Len Deighton - London Match

'Have they charged him?'

'I know nothing except what I've told you. It only happened last evening.'

'We'll have to do something, Frank.'

'I know what you're thinking, Bernard, but that's impossible.'

'What is?'

'Exchanging Werner for Stinnes. London Central would never wear it.'

'Is it better that we deliver Bret back to London and let Stinnes send Five to trample all over him?' I said.

'Bret is innocent. Very well; I believe Bret is innocent too. But let us not overreact. You're not really telling me you think he'll be tried and found guilty and sent to prison?'

' Moscow has produced fake evidence. God knows how much of it there is.'

'Fake evidence or no fake evidence, it won't send Bret to jail and you know it.'

'They won't even send him for trial,' I said. 'They never do send senior staff for trial, no matter what the evidence against them. But Bret will be retired and discredited. Bret has a very exaggerated sense of loyalty – you know what he's like. Bret couldn't live with that.'

'And what if I bring Stinnes here without authority? What will happen to me?'

Well, at least Frank had reached the necessary conclusion without my drawing him a coloured diagram. Frank's authority was confined to Berlin. The only way we could do anything to help Bret in the short term was by bringing Stinnes here. 'You're close to retirement. Frank. If you overstep the mark, they'll get angry but they won't take it out on you. Especially when they realize that you've saved them from a fiasco.'

‘I not going to lose my bloody pension for some harebrained scheme of yours,' said Frank. 'It's not within my power.'

'See Bret,' I said. 'He's waiting outside in the car. See Bret and you might change your mind.'

'I'll see Bret. But I won't change my mind.'

I wouldn't have convinced him without Bret Rensselaer. It was the mangled patrician figure that moved Frank Harrington to throw the rule book out the window and send two of his heavies to England to get Stinnes. There was paperwork too. Stinnes hadn't yet been given any sort of travel document other than the stateless person's identity card. That was valid for travelling, but it required some hastily done backup with scribbled signatures.

Just to create a smoke screen Frank left a message with the D-G's personal secretary and sent a telex to London that said Stinnes was to be questioned in connection with the detention of a departmental employee in East Berlin. The name of Werner Volkmann was not mentioned and the proposed venue of the Stinnes questioning was left vague.

The other half of the procedure was more straightforward. I found Posh Harry in Frankfurt. When he heard that there was a well-paid job for him he got the next plane for Berlin.

I met him in the Café Leuschner, a big barn of a place near the remains of the Anhalter Bahnhof, that weed-bedecked chunk of railway terminal that has been left standing in the middle of the city like a rich man's folly in some Old-World garden.

The big café was made to look even larger by the row of gilt-framed mirrors. They lined the wall so that the marble countertop with all the glinting bottles and glasses were tilted by the reflections.

As a kid I'd always liked to sit at the counter rather than at the tables. In those days the chairs were old bentwood ones, painted olive green, the only colour of paint that one could get in the city. The furniture at Leuschner's café – like so many other painted things of that tune – exactly matched the trucks of the US Army.

Leuschner's used to be my Saturday treat. It was the highpoint of my week. I'd meet my father at his office, and with him in his best uniform we'd walk to Leuschner's for one of Herr Leuschner's ice creams that only kids were allowed to buy. Then one day my father discovered through an informer that the ice cream came from US Army supplies. He was going to report it, but my mother dissuaded him on account of the way old Herr Leuschner was always feeding hungry kids for nothing. But my father wouldn't take me there after that.

Now it was Leuschner's son Willi behind the bar. We'd been kids together. Not Wilhelm, not Willy, but Willi. I remembered how exasperating he'd always been about adults getting his name right. Willi had the same kind of big moustache his father had worn – the same sort of moustache the Kaiser had worn, and many of his subjects too, until people started thinking that big curly moustaches made you look like a Turk.

The young Leuschner greeted me as I entered. 'How goes it, Bernd?' he said. He had that manner bartenders learn – an arm's-length friendliness that reserved the right to toss you into the street should you get drunk.

'Hello, Willi. Has Posh Harry been in?'

'Not for a long time. He used to come in a lot – he brought some good business too – but he shares an office in Tegel now. He likes to be near the airport, he said, and I don't see him so much.'

It was then that Posh Harry arrived. He arrived at the appointed time; he was a very punctual man. I suppose, like me, he'd learned that it was a necessary part of dealing with Germans.

He was wearing a superb camel-hair overcoat and a grey trilby. They didn't go well together, but Posh Harry had swagger enough to carry off anything. He could have come in wearing a baseball cap and creased pyjamas and Willi Leuschner would still have greeted him with the awed respect I heard in his voice this time. 'I was just saying how much we like to see you here, Herr Harry.' Even Willi didn't know Posh Harry's family name; it was one of Berlin 's best-kept secrets. When Posh Harry replied, it was in flawless German and the chirruping Berlin accent.

It was Willi who showed us to a-quiet table at the back. Willi was shrewd; he could recognize those customers who wanted to sit near the window and drink wine and those who wanted to sit at the back and drink whisky. And those who wanted to sit somewhere where they couldn't be overheard. To get those seats you had to drink champagne; but German champagne would do.

'We want to set up a meeting, Harry,' I said when Willi had served us our Sekt , written the price of it on a beer mat which he slapped on the table, and gone back to his place behind the bar.

'Who's we?' said Posh Harry, toying with the beer mat in such a way as to ensure that I could see what it was costing me.

'Not too many of those big questions, Harry. Let's get the details right and you collect the money, okay?'

'That's the way I like to do it,' said Harry. He smiled. He had the wide toothy smile of the Oriental.

'We're holding a KGB man; he has the working name of Stinnes. We caught him in a red-hot situation.'

'Am I permitted to ask what is a red-hot situation?'

'We caught him mugging a little old lady in a sweet shop.'

'Is this on the level, Bernie?' Now it was the serious face and low sincere voice of the professional. I could see why he did so well at it; he could make you think he really cared.

'No, a lot of it is not on the level, but our KGB friends will know what's what. You tell them that we're holding Stinnes in a hard-room and that we're kicking shit out of him.'

'You want me to say you personally are involved?'

'Yes, you tell them that Bernie Samson is kicking shit out of Erich Stinnes, on account of the way he was held in Normannenstrasse last year by this same individual. Revenge, tell them.'

An old man came in. He was wearing tails complete with top hat, and playing a concertina. He was a famous Berlin character – the 'Gypsy Baron', they called him. In the cafés along the Ku-damm he played the music the foreign tourists liked to hear – Strauss, Lehar, and a selection from Cabaret – but this was a place for Berliners, so he kept to their kind of schmalz.