'Fiona sent a message. She says she'll let me keep the children here for a year, but she wants me to prevent the Stinnes enrolment.'

'Prevent it?'

'Not encourage it.'

'Why? Did it really come from her, or is it a KGB move?'

'I don't know, Werner. I keep trying to put myself in her place. I keep trying to guess what she might do. She loves the children, Werner, but she'll want to impress her new masters. She's given her whole life to them, hasn't she, her career, her family, her marriage? She's given more of herself to Moscow than she ever gave to the children.'

'Stinnes is involved,' said Werner. 'The black girl was briefed by Stinnes. I saw them together.'

'Let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe Stinnes isn't told the whole plan. If they know he's seeing you when he comes West they might deliberately keep him in the dark.' I took off my glasses and cupped my hands over my eyes to spend a moment in the dark. I felt very tired. Even the prospect of a drive back to London was daunting. Surely the existence of this safe house must have been something that Fiona had revealed to them. What else had she told them, and what else might she tell them? MacKenzie was upstairs dead, but I still had trouble believing it. My stomach was knotted with tension, and even the drink didn't relax me, or remove from my mouth the rancid taste of fear.

A sudden noise outside made me jump. I got to my feet and listened, but it was only one of the revellers falling over a rubbish bin. I sat down again and sipped my drink. I closed my eyes for a moment. Sleep was what I needed. When I woke up it would all be different. MacKenzie would be alive, and Fiona would be at home with the children, waiting for me.

'You can't just sit here all night draining that bottle of gin, Bernard. You'll have to tell the department.'

'The trouble is, Werner, I didn't tell them about the black girl.'

'But you told MacKenzie to find her.'

'I kept it all unofficial.'

'You're a bloody fool, Beraie.' Werner had always believed that he could do my job better than I did it, and every now and again something happened to encourage him in that delusion. 'A bloody fool.'

'Now you tell me.'

'You make trouble for yourself. Why didn't you tell them?'

'I went into the office fully intending to. Then Bret started droning on, and Frank Harrington was there to play the heavy father. I just let it slide.'

'This is murder. A departmental employee, in a safe house, with KGB involvement. You can't let this one slide, Bernard.'

I looked at Werner. He'd described the situation concisely, and in just the way the KGB operation planners had no doubt seen it. Well, the only thing they didn't allow for is that I might avoid the consequences by keeping my mouth tightly shut. 'That's not all of it,' I said. 'The black girl made me drive out to London Airport. When I was there Fiona got into the back of the car. I couldn't get a look at her but it was her, no doubt of that. I'd recognize her voice anywhere. The stuff about the kids came from her direct. The black girl was with her. She heard what was said, so I suppose it was all KGB-approved.'

I expected Werner to be as astonished as I'd been but he took it very calmly. 'I guessed it might be something like that.'

'How did you guess?'

'You saw the electric hair-rollers upstairs. Rollers to change a hairstyle. There were a lot of cosmetics too. Cosmetics no black girl could use. And hair dye. When you didn't draw attention to them I realized that you knew there was another woman. It had to be Fiona. She came here to make her hair curly, and colour it so she wouldn't be recognized.'

'You're not just a pretty face, Werner,' I said with genuine admiration.

'You don't really imagine you're going to be able to prevent all this emerging from an investigation of MacKenzie's death?'

'I don't know, Werner. But I'll try.' Werner stared at me, trying to see if I was frightened. I was scared stiff but I did everything I could to conceal it.

I wished that Werner would change the subject, but he persisted. 'And when MacKenzie got here he'd be sure to recognize Fiona. That would be sufficient reason why he was killed. They didn't want him to report her. They wanted you to do it. Or maybe wanted you to not report her so that the eventual consequences would be worse for you.'

'Let's not get too subtle. The KGB are not noted for subtlety.'

'You'd better rethink that one,' said Werner. Tour wife is working for them now and she's rewriting the book.'

'Do you see evidence of that?'

'Bernie, she knows that she could never get you to defect, so she's not wasting any time trying. Instead she's doing the next best thing; she's persuading the department that you've already changed sides. In that way she will get you removed from Operations and maybe removed from the department completely.'

'Because the KGB see me as their most dangerous enemy?' I said sarcastically.

'No, because Fiona sees you as her most dangerous enemy. You know her better than anyone. You know how she thinks. You're the obstacle, the one person who is likely to understand what she gets up to.'

Perhaps Werner was right. Just as I was frightened of how Fiona could use all her knowledge of me against me, so I suppose she had the same fear of what I might do against her. The trouble was that, while our marriage had left her well aware of all my weaknesses, it had taught me only that she had none. I said, That's why I don't feel like reporting any of this to London Central. They'll say it's evidence of my being pressured and they'll keep asking me what I was under pressure about and eventually I'll find myself telling them about Fiona meeting me at the airport. And then I'll be suspended from duty pending investigations.' I put the cap on the gin bottle, wiped it clean of prints, then washed up the glasses and put them back. I wanted to be active; sitting there talking to Werner was making me twitchy. 'You can see this place is regularly maintained. Someone will find the body and report through the normal channels. Much better that way, Werner.'

But Werner was unrelenting. 'I'll do whatever you ask, Bernie. But I think you should go back to London Central and tell them everything.'

'Have you left any marks anywhere?'

'A few places. But I know which places.'

'Look at that,' I said, holding up the watch crystal. 'Some bastard planted it upstairs near the body so it would be found by the investigating officer.'

'I saw you pick it up. Yours, is it?'

I nodded and put the watch glass back into my pocket. 'Let's clean up and get out of here, Werner. Suppose we take the flight to Berlin tomorrow morning. Would that suit you? This will be a good time for me to be away from the office.'

Werner looked at me and nodded. I was frequently complaining of the way Dicky absented himself from the office at any sign of trouble. The way in which I was now running away from trouble offended Werner's sense of duty.

'What else?' said Werner suspiciously. 'I can see there's something more. You might as well tell me now.' He massaged his cheek as if trying to keep awake.

It was not easy to hide my thoughts from Werner. 'London Central want to put you back on their payroll. Ten thousand sterling on account; regular monthly payments plus expenses against signature. You know the score, Werner.'

The sloppy cement of Werner's face set into that inscrutable concrete expression he wore to prevent anyone discovering that he was happy. 'And?'

'They want you to take a short reconnaissance into the East and see what you can find out about Stinnes.'

'For instance?'

'His marriage; is it really on the rocks? What is his reputation? Was he really passed over for promotion or is that just a yarn?'

'Is that all?' said Werner with heavy sarcasm. His face was very mobile now, and he moved his lips to wet them, as if his mouth had gone suddenly dry at the thought of the risks. 'Any advice from London Central about how I should go about discovering all the intimate secrets of the KGB? This is not a US base on visitors' day. They don't have press officers over there, handing out typewritten releases and glossy photos you can reproduce without fee, and maps of the military installations in case visitors get lost.' He took a mouthful of the gin. Necessity had overcome his dislike of the flavour.