‘You didn’t believe it?’
‘I did — I didn’t know any different. But my sergeant was sceptical. He’d seen stuff like it before and reckoned there was probably more to it.’
Riley tried to re-think her history but couldn’t remember the date. ‘Wasn’t the border open by then?’
‘That was later, in the November. Until then, it was business as usual for both sides. If you wanted out of the GDR bad enough, you attempted a crossing. If you were a member of the Volkspolitzei, your job was to stop runners. Some got away with it — if they were young enough and lucky. Mostly they didn’t.’
‘And Radnor was involved?’
Palmer nodded. ‘He was a witness to the whole incident, so he claimed. He had someone contact the nearest RMP post, which was us, using an authority code I’d never heard before. My sergeant had, so he checked with the CO. He was told to attend and assist, but to keep it quiet. That meant minimum involvement by anyone else, no word to the local police unless they came calling and everything was to be dealt with as if nothing had happened. The US Cavalry had a strong presence nearby, but this was on our sector. Reg, my sergeant, was even more convinced that it pointed to an intelligence connection. He didn’t like it, nor did the CO, apparently, but there was no way out of it.’
‘Spies, you mean? Does the army get involved in that stuff?’
‘Not normally. Sometimes it can’t be avoided. When it does blow up, everyone keeps a tight lid on it and there are more reminders of the Official Secret Act flying around than scales on a goldfish. Anyway, I was on call, so along with Reg, went out to secure the scene. It was right up against the border, with pretty much open countryside all around. It was starting to snow and was bitterly cold. There were some old farm buildings not far off which looked abandoned, but that was it. By the time we arrived, there were three men there. One was British, I don’t know about the other two — they were younger and stayed in the background. Local gofers, probably. They’d already been out and recovered the body, which was unusual, apparently. Reg wasn’t impressed, anyway.’
Riley didn’t reveal that she knew about the existence of Reg Paris. Palmer was in full flow. ‘Why?’
‘Because the usual form when a runner got shot was they were often left out there while each side did their share of posturing and arguing about who did what. Understandably, nobody from our side wanted to walk out and collect them, because the East Germans border guards were far too twitchy. It needed open clearance from all sides before anyone dared step out onto neutral ground. The political implications of serving military personnel going anywhere near the wire — or worse — being shot by the other side, were mental.’
‘So these men jumped the gun.’
‘And some. Anyway, since the body was now clearly on our side, and there didn’t seem to be any doubt about what had happened, we offered to get it taken to the base. But the Brit wouldn’t let us. He said he’d get his men to deal with it.’
‘So why did he get you out there in the first place?’
‘I can only think it was to give it an extra security gloss in case of witnesses. The sight of British army MPs would have warned anyone off and stopped any questions. We filed a report to the CO and that was it.’ Palmer drummed his fingertips on his knee. ‘Reg said they were spooks and it was better I didn’t get involved. He wouldn’t even tell me the man’s name. Said he’d clear it with the CO and I should keep my head down. So I did.’
‘The spook being the man in Harrow. Radnor.’
‘Right. A couple of days later, he turned up at the base, looking for Reg and waving some paperwork. He said the German police had got wind of the shooting via a man on the other side. As the senior military cop on the spot, Reg was required to make a deposition to them about what had happened. After that, they’d handle it. The army wasn’t about to argue, so Reg had to fall in line.’
‘What then?’ Riley thought her voice unnaturally loud in comparison to Palmer’s soft tones.
‘They took off in a pool car. Reg was driving. Later that day, on the autobahn near Frankfurt, they were hit by a Mercedes truck.’
Riley said nothing.
‘The pool car blew apart under the impact.’ He looked at her. ‘There were no survivors.’
Chapter 16
‘But that’s impossible.’ Riley now knew what had affected Palmer so acutely. Seeing a face from the past, while knowing that face should no longer exist, must have been world-shattering. At least it hadn’t been his former colleague, Reg Paris, that he’d seen. ‘Did you see the car?’
‘No. A couple of guys who did said it had been ripped apart like a wet paper bag. Not even the seats were recognisable. Whatever was left of the bodies was flown back to England once the inquest was completed. Two days after the crash, I was assigned to embassy duty in Stockholm with orders to leave immediately. When I got there I rang my CO to ask about the funeral. He said the family had requested a private ceremony and that it was none of my concern. Done and dusted.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘I didn’t think to ask about the other man, and was junior enough to do as I was told, so I forgot about it.’
Riley nodded, thinking it was time to mention her meeting with Charlie. Hopefully, Palmer would see she had been trying to help. As usual, however, Palmer was sharp to catch on.
‘You know, don’t you?’ he accused her. ‘You weren’t the slightest bit surprised by my mention of Reg Paris.’
Riley tried to look apologetic but failed, because she wasn’t. ‘Sorry, Palmer, but I was concerned when I couldn’t contact you. I contacted your friend Charlie. He looked up the accident report.’
Palmer looked puzzled. ‘Christ, that was a shot in a million, wasn’t it?’ Then he nodded. ‘My notes.’ He stared at her. ‘You’ve been in my office.’
‘Guilty as charged. I happened to see Charlie’s name in your Rolodex. He was the obvious person to ask. I gave him the notes off your desk, thinking it might be a clue to where you were. You’d made doodles which included Reg Paris’s name, although I didn’t recognise it at the time. Charlie used some whiz-bang search engine to check the database and came up with the accident report.’
Palmer put on a look of feigned disgust. ‘Christ, you can’t trust anyone these days. So much for the Official Secrets Act.’ He half smiled. ‘But thanks for the concern. I’d better give Charlie a ring. He’ll never forgive me for not telling him.’
‘So who was he?’ asked Riley after a few minutes. ‘The man killed on the border? I suppose that’s why you went to Germany?’ She added by way of explanation: ‘I heard the airport announcement when you rang me.’
Palmer sat back and linked his hands behind his head with a deep sigh. ‘Actually, I’m not sure why I went back. Seeing that face again stirred it all up. I suppose it wasn’t buried as deep as I’d thought.’
‘You wanted answers. You thought he was dead. It’s natural.’
‘Yeah. I don’t know what I expected to find, but the border seemed the best place to start. I figured if I discovered what had really happened, including who the runner was and why this man — Radnor? — was there, I might discover the reason for the deception. At least, as far as I was concerned.’ He took out his notebook to refresh his memory. ‘Unger, the lawyer I met over there, filled in the gaps for me. The runner’s name was Claus Ulf Wachter. He was in his forties, a middle ranking bureaucrat attached to the East German Ministry of Arts and Culture, responsible for museums and galleries.’
‘What connection would Radnor have had with them?’
‘No idea. The Intelligence community normally confine its interest to other things. But who knows what devious paths they pursue? Could be Wachter knew someone with access to useful information in the military field. In any case, he was probably skipping out before he got caught.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Hands in the till, from the information Unger dug up. At the time, a lot of state-owned artwork, especially by Soviet artists, was going missing and finding its way to the west. There were no reliable inventories, so it was fairly easy for stuff to be siphoned off. Wachter was thought to be involved.’ Palmer shrugged. ‘They were desperate times for some people. Who would miss what they didn’t know about? It would have been easy work with someone on the inside. Then with the collapse of Communism and the Wall coming down, there was a flood of people getting out and the system simply unravelled. This time though, the new people weren’t coming out through tunnels, across the wire or in small boats. They were leaving legitimately. And lots of them had access to money and weren’t shy of using it. Once they got out, they wanted mementoes of the Homeland.’