Samson 07 spy hook, p.23
Samson 07 - Spy Hook, page 23
It was six-thirty by the time I finished work. The rain had come and gone but there was still a drizzle. The offices had emptied and the streets were crowded. Like rivers of flame the flashing signs made brightly coloured reflections in the wet streets. The car took me to Lisl Hennig’s hotel. As I got out of it I stood in the rain and examined the facade apprehensively, but whatever changes Werner had wrought they were not to be seen from the street. This was the same old house that I’d known all my life. They were all the same, these Ku-Damm houses near the Zoo. They were built at the turn of the century by speculative builders for nouveau riche businessmen, and the adornments of bearded gods and buxom nymphs were chosen from catalogues by those who wanted to customize their homes. Some of them were grotesquely overdone.
Since then the Red Army’s artillery, and the Anglo-American bombing fleets, had added further distinguishing features to all the buildings of Berlin, so that Lisl’s house was scarred and chipped with a pox of splinter damage. The fighting done, the roof had been renewed and the decorated window surrounds of the upper storey had been shoddily and hastily patched up. Real repairs were forty years overdue.
I pushed through the heavy doors and went up the front stairs. The carpet was new, a rich ruby red, and the brass handrail was polished so it shone like gold. There was a sparkling chandelier over the stairs, and the elaborate mirrors on the walls had been cleaned so that they repeated my reflections a thousand times. No sooner had I started up the stairs than I heard the piano. ‘Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you …’ And then a sudden cascade of improvised harmonies. It was Werner at the keys. I would recognize his silky ebullient style anywhere. Something almost spiritual happened to Werner when he sat at the piano.
‘ … my irreplaceable you.’ Someone had moved the grand piano so that it was in the centre of the ‘salon’. And either it had been painted white or it was a new piano. There were comfortable soft brown leather armchairs too. And all Lisl’s signed souvenir photos of Berlin personalities of long ago had been cleaned and newly arranged, one close upon the other, to cover the whole wall. Who wasn’t represented there? Here were Einstein, Furtwangler, Strauss, Goebbels, Dietrich, Piscator, Brecht, Weil, and the photos were signed with extravagant declarations of affection for Lisl or for her mother Frau Wisliceny who’d once played hostess to all Berlin.
There were not many hotel guests to be seen. Just a party of four Danes who were chatting animatedly as if unaware of the music, and a desiccated couple sitting at the bar, drinking colourful cocktails and glaring at each other. I caught a brief glimpse of Ingrid Winter as she came down the stairs with a tray. She was wearing another of her stylish ‘farmer’s wife goes to church’ dresses. This one had a high lacy neckline and long ankle-length skirt. She smiled at me.
Werner looked up from the keyboard. He saw me and stopped playing. ‘Bernie! I told you to phone. I was going to come and fetch you. The rain is terrible …’ He looked at my wet coat.
‘Frank arranged a car.’
From her chair in the corner Lisl called imperiously, ‘What are you doing, Bernd? Come and give your Lisl a kiss!’ She was in good voice whatever her infirmities. She was dressed in a flowing red robe. Her face was carefully painted and she had false eyelashes which she fluttered like a schoolgirl. As I leaned over her, the smell of perfume was almost overwhelming. ‘Your coat is wet, Bernd,’ she said. ‘Take it off. Tell Klara to dry it in the kitchen.’
‘It’s all right, Lisl,’ I said.
‘Do as I say, Bernd. Don’t be so stubborn.’ I took the coat off and gave it to the aged Klara who appeared from nowhere. ‘And then go down to the boiler room. The pump is giving trouble again. I told them you were always able to mend it.’
‘I’ll try,’ I promised without conviction. Lisl was determined to believe that I had spent my childhood performing all kind of mechanical miracles with the antiquated electricity system and the heating. It wasn’t true of course. The idea that Bernd would fix it had been Tante Lisl’s way of deferring as long as possible the inevitable replacement of aged and broken machinery.
‘The hotel is looking wonderful, Lisl.’
She grunted as if she hadn’t properly heard me, but the one-sided little smile she gave was enough to tell me how pleased she was with Werner’s refurbishment.
I could not really be expected to cure the pump of its chronic arrhythmias: it was too far gone. Werner came with me to the subterranean boiler room and we examined the incontinent old brute with its dribbled rust and flaking insulation. In an attempt to justify Lisl’s confidence in me I gave the meter a tap, rapped upon the pump casing and repeatedly touched warm pipes that should have been hot enough to scorch the flesh. ‘It’s not just the boiler. The whole system will have to be renewed,’ said Werner. ‘But I’m praying that it will last out till next year.’
‘Yes,’ I said. We continued to look at it in the hope that it would suddenly come to life. Then Ingrid Winter joined us. She said nothing. She just stood with us staring at the boiler. I stole a look at her. She was a handsome woman with a lovely complexion and clear eyes that shone when she looked at you. She glowed with the quiet vocational self-assurance that you hope to see in a nurse.
‘It’s not only the money,’ explained Werner to no one in particular. ‘We’ll have to change all the pipes and radiators. There will be dust and noise in every room. If we had to do that in the winter it would mean closing the hotel completely …’
‘Couldn’t you change the boiler first?’ I suggested. Then do the plumbing and piping piece by piece?’
‘The plumber says we can’t,’ said Werner. He knew my ignorance about such matters was profound, and the look he gave me let me know that he knew. ‘The sort of boiler we’ll need for all the new bathrooms just wouldn’t operate with the old plumbing. It’s very old.’
Ingrid Winter said, ‘Perhaps we should talk to some other heating engineer, Werner.’
Her accent was the rounded one of southern Bavaria: not one of those raw back-country accents, just a slight burr. But there was some inflection of Ingrid Winter’s voice, some tiny change of pitch or of tone, that made me look at Werner. He stared back at me and gave the same mirthless smile that I remembered from our schooldays together. Werner once confided that it was his ‘inscrutable’ expression but ‘guilty’ would have been a better description.
Werner said, ‘Old Heinmuller knows the system very well, Ingrid. It was him and his father who got it going again after the bombing in the war.’
‘We’ll have to do something, Werner dear,’ she said, and this time was unable to conceal the intimacy in her voice. There existed between them that intuitive sympathy and unspoken understanding for which Goethe coined the word Wahlverwandtschaft.
‘While we’re here alone, Ingrid, tell Bernie about the Hungarian.’ He touched her arm. ‘Tell him what you told me, Ingrid.’
She hesitated and then said, ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything … But the other evening I was telling Werner about my mother and about that awful Hungarian man who lives nearby.’
‘Dodo?’ I said.
‘Yes. He calls himself Dodo.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s a pathetic little man,’ said Ingrid. ‘I’ve never liked him. I wish Mother wouldn’t invite him to the house. He’s always leering at me.’ She paused and looked closely at the lagging on the boiler pipes. ‘It should be cleaned away,’ she said. ‘I hate dirt.’
‘When was it last cleaned and serviced?’ I said. She seemed ill at ease. I wanted to give her a chance to compose herself. ‘I remember once a fellow came and replaced a nozzle or something, and it started working perfectly again.’
‘We’ve tried nozzles,’ said Werner impatiently. To Ingrid he said, ‘Tell Bernie what they said about his father. And your father. It’s better that he knows.’
Ingrid looked at me, obviously not wanting to tell me anything at all.
‘I’d like to hear, Ingrid,’ I said, trying to make it easier for her.
‘You remember what I told you when you visited my mother?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I upset you. I know I did. I’m sorry.’
‘No matter.’
‘Most of what I know comes from Dodo: he’s not a reliable source.’
‘But tell me anyway.’
‘All we’ve ever been told officially is that Paul Winter was killed after the war ended. An accidental shooting.’
‘By the Americans,’ said Werner.
‘Let me tell it, Werner.’
I’m sorry, Ingrid.’
‘They said he was escaping,’ she said. ‘But they always say that, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They always say that.’
‘It was Dodo who brought it all up again. He kept on at my mother about it. You probably know how he goes on. She listens to him. He was a Nazi; that’s why he gets on so well with Mother.’
‘A Nazi?’ I said.
Werner said, ‘He worked for Gehlen. The Abwehr recruited him at Vienna University. When the war ended, and Gehlen started working for the Americans, Dodo worked for Lange.’
I looked at Werner and tried to guess where my father fitted into all this. Werner smiled nervously, wondering perhaps if he should have brought up the subject of my father. Ingrid said, ‘Dodo is a troublemaker. Some people are like that, aren’t they?’ She looked at me expecting a response, so I nodded.
She said, ‘He is a troubled, morbid creature. And he drinks too much and becomes maudlin. Full of self-pity. Hungarians have the highest suicide rate in the world: four times as many as Americans, and still climbing.’ Ingrid broke off, doubtless remembering that Gloria was Hungarian too. Flushed with embarrassment she turned back to the boiler and said, ‘We could get it cleaned and serviced and see what happens. Even when the pump keeps working, the water doesn’t get really hot.
‘Lisl should have fitted a bigger one when she had it renewed,’ I said. I reached out with both hands and slapped the boiler twice, encouragingly, as a Neapolitan platoon commander might slap the shoulders of a man ordered out on a dangerous mission. It made no difference.
For a moment I thought she’d decided to say no more, then she said, ‘Dodo urged my mother to sue the American army.’
‘That sounds like Dodo,’ I said.
‘Get compensation for Paul Winter’s death. It was a shooting accident.’
‘It’s a bit late now, isn’t it? And I thought you said he was shot while trying to escape,’ I said.
‘Ingrid said that the Americans gave that as their excuse.’
‘Dodo told my mother the Americans would pay a lot of money. He said they wouldn’t want it all dragged up.’
I grunted to express my doubts about Dodo’s theory.
‘My Uncle Peter was a colonel in the American army. He was shot in the same incident. Dodo says they were on a secret mission.’
I said. ‘What’s all this got to do with my father?’
‘He was there,’ said Ingrid.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘Berchtesgaden,’ said Ingrid. ‘The inquiry said that he was the one who shot Paul Winter.’
‘I think you must have made a mistake,’ I said. ‘Werner knew my father. He will tell you … anyone will tell you …’ I shrugged. ‘My father wasn’t a shooting soldier. He worked in intelligence.’
‘He shot Paul Winter,’ said Ingrid coldly and calmly. ‘Paul Winter was a war criminal … or so it was alleged. Your father was an officer on duty with the army that had conquered us. There probably was a cover-up. Such things happen when there are wars.’
I said nothing. There was nothing to say. She obviously believed what she said, but she wasn’t getting angry. She was more embarrassed than angry. I suppose she had no recollection of her father. He was no more than a name to her, and that’s how she spoke of him.
When it seemed that Ingrid didn’t want to tell me more, Werner said, ‘Dodo used the American Freedom of Information Act and had someone go through the US army archives. He didn’t find much except that an American colonel and a German civilian both named Winter died of gunshot wounds. It was night and snowing. The court of inquiry recorded it as an accident. No one was punished.’
‘Are you sure my father was there? Berchtesgaden was in the American Zone. Why would my father be with the Americans?’
‘Captain Brian Samson,’ said Ingrid. ‘He gave evidence to the inquiry. A sworn statement from him and many other documents were listed but Dodo couldn’t get transcripts.’
Werner said, That damned Dodo is a dangerous little swine. If he’s determined to make trouble …’
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. Werner knew me well enough to appreciate how much any kind of blemish on my father’s career would hurt me. ‘I have no quarrel with Dodo,’ I said.
‘He resents you,’ said Ingrid. ‘After your visit to him he came to see Mama. Dodo really hates you.’
‘Why should he hate me?’
‘She’s Hungarian, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, she’s Hungarian,’ I said.
‘And Dodo’s a close friend of her family,’ said Ingrid with that decisive finality with which women pronounce upon such relationships. ‘To him you are a meddlesome foreign intruder …’ She didn’t finish. There was no need to. I nodded. Ingrid was right and I knew the rest of it. It was easy to see myself as a middle-aged lecher taking advantage of this innocent young girl. It would be more than enough to trigger an unstable personality like Dodo. If it was the other way round, if that dreadful Dodo was living with the young daughter of one of my old friends I would be angry too. Angry beyond measure.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘There is always electricity,’ said Ingrid.
‘Is there?’ I said.
‘To heat the water,’ said Ingrid. ‘We could even have small electric heaters in each bathroom. Then water from the boiler would just be used by the kitchen.’
I was angry at the injustice of it. I looked at the boiler and kicked it at the place where the water went into the pump. Nothing happened so I kicked it again, harder. It gave a whirring sound. Ingrid and Werner looked at me with new respect. For a moment or two we watched to see if it would keep going, and Werner touched it to be sure it was getting hot again. It got hotter. ‘What about a drink?’ said Werner.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ I said.
‘And then Ingrid will cook the Hoppel-Poppel. She has everything ready. She cooks it in goose dripping.’
‘If you want to wash or anything, your top-floor bathroom will have plenty of hot water. It gets it straight from the tank.’
‘Thanks Ingrid.’
‘Your room is just the same as it was. Werner wanted to have it repapered and refurbished as a surprise for you but I said it would be better to ask you first. I said you might like it just the way it is.’ She looked at me and her face said how sorry she was to have been a conveyor of unpleasant news to Werner’s friend.
‘I like it the way it is,’ I admitted.
‘It was nice of you to bring the curtain material. Werner said you wouldn’t mind.’
‘In goose dripping, eh?’ I said. ‘Ingrid, you’re some woman!’
Werner smiled. He was smiling a lot lately.
19
Having returned to London with the malicious drunken defamations of Dodo still ringing in my mind, I left a message for Cindy Prettyman or Matthews as, despite the Prettyman pension, she was determined to be known. She called back almost immediately. I expected her to be annoyed that I’d not contacted her earlier, but she had no recriminations. She was sweet and elated. Friday evening would be just fine for her. A hotel in Bayswater? Any way you want to play it, Cindy. Before I rang off, I heard the pips going. So she’d gone out of the office and called from a pay phone. Pay phone? And a hotel in Bayswater? Oh well, Cindy had always been a bit weird.
I had to talk to her. Dodo’s various bombshells, whether true or entirely nonsense, made it all the more urgent. And delicate little assignments like nosing into the tight little empire of Schneider, von Schild and Weber was best done via the big anonymous facilities of the Foreign Office, rather than the parochial ones of my Department, where all concerned would know, or guess, that the request had come from me. I’d come out of it with a lot of explaining to do if any of Dodo’s exotic allegations proved true.
‘I hate the idea of you confiding in that woman,’ said Gloria when I got home that night. ‘She’s so …’ Gloria paused to think of the word, ‘ … cold-blooded.’
‘Is she?’
‘When are you seeing her?’
‘Friday evening, from the office.’
‘Can I come?’ said Gloria.
‘Of course.’
‘I’d be intruding.’
‘No, do come along. She won’t be expecting dinner. A drink, she said.’ I watched Gloria carefully. In all our years together, my wife Fiona had never revealed a trace of jealousy or suspicion, but Gloria scrutinized every female acquaintance as a possible paramour. She especially examined the motives of unattached females, and those from my past. In all these respects Cindy loomed large.
‘If you’re sure,’ said Gloria.
‘You might have to close your ears,’ I warned. I meant of course that there would be things said that I might later officially deny, that Cindy might later deny and that, if Gloria was going to be there, she’d have to be prepared to deny too. Deny on oath.
I think Gloria understood. ‘I’ll make a trip to the Ladies, that will give her a chance to say anything confidential.’
