Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

‘Take these, why don’t you,’ said Wolff, holding his gaze. ‘Do you know the U-bahn stop I will need for the east side of the Tiergarten?’

‘The Tiergarten? But I thought…’ Christensen looked confused.

‘Yes. The Tiergarten,’ Wolff replied with careful emphasis.

‘Leipziger Platz, then you’ll have to walk. Are you meeting someone there?’

‘Yes, in front of the statue of Gotthold Lessing…’

‘I’ll take those,’ interjected the businessman, snatching the papers from Christensen. ‘Damn fool. Look where you’re going next time.’

Christensen wasn’t a fool. He was careful. Wolff waited at a shop window and watched him cross from the square and file down the steps to the station. He was an easy man to follow, more than six feet tall, with blond hair, those broad shoulders, and dressed in the sort of green wool suit that was fashionable at country-house shooting parties before the war. Wolff wondered if it had belonged to Casement. By the time he reached the edge of the park it was dusk. Christensen was stalking impatiently to and fro beneath the statue, a streetlamp casting his enormous shadow on its marble plinth.

‘Why did we have to come here?’ he asked, angrily slapping the newspaper against his thigh.

‘So I could be sure you weren’t being followed.’

‘No one’s going to follow me.’ He shook his head in disbelief.

‘Look, Adler — may I call you that?’ Wolff stepped a little closer. ‘Let me be quite clear. We’re only going to stay alive in this country if we’re careful. Very careful. Do you understand?’ He paused to look him directly in the eye. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘A silly mistake and we’ll wind up in a cell at the Alex.’ Then to be sure: ‘Both of us.’

‘Yes, I understand,’ he snapped.

But Wolff didn’t believe him. He was too young — only twenty-four — and too mechanical. The file said he had run away to sea as a boy. He’d have learnt some tricks and no doubt thought he could slip any obligation. They were all like that — informers.

‘Let’s walk, we’ll be less conspicuous. No, not in the Tiergarten at this hour,’ he said, touching Christensen’s sleeve. ‘At its edge.’

They ambled away from the Brandenburg Gate and the government district to the broad victory avenue, lined with statues, that cut through the heart of the park.

‘Is your real name de Witt?’ Christensen asked. Wolff said it was.

‘And you’ve spoken to Mr Findlay?’ Wolff said that he had.

Casement was staying at the Eden on the Kurfürstendamm, Christensen said, ‘but we’ll move soon. He can’t afford it.’

‘Aren’t the Germans paying him?’

‘He won’t take anything for himself,’ he grumbled. ‘Only people like him who are used to having money refuse when it’s offered.’

‘So who’s paying?’

‘Didn’t you hear me? No one. He says he’s expecting some from his Irish friends in America.’

‘Do you know their names?’

‘A man called Devoy, and his sister in New York, I think. He has friends here too.’

‘Who?’

Christensen shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t met them.’

‘All right, Adler.’ Wolff stopped abruptly. ‘Let’s be clear. I need names — who he meets and why, and what they’re talking about. I need to know who he writes to and what he says. Do you have access to his correspondence?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Christensen sulkily.

‘Who, what, why, when and where, my friend. Understand? Everything. That will be a profitable arrangement.’

He didn’t reply and he didn’t look Wolff in the eye, but stood there with his head bent, hands thrust in the pockets of his coat.

‘Who does he visit here?’ Wolff asked, at last.

‘You’ve got to give me more.’

Wolff took a step closer. ‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that, Adler.’

‘You need to give me more,’ he repeated — belligerently this time. He took his hands from his pockets and stood a little straighter. ‘It’s dangerous here. It will cost you more.’

Wolff glanced over his shoulder. They had almost reached the top of the Siegesallee and the Reichstag was only a few minutes’ walk away.

‘Come with me,’ and he tugged roughly at Christensen’s sleeve.

‘Why?’

‘Come on, man, I’m not going to kill you,’ he said, impatiently. ‘We’ve been standing beneath this streetlamp for too long,’ and he turned and walked quickly into the trees. After a few seconds Christensen followed him.

‘Cigarette?’

Christensen shook his head. Wolff bent to light his own, then took a step away. They were only a few feet apart but it was too dark beneath the trees to see Christensen’s face. That he felt uncomfortable, even a little afraid, was apparent in his movements. The silhouette of his broad shifting shoulders made Wolff smile: an awkward troll of a man.

‘You going to threaten me?’ he asked defiantly in New York English.

‘Speak German. I’m not going to threaten you, Adler, but we must understand each other. You think you can play me, blackmail me — if I don’t pay enough, sell me to the security police…’

‘I only want to—’

‘Don’t interrupt,’ said Wolff fiercely. ‘You can try. They might pay you, but they might lock you up. I think they’ll lock you up, or shoot you…’

‘That’s not—’

‘I said, don’t interrupt. Now, let’s suppose they don’t shoot you. One of these days you’ll leave Germany. Go home to Norway or America. Visit mother. That’s when my friends will find you. They won’t let you get away with it. It’s bad for business. You can see that, can’t you? You’ll have to spend the rest of your life here. But they might get you here too.’ He paused to draw on his cigarette, dropped it and ground the end into the earth. ‘That’s just the way it is, Adler. It’s your choice. I’ll pay you a fair price for what you give me.’

‘That’s all I want,’ Christensen muttered. He sounded hurt. He’d probably convinced himself in the batting of an eyelid that it had never crossed his mind to betray Wolff, and he was incapable of such low behaviour.

God, they’re all the same, thought Wolff. Always victims. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

Christensen followed him back to the pavement and they walked on towards the victory column in Königsplatz in silence.

‘He writes some of his letters in a code the Germans gave him,’ Christensen declared at last. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out a roll of papers. ‘I’ve copied it out and some of his letters too — here.’

Wolff took the tube and slipped it inside his coat pocket.

‘He visits the Foreign Ministry two or three times a week,’ he continued. ‘The War Office too.’

‘Do you accompany him?’

‘Sometimes, but only as far as the lobby.’

‘Who does he meet?’

‘He usually sees a Foreign Office official called Meyer. But sometimes more important people. He’s met the Chancellor.’

‘Bethmann-Hollweg?’

Christensen nodded. ‘Also an aristocrat called Nadolny — something to do with the military.’

‘Do you know what they’ve promised him?’

Christensen said there was talk of men and guns, lots of talk, but all he could say for sure was that Casement was exasperated by how long his plans were taking to finalise. He’d even considered returning to the United States.

‘Does he trust you?’

‘Oh yes,’ he replied; ‘we’re friends,’ and he turned his head to hide a coy smile. It was a tight-lipped, manipulative smile, the smile of someone who takes pleasure in winning, then betraying, a confidence. It didn’t matter, of course. Wolff knew he couldn’t afford to actively dislike Christensen. Who was he to judge anyway?