The Contract

He obeyed and the door closed behind her. She slid the clothes into the drawers of a chest, shovelled the possessions back into the sack and found room for it under the bed, hidden by the fall of the coverlet. Time when she came home for her to be more thorough. It was horrible for her father that there was nothing tangible for him to fasten to. No funeral, no rites, no burial… and if at some future date the remains of Willi were recovered from the water and returned to them then the wound could only be reopened and the pain reawakened. The stupidity of the boy but she must not think ill of him, not now, not ever again.

She walked out into the hall, easy and graceful on her feet, swung back her head loosening the shoulder length of corn silk hair and pulled on her coat. Otto Guttmann waited by the door with his overcoat, gloves and scarf, and wearing on his face the conquering burden of age and extreme tiredness. For a moment they embraced, tight and clinging, arms close around each other, and then she had the key in her hand for the front door and they went out onto the landing and she shut the door of their home and locked it.

Henry Carter knocked tentatively at Mrs Ferguson's sitting room door, was told to enter, but stood in the doorway to deliver his message to the lady who rested her sewing across her lap to hear him out.

'Mr Mawby's just been on the telephone. There's going to be a bit of a party here for the next few days. He will be back himself and there's three more coming tonight, they'll all be in time for dinner

… if that's possible? Mr Mawby asked me to apologise for not having given more notice.'

'It'll be no trouble.'

'Something a little unusual, I think,' Carter confided.

'I like the house full. It's such a waste when it's empty.'

'It'll be a bit like the old days.'

'And that'll be welcome,' she said placidly.

Carter closed the door on her privacy. He walked into the main sitting room and pondered his own instructions, changed again by London. The boy, Willi, was to talk about his father. His personality, not his research work. Everything about the man himself, his habits, his interests, his life-style. Another blow at the consistency that Carter had been trained to believe was the hallmark of the debrief.

Could they really be thinking of bringing Otto Guttmann out of East Germany? The repercussions if it went sour, by God. Carter felt his knees weaken and flopped into an armchair. Perhaps he was going too fast. Perhaps, but where else did the trickle of circumstantial information point?

Chapter Four

Because of the very stillness of the house Johnny woke early.

Noise didn't concern him, not after the dawn bustle of a day starting in Cherry Road and the grind of the buses in Willow Lane, and the farther thunder of the fast trains through the town. Not after the daily rumble of Mrs Davies forcing her man out of bed beyond the common wall, and his mother on the move for the first of the kettle boilings, and the children pitched on to the pavements because it was a long walk to the new comprehensive school. He could stomach that. But the quiet was a killer, a destroyer.

No one moved beneath him and he lay in his bed soaking up the silence, alert for any noise. An uncanny vacuum of sound, as if he were alone. But that couldn't be true because he'd seen a man who introduced himself as Henry Carter on his way to bed, and he'd climbed the stairs with Smithson and Pierce, and there was also the boy who was spoken of as Willi, and the shadow at his back, his minder. He hadn't actually seen the boy, but he had been told of him. And there was the housekeeper too.

But none of them had stirred in Johnny's hearing that morning.

He had cantered out of Lancaster almost without a backward glance.

He had kissed his mother firmly on both cheeks, told her that he had been offered something special, that he would be away for a while, that the money was going to be good and could she be sure to give this envelope to the Prentice boy to take to the Tech – that he was turning the corner on the past. He had left her confused and struggling for composure, standing on the front doorstep shyly waving as he walked away.

A couple of whiskys had been downed the previous night and there had been sporadic talk with Carter and Smithson and Pierce weighing him, and Johnny turning his concentration at them, evaluating their capabilities. But Johnny had it over them. He had the high ground. A contract man was only brought into the tight web structure of an operation to fulfil a pinnacle role. If it were too easy, too simple then one of the pension scheme men could have been recruited. When the going would be rough they looked for the contract man. Rough and dangerous, Johnny.

Abruptly he swung his legs out of the bed and padded across to his bag. No need to pack for a lifetime, Smithson had said. A few shirts and underclothes, a spare pair of shoes, his army boots, his washing bag.