Len Deighton - Spy Hook

'I'll try,' I promised without conviction. Lisl was determined to believe that I had spent my childhood performing all kind of mechanical miracles with the antiquated electricity system and the heating. It wasn't true of course. The idea that Bernd would fix it had been Tante Lisl's way of deferring as long as possible the inevitable replacement of aged and broken machinery.

'The hotel is looking wonderful, Lisl.'

She grunted as if she hadn't properly heard me, but the one-sided little smile she gave was enough to tell me how pleased she was with Werner's refurbishment.

I could not really be expected to cure the pump of its chronic arrhythmias: it was too far gone. Werner came with me to the subterranean boiler room and we examined the incontinent old brute with its dribbled rust and flaking insulation. In an attempt to justify Lisl's confidence in me I gave the meter a tap, rapped upon the pump casing and repeatedly touched warm pipes that should have been hot enough to scorch the flesh. 'It's not just the boiler. The whole system will have to be renewed,' said Werner. 'But I'm praying that it will last out till next year.'

'Yes,' I said. We continued to look at it in the hope that it would suddenly come to life. Then Ingrid Winter joined us. She said nothing. She just stood with us staring at the boiler. I stole a look at her. She was a handsome woman with a lovely complexion and clear eyes that shone when she looked at you. She glowed with the quiet vocational self-assurance that you hope to see in a nurse.

'It's not only the money,' explained Werner to no one in particular. 'We'll have to change all the pipes and radiators. There will be dust and noise in every room. If we had to do that in the winter it would mean closing the hotel completely…'

'Couldn't you change the boiler first?' I suggested. Then do the plumbing and piping piece by piece?'

'The plumber says we can't,' said Werner. He knew my ignorance about such matters was profound, and the look he gave me let me know that he knew. 'The sort of boiler we'll need for all the new bathrooms just wouldn't operate with the old plumbing. It's very old.'

Ingrid Winter said, 'Perhaps we should talk to some other heating engineer, Werner.'

Her accent was the rounded one of southern Bavaria: not one of those raw back-country accents, just a slight burr. But there was some inflection of Ingrid Winter's voice, some tiny change of pitch or of tone, that made me look at Werner. He stared back at me and gave the same mirthless smile that I remembered from our schooldays together. Werner once confided that it was his 'inscrutable' expression but 'guilty' would have been a better description.

Werner said, 'Old Heinmuller knows the system very well, Ingrid. It was him and his father who got it going again after the bombing in the war.'

'We'll have to do something, Werner dear,' she said, and this time was unable to conceal the intimacy in her voice. There existed between them that intuitive sympathy and unspoken understanding for which Goethe coined the word Wahlverwandtschaft .

'While we're here alone, Ingrid, tell Bernie about the Hungarian.' He touched her arm. 'Tell him what you told me, Ingrid.'

She hesitated and then said, 'Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything… But the other evening I was telling Werner about my mother and about that awful Hungarian man who lives nearby.'

'Dodo?' I said.

'Yes. He calls himself Dodo.'

'What about him?'

'He's a pathetic little man,' said Ingrid. 'I've never liked him. I wish Mother wouldn't invite him to the house. He's always leering at me.' She paused and looked closely at the lagging on the boiler pipes. 'It should be cleaned away,' she said. 'I hate dirt.'

'When was it last cleaned and serviced?' I said. She seemed ill at ease. I wanted to give her a chance to compose herself. 'I remember once a fellow came and replaced a nozzle or something, and it started working perfectly again.'

'We've tried nozzles,' said Werner impatiently. To Ingrid he said, 'Tell Bernie what they said about his father. And your father. It's better that he knows.'

Ingrid looked at me, obviously not wanting to tell me anything at all.

'I'd like to hear, Ingrid,' I said, trying to make it easier for her.

'You remember what I told you when you visited my mother?'

'Yes,' I said.

'I upset you. I know I did. I'm sorry.'

'No matter.'

'Most of what I know comes from Dodo: he's not a reliable source.'

'But tell me anyway.'

'All we've ever been told officially is that Paul Winter was killed after the war ended. An accidental shooting.'

'By the Americans,' said Werner.

'Let me tell it, Werner.'

I'm sorry, Ingrid.'

'They said he was escaping,' she said. 'But they always say that, don't they?'

'Yes,' I said. 'They always say that.'

'It was Dodo who brought it all up again. He kept on at my mother about it. You probably know how he goes on. She listens to him. He was a Nazi; that's why he gets on so well with Mother.'

'A Nazi?' I said.

Werner said, 'He worked for Gehlen. The Abwehr recruited him at Vienna University. When the war ended, and Gehlen started working for the Americans, Dodo worked for Lange.'

I looked at Werner and tried to guess where my father fitted into all this. Werner smiled nervously, wondering perhaps if he should have brought up the subject of my father. Ingrid said, 'Dodo is a troublemaker. Some people are like that, aren't they?' She looked at me expecting a response, so I nodded.

She said, 'He is a troubled, morbid creature. And he drinks too much and becomes maudlin. Full of self-pity. Hungarians have the highest suicide rate in the world: four times as many as Americans, and still climbing.' Ingrid broke off, doubtless remembering that Gloria was Hungarian too. Flushed with embarrassment she turned back to the boiler and said, 'We could get it cleaned and serviced and see what happens. Even when the pump keeps working, the water doesn't get really hot.

'Lisl should have fitted a bigger one when she had it renewed,' I said. I reached out with both hands and slapped the boiler twice, encouragingly, as a Neapolitan platoon commander might slap the shoulders of a man ordered out on a dangerous mission. It made no difference.

For a moment I thought she'd decided to say no more, then she said, 'Dodo urged my mother to sue the American army.'

'That sounds like Dodo,' I said.

'Get compensation for Paul Winter's death. It was a shooting accident.'

'It's a bit late now, isn't it? And I thought you said he was shot while trying to escape,' I said.

'Ingrid said that the Americans gave that as their excuse.'

'Dodo told my mother the Americans would pay a lot of money. He said they wouldn't want it all dragged up.'

I grunted to express my doubts about Dodo's theory.

'My Uncle Peter was a colonel in the American army. He was shot in the same incident. Dodo says they were on a secret mission.'

I said. 'What's all this got to do with my father?'

'He was there,' said Ingrid.

'Where?' I said.

'Berchtesgaden,' said Ingrid. 'The inquiry said that he was the one who shot Paul Winter.'

'I think you must have made a mistake,' I said. 'Werner knew my father. He will tell you… anyone will tell you…' I shrugged. 'My father wasn't a shooting soldier. He worked in intelligence.'

'He shot Paul Winter,' said Ingrid coldly and calmly. 'Paul Winter was a war criminal… or so it was alleged. Your father was an officer on duty with the army that had conquered us. There probably was a cover-up. Such things happen when there are wars.'

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. She obviously believed what she said, but she wasn't getting angry. She was more embarrassed than angry. I suppose she had no recollection of her father. He was no more than a name to her, and that's how she spoke of him.