Quiller Solitaire

'Oh,' she said at last, not having heard what I'd said, perhaps, or not knowing how to answer. 'Are you in the Foreign Office?'

'I'm in one of their lesser-known departments.' Not true, but the lesser-known' bit should give her the idea that she shouldn't ask for specifics. She thought about that. She was pretty, in an ethereal way, pale and cool and still. I couldn't see her playing tennis, but of course she might have looked quite different a week ago, before it had happened.

'We'd better go in,' she said, but it had the sound of a question.

'Not unless you want to.' She might not feel like being in the house now that it was empty. Perhaps that was why she'd come out here.

'But you'd like some tea.'

'Not really.'

'Oh.' She watched me quietly for a moment, then looked around and said, 'We could sit down, I suppose.' There were some rustic-looking chairs at the edge of the lawn, where the tennis court began, their white paint beginning to peel. 'Am I being terribly unwelcoming?' She said it without a smile, dipping her head, so that her long fair hair swung a little.

'Look,' I said, 'this isn't a social visit, and I want to make it as painless for you as I can.'

In a moment: 'Painless?'

That was the first clue. 'I need to ask you about Berlin. They told you, didn't they?

'Yes. But that's all right.' She moved at last, walking across to one of the garden chairs, her suede boots leaving streaks on the frost; she walked with a slight sway, as if through water. 'I don't mind talking about Berlin. I expect I seem a little distrait. Everything was rather sudden. And of course beastly.'

She perched on the arm of the chair, throwing her hair back and looking at me a little defensively, I thought. No one likes questions about something they'd rather forget. I said, 'We want to know what happened over there. Your husband was -'

'His name is George. Was George. You can call him that.'

'All right. He was well into the scene in Berlin, knew a lot of people. He did a good job at the embassy, so I imagine he was pretty popular there.'

'Not very.'

'People tend to envy success, don't they?' I dragged a chair over and hitched myself onto the arm.

'I don't think it was that, quite. He was rather cocky, you see.'

'He wasn't too well-liked outside the embassy, either? Would you say?'

'Not enormously.'

There was a face over there in the hedge, in a gap in the hedge. 'But not so unpopular,' I said, 'that people would want to… harm him?'

'Oh, no. He was just – I mean he was just George. Rather supercilious. No, I think it was the Red Army Faction that killed him. The police think so.'

'Do you?'

She seemed surprised. 'I've never thought otherwise.' Then she said, 'He was provoking them, I believe.'

'Oh really. How?

'Asking too many questions, I'd say.'

'Why was he interested in the Faction?'

She swung her head a little, perhaps trying to clear her mind; or it was just a mannerism; some women do it to show off their long hair, without thinking.

'Are you feeling better now?'

The voice came from the hedge, from the small round face in the gap in the hedge.

'Yes,' Helen called. 'Yes thank you, darling.'

'Who's that man?

'He's just a friend.' She threw me a quick little smile, the first one I'd seen. It changed her completely.

'What's his name?

Then there was another voice, from the garden next door. 'Billy! Come in at once!'

'There's a man there,' Billy called.

'Oh for goodness' sake, come in at once! I'm awfully sorry, Helen!'

'Don't worry. He just wanted to know I was all right.'

There was the sound of scuffling among dead leaves, and a final cry as the battle was lost. 'Can I have my engine back?'

'Billy, you little brat!' More scuffling. 'I'll give you a ring this evening, Helen!'

'All right.'

A door slammed over there. Helen looked around her, then down at her hands. 'I'm sorry. Where were we exactly?'

'We were talking about the Red Army Faction,' I said, 'but let's cut a few corners. There must be someone in Berlin who could give me some clues about your – about George. I mean someone among his friends. My department wants me to go over there and see what I can find out. We want to know who killed him.'

In a moment she looked up. 'So do I. It was such a beastly thing to do to a man. Even to him.'

That was the second clue. I wasn't sure that she was really aware of what she'd said, of how it sounded. I left it.

It's probably occurred to you that if you decided to help us in Berlin, you might be running a risk.'

She looked surprised. 'A risk of what?'

'George was murdered. You were his wife.'

'But I never had anything to do with… whatever he was doing. He didn't take me into his confidence about anything. I was just his -' She looked away, and said in a moment, 'I don't think I'd be risking anything. It doesn't worry me. The thing is, I really don't see how I can help.'

'You knew his friends?'

She looked down. She did it quite often. 'He didn't actually have any friends. Not real ones. There were lots of acquaintances -he was the first cultural attache, as you probably know. Lots of parties, picnics with what he called "cultivatable people", always something going on. But no real friends.'

In the silence we heard the starlings and robins rustling among the frosted leaves, a vehicle in the distance with its exhaust pipe blown, a man coughing in one of the gardens along the street, where smoke rose from a bonfire through the trees.

'Did you go to Berlin often?'

'Quite often, yes. Whenever he sent for me. I mean… whenever he needed me.'

'You didn't want to stay over there in Berlin, instead of making all those trips?'

'I don't like Berlin. It's too fast, too frenetic, after somewhere like Reigate.' A shy smile. 'I like quiet places. Old places.'

So what I was going to do was leave her here in peace and tell Shatner it wasn't on, she couldn't help us, Didn't know any of Maitland's friends because he'd never had any. I would go to Berlin under cover and start from scratch. She'd had quite enough of that place, and her last memory of it had been 'beastly', the brutal end of a man she'd known, not loved, but known quite well. Or had she loved him, 'even a man like him?'

'There was,' she said suddenly, 'now that I think of it, someone you could call a friend of his. They had a lot of meetings. George often said, "I've got a meeting with Willi."'

Perhaps a breakthrough. 'Can you give me his address?

She looked at me quickly. 'He wouldn't see you. He doesn't trust anyone now, because of what happened.'

'Did you go to any of these "meetings" with him?'

'No. But I saw quite a lot of him at the parties, and' – she shrugged – 'around.'

So we'd got to go through with it after all. Would he see me if you took me to him personally?'

She thought about it. 'Yes. Is that what you want me to do?'

One of the hardest things in this trade is to keep some kind of liking for yourself, some self-respect, while you're doing the things you've got to do. 'Yes,' I said. And as a sop, I suppose, to my conscience, 'But don't underestimate the risks.'

With a nice smile, 'I expect you're being over-solicitous.'

'Not really. Do you know, for instance, that your house is being watched?'

She swung her head to look at me. 'This house?'

'Yes.'

Why would anyone do that?

She didn't know what had happened to McCane. 'They might be waiting for you to leave, so that they can make a search. George could have left something here, or concealed something. They searched his car in Berlin, and his flat.' Or of course the man out there in the black Vauxhall could be waiting for me. I was here in a dead man's shoes.