Len Deighton - Berlin Game

'You're cruel. Frank's so proud of his German too.'

'He'd get away with it if he didn't try writing out those instructions for the German staff and pinning them on the notice board. The only time I've ever seen Werner laughing, really laughing uncontrollably, was in front of the notice board in the front hall. He was reading Frank's German language instruction: "What to do in case of fire. " It became a classic. There was a German security man who used to recite it at the Christmas party. One year Frank watched him and said, "It's jolly good the way these Jerries are able to laugh at the deficiences of their own language, what? " I said, "Yes, Frank, and he's got a voice a bit like yours, did you notice that?" "Can't say I did," said Frank. I never was quite sure if Frank understood what the joke was.'

'Bret said the D-G mentioned your name for the Berlin office.'

'Have you seen Bret much while I was away?'

'Don't start that all over again, darling. There is absolutely no question of a relationship between me and Bret Rensselaer.'

'No one's mentioned it to me,' I said. The job, I mean.'

'Would you take it?'

'Would you like to go back there?'

'I'd do anything to see you really happy again, Bernard.'

'I'm happy enough.'

'I wish you'd show it more. I worry about you. Would you like to go to Berlin?'

'It depends,' I said cautiously. 'If they wanted me to take over Frank's ramshackle organization and keep it that way, I wouldn't touch it at any price. If they let me reshape it to something better suited to the twentieth century… then it could be a job well worth doing.'

'And I can easily imagine you putting it to the D-G in those very words, darling. Can't you get it into your adorable head that Frank, Dicky, Bret and the D-G all think they are running a wonderful organization that is the envy of the whole world. They are not going to receive your offer to bring it into the twentieth century with boundless enthusiasm.'

'I must remember that,' I said.

'And now I've made you angry.'

'Only because you're right,' I said. 'Anyway, it's hardly worth discussing what I'd say if they offered me Frank's job when I know there is not the slightest chance they will.'

'We'll see,' said Fiona. 'You realize you've driven past our house, don't you? Bernard! Where the hell are we going?'

There was a parked car… two men in it. Opposite our entrance.'

'Oh, but Bernard. Really.'

'I'll just drive around the block to see if there's any sort of backup. Then I'll go back there on foot.'

'Aren't you taking a parked car with two people in it too seriously? It's probably just a couple saying good night.'

'I've been taking things too seriously for years,' I said. 'I'm afraid it makes me a difficult man to live with. But I've stayed alive, sweetheart. And that means a lot to me.'

The streets were deserted, no one on foot and no occupied parked cars as far as I could see. I stopped the car. 'Give me five minutes. Then drive along the road and into our driveway as if everything was normal.'

She looked worried now. 'For God's sake, Bernard. Do be careful.'

'I'll be okay,' I told her as I opened the door of the car. 'This is what I do for a living.'

I took a pistol from my jacket and stuffed it into a pocket of my raincoat. 'You're carrying a gun?' said Fiona in alarm. 'What on earth do you want with that?'

'New instructions,' I said. 'Anyone who regularly carries Category One papers has to have a gun. It's only a peashooter.'

'I hate guns,' she said.

'Five minutes.'

She reached out and gripped my arm. 'There's nothing between me and Bret,' she said. 'There's nothing between me and anyone, darling. I swear it. You're the only one.'

'You're only saying that because I've got a gun,' I said. It was a rotten joke, but she gave it the best sort of smile she could manage and then slid across to the driver's seat.

It was cold, and flakes of snow hit my face. By now the snowfall was heavy enough to make patterns on the ground, and the air cold enough to keep the flakes frozen so they swirled round in ever-changing shapes.

I turned into Duke Street, where we lived, from the north end. I wanted to approach the car from behind. It was safer that way; it's damned awkward to twist round in a car seat. The car was not one I recognized as being from the car pool, but on the other hand it wasn't positioned for a hot-rubber getaway. It was an old Lancia coupé with a radio-phone antenna on the roof.

The driver must have been looking in his rearview mirror because the door swung open when I got near. A man got out. He was about thirty, wearing a black leather zip-fronted jacket and the sort of brightly coloured knitted Peruvian hat they sell in ski resorts. I was reassured; it would be a bit conspicuous for a KGB hit team.

He let me come closer and kept his hands at his sides, well away from his pockets. 'Mr Samson?' he called.

I stopped. The other occupant of the car hadn't moved. He hadn't even turned in his seat to see me. 'Who are you?' I said.

'I've got a message from Mr Cruyer,' he said.

I went closer to him but remained cautious. I was holding the peashooter in the pocket of my coat and I kept it pointing in his direction. 'Tell me more,' I said.

He looked down at where the gun made a bulge and said, 'He told me to wait. You didn't leave a contact number.'

He was right about that. Fiona's request to move that damned bed had been waiting for me at home. 'Let's have it, then.'

'It's Mr Trent. He's been taken ill. He's in a house near the Oval. Mr Cruyer is there.' He motioned vaguely to the car. 'Shall I call him to say you're coming?'

'I'll go in my car.'

'Sure,' said the man. He pulled the knitted hat down round his ears. 'I'll ask Mr Cruyer to call you and confirm, shall I?' He was careful not to grin but my caution obviously amused him.

'Do that,' I said. 'You can't be too careful.'

'Will do,' he said, and gave me a perfunctory salute before opening the car door. 'Anything else?'

'Nothing else,' I said. I didn't let go of the gun until they'd driven away. Then I went indoors and poured myself a malt whisky while waiting for Cruyer's call. Fiona arrived before the phone rang. She gave me a tight embrace and a kiss from her ice-cold lips.

Cruyer was not explicit about anything except the address and the fact that he'd been trying to get me for nearly an hour, and would I please hurry, hurry, hurry. Not wanting to arrive there complete with folding bed, I lifted it from the roof rack before leaving. The exertion made me short of breath and my hands tremble. Or was that due to the confrontation with the man from the car? I could not be sure.

The part of south London that takes its name from the Surrey County cricket ground is not the smart residential district that some tourists might expect. The Oval is a seedy collection of small factories, workers' apartments and a park that is not recommended for a stroll after dark. And yet, tucked away behind the main thoroughfares, with their diesel fumes, stray cats and litter, there are enclaves of renovated houses – mostly of Victorian design – occupied by politicians and civil servants who have discovered how conveniently close to Westminster this unfashionable district is. It was in such a house that Cruyer was waiting for me.

Dicky was lounging in the front room reading The Economist . He habitually carried such reading matter rolled up in the side pocket of his reefer jacket which was now beside him on the sofa. He was wearing jeans, jogging shoes and a white roll-neck sweater in the sort of heavyweight wool that trawler-men require for deck duty in bad weather.

'I'm sorry you couldn't reach me,' I said.

'It doesn't-matter,' said Dicky in a tone that meant it did. ' Trent has taken an overdose.'