I sat down. It was all happening too quickly. I felt like vomiting but I got myself under control and looked at my watch. 'I'd better get out of here.' I hated this room. All the worst things that ever happened to me seemed to happen in this room, but I suppose that was because when something bad happened to me I came running along to Frank. I said, 'Don't you think Tarrant…'

'I gave Tarrant the evening off. Is there anything…?'

'You've done your bit already, Frank.'

'I'm sorry, Bernard.'

'What's wrong with them all, Frank? Why can't they just call the dogs off?'

'Whatever the real truth may be, you'll never get a completely clean bill of health. Not after your wife defected. Surely you can see that.'

'No, I can't.'

'Whether your alarming theory is right or whether it is wrong, the Department still can't risk it, Bernard. There were voices who wanted you sacked within hours of her going. They get the wind up when you start nosing around. It scares them. You must see how difficult it is for them.'

I got to my feet. 'Have you got any money, Frank?'

'A thousand sterling. Will that be enough?'

'I didn't reckon on being an Orange File. I thought it really was some sort of mistake. Some over-zealous interpretation of the old man's suggestion…'

'It's here in the desk.' He found the money quickly, as he'd found the tumbler and the ice and the bottle of Laphroaig. I suppose he'd had everything ready. He walked with me to the front door and looked out into the Berlin night. Perhaps he was making sure there were no men on watch. 'Take this scarf, Bernard. It's bloody cold tonight.' When I shook hands with him he said, 'Good luck, Bernard,' and was reluctant to release my hand. 'What will you do now?' he asked.

I looked at the skyline. Even from here I could see the glow from the floodlights that the DDR used to illuminate their Wall. I shrugged. I didn't know. 'I… I'm sorry… about the marks on the carpet.' I nodded my thanks and turned away.

'It doesn't matter,' said Frank. 'As long as it's not grease.'

Len Deighton was born in London in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch.

After his discharge in 1949, he went to art school – first to the St Martin's School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art on a scholarship. It was while working as a waiter in the evenings that he developed an interest in cookery – a subject he was later to make his own in an animated strip for the Observer and in two cookery books. He worked for a while as an illustrator in New York and as art director of an advertising agency in London.

Deciding it was time to settle down, Deighton moved to the Dordogne where he started work on his first book, The Ipcress File. Published in 1962, the book was an immediate and spectacular success. Since then he has published twenty books of fiction and non-fiction – including spy stories, and highly-researched war novels and histories – all of which have appeared to international acclaim.