Pol was sucking the tip of his thumb, watching them both with amusement. ‘A beautiful job, hein? It was done by one of the most expert forgers in the Resistance. If he could deceive the Gestapo for five years, you can be sure he has no problem in deceiving the Turkish authorities.’
Hawn weighed the passport in his hand: it gave him an uncomfortable sense of distorted reality — like glimpsing the back of one’s own head in a complex of mirrors. It would take time to get used to Monsieur Marziou, and his young wife, Yvette — to shedding a whole identity, and slipping into a new one, like changing one’s clothes.
‘And how long do we remain Monsieur and Madame Marziou?’
‘As long as it remains convenient for you. And for me.’ Pol patted Hawn’s knee. ‘You see how easily things can be arranged! You must not concern yourself so much, mon chèr. Anyway, we will be at the frontier in a few minutes.’
They reached the border town of Edirne at 12.40 a.m. — just two-and-a-half hours after Hawn and Anna had made their dreadful discovery above the chemist’s shop.
It was a dark muddy town where the main road into Greece had been deliberately allowed to peter out into a potholed track, churned up by the endless procession of juggernauts rolling between Europe and the Middle East. There was a great row of them now, pulled up on the side of the road in front of two sheds which housed the Customs and Police. The big American sedan was the only private car.
A man in a dark uniform, in black gaiters and boots, with a machine-pistol, beckoned them forward. He looked casually at the number plate, as the driver rolled down his window.
The rest of the police were busy negotiating bribes with the juggernaut drivers, and appeared to have little interest in a Swiss-registered car with French occupants. A second man with a machine-pistol glanced at the four French passports, hesitated, then glanced at the window of the shed, to where a man sat with his boots on the desk, his peaked cap pulled down over his eyes. The man outside shouted something and laughed. Inside the shed the man raised a hand, without otherwise stirring. The man outside turned, handed the passports back, and saluted.
The Greek frontier post was half a mile across desolate, uncultivated fields. Hawn watched the lights creep towards them; Anna sat very still beside him, her eyes staring out in front. Then Pol began to laugh. He was still laughing, when the Greek officials peered in through the smoked windows, and waved them on across the plain of Thrace.
Yugoslav Airlines Flight 268, from Salonika to Belgrade, was due to board in ten minutes. Pol had ordered another three ouzos. He was in an excellent mood — despite the paucity of Greek cooking — and his high spirits were infectious.
Hawn regarded this next stage of their odyssey with extreme misgiving. Until now, he and Anna had continued to operate as ostensibly free agents, even though their movements had been monitored by Pol, even manipulated by him.
But from now on they would be entirely Pol’s creatures — their new clothes, new wallets, new luggage, air tickets to Belgrade and on to Frankfurt and Tempelhof, Berlin — all were ordained by Pol, as intractably as were their names and personal details written into their new passports.
Pol had been watching him carefully, obviously sensing his malaise. ‘You are not happy, my friend?’
‘You know I’m not. If I knew more — if I just knew where this information of Salak’s is going to lead us.’
Pol spread his short arms expansively. ‘But that is the whole point — the very thing we are hoping to discover! I cannot tell you what I do not know.’
The final call was going out, when Pol took his leave of them. ‘Au revoir, mes amis. Until tomorrow night — at the Kempinski. And don’t be late.’
‘If we are,’ Hawn said, ‘it won’t be our fault.’
CHAPTER 24
The sharp grey sunshine cut through the copper-glazed windows of the restaurant cafe, which spread out across half the pavement of the Kurfürstendamm. Outside, the snow had stopped; traffic moved slowly, quietly.
Hawn and Anna had found a table from where they could see right up the Kudamm to the Memorial Church, sticking up from the glaring neon like a burnt thumb. Next to them, at the same table, sat two stout women in plastic raincoats with fur collars, drinking mugs of chocolate. Hawn and Anna were having an early lunch, of white Bockwurst, beer and black coffee.
‘Look, Tom! Over there!’ Hawn was in time to see two tiny creatures disappear giggling into the back of the cafe. They both had frizzy ash-white hair, green mascara, blood-red lipstick, and each wore tall leather boots and steel-studded black leather bum-freezers. ‘They must be girls?’ Anna said.
Hawn stared. ‘They can’t be more than twelve years old?’
‘I’d say nearer ten.’
Hawn finished his beer, called for the bill, and glanced back up the Kudamm. A huge sign winked on and off against the heavy sky: ‘BERLIN BLEIBT IMMER NOGH BERLIN!’ Berlin Forever Remains Berlin.
Outside it was freezing, and for a moment they had to grab on to each other to avoid slipping on the packed slush. Hawn took his usual quick glance both ways. The BND would have at least one man, perhaps even a car; and Pol would probably have someone too — if only because Pol was a careful bastard, and liked to make sure that
