Silesian Station

Rehearsals

The studio car picked Effi up at five-thirty on Monday morning, establishing the pattern for the next two weeks. Whenever she had this sort of schedule Russell spent the weekday nights at Neuenburger Strasse, but on this occasion they agreed to spend Wednesday night - and the air raid rehearsal - together. Being bombed would be so much more interesting in each other's company.

That Monday morning, Russell left the flat soon after eight and headed across town to the Cafe Kranzler. The German newspapers seemed bemused by 'Hudson's Howler', unsure whether it represented a genuine offer, indignant at the very idea that the Reich could be bribed into acquiescence. As a story, Russell decided, it had run its course.

He spent most of the next two hours in one of the Adlon telephone booths, calling up a variety of German contacts in a vain trawl for fresh news. Suitably frustrated, he strode down the Wilhelmstrasse for the eleven o'clock press briefing at the Foreign Ministry. Ribbentrop's spokesman had a sneer or two prepared for the British, but, as usual, soon found himself on the defensive. An English correspondent asked about Pastor Schneider, the Rhineland clergy-man who'd been in custody for twenty-seven months, and whose death from a 'heart attack' in Buchenwald concentration camp had just been announced. Had the authorities reached a decision on which law he had broken?

'An internal German matter,' the spokesman blustered. He held up his hands, as if to show they were clean.

Briefings like that could sap the will to live, Russell thought, as he drove home to Neuenburger Strasse. Frau Heidegger's door was open, the woman herself lying in wait with her deadly coffee. Russell took his usual chair and the usual trepidatory sip, and was pleasantly surprised. 'My sister washed the pot out,' the concierge told him indignantly, 'and the coffee doesn't taste the same.'

'It's a little weaker,' Russell agreed, forbearing to add that it would still jolt a dead camel to life.

Like most Germans, her knowledge of America was gleaned solely from the movies, and Frau Heidegger's questions about Russell's trip were framed accordingly. She was disappointed that he hadn't seen the West, thrilled that he and Paul had visited the skyscraper made famous by King Kong. A distant cousin had once thought of emigrating to America, she told him, but the thought of giant apes running wild had put her off. The woman hadn't been very bright, Frau Heidegger admitted. But then no one from the East Prussian side of the family was.

Her own week in Stettin had been wonderful. Her brother had arranged a sailing trip, and they'd gone so far out that they could hardly see the land. Returning to Berlin was the usual tale of woe, however. It always took her two weeks to undo what her sister had done in one.

'There's one thing I should know,' she said, having reminded herself of her duties. 'Will you be here on Wednesday night for the air raid rehearsal? I'm asking because Beiersdorfer will want to write it all down.' Beiersdorfer was the block warden, in name at least. He was as frightened of Frau Heidegger as the rest of them.

'No, I'll be at Effi's,' Russell said.

'Ah, I saw her picture in the paper,' Frau Heidegger said, leaping up and riffling through the pages of that day's Beobachter. 'Here,' she said, passing it over. Christina Bergner was talking to Goebbels in the Universum foyer, a smiling Effi just behind them.

'It's a good picture,' he said.

'Did she talk to the Minister?'

'Just a few words. He complimented her on her acting.'

'That is good. She must have been pleased.'

'Yes, she was.' Russell took a final sip, gently pushed the cup away, and asked if any messages had been left for him.

There were two. Uwe Kuzorra had called - 'He has information for you, but he has no telephone, so you must call on him whenever it's convenient.' The second message was from a Frau Grostein. 'She said you know her. She would like you to call her on this number' - Frau Heidegger passed over a small square of paper. 'As soon as possible,' she said, 'but that was on Saturday, soon after I got back. The woman sounded... not upset, exactly. Excited perhaps?'

Russell shrugged his ignorance. 'I hardly know her. She's a friend of a friend. I'll call her now.' He got to his feet. 'Thanks for the coffee. It's good to have you back.'

She beamed.

He walked across the ground floor hallway to the block's only telephone and dialled the number.

'Frau Grostein,' a confident voice announced.

'John Russell. I've just got your message.'

'Mr Russell. I need to talk to you, but not on the telephone. Can we meet?'

'I suppose so.'

'Today?'

'All right.'

'It's ten past twelve now. How about two o'clock in the Rosengarten? By the Viktoria statue.'

'Fine. I'll see you there.' The line clicked off, and Russell replaced the ear-piece. A mistake? he wondered. These days his life seemed like one of those downhill ski runs he and Effi had seen at the Winter Olympics in '36. The contestants had plummeted down the mountainside at ever-increasing speeds, needing split-second changes of direction just to keep within bounds. Most had ended up in exploding flurries of snow, limbs and skis splayed at seemingly impossible angles.

Russell parked close to the Wagner monument on Tiergartenstrasse and walked up through the trees to the lake. Just past the statue of Albert Lortzing - the Germans did love their composers - a bridge led him over the stream and into the colonnaded Rosengarten. He caught sight of Sarah Grostein, crouching down to smell the dark red roses that surrounded the Empress Viktoria's marble plinth.

He walked towards her, glancing around as he did so. There were a few office workers, nannies with children, a pensioner or two. No one seemed interested in her or him. No one's head was hidden behind a raised newspaper. Paranoia, he told himself sternly. It beats the axe, a second inner voice retorted.

She stood up, looked round and saw him. She offered her hand and half-whispered, 'Thank you for coming.'

He just nodded.

'I thought we could walk,' she suggested. 'Towards the goldfish pond?'

She was older than he'd thought - around his own age, probably. Still attractive, though. Tall, big for a woman, but well-proportioned. Her clothes looked extremely expensive, her hair like someone had spent a lot of time on it. There was something feline about the contours of her face, something sad in the large brown eyes. 'Wherever you like,' he said.

After leaving the Rosengarten she chose one of the less-used pathways. 'Have you said anything to anyone about...seeing me where you did?'

'I should think half of Berlin saw you.'

'You know what I mean. After meeting me at the Wiesners. It must have surprised you.'

'Seeing a Jewish woman on an SS General's arm? It certainly made me curious.'

'So did you tell anyone?'

'Only my girlfriend.'

'Will she tell anyone?'

'No. When I told her she just suggested that half the people in Berlin were living double lives. And I didn't mention your name.'

'I'm surprised you remembered it.' She fell silent as a couple walked past in the opposite direction. 'I'm not Jewish by the way,' she said once the pair had gone by. She let out a short brittle laugh. 'Now that all Jewish females have Sarah as their second name it's assumed that anyone called Sarah is Jewish, but there are thousands of non-Jewish women named Sarah. Or were. I expect most of them have changed their names by now.'

'So how...?

'My husband was a Jew,' she said. 'Richard Grostein. A wonderful man. He died in Sachsenhausen five years ago. He was one of those Social Democrats who wouldn't shut up when the Nazis came to power. He was an old friend of Felix Wiesner's and I was an old comrade of Eva's - that's how we met.'

'I see,' Russell said, and thought he did. 'You don't need to tell me anything more. Your secrets are safe with me. Even safer if I don't know what half of them are.'

She smiled at that. 'It's not that simple, I'm afraid.' She gave him an appraising look. 'You don't seem to hide how you feel about the Nazis,' she said. 'Of course that must be easier for a foreigner, and you may not take it any further. I have the feeling you do, though. Or maybe that you will at some time in the future. If you do, you'll probably reach that place that I've reached, where you suddenly find that your own decisions have become matters of life and death. Your own life and death.'

Russell nodded. Six months earlier, agonising over what to do with a false passport, he had experienced exactly that thought.

'I've decided to trust you,' she said. 'With my life,' she added lightly. 'I'm guessing you must be a good man because of what you did for the Wiesners, but I don't really know anything about you. Eva told me that you arranged Albert's escape with the comrades, so I'm assuming - hoping - that you're still in touch with them.'

Say no, Russell thought, but he couldn't. 'I could be,' he temporised.

'We...I need to make contact. Our group has had no contact for four years, and we have no idea who it's safe to approach and who it isn't. We just need an address or a telephone number.'

Russell thought about it. She was - to repeat her own phrase - asking him to trust her with his life. He assumed she was a good person because she too had been a friend of the Wiesners, but he didn't really know anything about her either. Except that he'd seen her on an SS Gruppenfuhrer's arm.

Her story rang true. The KPD had certainly been decimated by the Nazis in 1933. Half of its leaders had ended up in concentration camps and half had fled into exile, leaving several million rudderless members to fend for them-selves. Many of those arrested had been persuaded - mostly by fear of torture - into betraying comrades still at liberty. Many had actually joined the Nazis, some from self-interest, others as a clandestine opposition. The problem was knowing which was which.

'We have valuable information,' she insisted. 'My Gruppenfuhrer works in the Reichsfuhrer's office.'

Russell was impressed. 'I'll see what I can do. It may take a few weeks though.'

'After four years, a few weeks won't matter.'

Russell was thinking about Effi's mutual secrets. He knew he wouldn't tell her about this meeting, and the knowledge saddened him.

Another thought occurred to him. 'Do you know a Freya and Wilhelm Isendahl? She was Freya Hahnemann until recently. She's not Jewish but he is.'

'Why are you asking?'

'Because I'm looking for her. I met her parents in New York a few weeks ago and they wanted me to check that she was all right. When I questioned the landlady at their old address I got the impression they were involved in political activity, and I don't want to put them in any danger.'

'I knew a young man of that name, back in '32-'33. Not personally, but by reputation - he was one of the youth wing's rising stars. I'm surprised he's still alive. You know what we used to call our Party activists in 1933?'

'Dead men on furlough.'

'Exactly. I'll see if I can get you an address.'

'Thanks.'

'And you'd better have mine - it's safer to visit than telephone.' She gave him a number and street in one of the posher districts to the north of the park.

'Nice area,' he said.

'My husband was a rich socialist,' she said without irony. 'Family money. And he had the sense to put everything in my name before the anti-Jewish laws were brought in. I used to feel guilty about having it all, but now it just feels like part of the disguise.'

'I'll be in touch, one way or the other,' Russell said.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, scenting the air with jasmine. 'Till then.'

They set off in their separate directions. Both of them, Russell guessed, were thinking the same depressing thought - that there was one more person in the world who could, and probably would, betray them under torture. Look on the bright side, he told himself. If he was instrumental in delivering Sarah Grostein's 'valuable information' to the Soviets, they might feel like they owed him something. Yes, and pigs might soar like eagles.

The Hanomag was like an oven, encouraging the pursuit of cold beer. Several cafes in the Old City's Schloss-Platz offered large awnings for drinking under, and the sight of the square's fountain seemed cooling in itself. Russell ordered a Pilsener and reminded himself he had a living to earn. The air raid rehearsal should make a story, but was there any way of finding out where the action was going to take place? Wandering round in the blackout looking for supposedly bombed houses seemed rather hit-and-miss, not to mention potentially dangerous. The local storm troopers would probably be out shooting imaginary paratroopers, and he had no desire to be one of them.

The Propaganda Ministry might let him tag along with one of the ARP units if he asked nicely. How Germany's war preparations contribute to peace. Something like that.

A second beer was tempting, but he decided to get the trip to Wedding over with first. This time it was Kuzorra who opened the door. 'Schnapps?' the detective asked immediately. 'Katrin is out,' he added, as if in explanation.

'A small one,' Russell said.

'I went down to the station,' Kuzorra began once they were seated, 'and met the train your girl would have been on. I talked to three of the crew - the conductor and two of the dining car staff. They all remembered her.'

He took an appreciative sip of his schnapps, placed the glass on a shelf beside his chair, and reached inside the jacket which was draped across the back for a small notebook. He didn't open the notebook though, just held it in his lap. 'The conductor examined her ticket soon after the train left Breslau, but he also remembered seeing her much later in the journey, between Guben and Frankfurt he thinks. A sweet little thing, he called her. A little nervous.

'And then there were the two waiters. The young one who took her order thought she was a 'looker', as he put it. Big eyes. I expect he would have told me how big her breasts were if I'd asked him. The older one - he has one of those moustaches which were old-fashioned in the Kaiser's time - he had to tell her that they couldn't serve her. Some rancid hag panicked at the thought of eating within ten metres of a Jew, and her husband insisted on their checking Miriam's identity papers. He said she looked surprised, but didn't kick up a fuss. Just went like a lamb. That was before Sagan, he thought.'

'So we still can't be certain that she reached Berlin?'

'Not completely, no. I talked to all the station staff, the left luggage people, every last one of the concessionaires - frankfurter stands, news kiosks, hair salon, the lot. I thought she must have been hungry after seven hours without food, but no one recognized her from the photograph. Several regulars were taking their week's holiday though, and they'll be back this Friday. I thought I'd go back for another try. It would be good to get an actual sighting at Silesian Station. Rule out the possibility that she got off at Frankfurt.'

'Why would she do that?' Russell asked, more rhetorically than otherwise.

Kuzorra shrugged. 'She may have been more upset by the business in the dining car than she showed. Took a sudden decision to head back home.'

'She never got there.'

'No. And I know it's unlikely. All my instincts tell me that she reached Berlin.'

'And if she did...'

'It doesn't look good.' The detective reached round and replaced the note-book in his jacket pocket. 'So shall I have another go this Friday?'

'Yes, do that. Do you need any money?'

'No. I'm still earning the retainer.'

Russell got to his feet. 'I won't be around much this weekend, and I'm probably off to Prague on Monday, so leave any message at my number, and if you don't hear back straight away then just keep digging, okay?'

'Suits me. Any excuse to get out of the house,' he added, as he showed Russell out.

Clouds were gathering as he drove back into the city, and rain started falling as he crossed the Eiserne Bridge over the Spree. Effi had left her bright pink parasol in the back seat, and this protected him from the worst of the downpour as he walked from the car to the crowded portals of the Adlon.

He phoned Thomas from the lobby to deliver the latest news.

'I've never met the girl,' Thomas said, 'but for some reason she's keeping me awake at nights.'

'It's called humanity.'

'Ah, that.'

In the bar, his fellow correspondents assured him that 'Hudson's Howler' had died a well-deserved death, and that no new story had risen to take its place. Hitler was still in the south enjoying his opera, and all was at peace with the world. Russell headed back to Neuenburger Strasse, Sarah Grostein, Freya Isendahl and Miriam Rosenfeld competing for prominence in his thoughts.

Frau Heidegger was waiting with a message from Effi . The studio, dismayed by the possibility that its latest masterwork might be interrupted by the air raid rehearsal, had decided to put the cast and crew up at a hotel outside the city.

'Does this mean you'll be here?' Frau Heidegger wanted to know. 'Because I've already told Beiersdorfer that you won't be.'

'I'd better let him know then,' Russell said wearily. It amused him that Frau Heidegger, so scrupulous with her Herrs, Fraus and Frauleins, always refused that courtesy to the block warden. There was nothing political in it, unless contempt could be read as such.

Beiersdorfer's rooms were on the first floor, and Russell had only entered them once before, as part of a deputation formed to dissuade him from reporting a ten-year-old girl for repeating a political joke that she was too young to understand. He remembered the portraits on the wall, the Fuhrer on one, Fat Hermann on the other. The man was too old to have served in the Luft-waffe, but he liked making model aeroplanes.

Russell was left to wait in the hall while Beiersdorfer collected his clip-board. The man then amended his finely-wrought chart with painstaking care, sighing all the while. Russell let him finish before adding that he might be out anyway, on a journalistic assignment, and was duly rewarded with a Hitlerish splutter of exasperation.

He approached his own room with an apprehension that he half-knew was unwarranted - why would Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth have him beaten up again? - but still felt stomach-tinglingly real. This time though, the door was definitely locked, and the light responded to his flick of the switch. There were no thugs reclining on his sofa.

He took a fresh bottle of beer to the seat by the window, and put his feet up on the sill. The rain and clouds had cleared as quickly as they'd come, leaving an unusually clear sky. The odd passing car apart, Berlin gave off a gentle hum. It was only six and a half years since the Nazis had taken over the city, but sometimes it felt as if the bastards had been there forever. Not tonight, though. He wondered whether Sarah Grostein was in bed with her unsuspecting SS General, whether Freya and her firebrand were out there dancing round the feet of the Gestapo elephant. He thought about Thomas and his missing girl, about the new look in Effi's eyes. The bastards might be in power, but this wasn't just a city of billowing swastikas and Sportspalasts and 'wild' concentration camps, and it didn't just belong to Hitler and Goebbels and their brown-shirted swamp life. Other Berlins were still alive, still clamouring for attention. The Brechts and the Luxemburgs, the Mendelsohns and the Doblins - they might all be gone, but their ghosts still haunted Hitler's night.

By the clear light of summer mornings, however, Russell felt rather less optimistic. He and his fellow foreign correspondents spent Tuesday and Wednesday trying to confirm the sundry depressing rumours circulating in the city. On the previous Saturday one German newspaper had announced that trade talks had been resumed between Germany and the Soviets. The various ministries refused to confirm or deny this, merely passing queries on to each other with a knowing nod and wink. Soviet Ambassador Astakhov, meanwhile, had invited two of Ribbentrop's officials to the All-Union Agricultural Ex-hibition in Moscow, which Molotov was opening on the following Tuesday. This might seem more like a punishment than a sign of deepening friendship, but the Soviets, as everyone knew, were incredibly fond of tractors.

Were Hitler and Stalin edging towards some sort of pact? On Wednesday morning the front page headline in the Daily Express was PACT CERTAIN, but they were talking about an alliance between Britain, France and Russia. Someone was in for a shock.

On a more definite note, the German Army manoeuvres for the coming summer were scheduled to start at the beginning of August, and to last for several weeks. These would take place throughout Sudetenland and Silesia, and in the area between Berlin and the Polish border. Or, to put it another way, right under Poland's nose. Reservists were being called up, and private vehicles were likely to be commandeered.

By lunchtime on Wednesday the overall view in the Adlon bar was that war had slipped just a little bit closer. The only good news was purely personal. After several hours of squeezing himself through bureaucratic hoops Russell learned that the vehicles of foreign residents were exempt from military seizure.

He had also been successful in persuading the Propaganda Ministry to let him join one of the Air Raid Protection units during the coming 24-hour rehearsal. The exercise was due to start at 3pm, and he spent the hour after lunch driving round the city and looking at the preparations. Gangs of workmen had been out since Monday whitewashing kerbs, corners, steps and anything else likely to trip people up in the blackout. Black cloth curtaining was already edging many windows, ready for pulling across when the sirens sounded, and many a grey-overalled ARP warden was standing sentry outside his block, waiting for the chance to give orders. Beiersdorfer, as Russell discovered on dropping off the car at Neuenburger Strasse, had been unable to find a helmet small enough for his head, and had to keep tipping it backwards to see.

He walked down to Hallesches Tor and took a tram up Koniggratzer Strasse to Potsdamer Platz. His unit was based in an old warehouse, on the street running along the eastern side of the railway station. There were a couple of ancient-looking cars in the yard, along with assorted makeshift ambulances and several of the open lorries storm troopers had favoured for their raids in the good old days. Several wardens were sitting round on packing cases flirting with the unit's nurses, all of whom seemed to have been hand-picked by the Ministry for their blonde aryan chubbiness. One warden was cutting thin slits in the black material he had just fastened to the lorry's headlights.

Russell introduced himself to the unit's commander, a weasel-faced man of around forty who seemed friendly enough. He gave Russell a press badge to pin on his shirt, complimented his choice of dark clothes, and told him to stay out of the way as much as he could. 'You can ride in the back of an ambulance when we go out, and then grab a seat wherever you can for the ride back.'

A few minutes later, at three o'clock, the exercise officially began. Nothing happened for several hours, however. Everyone sat waiting, listening to the trains come and go in the adjacent station, until someone remembered he had brought a pack of cards with him. One game of skat was inaugurated immediately, another got started when another pack was purchased from one of the kiosks on the station concourse. Russell had lost almost a mark when the air raid warning finally sounded, three blasts of two minutes each, separated by two similar stretches of silence. 'A bit excessive,' as one of the wardens put it; 'by the time you've listened to all that, the enemy will have come and gone.'

Planes were now audible overhead, the sound of anti-aircraft fire coming from all directions. It was shortly after seven when the unit received its first call-out - bombs had fallen in the Spittelmarkt. One car, one ambulance and two lorries hurtled down Leipziger Strasse, Russell clinging to the rails of the rear vehicle and marvelling at the ease with which Berlin had been brought to a halt. The popular shopping street was empty of traffic and people, save for two abandoned trams and a couple of stragglers disappearing into one of the public shelters.

At the Spittelmarkt smoke was pouring out of two adjoining office buildings. A fire engine had already arrived and was pumping imaginary water in through the first floor windows. Black flags had already been placed on nearby buildings to indicate that they were in danger of collapse.

Several people were lying on the pavement in front of the offices, competing for attention with some rather histrionic wailing. Placards lopped around their necks spelt out the nature of their injuries, and the nurse swiftly decided which victims were in direst need of hospital treatment. Stretcher parties transferred these unfortunates to the ambulance and one of the lorries, and both vehicles took off in the direction of St Gertraudt's Hospital. A flight of planes crossed almost overhead, but apparently dropped no bombs. Two of the firemen began arguing about how much imaginary water they had put on the imaginary fire.

The second lorry took the walking wounded to the hospital, and Russell had the rear to himself as they headed back to the unit's base. The all-clear sounded as they crossed the Landwehrkanal, and people were spilling out of the public shelters as they drove up Koniggratzer Strasse. The sky looked blue and empty.

'They won't call another one until it's dark,' one of the wardens guessed, as he gathered up the cards. He was right. It was soon after ten-thirty when the sirens sounded again, another ten minutes before they got the call - a major attack in the Wittenbergplatz. The whole unit crawled slowly southward down the blacked-out Potsdamer Strasse, turned right at the unlit Bulow Strasse Station and followed the dark mass of the elevated U-Bahn tracks westwards. Clinging on to his lorry Russell could see the dark shapes of planes against the stars, the flash of AA guns from the direction of the Tiergarten.

The scene in the Wittenbergplatz probably echoed that in the Spittelmarkt, but the darkness made everything more difficult and, Russell thought, more distressingly real. It was easier to imagine the burst arteries and severed limbs when the wailing victims were invisible, easier to smell the panic when pencil torches were all you had to see through the smoke and when everyone seemed to be shouting at once. Russell found himself fighting back a rising tide of trench battle memories, and grasped at the prospect of action when a warden said, 'Come with me,' and led him in through the front door of an apartment block.

The warden stopped at the first floor landing, shone his torch on Russell, and realized he'd made a mistake. 'What the hell,' he said. 'You take the east side. Knock on every door. If there's anyone in here, get them out.'

Russell did as he was told. Or almost. He thought he heard noise behind a couple of doors, but didn't knock again when no one answered. The one family that did respond to his knock filed obediently down the stairs and out into the street, the adults arguing with each other, the children giggling nervously.

The ambulances were loaded and ready to go, but Russell decided he had seen enough. Effi's flat was only a ten minute walk away, hidden away in a backstreet, and as far as he could tell, the organizers of this particular exercise were going for large squares and maximum publicity. He chatted to a few evacuated residents outside the KaDeWe until the all-clear sounded, then headed up Tauenzien-Strasse to the Kaiser Memorial Church. As he crossed the eastern end of the Ku'damm he stopped in the centre and stared up the long, arrow-straight avenue. A car was moving away in the distance; barely visible in the dim blue lights, it soon became one with the shadows.

No ARP wardens came knocking at Effi's door, but the Luftwaffe's continuing antics made for a restless night. He was probably imagining it, but many of his fellow-Berliners looked distinctly bleary-eyed as they waited at tram stops on their journey to work. Not everyone had been inconvenienced, of course - Hitler had been enjoying Tristan and Isolde at far-off Bayreuth while the capital rehearsed. And Soviet Ambassador Astakhov, as Russell learned from Jack Slaney, had been wined and dined by Ribbentrop's East European chief, Julius Schnurre, until the early hours.

'Where?' Russell asked.

'Ewest's.'

'They must mean business then,' Russell said dryly. The restaurant on Be-hren-Strasse was one of Berlin's finest.

'You can bet that street didn't get bombed,' Slaney said in a similar tone.

'Anyone know what was discussed?'

Slaney shook his head. 'The trade guy Barbarin was there too, so maybe just that. They all seemed really chummy though, according to one of the waiters.'

'Another straw in the wind,' Russell murmured.

'Or on the camel's back,' Slaney suggested.

Russell headed back to Neuenburger Strasse to write up his ARP exercise article. The smooth modern typewriter he'd inherited from Tyler McKinley was at Effi's place, but he still preferred the brutal mechanics of his old one. Another consequence of living in Nazi Germany - you only felt you were getting somewhere if physical violence was involved.

The ARP exercise had spared Neuenburger Strasse, much to the dismay of both Beiersdorfer and Frau Heidegger. The former was only now removing the black-out sheets from the communal hallway, and both were eager to hear Russell's account of his attachment to one of the mobile units. Frau Heidegger seemed horrified by what she heard, and was only slightly mollified by Beiersdorfer's assurance that London, not Berlin, would be on the receiving end of such bombing raids.

Russell left them to their optimism, and went up to his rooms. He took almost three hours over the article - it was his first major piece for the Tribune and he wanted it to be good. After lunching at the bar under the Hallesches Tor Station he drove back into the old city and sent the story off.

Next stop was the Alex. The duty officer in Room 512 searched through a pile of refused Protectorate visa applications for Russell's, and deduced from its non-appearance that the refusal had not yet been put to paper. When Russell suggested that his application might have been accepted, the man opened a drawer to demonstrate its emptiness, only to find a single waiting permit. He examined it for several seconds, and finally passed it over.

Russell drove back across the river to the American Express office on Charlotten-Strasse. A couple of months earlier a German friend had told him that first class travellers - like army officers and government officials - were allowed to sleep through the border checks, provided they handed their documents over to the carriage attendant with a decent tip. And after his traumas at the same border in March that seemed like a really good deal, especially if the Tribune was paying.

As it happened, the American Express office could sell him a first class ticket and book him into a hotel, but the sleeper reservation required a trip to Anhalter Station.

By the time he got back to the Adlon bar it was gone five. Noticing Dick Normanton hard at work at a corner table, Russell bought him a whiskey. 'Anything I should know?' he asked, placing the glass down on the polished wooden surface.

'Thanks,' Normanton said wryly, and took a sip. 'Just between us,' he said. 'I don't want my fellow Brits to get wind of this.'

'My lips are sealed.'

'Have you heard of Ernest Tennant?'

'English businessman. Friend of Ribbentrop's, impossible as that seems.'

Normanton smirked. 'Not so much these days. Tennant's just been visiting Ribbentrop's castle...'

'The one he stole by putting the owner in Dachau?'

'Do you want to hear this story or not?'

Russell raised his palms in surrender.

'They arrived in Berlin together this afternoon - Ribbentrop had his two private coaches attached to the express from Munich. Tennant came straight here, and I had a chat with him in his hotel room.'

'You know him?'

'My owner does, and Tennant told him he was seeing Ribbentrop. Reading between the lines, I'd say he was hoping to emerge as a peacemaker, but ready to put some distance between himself and the Nazis if Ribbentrop refused to play ball. Which of course he did. Told Tennant that Hitler was the greatest human being since Mohammed, and then started back-tracking when he realized the implication - that the Fuhrer was less important than a mere Arab.'

'The usual nonsense.'

'Exactly. The important part came later. On the train here Tennant got talking to Walther Hewel - know who he is?'

'Hitler's liaison with Ribbentrop, or is it the other way round?'

'Both, I suppose. Anyway, his take on the current situation - and we assume Adolf's - is that Chamberlain and Co. rushed into guaranteeing Poland without really thinking it through, and that they're now desperately looking for a face-saving way out. The Germans think that Hudson's Howler was just the first of many trial balloons, that when push comes to shove the British will provide themselves with some sort of excuse not to fight.'

'Which is bad news.'

'For everybody. The Poles because they'll get squashed, the Germans and the British because they'll find themselves at war with each other without really wanting to.'

'Happy days.'

'Thanks for the drink.'

Russell played poker with several American colleagues that evening, and gave Jack Slaney a lift home in the small hours. They stopped at the all night kiosk in Alexanderplatz for sobering coffees and early editions of the morning papers. 'What did I tell you?' Slaney asked after a few moments with the Beobachter. He folded the paper in half and pushed it under Russell's nose, and jabbed a finger at the editorial. Danzig, it seemed, was no longer enough. Real peace, the editor announced, would require a Polish willingness to discuss self-determination in the Corridor, in the lost provinces, in Upper Silesia. Would require Poland to lie on its back and wave its arms and legs in the air.

'They think they're pushing at an open door,' Slaney said.

'Yes,' Russell agreed, thinking about his talk earlier with Dick Normanton. 'Question is, will it slam shut behind them?'

'You Brits will fight, but your government sure as hell doesn't want to. They should be trying to scare the Germans, not reassure them. And if Ribbentrop's wining and dining Astakhov then they should be taking Stalin out for a meal.'

'He'd probably eat them.'

Slaney laughed, and the two of them sat there drinking their coffee, staring out across the dimly-lit square.

The following morning, soon after eleven, Russell arrived for his appointment at the Soviet Embassy. The thin-lipped Sasha answered the door, and the usual receptionist ignored him while Gorodnikov was appraised of his presence. Up in the office overlooking the boulevard he found the attache fanning himself with a sheaf of papers.

'It's like summer in Batum,' Gorodnikov said. 'Have you ever been in Ba-tum?'

Russell had not.

'It is like this. All summer. You English call it sticky, I believe.'

'We do. So have you heard from Moscow?'

'Yes, of course,' the Russian said, sounding offended at the mere question.

'So what do they want me to tell the Germans?'

'You are to say that we accept offer, that we agree to pay you good money for any information concerning German plans that involve the Soviet Union - military, economic, anything. You must say that we are most interested in German intentions towards us, that we worry about attack.'

'All right. And your side of the bargain?'

'Yes, yes. They will give you what you ask for.' Gorodnikov was shuffling through his fan for the right piece of paper. 'Someone likes you in Moscow, yes?'

'That's good to know.'

'Maybe. Maybe not. Depends who it is.'

'True.'

'Ah, here it is,' he said, extracting one sheet and putting the others down. 'Moscow agrees to help you escape from Germany. You and your lady friend. But only in real emergency. You understand? Not for holiday in the sun.'

'I understand.' And Russell did - the Soviets would get him and Effi out of Germany, but only once he'd proved his worth, and only if the Nazi authorities were actually snapping at their heels. The Soviets had nothing to gain by helping them out any sooner.

He asked for the contact number.

'We shall get to that. First, a small job you must do for us.'

Russell's heart sank a little deeper. 'What sort of small job?'

'You will go to Stettin, and see a woman there. Let me explain.' Gorodnikov leant forward, elbows on the desk and fingers interlocked. The Soviets, he told Russell, had had an agent in the Stettin docks, a man named Bern-hard Neumaier. The Gestapo had arrested him on the previous Saturday, and he had died under interrogation in Sachsenhausen on Wednesday. A couple of weeks before his arrest Neumaier had told the regular courier that his girlfriend was pregnant. He had asked the Party to look after her if anything happened to him. Her name was Erna Kliemann.

'Does she know he's dead?' Russell asked.

'We do not know.'

'Does the Gestapo know about her?'

'Our best information is that Neumaier gives nobody up. A brave man, if that is true.'

Russell hoped it was. If it wasn't, and her name had slipped out under tor-ture, then the Gestapo would be waiting for someone to turn up. 'Why not send the regular courier?' he asked.

'If Neumaier tells the Gestapo anything, then this man is compromised. And he knows many names.'

Perfect, Russell thought. He tried another tack. 'Why risk anyone?'

'The woman needs to know that Neumaier is dead. If she go to authorities with questions - bad for her and bad for us. We not know what Neumaier tells her - maybe nothing, maybe everything. If she says nothing, then good for her and good for us. And we want to give her help.' He passed an unsealed envelope across the desk; it was stuffed with twenty-Reichsmark notes. 'We look after our people,' Gorodnikov said defiantly, as if daring Russell to deny it.

The money would help, Russell agreed. 'Why not send it?' he suggested innocently.

'Not possible to send money without explain,' Gorodnikov told him. 'She must learn how much Neumaier care for her.'

Of course, Russell thought. The money would only keep her quiet if she knew where it came from.

'And too urgent for post,' Gorodnikov added pointedly.

'When do you expect me to go?' Russell wanted to know.

'Today.'

'Oh no...'

'It will only take few hours. Two hours there, two hours back - you dine in Berlin.'

'I...'

'You want way out of Germany for you and your girlfriend. This is what Moscow expect in return.'

Russell considered. It could be a lot worse, he thought. There was nothing illegal about carrying an envelope full of cash, and if there was any sign of a watch on the woman's home he could just walk away. And the reward had to be worth it. 'All right,' he said, pocketing the envelope. 'What's her address?'

Gorodnikov had already written it out. 'You must remember and destroy before you arrive in Stettin,' he advised.

'I will. Now what about that contact number?'

Gorodnikov printed out a telephone number and passed it across. 'You ask for Martin.'

Russell looked at the number, and recognized it. It was the photographic studio in Neukolln which he often used. Miroslav Zembski, the man who owned and ran it, had to be Martin. Russell had known Zembski was a communist before the Nazi takeover, but had assumed that the fat Silesian's willingness to fake him a passport earlier that year had simply been for old times' sake. Now he knew otherwise - Zembski was still on the active list. Another double life. Another reason for hope. 'I have some information for you,' he told Gorodnikov. 'A KPD cell, here in Berlin. It has had no contact with the leadership for four years, and...'

'This is a matter for the KPD.'

'One of the women has become the lover of a high-ranking SS officer. She says she has access to information that will be very useful to you.'

'Ah. This woman's name?'

'Sarah Grostein.'

'A Jew?'

'Her husband Richard was a Jew. And a prominent member of the KPD.'

Gorodnikov wrote the name down. 'I look into.' He looked up. 'If Moscow says yes, they will expect you to be woman's contact.'

'I'd rather you contacted her directly.'

'You know her. And the SD not object to you coming here. They tell you to come here!'

It made sense. 'We'll see,' he said weakly.

Sasha was summoned to show him out. As he walked down the marble stairs Russell remembered Sarah Grostein's comment about life and death decisions. Had he just taken several more?

There was an autobahn to Stettin, but Russell decided to give the Hanomag a rest. Erna Kliemann probably lived in one of the city's less salubrious districts, where cars and their occupants tended to be conspicuous. And the train would be just as quick.

He arrived in Stettin soon after five. After obtaining directions for Lastadie, he walked up the west bank of the wide Oder to catch a tram across the Hansa Bridge. A five minute ride brought him to Grosse Lastadie, the dockland suburb's main street, where a helpful old woman pointed him in the direction of the junction with Schwangstrasse. No.14 was fifty metres down, a house with three storeys of living space above a small workers' restaurant and a tobacconist. The former was already closed for the day, and the proprietor of the latter was busy locking up. The entrance to the rooms above lay between them.

It was the sort of area the Nazi authorities liked to visit in strength, but Russell carefully scanned the surrounding windows, and ostentatiously examined the piece of paper he had inscribed with her address and a made-up name, before heading across the street and in through the open front doors. The smell in the stairwell, an unhappy blend of boiled cabbage and tobacco, pursued him upwards, growing stronger with each flight of creaking treads. Room 7 was right at the top, and a small piece of paper bearing a neatly-in-scribed 'E. Kliemann' was pinned beside the door. There was no answer to his knock.

A second, louder knock brought no response from inside, but the door behind him opened to reveal a young boy in his school uniform. 'Erna's not back yet,' the boy announced.

'Do you know when she will be?' Russell asked.

'She goes to her sister most days. She's usually back by eight o'clock.'

It wasn't much gone six - he'd have to come back. 'Thank you,' Russell said. 'I'll try again later.'

'You are most welcome,' the boy told him.

Back on Schwangstrasse Russell noticed an open bar on the opposite side. The evening trade hadn't yet arrived, and the only two customers were sat at the back, half-hidden in a cloud of pipe-smoke. Russell ordered the only food on the menu - a sausage casserole - took a beer back to a window seat, and began his vigil.

Two hours dragged by. He was beginning to think he must have missed her when a young woman in a blue frock walked slowly by on the opposite pavement. She had straight dark hair cut to the shoulder, was small, slim and obviously pregnant. Russell watched her turn in through the open front doors.

He waited a couple of minutes, then followed her in. Responding to his knock, she pulled the door back a few inches, and placed a careworn face in the gap.

'Erna Kliemann?' Russell asked.

'Yes,' she admitted, gazing past his shoulder to check he was alone.

'I've come about Bernhard Neumaier.'

Her body seemed to sag. 'He's dead, isn't he?'

'I'm afraid he is.'

She closed her eyes, fingers tightening on the edge of the door.

'Can I come in?'

The eyes re-opened, bleak and hostile. 'What for?' she asked. 'Who are you?'

'I have something for you. From his friends.'

'Why should I believe that?'

'If I was the enemy, I wouldn't be asking.'

She gave him a searching look, then widened the aperture to let him in.

Russell stepped inside. The room was right under the roof, with a sloping ceiling and a small dormer window. It was sparsely furnished, with just a bed, a single upright chair and a wide shelf for the wash bowl.

She closed the door and turned to face him. 'He died last Saturday, didn't he? I felt it.'

'I don't know when he was killed,' Russell lied. It seemed kinder to leave her believing in some special psychic connection. And who knew? - maybe some part of Neumaier had died on the Saturday.

'It was Saturday,' she reiterated, sitting down on the bed and holding her belly with one hand.

She had a pretty face beneath all the weariness and grief, Russell realized. And she couldn't be much more than eighteen.

'How did he die?' she asked.

'We think he was shot,' Russell said, taking the upright chair. There was no need for her to know that Neumaier had died under torture.

She looked at the floor for several moments, rocking gently to and fro, hands clasped against her swollen belly.

Russell asked if she'd known that Neumaier was a communist.

'Of course.' She raised her head. 'Bernhard believed in the Soviet Union. And the International.'

The recitation sounded almost defensive, but he could see that the words were important to her. Her man had died for something worthwhile, something noble. The solace of any religion, Russell thought cynically.

'Bernhard told his contact that you were having his child. He asked the Party to look out for you if anything happened to him.'

A large tear rolled down one cheek. The first of a stream.

He handed her the envelope, and watched her examine its contents.

'There's hundreds of Reichsmarks here,' she whispered.

'For you and the child.'

She lowered herself to her knees and pulled a battered suitcase out from under the bed. 'It was his,' she explained, clicking it open. 'There are only his clothes and this,' she added, handing Russell a small notebook. The tears were still flowing. 'He was going to pass this on at his next treff.'

It was full of small, neat writing in black ink. Timetables, tonnages, names of ships. At first glance it looked like a detailed breakdown of the cross-Baltic trade in Swedish iron ore. That trade was certainly vital to the German war machine, but Russell had no way of knowing if the information in the note-book was secret or valuable.

He didn't want to know. 'This could get you arrested,' he said, holding it out to her. 'You should burn it.'

She stared at him, surprise sliding into disgust. 'He died for that,' she almost hissed.

'Then post it anonymously to the Soviet Embassy in Berlin,' Russell suggested.

She angrily shook her head. 'Bernhard said that anything with that address was intercepted and opened. That's why he was waiting for the courier. Now you must take it.' She wiped her face with the back of her hands and glared at him.

Russell realized she wasn't going to take no for an answer. And he could always get rid of the damn notebook himself - she would never know. 'All right,' he told her, slipping it into his inside pocket. 'I'll see that the Party gets it.'

'He said it was really important,' she insisted, determined that Russell should acknowledge the same.

'Then it probably is,' he agreed, getting to his feet. 'I wish you luck,' he added, opening the door to let himself out. It sounded ludicrously inadequate, but what else was there to say? He could hear her begin to sob as he started down the stairs.

Back on Grosse Lastadie he stood at the tram stop, checking his watch and feeling somewhat exposed. It was only half-past eight on a Friday evening, and not even fully dark, but there were few people on the street and hardly any traffic. Lastadie seemed devoid of taxis, and the infrequent trams were all headed in the wrong direction. Half an hour into waiting, it was clear that walking would have been the wiser choice.

When an inbound tram finally arrived it was full of boisterous young sailors from the naval base. Russell fought his way off on the far side of the Hansa Bridge, checked his watch one last time, and gave up on the idea of catching the last train. He would have to get a hotel room. But first... He walked out onto the bridge, intent on dropping Neumaier's notebook into the Oder, and stared down at the shining black waters for what must have been more than a minute. He couldn't do it. She was right - her lover had sacrificed his life for this. Not directly perhaps, but in some essential way. Russell stood at the parapet, notebook in hand, knowing he owed the man more than this. Knowing he owed himself more than this. And cursing the knowledge.

He put it back in his pocket and started walking. His last and only other night in Stettin had been spent at the luxurious Preussenhof Hotel, and he felt in need of further cosseting. When he reached that establishment ten minutes later the bar was doing a roaring trade, and he allowed himself a couple of confidence-boosting schnapps before heading up to his room. Unfortunately, the sight of two probable Gestapo men in the lobby - both of whom watched him all the way to the lift - undid all the alcohol's good work. Russell let himself into his third floor room, double-locked the door, and frantically wondered how he could conceal the notebook from unwelcome visitors.

There was nowhere to hide it, but the ensuite toilet - a Preussenhof luxury extra - offered the option of instant disposal. Russell sat down on his and took out the notebook. After numbering all the pages Neumaier had used, he carefully tore them out, and placed the loose pile on the side of the adjacent wash-basin. If the Gestapo came to call he would flush the incriminating evidence away.

He dropped a few blank pages into the bowl to test the efficacy of the flush. The pages disappeared. And didn't come back.

He left the toilet light on, stripped off his clothes and got into bed. Having nothing to read, he turned off the bedside lamp, closed his eyes, and tried to lull himself to sleep with happy memories. It seemed to take forever, but he was finally drifting off when a sudden noise in the corridor outside jerked him wide awake again. What was it? He could hear people whispering, and someone was trying to turn the door knob, trying to get in.

He leapt naked from the bed, rushed into the toilet, and took up position beside the open bowl, notebook pages in one hand, flush in the other. In the corridor outside a sudden bout of giggling was followed by a loud squeal of pleasure.

Russell caught a glimpse of himself in the wash basin mirror, and wished that he hadn't.

There were no more sudden alarms, but sleep worthy of the name proved elusive, and by five-thirty he was fully awake. Waiting for the early shifts to populate the street below, he debated the pros and cons of posting the pages to himself at a convenient Poste Restante. He couldn't send them to the main office in Berlin, because that was where he had used McKinley's name to pick up the envelope in February; but there were other offices, and this time there would be nothing false about his documentation. Using his own name, on the other hand, would carry its own perils. Who knew how closely Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth was watching him? Did alarm bells go off at the Haupt-Post when an item of mail arrived bearing his name?

He wouldn't use the mail. A two-hour train journey, a ten-minute drive to the Unter den Linden, a short and easily explainable visit to the Soviet Em-bassy. Nothing to it.

But where to put the loose pages? His jacket-pocket was the obvious place, but that was where he carried his identity papers and journalistic accreditation, and he had a nightmare vision of himself at an unexpected checkpoint, spilling everything out together. In his shoes, he decided. He divided the pages into two piles, folded each in half, and stuffed them in. Once the shoes were on his feet, he could hardly feel the difference. He only hoped the sweat of another hot day wouldn't render the pages illegible.

He left the room just before seven, and took a tram to the station. There was a fast train to Berlin in twenty-five minutes, a semi-fast in forty. The former took an hour less, but the latter gave him the option of getting off at Gesundbrunnen in north Berlin, which seemed a safer bet than Stettin Station, where checks on travellers were much more likely. He sat over a coffee wondering which class of ticket offered the greatest security - the perceived respectability of first, the anonymity of third, or the no man's land of second. He opted for a first class ticket on the semi-fast and sat with another coffee, this time scanning the concourse and platform gates for men in leather coats. There were none.

His train pulled out on time, and despite the coffees he soon found his eyelids drooping with fatigue. One moment he was listening to the wheels rattling beneath him, and then someone was shouting outside his window. 'Alles aussteigen!' 'Everyone off !'

The train was standing at a small country station - Kasekow, according to the board. Away to his left, he could see two cars and a lorry drawn up in the goods yard. A group of Brownshirts with semi-automatic weapons were walking down the neighboring tracks.

Russell's stomach went into free-fall.

'Alles aussteigen!' the voice shouted again.

Russell stepped down onto the platform. There were about sixty people on the four-coach train, and almost all of them were men of working age. Most seemed exasperated by the likely prospect of a long delay, but some seemed buoyed by the diversion, casting delighted glances hither and thither, like visitors to a movie set. At the head of the train the elderly locomotive was audibly sighing at the interruption to its progress.

A table had been planted under the platform canopy, and two men in civilian clothes were sat behind it. Gestapo, no doubt. Another man - probably their superior - was standing with his back to the building, calmly smoking a cigarette.

'All passengers line up!' someone else shouted. 'Have your identity papers ready!'

A line formed, stretching down the platform from the table to the rear of the train. There were only four people behind Russell, an elderly couple and two cheerful young men in Wehrmacht uniforms.

Looking round, Russell realized that the whole station area was surrounded by a loose cordon of storm troopers. Several more Brownshirts were noisily working their way through the train, presumably in search of possible stowaways.

The line moved slowly forward. Edging sideways for a view of the table, Russell saw that the seated officers were doing more than simply checking papers. Pockets were being emptied, bags searched. And, as Russell watched, the man being questioned knelt down to undo his shoelaces and remove his shoes.

A cold wash of panic coursed through Russell's brain. What could he do? He cast around for hope, but there were no obvious gaps in the ring of storm troopers, and the nearest trees were two hundred metres away.

What explanation could he give? He might have been able to pass off Neumaier's pages as his own journalistic notes, but how could he explain hiding them in his shoes?

What had he been thinking?

Could he get them out? One soldier was staring straight at him, and the man in charge also seemed to be gazing down the platform in his general direction. There was no way he could take off a pair of shoes, remove their illicit contents, and put them back on again without making it bloody obvious. He was fucked, well and truly fucked.

What would happen to Effi? How would Paul cope?

Stop it, he told himself. Don't give in to panic. Keep thinking.

Were they asking everybody to take their shoes off ?

He edged out again. A man was handing his papers, getting a smile in return from the Gestapo officers. His papers were returned with a nod of thanks, and the man turned away. He hadn't been asked to remove his shoes. Was there hope after all, or was that glint on the man's lapel a Party badge?

Two middle-aged businessmen came next. One was ordered to take off his shoes, the other was not. Was it just a matter of chance? Was there something - some magic words - Russell could say to save himself?

He never found out. There were a dozen people left in the line when a young man three or four places ahead of him calmly stepped down off the low platform, ducked under the couplings between two of the stationary carriages, and disappeared from sight.

There was a moment's shocked silence, then a cacophony of shouted orders and storm troopers running in all directions. Russell was daring to hope that incompetence would have the last word when a short burst of firing sounded beyond the train. He willed there to be more, but one fusillade had apparently been enough.

A few moments later a storm trooper appeared with what had to be the young man's papers. The man in charge ran his blue eyes over them, and gave the men at the table an affirmative nod. 'Get everyone back on the train,' one of these told an underling, who repeated the order at five times the volume. Russell walked slowly back to his compartment, struggling to hide his legs' apparent reluctance to support his body.

As the train pulled away, he saw two storm troopers heave a bloodied corpse into the back of their lorry. While one wiped his hands in the roadside grass, his companion lit cigarettes for the both of them.

The train reached Gesundbrunnen over an hour late, and Russell decided on travelling all the way in to the terminus. He had to deliver Neumaier's pages before he picked up Paul, and there seemed little chance of a second check on the same train. But he did take the precaution of transferring the pages from his shoes to his jacket pocket.

There were no leather coats hovering by the barrier at Stettin Station. Russell collected the Hanomag, drove straight to the Soviet Embassy, and told Sasha that the crumpled, sweat-stained pages should be passed on to Gorodnikov. Back on the pavement, he looked round for the probable watcher. None was evident, but it didn't matter either way. If the Germans queried his visit he would tell them that the Soviets had asked him to collect a sealed envelope from a stranger in Stettin as proof of his loyalty.

Having secured Neumaier's legacy, he drove round Pariser Platz and into the Tiergarten. As he pulled the car to a halt in one of the less frequented byways, Russell had a sudden and sickening realization. There had never been any reason to hide Neumaier's notebook. If the Gestapo had caught him with it, he could simply have said that he was bringing it back for Hauptsturmfuhrer Hirth. The nonsense with the hotel toilet, his near-panic on the Kasekow platform - it had all been avoidable.

He had almost killed himself with his own stupidity.

Russell sat staring at the summer trees, gripping the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking.

He arrived outside his son's Grunewald home at the appointed time, feeling less than ready to play the role of the confident father. But if he found his performance less than convincing, Paul didn't seem to notice. The boy also seemed out of sorts, but refused to admit as much. The two of them went to the Zoo, and everything seemed a bit flat, the combination of high summer heat and animal dung leaving a distressing aftertaste. Paul's favourite animal - the notorious spitting gorilla - was reputedly out of sorts, and refused to shower his visitors.

On their way home in the car Paul asked him whether America would join in a European war. Russell said he didn't know, but that most Americans seemed inclined to let Europe sort out its own problems. Paul thought for a moment and then asked another question: were the Americans afraid, or did they just not care who won?

'They're not afraid,' Russell said. 'Most politicians have no idea what a modern war's like. And in any case they won't be the ones to fight and die.'

'So they don't care who wins.'

'I think most would support England against Germany. There's a long tie between them. I mean, they both speak English.'

'Is that the only reason?'

'No. Americans believe in democracy, most of them, and the Fuhrer's Germany, for all its achievements, is not a democracy.'

'But every plebiscite we've had, the Fuhrer has won a huge majority.'

'True.' Russell had no desire for an argument over what constituted a real democracy.

'And if the Americans do care who wins, then why won't they fight?' Paul pressed on relentlessly. 'My troop leader calls them decadent. He says they have no sense of honour.'

'Let's hope there's no need to find out,' Russell said evasively, as he turned the car into Paul's street. 'Almost there,' he added unnecessarily.

Paul looked at him. 'Sorry, Dad,' he said.

'Nothing to be sorry for,' Russell said. 'This is a difficult time for Germany. Let's just hope we get through it in one piece.'

Paul smiled at that. 'Let's.'

Back at Effi's flat Russell found what looked, on first impression, like a pair of sixtyish women chatting in the living room. It was Effi and her make-up friend Lili. 'We did each other,' Effi explained after introducing Lili. 'What do you think?'

Russell was impressed, and said so. Lili's work on Effi was better than vice versa, but that was only to be expected. And from more than a metre away both looked pretty damn convincing.

'I've booked a table for four at Raminski's,' Effi told him, looking at her watch. 'Are you all right?' she added, giving him a closer look.

'Fine,' he said. 'A bit tired.' He could tell her later about Kasekow. If he told her at all.

She decided to take him at his word. 'Lili's husband should be here soon, so can you let him in while we get this stuff off ?'

'Of course,' Russell said, repressing a slight surge of irritation at not having Effi to himself. Eike Rohde arrived a few minutes later, a tall man, probably just into his thirties, with cropped blond hair, pugnacious face and nervous smile. He also worked at the film studio, as a prop carpenter and scenery painter. His family was from Chemnitz, his father and brothers all miners. His wife, when she finally emerged from the bathroom, had shoulder-length blonde hair, a trim figure, and one of those faces which grew much more attractive with animation. She greeted her husband with obvious affection.

The four of them walked down to the Ku'damm. The pavements and pavement cafes were crowded, the restaurants and late-opening shops doing a thriving trade. There was a large queue for Effi's film outside the Universum, but no one recognized her as she walked past. At Raminski's they ate canapes and shared a bottle of Mosel before ordering their main courses. The discussion, as Russell expected, was mostly cinematic shop, but once the wine had worked its magic he happily listened to the familiar litany - the buffoon of a director, the cheapskates who ran the studio, the sound technicians who thought they were working in radio. Eike Rohde had news of an interesting dispute over a set, which had been referred to the Propaganda Ministry for adjudication. The director had decided that a 1920s room should have 1920s books, and what better way of demonstrating this than including books banned by the Nazis ten years later? Goebbels' boys had disagreed.

As they ate, Russell became aware of the conversation at an adjoining table. Three women and one man, all in their thirties, were discussing the international situation, and their opinions seemed more than a little at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy. They seemed oblivious to this, however, and indifferent as to who might hear them. Looking round, Russell could see one man at another table pursing his lips with obvious annoyance, a couple at another sharing worried looks. He was still wondering whether he ought to do something when Effi got up, took the necessary two steps to the table concerned, and leant over to whisper something.

'What did you say?' Russell asked her later.

'I said: "It's completely up to you, but you're going to get yourselves arrested if you're not careful." They all looked at me like rabbits trapped in headlights. They had no idea anyone was listening.'

Sunday was the sort of day that Russell loved. He and Effi had a long lie-in, then walked to the Tiergarten for coffee, rolls, and a leisurely read of the papers. The weather was perfect, bright and sunny without the humidity of previous days. The terrors of the Kasekow platform seemed strangely remote.

Thomas and his wife Hanna had invited them to a late picnic lunch in their Dahlem garden, and despite Effi's best efforts they only arrived half an hour beyond the appointed time. After Russell had pulled the Hanomag up behind Matthias Gehrts' Horch in the driveway they walked round the house to the back. Matthias's and Ilse's two young girls were playing skittles with Thomas's fifteen-year-old daughter Lotte, while the males - Matthias, Thomas' son Joachim and Paul were involved in less energetic pursuits. Matthias was lounging in a deck chair, beer in hand, the two boys hunched over a book of warplanes at the long trestle table.

Paul leapt up to greet Effi . Are you really all right? his look seemed to say. I really am, her smile reassured him.

Russell shook hands with his ex-wife's husband, just as Ilse and Hanna emerged with platters of bread, cold meats and kartoffelsalat. Thomas followed with a steaming vat of frankfurters, which he placed on the table. Beers were fetched for the new arrivals, and everyone sat down to eat.

The next couple of hours were more than pleasant - the way life ought to be and rarely was, Russell thought. Paul looked particularly happy in his ex-tended family - at one point Russell observed his son watching Ilse and Effi in conversation with a wonderful smile on his face. Considering their histories and all the possible resentments that might have arisen, considering how different they all were from each other, the six adults got on remarkably well.

Thomas asked if there was any news from Uwe Kuzorra, but Russell hadn't been home since Friday morning, and had no idea how the detective had fared at Silesian Station that evening. 'There should be a message waiting for me,' he told his friend. 'I'll let you know.'

Since he was leaving for Prague the following evening, Russell stayed the night at Effi's, sleepily kissing her goodbye when the studio car arrived soon after dawn. 'You are just going for the paper?' she asked before she left, as if the idea had just occurred to her.

'Yes,' he lied. Murchison had told him in New York that there would be another list of possible allies waiting for him in Prague. It would be safer for Russell to collect it there, the American had told him, than to carry it across the border.

Russell hated lying to Effi , but why give her reason to worry?

There were messages waiting for him at Neuenburger Strasse, including one from Kuzorra. Miriam Rosenfeld had indeed been seen at Silesian Station, and a man had been seen with her. Kuzorra was continuing with his enquires until Russell told him otherwise. He hoped they could meet when Russell returned from Prague.

There was a congratulatory wire from Ed Cummins, who had liked the ARP piece, and postcards from the two Wiesner girls and his agent in London, Solly Bernstein. All three had been sampling the delights of the English seaside resort, the Wiesners at Margate, Solly at Southend. Messages from outside the cage, Russell thought. But nothing from inside. Nothing from Sarah Grostein.

Realizing that three days had passed since his talk with Gorodnikov, he reluctantly called the SD contact number. After identifying himself, he reported that the Soviets had taken him on, and were happy to accept any intelligence he could offer them.

The duty officer read his words back to him, and signed off with a crisp 'Heil Hitler!'

Russell phoned Thomas with Kuzorra's news, and then drove up to Wilhelmstrasse. The two press briefings he attended that morning could and probably should have been given by chimpanzees. At the Adlon over lunch the general feeling among the foreign correspondents was that the sooner Hitler returned to Berlin the better. Nazi Germany on the prowl was scary, disgusting or both, but at least it made good copy. Nazi Germany at rest was literally too dull for words.

At eight that evening Russell's train pulled out of Anhalter Station. The last time he'd made this journey he'd been carrying a probable death sentence in a false-bottomed suitcase, and looking back he still had difficulty believing he could have taken such a risk. Today's journey, by contrast, seemed almost blissfully safe. He gazed out at the Saxon countryside for a couple of hours, stretched his limbs on the platform at Dresden, and took a nightcap in the dining car as the mountains loomed in the late evening dusk. The sleeping car attendant took his documents, thanked him profusely for the five-mark tip, and showed him to his first class bed. He lay there listening to the rattle of the wheels, enjoying the softness of the mattress. A change was as good as a rest, he thought. Even a change of cages.