33
‘A babe in arms could have got through this lock,’ said John Ashe the following morning. Liz had reported to the personnel security team the strange events at her flat, saying that she was sure someone had broken in while she was away over the weekend. Now a team led by her old friend John Ashe was swarming over her flat, putting in alarms, a door camera linked to the Security Centre, movement sensors and the latest thing in window and door locks.
‘You should have had this done before you moved in. We would have been able to get a look at them on the camera.’ John Ashe took a great pride in his work and she knew he would have had every case officer’s accommodation wired up if he’d been in charge.
‘I couldn’t have justified the expense,’ replied Liz. ‘I didn’t have any reason to think anyone knew where I lived.’
‘Hmm.’ Ashe was not impressed. ‘Well, you were wrong. I don’t know who you’re after this time, but they’re obviously nastier than you think.’ He went off to help his team lift the carpet in the hall to hide the wires for the panic buttons.
Liz left them to it and went to the office, feeling sad that her new home, which she had felt so pleased with, had now become a fortress controlled by the Service. She was none the wiser about who the intruder had been, or what the message was meant to be – other than to scare her – but her mind kept going back to Cicero and to what John Ashe had said about whoever she was dealing with being nastier than she thought. It seemed to her to make the investigation of Bartholomew Manor even more pressing. She knew Peggy’s meeting with Miss Girling had put the old lady firmly on their side, but it could be ages before she discovered anything useful. It might be better to make a move before then – this time perhaps an official visit from the authorities. But which authorities and on what grounds? She was due to see Richard Pearson here in London the following week, but this was urgent. She decided to ring him today to ask his advice.
In her office she was about to pick up the phone to do so when she noticed the brown envelope on her desk. It must be another communication from her cover address. Inside the brown envelope was another postcard addressed to Liz Ryder at the cover address she had used when she’d visited Tallinn to meet Mischa for the first time. It had been posted in Germany.
The picture was of a stretch of beach. Beyond it there was a lake of vivid blue – you could see the trees of the far shore quite clearly. Turning the card over, she found the caption at the bottom of the card: Strandbad Wannsee, Berlin.
Liz read the handwritten message, written in the slashing strokes she recognised, and in the same dark blue ink: Please come for a swim. Above that were numbers which this time she quickly deciphered, discovering the proposed meet was in two days’ time, at eleven in the morning. Liz groaned at the thought of making the journey at such short notice when she urgently wanted to address the mystery of Bartholomew Manor. It had better be good, she thought, wondering if Mischa had some new, though no doubt expensive, information to impart. Or was he just stringing her along in the hope of keeping on the payroll?
Still, she knew she had to go. This time when she reached for her phone, it was to ring not Richard Pearson but Geoffrey Fane.
The leaves on the trees lining the shore of the lake known as the Greater Wannsee were only just starting to turn. A light breeze hinted that summer’s full warmth was over, but otherwise it could still be August. There was a regatta in progress, and Liz stood by the railings and watched as a yacht shot its spinnaker, bright red and balloon-like, high up in the air.
She was on the ferry from Kladow to Wannsee, in the south-west corner of Berlin. Earlier that morning Sally Mortimer had collected her from near the Brandenburg Gate in the heart of the city, where Liz had spent a sleepless night in a quiet, inexpensive hotel that suited her cover identity as Liz Ryder.
Sally had driven her to Kladow on the outskirts of the city, an oddly village-like neighbourhood full of old timber houses. There, Liz had walked over to the small harbour, where she just managed to catch the ferry – she was deliberately the last passenger to board, which meant no one followed her on. There might well be watchers already aboard, but hopefully only the British ones arranged by Sally. Back in London, Liz and Geoffrey Fane had decided not to tell the Americans about Mischa’s request for a meeting, fearing it might inadvertently expose Liz’s mission.
It took the two of them longer to decide not to tell the BfV, and it had been a harder decision to make. They had already broken the cardinal principle that a friendly intelligence service was always informed when operating on their territory when Liz last met Mischa in Berlin. Having heard about Abel Lamme from Peggy, Liz was adamant that he should not become involved. Let him continue the surveillance of the Nimitz household, but any involvement with Liz’s mission had too great a likelihood of scaring off Mischa. If the Germans insisted on putting out surveillance and if Mischa spotted the watchers, he would abort the meeting.
She had read her guidebook thoroughly and turned now to look to the shoreline west of her. She saw the large mansion set back behind a line of trees. It slightly resembled the White House, she thought, though its stone was darker. Nowadays it was a Holocaust Museum, but in 1942 it had been the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference, which Eichmann himself had attended to help plan the Nazis’ Final Solution. It seemed surreal to be so close to it, especially in such a tranquil setting.
The ferry was drawing close to shore, pulling into a marina full of moored yachts of various sizes. When it reached the jetty, the other passengers disembarked quickly, meeting family and friends waiting for them at the end of the long pier. Liz took her time getting off, and once on dry land stopped to admire the view of the Greater Lake before ambling slowly up to the street. She was carrying a canvas bag that held a swimming costume (borrowed from Sally Mortimer), a pair of flip-flops, a beach towel and a bottle of suntan lotion.
It was a walk of over a mile through an affluent suburban neighbourhood of villas, the grander ones closest to the lake. She took her time; the avenue was virtually empty – a postman ahead of her on foot, a woman in her garden pruning roses with a pair of bright orange secateurs. At last Liz turned left, down towards the shore and her destination.
If not quite Germany’s Riviera, the open-air lido known as the Strandbad Wannsee was still remarkable. You approached from the road, passing a building that resembled an enormous hunting lodge but had stands selling frankfurters and soft drinks, with a restaurant inside. As she neared the beach, through a line of tall trees, she came upon a long row of low Art Deco brick buildings, running parallel to the shore, built, her guidebook told her, in the late Weimar days, just before the rise of Adolf Hitler.
As she reached the beach itself, Liz slipped her shoes off. The sand was fine and soft underfoot; ahead of her, the water of the lake looked very blue and inviting, and part of her wished that the swimming costume in her bag was for use and not just for cover. But swimming was not what she was here for.
Although it was late enough in the season for the children to be back at school, there were still plenty of people here, a few of them out in the water. The beach was dotted with strange white wicker seats, shaped like small boats tipped on their ends, their back and sides covered, their front open and facing the water. They were seats designed for protection from the wind but they also offered a fair degree of privacy for a quiet conversation.