Spy Line Read Free

found dead in a barrack room in Hamburg. The inquest said it was an accident. Rudi never mentioned it but everyone knew that he’d blamed himself. His wife left him and he’d never been the same again after losing the boy: his eyes had lost their sheen, they’d become hard and glittering. ‘And I thought you’d cut out the smoking,’ he said.
    ‘I do it all the time.’
    ‘Cigars are not so dangerous,’ he said and puffed contentedly.
    ‘Nothing else then?’ I persisted. ‘No other news?’
    ‘Deputy Führer Hess died…’ he said sarcastically. ‘He used to live in Wilhelmstrasse – number forty-six – after he moved to Spandau we saw very little of him.’
    ‘I’m serious,’ I persisted.
    ‘Then I must tell you the real hot news, Bernd: you! People are saying that some maniac drove a truck at you when you were crossing Waltersdorfer Chaussee. At speed! Nearly killed you, they say.’
    I stared at him. I said nothing.
    He sniffed and said, ‘People asked what was a nice boy like Bernd Samson doing down there where the world ends. Nothing there but that ancient checkpoint. You can’t get anywhere down there: you can’t even get to Waltersdorfer, there’s a Wall in the way.’
    ‘What did you say?’ I asked.
    ‘I’ll tell you what’s there, I told them. Memories.’ He smoked his cigar and scrutinized the burning end of it as a philatelist might study a rare stamp. ‘Memories,’ he said again. ‘Was I right, Bernd?’
    ‘Where’s Waltersdorfer Chaussee?’ I said. ‘Is that one of those fancy streets in Nikolassee?’
    ‘Rudow. They buried that fellow Max Busby in the graveyard down there, if I remember rightly. It took a lot of wheeling and dealing to get the body back. When they shoot someone on their side of the Wall they don’t usually prove very cooperative about the remains.’
    ‘Is that so?’ I said. I kept hoping he’d insist upon me having another shot of his whisky but he didn’t.
    ‘Ever get scared, Bernd? Ever wake up at night and fancy you hear the footsteps in the hall?’
    ‘Scared of what?’
    ‘I heard your own people have a warrant out for you.’
    ‘Did you?’
    ‘Berlin is not a good town for a man on the run,’ he said reflectively, almost as if I wasn’t there. ‘Your people and the Americans still have military powers. They can censor mail, tap phones and jail anyone they want out of the way. They even have the death penalty at their disposal.’ He looked at me as if a thought had suddenly come into his mind. ‘Did you see that item in the newspaper about the residents of Gatow taking their complaints about the British army to the High Court in London? Apparently the British army commander in Berlin told the court that since he was the legitimate successor to Hitler he could do anything he wished.’ A tiny smile as if it caused him pain. ‘Berlin is not a good place for a man on the run, Bernd.’
    ‘Who says I’m on the run?’
    ‘You’re the only man I know who both sides would be pleased to be rid of,’ said Rudi. Perhaps he’d had a specially bad day. There was a streak of cruelty in him and it was never far from the surface. ‘If you were found dead tonight there’d be ten thousand suspects: KGB, CIA, even your own people.’ A chuckle. ‘How did you make so many enemies, Bernd?’
    ‘I don’t have any enemies, Rudi,’ I said. ‘Not that kind of enemies.’
    ‘Then why do you come here dressed in those old clothes and with a gun in your pocket?’ I said nothing, I didn’t even move. So he’d noticed the pistol, that was damned careless of me. I was losing my touch. ‘Frightened of being robbed, Bernd? I can understand it; seeing how prosperous you are looking these days.’
    ‘You’ve had your fun, Rudi,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what I want to know, so I can go home and get some sleep.’
    ‘And what do you want to know?’
    ‘Where the hell has Lange Koby gone?’
    ‘I told you, I don’t know. Why should I know anything