The Secret of Spandau (29 page)

The street was busy enough for Red to remain inconspicuous on the same side as Cal, some sixty yards behind. He would have treated the whole thing more lightheartedly if it were not for Heidrun's fear of Valentin. This morning she had talked despairingly of others, and it certainly looked as if Valentin hunted in a pack. Did they expect Cal to lead them to her?

Near the Kaiserdamm end, Cal turned left into a side-street. It caught everyone by surprise. Valentin and his companions immediately stopped talking and moved fast, dodging into the road to break out of the slow procession of pram-pushers and window-shoppers. Red, on the opposite side, had to trot to keep up with them.

Cal was not in sight. The street was part-residential, with entrances irregularly located between small shops and up staircases. There were several basement flats. He could have been in thirty or forty different places.

The man in the smart suit took over, sending Shoulders to check the shops on one side, Valentin those on the other. Red observed them from the corner of the street, standing by an open-front shop that traded in electronic parts.

The search was unproductive, so an agitated consultation took place on the pavement, heads turning repeatedly in case Cal reappeared. Finally, Shoulders was posted to the far end of the street, and the two older men kept watch nearer to Red.

Ten or fifteen minutes went by. Everyone kept checking their watches. Red moved from the electronics shop to a new position beside the revolving stand of postcards next door.

He was taken completely by surprise when a door opened behind him and Cal came out, passing close enough almost to brush his shoulder, and moved off without apparently noticing him. Not wishing to be caught in the spotlight, Red dodged out of sight behind the postcards. The place Cal had emerged from was a private doorway between the electronics shop and the newsagents.

Across the street, Valentin was sent after Cal. The short man also signalled to Shoulders, who came running. Red, in two minds, plumped for his original intention and followed Cal and Valentin back into Königin Elisabeth Strasse. He had plenty of ground to make up, so he broke into a run. It committed him absolutely to following Cal, but he regretted not finding out who he had visited, and why the others had remained behind.

Valentin's silver hair was suddenly in view again, so Red slowed to a walk as they approached the traffic lights at Spandauer Damm. Increasingly, the depressing conviction pressed in on him that he had made the wrong decision. Even the incentive of the chase dwindled when Cal crossed Spandauer Damm and tamely joined the bus queue. Valentin dutifully stood a couple of places behind, and Red glided to the other side of the bus shelter and smoked his second cigarette of the morning. He felt a strong sense of anticlimax.

As the bus drew up at the stop and Cal prepared to board, with Valentin almost holding onto his shirt, Red decided to cut his losses and let them go. He was a newsman, bugger it, and a bus ride home wasn't much of a story. He was going to work.

A half-hour had gone by when he got back to the side-street. Valentin's companions were nowhere in sight, but plenty of others were. A crowd had gathered outside the place, the lights of two police cars were flashing and someone was using an intercom.

Red shouldered his way through and asked one of the crowd what had happened.

‘Some woman murdered. The people in the electric shop heard screams and called the cops.'

Red broke through the cordon and headed for the open door that he had last seen Cal come out of.

‘Hey, you!' One of the police grabbed his arm. ‘What the hell …?

Without actually stopping, Red took out his press-card and passed it so rapidly across the policeman's line of vision that it might just as well have been a season ticket. Or a police ID. ‘Take your hands off me, officer,' he ordered with authority.

The grip loosened, and he was through the door.

The place was stiff with uniforms. Red wished he owned a suit. Someone immediately asked him who he was.

‘A vital witness. Is it a killing?'

‘Herr Ulzheimer. A guy here says he is a witness.'

A movement among the uniforms gave Red a glimpse of a dead woman lolling in an armchair. Her face was badly cut about. A gory mess. Unrecognizable. From the look of her fine white hair, she must have been old.

Ulzheimer, a detective in plain clothes, shouted, ‘Take him outside and hold him in the car until I'm ready. All of you flatfeet get outside. I have a job to do here, and you're not helping.'

‘Any idea who she is?' Red asked the officer who showed him to the car.

‘Her name is Edda Zenk. Unmarried. Lived alone. She was shot through the head. Before that she was pistol-whipped. God knows why. Harmless old lady with nothing worth stealing.'

‘Maybe she knew something.'

‘Just who are you?'

‘I'll save it for Herr Ulzheimer, if you don't mind.'

By then there was another witness, a woman who worked in the electronics shop. Ulzheimer spoke to her before he got to Red. He questioned her closely and then handed her over to one of the uniformed men to make a statement.

He got in beside Red and studied him minutely. He took in everything with his grey eyes and then said, ‘Show me your hands.'

Red obeyed in silence. Ulzheimer wasn't the type to enjoy a quip about fortune-telling.

‘Now turn them over … OK. Name?'

‘Goodbody.'

‘From?'

‘England.'

‘Identification?'

Red showed his press-card.

Ulzheimer sniffed. ‘What have you got to tell me?'

Red was glad of the time he had been given to prepare for this. ‘I may be able to help. I was passing earlier this morning. I noticed two men watching this place. There was a third one up the street. They were signalling to him.'

‘Three men, huh? Describe them.'

Red provided accurate word-pictures of Valentin and his associates.

‘Pretty good,' conceded Ulzheimer. ‘How is it you took such a strong interest in them?'

‘I'm press, aren't I? You learn to be a good observer. Part of the trade.'

‘Where exactly were you … passing … when you noticed these suspicious characters?'

‘Just about here. The two short guys were over the street approximately where the red Volkswagon is now. The other was up there.'

‘And you?'

‘I was here.'

‘Passing by?'

‘Well,' Red guardedly admitted, ‘I spent some time looking at the shop-fronts.'

‘The electronics shop?'

‘And the postcards.'

‘You interested in electronics, Mr Goodbody?'

‘I was watching the men, wasn't I?'

‘So that was why you lingered so long outside?'

‘Yes, I told you.'

‘OK, you saw them and you wondered what was going on, right?'

‘Right.'

‘In that case, why did you walk away? A good newsman doesn't walk away from a promising story.'

‘One of them left. I decided to follow him.'

‘Ah, which one?'

‘The silver-haired one. I followed him up the street to Spandauer Damm, where he got on a fifty-four bus. I decided to come back and see if the others were still here.'

‘And were they?'

‘No.' Having regard to the not over-friendly narrowing of Ulzheimer's eyes, Red added, ‘I offered myself as a witness, didn't I?'

‘Yes, and I think you may be able to help us, Mr Goodbody. I want you to come down to the station and spend a little more time with me. You weren't planning anything else?'

Jane caught her breath and closed her eyes. A chill feeling spread over the surface of her body like a cold garment. ‘How?'

Cedric's voice at the other end of the line was so subdued that it was barely audible. ‘A car crash. Late yesterday afternoon.'

‘Where? In France?'

‘Somewhere on the north coast, near St Malo.'

‘St Malo?'

‘I've spoken to Justin Stevens in Paris. They managed to trace de Gaulle's cryptographer and Dick drove out there to see her. She lives right on the coast, on a steep headland some miles west of the town. He spent some time with her and then started back. He was using a powerful car. It seems he misjudged a turning on the cliff road. It was a hundred-foot drop.'

She made an anguished sound. She had a vivid mental picture of the scene.

‘He must have died instantly. He didn't suffer.'

‘Cedric, I can't believe this. Dick was a careful driver.'

‘Yes. I can only presume it was a lapse of concentration. His mind running over the interview. And a car he wasn't used to … Jane why don't you pour yourself a stiff drink, and then get in a taxi and come over here to the office? We can talk things over.'

‘Dick's dead. What is there to talk about?'

‘My dear, we are a newspaper. I shall have to decide what we say about this.'

Embittered by the shock, she shouted down the phone, ‘Is that all you can think about, how you report it? Don't you have any feelings at all, Cedric?'

After an interval, when she began to suppose he had put down the phone, he answered stiffly, ‘Jane, it isn't easy to break appalling news like this to a close colleague.'

She let her breath out slowly, trying to be reasonable. ‘I'm sorry. It's the shock, I suppose. All right. I'll come.' She hung up. She was shivering. She did exactly as Cedric had suggested, taking out the brandy and drinking it from a teacup.

Dick dead? She bit her lip and crossed her arms and paced the room, trying to come to terms with what she had just been told. The sense of loss was personal and profound. She had felt committed to Dick in a way that went beyond professional ties. She had been trying earnestly to know him and understand him. How could he have allowed this to happen? Of all the men she had known and worked with, he was by far the most stable. Lapses of concentration simply didn't happen to a guy like that. If this had happened to Red, she would have been devastated, but she would have understood. She could picture him racing a car down a cliff road, but not Dick. It wasn't in Dick's character. It wasn't remotely possible, not as Cedric had described it.

She couldn't blame Cedric, but she deeply resented his response to the tragedy. She had lost almost all respect for him over the past two weeks. He might be one of the better editors in Fleet Street, but what had that made him as a man? The whole of humanity, as Cedric perceived it, fell into three groups: newsmen, news subjects and readers. In death, Dick had become a news subject, and Cedric had to decide what angle to take on the story. It sickened Jane.

Going by recent experience, he wasn't calling her in for a consultation. He had made the decision already. He just wanted to make sure she didn't step out of line. In this frame of mind, she left the flat and took a taxi to the office. He was ready with the brandy when she arrived. To do him justice, he looked paler than usual.

‘No, thanks. I had a large one before I came.'

‘Sensible.'

‘I can't believe this has happened. Have you heard any more about it?'

‘A little. Stevens has driven out there. I gather the trip was abortive anyway. The cryptographer woman wasn't able to help Dick at all. She wasn't close to de Gaulle and she doesn't remember much.'

‘Are you sure? Why was he distracted, then? What went wrong with his driving?'

‘Your guess is as good as mine. The car was checked by a good mechanic before he rented it. The police experts will examine it, no doubt, but I gather it's a mangled heap now.'

Jane shivered.

‘Are you sure you won't have that brandy?'

She shook her head. ‘Have you called Red yet?'

‘Been trying all morning, and can't raise him. I sent a cable asking him to call me urgently. Nothing.'

She managed a cynical comment. ‘So what's new?'

Cedric grunted ill-humouredly and got out a cigar, the usual prelude to a statement from the editorial chair. ‘There's another reason why I need to speak to him. I had a visitor last night. The security services have been alerted to your investigation.'

Jane sourly noted the
your
. ‘I know. We had a tail put on us on Sunday. He followed us all the way out to Henley.'

Cedric looked shocked. ‘You didn't tell me.'

‘We didn't want to risk it. We had the impression that you were going cold on the story.'

He observed a Mandarin silence.

Jane justified herself by adding, ‘Well, you
were
. You told us it was finished.'

‘True,' conceded Cedric, ‘and if I had stood firm, this would not have happened. I know you can't legislate for an accident like this, but …' He shook his head.

‘What did the security people want?'

‘An undertaking from me to drop the investigation.'

‘Why?'

‘They don't have to give a reason other than the interests of national security.'

‘Is this a D Notice?'

‘Not exactly,' said Cedric, ‘but I was left in no doubt that we'd be in serious trouble if we didn't back down on this one.'

‘So you did?'

Cedric drew on his cigar and exhaled. ‘Yes.'

‘Then Dick has died for nothing,' Jane exclaimed accusingly.

‘Jane, that's unworthy and illogical and I don't believe you would say it under different circumstances,' Cedric responded with all the dignity he could command. ‘I'm as shattered as you are at what happened to Dick, and I take some blame for it, but I refuse to commit my newspaper to some sentimental and utterly futile crusade to appease my conscience, or anyone else's.'

Jane, too, was implacably controlled in her response. ‘You didn't use words like sentimental and utterly futile that first weekend at your cottage.'

‘For heaven's sake, Jane! The story has changed out of all recognition.'