kettle whistled. He rehearsed what he would tell her. He did not think she would complain that he had promised: she looked to him as though she had lived a life of disappointment. He wondered where her husband was, Tracy’s father. Dead or walked out? He would extricate himself from his promise and he would tell the bastards, Greatorex and Wilkins and Protheroe, that it had all been a mistake. He made the tea. They’d smirk, pull long faces, tell him it was for the best, that it wasn’t the sort of business the firm went running after.
She laid the bundle in front of him. The Christmas cards were held together with an old elastic band. They were all cheap, except one: pheasants in snow on expensive paper. The Special Branch searchers had missed the collection of Christmas cards.
To Tracy and family,
With all seasonal good wishes,
Col. Harry Kirby DSO… and Frances…
The Bothy, School Lane, Sutton Mandeville, Wilts.
‘He just sent it the once. Just the first year after she’d come back from Berlin, after he’d retired. Didn’t send one the next year. Is that any good?’
Yes, he would have owed her a card. She might have won the Colonel – her ‘Sunray’ – his medal.
‘That’ll do me fine, Mrs Barnes. That gives me as good a start point as I could have hoped for.’
She had hung back, and Hansie’s father had talked with the man, Joachim – low voices as if the danger still confronted them – at the door of the apartment.
Most of the bulbs of the block were gone. They had passed drunks, young men, and her foot had struck a syringe. The lift had broken and they had climbed eleven ffights of stairs. She had hung back, not interfered. As if she had brought him determination, Hansie’s father whispered at the man, Joachim, and jabbed at his chest with the crown of his old stick. The man, Joachim, spoke, and fear lit his face. He turned away, slammed the door on them, and the lock was turned.
When they were in the darkness outside, Hansie’s father said, ‘Perhaps, Tracy, now that you have seen the fear, you do believe me. There were one hundred thousand of them, they did not disappear. They are here, around you, on the street with you, close to you. They have the network and the organization, and the power – why my friend Joachim still has the fear. I tell you, Tracy, if you threaten them, they will take you between their fingers and break you as if you were a dried branch. It is the way that they know, their old way. There are two thousand people working on the administration of the files. This week she does the night shift.’
The wind caught them. They stood on the pavement near the tunnel down to the U-Bahn of Magdalenen Strasse. The great tower blocks before them diverted the wind into chilling corridors. She held his arm and gripped the threadbare sleeve of his coat. They waited outside the entrance to the old headquarters of the Staatssicherheitsdienst. Past midnight. A trickle of men and women, huddled in heavy coats, scurried towards the U-Bahn tunnel.
The woman was wrapped tight in scarves and a woollen hat and gloves. The light hit the heavy spectacles on her face.
‘Joachim and I, we thought once that Hans and Hildegard would come together. It was before we knew of you, Tracy.’
Tracy said, ‘Then tell her it’s for love, and twist her arm till it hurts, till she screams.’
He sat on his folded coat. The darkness was around him. His fingers brushed the earth in front of his feet. He could feel the strong stub stems of the daffodils that he had planted the last summer and he touched them with a reverence. He only ever came to the grave at night.
‘What I’m saying, I was a lamb to the slaughter. The money was the final straw. I mean, she must have got the money from her savings tin, pitifully little, and she’s trying to give it me. No, Libby, I couldn’t have come and told you about it, about taking her money or about turning my back on her. You’d have given me a grade-one rollicking. I always do that, Libby, wonder whether you’ll give me a rollicking or that little tap of the hand, approval. Yes, well, you’ll need to know about our Tracy, our Corporal Tracy Barnes… She’s opposites, you understand. She’s sweetness and vilely rude. Sour, cheeky and funny. You like her, you detest her. She makes you feel important, she rubbishes you. Tough as an old boot, small and vulnerable. She is utterly sensible, she is lunatic. It’s because of what happened to her, what she lost, that she can be so hideous. I won’t get any thanks from her but, you have to understand, I don’t have the chance, not any more, to do many things that are worth doing, and she’s worth crawling on a limb for. I’m going to Berlin, Libby, to try to bring her home. She has travelled to Berlin to find evidence against the man who killed her boy, but the man is protected.
It’s like she’s putting her hand into a snake’s hole. Don’t worry, I’m not about to embark on anything idiotic. I’m going to Berlin to find her and to frogmarch her to the airport. I’m going to bring her home. She taunted me, Libby, she asked me if I compromised
And something else, the only thing we have in common, her and me. The person we loved was taken from us. Before you ask, she’s not at all beautiful, not even very pretty, so don’t get any dumb ideas… Goodnight, watch for me…’
He wiped his eyes, once, hard. An owl was hooting in a tree nearby. He picked up his coat. The time he spent at the cemetery, alone, was precious to Josh Mantle. He started to grope his way towards the wall where his car was parked.
Chapter Five
In the half light of dawn, a smear of red sun behind the trees, the man stood on the lawn and the terrier yapped and jumped against him until he threw the tennis ball. The man’s silver hair was unbrushed and wild on his head and fell over the darkened lenses of his spectacles. He was unshaven and he wore his pyjamas, slippers and dressing gown. Josh Mantle watched from the gate on the road at the edge of the village. The dog chased the ball, caught it in the air as it bounced, and ran back towards the man. Josh learned from what he watched. The dog was close to the man and the man bent down but could not take the ball until the dog brought it right to his hand.
Josh took his driving licence from his wallet, held it in the palm of his hand and pushed open the gate.
He went up a narrow gravel path. The scrape of his footfall alerted the man and the dog ran barking towards him.
‘Colonel Kirby? Sorry to trouble you so early. I’m Josh Mantle, SIB of the Royal Military Police..
He held up the driving licence as identification.
‘I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important. It is correct that in Berlin you were the commanding officer of Corporal Tracy Barnes?’
The frown, like a shadow, slipped on the man’s forehead, and Josh again held up the driving licence.
‘You’d better come in.’
He was led into a conservatory. Kirby apologized, his wife was away, place a bit of a mess.
The man was alone. Mantle knew he could play the proper bastard. ‘We’re running an investigation into the involvement of Corporal Tracy Barnes, Berlin ‘eighty-eight, with a field agent, Hans Becker.’
Straight in, brisk, with authority, as if he had the right to know. The man seemed to shrivel.
‘It was a long time ago. It’s history, finished. Who cares?’
‘Please, just answer my questions.’
‘It’ll do no good, should be allowed to sleep. Who needs to know?’
But he talked… and Josh let him.
‘I’ll call her Tracy – you don’t mind if I do? – she was a part of my family. She was just past her twenty-first when she came to Berlin, the youngest in the unit. She was, de facto, my PA. Always smart, always efficient, good typing and shorthand, buckled down in the evenings to learn good German. I don’t think she’d done that well at school but she had the commitment we wanted. She’d work away quietly in the corner and didn’t interrupt. I’d hardly be aware of her. There weren’t any boyfriends, no tantrums, no sulks – she was a joy to have. If I had to work late, she was there – early start, the same, no problem… Tell you the truth, there were plenty of sergeants who tried to get off with her, single and married, and they hadn’t a prayer. I didn’t complain, she was the best worker I ever had in the military. I said she was a part of our family – she used to help my wife when we had dinner parties, and was paid for it, she used to come in and babysit when we were out. She had nothing else to do and we
