The Club Room was almost empty. As Conrad entered, several members were making their way out, talking and laughing, one or two smoking cigars, en route to the Holland Room to start up a game. Only two or three tables were still occupied. Conrad approached a waiter and quietly asked where he might find Sir Jack Bristow. The waiter pointed discreetly to a corner table at the far end of the room. Conrad looked. He saw a short, fair-haired man in his fifties or sixties, wearing a suit – cheap-looking and a fraction too small for him, the fabric a far-too-light blue, the jacket already beginning to shine at the elbows. And then he saw her.
She was tall, with vivid red hair and green eyes, age hard to read – he put her in her early thirties but felt that he could well be off by several years either way – not slim exactly, but with no excess weight at all and perfectly proportioned. She was wearing a stunning low-cut cocktail dress, red, with matching high red heels and an elegant gold necklace, tight to her skin. She seemed to notice him too. Although she was speaking to Bristow, her green eyes strayed in his direction, and stayed on him as he approached.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, Sir Jack. Do forgive me. I’m a new member. John Aspinall has given me strict orders to introduce myself to everyone tonight before I’m allowed to leave, on pain of banishment, so here I am. My name is Conrad Rainer.’
Reluctantly, Bristow forced himself to stand, and offered his hand.
‘I’m Jack Bristow. Allow me to present Greta Thiemann.’
She offered her hand, which he took and kissed lightly. Her perfume was restrained but alluring, a fragrance he did not recognise but which recalled a scent of wild roses.
‘Miss Thiemann.’
She sat back and lit a cigarette in an ivory-coloured holder.
‘It would be Fräulein Thiemann, if you want to be formal,’ she said, ‘but I prefer just Greta.’
‘Why don’t you join us?’ Bristow said, raising a hand to attract the waiter’s attention. ‘Greta gets bored listening to me talking about new buildings all night, and besides, I promised to go upstairs and lose some money in the Holland Room.’
‘He’ll be in trouble if he doesn’t lose some money tonight,’ she said.
Conrad walked around the table and took a chair between them. When the waiter came, he ordered a whisky. She ordered another glass of champagne. Bristow declined.
‘What business are you in, then, Rainer?’ Bristow asked, a little too directly.
‘I’m a barrister, Queen’s Counsel.’
‘Oh? What kind of cases do you do?’
‘Commercial.’
‘Really? Well, you never know, I may need you one of these days. I don’t tend to make many friends in my line of work. People are threatening to sue me all the time. My solicitors do very well out of me.’
‘It’s one of the hazards of doing business, of course,’ Conrad replied politely. ‘How about you, Greta?’
She drew on her cigarette, smiling. ‘I don’t approve of work. It gets in the way of pleasure.’
‘So you’re German?’ he asked, after Bristow had left to lose his money in the Holland Room.
She smiled again.
‘All I said was that my title should be Fräulein. I didn’t say I was German. I could be Austrian, Swiss even.’
He shook his head.
‘The accent’s wrong,’ he replied. ‘You’re German.’
She nodded, putting out her cigarette.
‘I’m impressed. You have a good ear. Do you speak the language?’
‘Not very well. But I took German in school and I’ve spent some time in the German-speaking parts of Europe. I think my family has German roots – though they prefer not to talk about it.’
‘How boring of them.’
‘Yes. They like to think of themselves as the quintessential English family. But they called me Conrad – with a C, not a K, which isn’t very subtle – and I once saw some old family papers I wasn’t supposed to see, in which our name was given as Reiner rather than Rainer.’
‘How strange,’ she said, ‘to pretend to be something you’re not. I think that must make life far more difficult than it’s supposed to be. But I have noticed that the English have a tendency to want to be someone else – or at least, appear to be someone else. Why is that? Is it because you think it’s glamorous?’
‘It’s probably because we like to look down on foreigners, and you can’t do that if you suspect you may be a foreigner yourself.’
She laughed.
‘Well, they must have a whale of a time looking down on me then. I’m from Leipzig, so I’m not only German, I’m a wicked communist German.’
He laughed with her.
‘You don’t come across to me as a communist,’ he replied. ‘Not that I’ve met many communists, but you don’t quite have the hammer-and-sickle image.’
‘No, thank God. I escaped from all that seven years ago, and I have no intention of going back.’
‘Do you mean “escaped” in the literal sense?’
‘I didn’t climb over barbed wire fences with the Stasi shooting at me, if that’s what you mean,’ she replied. ‘My father was a diplomat, and my family had many connections, so it was all done by diplomacy rather than cloak and dagger stuff. It’s not hard if you know the right people. That’s true the world over, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter where you are. East Germany is supposed to be the workers’ paradise, but it’s just like anywhere else. If you are connected to those in power, you can do whatever you want. If you are a worker, you stay put and do what they tell you to do.’
They sat silently for a minute or two.
‘And you don’t let work get in the way of pleasure? I’m sure that’s easier here than in the DDR.’
‘I told you,’ she said, ‘I have no intention of going back.’
She lit another cigarette and looked at him.
‘I often take my pleasure downstairs,’ she said.
‘In the night club?’
‘I’m a friend of Annabel and Mark. They were among the first people I met when I came to London. They were very kind to me, and introduced me to many of their friends. That’s how I know people who are members of this Club.’
She drew on her cigarette.
‘But I can’t come here unaccompanied, of course. So when I’m on my own, I go to Annabel’s. Perhaps you will come and meet me there one evening – when I’m not accompanied?’
‘I would like that,’ he said.