Free Funeral in Berlin by Len Deighton Page A

don’t you make the Russkies bring him down to Marienborn and hand him over the West German frontier?’ he asked.
    ‘Not possible,’ I said.
    He nodded.
    ‘Outside Stok’s district. How foolish of me. Very well then. You have Semitsa—or you think you have him—here.’ He stabbed the street map.
    ‘Now,’ I said, ‘from there the Gehlen boys will post him special delivery to West Berlin.’
    ‘Then what?’ asked Hallam.
    ‘If I know anything about the Gehlen boys they will delay the transfer at least twenty-four hours so that they can pump Semitsa for anything that might be useful to them. Then using the documents that your Home Office people are going to provide we bring him to London as a naturalized British subject returning home.’
    ‘How will the Gehlen people move him across the wall?’ said Hallam.
    ‘You know better than to ask that and so do I,’ I said. ‘If I ask, they’ll just tell me a lot of reasonably creative lies.’
    ‘Did you give me my change?’ he said.
    ‘Yes I did,’ I said, ‘four half-crowns.’
    Hallam opened his wallet and counted his paper money.
    ‘The Home Office won’t release the documents until one of our own people actually sees Semitsa in the flesh in West Berlin.’ I could see the slack red lining of his watery eyes. He swung his chin from side to side to emphasize the negative and the jaw opened to repeat the decision.
    ‘You see why…’ he began.
    I reached out and with my finger-tips gently closed Hallam’s mouth. ‘You wouldn’t want to see Semitsa’s flesh,’ I said. ‘You don’t like flesh, do you, Hallam? It isn’t nice.’
    His face flushed like dipped litmus. I went acrossto the bar, bought two XO brandies and set one in front of Hallam. His face was still red.
    ‘Just have the papers ready, love,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage.’
    Hallam poured the brandy down his throat and his eyes watered more than ever as he nodded agreement.
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    1 Our radio procedure is designed to make an eavesdropper think we are a taxi service. For this same reason our car pool uses radio-equipped taxi-cabs with the flags always set at ‘hired’.

Chapter 12
    Every piece has its mode of attack but only a
pawn will attack en passant. Similarly only a
pawn can be captured in this manner.
    Thursday, October 10th
    When I left Hallam I drifted north. The Saddle Room was rocking until the spurs jingled and a girl with a back-combed bouffon of red hair was twisting with obsessive grace on a table top which put her ten inches above floor level, not allowing for the back-combing. Her feet knocked the glasses to the floor with rhythmic abandon. No one seemed to mind. I walked as far as the stairs and peered into the smoke and noise. Two girls with large but tight sweaters narcissistically twisted back to back. I poured two or three double whiskies into the back of my throat, watched the floor and tried to forget what a crummy trick I had pulled on Hallam.
    It was still raining outside. The doorman and Ilooked around for a taxi. I found one, gave the doorman a florin and climbed in.
    ‘I saw it first.’
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘I saw it first,’ said the girl with the back-combed bouffon. She said it slowly and patiently. She was about five foot ten, light in complexion, nervous of movement, dressed with skilful simplicity. She had a rather wide, full mouth and eyes like a trapped doe. Now she kneaded her face around while querulously telling me yet again that she’d seen the cab before I had.
    ‘I’m going towards Chelsea,’ she said, opening the door.
    I looked around. The bad weather had driven cabs into hiding. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘hop in. We’ll do your journey first.’
    The cab pulled into a tight lock and my new friend eased her back-combing on to the leatherwork with a sigh.
    ‘Cigarette?’ she said and flicked the corner of a pack of Camels with a skill that I can never master. I took one and brought a loose Swan Vesta match from my pocket. I dug my