Gerald Seymour - The Contract

But it was pretence and all in the house knew it.

Johnny recognised the fraud, and saw also the worry lines that settled on Mawby's face in the evenings, the glow of growing anxiety that was the bedfellow of the ticking off of the days on the calendar in the interrogation room. Sharp pen strokes towards the change of the month and the coming of June and the highlighted, bracketed dates.

Carter recognised it. He felt a keenness in his questions to the boy as if time was suddenly slipping. All the questions must count, all the answers must be clear and candid. They would not be repeated.

Smithson and Pierce recognised it. Johnny, the pupil, more attentive and straining to accept what they told him, and their own minds turned to the issue of how great an encyclopaedia they could cement into their man's memory in the intervening days.

Willi recognised it. The sessions in the morning were longer, sometimes spilling into the afternoons, and nobody shouted, nobody swore at him.

This was the source of their information and at last he was treated with a grudging deference. Perhaps he had won a trifle of respect from these men. Perhaps their attention was closer to what he said. There were many things that Willi saw… The glimmer light that burned all night in his bedroom. The chrome bar, screwed into the woodwork, that sealed his bedroom window. The camp bed in the corridor outside his door where George now slept, or lay on his back most likely, with his eyes opened and watchful.

A new and different mood for each participant at the house. And overriding and dominating was the calendar and the fugitive days of May.

Spring drifting to summer.

Squirrels on the lawn, leaping and chasing and thrusting out their brush tails. Rabbits coming with a boldness to the lawns from the shrubs.

The small birds of the woods searching in the soft flower beds for grubs.

And all unseen by the men in the house.

Meals in the dining room, briefings in the sitting room, questions in the interrogation room. Earlier in the morning, later in the evening.

Longer days, more crowded hours.

Willi no longer in the centre and under the wide spot- light. Johnny there, Johnny superseding him. No time for walking and for casual conversation.

'Tell me, Willi,' says Carter. 'Your father's affections, who would they be stronger towards, you or your sister?'

'You won't have much of an opportunity to talk to him, Johnny,' says Pierce. 'But if you do, and before you get him in the car and lose him down the autobahn drive, then the critical areas are the warhead and the time factor between ignition and the completion of the target locking. It's conceivable that the Marienborn check will bust him. You see, Johnny, we'd hate to have gone to all this trouble and have nothing to show for it.

You'll try and get something there, won't you?'

*

'You're a teacher,' says Smithson. 'But we can't pretend that you're on a study trip, we can't line you up a list of appointments at education institutions, not in the days we have available. So you have to be on holiday, a single man looking for somewhere out of the ordinary. That's why you're in Magdeburg. There won't be British there, highly unlikely, only other east bloc people. You just play the tourist with the maps and the pocket camera. Do the churches — the Dom and the Kloster Unser Frauen. Do the parks beside the river, do the Kulturhistorische Museum.

For God's sake don't photograph bridges, railway sidings, anything military.'

The barrage of information increased. Sufficient to send Johnny to his bed each night reeling from its variety and complexity. Flesh growing on the old photograph of Otto Guttmann's face, blood coming to his cheeks, colour to his chin, life to his eyes. Finding familiarity and understanding with an old man.

Photographs of Magdeburg. Postcards in sepia, faded by sunlight.

Twin towers of the Dom, cascades of fountains, the flats on Karl Marx Strasse. Brittle and modern and hollow monuments. They didn't help much, not so as Johnny would notice, but just gave a suspicion of comfort. Photographs and maps. The Stadtplan of Magdeburg that Smithson had used, scale of 1 to 20,000 and issued by VEB Tourist Verlag, lay creased on his bedside table.

Remember the police uniforms, Johnny.

Remember the MCLOS firing system.

Remember the distance from the city centre to the autobahn intersection.

Remember the capabilities of squash head and high explosive.

Remember the military train, Berlin to Helmstedt, via Magdeburg, remember the train times because that was sweet and clever, and that was Johnny's idea.

Carter and Smithson and Pierce, all of them feeding him, pouring the rich grain down his captive throat as if he were a turkey fattening for a feast. Each evening in his bed the minutiae seeped and swam in his mind and jockeyed for priority till he slept. This was the way back, this was the track to acceptance. The end of the shame of the Crown Court of Belfast and the field in South Armagh, was to be found on the streets of Magdeburg. The banishment of the disgrace of a teenage girl's funeral and the whipping sarcasm of the Lord Chief Justice, would be made on the Berlin to Helm- stedt autobahn. A shit heap of a place to go for rehabilitation, Johnny would say quietly to himself. A shit heap, but he wanted back.

And his mother would be happy. She'd be pleased, if it worked out..

The Prime Minister moved easily amongst his guests.

A tall, angular, gaunt man who maintained an uncanny fitness on the privacy of a cycling machine and who believed that good health was the elixir for the self-confidence without which political leadership sagged and was spent. Around 60 visitors stood with glasses in their hands pecking at oddments of food in the first floor reception room of his official residence. A babble of talk and gossip. He liked these occasions at Downing Street, enjoyed making the home that he occupied while in office something more than a factory of daily government. Some diplomats here, some military, some cronies of the long years in the party.

'Nice that you were able to come, Barney, how goes it?'

'The villains of the media are behaving themselves.' The retired Vice-Admiral was an old friend, long trusted. 'Particularly last week, I was actually quite proud of them, all rallied round the flag like good lads.'

The Prime Minister nodded to his left to acknowledge a departing guest, thrust his fist to his right for a handshake of farewell. Distracted and content. Good to have some noise in the place, good to blow the cobwebs out of this archaic tomb. 'What was that last week?'

The Vice-Admiral laughed. 'The defector who tried the double defection. Quite a flap really.'

'I didn't hear of it.' The Prime Minister ignored his duties as host, let the sea of people flow on either side of him, permitted his wife across the room to receive the smiled gratitudes and compliments.

'The East German boy, or Russian, there was some confusion there

… we slapped a D notice down and Fleet Street and the broadcasters all fell into line. Very pleasing, not a bitch from one of them.'

'You have the advantage over me. What East German boy? What defector?'

'I'm surprised, sir. They seemed to think it important, they heaved me out of bed at some Godawful hour over it…'

The Prime Minister took his friend by the elbow and propelled him to an emptied corner of the room. He said slowly, specifically, 'They never tell me anything. They apply a "need to know" tourniquet to me. They believe they're autonomous, those people. Every time I chase them all I get is something about not wishing to disturb me with nonessentials…

So what was this one about?'

The Vice-Admiral looked anxiously around him, seeking escape, no one caught his eye and the Prime Minister's hand still gripped his elbow.