‘You mean that, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’ He paused so the waiter could pour Rafikov coffee. The general sipped, looked pleasantly surprised.
‘Angolan,’ said the waiter.
‘We give them guns,’ Tom said. ‘They give us beans.’
The waiter had to stop himself from laughing.
‘I used to read The Times,’ Rafikov said, as soon as the man was gone. ‘Back in the days when I was based in London. I’d have brought today’s Times but our friends might find that strange.’ His nod took in the other officers, all acutely aware that their rezident was talking to the psychologist from Moscow, but careful not to look as if they were paying too much attention.
‘What does it say?’
‘Your millionth council house has been sold.’ Rafikov smiled. ‘We spent decades turning our kulaks into workers. In seven years, with right to buy, you’ve turned your workers into kulaks. What else? The Japanese have opened a factory in the Midlands. Cars obviously. Your sculptor Henry Moore has died. Unemployment has reached three million …’ He hesitated, and Tom knew they’d reached what mattered. ‘And you’re alive.’
‘I’m …?’
‘It must be true. It says so in The Times.’ His mouth twisted. ‘It seems the reports of your death were incorrect. You’re currently being held by the Kriminalpolizei. Under arrest, obviously.’
‘Do the Kripo know that?’
‘They do now. And this afternoon’s paper will note that you’ve been released following the appearance of evidence that establishes your innocence.’
‘How did you sell this to the Stasi?’ Tom asked.
General Rafikov looked disappointed. ‘My friend, really …’
‘You’ve told them I’ve been turned?’
‘Of course. You have been turned, most successfully. They understand that now. And so I must return you to the pond to swim happily with all the other fish. It’s been interesting and I’ll be sad to see you go but …’ He shrugged. ‘Needs must.’
‘What about Sir Cecil?’
‘A terrible man by all accounts. His killer has confessed.’
‘He’s confessed?’
‘She. If she hasn’t, she will have done by tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t a drug addict. One of those Instandbesetzer who’ve been squatting old buildings. Her husband was a traitor. He died trying to betray his country.’
Tom remembered the grey-haired woman in the squat.
‘General …’
Rafikov looked up and his eyes were suddenly hard. ‘There’s a saying,’ he said. ‘You might have heard it. About gift horses …’
61
Tom’s room at the Palasthotel looked as if he’d left it that morning to have breakfast at the KGB rezidentura and returned an hour later: not taken a round trip to the Baltic, woken up in a morgue following a mock firing squad and spent two days as the guest of a Soviet general.
His dark glasses were on the desk, his wallet on a side table, his watch laid out neatly beside it.
The William Gibson novel he’d bought for the flight from the Bahamas was open at the page he’d reached, face down on the side of the bed he didn’t use. Exactly as it had been when he abandoned his room.
The domesticity of it all unnerved him.
The last time he’d seen his wallet he’d been handing it over to a hard-eyed Grenztruppen guard at the Bösebrücke crossing. He couldn’t tell you the last time he’d seen his Ray-Bans. The Gibson? Well, that had probably been here all along. Or wherever they took his possessions, because Tom doubted they’d simply left them here for the whole time he’d been gone. His room would have been photographed following his arrest; and they’d put everything back exactly as he’d left it.
The thought made him uneasy.
Stripping off the civvies that Rafikov gave him to replace his uniform, Tom climbed into his 501s, pulled on a check shirt and found the leather jacket he’d bought in Brunswick hanging in the cupboard. Last time he’d seen that the grey-haired woman at the squat had been wearing it.
He wondered how badly they’d hurt her. What else they’d made her confess to … A knock at the door dragged him away from those thoughts.
It took Tom a second to place his visitor, and it was clear that Henderson noticed that. ‘Welcome back,’ Henderson said.
‘Glad to be here.’
‘We thought you were dead.’
‘So did I,’ Tom said.
Henderson glanced across.
‘They put me in front of a firing squad.’
‘Dear God. Blanks …?’
‘Something like that.’ Tom indicated a chair.
‘I thought we might try the balcony bar.’
Tom glanced at his Omega. Eleven was early even for him.
‘They do coffee,’ Henderson said heavily.
Tom doubted it tasted much like the coffee he’d had for breakfast but he nodded, and took his leather jacket from the back of a chair, reaching for his wallet. The East German currency was there. His illegal US dollars were gone.
‘You know they’ve arrested someone for the murders?’ Henderson said.
Tom nodded. ‘So I was told.’
The other man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Really? Who by?’
‘Can’t remember. It was said in passing.’
Henderson nodded doubtfully. ‘We’ve been asked to expedite your return, which actually translates as leaving first thing tomorrow. They’ve really had you in a Kripo prison all this time?’
‘They moved me around a bit.’
‘But you weren’t shipped back to Moscow?’
‘Dear God no.’ Tom hesitated. ‘What made you ask?’
‘Someone heard a rumour that the Soviets were holding you.’
Henderson’s bonhomie was wearing. Wearing thin, and wearing both of them out. The man wanted something and seemed unwilling to come to the point. ‘Come on,’ Tom said. ‘Let’s go to that bar.’
And by the time they’d queued for the lifts – two of which were out of order, and one was staff only – beer looked more attractive than coffee, and so that was what Tom had, with a saucer of almonds on the side that Henderson snorted at and then began absent-mindedly demolishing.
‘I need to make a call,’ Tom said.
Henderson grinned. ‘Of nature?’
‘My wife.’
Caro needed to know that he was safe. Tom needed a way of telling her that he definitely hadn’t killed Cecil Blackburn, without suggesting he imagined she might have thought he had … At reception, he asked for a call to be put through. He gave his name, room number, the telephone number he wanted and his wife as the person he wanted to talk to. When a bell rang in one of the booths, a receptionist indicated that he should take it.
The first voice he heard was Charlie’s.
‘Mummy, Daddy and Charlie aren’t here right now. Leave a message after the beep and Mummy or Daddy will call you back. I’ll probably be at school …’
‘Caro,’ he said, ‘hi, it’s me. Miss you. I’ll try your parents.’
The receptionist was put out at being asked to fix another foreign call but took the new details. This time the telephone was answered.
‘Is Caro there?’
‘Tom?’
Who else would he be?
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s me. I’m in Berlin.’
‘Yes,’ Lady Eddington said. ‘We heard.’ Her voice was so brittle, Tom practically heard her force herself to be polite. ‘Is everything all right?’
I’ve been accused of murder, arrested, released, and spent the last few days providing amusement to a Soviet general who runs the KGB rezidentura in Berlin, probably the biggest KGB outpost anywhere in the world.
Apart from that …
‘I need to talk to Caro. Is she there?’
‘No,’ Lady Eddington said shortly, deciding he’d been rude in not answering her question. ‘She’s not.’
‘Do you know where she is?’
/>
There was a moment’s hesitation. ‘I’m afraid not. Have you tried the house?’ She said this so brightly Tom knew it was a brush-off.
‘Is your husband with you?’
‘He’s in London.’
‘Ah. I’ll try his office.’
‘I don’t think he’s there.’ She sounded momentarily flustered. ‘In fact, I’m sure he’s not. I think he said he had meetings.’
What the fuck was going on?
‘If you talk to Caro could you let her know I called?’
‘Of course. If I do.’
There was a click and Caro’s mother killed the call.
62
Back at the balcony bar, Henderson was watching a group of Cuban students who’d been brought to admire the Palasthotel. They looked cold and tired and more than ready to go home. He had his gaze fixed on a girl with wild hair and an over-tight jersey. He started when he realized Tom was there.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Answerphone. Not at her parents’ either.’
‘Probably shopping,’ Henderson said. ‘That’s what my wife’s usually doing.’
‘You’re married?’
‘For my sins. Now, Sir Cecil’s memoirs.’
‘Look. I’ve already told Harry FitzSymonds –’
Henderson’s scowl killed what Tom was about to say. When Henderson reached for his coffee Tom knew it was to have something to do with his hands, and his knuckles were white. He sipped slowly, and seemed to be trying to calm himself. Quite possibly he was counting to ten.
‘FitzSymonds is in Berlin?’
‘Well, he was yesterday.’
‘This side of the Wall?’
‘Yes,’ said Tom, wondering why he didn’t just admit that Fitz had been here for a couple of days. But if Henderson didn’t know that then Fitz must have his reasons. Fitz always had his reasons.
‘You gave him the memoirs?’
Tom shook his head and he could have sworn that Henderson looked relieved. Then the man went back to staring at foreign students, and sipping his coffee in what he probably imagined was an enigmatic way. Tom waited.
‘So you still have them?’
‘I’ve never had them,’ Tom said.
Henderson opened his mouth and Tom held up his hand. He didn’t mean to be rude, he was simply thinking. Henderson flushed all the same, his face got a little harder and his voice a little more clipped.
‘We are going to need them.’
‘So everyone keeps saying.’
Apparently, that wasn’t the right thing to say either.
FitzSymonds and Henderson were evidently terrified of them falling into the wrong hands. The question was, whose hands was that? The Stasi’s? The CIA’s? The hands of the UK press. Each other’s?
‘What’s in them?’ Tom asked.
‘Fox. For God’s sake …’
Now was when Tom should tell Henderson about Flo Wakefield’s notebook; the one that Sir Cecil took. It wasn’t the memoirs but it contained names. But something about the way Henderson had reacted to Fitz being here worried Tom. And Henderson’s flicker of relief at discovering FitzSymonds didn’t have the memoirs worried him even more.
This bloody city was getting to him. Trust nobody was a good maxim for someone in Tom’s line of business. Somehow, though, since starting to look at Patroclus, trust nobody had turned into nobody could be trusted.
Even Caro’s father was named in that bloody notebook.
‘Do you know,’ said Tom, ‘if officers in Berlin after the war were given different security clearances? Say alpha, beta, gamma, delta …?’
‘This has to do with the memoirs?’
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘My gut feeling is that Sir Cecil’s memoir was burnt. I saw ash from burnt paper in the grate. And it was too hot a day to need a fire in the normal way of things.’ Fuck it, I burnt my hand pulling the last page of the appendices from the flames …
‘Sir Cecil said he gave them to you.’
‘He lied,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t have them. I’ve never had them.’
Henderson put down his cup and stared at Tom for a second. His face was unreadable. ‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ he said.
63
‘Well,’ said Colonel Schneider, approaching Tom’s table on the balcony bar. ‘That went well, didn’t it?’ He sat without being asked, pushed Henderson’s cold coffee to one side and waved away the waitress who hurried over to see if he wanted to order anything.
It took Tom a moment to recognize the elegant Stasi officer who’d wanted him to sign a confession at Kripo headquarters. This time round, Schneider was dressed in a light silk jacket, open-necked shirt and fawn slacks. He wore his Patriotic Order of Merit discreetly in his buttonhole.
‘I believe you’re leaving us soon?’
‘Tomorrow.’
The colonel’s mouth twisted. ‘Ah well,’ he said, sounding resigned. ‘Needs must. Can’t win them all, I suppose.’
‘You still think I did it?’
‘I know you did it.’
‘I’m an army officer,’ Tom said. ‘Not a murderer.’
‘Of course you are. And I’m a colonel in the Stasi. But that’s not a proper answer, is it?’ He looked to where an elegantly dressed woman was pushing a small girl on a swing in neat gardens below. She was smiling when she looked up.
‘You know her?’ Tom asked.
‘My wife,’ Schneider said. ‘We’re going to see a film in a minute.’
‘With the child?’
‘Of course. It’s a cartoon.’
‘And me?’ Tom said.
‘I’m afraid Natalia only bought three tickets.’
Tom laughed, picked up his beer and raised it in a toast.
Leaning across, Colonel Schneider touched Tom on the wrist and there was something almost proprietorial in the action. Tom forced himself not to react. He looked up to find Schneider staring at him.
‘Heightened sense of responsibility, heightened awareness of touch, heightened sense of other people’s emotions, heightened threshold for pain. A fear that his fury can’t be held in check …’
Tom waited. There was something the colonel had left off his list. An ability to wait.
‘You know who has all those traits?’
‘Someone with too much training and not enough sleep?’
The colonel smiled. ‘That’s possible. I was thinking more of those who’ve been badly hurt. You know, abused children, women who’ve been raped, torture victims. Our psychologists tell me these things apply equally to all three. Were you happy to find Sir Cecil dead?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘Once again, that’s not quite an answer. You have good friends in Moscow. Friends who insist that we be nice to you. Maybe that’s why your side no longer trusts you. Maybe they know that you have good friends in Moscow.’
‘You’ve talked to General Rafikov?’
‘Oh yes. A most interesting conversation. We must look to the future, apparently. All of us. The general is either a very clever man or a lunatic. I hope the first.’ The colonel shrugged. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘hope is overrated.’ He picked up Tom’s beer, sipped it and looked thoughtful.
‘If I was your side,’ he said, ‘I’d kill you.’
64
Tom’s mistake was going down to the bar.
If he’d stayed in his hotel room and read either of his books he’d have been fine. Although the utterly artificial normality of his room was surreal enough to make him want a drink. He was unnerved by his things being there.
All of them. Neatly laid out or put away.
The more he thought about it, the less he liked the idea that someone had taken photographs of his possessions before they were packed away as evidence, then used the same photographs to put everything back.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it.
In part because if he did he’d start thinking about Caro instead. Tom was working hard not to think ab
out Caro; where she was and why her mother had been so brittle on the telephone. Caro’s words wouldn’t leave him.
I’m having an affair. Long term and nobody you know. The stupid thing is that under other circumstances you’d really like him. I’ll finish it the moment we get home … How long could an affair take to end? Even one that was long term, with someone he’d like in other circumstances.
Tom found himself heading to the bar without having made a conscious decision. Even then, he’d have been fine if he’d just chosen one of the dark wood armchairs at the back, as far from the modernist chandelier over the bar as possible, and stuck to Stolichnaya washed down with Braugold. Several of those, and a headache later, he could have dragged himself upstairs and fallen into bed, drunk enough to pretend he’d stopped worrying about where Caro was and who she was with. Then he could have packed his bag and headed home with a light heart and a heavy head. But that wasn’t the way it worked out. That wasn’t the way it worked out at all.
A short-haired woman propping up the bar watched him enter, left him alone long enough for a waitress to take his order and then headed straight over. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said.
Tom squinted into the light.
‘Dr Blackburn,’ she said. ‘Amelia Blackburn.’
He knew who she was. The flowery boots were gone, her jeans had been replaced by black trousers. In place of a Gaia T-shirt she wore a shirt that looked sheer and was quite possibly silk. The only thing that remained was the slightly combative way she stared at him, and the nervous energy she wore like an aura. She’d had both in that bar behind Hackescher Markt when she’d brought the police with her. She grimaced. ‘I thought …’
‘That I killed your father?’
She hesitated, shrugged. ‘I just wanted to …’
Tom picked up his vodka, killed it in one. ‘Consider it said.’
The bar in the Palasthotel featured only shades of brown, had an appalling terracotta-coloured carpet and uneven lighting, but he still saw her flush. Looking cross with herself, Amelia turned away. When she turned back, Tom knew what she wanted to say. At least he thought he did.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they have the right person.’
Nightfall Berlin Page 20
