Krause at the podium, no scars on his face, no cuts in his head and no bruising at his balls.
Probably… ‘I was Pyotr Rykov’s friend. We were close, we were as brothers are. We fished together, we camped together. There were no microphones, no surveillance. He talked to me with trust. I tell you, should the state collapse, should the Russian Army assume control, then the most powerful man in Moscow would be the minister of defence and a step behind the minister is my friend, my best friend. I wish to share my knowledge with you of this man…’
Drooling they’d have been in the briefing room, slavering over the anecdotes, and all the stuff about former enemies and former Stasi bastards flushed down the can. The red carpet rolled out for the walk in the rain to the mess, best crystal for drinks, silver on the table for dinner afterwards. Except… except that some little corporal, little bit of fluff, had gatecrashed the party, fucked up the evening. Wasn’t a bad story, not the way that Albert Perkins saw it and heard it. Must have been like a satchel of Semtex detonating in the hallowed territory of the mess.
The manufacturing of images had always been among the talents of Albert Perkins.
They walked on the main road through the camp, towards the gate and the guardhouse. When the headlights came, powering behind them, Johnson hopped awkwardly off the tarmacadam for the grass but Perkins did not. Perkins made them swerve. The two cars flashed their lights at the gate sentry and the bar lifted for them. It was a rare cocktail that the man, the hangman, had served them, Johnson reflected. Apologies and insults, sweetness and rudeness. In three hours it would be dawn. Then the barracks would stir to life, and the gossip and innuendo would begin again. The target would be himself. By mid-morning coffee break, the barracks would know that Perry Johnson had been a messenger boy through the night for a civilian from London. They went into the guardhouse. The corridor was unlocked for them. He frowned, confused, because the cell door was ajar. They went in.
‘Who are you?’
Christie was pushing himself up from the floor beside the door.
‘Ben Christie, Captain Christie.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I thought it best… with the prisoner… I was with the corporal in case she said-’
‘Is this a holding cell or is it a kennel?’
The dog was on its side, its tail beating a slow drumroll on the tiles. It lay under her feet with its back against the concrete slab of the bed.
‘Nowhere else for him to go. Sorry.’
Perkins shook his head, slow, side to side. Johnson recognized the treatment. The tack was to demean, then to dominate. She sat on the bed. She did not seem to have moved, knees drawn up and arms around her knees. She was awake, she watched. Perkins didn’t look at her. He rapped the questions.
‘When she attacked Krause, how was the attack stopped?’ Christie said, ‘One of his escort hit her, one kicked her.’
‘Has she been seen by qualified medical staff?’
Christie shook his head.
‘She’s been interrogated – once, twice?’
Christie nodded.
‘You did, of course, caution her first?’
Christie shook his head.
‘She was told her rights, was offered a solicitor?’
Christie grimaced.
‘Before her room was searched, did you have her permission? Did you have the written authorization of the camp commander?’
Christie’s chin hung on his chest.
‘During the interrogations did you use profanities, blasphemies, obscenities? Was she threatened?’
Christie lifted his hands, the gesture of failure.
Perkins savaged him. ‘If she had said anything to you, fuck all use it would have been. Oppressive interrogation, denial of rights, refusal to permit medical help. This isn’t Germany, you know. It isn’t Stasi country. Get out.’
They went. Christie called his dog. Perkins kicked the door with his heel. It slammed. Christie and Johnson stood in the corridor.
Johnson understood the tactic: Officers rubbished by a civilian in front of a junior rank so junior rank would bond with civilian. Basic stuff. The hatch in the cell door was open. They could hear him. He was brusque.
‘Right, Miss Barnes… Tracy, isn’t it? I’ll call you Tracy, if you’ve no objection. I’m rather tired. I had a long day, was about to go to bed, and I was called out. I don’t expect you’ve slept, so let’s do this quickly. I deal in facts, right? Fact, ‘eighty-six to ‘eighty-nine, you had lance-corporal rank. Fact, ‘eighty-six to ‘eighty-nine, you were a stenographer with Intelligence Corps working out of Berlin Brigade, room thirty-four in block nine. Fact, in November ‘eighty-eight, Hans Becker from East Berlin was being run as an agent by room thirty-four. Fact, on the twenty-first of November ‘eighty-eight, the agent was lost while carrying out electronic surveillance on the Soviet base at Wustrow, near to Rostock. I’m sure you’re listening carefully to me, Tracy, and you’ll have noted that I emphasized “lost”. Fact, on that date, Hauptman Krause ran the counter-espionage unit at the Bezirksverwaltung des MfS in Rostock. All facts, Tracy. The facts say an agent was “lost”, the facts say that Hauptman Krause was responsible for counter-espionage in that area. The facts don’t say murder and they don’t say killing. Do you have more facts, Tracy? Not rumours running up the walls of room thirty- four. Got the facts or not got the facts? Got the evidence of murder and killing or not got the evidence?’
From the corridor they strained to hear her voice, a whisper or a sobbed outpouring, and they heard nothing.
‘I’m tired, Tracy. Can we, please, do this the easy way?’
Johnson thought it was what a hangman would have said:
‘Right then, sir. Let’s get this over with, no fuss, nice and simple, then you can go off, sir, and get nailed down in the box and I can go for my breakfast.’
He thought she would be looking back at him, distant, small. He realized she was like family to him. Who spoke for her? Not him, not Ben Christie, no damn man, not anywhere.
‘Tell you what, Tracy. You try and get some sleep. Soon as you’re asleep I’ll be told. I’ll come and wake you, and we’ll start again. There’s an easy way, Tracy, and a hard way. What I want to hear about is facts and evidence.’
The lorry driver spat. The target of his fury was Joshua Frederick Mantle. The spittle ran on the back window of the taxi and masked his face, which was contorted in rage.
The prison officer tugged sharply on the handcuffs they shared, jerked the lorry driver from the window.
The lorry driver was driven away, the taxi lost in the traffic.
He watched it go. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat and the drizzle flecked his shoulders. It wasn’t necessary for him to have stood ten minutes at the side gates of the court. He had gained little from having waited, from having seen the last defiance of the lorry driver, except a small sense of satisfaction. A detective constable wandered over to him, might have been about to cross the road but had seen him and come to him. His eyes followed the taxi until a bus came past it.
‘You going over the pub?’
‘Wouldn’t have thought so. Got a deskful to be getting on with.’ He had a soft voice for a tall man.
‘Come on – don’t know whether I’ll be welcome, but she’ll want to see you.’
He hesitated. ‘I suppose so.’
The detective constable took his arm and led him into the road. They waited a moment at the bollard half- way across.
‘Mind if I say something, Mr Mantle? Whether you mind it or not, I’m going to say it. Times in this job I feel proud and times when I feel pig sick. I feel good when I’m responsible for a real scumbag going down, and I feel pig sick when it’s my lot or Crown Prosecution Service that’s chickened out. First time I’ve watched a private prosecution… Come on, through the gap.’
They hurried across the road, and again the detective constable had a hand on his arm. ‘Why I’m pig sick, Mr Mantle, it was your witness statements that nailed him. I worked eight months on that case and what I came up
