Lawson said, ‘He was on his own, really, Foxglove was. We told the police on this side that “someone” was trying to come that night. They had an inflatable ready and an ambulance was on stand-by, but he had to get halfway. I suppose we’d been running him for six months, Clipper and I, and we’d reckoned him a decent young man. No dinghy available to him, of course, but we’d suggested to Foxglove that he try to get hold of an inner tube to keep himself up, then kick like hell. There were booms and barrage nets on their side, and we didn’t know how he’d cope with them, but that was his problem. We didn’t see him go into the water.’
The boat splashed foam aside, then slowed in front of the bridge. Davies thought that later in the season, when it was loaded and the sun shone, this would give a better photo opportunity to those wishing to recall a sight of the Oberbaumbrücke. The wake died, and the boat idled. He looked down into the dark depth of the water, and sensed the terror of a man in flight.
‘We knew he was in the water only when the searchlight found him. It locked on him. He was on an inner tube, as we’d suggested. Then there was tracer, one round in four, red lines of it. He must have been hit but not badly by one of these first shots. He screamed. Had no chance then. There was concentrated fire on him, not only the machine-gun but from rifles. Then the searchlight lost him, which meant he’d gone under and the tube had been holed. We waited, owed him that. Next time we saw him he was tangled in one of the barrage nets, dead. I was young, a bit cut up about it.’
He looked across at the left bank, saw old buildings that now seemed derelict, and wondered where Lawson had stood, and the American, where the boat crew had waited and the ambulance people, and seemed to hear the sirens, the crack of the guns, and the lights seemed to dazzle him.
‘Clipper didn’t do emotion. Clipper said to me, “Let’s go get a beer.” We went off to a bar, and did just that. Four or five beers, actually, and a half-bottle of schnapps. Spent the small hours in a bar with drunks and pimps, and I learned the creed of the agent-runner from Clipper Reade. He said, “Lose an agent and you go find another.” And he said, “Get close and sentimental to an agent and you get to be useless:” And the dawn was coming up, and he said, “Treat them like dirt in the gutter, and when you’ve finished throw them back there.” We went out into the dawn light, and he said, “Agents are just means to an end, and you owe them nothing.” I brought you here, young man, so you’d know where I’m coming from and where I’m intending to go.”
They left the boat at the next stop, at the Jannowitzbrücke. Luke Davies no longer thought of Christopher Lawson as mad but reckoned him brutal, cold and utterly detestable. And there was an agent out there who was owed a damn sight more than Foxglove had been given. It was damnable, what was asked of November, the agent of today, not a bloody ghost from the past.
Carrick was on four-hour turns. Slept for four hours, then sat on a hard upright chair just inside the suite’s outer door, which had the chain fastened.
Thought of it as pretty much a wasted day because he had learned little, if anything.
One visitor. A Russian, in a uniform of shaven head, worn leather jacket and boots laced up over the ankle, as if they were required for his role. Must have come when he’d slept and Viktor had done the guard turn. Josef Goldmann had brought the Russian out of the inner room, had escorted him to the outer door and the hotel corridor. Carrick had watched the man amble away, then gone back inside and secured the chain again. He’d noted the face of his Bossman. If he had been filling in the Book, he would have written: ‘Target One had a meeting of at least two hours with unidentified male (Russian) and appeared anxious and under major psychological pressure at the end of it.’ His Bossman lingered in the outer room, lips writhing and throat heaving, as if he weighed the consequences of confiding — did not, but let his hand rest on Carrick’s sleeve, clutched it, then broke the grip and went to the inner room. He looked, Carrick reckoned, more pressured than when he had been chucked into the car after two shots had been fired. Carrick wondered if chickens had come back to roost, but knew no more than what was in front of him to see.
Chapter 8
Carrick was beside Viktor, who drove. They had left the wide avenues of the city and the squares of the Charlottenburg district behind them. They were on a highway going west. He had not been told their destination, only that at all times he was to be close to his Bossman. He’d nodded, and had been told that they drove to meet his Bossman’s associate, Reuven Weissberg. Words had seared in his mind: Reuven Weissberg will be as ruthless as a ferret in a rabbit warren, and if you fail with him — though we will try, bloody hard, to save you — you are, without question, dead. So, no misunderstandings. Dead. They went between wide forests of birch, and the roofs and walls of fine houses were masked by the trees. Discreet lanes led to them and bore security notices at the junctions with the highway. He could stare at the houses between the trees because it was his job to be wary and to scan outside the windows of the car.
He felt the hand settle on his shoulder. Josef Goldmann asked him, ‘Do you own property, Johnny?’
‘No, sir. ‘Fraid not, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘Been moving around. Not really settled enough, sir.’
‘This is good property, here. Better down the road. We go to view property.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘You know, Johnny, it is always better to buy than to rent.’
‘I’m sure I’ll get round to it, sir.’
There were digits spinning in his mind. He estimated what a half-decent apartment cost in central London, and how far beyond the reach it was of a police constable — with the capital city’s allowance — who had to repay into an SCD10 bank account every pound, every damn penny, he was paid by the family. He had no place of his own. He was rootless. He flitted between bed-sits and mini-flats that were, most likely, either in a basement without a view or under the eaves in an attic conversion with a view of chimneys and TV aerials. The nearest Johnny Carrick had to home ground was the desk in the Pimlico building that had been allocated him after coming off the importation case and before moving on to the Josef Goldmann investigation. In none of the properties where he had lived since joining SCD10 had there been anything personal to him. He did not do family photographs, or holiday baubles, but lived on sanitized territory, could close a door behind him and feel neither loss nor emptiness. It was right to be bland, noncommittal, with answers. Every detail given, if a part of a legend, offered hostages to fortune and could be checked: the instructors preached that criminals survived on a diet of suspicion. Carrick sensed that the time had come when he would be challenged to maintain his postured identity. He wrapped the duty of the job, like an enveloping cloak, tighter round him. He peered out through the car windows, tilted his head to see into the driver’s mirror and played the part of the bodyguard — had reason to. A man had been close enough to fire two shots, point-blank, and— He saw a bridge ahead, built from heavy steel girders.
Now his Bossman spoke softly into Viktor’s ear, in Russian. The car was driven into a parking area. Brakes on, a smooth stop. Two lakes here came into a narrow channel that the bridge spanned. At the far side he could see houses half hidden by trees not yet in leaf. At their side, behind them, was a renovated palace.