Spy Line. Len Deighton

he passed it to me. ‘Handsome brute, eh? Know him by any chance?’

      I looked at it. I knew the man well. He called himself Erich Stinnes. He was a senior KGB man in East Berlin. It was said that he was the liaison man between the Moscow and the East German security service. It must have been a recent photo, for he’d grown fatter since the last time I’d seen him. But he still hadn’t lost the last of his thinning hair and the hard eyes behind the small lenses of his glasses were just as fierce as ever. ‘It’s no one I’ve ever seen before,’ I said, handing the picture back to Bower. ‘Is he someone we’ve had contact with?’

      ‘Not as far as I know,’ said Bower. To Valeri he said, ‘Describe the deliveries again.’

      ‘The second Thursday of every month … The KGB courier.’

      ‘And you saw him open it?’ persisted Bower.

      ‘Only the once but everyone knows …’

      ‘Everyone?’

      ‘In his office. In fact, it’s the talk of Karlshorst.’

      Bower gave a sardonic smile. ‘That the KGB liaison is sniffing his way to dreamland on the second Thursday of every month? And Moscow does nothing?’

      ‘Things are different now,’ said Valeri adamantly, his face unchanging.

      ‘Sounds like it,’ said Bower, not concealing his disbelief.

      ‘Take it or leave it,’ said Valeri. ‘But I saw him shake the white powder into his hand.’

      ‘And sniff it?’

      ‘I was going out of the room. I told you. I shut the door quickly, I wasn’t looking for trouble.’

      ‘And yet you could see it was white powder?’

      ‘I wish I’d never mentioned the damned stuff.’ I had him sized up now. He was a typical old-time Communist, one of the exiles who’d spent the war years in Moscow. Many such men had been trained for high posts in the Germany that Stalin conquered. What was the story behind this one? Why had he come to work for us? Blackmail? Had he committed some crime – political or secular – or was he not of the hard stuff of which leaders are made? Or was he simply one of those awkward individuals who thought for themselves?

      ‘No comment,’ said Bower in a tired voice and looked at his watch.

      Valeri said, ‘Next week I’ll watch more carefully.’

      I noticed Bower stiffen. It was a damned careless remark for an active agent to make. I was not supposed to discover that this Valeri was a double; going in and out regularly. It was the sort of slip of the tongue that kills men. Valeri was tired. I pretended not to have noticed the lapse.

      Bower did the same. He should have noted it and cautioned the man but he gave an almost indiscernible shake of the head to the shorthand clerk before turning his eyes to me. Levelly he asked, ‘Is that any use?’ It was my signal to depart.

      ‘Not as far as I can see.’

      ‘Frank wanted you to know,’ he added just in case I missed the message to get out of there and let him continue his difficult job.

      ‘Where is he?’

      ‘He had to leave.’ Bower picked up the phone and said they’d break for lunch in thirty minutes. I wondered if it was a ploy. Interrogators did such things sometimes, letting the time stretch on and on to increase the tension.

      I got to my feet. ‘Tell him thanks,’ I said. He nodded.

      I went out to where Teacher was waiting in the ante-room. He didn’t say ‘All right’ or make any of the usual polite inquiries. Interrogations are like sacramental confessions: they take place and are seen to take place but no reference to them is ever made. ‘Are you returning me to Kreuzberg?’ I asked him.

      ‘If that’s where you want to be,’ said Teacher.

      We said our goodbyes to the Duchess and went downstairs to be let out of the double-locked front door by the guardian.

      The streets were empty. There is something soul-destroying about the German Ladenschlussgesetz – a trade-union-inspired law that closes all the shops most of the time – and right across the land, weekends in Germany are a mind-numbing experience. Tourists roam aimlessly. Residents desperate for food and drink scour the streets hoping to find a Tante Emma Laden where a shopkeeper willing to break the law will sell a loaf, a chocolate bar or a litre of milk from the back door.

      As we drove through the desolate streets, I said to Teacher, ‘Are you my keeper?’

      Teacher looked at me blankly.

      I asked him again. ‘Are you assigned to be my keeper?’

      ‘I don’t know what a keeper is.’

      ‘They have them in zoos. They look after the animals.’

      ‘Is that what you need, a keeper?’

      ‘Is this Frank’s idea?’

      ‘Frank?’

      ‘Don’t bullshit me, Teacher. I was taking this town to pieces when you were in knee pants.’

      ‘Frank knows nothing about you coming here,’ he said mechanically. It contradicted everything he’d previously said but he wanted to end the conversation by making me realize that he was just obeying instructions: Frank’s instructions.

      ‘And Frank keeps out of the way so that he can truthfully tell London that he’s not seen me.’

      Teacher peered about him and seemed unsure of which way to go. He slowed to read the street signs. I left him to figure it out. Eventually he said, ‘And that annoys you?’

      ‘Why shouldn’t it?’

      ‘Because if Frank had any sense he’d toss you on to the London plane, and let you and London work it all out together,’ said Teacher.

      ‘That’s what you’d do?’

      ‘Damned right I would,’ said Teacher.

      We drove along Heer Strasse, which on a weekday would have been filled with traffic. Every now and again there had been a dusty glint in the air as a flurry offered a sample of the promised snow. Now it began in earnest. Large spiky flakes came spinning down. Time and time again the last snow had come, and still the cold persisted, reminding those from other climates that Berlin was on the edge of Asia.

      In what was either carelessness or an attempt to impress me with his knowledge of Berlin, Teacher turned off and tried to find a shortcut round the Exhibition Grounds. Twice he came to a dead end. Finally I took pity on him and directed him to Halensee. Then, as we got to Kurfürstendamm, he sat back in his seat, sighed and said, ‘I suppose I am your keeper.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘Frank might like to hear your reactions.’

      ‘Berlin is the heroin capital of the world,’ I said.

      ‘I read that in Die Welt,’ said Teacher.

      I ignored the sarcasm. ‘It all comes through Schönefeld airport. Those bastards make sure it keeps moving to this side of the Wall.’

      ‘If it all comes here, then it makes sense that someone might try sending a little of it back,’ said Teacher.

      ‘Stinnes is top brass nowadays. He’d have a lot to lose. I can’t swallow the idea that he’s having an army courier pick up consignments of heroin – or whatever it is – in the West.’

      ‘But?’

      ‘Yes, there is a but. Stinnes knows the score. He’s spent a lot of time in the West. He’s an active womanizer and some types of hard drugs connect with sexual activity.’

      ‘Connect? Connect how?’

      ‘A