I was in no position to object. 'Okay,' I said. He produced my half-empty packet of Gauloises from his coat and took one before sliding one across to me.
'I found those Western cigarettes on the U-Bahn train,' I said.
He smiled. 'That's what I wrote in the arrest report. You think I don't listen to what you say?' He threw his cigarette lighter to me. It was of Western origin, an expendable one with visible fuel supply. It was very low but it worked. 'Now we destroy the evidence by burning, you and me. Right?' He winked conspiratorially.
Lenin, who said his real name was Erich Stinnes, had an encyclopedic memory; he was able to recite endlessly the names of his favourite authors – for they were many and varied – and he seemed to know in bewildering detail every plot they'd written. But he spoke of the fictional characters as if they were alive. 'Do you think,' he asked me, 'that Sherlock Holmes, coming across a criminal of some foreign culture, would find detection more difficult? Is it perhaps true that he is effective only when working against a criminal who shares the creed of the English gentleman?'
'They're just stories,' I said. 'No one takes them seriously.'
'I take them seriously,' said Lenin. 'Holmes is my mentor.'
'Holmes doesn't exist. Holmes never did exist. It's just twaddle.'
'How can you be such a philistine,' said Lenin. 'In The Sign of Four, Holmes said that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Such perception cannot be dismissed lightly.'
'But in A Study in Scarlet he said almost the opposite,' I argued. 'He said that when a fact appears opposed to a long train of deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other interpretation.'
'Ah, so you are a believer,' said Lenin. He puffed on the Gauloise. 'Anyway, I don't call that a contradiction.'
'Look, Erich,' I said. 'All I know about Sherlock bloody Holmes is the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'
Lenin waved a hand to silence me, sat back with hands placed fingertips together, and said, 'Yes, "Silver Blaze".' A frown came as he tried to remember the exact words: 'The dog did nothing in the night-tune. That was the curious incident.'
'Exactly, Erich, old pal,' I said. 'And, as one Sherlock Holmes fan to another, would you mind explaining to me the equally curious absence of any proper bloody attempt to interrogate me.'
Lenin smiled a tight-lipped little smile, like a parson hearing a risqué joke from a bishop. 'And that's just what I would say in your position, Englishman. I told my superior that a senior security man from London will wonder why we are not following the normal procedure. He will begin to hope that he'll get special treatment, I said. He'll think we don't want him to know our interrogation procedure. And he'll think that's because he's going home very soon. And once a prisoner starts thinking along those lines, he closes his mouth very tight. After that it can take weeks to get anything out of him.'
'And what did your superior say?' I asked.
'His exact words I am not permitted to reveal.' He shrugged apologetically. 'But as you can see for yourself, he paid no heed to my advice.'
'That I should be interrogated while still warm?'
He half closed his eyes and nodded; again it was the mannerism of a churchman. 'It's what should have been done, isn't it? But you can't tell these desk people anything.'
'I know,' I said.
'Yes. You know what it's like, and so do I,' he said. 'Both of us work the tough side of the business. I've been West a few times, just as you've come here. But who gets the promotions and the big wages – desk-bound Party bastards. How lucky you are not having the Party system working against you all the time.'
'We have got it,' I said. 'It's called Eton and Oxbridge.'
But Lenin was not to be stopped. 'Last year my son got marks that qualified him to go to university, but he lost the place to some kid with lower marks. When I complained, I was told that it was official policy to favour the children of working-class parents against those from the professional classes, in which they include me. Shit, I said, you victimize my son because his father was clever enough to pass his exams? What kind of workers' state is that?'
'Are you recording this conversation?'
'So they can put me into prison with you? Do you think I'm crazy?'
'I still want to know why I'm not being interrogated.'
'Tell me,' he said, suddenly leaning forward, drawing on his cigarette, and blowing smoke reflectively as he formed the question in his mind. 'How much per diem do you get?'
'I don't understand.'
'I'm not asking you what you do for a living,' he said. 'All I want to know is how much do they pay you for daily expenses when you are away from home.'
'One hundred and twelve pounds sterling per day for food and lodging. Then we get extra expenses, plus travel expenses.'
Lenin blew a jet of smoke in a gesture that displayed his indignation. 'And they won't even pay us a daily rate. The cashier's office insists upon us writing everything down. We have to account for every penny we've handled.'
'That's the sort of little black book I wouldn't like to keep,' I said.
'Incriminating. Right. That's it exactly. I wish I could get that fact into the heads of the idiots who run this bureau.'
'You're not recording any of this?'
'Let me tell you something in confidence,' said Lenin. 'I was on the phone to Moscow an hour ago. I pleaded with them to let me interrogate you my way. No, they said. The KGB Colonel is on his way now, Moscow says – they keep saying that, but he never arrives – you are ordered not to do anything but hold the prisoner in custody. Stupid bastards. That's Moscow for you.' He inhaled and blew smoke angrily. 'Quite honestly, if you broke down and gave me a complete confession about having an agent in Moscow Central Committee, I'd yawn.'
'Let's try you,' I said.
He grinned. 'What would you do in my place? This KGB Colonel will take over your file when he gets here tomorrow morning. Do you think he'll give me any credit for work done before he arrives? Like hell he will. No, sir, I'm not going to dig anything out of you for those Party bigshots.'
I nodded but I was not beguiled by his behaviour. I'd long ago learned that it is only the very devout who toy with heresy. It's only the Jesuit who complains of the Pope, only the devoted parent who ridicules his child, only the super rich who pick up pennies from the gutter. And in East Berlin it is only the truly faithful who speak treason with such self-assurance.
They took me downstairs at seven o'clock the next morning. I'd heard cars arriving shortly before, and men shouting in the way that guard commanders shout when they want to impress some visiting hotshot.
It was a plush office by East European standards: modern-design Finnish desk and chairs and a sheepskin rug on the floor. A faint aroma of disinfectant mingled with the cheap perfume of the floor polish. This was the smell of Moscow.
Fiona was not sitting behind the desk; she was standing at the side of the room. My friend Lenin was standing stiffly at her side. He'd obviously been briefing her, but Fiona's authority was established by the imperious way in which she dismissed him. 'Go to your office and get on with it. I'll call if I want you,' she said in that brisk Russian that I'd always admired. So the so-called Erich Stinnes was a Russian – a KGB officer no doubt. Well, he spoke bloody good Berlin German. Probably he'd grown up here, the son of an occupier, as I was.
Fiona straightened her back as she looked at me. 'Well?' she said.
'Hello, Fiona,' I said.
'You guessed?' She looked different; harder perhaps, but confident and relaxed. It must have been a relief to be her real self after a lifetime of deception. 'Sometimes I was sure you'd guessed the truth.'
'What guessing was needed? It was obvious, or should have been.'