That's not the reason. That's just calculated to break my heart and make me think you're a wonderful fellow.'

'I am a wonderful fellow,' I said.

'You're a devious bastard,' said Werner.

'You told Dicky?'

'I did it just the way you wanted. No one knows except Dicky Cruyer… and anyone he tells.'

'And my kids?' Finally I had to ask the question I'd been avoiding.

'You're worrying unnecessarily, Bernie. It can't be Fiona.'

'Twenty-four-hour cover? Three men and two cars each shift?'

'I did it just the way you said. Your kids are watched night and day. I was surprised that Dicky Cruyer okayed it.'

'Thanks, Werner,' I said.

'Does Fiona know where this place is?' So now even he was truly convinced.

'Not from me, she doesn't.'

'She wouldn't let you get arrested, Bernie. You're the father of her kids.' He spoke of Fiona apologetically. Why does the betrayed partner always get treated like a leper? It's damned unfair. But it was no different from the way I'd treated Werner all through his sufferings with his disloyal wife.

'So you'll put two seats in here?' I said, rapping the metal sheet of the hidden compartment.

'Where do we pick them up?'

'We'll have to think carefully about that, Werner,' I said. 'Not a good idea to let them come here. You don't want some little creep writing down your address in a debriefing sheet that gets circulated to NATO intelligence officers.' Werner shuddered and said nothing. I said, 'But we don't want a big truck like this going off the main roads. It would stick out like a sore thumb in some back street in Pankow.'

'Müggelheimer Damm,' suggested Werner. It was a long, almost straight road through the forest that bordered the Grosser Müggelsee – a big lake just outside the city. 'There are no houses all the way from Alstadt to Müggelheim – just the forest road. And it's convenient from here.'

'Which way will you go? Through Russian Army HQ Karlshorst? Or past the Red Army memorial at Treptow?' Both places were always well provided with sharp-eyed traffic police and plainclothes security men.

'What does it matter? We'll be clean at that stage of the journey.'

'A halted truck on that long forest road?' I said doubtfully.

'It will look as if the driver has gone behind a tree,' said Werner.

'Where on the Müggelheimer Damm?'

'Keep driving till you see me,' said Werner. 'It's better that I choose somewhere I like the look of. You'll find me. There won't be many bright yellow thirty-ton articulated trucks parked along that section of road on a weekday.'

'At twelve-thirty,' I said. 'We'll hope the traffic cops will be having lunch.'

'Do you think his wife might be claustrophobic? A lot of women are. There was a case some years ago, I remember, where an escapee started beating on the floor of a car to get out. She just couldn't stand being locked in the luggage compartment. They were all arrested. If I gave Brahms Four a needle, could we rely on him to give her a shot?'

'If necessary.'

'I knew you wouldn't go first,' said Werner. 'I knew you'd want to get Brahms Four out before you went yourself.'

'What made you think so, Werner?'

'You wouldn't put yourself into a position where London Central could have a change of mind and you not be able to do much about it.'

'Go to the top of the class, Werner,' I said.

'Fait accompli, that's your style. It always has been.' He jumped down from the truck.

'One more thing,' I said. 'Just to be on the safe side, I want Brahms Four under observation right from the time he gets on the streetcar at Buchholz to go to work tomorrow.'

'No problem,' said Werner.

'Any divergence from what I've told him to do and we'll scrub the whole thing.'

'I like you, Bernie. You're the only man I know who's more suspicious than I am, and that reassures me.'

'Any divergence at all,' I said.

'You won't tell him about Müggelheimer Damm before he gets there?'

'I won't even answer if he says good morning.'

'Even if it is Fiona,' said Werner, 'she can't act on this day-today information without making it obvious that she's the KGB agent.'

' Moscow might decide it's worthwhile. Brahms Four is a good source – maybe the only really big leak they haven't been able to plug.'

'That's why you want him to go first. Moscow will let the first one through even if they know about it. They'll let it go believing it's you and thinking the second escape will be their only chance of getting Brahms Four. It's a dangerous game, Bernie. If you are right, you'll get caught.'

'But maybe I'm wrong,' I said.

26

'Don't worry, Frau Doktor von Munte,' I said.'Your husband will soon be back.' I looked out the window. The little gardens of fruit and vegetables stretched in every direction across the flat land, and the curious assortment of hutments and sheds looked even more bizarre by daylight. On every side there were heaps of sand, bags of cement, and piles of bricks, blocks and timber for more amateur building work.

Now May was here. Fruit trees, climbing flowers, shrubs and bushes were engulfing the buildings. There was lilac – the smell of it was everywhere – and cherry trees in snowy bloom, tubs of roses and dwarf rhododendrons. But the vegetation was not enough to hide the one-storey building that the next-door neighbour had painted bright red, and laboriously drawn wobbly lines of yellow upon, to produce the effect of a medieval castle.

The little house that the Muntes owned was more restrained. Painted dark green, to blend with the surroundings, its wooden window shutters bore old-fashioned flower designs. On the side of it there was a tiny lean-to greenhouse with pots of herbs, boxes of lettuce plants and some carnations, all crowded together to catch the sunshine. The garden too was more in keeping with the elderly couple; everything neat and tidy, like an illustration from a gardening manual.

'Why did you tell him to say he wasn't feeling well?' she asked. Mrs Munte was a severe-looking woman, in a black dress with a white lacy collar. Her hair was drawn back tight into a bun and her face had the high cheekbones and narrowed eyes that marked the German communities of the Baltic States. Blue eyes and reddish-flaxen hair are common in Estonia. 'Why did you?' It was an inscrutable face but it was calm too, the sort of face that, apart from a few wrinkles and spots, remains unchanged from early teens to old age.

'So that no one will be surprised when he's away from the office for a couple of days.'

'I wish we had stayed at the apartment in Erkner. Here we have no TV. I get so bored here.'

'Your neighbour is sunning himself. Why don't you spend half an hour outside?' The owner of the Schloss next door had stretched a blanket on his minuscule lawn. Now he was applying lotion to his bare chest and searching the sky for dark clouds, a wary frown upon his face.

'No. He'll chatter to me,' said Mrs Munte. 'He's a retired bus driver. He's on his own. Once he starts talking, you can't stop him. He grows tulips. I hate tulips, don't you? They look like plastic.' She was standing at the tiny window looking out at her rhododendrons and roses. 'Walter has worked so hard on his flowers. He'll miss them when we're somewhere else.'

'There'll be other roses and rhododendrons,' I said.

'Even this morning he went out to spray the roses. I said it was silly but he insisted on doing it.'

'They need it at this time of the year,' I said. 'Mine have got black spots.'

'Will you go with us?'

'I follow on.'

'You've done this sort of thing before, I suppose?'

'You'll be quite safe, Frau von Munte. It's uncomfortable but not dangerous.'