'Mouth?' I kept on at her until I'd got all I could. It was going to be a situation where I could make a mistake if I weren't careful.
'Will he be coming by car, do you think, or by taxi?
'I don't think he's got a car. If he leaves the city, he flies.'
'I see. How far is it now?'
'We're almost there. The next block.' Her arm was resting along my thigh; I could feel its warmth. 'Everything's all right, is it?'
'Of course. As I told you, we're just taking precautions. Don't worry. By this time tomorrow you'll be back in Reigate. Are your people there?'
'Mummy is. They're separated.'
'You see your father much?'
Nervous smile. 'I haven't seen him for ages. He's all right, I suppose, but he likes playing the patriarch. Mummy finally couldn't stand it.' The taxi began slowing. 'I'd like to see Gerda, before I leave Berlin, and some other friends.' Her head was turned to watch me.
'I'd forget it for now. Wait till things have blown over. And please don't leave the hotel, or even phone anyone, unless you check with me first. Do that for me?
In a moment, Whatever you say.'
'And I'm not being patriarchal.'
A soft laugh – I know.'
'Cafe Brahms.'
'Danke.'
I opened the door for her but stayed where I was. 'I'll see you in a few minutes.'
As she crossed the pavement her long fair hair caught the light from the marquee; she didn't look back. I had a moment of doubt, which I'd expected, because she looked so alone as she opened the door of the cafe and vanished.
'Fahren Sie und lassen Sie mich an der Ecke aussteigen.'
'Sehr gut.'
I got out at the next corner and paid the driver and walked back towards the Cafe Brahms on the other side of the street and then crossed over, looking at the jade and ivory chess sets in the window of a store, putting in time. Hartman was a German and would be punctual, and that made it easier.
There were canopies over most of the stores here and I stayed under them; the rain hit their canvas with the sound of distant drums. People came by, some of them stopping to take shelter, looking along the street for a taxi. A police car slowed at the traffic lights and went through as they changed to green.
A BMW stopped at the kerb and two people got out, going across the pavement and into the Cafe Brahms; the chauffeur drove away. A bus pulled in at the stop on the other side of the street, its massive tyres hissing on the wet tarmac. A taxi drew in to the kerb on this side and a man got out and paid the driver and turned across the pavement and I checked him against Helen's description and he matched it but I didn't move. I was working on the assumption that Hartman was under surveillance, just as Helen Maitland had been in Reigate; she was the widow of the dead man and Hartman had been his close friend. It made sense, and as the small black Mercedes slid to a stop behind the taxi and a man got out I started off and opened the heavy wooden door of the Cafe Brahms and let it swing shut behind me.
There was a tiny hallway and then stairs and I began going down them as the door opened again and I heard someone coming across the hall and then down the stairs behind me. A door marked Damen was on the right and a door marked Herren was just beyond.it and then there were three telephones on the other side of the passage, and I stopped and turned and looked at the man and said in German: 'You're to phone Dieter Klaus right away. Tell him that Hartman has just got here.' He said, 'Very well. But who are you?' There was no one else in the passage so I dropped him with a swordhand to the carotid artery and dragged him into the men's room and pulled out his wallet and searched him for weapons and left him propped in a cubicle.
Helen was three tables from the bar and Hartman had joined her and I went over there and said, 'We're leaving here now and we'll take the rear exit, it'll be through that archway past the end of the bar, you first, Helen, then you, Hartman, and I'll be right behind, don't move too fast and don't attract attention but start now.'
Helen threw me a glance and left the table but Hartman was slower.
'I don't understand. We -'
'There's a Rote Armee Faktion hit man in here and you are the target.'
Not strictly true but the colour left his face and he moved at once for the archway and I closed up. There was a man playing a violin and quite a few people dancing and I don't think anyone noticed us going out. It worried me a little that I'd got these two people on my hands because I knew now that they were going to need a lot of protection, but at least I had that man's wallet in my pocket and could send a signal to London later tonight: Have made contact and gained access to the opposition.
Chapter 6: WILLI
It was almost dark in here.
'Shall I check your coat?' Willi asked.
I'll keep it on,' Helen said. She was looking paler than usual; perhaps it was the lighting, or she hadn't realised it would be quite like this when she came back to Berlin; she'd thought there was just going to be a quiet talk with Willi. He was lighting a cigarette, black with a gold tip. His hands were quick, nervous.
'A hit man,' he said. 'How did you know?'
We hadn't talked much in the taxi on our way here; we'd been looking for somewhere quiet, and there aren't too many places like that in Berlin. 'I'm not sure he was there in order to make a hit,' I said. 'He was just the type, that was all. He'd followed you there.'
'But how do you know?'
'Willi, it's my job to know things like that. You've got to trust me.'
He flicked his cigarette but there was no ash on it yet; it was just a nervous gesture.
'What happened to him? Where did he go?
'He went into the men's room,' I said, 'with a bad headache. He didn't follow us here. I had to get you out of the Cafe Brahms because he'd been dropped off by a Mercedes, and that would have stayed in the area. They're waiting for you to come out of the Cafe Brahms and here you are in this place and you're absolutely in the clear, so cheer up, all is well.'
'Guten Abend. Was mochten Sie trinken?'
The girl stood looking down at us, holding her tray, pale and skinny and wearing a black satin slip, rouge and red lipstick and short bobbed hair: this place was called Die Zwanziger – The Twenties – and there were girls at the bar and dancing with some pale-looking men on the miniature spotlit stage. Some of them were flourishing long cigarette holders; the place was thick with smoke.
'Helen?'
Willi was attentive, considered himself the host.
'Oh, whatever you're having.'
'Mr Locke?' 'Tonic. My name's Victor.'