London Match - Len Deighton

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      ‘Of course not. I wanted you to read it. There might be developments.’

      ‘Was this to do with Erich Stinnes?’ said Zena. She waved the wasp away from her head.

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was his information.’

      She nodded and poured herself more coffee. It was difficult to believe that not so long ago she’d been in love with Erich Stinnes. It was difficult to believe that she’d risked her life to protect him and that she was still having physiotherapy sessions because of injuries she’d suffered in his defence.

      But Zena was young; and romantic. For both of those reasons, her passions could be of short duration. And for both those reasons, it could well be that she had never been in love with him, but merely in love with the idea of herself in love.

      Werner seemed not to notice the mention of Erich Stinnes’s name. That was Werner’s way – honi soit qui mal y pense. Evil to him who evil thinks – that could well be Werner’s motto, for Werner was too generous and considerate to ever think the worst of anyone. And even when the worst was evident, Werner was ready to forgive. Zena’s flagrant love affair with Frank Harrington – the head of our Berlin Field Unit, the Berlin Resident – had made me angrier with her than Werner had been.

      Some people said that Werner was the sort of masochist who got a perverse pleasure from the knowledge that his wife had gone off to live with Frank, but I knew Werner too well to go in for that sort of instant psychology. Werner was a tough guy who played the game by his own rules. Maybe some of his rules were flexible, but God help anyone who overstepped the line that Werner drew. Werner was an Old Testament man, and his wrath and vengeance could be terrible. I know, and Werner knows I know. That’s what makes us so close that nothing can come between us, not even the cunning little Zena.

      ‘I’ve seen that Miller woman somewhere,’ said Werner. ‘I never forget a face.’ He watched the wasp. It was sleepy, crawling slowly up the wall. Werner reached for Zena’s newspaper, but the wasp, sensing danger, flew away.

      Zena was still thinking of Erich Stinnes. ‘We do all the work,’ she said bitterly. ‘Bernard gets all the credit. And Erich Stinnes gets all the money.’ She was referring to the way in which Stinnes, a KGB major, had been persuaded to come over to work for us and given a big cash payment. She reached for the jug, and some coffee dripped onto the hotplate making a loud, hissing sound. When she’d poured coffee for herself, she put the very hot jug onto the tiles of the counter. The change of temperature must have made the jug crack, for there was a sound like a pistol shot and the hot coffee flowed across the counter top so that we all jumped to our feet to avoid being scalded.

      Zena grabbed some paper towels and, standing well back from the coffee flowing onto the tiled floor, dabbed them around. ‘I put it down too hard,’ she said when the mess was cleared away.

      ‘I think you did, Zena,’ I said.

      ‘It was already cracked,’ said Werner. Then he brought the rolled newspaper down on the wasp and killed it.

       2

      It was eight o’clock that evening in London when I finally delivered my report to my immediate boss, Dicky Cruyer, Controller German Stations. I’d attached a complete translation too, as I knew Dicky wasn’t exactly bilingual.

      ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘One up to Comrade Stinnes eh?’ He shook the flimsy pages of my hastily written report as if something might fall from between them. He’d already heard my tape and had my oral account of the Berlin trip so there was little chance that he’d read the report very thoroughly, especially if it meant missing his dinner.

      ‘No one in Bonn will thank us,’ I warned him.

      ‘They have all the evidence they need,’ said Dicky with a sniff.

      ‘I was on the phone to Berlin an hour ago,’ I said. ‘He’s pulling all the strings that can be pulled.’

      ‘What does his boss say?’

      ‘He’s spending his Christmas vacation in Egypt. No one can find him,’ I said.

      ‘What a sensible man,’ said Dicky with admiration that was both sincere and undisguised. ‘Was he informed of the impending arrest of his secretary?’

      ‘Not by us, but that would be the regular BfV procedure.’

      ‘Have you phoned Bonn this evening? What do BfV reckon the chances of a statement from him?’

      ‘Better we stay out of it, Dicky.’

      Dicky looked at me while he thought about this and then, deciding I was right, tried another aspect of the same problem. ‘Have you seen Stinnes since you handed him over to London Debriefing Centre?’

      ‘I gather the current policy is to keep me away from him.’

      ‘Come along,’ said Dicky, smiling to humour me in my state of paranoia. ‘You’re not saying you’re still suspect?’ He stood up from behind the rosewood table that he used instead of a desk and got a transparent plastic folding chair for me.

      ‘My wife defected.’ I sat down. Dicky had removed his visitors’ chairs on the pretext of making more space. His actual motive was to provide an excuse for him to use the conference rooms along the corridor. Dicky liked to use the conference rooms; it made him feel important and it meant that his name was exhibited in little plastic letters on the notice board opposite the top-floor lifts.

      His folding chairs were the most uncomfortable seats in the building, but Dicky didn’t worry about this as he never sat in them. And anyway, I didn’t want to sit chatting with him. There was still work to clear up before I could go home.

      ‘That’s all past history,’ said Dick, running a thin bony hand through his curly hair so that he could take a surreptitious look at his big black wristwatch, the kind that works deep under water.

      I’d always suspected that Dicky would be more comfortable with his hair cut short and brushed, and in the dark suits, white shirts and old school ties that were de rigueur for senior staff. But he persisted in being the only one of us who wore faded denim, cowboy boots, coloured neckerchiefs, and black leather because he thought it would help to identify him as an infant prodigy. But perhaps I had it the wrong way round; perhaps Dicky would have been happier to keep the trendy garb and be ‘creative’ in an advertising agency.

      He zipped the front of his jacket up and down again and said, ‘You’re the local hero. You are the one who brought Stinnes to us at a time when everyone here said it couldn’t be done.’

      ‘Is that what they were saying? I wish I’d known. The way I heard it, a lot of people were saying I did everything to avoid bringing him in because I was frightened his debriefing would drop me into it.’

      ‘Well, anyone who was spreading that sort of story is now looking pretty damned stupid.’

      ‘I’m not in the clear yet, Dicky. You know it and I know it, so let’s stop all this bullshit.’

      He held up his hand as if to ward off a blow. ‘You’re still not clear on paper,’ said Dicky. ‘On paper … and you know why?’

      ‘No, I don’t know why. Tell me.’

      Dicky sighed. ‘For the simple but obvious reason that this Department needs an excuse to hold Stinnes in London Debriefing Centre and keep on pumping him. Without an ongoing investigation of our own staff, we’d have to hand Stinnes over to MI5 … That’s why the Department haven’t cleared you yet: it’s a department necessity, Bernard, nothing sinister about it.’

      ‘Who’s in charge of the Stinnes debriefing?’ I asked.

      ‘Don’t look at me, old friend. Stinnes is a hot potato. I don’t want any part of that one. Neither does Bret … no

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