Two Brothers

The Penny Dropped London, 1956

STONE WOKE UP from his Wannsee dream.

He had been back on the little beach beside the lake. His brother was there, as he always was. And Dagmar. Just as it had been on that day.

Except in the dream, of course, Dagmar chose him. And it had been him who brushed his lips on her rain-dappled shoulders.

And, unconscious on his pillow, Stone’s sleeping soul had soared.

Now he was awake, experiencing the same deflation that he always suffered when awakening from that beautiful Wannsee dream. And there was something more.

Somehow in his sleep, while he dreamt, his mind had been working. Trying to make sense of what he had been told on the previous day, in the bare room in Kensington. And now, eyes wide open, suddenly completely awake, it was as if a veil of emotion had been lifted and he was able to see things clearly for the first time since he had received his letter from Berlin.

The story he had been given wouldn’t do.

It simply did not add up.

Essentially those men from MI6 had told him two things. The first, that Dagmar was alive. The second, that somehow her ruptured life journey had led her to the Stasi.

Stone now saw that in his eagerness to believe the first, he had accepted the second at face value.

He got out of bed and went to put the kettle on. The lino was cold against his feet. The pre-dawn air was chilly.

He struck a match in the darkened kitchen and the gas ring popped into life, the flickering blue flame casting faint shadows across the room. Stone fumbled for his jacket and found his smokes. He didn’t switch on the light, somehow he felt he could focus better in the dark. He bent forward and lit his cigarette from the gas. No point wasting a second match.

He smoked hungrily. Watching the glowing tip grow bright and then subside as he drew deep and then exhaled. Bright. Then dim. Bright. Then dim. And with each new spark he sensed his thoughts becoming clearer. Almost as if that throbbing red tip was flashing out a warning. A silent alarm.

The whistle on the kettle shrieked.

It was a siren. Like the thousands he had heard before. Police sirens. Air-raid sirens. All meaning one thing. Trouble was coming. Danger was near.

He let the kettle keep boiling. The screaming seemed to focus his thoughts. Its ugly, jarring whine pushing him towards the conclusion he was dreading.

That the men from MI6 were wrong.

That Dagmar was dead, as for so long he had believed her to be.

The precious letter was a forgery. Cobbled together from other, older material, genuine letters, diaries perhaps. Long-buried memories. The Stasi were good at that sort of thing.

He was being lured back to Berlin.