The Contract

'Kind of…' doubt from Smith.

'What line are you, Mr Carter?' Davies sipped easily at his beer.

'Foreign and Commonwealth Office.'

'Do you know a Mr Percy, we sometimes see him here?' Davies drained his glass.

'Adam Percy, from Bonn, you could say we're colleagues.'

It had been done easily, the establishment of credentials, the presentation of Carter's pedigree. The talk moved on to civil service pay, the prospect of pensions being linked to inflation indexes. All were men of a common age and experience in their careers. Davies and Smith had bought a round, Carter had reciprocated.

'You'll be around for a few days, Mr Carter?'

'A few days, yes.'

'We're here most evenings, if you're at a bit of a loose end, if you're on your own and you'd like a bit of a natter.'

'That's very kind of you. I'll be using the communications tomorrow evening, round the same time…'

'Probably see you then… You'll forgive us, it's been a long day. There was a flap on south of here this morning. A silly bugger like me should know better than to get up and take a look

'What sort of flap?'

'Two kids had a go at the wire. One made it, God knows how, bypassed the trip wires for the SM 70s… the automatic guns on the fence… the other kid didn't have the luck. They're shitty bastards over there, don't let anyone tell you otherwise, they had the kid who was hit hung on the wire for an hour… his bloody leg was off. Looked about sixteen… I didn't see the one who came over, the BGS had whipped him away.'

'Doesn't sound very friendly,' Carter said quietly.

'If they'd stuck a transfusion in for him they might have saved the kid.

They don't hurry themselves, not when some poor fucker… you'll excuse the French, Mr Carter… not when he's hanging on the wire. Not very friendly, as you say, that's why I've been taking a few jars tonight.

Like I said, we'll see you again.'

Carter walked back from the Roadhaus to the hotel. He walked briskly in the darkness, and he thought of Johnny. 30 miles down the road, behind the Inner German Border, Johnny upon whom they all depended.

He sat in the wide, high entrance hall of the hotel, deep in a black leather armchair and faced the 3 doors of the lifts.

More than 45 minutes he had been there, waiting calm and detached, rested by an afternoon sleep and a bath. He would stay there and watch, half the night if necessary. The old photograph trampled its picture in his mind.

Johnny would know him when he came.

There was a chorus of accents and languages in the chairs around him.

The coaches and officials of a basketball team from Bratislava who were waiting for their bus to take them to a reception. The excited chatter of three Libyan students who talked noisily and nervously because the surroundings were strange to them. A soprano singer and her accom-panist from Vienna. A trades union delegation from Cracow. A group of Red Army officers in their walking out best uniforms who celebrated with vodka the promotion of a colleague. The sounds eddied at his ears and Johnny was oblivious to them.

Erica Guttmann came first.

Tall, slim, fair haired and tanned skin. Wearing a dress for the evening.

Distracted as she stepped from the lift, con- cerning herself with holding the doors open so that they should not close on the old man who followed her. No hesitation for Johnny. The fast, quick clarity of recognition, as if he'd seen him yesterday.

An old man, a little bowed and stooping, but with a firm stride. The suit hung on him as if age had wasted his stomach and dropped his shoulders and the shaping of the jacket and trousers was now obsolete. A domed, wrinkled forehead and wisps of white hair, metal rimmed spectacles. As Willi had said he would be, as the boy had described.

Erica had slipped her hand through the angle of her lather's arm. She swept the hall with her eyes and found no satisfaction and whispered in her father's ear. He nodded agreement and the two of them went carefully and in step to the side of the reception desk and stood, examining and quizzical, in front of the framed and printed sheet that carried the timetable of Magdeburg railway station.

He was fast out of his chair and across the hallway.

Johnny hovered behind them, listened and watched as the old man adjusted his spectacles to peer at the close print, and Erica's fingers darted at the relevant information.

'The one at 11 is too late. It has to be this one, just before 9

… it goes at 8.52… I will book the call tonight for us to be woken in the morning She led him away, spared no look for Johnny, left him the freedom of the timetable. He leaned forward to see the place where her fingers had played. The 8.52 via Oschers- leben and Halberstadt to Wernigerode.

Willi had talked of Wernigerode. Willi had talked of the annual pilgrimage to the town in the Hartz mountains. It suited Johnny well, was very adequate for the plan that had been conceived at Holmbury.