Spy Hook

'How did you get in?' she said and glared at me. I moved back from her, trying to think of a suitable answer. She put on her glasses so that she could see better. 'How did you get in?'

'I…'

'Did that wretched girl leave the door on the latch?' she said angrily. 'The times I've told her. We could all be murdered in our beds.' She hit the newspaper with her loose fingers so that it made a loud smack. 'Doesn't she read the papers? People are murdered for ten marks in this town nowadays… muggers! heroin addicts! perverts! violent criminals of all kinds. You only have to go a hundred metres to the Ku-Damm to see them parading up and down! How can she leave the door wide open? I told her to wait up until you arrived. Stupid girl!'

The 'stupid girl' was almost List's age and would be up at the crack of dawn collecting the breakfast rolls, making coffee, slicing the sausage and the cheese, and boiling the eggs that are the essential constituents of a German breakfast. Klara deserved her sleep but I didn't point this out to Lisl. It was better to let her simmer down.

'Where have you been?'

'I had dinner with Frank.'

'Frank Harrington: that snake in the grass!'

'What has Frank done?'

'Oh, yes, he's an Englishman. You'd have to defend him.'

'I'm not defending him. I don't know what he's done to upset you,' I said.

'He's all schmaltz when he wants something but he thinks only of himself. He's a pig.'

'What did Frank do?' I asked.

'Do you want a drink?'

'No thanks, Lisl.'

Thus reassured she drank some of her sherry, or whatever it was, and said, 'My double suite on the first floor had a new bathroom only a year or two ago. It's beautiful. It's as good as anywhere in any hotel in Berlin.'

'But Frank's got this big house, Lisl.'

She waved her hand to tell me I'd got it wrong. 'For Sir Clevemore. He stayed here long ago when your father was here. That's before he became a "sir" and he'd be happy to stay here now. I know he would.'

'Sir Henry?'

'Clevemore.'

'Yes, I know.'

'Frank got him a suite at the Kempi. Think of the expense. He would have been happier here. I know he would.'

'When are we talking about?'

'A month… two months ago. Not more.'

'You must have made a mistake. Sir Henry has been sick for nearly six months. And he hasn't been in Berlin for about five years.'

'Klara saw him in the lobby of the Kempi. She has a friend who works there.'

'It wasn't Sir Henry. I told you: he's sick.'

'Don't be so obstinate, Bernd. Klara spoke with him. He recognized her. I was so angry. I was going to ring Frank Harrington but Klara persuaded me not to.'

'Klara got it wrong,' I said. I didn't like to say that it was the sort of story that Klara had been known to invent just to needle her autocratic and exasperating employer.

'It's a beautiful suite,' said Lisl. 'You haven't seen that bathroom since it was done. Bidet, thermostatic control for the taps, mirrored walls. Beautiful!'

'Well, it wasn't Sir Henry,' I said. 'So you can sleep easy on that one. I would know if Sir Henry came to Berlin.'

'Why would you know?' she said. She grinned from ear to ear, delighted to catch me out in a self-contradiction, for I'd always kept up the pretence that I worked for a pharmaceutical company.

'I get to hear these things,' I said unconvincingly.

'Good night, Bernd,' she said still smiling. I kissed her again and went upstairs to bed.

As my foot touched the first stair there came a sudden blast of sound. A Dixieland band, with too much brass, giving I'm for ever blowing bubbles' a cruel battering. The volume was ear-splitting. No wonder Lisl's hotel wasn't overcrowded.

I had my usual garret room at the top of the house. It was a room I'd had as a child, a cramped room, overlooking the back of the house and the courtyard. It was chilly at this time of year. The effects of the hot-water pump didn't seem to reach up to the top of the house nowadays, so the massive radiator was no more than tepid. But the indomitable Klara had put a hot-water bottle between the crisp linen of my bed and I climbed into it content.

Perhaps I should have been more restrained when drinking my way through Frank's big pot of strong coffee, for I remained awake for hours thinking about Fiona who would by now be tucked up in bed somewhere just a few blocks away. In my mind's eye I saw her so clearly. Would she be alone or were there two people in that bed? A deluge of memories came flooding into my mind. But I forced myself to think of other matters. Lisl and what would become of the old house after she sold it. It was a valuable site: so near the Ku-Damm. Any speculator would do what all speculators do everywhere: chase out the residents and the family-owned shops and old-fashioned eating places, bulldoze everything in sight to build ugly concrete and glass offices that yielded high rent for landlords and high taxes for the government. It was a depressing thought.

And I thought about Klara's provocative little story about spotting the Director-General in the Hotel Kempinski. It didn't make sense for a number of reasons. First the D-G was sick and had been for months. Secondly he hated to travel anywhere outside England. The only official trip he'd done, apart from the odd conference in Washington DC, was to the Far East. As far as I could remember the D-G hadn't visited Berlin for at least five years. And, thirdly, had he come he wouldn't have taken a room in a big Berlin hoteclass="underline" he'd have been Frank's house-guest, or if it was official, been a guest of the general commanding the British forces. But where Klara's story really rang false was saying that the D-G recognized her. The D-G couldn't remember the name of his own Labrador dog without having Morgan – his faithful attendant – prompt him.

I tried to sleep but sleep didn't come. There was so much to think about. And I couldn't help noticing the promptness with which Frank had denied knowing Jim Prettyman. He hadn't hemmed and hawed or asked why I'd mentioned his name. It was a flat no and a change of subject. It wasn't like Frank's normal behaviour to be so lacking in curiosity: in fact it wasn't like anyone's normal behaviour.

6

'I told Willi not to put that damned machine in here,' Werner said, looking up from his big plate of beef to where two white-coated surgeons were poking screwdrivers deep into the entrails of an old jukebox that had clearly been kicked into silence. Willi Leuschner, the proprietor, watched as grim-faced as any grieving relative. Apparently certain pop-music aficionados of the late evening hours voted with their feet.

We were sitting in one of the booths near the window. When we were kids we had all firmly believed that the people in the window seats got bigger portions to attract passers-by. I still don't know whether it's true or not but it wasn't something that either of us wanted to take a chance on.

'You can't trust music critics,' I said. Toscanini could have told him that.'

I'll bet that his jukebox is not insured,' said Werner. He had the sort of mind that thought in terms of expenditure, percentages, interest rates, risk and insurance.

'It was offered cheap,' I explained. 'Willi thought it would bring more teenagers.'

'He'd make a lot of money from penniless teenagers, wouldn't he?' said Werner with heavy irony. 'He should be glad they keep away, not trying to find a way of attracting them.'

Even after a lifetime's friendship, Werner could still surprise me. It was his often expressed view that juvenile delinquency was to be blamed on TV, single-parent families, unemployment or too much sugar in the diet. Was this new reactionary stand against teenagers a sign that Werner was growing old, the way I'd been all my life?