Samson 01 - Berlin Game, page 7
‘Thank you, Bernie,’ said Tessa. ‘It would be so rotten for George.’
‘He’s the only one I’m thinking of,’ I said.
‘You’re not so tough,’ she said. ‘You’re a sweetie at heart. Do you know that?’
‘You ever say that again,’ I told Tessa, ‘and I’ll punch you right in the nose.’
She laughed. ‘You’re so funny,’ she said.
Fiona went out of the room to get a progress report on the cooking. Tessa moved along the sofa to be closer to where I was sitting at the other end of it. ‘Is he in bad trouble? Giles - is he in bad trouble?’ There was a note of anxiety in her voice. It was uncharacteristically deferent to me, the sort of voice one uses to a physician about to make a prognosis.
‘If he cooperates with us, he’ll be all right.’ It wasn’t true of course, but I didn’t want to alarm her.
‘I’m sure he’ll cooperate,’ she said, sipping her drink and then looking at me with a smile that said she didn’t believe a word of it.
‘How long since he met this Russian?’ I asked.
‘Quite a time. You could find out from when he joined the chess club, couldn’t you?’ Tessa shook her glass and watched the bubbles rise. She was using some of the skills she’d learned at drama school the year before she’d met George and married him instead of becoming a film star. She leaned her head to one side and looked at me meaningfully. ‘There’s nothing bad in Giles, but sometimes he can be a fool.’
‘I’ll have to speak to you again, Tessa. You’ll probably have to repeat it all to an investigating officer and write it out and sign it.’
She placed a ringer on the rim of her glass and ran it round a couple of times. ‘I’ll help you on condition you go easy on Giles.’
‘I’ll go easy,’ I promised. Hell, what else could I say?
Dinner was served on the Minton china and the table set with wedding presents: antique silver cutlery from Fiona’s parents and a cut-glass vase that my father had discovered in one of the Berlin junk markets he visited regularly on Saturday mornings. The circular dining table was very big for three people, so we seated ourselves side by side, with Tessa between us. The main course was some sort of chicken stew, the quantity of it far too small for the serving dish in which it came to the table. Mrs Dias had a big gravy mark on her white apron and she was no longer smiling. After Mrs Dias had returned to the kitchen, Fiona whispered that Mrs Dias had broken the small serving dish and half the chicken stew had gone onto the kitchen floor.
‘Why the hell are we whispering?’ I said.
‘I knew you’d start shouting,’ said Fiona.
‘I’m not shouting,’ I said. ‘I’m simply asking… .’
‘We all heard you,’ said Fiona. ‘And if you upset Mrs Dias and we lose her… .’ She left it unsaid.
‘But why are you trying to make me feel guilty?’ I said.
‘He’s always like this when something gets broken,’ said Fiona. ‘Unless, of course, he did it himself.’
I shared out what little there was of the chicken. I took plenty of boiled rice. Fiona had opened one of the few good clarets left in the cupboard, and I poured it gratefully.
‘Would you like to come and stay with me while Bernard’s away?’ Fiona asked her sister.
‘Where are you going?’ Tessa asked me.
‘It’s not settled yet.’ I said. ‘I’m not sure I’m going anywhere.’
‘Berlin,’ said Fiona. ‘I hate being here alone.’
‘I’d love to, darling,’ Tessa said. ‘When?’
‘I’ve told you, it’s not arranged yet,’ I said. ‘I might not go.’
‘Soon,’ said Fiona. ‘Next week, or the week following.’
Mrs Dias came in to remove the plates and solicit praise and gratitude for her cookery; these were provided in abundance by Fiona, with Tessa echoing her every superlative.
‘Senhor Sam?’ To her I was always Senhor Sam; she never said Senhor Samson. ‘Senhor Sam … he like it?’ She asked Fiona this question rather than addressing it to me. It was rather like hearing Uncle Silas and Bret Rensselaer and Dicky Cruyer discussing my chances of escaping from Berlin alive.
‘Look at his plate,’ said Fiona cheerfully. ‘Not a scrap left, Mrs Dias.’
There was nothing left because my share was one lousy drumstick and the wishbone. The greater part of the chicken stew was now spread out on kitchen foil in the garden, being devoured by the neighbourhood’s cat population. I could hear them arguing and knocking over the empty milk bottles outside the back door. ‘It was delicious, Mrs Dias,’ I said, and Fiona rewarded me with a beaming smile that vanished as the kitchen door closed. ‘Do you have to be so bloody ironic?’ said Fiona.
‘It was delicious. I told her it was delicious.’
‘Next time, you can interview the women the agency send round. Maybe then you’d realize how lucky you are.’
Tessa hugged me. ‘Don’t be hard on him, Fiona darling. You should have heard George when the au pair dropped his wretched video recorder.’
‘Oh, that reminds me,’ Fiona said, leaning forward to catch my attention. ‘You wanted to record that W. C. Fields film tonight.’
‘Right!’ I said. ‘What time was it on?’
‘Eight o’clock,’ said Fiona. ‘You’ve missed it, I’m afraid.’
Tessa reached up to put her hand over my mouth before I spoke.
Mrs Dias came in with some cheese and biscuits. ‘I told him to set the timer,’ said Fiona, ‘but he wouldn’t listen.’
‘Men are like that,’ said Tessa. ‘You should have said don’t set the timer, then he would have set it. I’m always having to do that sort of thing with George.’
Tessa left early. She had arranged to see ‘an old schoolfriend’ at the Savoy Hotel bar. That must be some school!’ I said to Fiona when she came back into the drawing room after seeing her sister to the door. I always let her see her sister to the door. There were always sisterly little confidences exchanged at the time of departure.
‘She’ll never change,’ said Fiona.
‘Poor George,’ I said.
Fiona came and sat next to me and gave me a kiss. ‘Was I awful tonight?’ she asked.
‘Asinus asino, et sus sui pulcher - an ass is beautiful to an ass, so is a pig to a pig.’
Fiona laughed. ‘You were always using Latin tags when I first met you. Now you don’t do that any more.’
‘I’ve grown up,’ I said.
‘Don’t grow up too much,’ she said. ‘I love you as you are.’
I responded by kissing her for a long time.
‘Poor Tess. It had to happen to her, didn’t it. She’s so muddle-headed. She can’t remember her own birthday let alone the dates she met Giles. I’m so glad you didn’t start shouting at her or want to list it all in chronological order.’
‘Someone will eventually,’ I said.
‘Did you have a terrible day?’ she asked.
‘Bret Rensselaer won’t let Werner use the bank.’
‘Did you have a row with him?’ said Fiona.
‘He had to show me how tough you get after sitting behind a desk for fifteen years.’
‘What did he say?’
I told her.
‘I’ve seen you punch people for less than that,’ said Fiona, having listened to my account of Rensselaer’s tough-guy act.
‘He was just sounding me out,’ I said. ‘I don’t take any of that crap seriously.’
‘None of it?’
‘Rensselaer and Cruyer don’t think that Brahms Four has been turned - neither does the D-G, you can bet on that. If they thought he was working for the KGB, we wouldn’t be debating which member of the London staff goes over there to put his neck in a noose. If they really thought Brahms Four was a senior KGB man, they’d be burying that Berlin System file now, not passing it around to get ‘Immediate Action’ tags. They’d be preparing the excuses and half-truths they’d need to explain their incompetence. They’d be getting ready to stonewall the questions that come when the story hits the fan.’ I took the wine that Tessa had abandoned and added it to my own. ‘And they don’t have any worries about me either, or they wouldn’t let me within a mile of the office while this was on the agenda.’
‘They’ve got to deal with you, Brahms Four insists. I told you that.’
‘What they really think is that Brahms Four is the best damned source they’ve had in the last decade. As usual, they only came to this conclusion when it looked like they were losing him.’
‘And what do you make of this ghastly business with Trent?’
I hesitated. I was guessing now, and I looked at her so that she knew this was just a guess. The approach to Trent might be a KGB effort to penetrate the Department.’
‘My God!’ said Fiona in genuine alarm. ‘A Russian move to access the Brahms Four intelligence at this end?’
‘To find out where it’s coming from. Brahms Four is one of the best-protected agents we have. And that’s only because he did a deal with old Silas, and Silas stuck to his word. The only way they would be able to trace him would be by seeing the material we’re receiving in London.’
‘That’s unthinkable,’ said Fiona.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘Because Giles could never get his hands on the Brahms Four material - that’s all triple A. Even I have never seen it, and you only get the odds and ends you need to know.’
‘But the Russians might not know that Giles couldn’t get hold of it. To them he’s senior enough to see anything he asks for.’
Fiona stared into my eyes, trying to see what was in my mind. ‘Do you think that Brahms Four might have got word of a RGB effort to trace him?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what I think. Brahms Four’s demand for retirement is just his way of negotiating for a complete change in the contact chain.’
‘It gets more and more frightening,’ said Fiona. ‘I really don’t think you should go there. This is not just a simple little day trip. This is a big operation with lots at stake for both sides.’
‘I can’t think of anyone else they can send,’ I said.
Fiona became suddenly angry. ‘You bloody well want to go!’ she shouted. ‘You’re just like all the others. You miss it, don’t you? You really like all that bloody macho business!’
‘I don’t like it,’ I said. It was true but she didn’t believe me. I put my arms round her and pulled her close. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m too old and too frightened to do anything dangerous.’
‘You don’t have to do anything dangerous in this business to get hurt.’
I didn’t tell her that Werner had phoned me and asked me how soon I’d go back there. That would have complicated everything. I just told her I loved her, and that was the truth.
7
It was cold; damned cold: when the hell would summer come? With my hands in my pockets and my collar turned up, I walked through Soho. It was early evening but most of the shops were closed, their entrances piled high with garbage awaiting next morning’s collection. It had become a desolate place, its charm long lost behind a pox of porn shops and shabby little ‘adult’ cinemas. I welcomed the smoky warmth of Kar’s Club, and I welcomed the chance of one of the hot spiced rum drinks that were a speciality of the place no less than the chess.
Kar’s Club was not the sort of place that Tessa would have liked. It was below ground level in Gerrard Street, Soho, a basement that had provided storage space for a wine company before an incendiary bomb burned out the upper storeys in one of the heavy German air raids of April 1941. It was three large interconnecting cellars with hardboard ceilings and noisy central heating, its old brickwork painted white to reflect the lights carefully placed over each table to illuminate the chessboards.
Jan Kar was a Polish ex-serviceman who’d started his little club when, after coming out of the Army at war’s end, he realized he’d never return to his homeland again. By now he was an old man with a great mop of fine white hair and a magnificent drinker’s nose. Nowadays his son Arkady was usually behind the counter, but the members were still largely Poles with a selection of other East European emigres.
There was no one there I recognized, except two young champions in the second room whose game had already attracted half a dozen spectators. Less serious players, like me, kept to the room where the food and drink were dispensed. It was already half full. They were mostly elderly men, with beards, dark-ringed eyes and large curly pipes. In the far corner, under the clock, two silent men in ill-fitting suits glowered at their game and at each other. They played impatiently, taking every enemy in sight, as children play draughts. I was seated in the corner positioned so that I could look up from the chessboard, my book of chess problems and my drink, to see everyone who entered as they signed the members’ book.
Giles Trent came in early. I studied him with new interest. He was younger-looking than I remembered him. He took off his brown narrow-brimmed felt hat in a quick and nervous gesture, like a schoolboy entering the headmaster’s study. His grey wavy hair was long enough to hide the tops of his ears. He was so tall that the club’s low ceiling caused him to lower his head as he passed under the pink tasselled lampshades. He put his riding mac on the bentwood hanger and ran his fingers through his hair as if it might have become disarranged. He was wearing a Glen Urquhart check suit of the sort favoured by wealthy bookmakers. It came complete with matching waistcoat and gold watchchain.
‘Hello, Kar,’ Trent said to the old man seated near the radiator, nursing his usual whisky and water. Most of the members called him Kar. Only some of the older Poles who’d served with him in Italy knew that Kar was his family name.
Trent stayed at the counter where young Arkady dispensed cold snacks, the inimitable rum punch that his father was said to have invented under battle conditions in Italy, good coffee, warm beer, iced vodka, poor advice about chess and unpalatable tea. Trent took rum punch.
‘Mr Chlestakov hasn’t been in tonight,’ the youth told Trent.
Trent grunted and turned to look round the room. I stared down at my chess problem. By resting my chin in my hand, I was able to conceal my face from him.
Trent’s Russian arrived about ten minutes later. He was wearing an expensive camel-hair coat and handmade shoes. He only came up to Trent’s shoulder, a potbellied man with big peasant hands and a jolly face. When he took his hat off, he revealed dark hair brilliantined and carefully parted high on the crown of his head. He smiled when he saw Trent and slapped him on the shoulder, asked him how he was, and called him ‘tovarisch’.
I recognized the type; he was the sort of Soviet official who liked to show the happy friendly side of life in the USSR. The kind of man who never arrived at a party without a couple of bottles of vodka, and winked to let you know he was an incorrigible rogue who’d break any rule for the sake of friendship.
Trent must have asked him what he wanted to drink. I heard the Russian say loudly, ‘Vodka. I only come here to drink my Polish friend’s fine buffalo-grass vodka.’ He spoke the smooth English that is the legacy of the teaching machine but lacked the rhythms that can only come from hearing it spoken.
They sat down at the table Trent had selected. The Russian drank several vodkas, laughed a lot at whatever Trent was telling him, and ate pickled herring with black bread.
There was a chessboard and a box of well-worn chess pieces on every table. Trent opened the board and set up the chess pieces. He did it in the measured, preoccupied way that people do things when they are worrying about something else.
The Russian gave no sign of being worried. He bit into his fish hungrily and chewed the bread with obvious delight. And every now and again he would call across the room to ask old Jan Kar what the weather forecast was, the rate of exchange for the dollar, or the result of some sporting fixture.
Old Jan had been in a Russian prison camp from 1939 until he was released to go into the General Ander’s Polish Corps. He did not like Russians, and the answers he gave were polite but minimal. Trent’s Russian companion gave no sign of recognizing this latent hostility. He smiled broadly at each answer and nodded sympathetically to acknowledge old Jan’s flat-toned negative answers.
I got up from my seat and went over to the counter to get another drink - coffee, this time - and from there, keeping my back towards them, I was able to hear what Trent was saying.
‘Everything is slow,’ said Trent. ‘Everything takes time.’
‘This is just a crazy idea that comes now into my head,’ said the Russian. Take everything you have down to the photocopying shop in Baker Street, the same place you got the previous lot done.’
The Russian had spoken quite loudly and, although I didn’t look round, I had the feeling that Trent had touched his sleeve in an effort to quieten him. Trent’s voice was softer. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’ The words came in the anxious tones of someone who wants to change the subject.
‘Giles, my friend,’ said the Russian, his voice slurred as if by the effects of the vodka. ‘Of course I leave it with you.’
I took the coffee that Jan’s son poured and went back to my table. This time I sat on another chair to keep my back turned to Trent and the Russian, but I could see them reflected faintly in a fly-specked portrait of General Pilsudski.
I continued to work my way through one of the Capablanca’s games against Alekhine in the 1927 championships, although I did not understand the half of it. But by the time Capablanca won, Trent and the Russian had disappeared up the stairs and out into the street.
‘Can I join you, Bernard?’ said old Jan Kar as I tipped my chess pieces into their box and folded my board. ‘I haven’t seen you for years.’
‘I’m married now, Jan,’ I said. ‘And I never was much of a chess player.’
‘I heard about your dad. I’m sorry. He was a fine man.’
‘It’s a long time ago now,’ I said.
