Berlin Game

'Agreed. Tell my secretary to do the paperwork and I'll get it signed. Meanwhile assign someone to it – someone you can rely on. And by the way, Bernard, it's beginning to look as though we might have to ask you to go to Berlin after all.'

'I'm not sure I could do that, Bret,' I said with matching charm.

'It's your decision,' he said, and smiled to show how friendly he could be. Most of the time he was Mr Nice Guy. He opened doors for you, stood back to let you into the lift, laughed at your jokes, agreed with your conclusions, and asked your advice. But when all the pleasantries were over he made sure you did exactly what he wanted.

I was still thinking about Bret Rensselaer when I finished work that evening. He was different from any of the other Department heads I had to deal with. Despite those moments of brash hostility, he was more approachable than the D-G and more reliable than Dicky Cruyer. And Bret had that sort of laidback self-confidence that you have to be both rich and American to possess. He was the only one to defy the Departmental tradition that only the D-G could have a really big car, while the rest of the senior staff managed with Jaguars, Mercedes and Volvos. Bret had a bloody great Bentley limousine and a full-time uniformed chauffeur to go with it.

I saw Bret's gleaming black Bentley in the garage when I got out of the lift in the basement. The interior lights were on and I could hear Mozart from the stereo. Bret's driver was sitting in the back seat tapping his cigarette ash into a paper bag and swaying in time to the music.

The driver, Albert Bingham, was a sixty-year-old ex-Scots Guardsman whose enforced silence while driving resulted in a compulsive garrulity when off duty. 'Hello, Mr Samson,' he called to me. 'Am I parked in the way?'

'No,' I said. But Albert was out of his car and all ready for one of his chats.

'I wondered if you would be taking your wife's car,' he said. 'But on the other hand I guessed she'd be coming back here to collect it herself. I know how much she likes driving that Porsche, Mr Samson. We were having a chat about it only last week. I told her I could have it tuned up by a fellow I know at the place I get the Bentley serviced. He's a wizard, and he has a Porsche himself. A secondhand one, of course, not the latest model like that one of your wife's.'

'I'm going home in this elderly Ford,' I said, tapping the glass of it with my keys.

'I hear you're getting a Volvo,' he said. 'Just the right car for a family man.'

'We're too squeezed in my wife's Porsche,' I said.

'You'll be pleased with the Volvo,' said Albert in that tone of voice that marks the Bentley driver. 'It's a solid car, as good as the Mercedes any day, and you can quote me on that.'

'I might quote you on that,' I said, 'if I ever try trading it in for a Mercedes.'

Albert smiled and took a puff at his cigarette. He knew when he was being joshed and he knew how to show me he didn't mind. 'Your wife wanted to drive Mr Rensselaer in her Porsche, but he insisted on the Bentley. He doesn't like fast sports cars, Mr Rensselaer. He likes to be able to stretch his legs out. He was injured in the war – did you know he was injured?'

I wondered what Albert could be talking about. Fiona had arranged to go to Tessa's and sort through some house agents' offers. 'Injured? I didn't know.'

'He was in submarines. He broke his kneecap falling down a companionway – that's a sort of ladder on a ship – and it was reset while they were at sea. A sub doesn't return from patrol for a little matter of an ensign hurting his leg.' Albert laughed at the irony of it all.

Where had Rensselaer gone with my wife? 'So you nearly got an evening off, Albert.'

Gratified to see I hadn't climbed into the driving seat and fled from him, as most of the staff did when he started chatting, Albert took a deep breath and said, 'I don't mind, Mr Samson. I can use the overtime, to tell you the honest truth. And what do I care whether I'm sitting at home in my poky little bed-sitter or lying back in that real leather. It's Mozart, Mr Samson, and I'd just as soon listen to Mozart here in an underground garage as anywhere in the world. That stereo is a beautiful job. Come over and listen to it if you don't believe me.'

They couldn't have gone far, or Albert would not have brought the Bentley back to the garage to wait for them. 'Much traffic in town tonight, Albert? I have to go through the West End.'

'It's terrible, Mr Samson. One of these days, it's going to lock up solid.' This was one of Albert's standard phrases; he said it automatically while he worked out an answer to my question. 'Piccadilly is bad at this time. It's the theatres.'

'I never know how to avoid Piccadilly when I'm going home.'

Albert inhaled on his cigarette. I had given him the perfect opening on his favourite topic: shortcuts in central London. 'Well – '

'Take your journey tonight,' I interrupted him. 'How did you tackle it? You knew there would be heavy traffic… when did you leave… seven?'

'Seven-fifteen. Well, they went for a drink in the White Elephant Club in Curzon Street first. They could have walked from there to the Connaught, I know, but it might have started to rain and there'd be no cabs in Curzon Street at that time. The table at the Connaught Hotel Grill Room was for eight o'clock. No place for a big car like mine in Curzon Street. They're double-parked there by seven on some evenings at this time of year. I got there via Birdcage Walk, past Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park Corner… a long way round, you say. But when you've spent as many years driving in London as I have you…'

I let Albert's voice drone on as I asked myself why my wife told me she was spending the evening with Tessa when really she was having dinner in a hotel with Bret Rensselaer. 'Is that the time?' I said, looking at my watch while Albert was in full flow. 'I must go. Nice talking to you, Albert. You're a mine of information.'

Albert smiled. I could still hear Così fan Tutte from the Bentley's stereo when I was driving up the exit ramp.

I watched her as she took off her rain-specked headscarf. She wore a silk square only when she wanted to protect a very special new hairdo. She shook her head and flicked at her hair with her fingertips. Her eyes sparkled and her skin was pale and perfect. She smiled; how beautiful she seemed, and how far away.

'Did you eat out?' she said. She noticed the dining table with the unused place setting that Mrs Dias had left for me.

'I had a cheese roll in a pub.'

'That's the worst thing you could choose,' she said. Tat and carbohydrates: that's not good for you. There was cold chicken and salad prepared.'

'So did Tessa find another house?'

Alerted perhaps by my tone of voice, or by the way I stood facing her, she looked into my face for a moment before taking off her raincoat. 'I couldn't get to Tessa's tonight. Something came up.' She shook the raincoat and the raindrops flashed in the light.

'Work, you mean?'

She looked at me steadily before nodding. We had a tacit agreement not to ask questions about work. 'Something Rensselaer wanted,' she said, and kept looking at me as if challenging me to pursue it.

'I saw your car in the car park when I left but Security said you'd already gone.'

She walked past me to hang her coat in the hall. When she'd done that, she looked in the hall mirror and combed her hair as she spoke. 'There was a lot of stuff in the diplomatic bag this afternoon. Some of it needed translation and Bret's secretary has only A-level German. I went over the road and worked there.'

Claiming to be in the Foreign Office as an explanation of absence was the oldest joke in the Department. No one could ever be found in that dark labyrinth. 'You had dinner with Rensselaer,' I said, unable to control my anger any longer.

She stopped combing her hair, opened her handbag and dropped the comb into it. Then she smiled and said, 'Well, you don't expect me to starve, darling. Do you?'