ‘We did tests. Rounds travel faster than brain tissue tears. Snapback destroys a zone ten times a bullet’s diameter. By then, no thought process.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Sir Cecil.’

  ‘Of course you did. Evgeny too.’

  ‘Believe me. I’m not going to confess.’

  Rafikov’s pistol slashed into the side of Tom’s head and the room blazed red. Warmth seeped from his skull and filled his mouth. As salt as the sea. Tom shut his eyes to stop himself vomiting. When he opened them again the general was waiting. ‘Evgeny was my nephew,’ Rafikov said. ‘Did they tell you that?’

  Evgeny’s uncle was the rezident? Tom needed time to work out the implications. There would be implications. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said without thinking.

  The room flipped as the general slashed his pistol into Tom’s temple, setting fresh blood flowing. He regained consciousness back in his chair, and watched the general circle the table like a wolf testing the edges of its cage.

  ‘You were seen leaving.’

  ‘Leaving,’ Tom said.

  ‘You ran.’

  ‘You’d have stayed? What do you think would have happened if I’d telephoned Kripo to say I’d wandered past Sir Cecil’s and found him dead?’

  ‘You could have called your embassy.’

  ‘I’m here as a private individual.’

  ‘A private individual would have called his embassy.’

  General Rafikov was probably right about that.

  ‘It was my duty to get home,’ Tom insisted, doubting that the general would believe him. ‘At the checkpoint, what gave me away?’

  The general shrugged. ‘Who knows? I’ve seen your arrest photographs. You look convincingly miserable, downtrodden, hung-over and cheap.’

  ‘You don’t like East Germans?’

  ‘They are our glorious allies. Efficient, loyal, trustworthy.’

  ‘God, you really don’t like them, do you?’

  Unexpectedly, General Rafikov sucked his teeth. ‘Nothing gave you away,’ he said flatly. ‘You were … How to put this?’

  Sold out?

  ‘If I was my counterparts, I’d be asking why didn’t they give you up before?’ His face hardened. ‘Now. Tell me why you killed Sir Cecil and Evgeny.’

  Tom hesitated. ‘How good was your nephew?’

  ‘Very good. I trained him myself.’

  Arrogant … As arrogant as any Roman governor in some provincial backwater. Tom saw Rafikov wonder what was behind the question.

  ‘You’d expect him to be better than me?’

  ‘He was younger, fitter, better trained. Of course I’d expect him to be better than you. He was spetsnaz. They make your special forces look like children.’

  ‘Then why aren’t I dead?’

  ‘Because you shot him through the head the moment he opened the door. You shot him, and then you shot Sir Cecil.’

  ‘Neither of them was shot,’ Tom said flatly. ‘Sir Cecil had his skull cracked and his chest caved in with a crowbar. Your nephew was garrotted.’

  Rafikov shook his head.

  ‘I saw the bodies,’ Tom insisted.

  ‘He was shot,’ Rafikov said, ‘from close range. They both were. Through the heart and head. It’s in the reports. How do you call it? Double-tapping. A typically English way to kill.’

  ‘General …’

  The man held up his hand. ‘There was clear evidence of powder burn on Evgeny’s forehead, on the doorjamb and the edge of the door. Proof my nephew was shot through the gap. I’ve read the report.’

  ‘Did you see his body?’

  ‘The lid was screwed down. His skull was destroyed.’

  ‘His skull was mostly fine. His throat wasn’t.’

  The two men looked at each other and Tom watched the general glance at his cosh and then at his pistol, both now neatly laid on the table.

  ‘You’ve been lied to,’ Tom said.

  Rafikov scowled.

  ‘Were you told who gave me up?’

  ‘Artists,’ the general said, distractedly. ‘Squatters. Nobodies.’

  ‘Of their own accord?’

  ‘What does it matter? Art is immortal. Thankfully, artists are not.’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  ‘Being a romantic is not good in an assassin. Assassins should have no illusions. No preconceptions …’

  ‘I’m not an assassin,’ Tom said.

  Abruptly, the rezident flipped his chair round and straddled it. Pulling out a packet of Arkika Special, he put the cigarettes beside his pistol and dug into his pocket for a lighter. Gold from the look of it, with an enamel cartouche of Lenin on its side. Rafikov saw Tom looking.

  ‘After Stalin’s death,’ he said, ‘the cult of personality was demolished. That’s what we were told. Except, of course, it never works like that. Our dead tyrant was swapped for a dead saint. Your terms, not mine. And the paintings and posters and statues of The Great Leader came down and those of Lenin went back up. Have you read Frazer’s Golden Bough?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said, sounding surprised. The health of a kingdom mirrored the health of its king. The belief underwrote dozens of fairy tales.

  ‘I studied Anthropology,’ the rezident said tightly. ‘Don’t think we’re fools. The KGB takes the best. Why wouldn’t we? We get first pick.’

  He tapped his packet of cigarettes.

  ‘Want one?’

  Lighting two cigarettes, the rezident stuck one between Tom’s broken lips and stood back to admire the effect. He seemed pleased with it, because he smiled to himself, and drew deep on his own.

  ‘The last cigarette of the condemned man.’

  Tom spat it out. It tasted foul anyway.

  ‘Never get too complacent,’ General Rafikov said, stubbing out his own.
He sat back with a grunt. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘The truth. Evgeny?’

  ‘Hit on the back of the head. Then strangled with a dressing-gown cord.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Sir Cecil’s, I would imagine.’

  General Rafikov considered that.

  Tom felt that the man was starting to believe that he might be telling the truth. What puzzled Tom was why the GDR would lie about how Evgeny and Sir Cecil died, and to a KGB rezident. There was something else. Tom had been seen pocketing something on his second visit to the flat, yet the general didn’t even seem to know that there’d been a second visit. Whatever Colonel Schneider’s game, Tom needed it to stay that way.

  ‘These friends in Moscow?’ General Rafikov asked.

  Tom felt relief surge through him and did his best to hide it. Rafikov could find out the details for himself. What Tom told him he’d double-check anyway. He might as well hear it first hand from the lion’s mouth.

  ‘I was there a few months ago.’

  The Russian smiled thinly. ‘Of course you were. Holiday?’

  ‘My bosses were hiding me from a Select Committee. A government enquiry,’ Tom added. ‘One too stupid not to ask difficult questions. So they sent me to Moscow for a few months to look at religion.’

  ‘If faith can move mountains.’

  ‘Exactly …’ Tom was impressed.

  It had worked well enough in Afghanistan, where the CIA were now arming US-trained mujahideen with US-made missiles to bring down Red Army gunships.

  ‘Quiet visit, was it?’ General Rafikov asked.

  Tom thought again of Maya, the beggar woman who’d turned out to be an ex-Stalingrad sniper, and of her husband, one of the most powerful men in the Politburo, who’d believed her dead. With their help, he’d tracked Sir Edward Masterton’s kidnapped daughter to a deserted Soviet slaughterhouse and helped kill her kidnappers.

  ‘Moscow? Very quiet,’ Tom replied.

  47

  ‘Humphrey-Baker, Sherwen, Wong, Michaelides, Bennett, Fox …’ Mr James walked the length of the junior table at St George’s Prep School, handing out that morning’s post. He turned back, handed a fat envelope to Onyilo, which had obviously got out of sequence.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Remember to take the envelopes with you.’

  They would. If one boy left rubbish then the whole table got into trouble. And everyone knew who the troublemaker was, because his name was on the envelope for a master to read out. Leaving rubbish behind was anti-social. Anti-social was about the worst thing you could be at school. If it didn’t get you into trouble with the masters it did with other boys afterwards.

  Charlie Fox was teaching himself not to be anti-social.

  He kept a list in his pocket of things that were frowned on and tried not to do any of them. He picked up his dirty clothes and put them in the basket. He didn’t open or shut windows without asking if others minded. He especially didn’t do more than slash in the downstairs loo next to Latin class. If he wanted to do more he headed for the changing rooms. Using the little loo near Latin for anything more was the height of anti-social.

  The others had envelopes. He had a package. A package wasn’t what he wanted. What he wanted was a letter from Mummy. She hadn’t written for two weeks and she always wrote. Her letters arrived on Friday.

  ‘It’s not your birthday, is it?’ Mr James said.

  ‘No,’ Charlie said hurriedly. ‘That’s November.’

  ‘He’s lying, sir.’ Michaelides obviously.

  ‘I’m not.’ Charlie’s voice was fierce. ‘It’s on my passport.’

  ‘It’s on my passport,’ Michaelides mimicked. He had believed it was November though, and some of the wild joy at the thought of being able to give Fox the bumps for his birthday had gone from the bigger boy’s face.

  ‘Beautifully wrapped,’ Mr James said.

  He was the kind of master who’d notice such things. He was thin and slightly boyish-looking, with a stammer and a way of absent-mindedly swiping a lock of hair out of his eyes when it fell forward. Willo didn’t like him. Willo taught Geography and Gymnastics. His real name was Smith but Willo was a play on words. Willo the Wiff, because he smelt.

  So far none of the masters had worked that out.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it then?’

  It wasn’t his birthday and there was no sent by address on the brown paper under the neatly tied string. Charlie thought you had to have a sent by address by law. Mummy said you did. Also, the knot was so neat he wasn’t sure how he was meant to untie it.

  ‘Slip the string over the end,’ Mr James suggested.

  ‘It won’t fit …’ Charlie replied, remembering in time to add sir to the end of it.

  ‘You know that, do you?’ Mr James said.

  Charlie nodded and the master smiled.

  ‘Here,’ he said. Dipping into his pocket, he passed a pearl-handled penknife to Charlie, who cut the string in a single go. The blade was sharp. He should have known Mr James would have a penknife with a sharp blade.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He hovered at Charlie’s shoulder while Charlie slid his finger under a tiny tab of Sellotape put there to keep the paper fastened.

  James Bond. 007. Aston Martin DB5.

  A drawing on the box showed someone bad being ejected through the roof while machine guns spat fire from beneath the front lights and an armour-plated shield at the back stopped baddies shooting the driver.

  Opening one end of the box carefully, Charlie slid the car on to the table and looked at it for a moment, before picking it up and finding the buttons that worked the guns, and bullet shield and ejector seat. The little man in the ejector seat flipped halfway across the table and Mr James laughed.

  ‘May I?’ he said.

  Charlie handed the car across.

  ‘Thought so,’ Mr James said. ‘It’s an original. That means it’s from the 1965 run. Looks new too. You’re very lucky.’

  He handed the Corgi toy back to Charlie and looked at the brown paper that now stood neatly folded on the table with the string curled, equally neatly, beside it. He seemed to be looking for a note of some sort.

  ‘Who sent it, Fox?’

  The boy looked worried. ‘No idea, sir.’

  The question nagged at Charlie for the rest of the day and he was still picking at it when lights out came and the others settled into their snoring, farting, sleeping selves. Charlie wasn’t sure that he liked people. Well, he liked some individually. Not many, admittedly. Together they were too animal-like. After an hour of listening to people sleep, he climbed from his bed, found his lock picks and his practice padlock and went to the little loo by the Latin room, shutting and locking the door before turning on the lights.

  It would take him ten or fifteen minutes of picking at his locks to calm down. He didn’t want anyone disturbing him before that was done.

  He left the James Bond car by the side of his bed.

  48

  Tom was left alone in the interrogation room for so long that a cockroach that dragged itself into daylight through a rip in the skirting board returned in darkness. Lights came on in the corridor outside and showed under the ill-fitted door. Tom wondered why the door fitted so badly and decided it was so that those in line to be interrogated could hear what was happening inside.

  The really dirty work was probably done in the cellars, though.

  In Tom’s experience, the really dirty work was always done in the cellars.

  Cellars were dark and soundproofed, and there was something very final about being surrounded by earth. A reminder of the grave.

  His bladder was full and his stomach empty.

  He was barefoot, his hands cuffed under his knees, still wearing the cheap and shiny suit in which he’d tried to cross the border. And he was beginning to wonder what was keeping the rezident.

  Break it down.

  You could survive most things if you broke them down.

  W
ell, most things that didn’t actually kill you. And a brutal ache in your shoulders, fingers frozen from the cuffs and a desperate desire to piss yourself were hardly going to kill you. The cockroach didn’t reappear, but daylight did. The darkness endlessly diluted, like ink into which someone kept adding water.

  It was when daylight hardened, and Tom realized he’d been in solitary for almost a day, that he began to wonder if he’d simply been forgotten or was being watched on camera; if General Rafikov had better things to do or was simply letting him sweat. That was before he even began to wonder why Colonel Schneider hadn’t returned.

  Sometime around noon General Rafikov did.

  Slamming the door in the face of whoever had been following him, he stamped across to the desk, sat himself in a chair and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. This time round he didn’t offer Tom one.

  ‘I’m back from Moscow. They’ve never heard of you.’

  Tom stared at him in shock.

  ‘When I first called, it was suggested …’ He looked disgusted ‘… that I fly home and present myself on the third floor. You know who was in that room when I walked in? The Chairman of the KGB, the heads of the First and Second Directorates, and Gorbachev’s shadow, Marshal Milov himself.’ Stabbing out his cigarette, General Rafikov lit another and took a hard look at Tom.

  Tom’s squalid state seemed to sooth him.

  ‘The field marshal wanted to know why I was wasting the Politburo’s time. Why I was involving HQ Karlshorst in minor GDR business. He said, if he were me, he’d concentrate on important matters. And perhaps suggest to Berlin that if you were innocent they let you go. And, if guilty, that they have you shot …’

  ‘That’s impossible.’

  Before Tom could say more the door opened and Colonel Schneider strode in, followed by three Stasi underlings. ‘You demanded twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘It’s up. You’ve been to Moscow, I hear.’

  ‘Can I ask who told you that?’

  ‘You were seen getting on a Moscow flight.’ Colonel Schneider’s voice was little short of contemptuous. Tom wondered what had changed and decided Schneider knew the general had been rebuffed. The question was why? Why would a Soviet grandee like Milov lie about knowing Tom?