Something in what I'd said or done — or failed to say or do — seemed to outrage Dicky. Perhaps he was expecting that his one demonstration of manly daring should bring expressions of admiration and respect. He seemed to forget Gloria's presence. 'You won't be told, will you?' he said, pushing his face very close to mine but keeping his voice soft and low in a studied demonstration of restraint. 'I suppose you expect me to believe that George Kosinski bolting at exactly the same time that the stock market crashed is pure coincidence?'

'Tell me, Dicky,' I said, 'do you think that London getting hit by a hurricane, at exactly the same time that the stock market crashed, is something more than just coincidence?'

'You're determined to believe that George Kosinski is still alive; not because you want to spare the feelings of his friends or relatives but just to prove that you are the clever one. You just have to show us that you remain skeptical, while all of us dullards are sucked in to some conspiracy . . . or whatever it is you think is going on.'

'I just said I'd take the hand — '

'I know what you bloody said,' said Dicky. 'It's your whole superior attitude that gets up my nose. Now will you look at that hand?' He pointed at it as if without his help my attention might be drawn elsewhere. I looked at it. 'Do you see the signet ring? Look at the Kosinski family crest. It belongs to George Kosinski, and we both know that. Didn't I hear you say it's there because the fmgers are too swollen to get it off? Now will you see sense?'

'I hear what you're saying, Dicky.' I spoke slowly and soberly in the hope that it would cool him down. 'But the trouble I have with that is that the last time we saw George Kosinski's signet ring it was in the palm of Stefan Kosinski's hand, and he was telling us that he'd just brought it back from the police station where the cops were holding the murderers.'

'But it's the same ring,' said Dicky, and all the wind went out of him.

'The same crest, yes. I'm not so sure about the ring. Gold signet rings are usually pretty much the same for everyone in the family.'

'Oh yes, of course.'

'I'll ask the lab to remove it,' I said. 'We can get a closer look at it then. Perhaps the size will show whether it belongs to some other member of the family. There may even be an engraved inscription on the inner side.'

8

SIS Offices, Berlin.

'Hold on, Bernard, hold on. I'm just a simple old desk wallah. You'll have to explain this one to me. You say this chap was a Stasi man?'

'Looks like it, Frank,' I said. Frank raised an eyebrow. 'Dashed in, and grabbed this amputated fist or whatever it was?'

'Yes, a hand.'

'Well, why?' He leaned back in his chair. Frank Harrington never seemed to grow older. His countenance, pale, stern and bony, and the stubble moustache he'd cultivated to make himself look more military, had given him this same appearance decades ago, when I was a child and he was an indulgent 'uncle.'

'I don't exactly know, Frank.'

'You don't exactly know, Bernard? I won't write that down, because when you say you don't exactly know in that tone of voice, I am quite confident that you have a clever theory of some kind.'

'I can only think that someone was keen to prevent the severed hand going to the forensic lab.'

'Because?'

'Perhaps they didn't want us to establish for certain that the hand wasn't that of George Kosinski.'

'But they didn't stop us,' argued Frank. 'The hand went to the lab, and we didn't find out that it wasn't George Kosinski's, did we?'

'The lab said they couldn't make an identification. The flesh was too soft.'

'Well then. How does your theory hold together?'

I assume that someone was afraid the lab would say categorically that it wasn't the hand of George Kosinski.'

'That's quite a long leap, Bernard. I mean: we still don't know for certain that it's not.'

'That's right,' I said.

'You mean perhaps it was a double bluff? They give us the hand, then pretend to want it back, because that will make us think it, belongs to George Kosinski?'

'Perhaps,' I said.

'Perhaps . . .' Frank reached for a wooden pencil, one of a dozen or so he liked to keep in a decorative drinking mug emblazoned with a talking doughnut proclaiming itself lecker locker leicht — tasty, spongy and light. He used the pencil to tap a closed dossier on his desk and give emphasis to his words. 'But I am tempted to believe that this Stasi agent . . . I visualize him as a sharp and devious fellow, always ready with a bit of double bluff or treble bluff, if that suits him. A Stasi hoodlum . . . but otherwise a bit like you, Bernard, I suspect. I am tempted to believe that his superior is a blunt old fool like me, incapable of working out in advance the sort of intricate games you youngsters like to play.

'Yes, Frank.' This was one of Frank's favored poses: the blunt, no-nonsense, pipe-smoking Englishman who had no time for knavish foreign tricks. But I knew Frank better than to fall for that. I might have been heard more than once saying that the esteemed prizes he won at University as a Classics scholar did not make him the ideal man to run the Berlin Meld Unit, but I had no doubts about Frank's agile mind. And this was Berlin: this was Frank's kingdom, and this was Frank assuming that humble manner that comes naturally to men with extensive and absolute powers.

'It's just as well you are here in Berlin, and away from it all, Bernard. Of course you'd rather be with your lovely wife . . . and your children. But in many ways it's better that you are here with me. George Kosinski being your family . . . It's not fair, not appropriate, that you should be closely involved with this rumpus about him. I'm surprised Dicky didn't see that.'

'Is that why you asked for me?'

'I didn't ask for you, Bernard,' said Frank, holding the pencil to his face, scowling as he studied it carefully, as if he'd never encountered one before.

'You said that feelingly, Frank.'

'I didn't ask for you, because I thought London would never let you go. I set my sights rather lower.' Frank dropped the pencil back amongst its fellows in the doughnut mug, and opened the brown folder he'd been tapping. 'So you've read this?'

'DELIUS? Yes, it kept me up all night.'

'Yes, it would,' said Frank. 'It's not pleasant to think that any of our people are in trouble over there. What should we do?'

'There's nothing we can do for the time being, Frank. The Stasi are waiting for our reaction. You know their methods far better than I do.'

'Perhaps.' He fingered his telephone. 'But your instincts are often good ones. I want to bring Robin into this.' He picked up the telephone handset and waved it in the air while he called the extension. 'The young man who went with you to Magdeburg. I want you to go through your thoughts while he's here with us.'

'I hope I've not come here to be the resident nursemaid, Frank.'

'Don't be a curmudgeon, Bernard. Think of all the people who played nursemaid to you when you were a youngster. We've got to mould the people who are coming up.'

'Very well, Frank. If that's what you want.' The lanky kid came in almost immediately, he must have been waiting for Frank's call. He gave me a smile that revealed his crooked teeth, but his deep polished voice was one hundred percent English upper-class. After we'd shaken hands and confirmed each other's well-being, he sat, down and I went through what little we knew about the sudden and ominous silence that had descended upon the normally very active DELIUS network operating for us in Allenstein, a small town — or more accurately a sprawling village — a few miles east of Magdeburg.