PPS from the Chamber. The decision was taken on the course of action he would follow. Was it supposed to be one man government? Was he supposed to oversee every bloody department of Whitehall? Those buggers from the Service playing their games, living prehistoric dreams. He had been softened up and knocked down by an arrogant fool and that treatment from Spottiswoode outweighed the sycophancy gathered around him.
The PPS came smiling to the Prime Minister's side.
'Fine show…'
'What do I have tomorrow?'
'TUC economic committee at 10. Egyptian ambassador at 12 and he's lunching. Away for Chequers at 3.' The PPS marshalled the timetable effortlessly.
'Get hold of the Cabinet Secretary,' the Prime Minister said quietly.
'He's to bring the SIS man to Downing Street at 9 tomorrow… That's an instruction.'
The PPS slipped away from the gathering throng around the star of the night. He was baffled. Why on an evening such as this should the Prime Minister speak with such anger?
Chapter Seventeen
Friday morning. Johnny rose at six and dressed at once. The noise of the first trams and buses of the day boomed along the street below his window. Friday, and the coming of the critical hours.
He sat at the table and took a sheet of hotel notepaper. Otto Guttmann would have followed instructions, would not have reported the contact.
That was Johnny's feeling and he had backed it by sitting in the foyer the previous evening and watching. He would have seen the policemen coming to the lift… there had been none… Better to use the hotel paper, to blazon the proximity, because anything that disturbed the old man suited Johnny's purpose. He wrote the clear directions that Guttmann should follow and on the reverse side drew a map of the route to the railway bridge by way of Sandtor Strasse and Rogatzer Strasse.
Simple, bold lines for the map. He slipped the paper into an envelope and sealed it.
Johnny took the lift downstairs, walked out into the street and towards the square behind the Centrum. It was where he had seen the telephone kiosks. He rang the number of the International, spoke in natural German, and asked for the number of the room of Dr Otto Guttmann. He was a friend, he said, later he would be sending a book to the hotel and he wanted to ensure that the package was correctly addressed. The girl on the switchboard would be busy at this time of the morning with the waking calls. Over the line he heard the yawn, then the turning of paper as she searched for the information.
'Doctor Guttmann, or Miss Erica Guttmann?'
'Doctor Guttmann.'
'Room 626.'
'Thank you.'
Johnny replaced the receiver and strolled away. It had rained in the night, but the day promised well and the banking clouds were falling behind the Elbe and the sun flickered after them. He went back to the hotel and to any who watched him in the hallway he would have seemed a man who had slept badly and taken an early walk to freshen himself.
Unremarkable behaviour. Johnny had been a good pupil to Smithson.
He nodded the day's greeting to Comrade Honecker… he took the lift to the sixth floor.
There was a maid in the corridor with her trolley and bucket and brooms and stacked clean sheets. Johnny waited, admired a grim water colour of hills and lake shores until she had found a vacated room where she could work. He walked the length of the corridor looking for 626, and paused outside Otto Guttmann's door.
He looked once over his shoulder, heard the sounds of muffled radios in the rooms, the soft voice of the maid as she sang.. The corridor was empty. He bent and pushed the envelope under the door. He knocked.
There was a distant, indistinct grunt of acknowledgement.
'A letter for you, Dr Guttmann,'Johnny called softly.
'What…?'
'A letter for you under the door.'
'Who is it… what time is it…?'
Johnny heard no more. Away down the corridor, light- footed to the lift. The old man would not be quick to find his light switch, stumble to the door, turn the key. If he bothered to search for the carrier of the letter then he would find only a corridor frightening in its emptiness.
Johnny dropped into an armchair across the hallway from the restaurant. He made himself comfortable and waited for the breakfast service to begin.
'What should we do?'
Erica was by the window, a willow figure in a long cotton nightdress.
The letter was in her hand, the photographs were spread on the low table beside the easy chair. Erica was pale and her lips bit tight.
' I have to go to the bridge, as I am told.'
Otto Guttmann stood in the centre of his daughter's room. His dressing gown hung from his thin shoulders, his hair wisped and straggling, his eyes confused.
'What if it is a trick…?'
' It is Willi in the photograph.'
' It's horrible, evil… the people who have done this
'They know that I will follow, to find Willi.'
'Who would tell us that he is alive, who would tell us in this way?'
She gazed into her father's face and her hair that was not combed fell across her cheeks. Erica who was his leaning staff at Padolsk, on whom he depended. Erica as fearful as a child in a darkened house.
A smile broke the smoothness of the skin at his mouth. 'The pictures are taken in London… in the centre of a NATO capital. If they are not a fraud then Willi has gone to the military opponent of the Soviet Union.'
Her fingers crumpled the single sheet of paper, dropped it to the carpet.
'Then Willi is a traitor
'That is how he would be seen by many.'
'What will they want of you?'
' I don't know,' the old man said simply.
'They will want your mind.'
' I don't know.'
'What are you going to do?'
' I must go to the bridge.' Spoken with tenderness, spoken by a man who has seen the precipices of grief and does not believe he can be hurt any further.
'You can go to Renate's friend, to the Schutzpolizei…'
'Then I have disobeyed the instruction.'
' It is your duty to go to the police… to the Spitzer…'
'Then I do not see Willi.'
' If it is not reported, then we have joined the conspiracy, you see that?'
' I am too old to be afraid.'
'Willi is with our enemy…'
'In the photograph Willi is happy, as if he has found friends..
She came quickly to him. The slender arms circled his neck, the softness of her mouth nuzzled against his bristled chin.
' I will come with you to the bridge.'
They stood together a long time, drawing on each other's courage, and the photographs lay on the table, and Willi's smile was with them. They could hear his voice and see his face in laughter. Willi's presence was overwhelming. Their cheeks were damp when at last they broke apart to begin to prepare to face the day.
