'You are my wife and I love you: that's why. And I don't hate this apartment.'

'Of course you don't. How could you? You're hardly ever here.'

'I'm trying to help you.'

'This belief that Dicky is about to barge in here and ransack the apartment . . . Is that anything to do with the suitcase you removed and took with you yesterday?'

'There were personal things of mine that I've now stored elsewhere. Things I wouldn't want Dicky rummaging through.'

'Things the Department might not approve of?'

'About a thousand quid in foreign currency, plus fifty gold sovereigns my father left me. My father's moth-eaten army tunic. Some forged identity papers, some documents that could incriminate old friends, or get them into bad odor. My parents' wedding photos and a leather-bound copy of Die schöne Müllerin that was a present from the von Munte library. A couple of handguns — one of them Dad's army-issue Webley — and some ancient ammunition.'

Her face softened. 'I didn't mean to pry, Bernard. I'm sorry. I get upset.' She pulled out the chair, sat down and sipped more of her tonic water. Then she gave me her attention in a softer and more friendly way. 'What's it a1l about, Bernard? Why would they want to sequester George's possessions? What do you think might be behind it?'

'I don't know, Fi, and that's the truth. But it's probably something to do with Tessa's death. That's the only connection that could link George to the Stasi.'

'You were there. when Tessa was killed,' said Fiona.

'We were both there,' I pointed out gently. 'But why was Tessa there?'

'You brought her with you in the van.'

'I know, but she was meant to be there, M. Soon after I left the party at Tante Lisl's there was a man looking for her. He had a motorbike and he turned up at the Brandenburg exit. I think he'd arranged to take Tessa there.'

'But why was she there?'

'She had some strange friends, Fi, you know she did. And she was taking some kind of dope. I think it was coming to her through one of the Stasi people. Someone wanted her there and arranged for her to be there, but whether the man on the motorbike was one of our people I still don't know. He might have been one of Tessa's casual affairs. You know how batty she could be.'

'I let the family down,' said Fiona. 'If I'd been here with her, it might have all turned out differently. Yes, she probably was on some kind of dope. I've been reluctant to face it, but it goes back a long time . . .'

'Stasi agents talked to George in Zurich. Polish Bezpieca too, I suspect.'

'That's what Dicky said.'

'George was moved so smoothly from Zurich to Warsaw. Really professional job. No trace of tickets or paper or witnesses.'

'Dicky has our people in Berne still looking.'

'Don't hold your breath: Berne will find nothing. It was beautifully done; not in their league.'

'Not so beautifully done, if you tracked him down to his brother's house.'

Clever, logical Fiona; I wondered if she was going to bring that up. 'A lucky guess. I picked up the trail. Suddenly I hear about him getting drunk in Warsaw bars and making a nuisance of himself. He must have broken away from his minders.'

'Wouldn't his minders have grabbed him back?'

'Not if they were Germans. Germans, even Stasi, tread warily in Poland. And George's brother Stefan is still influential there. I think George escaped from his Stasi minders, and made such a nuisance of himself that they backed off to watch what happened.'

'And killed him?'

'There's nothing conclusive to say that George is dead. Everything we saw in Poland points to a lot of phony clues to make us think he's dead. Or make someone else think that.'

'Clues left by his Stasi minders? But you were not fooled.'

'Pros who can spirit George out of Zurich to Warsaw without leaving a trace are not the sort of dudes who leave a wristwatch, a laced and tied brogue shoe and a decomposing foot as evidence of death.'

'So who arranged it?'

'It could be George himself.'

'How could George arrange for the death certificate?'

'Oh, Stefan is in on it, of course. Stefan has a lot of clout and Stefan's wife is the daughter of some top-brass Party official. And this is Poland we're talking about. Germans are not popular there, German communists are heartily despised. If a big shot like Stefan wants a death certificate so that his brother can escape the clutches of the Stasi, what Pole is going to say no?'

'Dicky will riot when he hears all this,' she said sadly. Despite all her experience, Fiona was reluctant to believe that death certificates could be fixed; even in Poland. Sometimes I wondered whether it was university education that produced that kind of unquestioning belief in signed pieces of paper.

'So don't tell him,' I suggested.

'But darling . . .'

'This is Tessa's husband we are talking about. If George wants to be written off as dead, he must have a good reason for it, He's family.'

'It's not right to mislead Dicky,' she said.

'No one's misleading him, he's chock-full of theories. If you persuade Dicky that George is alive, Dicky will rush out a long and elaborate report saying so. Dozens of people will have access to it. One word in the wrong place could put George in jeopardy.'

'From what you've told me, the faked death won't fool any experienced Polish police investigator for longer than two minutes.'

'That depends on whether the Polish investigator wants the truth to be known. Stefan is a fixer. He no doubt fixed the cops at the same time as he fixed the death certificate.' She sighed. 'I suppose you could be right. But I feel very uneasy keeping this from the Department. We're supposed to be loyal employees. We've signed the Official Secrets Act, and our contracts . . . I mean, darling!'

'I went to see Harry Strang.'

'With the children?'

'Yes, with the children.'

'I wondered how it could have taken you so long to get to your mother. How was he?'

'Up to his eyebrows in pig shit, but he seems to like it.'

Some people do. And let's face it, would that make much of a change for any of us?' Wow — this was Fiona showing her feelings; something that didn't happen often. 'And his son was with him?'

'Son?'

'The retarded one. Tommy. He must be grown up by now.'

'I didn't know Harry had a son.'

'How can you be so thick, Bernard? Harry's wife had a nervous breakdown after the baby's condition was diagnosed. That's why they split up. It's every mother's nightmare. There wasn't any kind of a row between the two of them; his wife just couldn't take it. Little Tommy. It was a tragedy. After that, Harry gave every spare minute of his life to looking after the child.'

'I didn't know,' I said.

'So why did you go down there? He obviously isn't your closest old pal.'

'Over that period . . . That time when they brought you out of the DDR, Harry Strang was filling in as the personal assistant to the D-G.'

'Yes, of course. Morgan was sick.'

'He had an arse filled with lead shot. Harry says the old man had no meetings about you, or your escape.'

'But would Harry tell you?'

'He'd been warned off, I think. Top-floor alarm bells have been ringing. Recently.'

'If you've been roaring around making inquiries about how they brought me out . . . Of course they are alarmed. I'm not surprised at that.'

'No meetings, Fi! Are you listening? The D-G had no meetings. I've already had one of the Night Duty people go to his office and take a look at the old man's appointments and desk diary, and that confirmed it.'

There came a sharp intake of breath to let me know that getting a pal to sneak a look at Sir Henry's personal appointment book and diary was not playing the game, so I didn't tell her that I'd also phoned Mrs. Porter, Uncle Silas's housekeeper, and discovered that there were indeed meetings — one particularly long meeting — between Silas and the D-G immediately before they spirited Fiona out of the East.