'It's nothing to do with me,' said Zena. 'Ask him for yourself.'

'We need all the help we can get,' Werner told her gently.

'The son has gone to live with Stinnes's first wife. He's gone to live in Russia.'

'You're way ahead of us there, Zena,' I admitted. 'There was nothing about a first wife on the computer.'

She showed obvious pleasure at this. 'He's had only one child. The first wife was Russian. The marriage was dissolved a long time ago. For the last year or so the son has been living with Stinnes and his second wife. He wanted to learn German. Now he's gone back to live with his mother in Moscow. She has a relative who thinks he can get the boy a place at Moscow University, so the boy rushed off to Moscow immediately. He's obviously frantic to go to university.'

'If you were him you'd be frantic too,' I said. 'Secondary-school graduates who fail to get a place in a university are sent to do manual or clerical work in any farm or factory where workers are needed. Furthermore he'd become liable for military service; but university students are exempted.'

'The mother has contacts in Moscow. She'll get her son a place.'

'Is Stinnes attached to the boy?' I said. I was amazed at how much she'd been able to wheedle out of the taciturn Erich Stinnes. 'They quarrel a lot,' said Zena. 'He is at the age when sons quarrel with their fathers. It is nature's way of making the fledglings fly from the nest.'

'So you think Stinnes will come?' said Werner. His attitude to the Stinnes enrolment was still ambivalent.

'I don't know,' said Zena. I could see she resented the way in which Werner had pressed her to reveal these things about Stinnes. She felt perhaps that it was all information that London Central should pay for. 'He's still thinking about it. But if he doesn't come it won't be because of his wife or his son.'

'What will be the deciding factor, then?' I said. I picked up the coffee-pot. 'Anyone else for more coffee?'

Werner shook his head. Zena pushed her cup towards me but my casual attitude didn't make her any happier about providing me with free information. 'He's forty years old,' said Zena. 'Isn't that the age when men are supposed to suffer some mid-term life crisis?'

'Is it?' I said.

'Isn't it the age at which men ask themselves what they have achieved, and wonder if they chose the right job?' said Zena.

'And the right wife? And the right son?' I said.

Zena gave a sour smile of assent.

'And don't women have the same sort of mid-term life crisis?' asked Werner.

'They have it at twenty-nine,' said Zena and smiled.

'I think he'll do it,' said Werner. 'I've been telling Bernie that. I've changed my mind about him. I think he'll come over to us.' Werner still didn't sound too happy at the prospect.

'You should offer him a proper job,' said Zena. 'For a man like Stinnes a quarter-million-dollar retirement plan is not much better than offering him a burial plot. You should make him feel he's coming over to do something important. You must make him feel needed.'

'Yes,' I said. Such psychology had obviously worked well for her with Werner. And I remembered the way in which my wife had been enrolled with the promise of colonel's rank and a real job behind a desk with people like Stinnes to do her bidding. 'But what could we offer him? He's not spent the last ten years as a capitalist mole. If he comes to the West it will be because he is apolitical. He likes being a policeman.'

'Policeman?' said Zena with a hoot of derision. 'Is that what you all call yourselves? You think you're just a lot of fat old cops helping old ladies across the road and telling the tourists how to get back to the bus station.'

'That will do,' said Werner in one of his rare admonitions.

'You're all the same,' said Zena. 'You, Bernie, Stinnes, Frank Harrington, Dicky Cruyer… all the ones I've ever met. All little boys playing cowboys.'

'I said cut it out,' said Werner. I suspected he was angry more because I was present to witness her outburst than because she hadn't said it all before many times.

'Bang, bang,' said Zena, playing cowboys.

'A quarter of a million dollars,' said Werner. 'London must want him awfully badly.'

'I found something in Stinnes's car,' said Zena.

'What did you find?' said Werner.

'I'll show you,' said Zena. She went across to the glass-fronted cabinet in which Werner used to keep his scale model of the Dornier Do X flying boat. Now, like all his aircraft models, it was relegated to the storeroom in the basement, and Zena had a display of china animals there. From behind them she got a large brown envelope. 'Take a look at that,' she said, pulling some typed sheets from the envelope and sliding them across the table. I took one and passed another to Werner, who was sitting on the sofa.

There were five sheets of grey pulp paper. Both sides were covered with single-spaced typing. The copies were produced on a stencil duplicator of a type seldom seen nowadays in Western countries but still commonly used in the East. I studied the sheets under the light, for some of the lettering was broken and on the grey paper I found it difficult to read, but such Russian security documents were predictable enough for me to guess at the parts I could not read or couldn't understand.

'What is it about?' said Zena. 'I can't read Russian. Does that mean secret?'

'Where exactly did you get this?' I asked her.

'From Stinnes's car. I was sitting in the back and so I felt inside all those pockets those old-fashioned cars have. I found old pencils and some hairpins and these papers.'

'And you took it?'

Werner looked up expectantly.

'I put it in my handbag. No one saw me, if that's what's worrying you. Does that mean secret?' she asked again. She pointed to a large, red-inked, rubber-stamp mark that had been applied to the copies.

'Yes, secret,' I said. 'But there is nothing here that makes it worth phoning the White House and getting the President out of bed.'

'What is it?'

'The top heading says "Group of Soviet Forces in Germany", which is the official name for all the Russian army units there, and the reference number. The second line is the title of the document: 'Supplementary Instructions Concerning Counter-intelligence Duties of State Security Organs'. Then there comes this long preamble which is standard for this sort of document. It says, "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union traces the Soviet people's way in the struggle for the victory of communism. The Party guides and directs the forces of the nation and the organs of state security. " '

'What's it about?' said Zena impatiently.

'It's half-way down the page before it gets down to business. These numbered paragraphs are headed 'Instructions for KGB unit commanders in their relationship with commanders of army units to which they are attached'. It says be firm and polite and cooperate… that sort of crap that all government clerks everywhere churn out by the ream. Then the next lot of paragraphs is headed "Duties of Special Departments" and it instructs KGB officers about likely means that imperialist intelligence forces are currently using to obtain Russian secrets.'

'What sort of methods?' said Zena.

'Two of the paragraphs give details of people discovered spying. One was in a factory and the other near a missile site. Neither example is what would normally be called espionage. One is a man who seems to have run into a forbidden zone after his dog, and the other case is a man taking photos without a permit.'

'You're trying to say that this paper I've brought you is just rubbish. I don't believe you.'

'Then ask Werner. Your husband knows more Russian than I do.'

'Bernie has translated it perfectly,' said Werner.

'So you think it's rubbish too,' said Zena. Her disappointment had made her angry.