Free Spy Hook by Len Deighton Page B

suite,' said Lisl. 'You haven't seen that bathroom since it was done. Bidet, thermostatic control for the taps, mirrored walls. Beautiful!'
    'Well, it wasn't Sir Henry,' I said. 'So you can sleep easy on that one. I would know if Sir Henry came to Berlin.'
    'Why would you know?' she said. She grinned from ear to ear, delighted to catch me out in a self-contradiction, for I'd always kept up the pretence that I worked for a pharmaceutical company.
    'I get to hear these things,' I said unconvincingly.
    'Good night, Bernd,' she said still smiling. I kissed her again and went upstairs to bed.
    As my foot touched the first stair there came a sudden blast of sound. A Dixieland band, with too much brass, giving I'm for ever blowing bubbles' a cruel battering. The volume was ear-splitting. No wonder Lisl's hotel wasn't overcrowded.
    I had my usual garret room at the top of the house. It was a room I'd had as a child, a cramped room, overlooking the back of the house and the courtyard. It was chilly at this time of year. The effects of the hot-water pump didn't seem to reach up to the top of the house nowadays, so the massive radiator was no more than tepid. But the indomitable Klara had put a hot-water bottle between the crisp linen of my bed and I climbed into it content.
    Perhaps I should have been more restrained when drinking my way through Frank's big pot of strong coffee, for I remained awake for hours thinking about Fiona who would by now be tucked up in bed somewhere just a few blocks away. In my mind's eye I saw her so clearly. Would she be alone or were there two people in that bed? A deluge of memories came flooding into my mind. But I forced myself to think of other matters. Lisl and what would become of the old house after she sold it. It was a valuable site: so near the Ku-Damm. Any speculator would do what all speculators do everywhere: chase out the residents and the family-owned shops and old-fashioned eating places, bulldoze everything in sight to build ugly concrete and glass offices that yielded high rent for landlords and high taxes for the government. It was a depressing thought.
    And I thought about Klara's provocative little story about spotting the Director-General in the Hotel Kempinski. It didn't make sense for a number of reasons. First the D-G was sick and had been for months. Secondly he hated to travel anywhere outside England. The only official trip he'd done, apart from the odd conference in Washington DC, was to the Far East. As far as I could remember the D-G hadn't visited Berlin for at least five years. And, thirdly, had he come he wouldn't have taken a room in a big Berlin hotel: he'd have been Frank's house-guest, or if it was official, been a guest of the general commanding the British forces. But where Klara's story really rang false was saying that the D-G recognized her. The D-G couldn't remember the name of his own Labrador dog without having Morgan – his faithful attendant – prompt him.
    I tried to sleep but sleep didn't come. There was so much to think about. And I couldn't help noticing the promptness with which Frank had denied knowing Jim Prettyman. He hadn't hemmed and hawed or asked why I'd mentioned his name. It was a flat no and a change of subject. It wasn't like Frank's normal behaviour to be so lacking in curiosity: in fact it wasn't like anyone's normal behaviour.

6
    'I told Willi not to put that damned machine in here,' Werner said, looking up from his big plate of beef to where two white-coated surgeons were poking screwdrivers deep into the entrails of an old jukebox that had clearly been kicked into silence. Willi Leuschner, the proprietor, watched as grim-faced as any grieving relative. Apparently certain pop-music aficionados of the late evening hours voted with their feet.
    We were sitting in one of the booths near the window. When we were kids we had all firmly believed that the people in the window seats got bigger portions to attract passers-by. I still don't know