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damned stuff.’ I had him sized up now. He was a typical old-time Communist, one of the exiles who’d spent the war years in Moscow. Many such men had been trained for high posts in the Germany that Stalin conquered. What was the story behind this one? Why had he come to work for us? Blackmail? Had he committed some crime – political or secular – or was he not of the hard stuff of which leaders are made? Or was he simply one of those awkward individuals who thought for themselves?
    ‘No comment,’ said Bower in a tired voice and looked at his watch.
    Valeri said, ‘Next week I’ll watch more carefully.’
    I noticed Bower stiffen. It was a damned careless remark for an active agent to make. I was not supposed to discover that this Valeri was a double; going in and out regularly. It was the sort of slip of the tongue that kills men. Valeri was tired. I pretended not to have noticed the lapse.
    Bower did the same. He should have noted it and cautioned the man but he gave an almost indiscernible shake of the head to the shorthand clerk before turning his eyesto me. Levelly he asked, ‘Is that any use?’ It was my signal to depart.
    ‘Not as far as I can see.’
    ‘Frank wanted you to know,’ he added just in case I missed the message to get out of there and let him continue his difficult job.
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘He had to leave.’ Bower picked up the phone and said they’d break for lunch in thirty minutes. I wondered if it was a ploy. Interrogators did such things sometimes, letting the time stretch on and on to increase the tension.
    I got to my feet. ‘Tell him thanks,’ I said. He nodded.
    I went out to where Teacher was waiting in the ante-room. He didn’t say ‘All right’ or make any of the usual polite inquiries. Interrogations are like sacramental confessions: they take place and are seen to take place but no reference to them is ever made. ‘Are you returning me to Kreuzberg?’ I asked him.
    ‘If that’s where you want to be,’ said Teacher.
    We said our goodbyes to the Duchess and went downstairs to be let out of the double-locked front door by the guardian.
    The streets were empty. There is something soul-destroying about the German Ladenschlussgesetz – a trade-union-inspired law that closes all the shops most of the time – and right across the land, weekends in Germany are a mind-numbing experience. Tourists roam aimlessly. Residents desperate for food and drink scour the streets hoping to find a Tante Emma Laden where a shopkeeper willing to break the law will sell a loaf, a chocolate bar or a litre of milk from the back door.
    As we drove through the desolate streets, I said to Teacher, ‘Are you my keeper?’
    Teacher looked at me blankly.
    I asked him again. ‘Are you assigned to be my keeper?’
    ‘I don’t know what a keeper is.’
    ‘They have them in zoos. They look after the animals.’
    ‘Is that what you need, a keeper?’
    ‘Is this Frank’s idea?’
    ‘Frank?’
    ‘Don’t bullshit me, Teacher. I was taking this town to pieces when you were in knee pants.’
    ‘Frank knows nothing about you coming here,’ he said mechanically. It contradicted everything he’d previously said but he wanted to end the conversation by making me realize that he was just obeying instructions: Frank’s instructions.
    ‘And Frank keeps out of the way so that he can truthfully tell London that he’s not seen me.’
    Teacher peered about him and seemed unsure of which way to go. He slowed to read the street signs. I left him to figure it out. Eventually he said, ‘And that annoys you?’
    ‘Why shouldn’t it?’
    ‘Because if Frank had any sense he’d toss you on to the London plane, and let you and London work it all out together,’ said Teacher.
    ‘That’s what you’d do?’
    ‘Damned right I would,’ said Teacher.
    We drove along Heer Strasse, which on a weekday would have been filled with traffic. Every now and again there had been a dusty glint in the air as a