shuddered with cold and self-pity and fear. England continued to slide beneath the sea like a damaged vessel.
He turned his back on it, and went forward again, towards the lights and noise and sleepers in the lounge.
The British Airways Trident dropped out of the low, clinging grey cloud only hundreds of feet above the runways of Flughafen Koln-Bonn. No more than minutes later, Massinger and his wife were hurrying across twenty yards of cold tarmac to the terminal building from the aircraft. As she followed Massinger, who moved urgently yet without real purpose, Margaret puzzled at his strange, withdrawn mood, his constant half-smiles tinged with guilty sadness, his reassuring pats on the back of her hand. He seemed to wish to comfort her — or was it that he wished to promise something? Margaret was confused. Paul seemed distracted rather than tense or excited. For herself, she was relaxed after the tensions of their flight from Heathrow. She knew that no one was especially interested in them, that there would be, in all probability, no secret watchers. But she had not been able to believe it, not for whole calm minutes at once. Small tensions heated her body, tickled or twitched at her arms and legs and face. She hated Paul's secret world until they boarded their flight and the Trident lifted into the anonymity of grey cloud, then through to a uniformly blue sky above a white cloud-carpet. Then, with a gin and tonic, she had begun to relax.
But Paul—? She could not tell what seemed to be driving him. He had spent most of the night at the Australian's flat in Earl's Court, using the untapped telephone to talk to Wolfgang Zimmermann. Shelley had been there, too. Margaret had been unable to rest. She had packed and repacked in an attempt at self-therapy until Paul had returned to Wilton Crescent.
The passenger lounge was warm, as was the baggage hall. Their suitcases inched towards them along a conveyor belt, the building around them whispered and purred in its efficiency. Paul Massinger stood near his wife, intensely aware of her even as he concentrated on their suitcases, wobbling like targets pulled on wires across a shooting range. Now that he appeared even to himself to be safely out of England, his guilt had increased sharply, like the return of a virus. He knew he had to establish the truth of Castleford's death, and that he had to persuade Wolfgang Zimmermann to help him. He had to know. By knowledge, by the truth alone, could he repay his wife's loyalty, her decision to throw in her lot with him, believing as she did that he was helping the man who had murdered her father. To repay that…
There was only one way. The truth, even if the truth damned Aubrey.
'Mr Massinger?' a slightly-accented voice enquired beside him. His body jumped with surprise. He turned. 'I'm Wolfgang Zimmermann,' the tall man offered, handing Massinger his ID with what appeared to be amusement. Then the German took off his fur hat, doffing it to Margaret. 'Mrs Massinger — welcome to the Federal Republic.' His identification of the political reality of West Germany was formal yet intense. Zimmermann's diffidence, Massinger guessed, was little more than superficial. Massinger shook his hand warmly.
'Thank you for meeting us — thank you for your offer of help,' he said, smiling.
Zimmermann released his hand. He stood perhaps two inches taller than the American. Massinger could see in him the ability and charm that had, at one time, made him indispensible to ex-Chancellor Vogel. He could also see a sleepless night in the smudges beneath his keen blue eyes. 'I have made a start,' Zimmermann offered. 'There is, as you will imagine, a great deal of material to cover. I have my car outside. I will drive you to your hotel. I thought we might set up our headquarters—' Again, there was the persistence of some secret amusement in Zimmermann, as if the disappointment of his political hopes in the collapse of the Berlin Treaty had left him detached from, and amused at, the antics of the body politic. ' — if Mrs Massinger has no objections, of course?' he added.
Margaret smiled and shook her head. Then she said, 'I've come to help, if I can. Paul's life is in danger until this business is cleared up.' She looked at Zimmermann levelly.
'Quite,' he agreed with a slight bow. 'Come, I will take one of the suitcases, and we shall make our way to the car park.' He picked up Margaret's pale blue leather case and went ahead of them.
Outside the airport buildings, the wind clipped and tousled them coldly. There was snow in the air. Zimmermann led them to a grey Mercedes and unlocked the rear door, gesturing them in.
A minute later, he turned the car south-west onto the autobahn to the Rhine and Bonn. Beside Zimmermann on the passenger seat, Massinger saw a heaped, neat pile of folders, envelopes and ring-binders. As if sensing his curiosity, Zimmermann patted the heap.
'A little preliminary sifting,' he explained with a chuckle. 'The BfV, fortunately, do not keep as much paper from the past as the Abwehr once did. You, Mr Massinger, were too young for G-2?'
'Post-war experience only,' Massinger agreed.
'CIA. A somewhat distinguished record.'
'You've checked of course.'
'My apologies. My curiosity, not my suspicious nature. My old acquaintance Aubrey is lucky to have you for a friend.' He was silent for a time, as if studying the heavy midday traffic, then he added: 'As I, too, was lucky to have him — a man of such skill and such loyalty. I was very saddened — even alarmed — at what recently occurred. Surely your MI5 does not really believe it? It is — quite preposterous.'
'As was your own frame-up by the Chinese — and the Americans,' Massinger snapped, leaning forward in his seat.
'Out of bounds — I'm sorry,' Zimmermann said.
'I apologise.'
'Don't mention it.'
They drove on towards Bonn in silence for a time. An airport bus rushed past them. As always, the newness of most of the cars struck Massinger. They were worn on the country's roads and autobahns like badges of merit and success, even with the German economy in a recession.
Evidently, Zimmermann regarded his own experiences as verboten, even though they so nearly parallelled those of Aubrey. Someone was framing the head of SIS just as someone had tried to frame Zimmermann as a Russian agent. Zimmermann had survived, in part because Aubrey exposed the frame-up — but Aubrey would not survive his trap. Unless—
Zimmermann had been labelled, during his crisis, as a second Gunther Guillaume. And it was the last days of freedom of that same Gunther Guillaume that might hold the truth of
Zimmermann was speaking once more.
'… a number of areas of interest, Mr Massinger. The World Cup was, of course, a time of detailed cooperation. My service was most concerned to avoid a repetition of '72 in Munich — at all costs to prevent such another tragedy. There were a number of people, apart from Mr Aubrey, in and out of Bonn over a period of weeks, even months. Also, there was, I gather, some internal investigation in the British embassy, regarding accounts or funding — I'm not sure of the details. No security implications, however…'
Massinger listened with a polite, non-committal half-attention while he considered how he might raise the subject of Berlin and Castleford's murder. Surely there must be people still in BfV who might have been there, people Aubrey had used? He had to do it. Now, more than ever, he owed it to Margaret.
They crossed the Rhine via the Kennedybrucke. The river was stormily grey beneath the leaden, snow-filled sky. Massinger noticed that the windscreen wipers of the Mercedes had been switched to intermittent, clearing the first snow flakes. Mistily, wintrily, the group of buildings that comprised the federal parliament, the Bundeshaus, and the residences of the Chancellor and the President appeared white and isolated in their parkland on the far bank. Massinger watched as Zimmermann's head turned sharply, then straightened to look ahead once more. It was the glance of an exile.
A minute later, Zimmermann was turning the car off the Adenauerallee into the forecourt of the Hotel Konigshof. Ten minutes after that, the three of them were ensconced in a spacious suite that looked towards the river — black long barges sliding through the tactile-looking steel-grey water — the heap of files and envelopes spread out on the large low coffee-table. Zimmermann, having carried the documents to their suite, showed no inclination to leave. Massinger felt himself organised, playing a subordinate role; a fact for which he felt a strange gratitude, as if his burden had been lightened. Margaret seemed prepared to begin working to Zimmermann's direction like someone drafted in to do an unpleasant, even distasteful job. Someone who was stoically determined to see the matter through.
She poured drinks for them — a gin and tonic and two whiskies. Then they seated themselves around the heaped files, as if ready to open the parcels that contained their belated Christmas presents.
