'What sort of museum?'
'I'm thinking about that,' he said. 'Probably guns. A gun museum.'
'There's no such thing as a gun museum,' said Sally.
'Of course there is, silly Sally.'
'Don't call me silly Sally. There isn't, is there, Daddy?'
'Not many,' I said judiciously.
'I hate guns,' said Sally. 'Why do we have to have guns, Daddy? Why don't they make them against the law?'
'So that we can shoot bad people,' Billy said.
'Do you shoot bad people, Daddy?' Sally asked me.
Although they went on eating their meal with care and attention, I knew they were both watching me. I had a feeling they'd discussed it. 'Certainly not,' I said. 'Policemen do that.'
'I told you,' Sally said to Billy. To me she said: 'Billy said you've shot lots of people. You haven't, have you, Daddy?'
'No,' I said. 'I'd be no good for anything like that: I'd be afraid of the bangs. Would anyone like to eat my chips?'
'Billy would,' said Sally.
'Grandad is going to take me shooting rabbits,' said Billy. 'He's got a lot of guns; he even has a gun-room. I don't mind bangs.' He helped himself to my fried potatoes. 'Or a museum of cars. Then I could drive them home at night.'
'Cars are better,' I said. What kind of business were we in, when lying to our children was mandatory? One day I would sit them both down and explain everything, but with average luck I'd be hit by a truck before that day arrived.
After lunch we braved the misty rain and walked across the North Downs. It's impressive countryside, with Stane Street, forts and camps, and other remains of the Roman occupiers if you know where to look. Luckily most of them had been visited by the children with parties from school, so they were able to put me back on the right trail whenever I was about to go astray. In the more delicate matter of correcting the mistakes I made about the history of Roman Britain they were more tactful.
By the time I returned them to my parents-in-law they were both tired out, and so was I. On the way back, by Sally's special request, we bought currant buns at the baker's. After we'd all eaten toasted buns and tea, in front of the open fire with Grandma, they came out to see me get in my car to drive home. I was driving a Volvo that the Department had authorized as a purchase compatible with my grade and rank. Billy admired it and was already making a list of which cars he'd have in his museum. But when I kissed them goodbye, Sally smiled at Billy's museum plans and told me: 'Cars are better than guns.'
I simply said yes and let it go, but as I was driving back to London, listening to Mozart piano concertos on the tape player, I had the uneasy feeling that Sally a younger than Billy but more perceptive, more cynical and more demanding, in the way that second children so often are a had seen through my fibs in the fish restaurant.
Early on Friday morning, old man Fedosov and the kid went through to West Berlin without incident. They drove to the airport and took a plane to Paris. At the same time, synchronizing their movements carefully, Werner collected VERDI at Checkpoint Charlie. They flew from Berlin to Cologne and then took an air taxi to Gatwick airport.
Dicky Cruyer and I met them at Gatwick, having arranged that the Customs and Immigration formalities for Werner and his charge would be minimal. He did well, for the formalities were done inside the plane and Dicky took the car through to the 'air side' and close to the aircraft where we waited for them to emerge.
'You can't use Berwick House,' said Dicky while we sat there in the car waiting for them. 'You got the message I sent?'
'No, I didn't,' I said. 'When did you send it?' I had difficulty keeping my voice level. I was furious that he should have been sitting alongside me for nearly half an hour before bothering to mention it.
'I asked Jenni to tell you,' he said vaguely. I knew he'd done nothing of the kind. I knew it was something that had totally slipped his mind until this very moment.
'We need Berwick House,' I said. The Berwick House compound consisted of seven acres of ground with a high wall around it, and armed guards and anti-intruder devices. There was no better place to put people like VERDI who had to be kept hidden and secure.
'It's closed down. No one is using it,' said Dicky.
'Why? When?'
'It's closed while they take the asbestos out of the ceilings or something.'
'Jesus Christ, Dicky. I can't believe it. Taking the asbestos out of it? What are we using in its stead?'
'Don't throw a tantrum, Bernard, it's not my doing. It's the "Works and Bricks" schedule. There's nowhere much like it these days, I'm afraid.'
'Where the hell are you going to put him?'
'The decision ... the final decision that is ... must be yours. But I've left instructions that your party should have exclusive use of the Notting Hill Gate safe house. I've arranged for a team to watch the front and rear entrances. You'll be safe enough there.'
'When is someone going to hear and understand what I keep saying over and over? The Notting Hill pad is compromised. They've even been using it for overnight stays by out-of-town visitors. You know as well as I do that it's a place that junior staff take their tarts for an afternoon. It's not safe and it's not secret.'
'Wait a minute,' said Dicky. 'I know no such thing. About ... Who takes tarts there?'
'Then you must be comatose, Dicky. Haven't you noticed that when the key is needed, there are all sorts of worried looks and internal telephone calls and red-faced people running around the building to find it?'
'No, I haven't. I mean, that's pretty circumstantial, isn't it? It doesn't prove it's being used by staff to shack up.'
'I don't want to argue with you, Dicky. But Notting Hill was never a proper safe house, just a "Home Office notified premises". How can you think that's a secure premises to hide, house and protect someone like VERDI?'
'Where do you want to take him?' said Dicky. Some of the swagger had gone out of him as he began to see how right I was.
'It will have to do for tonight. But for God's sake get on the phone tomorrow and find somewhere properly protected to put him. The police or the army must have secure premises.'
'Do the junior staff really use it as a place to take their girls?'
'Ask Jenni-with-an-i,' I told him.
He looked at me to see if I was joshing him. 'You are a shit-stirrer, Bernard,' he said, not without a note of admiration in his voice.
So I took Werner and VERDI to the Notting Hill Gate safe house. Someone had given it a very thorough cleaning job since my previous visit. The thing that really annoyed me about Dicky's stupidity was that deprived of the guards and domestic staff that were routine facilities at Berwick House, I would have to stay with Werner overnight. We would need two of us. There would have to be someone awake at all times to keep an eye on things while VERDI slept. Even if VERDI was being very cooperative we couldn't run the risk of him walking out of the door and disappearing into the busy streets of central London.
I called Fiona on the car phone and left a message to say that Dicky had assigned me an overnight job and that I would see her the following day at the office. It was vague, but Fiona would easily guess what was happening from that message. And if she didn't, she could check with Dicky.
'Look at this, Bernard. And this is just the beginning,' said Werner. Across the plastic-topped counter in the kitchen Werner was spreading out some of the material VERDI had brought out with him. 'Tessa Kosinski,' said Werner.
The fluorescent lights set in the work-counter shone down upon a set of large glossy black and white photographs. Brightly lit, a badly burned corpse was laid out on a mortuary slab. A close-up of the head frontal view, and another in profile, close-ups of the hands and views during the dissection.
'An army post-mortem?' said Werner.
'Yes, they have the best pathologists,' said VERDI, who was standing behind Werner drinking whisky. 'You must read the post-mortem and the coroner's report.' There were half a dozen pages; closely typed sheets of the usual sort. But the photocopies were poor and it was not easy to decipher the text.
'What was the verdict?' I asked.
'Not burning.' Still clasping his tumbler of whisky, VERDI shuffled through the pages to find what he wanted in the report. 'No smoke or traces of carbon in the trachea or the lungs.' He put his finger on the paragraph. 'There it is a death was caused by gunshot wounds. A 12-gauge shotgun was used at close range. Lead shot remained in the body ... buckshot: large pellet buckshot ... lots of pellets.'
'Wouldn't they have melted when the body burned?' I asked him.
'Yes,' he said. Again he shuffled through the pages to find the appropriate reference. 'There you are: forensic noted traces of metal from melted shot.' In the bottom of the wallet he found a file card to which a small plastic pouch was stapled. Inside it there were half a dozen pellets of buckshot, VERDI looked at me. 'No. 4 shot, I would guess,' he said.
'Yes,' I said. Jungle fighting during the Vietnam war persuaded the US Army that shotguns with No. 4 shot were the most lethal ammunition for use against human targets.
'But who did it? And why?' said Werner.
VERDI shrugged. He was leaving the easy ones to us. He went and sat down. He looked at us both and smiled. We all knew how it would go. Over the next few days VERDI would lay out his wares for us, like a peddler in an oriental market. We'd pick up each piece and inspect it closely and then we'd bargain.
'Satisfied?' VERDI asked.
'It's a start,' I said.
He nodded and sipped some booze. 'It's not the Kosinski woman,' he said softly. 'It's good, isn't it? Very thorough. It is the woman killed at the Brandenburg Exit but it's not Kosinski.'
I said nothing. I was watching VERDI very carefully. I knew then that I'd been wrong about him. I'd allowed my feelings to influence my judgement. VERDI had changed. He was no longer that stubborn thug I'd known in the old days; he was a resourceful and educated professional.
'Who is it?' said Werner.
'It's a female Stasi lieutenant. She was sent there that night when they heard that Fiona Samson was escaping down the Autobahn. Our duty officer phoned the Brandenburg office to go and get her back at any cost. That was the order: get her back at any cost. Brandenburg sent a three-person team from the duty watch. The woman was the senior rank.'
'I was there on the Autobahn that night,' I said.
'Well, you know what a muddle it all was. Everything went wrong. The message was modified twice as Berlin collected the facts. The Brandenburg team had been told to bring back Fiona Samson, who was escaping in a Ford Transit van with diplomatic licence plates. They arrived at the road-works and identified the van. There was a woman in the back of it. They grabbed her and put her in the trunk of their car and drove away. Except that the Stasi lieutenant remained behind. She said she would delay things. It was pitch-dark. She said she would make them think she was Fiona Samson while her men got away. She was looking for a commendation, I suppose. Women always want to prove themselves, don't they? She was armed and she was the senior person. The two men did as she told them.'
VERDI looked at me but I remained deadpan.
'What happened then?' said Werner.
'Ask Mr Samson,' said VERDI. 'He was there. There was a lot of shooting. I never discovered how many were killed. The female lieutenant died. Samson survived. He got into the Ford van and drove away with his wife. Is that right, Samson?'
'I'm listening,' I said. I could guess what was coming next.
VERDI said: 'Someone put the female lieutenant into a car and torched it. I went out there first thing the next morning. It was a scene of devastation. I gave orders that the burned corpse should not be identified as the Stasi lieutenant and put a seventy-two-hour security clamp on the whole business. The security clamp was extended and still remains in force.'
'What happened to the Kosinski woman?' said Werner.
'I had her put into solitary confinement at Normannenstrasse. She wouldn't say a word to anyone. I'd never met Fiona Samson so she was fingerprinted and photographed as Fiona Samson. That's what helped sort out the mistake, but it took a couple of days before we could get Fiona Samson's papers sent to us. I knew Fiona Samson was a hot potato so there was no question of interrogation until I got it okayed from above. Eventually the prisoner was identified as the sister, Kosinski.'
'Where is she now?'
'She was moved to the high-security prison in Leipzig. They are waiting for a political decision about her disposal.'
'She's alive?' asked Werner.
'She's fit and well. I suppose that in due time she will be traded for one of our people.'
'Is that what you've come here for?' said Werner.
'Partly,' said VERDI. He turned to me and said: 'You've said nothing, Samson.'
'We'll go through it again in the morning,' I said. I would need a recorder and a video too if this was all going to be a part of the official record.
It was only a few minutes after that when the phone rang with a call from Duncan Churcher. At first his tone was supercilious. 'Pull up your trousers and tell her goodnight. I'm at the Praed Street address. Meet me where the cabs drive in to Paddington Station in thirty minutes. I take it you have some magic wand that will let you leave your car there without it being towed away. Okay?'
He was about to ring off. 'Wait a minute,' I said. 'I'm not sure I can get away.'
His frolicsome manner changed. 'Whatever you're doing, Bernard, it's not more urgent than this. And I can't hold the lid on this one for more than an hour.'
'What's happened?'
There was a long pause as he carefully decided how to phrase it. 'You'll need the clean-up team. Perhaps you'll want to alert them before coming over here.'
'Jesus Christ!'
'Where the cabs drop their fares. I'm wearing a white trenchcoat.'
'I'll be there.'
Perhaps I sounded doubtful. I suppose he wanted to reconfirm the arrangement. He said: 'Are you far away? I went through three different numbers. Doesn't even your secretary know where you are?'
'Did you try my wife?'
'Touche, Bernard. No, I should have thought of her.'
'Have you been drinking, Duncan?'
'Honest to God, Bernard. No, I swear it. Not for weeks.'
'Then don't start now.' I rang off without saying goodbye.
Werner was looking at me. I said: 'Werner a I've got to go out. Look after his nibs. I'll be back within the hour.'
'Where are you going?'
'I'm going out,' I said.
'If Dicky or Bret want to know?'
'Say I fell down the stairs, and I've gone out to buy Band-Aids.'
'Do you need a gun?'
'No thanks,' I said. 'It sounds like it's too late for noisy explosions.'
It was a mean little room in an old creaky building smelling of decay. The sort of seedy little hotel that the neighbourhoods near rail terminals and bus stations spawn. Such buildings, with only a short lease available before their demolition was due, were the favoured investment of predatory landlords. I followed Churcher up the stairs. Leading us there was a man with a bunch of keys, a stubbly chin and gin-flavoured breath that I suspected Churcher might have arranged. He was a lean fellow, the result no doubt of heaving his enormous bunch of keys up and down the stairs with frequent grabs at the stair-rail so that he did not lose his balance.
Poverty brings lack of choice, and thus urban poverty has a monotonous and melancholy quality that is common to cheap accommodation from one end of the world to the other. Vomit stains, cigarette butts and empty bottles: these cramped rooms could have been in a New York tenement, a Mexico City rooming house or a Berlin squat. The metal bed with its chipped paintwork and sagging springs, the dirty windows, the mattress old and stained and smelly, two kitchen chairs and a few bent implements alongside an ancient cooking ring to justify the 'apartments to rent' sign that overlooked the street.
'Come and look at him,' said Churcher, walking through the first room into the dingy little bedroom that adjoined it.