'Have another coffee, Rolf.' I signalled to the waitress.

'This is a good place for coffee,' said Mauser appreciatively. 'I'm glad I met you, Bernd.'

'What sort of people in the East would be buying this stuff?' I said. 'And where would the money come from?'

Rolf Mauser knew he was being pushed, but that was better than admitting to not knowing. 'You know how these things work, Bernd. The transaction was drugs for paper-work.'

He paused as if he'd said something self-evidently significant.

Perhaps he had but I wasn't going to let him stop there. 'Would you enlarge on that notion?'

'Permissions. Imports. Contracts. A signature and a rubber stamp on a desk over there can mean a lot of money over here. You know that, Bernd. So does your friend Werner Volkmann.' He puffed smoke. It was a subdued gesture of aggression. He looked at me and waited for a reply.

'You're not saying Werner was implicated?' Before taking over the running of Lisl's hotel Werner had made a lot of money from avalizing: putting together import and export deals so that the DDR didn't have to part with hard currency. In that respect Werner's livelihood had depended upon East Berlin signatures and rubber stamps.

'I don't know.' He waved a hand. 'But if he was, he got out of that business at exactly the right time. He doesn't go over there any more.'

'He's busy with Lisl's,' I said. I watched Rolf tap ash from the cheroot. All my desire to smoke had gone: the smoke, the smell, the ash, the very idea disgusted me.

'Of course he is,' said Mauser. 'And if I were you, Bernd, I'd find myself something to be busy with.' A meaningful look. 'Because there are a lot of people on both sides of the Wall who are looking for someone to lay the blame on. You would fit the role nicely.'

'As a drug courier?'

'With evidence from both sides? It would be overwhelming. Who would believe anyone protesting his innocence if East and West put together a story?'

'How do you know all this, Rolf?'

'I know a lot of people and I keep my ears open.'

I chatted with him for almost another half an hour, but Rolf had decided to say no more, or perhaps knew no more, and the conversation turned to chatter about his family and other people we both knew. His aforementioned relative in London was not amongst the people he talked of. I wondered whether his cousin was not just a cover to hide the real reason for his visit. There were several chair-bound Departmental officials not so far away from here who would be pleased to have someone like Rolf Mauser to amplify their long, tedious and tendentious reports about the DDR: writing which bore little resemblance to the reality. It would be rash of him to continue to work for us, but given, on the one hand, the pressure the Department was always ready to apply to anyone who could be useful, and on the other hand Rolf Mauser's appetite for both risk and extra spending money, I guessed that he might be doing exactly that. An added dimension was provided by the possibility that he was playing a double game reporting everything back to the other side. I hoped any Departmental person dealing with him had considered that and kept it in mind constantly. When I left Mauser I found myself disturbed by the conversation we'd had. There was something about his words that unsettled me. I'd known that same feeling since I was a child. Mauser enjoyed alarming people.

14

I dismissed Rolf Mauser from my mind as I walked up to Oxford Street and went into Selfridges hardware department to get a new hinge for the garage door. It had to be big, for the door's timber was not in first-class condition. Eventually I'd have to fit metal doors, but that was not an outlay I wanted to face in my present circumstances. And when Gloria went to study at Cambridge I might decide to sell the place. One of the store assistants went into a stock room and found the sort of long hinge I needed. I was carrying it with me – wrapped in brown paper – when I went to the address in Upper Brook Street, behind the American Embassy, to meet Posh Harry for his promised lunch.

'No need to have brought your Kalashnikov, Bernard,' said Harry when he saw the parcel. 'Strictly no rough stuff; I promised Dicky that.' He laughed in that restrained naughty-boy way that oriental people sometimes do. 'Come and have a drink,' he said and led the way up to a first floor room. As always he was neatly dressed in somewhat English-style clothes: grey flannels and a dark blazer with ornate metal buttons and, on its pocket, the gold wire badge of a Los Angeles golf club.

Mayfair is an exclusive district of elegant residences most of which are offices in disguise. It is a place of high rents and short leases, of private banks and property developers, art dealers and investment managers all discreetly hidden behind simple brass nameplates. These houses are small, and the cramped, over-furnished upstairs room into which he showed me was designed for rich transients. The house had been given the sort of refurbishment that my brother-in-law called 'the gold tap treatment'. There were lots of table lamps made from big robust jars and sturdy shades, sofas with loose covers of glazed chintz, and the sort of carpet that wine doesn't stain.

However any effect of gracious eighteenth-century living was marred by the 'refreshment centre' in the corner: a plastic-topped table held a hot-plate with two big glass jugs of coffee, mugs, paper cups and biscuits, and a handwritten notice about putting ten pence into the cash box and not using mugs with names on them.

'Take the weight off your feet,' said Harry as he unlocked a reproduction terrestrial globe the upper hemisphere of which hinged at the equator to reveal a core of drink. 'A Martini or name your poison.'

'A Martini will do nicely.' I watched him select the bottles: Beefeater and Noilly Prat.

'I'll tell you this, Bernard,' he said as he went across the room and pulled at a bookcase. 'You can keep California.' His exertions bore fruit as a section of antique leather books and shelving came loose in his hand to give access to a small refrigerator that was concealed behind it. 'Yes, sir!' With a commendable dexterity he threw ice-cubes into a jug and held two chilled glasses while gripping the gin bottle under his arm.

He removed the stopper from the gin bottle and mixed the cocktails with careless skill. Take it easy on the gin,' I said.

'I never had you figured for a guy who was heavily into vermouth,' he said, ignoring my strictures. He held up the glasses as if judging the colour of the concentration and then handed one of them to me. 'Only one thing I can't tolerate, Bernard… a vermouth addict. Pass that across your tonsils – the perfect Martini.'

'I like California,' I said.

'Not working for my outfit you wouldn't like it,' he said. He went to the window and looked down at the traffic. It came from Hyde Park and into this one-way street like close-packed herds of shiny migrating animals, thudding past without respite. They let me go. Can you believe it?'

I smiled and tasted my drink. Whatever failings Posh Harry had exhibited in California, mixing Martinis could not be amongst them.

Harry said, There are a couple of files I want to ask your advice about before lunch.' He looked at his watch. 'Our table is booked for one o'clock. Okay?'

'Sure.'

'Am I glad we had this meeting today, Bernard. You don't know what a favour you're doing me.'

'I am?'

'Providing me with an excuse to stay clear of the office. Joe Brody is in town and kicking ass like there is no tomorrow.'

'Joe Brody?'

I suppose he saw my antenna wobbling. He said, 'Yeah, Joe Brody! Joe Brody has flown in from Vienna and is lunching with the Ambassador today, but that didn't stop him from coming in to the office and raising hell with just about everyone working there.'