The Contract (21 page)

Not easy he thought as he walked beneath the great twin towers of the cathedral, to carry on the work of a pastor under the rule of socialism.

Not simple to watch the church that one treasured stripped of its influence and authority, left merely as an institution of worship to the elderly, denied its former role of administration over the kindergartens and the youth clubs and the hospitals. The erosion of the church's position had been managed with a subtlety. No jackboots and no padlocks. The sprawling new housing estates rose without a church in their midst, young Christians found it even harder to gain the coveted places in secondary and higher education, political precepts ruled. His friend, the pastor, had struggled on through succeeding years, prepared for boldness when bravery would win the day, prepared for acquiescence when subservience dictated the greater advantage. A man who over many years had earned Otto Guttmann's admiration and love.

Men in the latter days of their lives. Men who could gossip and chuckle with a private and closed humour. The pastor would shrug with pain when the scientist told him of his work at Padolsk and put his short and muscled arm up to Guttmann's shoulder and squeeze the sparse flesh. Old men, who in their talk could offer comfort the one to the other.

Their meeting was heavy with affection and cheeks were kissed in a spontaneous happiness and they gazed into each other's faces. The advances of age were ignored and they complimented themselves on their health and put aside their misfortunes. The pastor held tight at Otto Guttmann's hand when the death of Willi was talked of.

Later there would be a salad lunch. Guttmann explained that Erica was with her friend. He had no more commitments for the day and much to speak about.

The two men walked on the medieval flagstones of the cathedral cloister, far from the factories of the city, far from the industry and its chimneys.

They sucked at the air that was rich with the scent of the freshly cut grass of the inner lawn.

They sat close together on the settee. Erica Guttmann and Renate, the friends since childhood.

It was a man's flat, no doubts that her friend was the lodger. The choice of the wall pictures told her that, women with naked backs coyly turned and water colour renderings of apples and lemons in china bowls. The furniture was gaunt and inappropriate to the small room. Cardboard cased files draped the shelves, no books, no ornaments. A living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen, the home of a single man.

'Can't he do better than this, the senior man of the Schutzpolizei ?'

Erica giggled with the conspiracy of her question.

'There's the fat cow, his wife. She has the old home and he can't boot her out. At his level he's supposed to be the living legend of domestic rectitude. It's bad enough for him having it known that he's taken me in, if he heaves her then the whole town will be clucking.' Rich laughter from the two girls.

'I nearly collapsed when I had your letter, you and a policeman. You'll tell me, won't you, what he's like?'

'Like a bull,' Renate said quickly, evasively. 'He'll have a hert attack the rate he goes at it.'

A sorry little silence flitted on them. Out of place for Renate to have said that. Erica had no boy, had never written of one in her monthly letters, seemed to shun them. Over many years she had talked to Renate of lovers and always her interest carried the eddy of insincerity.

'Am I going to meet him?'

'He said he'd come home for lunch. Not my cooking that he wants, it's to see you. He says I talk interminably about you.' Renate paused, a brittle smile at her mouth. 'I hope you like him, and there weren't many to choose from, you know.'

'Rubbish.'

'I'm not a little chicken any more.'

'Rubbish.'

There was a key in the door, the sound of feet scraping a mat. The Schutzpolizeipresident for the city of Magdeburg, Dr Gunther Spitzer, came into his living room. The homecoming of the Director of the Security Police.

Erica was drawn from her chair. The girl who over the telephone could turn down the request of a Soviet Army full colonel for time in her father's office found herself standing and wiping a sliver of perspiration from the palm of her hand against the seam of her dress. A mountain of a man, advancing across the small room, a cloud crossing the face of the moon. Renate, casual on the settee, unconcerned and flicking her fingers in greeting. Erica shuffling and unable to look away from the ribbon scar that trailed from the centre of his forehead to the straggled bush of his right eyebrow. Unable to see beyond the heavy jowl cheeks where the stubble won through the pale skin. How could Renate have chosen this one ?

'Darling, this is Erica . ..'

'I am very pleased to meet you, Fraulein Guttmann.'

His hand was pushed forward. Clothed in a glove of thin black leather.

God, it's a bloody claw. A thought ravished her. How did he touch her, her friend Renate, with this . . . ? Did he wear it in her bed? Did the claw run against her skin?

'I am very pleased to meet you, Dr Spitzer.'

The hand was withdrawn, seemed to fall to the side of his jacket. 'You live in Moscow, I understand. I have never been there. Only outside Moscow, once I was 40 kilometres from the Red Square. That was where I left my hand. It was 38 years ago. Since then I have not wished to try again to reach that place.' He smiled. 'Your father is enjoying his stay in Magdeburg, I hope.'

'Very much, thank you.'

'Has it been a busy morning, darling?' Renate intervened, as if to offer rescue to her friend.

'Quite busy. I have been talking to the driver of a car that was stopped at Marienborn. The car had been broken down for 2 hours on the autobahn before it reached the checkpoint. The car was searched and in the boot was found a man and a woman and a baby. The baby . ..'

'I didn't mean a case history, darling. I'm sure it's of no interest to Erica.'

'The baby had been tranquillised so that it would not cry and alert the frontier guards at Marienborn. When the boot was opened it was found that the baby was dead, probably suffocated in the heat caused by the delay of the engine trouble. . .'

'God . . . God . ..' Erica felt her stomach heave, felt the bile pitch to her throat.

'You didn't have to tell us that,' Renate blazed.

'The driver of the car is a West German, also a heroin addict, also he was paid 3,000 west marks. He will be fortunate if his sentence is less than 8 years. I have been quite busy this morning talking to this driver, finding who sends these criminals into our country . . . My sweet, I have a table at the Broiler Gaststatte. We should go now.'

Renate went into the kitchen to turn off the gas taps, abandon the meal that she had prepared.

As they walked down the stairs to the street entrance of the building, Erica felt a growing sadness, a deepening loss. She had lost a friend.

They would never talk again, not as they had before.

'Did you get my note?' Sir Charles Spottiswoode caught at the PPS's arm. He had followed him from the Chamber to the door of the Members' Tea Room.

'About what?' The PPS rocked back. This one the same as most of the old fools, halitosis and no one with the courage to tell him to suck peppermints.

'I requested a meeting with the PM.'

'He's under fair pressure at the moment. I haven't fixed anything.' The PPS tugged at his arm, hoping to break the hold and was unsuccessful.

'I want to see the PM and soon.'

'Can't someone else help you?'

'It's the PM I want to see.'

'What's it about?' It was not suitable for the PPS to be involved in public argument. A corridor of the House of Commons was a very public place.

'Not your business.'

'I'm hardly going to waste his time on that basis. He's got four days in Scotland, then the economic debate .. .'

'The more you delay the harder your soft arse will be kicked when I've seen him.' Spottiswoode's voice rose, drawing a honeypot of attention, and his grip on the PPS's coat tightened.

'You'll get to him, I promise. I'll fix it while we're in Scotland.'

'Monsieur Foirot, is that you . . . can you hear me? It is Sharygin.'

'You have a very bad line.'

'Sharygin . . . from the Soviet Residence . . . you can hear me?'

'You are very faint. . .'

' I am calling from Moscow

' I can just hear you, Monsieur Sharygin, how can I help you ?'

'The boy who drowned, you remember . . . the accident with the boat on the lake . .. Guttmann . . . has the body been found?'

'No.'

'I did not hear you, Monsieur Foirot. . .'

'The body of Guttmann has not been found, we have not found it .. . if it had been recovered the Residence would have been informed.'

'Of course, of course . . . but it is abnormal this length of time . . .'

'Yes.'

'You agree that it is abnormal. . . that you have not found the body is strange.' ' I am a policeman, I am not an expert of the lake, but I know it is abnormal.'

'You cannot explain why the body has not surfaced.'

' I cannot explain it.'

' I see . . . thank you, Monsieur Foirot.'

'For nothing, Monsieur Sharygin.'

Johnny stood on the patio, gazed out into the darkness beyond the crescent of light from the french windows. He shook his arms gently beside him, trembled the muscles in his legs, wound down from the heights of his exercise session. The last time that he would strive for greater strength in his thighs and at the stomach wall and for his lungs.

The last evening at the house. The last of everything.

' I brought you a cup of tea . . .'

Johnny stiffened, turned, saw Mrs Ferguson, still in her apron.

'That's very sweet of you, thanks.'

'Mr Mawby's just come . . .'

' I heard the car, I'd better be getting inside.'

'You're away early in the morning Mr Carter says.'

'That's right, on my travels, something like that anyway.'

'Keep safe, Johnny.'

His hand shook and the cup rattled in the saucer and the tea spoon chimed against the china. He heard her feet pattering back towards the rear door that served the kitchen. For a few moments he watched the cloud gunning across the face of a small moon, picked out star patterns, then abruptly swung to the french windows, opened them and stepped into the living room.

Mawby stood in the centre of the carpet, Carter was sitting reading, Smithson and Pierce played backgammon near the fire. That's the team, Johnny, that's the Dipper's back-up. As good as you could expect, as bad as you were likely to find. Pretty average, and why should it be anything else? Johnny took a chair near the window.

'Fit and ready, Johnny ?' Mawby said heartily.

'As fit as I ought to be.' 'I wanted to see you before you went off, that's why I came down. Henry put your case about going these two days early, said you wanted to rub-up your language in West Germany for 48

hours . . .'

'That's right.'

'You kept it for the last, sprung the idea late.'

'I said to Mr Carter that I thought it important.'

'I'm not making a thing of it, Johnny. I'm not forbidding it...' Mawby paused and Johnny saw his tiredness, the strain at his eyes and the nerves that chipped at the facade of calm. 'You're in Magdeburg, and we're not, I understand your attitude. There's something that I've said before, but which I want to emphasise again ... if it goes nasty, if it starts to slide, then you quit. You don't risk capture. It's critical that you remember that. If it's falling apart, out you come, regardless of any other consideration. Is that clear?'

'That's very clear, Mr Mawby.'

'Good hunting. We'll have a bit of a party when we meet up again.'

There was a half smile at Johnny's face. 'I'll look forward to that.'

'I expect you want to get yourself a shower, and put your things together .. .'

There was an awkwardness settling in the room, all grown men and none knowing the script of the occasion.

'I'd like to do that.'

Mawby stared at Johnny and the gleaming public confidence of a few seconds before had been stripped. A naked and uncovered face.

'It's a good plan, isn't it, Johnny ... it ought to work . . .'

'Doesn't matter if it's a good plan or not. It's the one that we have. Good night, Mr Mawby.'

'Good night, Johnny,' Mawby said. 'And good luck . . .'

Johnny closed the door quietly behind him, slowly climbed the stairs.

Time to pack the few belongings that he had brought from Cherry Road.

The routine of the house at Holmbury had swiftly changed course.

Johnny gone, Mawby back for a night and then away, Smithson and Pierce heading for London.

A house of echoes and memories as it had been many times before.

And the moment for the boy to be told.

Two mornings after the exodus Carter took Willi outside. A fine, cheerful morning and Carter pushed a wheelbarrow with a fork in it and handed a hoe to the boy and suggested that if the weather held up they could put in a day's weeding and tidy the old place. They needed some fresh air, had been c.ooped up long enough, had earned the right to unwind before the launching. The wheelbarrow dented the grass as it was taken to the middle of the lawn in front of the house and Carter gazed around him at the acreage of flower beds with their vermin weeds.

Where to start . . . begin with the roses. It had been an impromptu idea over breakfast, and so he was dressed in his familiar two piece suit. He tucked the ends of his trousers into his socks. They would have to clean their shoes meticulously afterwards or Mrs Ferguson would scalp them, but nobody had ever thought to provide Wellington boots at the house, nobody had ever thought of gardening as a useful therapy for defectors.