Helen was three tables from the bar and Hartman had joined her and I went over there and said, 'We're leaving here now and we'll take the rear exit, it'll be through that archway past the end of the bar, you first, Helen, then you, Hartman, and I'll be right behind, don't move too fast and don't attract attention but start now.'

Helen threw me a glance and left the table but Hartman was slower.

'I don't understand. We -'

'There's a Rote Armee Faktion hit man in here and you are the target.'

Not strictly true but the colour left his face and he moved at once for the archway and I closed up. There was a man playing a violin and quite a few people dancing and I don't think anyone noticed us going out. It worried me a little that I'd got these two people on my hands because I knew now that they were going to need a lot of protection, but at least I had that man's wallet in my pocket and could send a signal to London later tonight: Have made contact and gained access to the opposition.

Chapter 6: WILLI

It was almost dark in here.

'Shall I check your coat?' Willi asked.

I'll keep it on,' Helen said. She was looking paler than usual; perhaps it was the lighting, or she hadn't realised it would be quite like this when she came back to Berlin; she'd thought there was just going to be a quiet talk with Willi. He was lighting a cigarette, black with a gold tip. His hands were quick, nervous.

'A hit man,' he said. 'How did you know?'

We hadn't talked much in the taxi on our way here; we'd been looking for somewhere quiet, and there aren't too many places like that in Berlin. 'I'm not sure he was there in order to make a hit,' I said. 'He was just the type, that was all. He'd followed you there.'

'But how do you know?'

'Willi, it's my job to know things like that. You've got to trust me.'

He flicked his cigarette but there was no ash on it yet; it was just a nervous gesture.

'What happened to him? Where did he go?

'He went into the men's room,' I said, 'with a bad headache. He didn't follow us here. I had to get you out of the Cafe Brahms because he'd been dropped off by a Mercedes, and that would have stayed in the area. They're waiting for you to come out of the Cafe Brahms and here you are in this place and you're absolutely in the clear, so cheer up, all is well.'

'Guten Abend. Was mochten Sie trinken?'

The girl stood looking down at us, holding her tray, pale and skinny and wearing a black satin slip, rouge and red lipstick and short bobbed hair: this place was called Die Zwanziger – The Twenties – and there were girls at the bar and dancing with some pale-looking men on the miniature spotlit stage. Some of them were flourishing long cigarette holders; the place was thick with smoke.

'Helen?'

Willi was attentive, considered himself the host.

'Oh, whatever you're having.'

'Mr Locke?' 'Tonic. My name's Victor.'

'Zwei Schnapse und ein Tonic.'

I waited until the girl had left us. 'Have you been here before, Willi?'

'No.'

'Good. For a while, keep to unfamiliar places.

Change your daily routine. Don't phone friends. Take a private mail box at the post office. Watch for people you've seen before somewhere, in the street, in the shops. Take a good look at people who stand with you in a taxi rank or sit near you in a restaurant, so that you'll recognise them easily if you see them again. Just until things get themselves straightened out.'

'But I have an apartment. Must I move?'

'I would just get the things you need from there, say for a week or two, and lock it. Are there security guards in the building?

'Yes.'

'Slip them something to look after things, the newspaper and deliveries.'

'But if they were following me,' he said, 'they'll watch my apartment, won't they?'

'Yes.'

'Then I can't go there to pick up my things.'

'You can if I help you. It depends on how much you're ready to tell me.'

He looked down. 'About George Maitland, you mean.'

'About why he was killed, who did it, where I can find them, things like that.'

'Yes. But there are personal things.'

'I don't need personal things.'

Another girl came and stood looking down at us. She'd come through the black velvet curtains at the back of the little stage; her slip was white and diaphanous; her nipples were rouged, and thick black pubic hair showed under the silk. She smiled, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

'Mochtest Du ein Spiel spielen?

Would we like to play games.

No, Willi told her. Perhaps later. She went back through the curtains and he looked at Helen. 'I'm sorry, I didn't know it was that kind of place. Shall we go somewhere else?'

'It doesn't matter. They won't bother us, will they?'

'No. I shall see that they don't.' He turned to look at me. 'So what can I tell you, Victor?'

'Do you think it was the Faktion that killed Maitland?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'He was getting too interested in them.'

'What started him off in that direction?'

He looked down for a moment. 'I think perhaps I did.'

'How?'

'It wasn't deliberate. I had a girlfriend, Inge Stoph. She was very attractive.' To Helen – 'You met her, several times. She -'

'Yes. I thought she was terribly good-looking.'

Willi shrugged. 'Thank you.' To me – 'But I found out she was involved with the Rote Armee Faktion. I was seeing quite a bit of George, at that time, and Helen, when she was over here from England. Just – parties and that sort of thing. Good friends. Good friends.'

'Of course, Willi.' Her beautiful smile came. 'Of course.'

He drew smoke in. 'I mentioned my girlfriend to George, just casually. I told him I thought she was too thick with those people.'

The girl came with our drinks. 'Zwei Schnapse, einer Tonic.' She left the tab.

I leaned forward. 'What did George say about that?'

'He was interested, which surprised me.'

'Interested,' I said, 'in the Rote Armee Faktion.'

'Yes. He began asking me questions about them. Then later I realised he was – how will we put it? – playing a kind of game with himself. He had a master plan, he told me once, about how to assassinate Moammar Gadhafi.'

'A counter-terrorist game, then? He fancied himself as an armchair counter-terrorist?'

'I think, yes.' Willi slipped another black cigarette from the pack. 'George was a very… unusual man. Very intense.'

'He carried a gun,' Helen said.

'Always?'

'I don't know. I just saw it sometimes when he was taking off his» jacket. It wasn't a very big one.'

'But it's illegal,' Willi said, 'in Berlin.'

I asked Helen, 'Did he know you'd seen it?'

'Oh, yes. It didn't worry him. I think he was rather proud of it.' She played with her glass of schnapps; she hadn't drunk any. 'George was very intense, as Willi says. He had a lot of dynamic energy, a lot of energy, all the time.' A faint smile – 'It was a little wearing.'

'But there was a lot more,' Willi said, 'under the surface. Don't you agree?' He flicked his gold lighter.

'It went down deep,' Helen said. 'It was rather attractive, in a way, when it didn't get too wearing. It was like being near – I don't know – a small power station.'

'He was neurotic,' Willi said with sudden force. 'May I say that?

'Oh, of course. Terribly so, terribly neurotic, yes. He fascinated me.' She gave a short laugh, embarrassed.

Hate, and fascination. I've only just realised, she'd said in the hotel, how much I hated him.

'He was also very secretive,' Willi said, 'despite his energy. Sometimes he would be very quiet for a while, and' – his hand brushed the air – 'and you didn't want to ask what he was thinking.' He looked round for the waitress.