11

WHEN THEY ARRIVED, it was a flat, grey, cold March day in Berlin, a city that had been comfortably in the mid-teens for most of the weekend. Suzy revealed an unlikely eye for luxury in the choice of a hotel overlooking the Tiergarten, with a giant wooden sculpture of a crocodile’s jaws in Reception, a nod to the proximity of Berlin’s zoo and perhaps the situation in which they were about to place themselves.

It was called Das Stue, meaning ‘living room’ in Danish, and beneath the grand split staircase in the entrance lobby, the reception area had been designed to capture the warmth and intimacy implicit in the hotel’s name. It was very Berlinerisch, from the doorman dressed in bowler hat and Dr. Martens to the inverted art-deco lights arranged in the shape of a grand piano hanging from the ceiling.

Kate was shown to her room on the fifth floor, which had a long balcony overlooking the treetops of the Tiergarten. She ordered tea and sat outside in her winter coat drinking it, then took herself across the road for a walk in the park as the light was beginning to fade. Berliners were hurrying home with hands thrust deep in pockets and hats pulled low to ward off the chill. And yet, the signs of spring were all around: the daffodils were coming into bloom, the lime blossom drifting on the evening wind.

There were joggers and cyclists, dog-walkers and lovers out for an evening stroll. And it was so quiet. Berlin was the only capital in Europe that could pass for a town or even a village, and Kate had always had a particular affection for it.

She walked as far as the Brandenburg Gate, where shoals of tourists were still being talked through the days when this monument to a nation’s bellicose past had stood just beyond the wall that had divided a city, a country and a continent. It occurred to Kate to wonder if it hadn’t all been a touch easier for her predecessors when the threat from the East could at least be contained in part behind that wall: the days before they could come and go at will in all places at all times, whether it be to murder former spies in Salisbury or attempt to rig elections across the democratic world.

It took longer than she’d anticipated to complete the circle back to the hotel, so she skipped a shower in favour of touching up her make-up, then headed down to join her colleagues in the bar.

Julie was curled up with her feet tucked beneath her on a long aubergine-coloured sofa, opposite doors open to an internal courtyard. It was cosy in there too, with a low ceiling and black-and-white photos on all the walls.

A girl was singing slow jazz to the accompaniment of a keyboard player. A couple at the next table seemed grateful for the excuse to avoid conversation, the woman deep in her phone. Beyond them, two young parents also watched the singer in silence, apparently oblivious to their young son playing a game on his iPad between them. In the courtyard, two girls chatted, feet beneath thick rugs and an empty champagne bottle upside down in the ice bucket beside them. Kate joined Suzy at the bar and asked her for a gin and light tonic, then returned to sit next to Julie. ‘Where is Danny?’ she asked.