Len Deighton - Berlin Game

'And what did your superior say?' I asked.

'His exact words I am not permitted to reveal.' He shrugged apologetically. 'But as you can see for yourself, he paid no heed to my advice.'

'That I should be interrogated while still warm?'

He half closed his eyes and nodded; again it was the mannerism of a churchman. 'It's what should have been done, isn't it? But you can't tell these desk people anything.'

'I know,' I said.

'Yes. You know what it's like, and so do I,' he said. 'Both of us work the tough side of the business. I've been West a few times, just as you've come here. But who gets the promotions and the big wages – desk-bound Party bastards. How lucky you are not having the Party system working against you all the time.'

'We have got it,' I said. 'It's called Eton and Oxbridge.'

But Lenin was not to be stopped. 'Last year my son got marks that qualified him to go to university, but he lost the place to some kid with lower marks. When I complained, I was told that it was official policy to favour the children of working-class parents against those from the professional classes, in which they include me. Shit, I said, you victimize my son because his father was clever enough to pass his exams? What kind of workers' state is that?'

'Are you recording this conversation?'

'So they can put me into prison with you? Do you think I'm crazy?'

'I still want to know why I'm not being interrogated.'

'Tell me,' he said, suddenly leaning forward, drawing on his cigarette, and blowing smoke reflectively as he formed the question in his mind. 'How much per diem do you get?'

'I don't understand.'

'I'm not asking you what you do for a living,' he said. 'All I want to know is how much do they pay you for daily expenses when you are away from home.'

'One hundred and twelve pounds sterling per day for food and lodging. Then we get extra expenses, plus travel expenses.'

Lenin blew a jet of smoke in a gesture that displayed his indignation. 'And they won't even pay us a daily rate. The cashier's office insists upon us writing everything down. We have to account for every penny we've handled.'

'That's the sort of little black book I wouldn't like to keep,' I said.

'Incriminating. Right. That's it exactly. I wish I could get that fact into the heads of the idiots who run this bureau.'

'You're not recording any of this?'

'Let me tell you something in confidence,' said Lenin. 'I was on the phone to Moscow an hour ago. I pleaded with them to let me interrogate you my way. No, they said. The KGB Colonel is on his way now, Moscow says – they keep saying that, but he never arrives – you are ordered not to do anything but hold the prisoner in custody. Stupid bastards. That's Moscow for you.' He inhaled and blew smoke angrily. 'Quite honestly, if you broke down and gave me a complete confession about having an agent in Moscow Central Committee, I'd yawn.'

'Let's try you,' I said.

He grinned. 'What would you do in my place? This KGB Colonel will take over your file when he gets here tomorrow morning. Do you think he'll give me any credit for work done before he arrives? Like hell he will. No, sir, I'm not going to dig anything out of you for those Party bigshots.'

I nodded but I was not beguiled by his behaviour. I'd long ago learned that it is only the very devout who toy with heresy. It's only the Jesuit who complains of the Pope, only the devoted parent who ridicules his child, only the super rich who pick up pennies from the gutter. And in East Berlin it is only the truly faithful who speak treason with such self-assurance.

They took me downstairs at seven o'clock the next morning. I'd heard cars arriving shortly before, and men shouting in the way that guard commanders shout when they want to impress some visiting hotshot.

It was a plush office by East European standards: modern-design Finnish desk and chairs and a sheepskin rug on the floor. A faint aroma of disinfectant mingled with the cheap perfume of the floor polish. This was the smell of Moscow.

Fiona was not sitting behind the desk; she was standing at the side of the room. My friend Lenin was standing stiffly at her side. He'd obviously been briefing her, but Fiona's authority was established by the imperious way in which she dismissed him. 'Go to your office and get on with it. I'll call if I want you,' she said in that brisk Russian that I'd always admired. So the so-called Erich Stinnes was a Russian – a KGB officer no doubt. Well, he spoke bloody good Berlin German. Probably he'd grown up here, the son of an occupier, as I was.

Fiona straightened her back as she looked at me. 'Well?' she said.

'Hello, Fiona,' I said.

'You guessed?' She looked different; harder perhaps, but confident and relaxed. It must have been a relief to be her real self after a lifetime of deception. 'Sometimes I was sure you'd guessed the truth.'

'What guessing was needed? It was obvious, or should have been.'

'So why did you do nothing about it?' Her voice was steel. It was as if she were pushing herself to be as robotic as a weighing machine.

'You know how it is,' I said vaguely. 'I kept thinking of other explanations. I repressed it. I didn't want to believe it. You didn't make any mistakes, if that's what you mean.' It wasn't true, of course, and she knew it.

'I should never have handwritten that damned submission. I knew those fools would leave it in the file. They promised…'

'Is there anything to drink in this office?' I asked. Now that I had to face the truth, I found it easier than dealing with the dread of it. Perhaps all fear is worse than reality, just as all hope is better than fulfilment.

'Maybe.' She opened the drawers in the desk and found an almost full bottle of vodka. 'Will this do?'

'Anything will do,' I said, getting a teacup from a shelf and pouring myself a measure of it.

'You should cut down on the drinking,' she said impassively.

'You don't make it easy to do,' I said. I gulped some and poured more.

She gave me the briefest of smiles. 'I wish it hadn't ended like this.'

'That sounds like a line from Hollywood,' I said.

'You make it hard on yourself.'

That's not the way I like it.'

'I always made it a condition that nothing would happen to you. Every mission you did after that business at Gdynia I kept you safe.'

'You betrayed every mission I did, that's the truth of it.' That was the humiliating part of it, the way she'd protected me.

'You'll go free. You'll go free this morning. It made no difference that Werner demanded it.'

'Werner?'

'He met me with a car at Berlin-Tegel when my plane landed. He held me at pistol point. He threatened me and made me promise to release you. Werner is a schoolboy,' she said. 'He plays schoolboy games and has the same schoolboy loyalties you had when I first met you.'

'Maybe that was my loss,' I said.

'But not my gain.' She came closer to me, for one last look. 'It was a good trick to say you'd cross first. It made me think I might get here in time to catch Brahms Four; your precious von Munte.'

'Instead you caught me,' I said.

'Yes, that was clever, darling. But suppose I hang on to you?'

'You won't do that,' I said. 'It wouldn't suit you to have me around. In a Soviet prison I'd be an impediment to you. And an imprisoned husband wouldn't suit that social conscience you care so much about.'

'You're right.'

'At least you're not trying to find excuses,' I said.

'Why should I bother? You wouldn't understand,' she said. 'You just talk about the class system and make jokes about the way it works. I do something about it.'

'Don't explain,' I said. 'Leave me something to be mystified about.'

'You'll always be the same arrogant swine I met at Freddy Springfield's party.'