It was Sunday morning. They were in West Berlin: Leuschner's, a popular barn-like café, with gilt-framed mirrors on the whole of one wall and a long counter behind which one of the Leuschner brothers served. Coming from the jukebox there was a Beatles tune played by the Band of the Irish Guards. The jukebox used to have hard rock records but one of the Leuschner's had decided to refill it with music of his own taste. Werner looked round at the familiar faces. On such Sunday mornings, this otherwise unfashionable place attracted a noisy crowd of off-duty gamblers, musicians, touts, cabbies, pimps and hookers who gathered at the bar. It was not a group much depleted by church-going.

Thurkettle nodded his head to the music. With his bow tie, neatly trimmed beard and suit of distinctly American style, he looked like a tourist. But Thurkettle was here to commit a murder on the orders of London Central. He wondered how much Werner had been told.

Werner's task was to show him some identity photos and offer him any help and assistance he might require. After the job was done Werner was to meet him on the Autobahn, in the small hours of the morning, and pay him his fee in cash. 'You have transport arranged?' asked Werner.

'A motor bike: it's quick and nicely inconspicuous for this sort of caper.'

Werner looked out of the window. People in the street were bent under shiny umbrellas. 'You'll get wet,' said Werner. 'The forecast says storms.'

'Don't worry about me,' said Thurkettle. This hit on the Autobahn is just a routine job for me. Rain is the least of my problems.'

It had been a sudden last-minute decision and a rush to get it all arranged. A message from Erich Stinnes had come announcing that a consignment of heroin had arrived at East Berlin's airport. He would bring it through tonight. Once he knew this, Thurkettle sent a signal to London that Fiona Samson could be brought out of East Berlin tonight. Werner had sent affirmation that Fiona was ready.

'These are the people you will see at the rendezvous.' Werner produced photos from his pocket and passed them across the table. What exactly was going to happen, who was to be murdered and why, Werner had not been told. His presence at the rendezvous was not required. It was just as well, for tonight he was committed to a big celebration at Tante Lisl's: a fancy-dress party with all the trimmings. Just about everyone he knew in West Berlin would be there. But now the evening would be spoiled for him: he'd spend all the night worrying about Fiona Samson's escape.

Thurkettle pretended to study the passport-style pictures, but he had seen all these people before at some time or other. Thurkettle prepared carefully for each job, that's why he was highly paid, and that's why he was so successful. After a minute or two he passed the pictures back.

Werner tapped the photo of Stinnes. This is your drug peddling contact. Right?'

Thurkettle grunted assent.

'Stinnes will arrive with this woman.' Werner indicated Fiona Samson's photo. 'She will depart with this man.' He indicated the photo of Bernard Samson. 'Probably this man will also be there.' He showed him a photo of Harry Kennedy.

Thurkettle looked at Werner, at the photos, and then at Werner again. 'I'll take care of them.'

Werner said, 'Don't take care of the wrong people.'

'I won't,' said Thurkettle with a cold smile.

'Bernard Samson and Fiona Samson. Make sure they are safe.'

Thurkettle nodded. Now he felt sure that Werner Volkmann was not a party to the real secret: the way that Tessa was to die and change identity with her sister.

'The Brandenburg exit,' added Werner, who was anxious that there should be no misunderstanding.

'No sweat. I know the place. The half-completed highway widening work. I went there yesterday and took a look-see. I'll have a shovel, overalls and a can of gas.'

'Gas? Petrol?' Werner put a map on the table.

'To torch the car. The guy in London, who gave me my orders, wants the car burned.'

'Afterwards you'll meet me here.' He showed Thurkettle on the Autobahn map. 'The cash will be in a leather case. If you don't want to carry a case, you'd better have something to put it in. When you are paid, come back up the Autobahn and through the Border Control Point at Drewitz into West Berlin. You'll go through without any trouble. In Berlin phone the number I gave you and say the job is finished. From then on you are on your own. You have the airline ticket? Don't go back into East Berlin.'

'I won't go back to the East.'

'Have you arranged about a gun? I was told to make sure you had a gun if you needed it.'

'The last time I found myself without a gun was in Memphis, Tennessee. I strangled two guys with my bare hands.' He put a cardboard box on the table. 'Here's one of them,' he said, loosening the lid and holding it open an inch or two.

Werner looked into Thurkettle's cold eyes trying to decide whether it was a joke but, unable to tell, he looked down into the box. 'Gott im Himmel!' said Werner as he caught sight of the contents. It was a human skull.

'So don't baby me,' said Thurkettle, closing the box and putting it beside him on the chair. 'Just have the dough ready.'

'I will have the money ready.'

'If you want to call it off, this is your final chance,' said Thurkettle. 'But once the job is done I'm like the Pied Piper of Hamelin; if I don't get paid I come back and do the job all over again. Get me?'

'I get you.'

'Used fifty-dollar bills,' said Thurkettle grimly.

Werner sighed and printed circles upon the table with his wet beer-glass. 'I told you: I will have it ready, exactly as I said.'

'You do your thing the way you were told: I do my thing the way I was told: we get along just fine. But if you foul up, old buddy…'He left the rest of it unsaid. He'd not yet encountered anyone so dumb as to default in payment to a hired killer. 'Just one more time: I meet you on the Autobahn, direction west. I take the exit marked Ziesar and Görzke. You'll be waiting on the exit ramp. Going off the Autobahn is illegal for Westerners, just wait at the bottom of the ramp.'

They'd been all through it before. 'I'll be there,' said Werner. He wondered if the skull was real or one of those plastic ones they make for medical students. It certainly looked real: very real. He was still wondering about that when the steaks arrived. They were big entrecotes, seared and perfect, cooked and delivered to the table by Willi Leuschner himself. He put down a big pot of home-made horseradish sauce, knowing that Werner liked it. Willi had been at school with Werner and the two men spent a moment exchanging the usual sort of pleasant remarks. The Leuschners were both coming to Werner's fancy-dress party that night. It seemed as if half of Berlin were planning to be there.

'More beer?' asked Willi finally.

'No,' said Werner, 'we both have to keep clear heads.' Willi scribbled the account on a beer-mat and dropped it back on the table.

Deuce Thurkettle left Werner to pay the bill. His BMW bike was outside. It was a big machine with two panniers in which he stowed all his gear. The engine roared and he gave a flip to the accelerator before settling into the saddle. With a quick wave of the hand as he passed the restaurant window he sped away.

He had a lot to do before getting to the rendezvous on the Autobahn, but seeing Werner was necessary. Thurkettle made a point of threatening his clients in that way. It was a part of the fastidious attention to detail that made him so effective.

Another reason for his success was knowing when to keep his mouth shut. Whoever had briefed Werner Volkmann had obviously told him some fairy story. The briefing that Thurkettle had been given by Prettyman in a fancy suite in the London Hilton had been rather more complete and certainly more specific. Prettyman had told him that under no circumstance must anyone be left alive except Bernard and Fiona Samson. No one left alive. Prettyman had been very insistent upon that.