"Spy Hook" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deighton Len)

22

'Go to jail!' It was not unexpected. There was a measure of inevitability to every game of chance.

I sometimes wonder if the reservations and doubts that my generation showed for capitalism were the legacy of being bankrupted and humiliated by our parents in those Sunday afternoon Monopoly games. Billy and Sally will not be similarly assailed; for them Monopoly games are simply a time when family discussions, reminiscences, stories and jokes (Waiter, waiter, this Pekin Duck is rubbery. Chinese waiter: thank you sir) are punctuated by desultory throws of the dice.

'Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.' Oh, well.

This was my family now: three children in effect, for seeing Gloria with my children was to recognize the way that she was just a grown-up child with all the sudden changes of mood that children believe normal. I looked at her that Sunday afternoon. It was a promise of spring to come, the sun shone from a blue sky, and we sat in the dilapidated conservatory that, more than any other thing, had made Gloria want to live in Balaklava Road. The potted plants and flowers that filled every shelf had been bought at the local garden centre but the effect was green and luxuriant, and for Gloria effect was everything.

The sun gave new life to Gloria, as it does to so many women»and I had never seen her looking so beautiful as she did that day. The sunshine had turned her blonde hair to the colour of pale butter. Her high cheekbones and wonderful teeth made her broad smile infectious and despite my misery – or perhaps because of it – I fell in love with her all over again.

Not once but often I had wondered how I would have survived that terrible time after Fiona's defection without Gloria there at my side. Apart from working all week, studying for university and attending to the household chores she cared for my children and worried about me. Most of all she renewed my self-respect at a time when my male ego was badly bruised by Fiona's departure.

I guess I should have told her all this but I never did. At the bad times when I needed her most I had no stamina for such tributes, and when things were going well between us there seemed to be no need of them.

'You can't move, you're in jail,' said Sally. 'You'll have to throw a double six.'

'Yes, I'm in jail.' I said. 'I forgot.'

Sally laughed.

I wondered if the children were aware of the difficulties that their mother's defection had brought. They were always polite to Gloria and occasionally affectionate but there was no way that she could replace their mother. At best they treated her as an elder sister, and the authority they granted her was on that basis. I worried about them, and work was not going well. Dicky Cruyer complained that I was not working hard enough to clear my desk. I countered that I was getting too many messenger-boy trips to Berlin but Dicky laughed and said that the Berlin jaunts were one of the best perks of the job. And Dicky was right. I liked the trips to Berlin. I'd be desolated to be deprived of the chance to see my friends there.

Were all the people I'd always trusted and depended on working against me? Perhaps I was beginning to go mad: or maybe I was far gone! At nights I stayed awake, trying to figure out what might be going on. I went to a pharmacy and bought sleeping tablets that had no discernible effect. Something more powerful would have required a prescription from the doctor, and regulations for senior staff said that any medical consultations of any sort have to be reported. Better to stay awake. But I felt more and more exhausted. By Wednesday I had decided that the only possible way of escaping from this nightmare was to talk to someone at the very top. Since the Deputy was a new boy and something of an unknown quantity this meant the Director-General, Sir Henry Clevemore. The only remaining task was to locate him; I was determined to do this before my next Berlin trip.

Apart from some spells in a nursing home, Sir Henry lived in a big stockbroker-Tudor mansion near Cambridge. In the distant past I had taken urgent papers there. Once I'd even been given lunch by the old man; a privilege so rarely granted to anyone but his immediate associates that Dicky interrogated me afterwards and wanted to know every word uttered.

How often Sir Henry came to London nowadays no one on my floor seemed to know. As far as the staff were concerned he was only to be glimpsed now and again emerging from – or disappearing into – the car of the express lift that took him to his top floor office, his face gloomy and his back hunched.

Sir Henry's office was still there and still unchanged; a desperate muddle of books, files, ornaments, mementoes and souvenirs too cheap and ugly to be enshrined in his richly furnished home but too imbued with memories to be thrown away.

The irrepressible and ever enchanting Gloria provided an answer to my problem when she invited a friend of hers to sit down with us in the canteen for lunch. Peggy Collier, a prematurely grey-haired lady who'd befriended Gloria right from the first day she'd come to work here, said something that indicated that Sir Henry must be in London every Friday. Peggy said that every Friday at noon she had a box of 'current and vital' papers ready and waiting for the D-G. It was delivered to the Cavalry Club in Piccadilly. Also I remembered that the Operations log-book showed the Cavalry Club as the contact number for the Deputy D-G every Friday afternoon.

Peggy said a special messenger brought the document box back to the office at varying times between five and seven pm. It was poor old Peggy who had to wait for the box to arrive, and then refile all the documents the D-G had been looking through. Sometimes – in fact quite frequently – this meant that Peg did not get home in time to prepare a proper meal for her husband, Jerry – spelled with a J because it was short for Jerome not Gerald – who worked as a fully qualified accountant for the local office of the Inspector of Inland Revenue and so was always home early, not having the train journey which Peggy had to endure from the office on account of the absurd rents they charge anywhere near the centre of town, and anyway wasn't the rent they paid out in the suburbs where they lived next door to Jerry's mother enough? And who wants a cold meal at night after a long day's work, although by the time you've dished up a cold meal it has taken almost as long as cooking? And who can afford the price you have to pay in the little shop just along the road from the bus stop that stays open to midnight – it's run by foreigners but no matter what you say those people don't mind hard work and that's something you can't say about some of the English people Peg knows – but really the prices they charge for ready-prepared food. They have pork pies, cooked chicken or those foreign sausages that are all meat and Jerry likes but which Peg finds funny tasting on account of the way they are full of chemicals or anyway that's what the papers say, still you can't believe everything you read in the papers can you?

'Who takes the box?' I asked.

'Anyone cleared to carry "Top Secret",' said Peg.

'I see,' I said.

'And his dog,' said Peggy. 'The driver takes the box and the dog. The dog walks in Green Park.'

The Cavalry Club is not one of those 'gentleman's Clubs' which have been infiltrated by advertising men and actors. The only time outsiders gained access to these sacred portals was in January 1976 when members of the newly closed Guards' Club were allowed in. The quiet dignity of this old house at the Hyde Park Corner end of Piccadilly fits well with its elite and clannish membership. Reminded of their reputation for consuming more French champagne than any comparable establishment, these clubbable cavalrymen are likely to account for it by the popularity their premises enjoy as a venue for regimental events and the private cocktail parties that are so often to be heard even in the quiet of the library.

Sir Henry Clevemore was in the otherwise unoccupied writing room when I took his document box to him. He always chose this room, which was on the ground floor. It is different to all the other rooms in the Club, for it can be entered from the street without passing through the main entrance and answering questions from the men behind the desk. Here were stored cocktail party chairs and a billiard table that the committee didn't want to throw away. The room smelled of ancient leather and scented polish and Sir Henry was alone there. There were no cocktail parties to be heard, only the sound of buses crawling along the rainswept street outside. Sir Henry was sitting before a writing desk at the window, with a frantic wide-nostrilled charger of the Light Brigade thundering through the oilpaint above him. Beneath the vivid painting – framed and reverently positioned – there were pressed flowers collected from the 'Valley of Death' and a lock of hair from Wellington's favourite charger.

'Oh, it's you,' said Sir Henry vaguely, his arms extended to take the document box.

'Yes, Sir Henry,' I said as I handed it to him. 'I was hoping that you'd grant me a few minutes of your time.'

He frowned as I put the box on the table in front of him. It was not done of course. Decent chaps didn't bamboozle their way into a fellow's club and then corner them for a chat. But he managed a brief and mandatory smile before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a key on a long silver chain.

'Of course, of course. Splendid! My pleasure entirely.' He was still hoping that he'd misheard, that I would say goodbye, and go away and leave him to his paper-work.

'Samson, sir. German Desk.'

He raised his eyes to me and rubbed his face like a man coming out of a deep sleep. Eventually he said, 'Ummmm. Brian Samson. Of course.' He was a strange old fellow, a gangling, uncoordinated emaciated teddy bear, the bruin-like effect heightened by the ginger-coloured rough tweed jacket he was wearing, and his long hair. His face was more wrinkled than I remembered and his complexion had darkened with that mauvish colour that sickness sometimes brings.

'Brian Samson was my father, sir. My name is Bernard Samson.' The D-G put on his spectacles and for a moment he stared at me quizzically. This action disarranged his hair so that demoniacal tufts appeared above each ear. The lenses glinted in the light from the window. The frames were incongruously small for his long droopy face and did not fit properly upon his nose.

'Bernard Samson. Yes, yes. Of course it is.' He unlocked the box and opened it to get a glimpse of the papers. He was excited now, like a child with a box of new toys. Without looking up – and without much conviction – he said, 'If we can find that waiter we'll get you a cup of coffee… or a drink.'

'Nothing for me, thank you, Sir Henry. I must get back to the office. I'm going to Berlin this afternoon.' I reached out for the lid of the box and firmly and gently closed it.

He looked up at me in amazement. Such insubordination was like a physical assault, but I enjoyed the shining armour of the self-righteous innocent. He did not voice his anger. He was a luminary of the expensive end of the British education system which specializes in genial, courteous philistines. So, concealing his impatience, he invited me to sit down and take as long as I wished to tell him whatever I had to say.

There were plenty of stories that said the old man was non compos mentis, but any concern I had about explaining my worries to a potty boss were soon gone. I decided to leave out my visit to Dodo in Hampton Wick and my strange encounter with Jim Prettyman, If the Department said Jim was dead, then dead he would remain. As soon as I began Sir Henry was bright-eyed and alert. As I told him what I had discovered about the funds passed over to Bret Rensselaer's company, and what I could guess about the way in which the money had been moved from place to place before going to the Berlin bank, he interrupted me with pertinent comments.

At times he was well ahead of me, and more than once I was unable to understand fully the import of his questions. But he was an old-timer and too much of a pro to reveal the extent of his knowledge or the degree of his fears. This didn't surprise me. On the contrary I fully expected any Director-General stolidly to deny suggestions of treason or malfeasance, or even a possibility that any member of staff might be getting a second biscuit with their afternoon tea.

'Do you garden?' he said, suddenly changing the subject.

'Garden, sir?'

'Dammit man, garden.' He gave a genial smile. 'Dig the soil, grow flowers and shrubs and vegetables and fruit?'

I remembered Sir Henry's twenty-acre garden and the men I'd seen labouring in it. In his lapel he wore a small white rose, a mark of the rural Yorkshire upbringing of which he was so proud. 'No, sir. I don't garden. Not really.'

'A man needs a garden, I've always said so.' He looked at me over his spectacles. 'Not even a little patch?'

'I have a little patch,' I admitted, remembering the wilderness of weeds and nettles at the rear of Balaklava Road.

'July is my favourite month in the garden, Simpson. Can you guess why?' He raised a finger.

'I don't think I can, sir.'

'By July everything that's coming up is up. Some lovely things are ready for cropping: raspberries, red currants and cherries, as well as your beans and potatoes…'He paused and fixed me with his eyes. 'But if any of them haven't appeared above ground, Simpson. If your seeds failed to germinate or got washed out in the rains or frozen by late frosts…' His finger pointed. 'There's still time to plant. Right? July. Nothing you can't plant in July, Simpson. It's not too late to start again. Now do you follow me?'

'I see what you mean, sir,' I said.

'I love my vegetable garden, Simpson. There's nothing finer than to eat the crop you've planted with your own hands. I'm sure you know that.'

'Yes, I do, sir.'

'Our world is like an onion, Simpson,' he said with heavy significance, his voice growing hoarser by the minute. 'The Department I mean, of course. I told the PM that once, when she was complaining about our unorthodox methods. Each layer of the onion fits closely upon its neighbour but each layer is separate and independent: terra incognita. Follow me, Simpson?'

'Yes, Sir Henry.'

Thus reassured he said, 'Omne ignotumpro magnifico: are you familiar with that splendid notion, Simpson?' Characteristically unwilling to take a chance, he explained it in a soft aside. 'Anything little known is assumed to be wonderful. The watchword of the service, Simpson… at least the watchword of the appropriations wallahs, eh?' He laughed.

'Yes, sir,' I said, Tacitus, wasn't it?'

His eyes flickered behind the spectacle lenses; a glass-eyed old teddy suddenly come to life. He cleared his throat. 'Awww! Yes. Read Tacitus have you? Remember any more of it, Simpson?'

'Omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset,' I quoted and, after giving him a moment to digest it, I took a leaf out of his book and told him what it meant. 'Everyone thought him capable of exercising authority until he tried it.'

The watery eyes gave me a steady stare. 'Haw! A palpable hit! I take your point, young man. You're wondering if I am capable of exercising my authority. Is that it?'

'No, Sir Henry, of course I'm not.'

He scratched his nose. 'Exercising it forcefully enough to explore the substance of your fears and concerns.' He turned his head and coughed in a quiet gentlemanly way.

'No, sir.' I got to my feet to take leave of him.

He looked up at me. 'Have no fear, my boy. I'll act on your information, in root through every aspect of this matter until no shadow of a doubt remains.'

'Thank you, sir.' He heaved himself up to offer his hand in farewell and his spectacles fell off. He caught them in mid-fall. I suppose it happened to him a lot.

Once outside in Piccadilly I looked at my watch. I had more than enough time to pick up my case from the office, take the car to Ebury Street and pick up Werner, who'd been in London shopping and was booked on the same plane back to Berlin-Tegel. So I walked towards Fortnum's and the prospect of a cup of coffee. I wanted just a moment to myself. I needed time to think.

There were dark clouds racing over the tree tops of Green Park and the drizzle of rain had now become spasmodic heavy showers and gusting winds. Tourists trudged through the downpour with grim determination. On the park side of the street the artists who displayed their paintings there had covered them with sheets of plastic and gone to find shelter behind the colonnade of the Ritz Hotel. As I passed Green Park tube station a woman's umbrella was blown inside out, and a man's wide-brimmed felt hat went flying away into the traffic. The hat bounced, a car swerved to avoid it but a bus rolled over it and a man selling newspapers laughed grimly. There was a rumble of thunder. It was cold and wet; it was a thoroughly miserable day; it was London in winter.

For some there is a perverse satisfaction to walking in the rain: it provides a privacy that a stroll in good weather does not. Passers-by bowed their heads, and butted into the downpour oblivious of anything but their own discomfort. I recalled my conversation with the Director-General and wondered if I had handled it right. There was something curious about the old man's demeanour. Not that he wasn't concerned: I'd never seen him more disturbed. Not that he wasn't prepared to listen: he weighed my every word. But something…

I turned into Fortnum's entrance and went through the food store to the tea shop at the back. It was crowded with ladies with blue hair and crocodile handbags, the sort of ladies who have little white dogs waiting for them at home. Perhaps I'd chosen a bad time. I sat at the counter and had a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry. It was delicious. I sat there thinking for some time. When I finished that coffee I ordered another. It was then that I realized what I'd found odd about my conversation with the Director-General. No matter how outrageous my story and my theories might have sounded to him, he had shown no indignation, no anger; not even surprise.

I must have lost track of time, for I suddenly looked at my watch and realized that my schedule was tight. But I hurried and by the time I got to Ebury Street I was only a few minutes late. Werner – with that dedicated punctuality that is inherently German – was waiting for me on the pavement, briefcase packed, bills paid, black Burberry raincoat buttoned and umbrella up. At his feet there was a large carton marked 'chinaware very fragile'. 'Sorry, Werner,' I said in apology for my late arrival. 'Everything took a bit longer than expected.'

'Plenty of time,' said Werner. The driver opened the door for him and then heaved the carton of chinaware into the boot. It looked damned heavy. Werner made no comment about this huge and cumbersome item of baggage. He reached over to put his umbrella in the front seat alongside the driver and then took off his trilby hat to make sure his ticket was inside it. Werner kept tickets and things in his hatband. He was the only person I know who did that.

The car dropped us at Victoria Station so that we could catch one of the direct trains for Gatwick Airport. A porter took the carton of chinaware on a barrow, with Werner fussing around to make sure it didn't get knocked. The train was almost empty. We had no difficulty finding a place to ourselves. Werner was wearing a new suit – a lightweight grey mohair – and looking rather more rakish than the sober fellow I'd known so well. But he hung his umbrella so it would drain on to the floor, carefully folded his raincoat and placed his hat and his briefcase on the rack. No matter how rakish he looked Werner had been house-trained by the indomitable Zena. 'Plates and cups and so on,' said Werner, touching the carton delicately with the toe of his polished shoe.

'Yes,' I said. I could think of nothing to add.

Once the train started its journey he said, 'In Berlin I suppose you'll be going to see Koby?'

'Lange Koby? Maybe.' Koby lived in a squalid apartment near Potsdamer Platz and held court for foreign journalists and writers who were writing about 'the real Berlin'. I didn't enjoy my visits there.

'If this Dodo worked for him, Lange might be able to tell you something.'

I didn't tell Werner that I'd seen Prettyman or grappled with Dodo; I hadn't told anyone. 'Perhaps. But that was all a long time ago, Werner. Dodo was just a nasty little spear-carrier. I don't see how Lange can know anything about Bret and the money and all the things that really matter.'

'Lange usually knows all the scandal,' said Werner without admiration.

I leaned forward to him and said, 'I told the old man everything I know… damn nearly everything,' I amended it. 'From now onwards it's the D-G's problem, Werner. His problem, not my problem.'

Werner looked at me and nodded as if thinking about it. 'Does that mean you're going to drop the Bret business?'

'I might,' I admitted.

'Let it go, Bernard. It's eating you up.'

'If only I knew what part Fiona played in that fiddle.'

'Fiona?'

'She had her hands on that money, Werner. I remember seeing the bank papers – statements – in the drawer where she kept her household accounts and money for Mrs Dias our cleaning woman.'

'Before Fiona defected, you mean?'

'Yes, years ago. I was looking for the car keys… Schneider, von Schild und Weber… I knew that damned name was familiar, and last night I remembered why.'

'Why would Fiona have the Berlin Bank accounts?'

'At the time I thought it was some stuff from the office… forgeries even. There were a lot of zeros on those sheets, Werner. Millions and millions of Deutsche Marks. Now I realize it was real and the money was hers. Or at least, in her keeping.'

'Fiona's money? A secret account?'

'Banks send the statements to the account holder, Werner. There is no getting away from that.'

'It's too late now,' said Werner. 'She's gone.'

'I told the old man everything I know,' I said again as if to remind myself of what I'd done. 'From now onwards it's his problem, Werner. His problem, not my problem.'

'You said that already,' said Werner.

'I left Ingrid out of it. There was no point in telling him all that rigmarole about her mother and Dodo.'

'Nor the stuff about your father,' said Werner.

'That's right,' I said. 'Do you think I should have told him that?'

'Either the Department authorized what Bret has been doing with the money, or Bret and Fiona have been stealing it,' said Werner with his usual devastating simplicity. 'Didn't the old man give any indication of knowing?'

'Perhaps he's the greatest actor in the world, but it seemed like he was hearing it all for the first time.'

'They say he's meshugga.'

'No sign of that today.'

'You did the right thing, Bernie. I'm sure of it. Now forget it and stop brooding.'

I looked at his big package. 'So what did you buy in London that I couldn't be trusted with?'

He smiled. 'We felt we couldn't use you like a courier service.'

'I'm in Berlin every week the way things are now. I'll bring whatever you need.'

'Ingrid wants the hotel to look more homely. She likes all these English fabrics and English china; little floral patterns. She says the hotel is too inhospitable-looking, too institutional.'

'It's a Berlin hotel; it looks German.'

'Times change, Bernie.'

'I thought Lisl told you her sister was childless,' I said. 'What did she say when Ingrid arrived?'

He nodded, and then said, 'Lisl knew about Ingrid but Ingrid is illegitimate. She has no legal claim on the hotel.'

'Are you in love with Ingrid?'

'Me? In love with Ingrid?'

'Don't stall, Werner. We know each other too well.'

'Yes, I'm in love with Ingrid,' said Werner somewhat apprehensively.

'Does Zena know?' I asked.

'Zena will be all right,' said Werner confidentially. 'I'll give her a lot of money and she'll be satisfied.'

I said nothing. It was true, of course. It was a bleak comment on Zena and her marriage but there was no arguing with it.

'Zena's in Munich. I keep hoping she'll meet someone…' Werner looked at me and smiled. 'Yes, me and Ingrid… We're happy together. Of course it will all take time…'

'That's wonderful, Werner.'

'You never liked Zena, I know.'

'Ingrid is a very attractive woman, Werner.'

'You do like her?'

'Yes, I do.'

'She's never been married. She might find it difficult to adjust to married life at her age.'

'You're both young, Werner. What the hell…'

'That's what Ingrid says,' said Werner.

'Gatwick Airport' said the voice of the train conductor over the speakers; the train was slowing.

'Thanks Bernie,' he said. 'You've helped me.'

'Any time, Werner.'

The plane took off on time. It was a small private company, Dan-Air, and the stewardesses smile and they give you real coffee. Once above the clouds the sun shone brightly. Despite the emptiness of the train the plane was filled. I asked Werner about his progress with List's hotel and I unleashed a long and enthusiastic account of his hopes and hard work. And Werner wasn't too selfish to include Ingrid Winter's contribution. On the contrary, his praise and admiration for her were very apparent. At times he seemed to be giving her too much credit but I listened patiently and made the right noises at appropriate times. Werner was in love and people who are in love are good company only for their beloved.

I looked at the landscape passing below. Germany: there was no mistaking it. The people of Europe may grow more and more alike in their choice of cars, their clothes, their TV programmes and their junk food, but our landscapes reveal our true nature. There is no rural West Germany. The German landscape is ordered, angular and built-upon, so that cows must share their Lebensraum with apartment blocks, and forest trees measure the factory chimneys. Towns are allotted foliage under which to hide their ugly shopping plazas but huntsmen must stalk their prey between the parked cars and swimming pools of an unending suburbia.

But once across the East-West frontier the landscape is lonely and tranquil. The Democratic Republic enjoys an agricultural landscape not yet sullied by shiny cars and new houses. Here the farms are old and picturesque. Big breeds of horses have stubbornly resisted the tractors and men and women still do the hard work.

It was a lovely evening when we landed in Berlin, this glittering little capitalist island, with its tall concrete office blocks and sparkling streets, set in a vast green ocean of grassy communism. The sun was low and orange-coloured. Tall cumulus dominated the eastern skies, while to the west the grey storm clouds were smudged and streaked across the sky as if some angry god had been trying to erase them.

I came down the steps from the plane carrying Werner's briefcase while he staggered under the weight of the chinaware. Ahead of us the other passengers straggled on their way to customs and immigration.

Berlin-Tegel is in the French Sector of occupied Berlin. This small airport is technically under the control of the French air force. So the incongruous presence of four British military policemen was especially noticeable, if not to say disturbing. They were dressed in that unnaturally perfect way that only military policemen can manage. Their shoes were gleaming, their buttons bright and their khaki had knife-edge creases in all the places where creases were supposed to be.

And if the incongruous presence of British 'redcaps' was not enough, I now noticed that one of them was a captain. Such men are not commonly seen standing and staring in public places, for MP captains do not patrol airports to make sure there are no squaddies going around improperly dressed. A quick glance round revealed two British army vehicles – a khaki car and a van – drawn up on the apron. Behind them there was a blue van bearing the winged badges of l'armee de Fair. A few yards behind that there was a civilian police car too. Inside it there were a couple of cops in summer uniforms. Quite a police presence for a virtually empty airport.

As we walked across the apron the four British MPs straightened up and stared at us. Then the captain strode forward on a path that intercepted us.

'Excuse me, gentlemen,' said the British captain. He was a diffident young man with a large moustache that was less than bushy. 'Which of you is Mr Samson?'

Always afterwards I wondered exactly what made Werner unhesitatingly say, 'I'm Bernard Samson. What is it, Captain?'

Werner could smell trouble, that's why he said it. He could smell trouble even before I got a whiff of it, and that was very quick indeed.

'I'll have to ask you to come with me,' said the Captain. He glanced at the sergeant – a burly forty-year-old with a pistol on his belt – and the looks they exchanged told me everything I needed to know.

'Come with you?' said Werner, 'Why?'

'It's better if we sort it out in the office,' said the captain, with a hint of nervousness in his voice.

I'd better go with him, Werner,' said Werner, continuing the act.

I nodded. Surely the soldiers could hear Werner's German accent. But perhaps they hadn't been told that Bernard Samson was English.

As if demonstrating something to me, Werner turned to the captain and said, 'Am I under arrest?'

'Well…' said the captain. He'd obviously been told that arresting a man in public was something of a last resort, something you only did when sweet talk failed. 'No. That is… Only if you refuse to come.'

'We'll sort it out at your office,' said Werner. 'It's a stupid mistake.'

'I'm sure it is,' said the captain with marked relief. 'Perhaps your friend will take the package.'

'I'll take it,' I said.

The captain turned to one of the corporals and said, 'Help the gentleman, Corporal. Take the parcel for him.'

I had Werner's briefcase in my hand. It contained his passport and all sorts of other personal papers. If they took Werner to their police office, it might take an hour or two before they discovered that he was the wrong man. So I followed the corporal and Werner's parcel of china ware and left Werner to his fate.

With the military policeman acting as my escort my passage through customs and immigration got no more than a nod. In the forecourt there were lines of taxi cabs. My cab driver was an unshaven youngster in a dirty red tee shirt with the heraldic device of Harvard University crudely printed on the front. 'I want an address in Oranienburger Strasse. I know it by sight… go to the Wittenau S-Bahn station.' I said it in slow German, in earshot of the soldier. It would give them a confusing start, for Oranienburger Strasse stretches across town from the airport to Hermsdorf. Not the sort of street in which you'd want to start a door-to-door inquiry.

Once the taxi was clear of the airport I told the driver that I'd changed my mind. I wanted to go to Zoo Station. He looked at me and gave a knowing smile that was inimitably berlinerisch.

'Zoo Station,' he said. It was a squalid place, the Times Square of West Berlin. 'Alles klar.' In that district there was no shortage of people who would help a fugitive to hide from authority of any kind. The cab driver probably thought I was outsmarting the army cops, and he approved.

Yes, I thought, everything is clear. No sooner had I finished talking to him than the bloody D-G signalled to Berlin to have me arrested. It was artful to do it in Berlin. Here the army was king. Here I had no civil liberties that couldn't be overruled by regulations that dated from wartime. Here I could be locked away and forgotten. Yes, alles klar, Sir Henry. I am hooked.