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‘this is Bernard Samson, from the office.’
    ‘The famous Bernard Samson?’ she asked with a throaty chuckle. Her voice was lower now and her genial mockery was not unattractive.
    ‘I suppose so,’ I said. So much for Teacher’s ingenuous inquiry about whether I was married. Even his wife knew all about me.
    ‘Take off your coat, Bernard,’ she said in a jokey flirtati ous way that seemed to come naturally to her. Perhaps the dour Teacher was attracted to her on that account. She took my old coat, draped it on a wooden hanger marked Disneyland Hotel Anaheim, California and hung it in an antique walnut closet.
    She was wearing a lot of perfume and a button-through dress of light green wool, large earrings and a gold necklace. It was not the sort of outfit you’d put on to go to church. She must have been six or eight years younger than her husband and I wondered if she was trying to acquire the pushy determination that young wives need to survive the social demands of a Berlin posting.
    ‘Bernard Samson: secret agent! I’ve never met a real secret agent before.’
    ‘That was long ago,’ said Teacher in an attempt to warn her off.
    ‘Not so long ago,’ she said archly. ‘He’s so young. What is it like to be a secret agent, Bernard? You don’t mind if I call you Bernard, do you?’
    ‘Of course not,’ I said awkwardly.
    ‘And you call me Clemmie.’ She took my arm in a gesture of mock confidentiality. ‘Tell me what it’s like. Please.’
    ‘It’s like being a down-at-heel Private Eye,’ I said. ‘In a land where being a Private Eye will get you thirty years in the slammer. Or worse.’
    ‘Find something for us to eat, Clemmie,’ said Teacher in a way that suggested that his acute embarrassment was turning to anger. ‘We’re starved.’
    ‘Darling, it’s Sunday. Let’s celebrate. Let’s open that lovelytin of sevruga that you got from someone I’m not allowed to inquire about,’ she said.
    ‘Wonderful idea,’ said Teacher and sounded relieved at this suggestion. But he still did not look happy. I suppose he never did.
    Clemmie went into the kitchen to find the caviar while Teacher took me into the sitting room and asked me what I wanted to drink.
    ‘Do you have vodka?’ I asked.
    ‘Stolichnaya, or Zubrovka or a German one?’ He set up some glasses.
    ‘Zubrovka.’
    ‘I’ll get it from the fridge. Make yourself at home.’
    Left alone I looked around. It is not what guests are expected to do but I can never resist. It was a small but comfortable apartment with a huge sofa, a big hi-fi and a long shelf of compact discs – mostly outmoded pop groups – that I guessed were Clemmie’s. On the coffee table there was a photo album, the sort of leather-bound tasselled one in which people record an elaborate wedding. It bulged with extra pictures and programmes. I opened it. Every page contained photos of Clemmie: on the athletic field, running the 1,000 metres, hurdling, getting medals, waving silver cups. The pages were lovingly captioned in copperplate writing. Tucked into the back she was to be seen in already yellowing sports pages torn from the sort of local newspaper that carries large adverts for beauty salons and nursing homes. In all the pictures she looked so young: so very very young. She must have been here looking through it when she heard us at the door, and then rushed upstairs to put on fresh make-up. Poor Clemmie.
    The apartment block was new and the walls were thin. As Teacher went into the kitchen I heard his wife speak loudly, ‘Jesus Christ, Jeremy! Why did you bring him here?’
    ‘I didn’t have cash or I would have taken us all to a restaurant.’
    ‘Restaurant…? If the office hear all this, you’ll be in a row.’
    ‘Frank said give him lunch. Frank likes him.’
    ‘Frank likes everyone until the crunch comes.’
    ‘I’m assigned to him.’
    ‘You should never have agreed to do it.’
    ‘There was no one else.’
    ‘You told me he was a pariah,