Len Deighton - Berlin Game

I looked at him for a moment without replying. Rolf Mauser's participation in Brahms was – as far as my information went – recent and minimal. Then the penny dropped: 'Because of your rackets, you mean? Because London is supplying you with things you need to keep Werner's import-export racket functioning?'

'You haven't reported that, have you, Bernd?'

'I have enough of my own problems without trying to find more,' I said. 'But London Central aren't here to help you run rackets in East Germany, or anywhere else.'

'You didn't always talk that way, Bernd. I remember a time when everyone agreed that Brahms was the best source in Berlin System. The best by far.'

'Times change, Rolf.'

'And now you'd throw us to the wolves?'

'What are you saying?'

'You think we don't know that you have a KGB spy here in London Central. Brahms net is going to be blown any minute.'

'Who says so? Did Werner say it? Werner is not a member of the network. He's not employed by the Department at all. Do you know that?'

'It doesn't matter who said it,' replied Rolf.

'So it was Werner. And we both know who told him, don't we, Rolf?'

'I don't know,' said Rolf staunchly, although his eyes said different.

'That bloody wife of his. That bloody Zena,' I said. I cursed Frank Harrington and his womanizing. I knew Frank too well to suspect him of revealing to her anything really important. But I'd seen enough of Zena Volkmann to know that she'd trade on her relationship with Frank. She'd make herself sound important. She'd feed Werner any wild guesses, rumours and half-truths. And Werner would believe anything he heard from her.

'Zena worries about Werner,' said Rolf defensively.

'You must be very stupid, Rolf, if you really believe that Zena worries about anything but herself.'

'Perhaps that's because no one else worries about her enough,' said Rolf.

'You'll break my bloody heart, Rolf,' I said.

I'm afraid we parted on a note of acrimony. When I looked back, he'd still not boarded the bus. I suspected that he had no intention of boarding any bus. Rolf Mauser could be a devious devil.

Some of the most secret conversations I'd ever heard took place not in any of the debugged 'silent rooms' under the Department's new offices but in restaurants, St James's clubs or even in the backs of taxicabs. So there was nothing surprising about Dicky Cruyer's suggestion that I go to his house about nine 'for a confidential chat'.

A man repairing the doorbell let me in. Dicky's wife, Daphne, was working at home that morning. A large layout pad occupied most of the corner table in the front room. A jam jar of coloured felt-tip pens was balanced on the TV, and scattered across the sofa were scribbled roughs for advertising a new breakfast food. Daphne's art-school training was everywhere evident; brightly painted bits of folk art and crudely woven cushion covers, a primitive painting of Adam and Eve over the fireplace and a collection of matchbox covers displayed in an antique cabinet. The only personal items in the room were photos: a picture of the Cruyers' two sons amid a hundred other grim-faced, grey-uniformed boys in front of the huge Gothic building that was their boarding school; and, propped on the mantelshelf, a large shiny colour photo of Dicky's boat. There was some very quiet Gilbert and Sullivan leaking out of the hi-fi. Dicky was humming.

Through the 'dining area' I could see Daphne in the kitchen. She was pouring hot milk into large chinaware mugs. Looking up she said ' Ciao! ' with more than her usual cheerfulness. Did she know her husband had been having an affair with my sister-in-law? Her hair was that straggly mess that only comes from frequent visits to very expensive hairdressers. From what little I knew about women, that might have been a sign that she did know about Dicky and Tessa.

'Traffic bad?' said Dicky as I threw my raincoat onto a chair. It was his subtle way of saying I was late. Dicky liked to have everyone on the defensive right from the start. He'd learned such tactics in a book about young tycoons. I secretly borrowed it from his office bookshelf one weekend so that I could read it too.

'No,' I lied. 'It only took me ten minutes.'

He smiled and I wished I'd not got into the game.

Daphne brought cocoa on a dented tin tray advertising Pears soap. My cup celebrated the silver jubilee of King George V. Dicky complimented Daphne on the cocoa and pressed me to have a biscuit, while she gathered up her pens and paper and retreated upstairs. I sometimes wondered how they managed together; secret intelligence was a strange bedfellow for a huckster. It was better to be married to a Departmental employee; I didn't have to ask her to leave the room every time the office came through on the phone.

He waited until he heard his wife go upstairs. 'Did I tell you the Brahms network was going to fall to pieces?'

It was, of course, a rhetorical question; I was expected to confirm that he'd predicted that very thing with uncanny accuracy a million times or more, but I looked at him straight-faced and said, 'You may have done, Dicky. I'm not sure I remember.'

'For Christ's sake, Bernard! I told Bret only two days ago.'

'So what's happened?'

'The people have scattered. Frank is here.'

'Frank is here?'

'Don't just repeat what I say. Yes, dammit. Frank is here.'

'In London?'

'He's upstairs taking a bath and cleaning up. He arrived last night and we've been up half the night talking.' Dicky was standing at the fireplace with fingers tapping on the mantelshelf and one cowboy boot resting on the brass fender.

'Aren't you going into the office?' I cradled the cocoa in my hands, but it wasn't very hot so I drank it. I hate cold cocoa.

Dicky tugged at the gold medallion hanging round his neck on a fine chain. It was a feminine gesture and so was the artful smile with which he answered my question.

I said, 'Bret will know Frank is in London. If you are missing from the office, he'll put two and two together.'

'Bret can go to hell,' said Dicky.

'Are you going to drink your cocoa?'

'It's real chocolate, actually,' said Dicky. 'Our neighbours across the road brought it back from Mexico and showed Daphne how the Mexicans make it.'

I recognized Dicky's way of saying he didn't like it. 'Here's health,' I said, and drank his cocoa too. His mug was decorated with rodents named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter. It was smaller than mine; I suppose Daphne knew he didn't much like cocoa the way the Mexicans fixed it.

'Yes. Bret can go to hell,' repeated Dicky. The gas fire wasn't on. He gently kicked the artificial log with the tip of his boot.

If Dicky was hell-bent on a knock-down-drag-out fight my money would be on Bret Rensselaer. I didn't say that; I didn't have to. 'This is all part of your plan to keep Bret out of things?'

'Our plan,' said Dicky. ' Our plan.'

'I still haven't had that confidential memo you promised me.'

'For God's sake. I'm not going to let you down.' From upstairs there came the sound of the Rolling Stones. 'It's Daphne,' explained Dicky. 'She says she works better to music.'

'So what is Frank up to? Why come here to whisper in your ear? Why not report to the office?'

Again came Dicky's artful smile. 'We both know that, Bernard. Frank is after my job.'

'Frank is a hundred years old and waiting for retirement.'

'But retiring from my desk would give him another few thousand a year on his pension. Retiring from my desk, Frank would be sure of a CBE or even a K.'

'Have you been encouraging Frank to think he's getting your job? There's not a chance of it at his age.'

Dicky frowned. 'Well, don't let's rake that over, at least not for the time being. If Frank has unspoken ambitions, it's not for us to make predictions about them. You follow me, don't you?'