There were more such parties as we got to Köpenick. Groups of men stood under the trees at the edge of the road, smoking and drinking in silence with a dedication that is unmistakably German. Other men were laughing and singing; some slept soundly, neatly arranged like logs, while others were being violently ill.
Werner stopped the car well down the Müggelheimer Damm. There were no other vehicles in sight. Plantations of tall fir trees darkened the road. This extensive forest continued to the lakes on each side of the road and far beyond. There was no sign of Werner's big articulated truck, but he'd spotted its driver standing at the roadside. He was near one of the turnoffs, narrow tracks that led to the edge of the Müggelsee.
'What is it?' Werner asked him anxiously.
'Everything is in order,' said the man. He was a big beefy rednecked man, wearing bib-and-brace overalls and a red and white woollen hat of the sort worn by British football supporters. 'I had the truck here, as we arranged, but a crowd of these lunatics…' He indicated some small groups of men standing in a car park across the road. 'They began climbing all over it. I had to move it.' He had the strongest Berlin accent I'd ever heard. He sounded like one of the old-style comedians, who can still be heard telling Berliner jokes in unlicensed cabarets in the back streets of Charlottenburg.
'Where are you now?' said Werner.
'I pulled off the road into one of these firebreaks,' said the driver. 'The earth's not so firm – all that bloody rain last week. I'm heavy, you know. Get stuck and we're in trouble.'
'This is the other one,' said Werner, moving his head to indicate Mrs Munte in the back seat.
'She doesn't look too heavy,' said the driver. 'What do you weigh, Fraulein? About fifty kilos?' He grinned at her. Mrs Munte, who obviously weighed twice that, didn't answer. 'Don't be shy,' said the driver.
'And the man?' said Werner.
'Ah,' said the driver, 'the Herr Professor.' He was the sort of German who called any elderly well-dressed fellow-countryman 'Professor'. 'I sent him up to that lakeside restaurant to get a cup of coffee. I told him someone would come for him when we are ready.'
While he was saying that, I saw the black Volvo and the minibus coming down the road from the direction of Müggelheim. They would have made good time on the autobahn, flashing their lights to get priority in the traffic or using their siren to clear the fast lane.
'Get the professor,' said Werner to me. 'I'll drive the old lady down to where the truck is parked, and come back to meet you here.'
As I hurried along the woodland path towards the lake, I could hear a curious noise. It was the regular roaring sound that waves make as they are sucked back through the pebbles on a long stony beach. It got louder as I approached the open-air restaurant, but that did not prepare me for the scene I found there.
The indoor restaurant was closed on weekdays, but there were hundreds of men milling around the lakeside Biergarten in inebriated confusion. They were mostly young workers dressed in bright shuts and denim pants, but some wore pyjamas and some had Arab headdress, and many of them had brought the black top hat that is traditional for Himmelfahrt. I could see no women, just men. There were long lines of them waiting at a serving hatch marked 'Getränke' and an equally long line at a hatch marked 'Kaffee', where only beer, in half-litre plastic cups, was being served. Tables were crammed with dozens and dozens of empty plastic cups stacked together, and there were more empties scattered in the flower beds and lined up along the low dividing walls.
'Heiliger bim-bam!'' said a drunk behind me, as surprised as I was at the sight.
The roars of sound were coming from the throats of the men as they watched a rubber ball being kicked high into the air. It went up over their heads and cut an arc in the blue sky before coming down to meet yet another skilfully placed boot that sent it back up again.
It took me a few minutes to spot Munte. By some miracle he'd found a chair and was sitting at a table at the edge of the lake where it was a little less crowded. He seemed to be the only person drinking coffee. I sat down on the low wall next to him. There were no other chairs in sight; prudent staff had no doubt removed them from the danger zone. 'Time to go,' I said. 'Your wife is here. Everything is okay.'
'I got it for you,' he said.
'Thanks,' I said. 'I knew you would.'
'Half the clerks in my department have taken the day off too. I had no trouble walking into the chiefs office, finding the file and helping myself.'
'I'm told you had a visit from the police.'
The office had a visit from the police,' he corrected me. 'I left before they found me.'
'They came out to Buchholz,' I said.
'I was trying to think of some way of warning you when a man came up to me in the street and brought me here.' He reached into his pocket and produced a brown envelope. He put it on the table. I left it there for a moment. 'Aren't you going to open it and look inside?' he asked.
'No,' I said. Not far away from us, a six-piece wind band had assembled. Now they were making all those sounds musicians have to make before playing music.
'You want to see the writing. You want to see who is the traitor in London Central.'
'I know who it is,' I said.
'You've guessed, you mean.'
'I know. I've always known.'
'I risked my freedom to get it this morning,' he said.
'I'm sorry,' I said. I picked up the envelope and toyed with it as I reasoned out what to do. Finally I handed it back to him. 'Take it to London,' I said. 'Give it to Richard Cruyer – he's a slim fellow with curly hair and chewed fingernails – make sure no one else gets it. Now we must go. The police seem to have traced us here. They're the same ones who went to Buchholz.'
'My wife – is she safe?' He got to his feet in alarm. As he did so, the wind band began playing a drinking song.
'Yes, I told you. But we must hurry.' I could see them arriving now. I could see Lenin, with his long brown leather overcoat and his little beard. He was wearing a brown leather cap too, and metal-rimmed glasses. His face was hard and his eyes were hidden behind the bright reflections of his lenses. Alongside him was the young Saxon conscript, white-faced and anxious, like a child lost in a big crowd. It was unusual to have a conscript in such a team. His father's influence must be considerable, I thought. The four policemen had stopped suddenly at the end of path, surprised, just as I had been upon first catching sight of the multitude.
The band music was loud. Too loud to make conversation easy. I grabbed Munte's arm and moved him hurriedly into a crowd of men who had linked arms and were trying to dance together. One of them – a muscular fellow with a curly moustache – was wearing striped pyjamas over his clothes. He grabbed Munte and said, 'Komm, Vater. Tanzen.'
'I'm not your father,' I heard Munte say as I stood on tiptoe to see the policemen. They had not moved. They remained on the far side of the beer garden, bewildered at the task of finding anyone in such a crowd. Lenin tapped one of the older men and sent him down the line of men waiting to buy beer. He sent the fourth man back along the path; no doubt he was going to bring more men from the minibus.