The Contract

The moral is that you go slowly, Johnny, step by step. You don't talk to people there, you don't expect to find a friend… they can get 5 years inside for criticising the state to a foreigner… you go on your own, you stay on your own. Realise that and you can win, accept the isolation and you'll be fine.'

The telephone call for Mawby brought Mrs Ferguson scam- pering across the lawns to find him as he strolled under the back trees. The reply was back from Bonn. He was expected on the first flight of the next day.

A man for him to meet. It was another step forward and an important step because it solidified the commitment of the Service to the operation. He was flying to Germany, and they were no longer at the stage of outline planning.

As he climbed the stairs to collect his clothes Charles Mawby was surprised that a flush of nervousness warmed his face.

'Tell us about Erica, Willi.'

'She is twenty-nine years old. She is loved very dearly by my father.

In the last few years he has relied much on her for support, that is why she now works with him at Padolsk. She acts there as his secretary, and also as his protector. She answers his telephone and makes his appointments, in that way she tries to see that he is not overstrained.'

'Would she be in the Party, Willi?'

'You want always to give the label… She is a person who has grown up in a state where the political system is com- munism. How then can she be anything but communist? How could she be a capitalist if she has never known capi- talism? She knows only one colour, and that colour is red.'

'Is she committed to the Party, Willi?' Carter, wondering at Willi's evasion, recording the last question and the new line of Willi's answer in his notebook.

'Just labels…' Defiance bloomed in his cheeks. 'What do you know of life in Moscow, have you ever been there? Do you think the young people of the Soviet Union and the DDR spend their evenings talking of the grain harvest and the quotas in the building industry of workers' flats, and the composition of the Politburo, do you think that? Do you think they talk of the glories of steel production and the output of lignite? You know nothing of life there.'

'Don't be cheeky, Willi.'

'They are idiot questions.'

'I choose the questions… She was in the Pioneers?'

'Everyone is in the Pioneers. Every schoolchild has marched in Moscow on May Day. Everyone strives to better themselves.'

Carter looked across the table, carefully and slowly, weighing his words, creating pressure on the boy, loading it on his young shoulders.

'Tell me, Willi, if Erica knew that you were not drowned, but that you had defected, would she then love you or would she hate you? Would you be a hero to her or a traitor…?'

'You bastard.'

'Would she love you…'

'You have no right to ask.'

'I have every right. You have no rights. You have nothing, Willi Guttmann. Without me, without my help you have nothing. Answer me, would she love you?'

Johnny saw the boy crumple low in his chair, saw his body hunch and slide.

'She would hate me, she would despise me.'

'Why?'

'She would not have done what I did, not for the same reason.'

'Could she not have been in love with a boy, as you were with Lizzie?'

The boy spat out his bitterness. 'She loves no one. She is incapable of loving anyone but my father. She does not have the warmth or the heart to love a stranger, another man… Where is Lizzie?'

'Forget Lizzie.'

The boy was high again in his chair and his hands gripped the sides of the seat, knuckles clear and pale. The muscles gathered at the back of his neck. 'I want Lizzie to be here. I want Lizzie to be with me. You promised.'

' I said that you have to forget Lizzie Forsyth.'

The boy cried out, a wounded animal, deep wounded, the wood saw on the buried nail. 'How do I forget her when she is carrying my child. ..'

'She is carrying nobody's child. Not yours, not anybody else's. She's not pregnant and she's not coming to England. She's not coming because she doesn't want to.'

He was very quiet, silent but for the whimper, still but for the shaking that heralded the first tears. George was in the doorway and moving over the carpet with the disciplined stealth of the hospital orderly who must handle a troublesome patient. When George led Willi out of the room he had a strong hand at the boy's elbow. The door closed.

'Why did you do that?'Johnny asked.

'I don't really know,' said Carter.

'You scratched him hard.'

'I'm not proud of myself, Johnny,' Carter said. 'Just fractured a bit, I suppose. And what does it matter? The problem is bigger than the boy's sensibilities.'

'What problem?'

'Do us a favour, Johnny. I'm asking these questions to get crucial information for you, not for the pleasure of hearing my own bloody voice. The problem of persuasion, your problem. With the old man we stand a chance. We've evaluated that and we believe in the possibility of winning him. But how to cope with the sister, that's the new problem and Willi is the way round it.'

Chapter Seven