As he entered the building, the usual smell of disinfectant lingered in the immaculate wood-panelled, large reception area. Bill instinctively readied his pipe. The carpeted floor did much to dampen the noise of the conversations happening all around in small seating areas. There seemed to be well-dressed mannequins in every corner drinking coffee and chatting.
The large counter that made up the bulk of the rear of the reception area was flanked on either side by little post boxes, each with its own miniature door. People occasionally walked up to one of the walls of pigeon-holes and opened one to retrieve some mail, or internal memos or some such. Bill suddenly envied the office staff. Sitting on his arse all day smoking, drinking coffee and occasionally retrieving mail seemed suddenly very appealing.
Bill walked up to the grandiose front desk. Behind it was mounted BBC in three-foot-high metal letters. He resisted a joke to the cute brunette receptionist about the fact that Berlin was bloody cold and instead announced his arrival.
“Mr Fuchs to see Mr Errington.”
He already knew where he was headed and didn’t wait for the answer. He greeted the diminutive, Asian-looking cleaning lady as he walked through the double doors and along the corridor. Bill didn’t know her name, but she always said hello to him whenever he visited. He reached the office marked World Service - Head of Operations - BBC Berlin and entered the small waiting room. As he entered, he said nothing to the wrinkled effigy sitting behind the typewriter. She made some of Picasso’s monstrous portraits look handsome.
The old receptionist peered at him over her half-moon reading spectacles and then returned to her violent hammering. She never had liked him, from the first time he’d walked in dripping wet from a rain storm. If looks could kill, she’d be a wanted serial killer. Bill did his best to ignore her as she bashed the old typewriter to within an inch of its life. He looked up the wall beside him at the painting of a spitfire through his pipe smoke. A light faintly glowed above the far door.
“Mr Errington will see you now,” the old bat croaked from behind her machine.
“Thanks,” Bill replied as he rose from the red leather chesterfield. He walked through the door and into the office.
“Ah, Bill! So pleased you are alive and well. Surviving all the German winter can throw at you, I trust?”
“Barely. There is a distinct lack of Scotch in Berlin.”
Stuart Errington was B1, the officer in command of operations in Berlin for British Intelligence. He was an old friend of Buckmaster, the head of the now-defunct F Section, who had busied himself with shutting down networks and debriefing the various resistance groups, while Vera Atkins had extensively researched the whereabouts of all the missing agents, including Violette. Bill closed his eyes briefly and exorcised the demons.
“Of course, of course.” Errington stood and walked over to a large walnut cabinet, opening up a hidden kingdom of cut crystal decanters and all manner of glassware and polished stainless-steel cups of every size. He chose a decanter and poured a large slug of brown liquid into two beautiful glass tumblers. Bill looked on like a dog waiting for a juicy bone. He drew hard on his pipe and attempted to calm his anticipation.
“I take it you two still haven’t made up?” he remarked, chuckling and gesturing at the door back towards his secretary.
“She still hates my guts. I’d only just arrived in Berlin. How was I to know she was her daughter? She barely acknowledges me now and that suits me fine.”
Errington smirked and shook his head. He was a tall, wiry and likeable man with a perfectly formed full-black moustache and black, slicked-back hair. Bill often thought he had styled himself on the Italian American gangsters in the movies. He wore a black chalk-striped suit, white silk tie and a light pink shirt, all tailored and made to measure, of course. A man of such breeding would hardly wear the off-the-peg suits of the type Bill would purchase from his meagre wage. His gleaming silver cufflinks caught the light as he gathered up the glasses. He was the son of some viscount or baron, and Bill got the impression that his posting to Berlin was irksome to the easy life he expected.
“There you are, Bill,” Errington said as he placed a hallowed glass in front of Bill, “twenty-year-old single malt.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.”
“Cigarette?” he asked, offering up a pack of American Luckies.
Bill just continued to puff his pipe and frown at him.
Errington shrugged and grinned. “If I thought you’d take one, I wouldn’t offer.”
Bill sipped the smoothest whisky he had tasted in many months. Before swallowing, he allowed the peaty nectar to flood across his tongue a moment. Maybe the winter wouldn’t drag on so long if he could find reasons to keep checking in.
“I’m glad you’re here, Bill. It saves us the trouble of contacting you. There is news straight from the top. There have been rumblings from Westminster about double agents in our midst. With this new uneasy peace with the Russkies, the red wall is pushing back against our agreements in Berlin. They are even hinting at removing the free movement through their sector. At the moment, the politicians are keeping everyone happy on the face of it, but the bottom line is that we can expect they have agents out probing for intelligence.”
“I see,” Bill said bluntly. Errington had been good to Bill when he first arrived in Berlin. He had set him up with a fine apartment with a concierge in the American sector and ensured it was well furnished, hot running water, gramophone, the whole nine yards, as they’d say in his neighbourhood.
“Of course, we are sure which side your bread is buttered, Bill. A man with a reputation such as yours is exactly what we need out here. Berlin is to be our new front line.”
Bill thought back to the war when everything seemed a lot clearer. Then, you knew, for the most part, who your enemy was. Now it could be almost anyone. Bill sipped his whisky and casually glanced into the large onyx ashtray on the desk. There were a few scrunched cigarette ends. On one was a faint lipstick mark.
Errington caught him looking, then took the ashtray. “Apologies, I meant to empty it earlier,” he said as he tipped the contents into the little brass bin next to the desk. He then continued: “With that in mind, Bill, we have brought in some of our best agents. I needn’t remind you that this is not SOE anymore. Those amateurish days are behind us. No discussing your case with other agents, including our own. I know you’ve heard all this before, but I’m reminding everyone, so don’t take it personally. How are you two getting on with locating Misselwitz?”
“Well, it seems he is indeed in Berlin. A journalist at The Post passed some information on. I am following up on several enquiries, including at a church in the French sector. I believe he is working with the Americans, but nothing tangible yet.”
“Good work, Bill. Go easy around the Americans. Allies we may be, but they don’t trust us these days. Things are hot in the city. Be careful out there and let us know when you have him. Alive if possible, please. We need this bastard after what he did to our people.”
Errington shook Bill warmly by the hand. Bill finished his drink.
“Let me get your hat and coat,” Errington said as he rushed around the desk.
This was unusual. Bill knew to be cautious of unusual. As he watched, Errington picked up Bill’s coat from the wrought iron hat stand. He opened it up to help him put it on. No one had done this for Bill since he was a boy. As Errington helped his coat on, Bill felt him make the tiniest contact on his left side pocket. Bill said nothing as he picked his hat up and made for the door.
He ignored the secretary as he crossed the waiting room, down the corridor and out into the freezing Berlin morning. Then, perching his fedora back onto his head, he checked that the coast was clear and carefully pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket. It was written beautifully on ivory-coloured Basildon Bond paper:
Meet with Irene. Call 02 0236. Caution. Suspect B Section infiltrated. Good luck. Burn this.
Bill memorised the number and then placed it back in his pocket. A match wouldn’t light in this wind anyway.
Bill reached the cafe opposite the opera house fifteen minutes early and noticed Irene was already there. She had sat near the back with a view of the street. Her auburn hair was longer than the last time he had seen her, and as her gaze locked with Bill’s, she began to smile. There were no other customers in the cafe. He removed his hat as he entered, and Irene stood to greet him.
She threw her arms around him and exclaimed, “Bill, it’s so good to see you.”
She smelled good. Something French, Bill thought, no doubt.
“You too, Irene. It’s been a long time.”
“More than two years.” The Cheshire cat smile was still playing on her face. Her voice was rich and husky. The Berlin telephone system’s thousands of yards of copper wire had sterilised her tone when they had arranged to meet here at the most upmarket of all the cafe bars in the theatre district. Her long red dress clung to her shapely body. Bill had been familiar with several female voices, not to mention their owners’ bodies, in the last few years, but it was this particular pairing he had longed to reacquaint himself with the most.
They chatted in English, as Irene could only speak English, French and Flemish-Dutch.
“Can I get you something, sir?” the skeletal waiter asked from somewhere behind.
“Scotch, please, and another for the lady.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but …”
“Whiskey then, whatever you have.” Bill interrupted, “Goddamn shortages.”
“Most people are worried about the coal situation,” Irene said with a giggle.
“Well, you know me. I have different priorities than most people.”
Irene’s dainty white cotton-gloved hand perched a short, black Bakelite cigarette holder between her teeth. Bill pulled his little silver vesta case out and struck one of the red-tipped matches to life. He held the flame aloft as Irene leaned in. As her cigarette lit, she pursed her lips around the holder and looked straight at Bill, who now returned a schoolboy grin.
“Your whiskey, sir. Your martini, madam.”
Bill noticed the strange emphasis the waiter put on the word martini. Irene saw his reaction.
“No vermouth. It’s just gin,” she explained. “It does get tiresome trying to explain to waiters, but a truly perfect martini involves just ice-cold gin with nothing but the slightest of glances in the general direction of Italy.”
“Nice.” Bill chuckled and threw the whiskey back. “Another,” he demanded to the waiter. Bill decided this night might need a head start. “What is this hell you’re putting me through? I feel like a penguin.”
“It’s called Faust, and there I was, assuming you were an avid opera fan,” Irene joked.
The grand-sounding Renaissance Theater on Hardenbergstrasse, in the British sector, was one of the few in the city that often had performances in English.
“Can’t we just blow all this out and head to a jazz bar?”
Bill’s second drink was placed carefully before him by a bony hand.
“No. I have the tickets, and you will pretend to be a perfect gentleman for the next few hours. There is a bar, don’t worry,” she teased.
“It’s pretty close to the zoo. Will I need to hold my nose? How far is it from the elephant house?”
She looked good, better than he remembered. But, of course, any woman would look better in an expensive dress and wearing a set of pearls than the pair of them had looked back in ’44.
“You’ll like this one, Bill. It’s about a man who sells his soul to the Devil. What would yours be worth, I wonder?”
“Not much these days,” Bill replied, only half-joking.
Bill sipped on his drink as they talked about all the missing time. He told her about his home in Kent, the large garden maintained by the groundskeeper there, and all the apple trees they had planted just before he’d flown out to Berlin. She told him a little about her failed, short-lived marriage and the Triumph Roadster motorcar she had recently bought.
The hour went by in a haze, helped along by the alcohol and pleasant company. Bill had not felt so relaxed and happy in a long time. He almost forgot they were the first line of defence in this bizarre new invisible front line Churchill had called the iron curtain.
Until this afternoon, he had no clue Irene was even in Germany, let alone re-employed as an agent in Berlin. As they got up to leave, Bill helped with Irene’s fur coat and white chiffon scarf, and she pressed against him. He held her there for a moment and whispered into her ear.
“I’m so happy it’s you, Lena.”
“I’m happy to see you again too, Bill. But please remember, it’s Irene now.”