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Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. FIELD GRAY
  3. ALSO BY PHILIP KERR
  4. FIELD GRAY
  5. Copyright
  6. Epigraph
  7. Dedication
  8. FIELD GRAY
  9. Contents
  10. 1
  11. 2
  12. 3
  13. 4
  14. 5
  15. 6
  16. 7
  17. 8
  18. 9
  19. 10
  20. 11
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. 16
  26. 17
  27. 18
  28. 19
  29. 20
  30. 21
  31. 22
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. 27
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. 32
  42. 33
  43. 34
  44. 35
  45. 36
  46. 37
  47. 38
  48. 39
  49. 40
  50. AUTHOR’S NOTE

I grinned, liking her resilience. You could tell she was a Berliner, all right. Probably she’d been one of those women with a bucket who’d cleared the city of rubble in 1945. Raped one day, rebuilding it the next, like some Trojan princess in a play by some marble-headed Greek. Made of the same stuff as that German aviatrix who used to fly missiles for Hitler. You could say that’s why I kissed her—properly this time—but it might just as easily have been because she was as sexy as black stocking tops. Especially when her eyes were fixed on me. Besides, most German men prefer a woman who looks like she has a healthy appetite. Which is not to say Elisabeth was fat, or even large, just well-endowed.

“I expect you’re wondering if there was a reply to your letter,” she said.

“It was beginning to itch a little.”

“Good. At the very least, I want to see some scratch marks for what you put me through to get this. I’ve never been so scared.”

She opened a kitchen drawer and took out a letter, which she now handed to me. “I’ll finish making that coffee while you read it.”

33

GERMANY, 1954

To the west there was the town; to the east there were just green open fields; and in the middle was the railway line. The station, immediately south of the refugee camp, was—like every other building in Friedland—unremarkable. It was made of red bricks and had two red roofs—three if you counted the wizard’s-hat roof on top of the square corner tower that was the stationmaster’s house. A neat little flower garden was laid out by the front door of the house, and at the two upper-floor arched windows a neat set of flowery curtains hung. There was also a clock, a notice board with a timetable, and a bus stop. Everything was neat and orderly and just as sleepy as it should have been. Except today. Today was different. The capital of West Germany might have been the unlikely town of Bonn, but today—and no less unlikely than that—all German eyes were focused on Friedland in Lower Saxony. For today saw the homecoming of one thousand German prisoners of war from Soviet captivity, aboard a train that had left its remote destination more than twenty-four hours earlier.