The girl at the British Airways desk explained that there was a trade fair starting in Berlin at the weekend and most flights from Heathrow were fully booked. Jane spent two tense hours waiting for a standby and expecting all the time to hear her name called over the public address. If Cedric could find a reason for stopping her, he would. It only wanted a message from Red. So she had resolved to ignore any announcement; they would have to drag her screaming off the plane if necessary. She finally got a seat on a BA flight that was due to touch down at Berlin-Tegel at 7.20 p.m.
Some of the passengers may have suffered take-off jitters, but Jane closed her eyes and breathed evenly for the first time in many hours. Soon, she let her thoughts return to the circumstances of Dick’s death. Disbelief and outrage were supplanted by more measured reactions as she forced herself to analyse the event as Dick himself would have done. In the light of what had happened in the last forty-eight hours, the chance that he had simply made a driving error was slight. The incident had happened late in the afternoon on a remote section of the French coast. Some time that evening, Cedric had been visited in London by one of the security service and ordered to drop the Hess investigation. Were the incidents unconnected, or was there secret service involvement in Dick’s death? Had he, after all, learned something vital from the Frenchwoman he had visited? It would not be difficult to stage an ‘accident’ on a cliff road, perhaps forcing him off the edge with another vehicle. Nor was it any problem to frighten a lonely old woman into silence. Jane wasn’t going to let it rest, and nor would Red, she was certain. They would go to St Malo and find out what had really happened. To hell with Cedric and his D Notice.
By the time she had gone through the airport formalities, found a taxi and travelled to the Haselhorst district where Red lodged, it was getting dark. She was put down beside a grey tenement, one of the stark, ten-storey blocks erected in the emergency reconstruction programme of the late forties. Parts of the façade were chipped away and many of the windows were cracked. Two small boys were kicking an empty Coke can against a wall. Five more with cigarettes watched her from the interior of an abandoned Volkswagon.
The odour of stale urine hung around the entrance, but it had not discouraged a teenage couple in studded leather from choosing the foot of the stairs to explore each other’s intimate parts. Nor were they inconvenienced by Jane switching on the light – a single bulb behind a metal grille – to study the list of floors and rooms.
She started up the stone stairs, wondering if the accommodation improved as you went higher. Red’s flat was on the eighth. She prayed he would be at home. She was not sure what she would do if he wasn’t. The small amount of money she had happened to have with her, and had changed into Deutschmarks at the airport, had all gone on the taxi. There were credit cards in her bag, but she didn’t relish asking any of the locals where she could use them.
The air did improve appreciably somewhere above the third level, and there had been attempts to paint over the graffiti. She continued upwards. The eighth was not in bad shape compared with the rest. She looked for 808 and was heartened to find R. Goodbody printed on a sticky label over the doorbell.
She pressed and listened.
Pressed again.
Red was not at home.
Jane leaned against the door and moaned. She couldn’t take another setback. Be rational, she tried to tell herself. You knew he was out, or he would have answered the cable. But he’ll be back. If you pull yourself together and wait, he’ll come, some time. He’ll come. She squatted on the stone floor with her back against his door and closed her eyes. Welcome to Berlin.
When she opened them, someone had switched on a light. A female voice asked something in German that she didn’t understand.
She looked up at a girl in a blue and white tracksuit with short dark hair with silver highlights, who was staring down at her and saying something else that sounded more like an order. She was holding a sportsbag away from her, as if she meant to swing it at Jane to move her on.
Jane struggled to her feet. ‘Please, do you speak English?’
A pair of green eyes scrutinised Jane. ‘You’re from England?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you doing outside this door?’
‘Waiting for the man who lives here.’
‘Red?’
‘Yes.’
Their eyes locked as they assessed each other, a positively feral confrontation. The German girl was neat-featured, with full, sensuous lips and plenty of natural colour in her cheeks. Her breasts were prominent without running to grossness. She could probably have pulled any man she wanted, though her shoulders were too wide and she hadn’t much waist.
‘Who are you?’
‘Jane Calvert-Mead. And you?’
‘Heidrun Kassner. What do you want?’
‘I want to see Red.’
‘Have you rung the bell?’
‘Of course,’ said Jane disdainfully. ‘He isn’t in.’
Heidrun wasn’t taking that on trust. She pressed her thumb against the bellpush and kept it on for about ten seconds. When there was no response, she said sourly, ‘He ought to be in.’ She tossed her bag against the door and strolled to the end of the passage to look out of the window. There was a definite swagger to the movement. Everything in her manner wanted to assert that she shared the flat with Red, but Jane noted with satisfaction that she didn’t possess a key of her own.
After an interval to ponder the implications of Jane’s arrival, Heidrun sauntered back and asked, ‘Do you work for a newspaper?’
‘The same one as Red.’
‘Ah.’ She looked a shade less hostile. ‘Something you want to tell him? If you would like to leave a message with me, I’m going to wait for him.’
‘That’s all right. So am I,’ said Jane equably.
Heidrun gave Jane a long stare. ‘It’s getting late. You should be going home.’ She made it sound like an order.
‘My home is in England. I don’t live in Berlin.’
‘You mean you’re staying somewhere?’
‘Here.’
Heidrun tightened her mouth into a shape that was small and mean. She rested her hands on her hips and took a menacing step towards Jane. ‘I think you made a mistake.’
Jane stood with her back to the door and shook her head. She kept her hands where they were, one at her side, the other fingering a button of her jacket.
Heidrun moved her eyes slowly and calculatingly over the length of Jane’s body and then gave her a pitying look. She was about to say something else when the sound of footsteps came up the stairwell. They both turned to look. Heidrun let her arms drop.
It was Red. He saw them both as he reached the top stairs. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he said with a weary but amiable grin. ‘I was planning to wash my hair tonight.’ He approached the door and put a hand on each girl’s shoulder, lightly kissing Jane first, then Heidrun. ‘I’ve probably lost my key.’ But he found it and opened the door. ‘After you, ladies.’
Heidrun stooped to pick something off the doormat and hand it to Red. ‘This looks like a telegram.’
‘You can ignore it,’ Jane informed him. ‘It’ll be from Cedric.’
They all went through to a small kitchen.
‘Coffee, I expect,’ said Red, opening a window. ‘I’ll have a beer myself. I’ve been drinking coffee all day that came in plastic cups and tasted like chocolate.’ He filled a kettle and switched on. ‘How long were you waiting? I guess we can cut the introductions.’
Heidrun changed tactics. She was going to play hostess. She opened a cupboard ostentatiously and took out two cups. ‘Coffee for you, Jane?’
‘Please.’
‘We’re being sociable, then,’ Red observed. ‘Does that mean we hammered Moabit?’ He explained with a wink to Jane, ‘Heidrun plays table-tennis in the Berlin league. Let’s get the suspense over before we do anything else.’
‘We lost,’ said Heidrun thickly.
Red shook his head, and told Jane, ‘Heidrun’s regular partner couldn’t play tonight. He’s a prison warder.’
She gave him a glance that said she had made the connection. ‘It must be difficult playing with someone else.’ She moved closer to him and murmured in a low voice, ‘Red, something dreadful has happened. I need to talk to you alone.’
He nodded. He said in German to Heidrun, as if he were making a suggestion of profound significance, ‘Why don’t you leave the coffee to me, love? It’ll be ready when you’ve had your shower.’
A puzzled frown. Clearly the suggestion had wrong-footed Heidrun. She had probably taken a shower at the sports-hall. It may have crossed her mind that she was sweating again, and that could undermine a girl’s confidence. But she obviously decided something else was intended. She accepted it, instead, as Red’s personal invitation to claim priority as his house-guest. ‘All right.’ She flashed him a dazzling smile. ‘Thank you, darling.’
So Jane got her opportunity to summarise all that had happened. She told it out of sequence, starting with Dick’s death. Red shook his head in disbelief, as stunned as she had been. He put out his hand to hers and held it, and the contact said all that needed to be said. They were united in shock, grief and determination. Dick had died for something they had shared in and they were going to see it through.
Jane had to be brief. She outlined the facts that had come to light about Churchill’s secret meetings with the German delegations and the probability that Hess was sent to finalise a peace deal linked with a joint attack on Russia. She pointed to the evidence that something had scuppered the deal in the few days after Hess’s arrival, and she showed how she and Dick had noted what was simultaneously happening over Syria in London and Berlin. De Gaulle had miraculously got his way, and ever afterwards appeared to run rings round Churchill. So Dick had gone digging in France; and now Dick was dead.
‘… and if you read your cable from Cedric,’ she added, ‘you’ll see that the whole story is spiked. I was officially sent to make sure you got the message. The security people were on to Cedric before the news about Dick came through.’
Red said, ‘To hell with that. If Cedric wants out, we’ll go freelance. There’s no shortage of outlets for a story like this. It’s international.’
‘It’s going to be dangerous.’
‘It’s dangerous already, love. We know too much.’
Jane had to agree. If Dick could be murdered, so could they, even if they dropped the investigation. She held out her hand to Red and he squeezed it. After a moment, she murmured, ‘I think we just resigned from our job.’
He grinned. ‘That’s progress. I usually get the sack.’ Keeping hold of her hand, he said, ‘I’m bloody glad Cedric had the sense to send you.’
‘I suggested it,’ Jane told him simply.
Surprise showed briefly on his face, then something else that she didn’t see for long because he moved towards her and kissed her. And that single kiss signified more than any of their lovemaking at Henley. She returned it rapturously. She knew she was crazy to commit herself to a man who shrugged off practically all the obligations a woman was supposed to insist upon. He was a rebel, a socal liability, the guest who was never invited back, a shabby dresser, a heavy drinker, a male chauvinist and a bed-hopper. The shower spattering noisily in the next room should have been an alarm bell. Jane heard it, saw everything that threatened, and still wanted no one else.
She didn’t tell him. You didn’t say that kind of thing to Red. She said instead, ‘What are you going to do about the German girl?’
‘Heidrun?’ From the glance he made towards the bedroom door, he might have forgotten all about her. ‘Leave it to me, love.’
‘She’s expecting you to get rid of me.’
‘Bugger that,’ said Red. ‘She’s a natural competitor. You know why she’s here, don’t you?’
Jane commented coolly, ‘I take it she’s the demanding fraulein who’s been helping you with your inquiries.’
‘You’ve got it in one,’ he admitted, without a flicker of embarrassment. ‘I’m going to get some straight answers from her in a moment. She’s in deeper than I expected.’
It was a pass worthy of a matador, but Jane still smiled her scepticism.
‘On the level, darling,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve had a heavy day, and she knows why.’
He poured the coffee into two cups and took a can of beer from the fridge. ‘Something to eat?’
Jane shook her head.
‘Tired, I expect,’ he ventured.
‘Not too tired to stay and listen.’
He nodded and went towards the bathroom, thought better of it, and called out, ‘Coffee’s ready.’
‘I’m coming, darling,’ answered Heidrun in a voice that was trying to be kittenish.
Jane looked towards Red, but their eyes didn’t meet.
Heidrun appeared in a maroon-coloured bathrobe that must have belonged to Red, tied predictably loosely at the front to make an exhibition of her cleavage. She had her handbag with her and she planted it on the table and took out an eye-liner, toner and lipstick. She had given up playing hausfrau; she was the seductress now. It would be fascinating to see how Red would deal with it. ‘Don’t wait for me,’ she told them as she propped a mirror against a milk-carton. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
‘Do you have an interesting job?’ Jane asked Heidrun. It was more than a cocktail party ploy, because she had noticed that the toner had a Laszlo label. She had once inquired about their products herself and learned that they were linked to a course of skin care she could not have afforded without a major reappraisal of her spending.
‘She’s a waitress,’ Red answered for Heidrun. ‘Serves the pastries and coffee in one of the Konditorei on Spandauer Damm.’
‘Mohring,’ said Heidrun. ‘The best.’
‘I’m sure,’ Jane said tolerantly, thinking to herself that the tipping must be generous there. The handbag was white leather, and it bore the Lanvin logo in gold.
Red downed his beer and took another from the fridge. ‘You haven’t asked me why I was so late home,’ Red complained to no one in particular.
Heidrun took out a tissue and blotted her lips. She was strikingly pretty in feature, Jane had to concede. She really didn’t need to let the bathrobe gape so – nor to be quite so blatantly suggestive when she replied to Red, ‘Come on, then. Don’t keep me waiting. You know I can’t bear it.’
‘I was pulled in by the police, wasn’t I?’ said Red.
Heidrun’s mouth lost its pout and gaped. ‘The police?’
‘Those guys in green uniforms.’
‘What for?’
‘For murder.’ After a gratifying gasp from both his guests, Red added, ‘To be exact, for questioning about a murder.’ He upended the beer-can and took a long swig. ‘They held me for nearly nine hours. Rocks your confidence a bit when you take nine hours to prove your innocence.’
‘What happened? Who was murdered?’
‘Some old lady,’ Red casually answered. ‘I’ve told this so many times I’m beginning to forget how nasty it was. I’m walking up Königin Elizabeth Strasse this morning, when who do I see ahead of me but Cal Moody.’
Heidrun looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Cal?’
Red turned to Jane and explained, ‘We mentioned Cal not long ago. He’s the warder from Spandau Jail who partners Heidrun at table-tennis. Well, I’m about to catch him up and say hello, when I notice three guys taking a good look at him from the other side of the street.’ He threw a well-timed glance at Heidrun. ‘One of them was your obnoxious friend Kurt Valentin.’
She widened her eyes and played nervously with the cord of the bathrobe.
Red explained in an aside to Jane, ‘All I can tell you about Valentin is what I’ve heard from Heidrun: that he helps her with her tax-forms, and that she doesn’t actually like him.’ Then he resumed, ‘I didn’t know the other two, and, as it turned out, I’m glad I didn’t ask to be introduced. I decided to watch from a distance.’ Addressing himself mainly to Heidrun now, he gave an abridged account of the morning’s events, leaving the impression that his own part in the story was a matter of sheer chance and casual interest. ‘So I was picked up as a suspect just because I happened to choose the wrong spot to stand. They drove me off to police headquarters at Tempelhofer Damm and spent the morning firing questions at me. I kept Cal’s name right out of it. Didn’t want to land him in the shit. Well, he’s a decent guy. Wouldn’t say boo to an old lady, let alone beat her up and shoot her throught the head. The cops gave me a break and a sandwich and then they were back for descriptions. I had to make photo-fit pictures. Anyone ever tell you how difficult it is to piut one of those things together?’
‘Did you identify Kurt Valentin?’ Heidrun interrupted, suddenly much more pale under the make-up.
‘I described him, but I didn’t give his name,’ Red informed her, watching her reactions. ‘Well, that would have opened another can of worms, wouldn’t it? You wouldn’t want the fuzz questioning you, would you? It was obvious he didn’t do the killing. So I just gave them descriptions of all three. I thought they would let me go after that, but they were getting more information all the time from the forensic boys at the scene of the crime.’
‘Did they tell you anything?’ Heidrun asked keenly. ‘Did they find out why it happened?’
Red drew a line on the table with his finger, looking down thoughtfully. ‘The police have a theory that she knew something her killers wanted to find out. They beat her up badly, the bastards. There was money in her handbag lying on the floor where she was found, but it wasn’t taken. She was still wearing rings and a pearl necklace. There was no sign of the place being searched. They got what they wanted by beating her up, and then they shot her so that she couldn’t talk.’
‘Who was she?’ asked Jane. ‘Is there a line on her background?’
‘Her name was Edda Zenk, a spinster of seventy-three, retired for thirteen years or more. Used to do secretarial work for a solicitor.’
‘Did she always live in West Berlin?’ asked Heidrun.
‘She had no connections with the East, if that’s what you’re asking,’ said Red. ‘At one time she lived in Munich, but that’s going back to the forties.’
‘I don’t understand this,’ muttered Heidrun. But from the way she was frowning, it was evident that she was making a determined stab at it.
Red leaned across the table until his face was hardly a foot from hers. ‘If you want to stay friends with me, Heidrun, you’d better start talking about Valentin. I’ve had a hard time protecting you. I’m in trouble over this. Just who is he?’
She pulled the edges of the bathrobe together protectively. ‘I don’t know much about him. If you want my opinion, he’s a dirty old man who follows me around. He came into the shop a few times and tried to talk to me. Too much.’
‘Chatted you up?’
‘Yes. Then I kept meeting him in other places – on the way home from the sports-hall, in the restaurant there, on the beach. He likes to look at girls all the time. He buys porn magazines, and sometimes he makes suggestions to me. Stupid things, like will I let him buy me some sexy underwear. That’s all I can tell you about him.’
‘Come off it,’ Red snapped at her, with a sudden show of anger. ‘The other day you told me he did your tax.’
Heidrun swayed away from him. ‘That wasn’t true. I don’t need an accountant and I couldn’t afford one. I lied to you because I didn’t want to tell you about him then. I didn’t want trouble between you.’
‘You’re lying now.’
‘No!’ She raised a hand to shield her face, expecting Red to strike her.
‘All this dirty old man stuff is horseshit,’ he told her vehemently. ‘He’s in with a gang of murderers, sadistic, bloody killers, and you’d better get that into your head, Heidrun, because I want some straight answers from you about Kurt Valentin. Do you work for him?’
She reddened suddenly. ‘What do you mean? I am not a street girl, if that is what you are saying.’
‘Darling, if you were, it would be simple,’ he said in a cold, quiet voice. ‘This isn’t about sex, it’s about Cal Moody. You teamed up with Cal a couple of weeks ago. You got to know his routine, his hours of duty.’
‘Only for the table-tennis matches,’ protested Heidrun.
‘Shut up. You’ve also been seeing Valentin. Today, Valentin and his friends were tracking Cal, remember? What a bloody coincidence! He visits Edda Zenk and she is dead the same hour.’
Heidrun said on a rising, hysterical note, ‘I know nothing about this. I have never heard of this old lady.’
‘But you told Valentin that Cal had changed shifts, didn’t you?’
She lowered her eyes.
‘Didn’t you?’ repeated Red.
She said in a low voice, ‘He scares me. He is a violent man.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Red commented. ‘That’s why you came here, isn’t it: to get away from him?’
‘Yes.’ She shifted in the chair and lifted the hem of the bathrobe to show the ankle bruised by Valentin’s hands. ‘He did that on Sunday.’
‘Is Cal in danger?’
‘I don’t know, Red, I don’t know anything,’ she pleaded.
Red turned to Jane. ‘The last I saw of him, Valentin was following him. I’m going to have to find out if he’s OK.’
She frowned. ‘How can you do that?’
‘I’ll call the prison. See if he’s there. He should be on duty this evening.’
‘Would they tell you if he is?’
‘I can only try. I’ll say it’s some kind of emergency – one of his family on the line from America. If he isn’t on duty, they ought to tell me.’ He went out of the kitchen to the phone in the hall.
Heidrun wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the bathrobe, got up from the table without looking at Jane and went back to the bathroom.
In a few minutes, Red was back. ‘He didn’t report for work. They think he must be ill. He has no phone at his lodging. Jane, I’ll have to go round there.’
‘Tonight?’
‘You can come if you want.’
‘I will.’
Heidrun called from the bathroom, ‘I want to come, too, Red.’ She padded into the hall in bare feet, tugging the tracksuit-top over her head. ‘Please, I want to make sure he’s all right. Believe me, Red. Please believe me.’
Red stared at her for a moment, undecided. Jane could see the dilemma he was in. The question was whether Heidrun was more of a liability to take, or to leave behind, with the chance to phone Valentin and his friends. Her dislike of Valentin appeared genuine enough, but her actions might be governed by her fear of him.
Red made up his mind. ‘Get your shoes on, then, and be bloody quick about it.’