Zimmermann stood up, leaning his knuckles on the table. "It is to help you get out of here that you must answer my questions, Frau Schröder. A little more help, if you please. I am a very busy man, and I have no time to waste with these — demonstrations of self-pity."
She turned from her lawyer to him, sniffed and wiped her eyes. The tone had stung and impressed her. Bribed her, too. She nodded her head, vigorously.
"What can I tell you? Two or three times a week, there was never mess, the sheets were always changed on the bed, there were champagne glasses washed up, any food… all was washed up, put away when they had finished. I was never inconvenienced. The flat was always empty when I returned."
"Did you know this woman?"
"Yes. By name — I had seen her once or twice."
"But never at the flat?"
"No. They were — discreet."
Zimmermann pondered. At last he had been able to dehumanise the situation, purge it of its associations. Margarethe Schröder was now no more than a possible witness to events in 1974 — a retired secretary with a high security clearance. The recipient of a civil service pension.
"Can you be specific, as to dates? When did this affair begin — when did they begin using your flat for their meetings?"
"I went to work for Mr Babbington — oh, in March, or perhaps the beginning of April. I am not certain. At first, I did not wish to be seconded, but he was very charming, very considerate…"
"Of course. And the flat?"
"Perhaps two weeks later — at first, it was to be only for one time, then he pressed me, with such apologies… and so…" She raised her hands, almost smiling. "Then two or three times a week." She chuckled throatily.
"I see. They could not use hotels?"
"The woman was, as you know, well known in Bonn. She might have been recognised by women in her circle?" To Schröder, it was self-evident that such precautions had been needed.
Zimmermann paused for a moment, then he said: "You had a telephone installed in your apartment, of course?"
"Naturally."
"The week of the traitor Guillaume's arrest — Mr Babbington used your flat?"
"Often. He persuaded me that I had been working too hard, that I should take a few days' leave. I went to Bavaria — it was beautiful in the spring. He — he bought the train tickets and booked the hotel… a good hotel."
Zimmermann contained his rising sense of excitement. The apartment with its untapped, unsuspicious telephone, had been in Babbington's possession for the crucial few days. Babbington's periods of disappearance had been accounted for because of the affair — they even knew where he was, so the surveillance reports and recollections claimed. Babbington had disarmed them by indulging in an affair and finding a hiding place for himself and the woman. It had excused any and all of his actions, giving them the gloss of adultery, not criminality. The telephone calls to Guillaume had begun on April 22nd.
"You returned to Bonn — when?"
"On the 25th of April."
"And Mr Babbington continued to use your apartment for his meetings with — this woman now dead?"
Margarethe Schroder shook her head. She even appeared saddened by the recollection. "No. Mr Babbington was very upset. He told me that her husband was becoming suspicious — they had to part, even though he begged her—"
"You believed him?"
"You think I don't recognise unhappiness when I see it?" she challenged.
"So, the affair was over — and, of course, Mr Babbington's new work took up all his time. He was able to lose himself in his responsibilities."
"Luckily for him. Slowly, he seemed to mend, to recover his spirits."
"Did he settle your very high telephone bill before he returned to England, Frau Schröder?" Zimmermann asked quickly, startling and confusing the woman.
"How did you…?" Then she dismissed the suspicion that this was the thrust of Zimmermann's enquiries, and said, "Yes, he did. Every mark and pfennig."
"It was a high bill. Did most of the calls — local ones — come while you were on holiday?"
"Yes… I think so, anyway—"
"But before that there were many calls — long-distance, even international?" She nodded. "But the mainly local ones were while you took your holiday?"
"There was never any attempt to deceive me — Mr Babbington explained that he took work to the apartment, that he had to talk to London a great deal — before the bill arrived he told me all this."
"Ah. Of course. It was nothing." He looked at his watch. One in the morning. He felt a tired, jumpy excitement tightening his chest. This was, at the very least, a satisfactory beginning. He had method and opportunity now — perhaps he might discover motive, too, given time? He stood up. He shook hands with Margarethe Schröder perfunctorily. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you. I — shall be in touch with your lawyer, Herr Ganzer, within a matter of days. I am sure we can do something to make your next Christmas something to remember!" He tried to smile once more, and almost achieved the expression of sincerity. It was a reflection of his own self-satisfaction that she witnessed.
"Thank you," she said bemusedly. Zimmermann shook hands briefly with Ganzer, nodding an assurance as he did so, and left. His footsteps clattered along the brightly lit, tiled corridor.
As he passed through the corridors and levels of the prison towards the main gates and his car, beneath the long striplights, he began to escape the pervasive, constricting sense of imprisonment that the interview room had contained. It had radiated from the woman, Schröder. She was the past that imprisoned him and his country.
He accepted what he recognised as his own internment within his talents. He was a spy and an interrogator, and always had been. That he accepted as a willed life sentence. But her — Schröder — she represented those who had made Germany and most of Europe a prison and a charnel-house. He wanted to distance himself from them and what they had done. In part, his whole life had been such a distancing process. But now, his debt to Aubrey had returned him like a planet in a long, elliptical orbit to the moment of Germany's greatest shame. He had come face to face, in that warm, dry, interview room, with the horror of the past.
He hurried into the cold air of the courtyard, turning up the collar of his overcoat. He climbed thankfully into the Mercedes, started the engine and drove to the gates. He showed his pass and the gates opened. He was free.
He had almost reached the slip-road to the Cologne-Bonn autobahn before he realised he was being followed.
Babbington took the telephone call from Bonn and for once envisaged the town at the other end of the connection. He remembered, quite clearly, Margarethe Schröder's small, cramped, neat apartment and the telephone — and the dozens, even hundreds of calls he had made. Sometimes the woman had been there — poor Use, who had died of cancer so painfully — but mostly he had been alone. Use had been a good cover, a good lover, but a luxury he had had to abandon as time ran out for Guillaume. He had covered his tracks, but Teardrop had been bound to raise the ghosts of '74, and now he was forced to exorcise them a decade later.
"It is done — everything as you ordered. Do you want to look at the stuff?" The accent was American. The KGB officer had, like so many of them, learned his English in the United States, probably as a student.
"What is it?"
"He had all the right files pulled. He was getting close. The woman in Cologne — he's seen her."
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
"Then let's hope tonight will be a lesson to him. Many thanks."