Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

'My money comes in Western currency. I eat here all the time,' he told her.

Could he, by any chance, be an emissary from London Central? No. This was not a man whom Bret or Sir Henry would regard as right for the tricky job of intermediary. And yet a paramour would make the perfect cover for a London contact. If that was his role, he'd reveal it soon: that was how such things were done. She'd wait and see what happened: meanwhile she would be the perfect communist. 'So what do you suggest we eat?' she asked.

He looked up and smiled. He was so happy that his elation affected her. 'Steak, trout or schnitzel is all I ever order.'

'Trout then; nothing to start.' And then another thought struck her like a bombshell: could he be Moscow's man? Very very unlikely. At that first encounter in London he'd admitted having no work permit. Had she phoned Immigration they would have pounced on him. Wait a minute, think about it. It was his vulnerability to officialdom that made her decide not to have him officially investigated. That and the fact that Bernard might have started asking questions about him. She lived again through that first encounter on the railway station, step by step, word for word. His 'niece' talked to Fiona and then ran away. It could have been a set-up. There was nothing in that meeting that could not have been previously arranged.

'Fiona,' he said.

'Yes, Harry?'

'I love you desperately.' He did love her: no one could feign adoration in the way that she saw it in his eyes. But, said the neurotic, suspicious and logical side of her, being in love did not mean that he couldn't have been sent by Moscow. 'I know everything about you,' he said suddenly, and she was alarmed again. 'Except why you like Der Freischütz . I know every mini-quaver of it by now. I can take Schoenberg and Hindemith, but can you find me ten minutes of real melody in that whole darn opera?'

'Germans like it because it is about a completely unified Germany.'

'Is that what you want: a unified Germany?' he asked.

Red lights flashed. What was the official line on unification? 'Only on the right terms,' she said guardedly. 'What about you?'

'Who was it who said that he liked Germany so much that he preferred there to be two of them?'

'I'm not sure.'

He leaned forward and confidentially said, 'Forget what I said: I'm just crazy about Der Freischütz ; every little demi-semi-quaver.'

London. October 1983.

It was two o'clock in the morning. Bret was in his Thameside house, sitting up in bed reading the final few pages of Zola's Nona . Influenced by Sylvester Bernstein, Bret had discovered the joy of reading novels. First Sylvy had lent him Germinal and now Bret – always subject to deep and sudden passions – had decided to read every volume of Zola's twenty-volume cycle. The phone rang. He let it ring for a long time, but when the caller persisted he reached for it. 'Hello?' Bret always said hello; he didn't believe in identifying himself.

'Bret, my dear fellow. I do hope I didn't wake you.'

I'm reading a superb and moving book, Sir Henry.'

'As long as you're not in the middle of anything important,' said the D-G imperturbably. 'I know you are something of a night owl. Anyway this won't wait, I'm afraid.'

'I understand.' Bret put the book aside and closed it regretfully.

'Special Branch liaison came through to me at home a few minutes ago. Apparently a young woman, English by all accounts, walked into the police station in Chichester and said she wanted to talk to someone in our line of business.'

'Oh, yes, sir,' said Bret.

'You're yawning already, of course. Yes, we've seen a lot of those in our time, haven't we? But this lady says she wants to tell us something about one of our people in London. She's mentioned a man whose wife recently left him. Furthermore she met that wife recently in Berlin. You're still with me, are you Bret?'

'Very much with you, Sir Henry. Met her? By name? Mentioned her by name?'

'Apparently: but things usually become a bit vague by the time reports come word of mouth all the way to me. Very very urgent she said it was: someone was about to be killed: that kind of thing. But yes the name was given. Special Branch thought they should check to see if the name rang a bell with us. The night duty officer decided it was important enough to wake me up. I think he was right.'

'Yes, indeed, sir.'

'A Special Branch inspector is bringing this lady up to London. She gave her name as Mrs Miranda Keller, née Dobbs. No joy there of course, the German telephone books are full of Kellers. I wonder if you would be so kind as to talk to her? See what it's all about.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Special Branch have that estate agent's office in Kensington. The house behind the Sainsbury supermarket. You know it, I'm sure.'

'Yes, sir.'

'They will be there in under the hour.'

'I'll get going immediately, sir.'

'Would you really, Bret. I'd be so grateful. I'll be in the office tomorrow. We can talk about it then.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Of course it may be nothing at all. Nothing at all.'

'Well, I'd better hurry.'

'Or it could be our old pals getting up to naughty tricks. Don't take any chances, Bret.'

'I won't, sir. I'd better get started.'

'Yes, of course. Goodnight, old chap. Although for you I suppose it would be good morning.' The D-G chuckled and rang off. It was all right for him; he was going back to sleep.

Mrs Miranda Keller was thirty-six years old, and the wig she was wearing did not make her look younger. It was almost four o'clock in the morning and she'd endured a long car ride through the pouring rain to this grand old house in Kensington, a shabby residential part of central London. Miranda let her head rest back upon the frayed moquette of the armchair. Under the pitiless blue glare of the overhead lighting – which buzzed constantly – she did not look her best.

'As I told you, we have no one of that name working for us,' said Bret. He was behind a desk drinking stale black coffee from the delicate sort of china ware that is de rigueur in the offices of earnest young men who sell real estate. With it on the antique tray there was a bowl of sugar and a pierced tin of Carnation milk.

'S.A.M.S.O.N.,' she spelled it out.

'Yes, I know what you said. No one of that name,' said Bret.

'They are going to kill him,' said Miranda doggedly. 'Have you sent someone to the house in Bosham?'

'That's not something I'm permitted to discuss,' said Bret. 'Even if I knew,' he added.

'Well, these men will kill him if he goes there. I know the sort of men they are.' Wind rattled the windows.

'Russians, you say?'

'You wrote their names down,' she said. She picked up her cup, looked at the coffee, and set it aside.

'Of course I did. And you said there was another woman there too.'

'I don't know anything about her.'

'Ah, yes. That's what you said,' murmured Bret, looking down at his notes. 'My writing is not very elegant, Mrs Keller, but I think it is clear enough. I want you to read through the notes I've made. Start here: the conversation you had in the car at London airport, when you were imitating the voice of this woman you met in Berlin-Grunau.' He gave the sheet to her.

She read it quickly, nodded and offered it back. The wind made a roaring noise in the chimney and the electric fire rattled on its mounting. On the window there was the constant hammering of heavy rain.

Bret didn't take the papers from her. 'Take your time, Mrs Keller. Maybe read it twice.'

She looked at his notes again. 'What's wrong? Don't you believe me?'

'It sounds like a mighty banal conversation, Mrs Keller. Was it worth having you go to all that trouble, when in the final confrontation you simply say things about the children and about laying off this fellow Stinnes?'