"Not that I blame you, but the least you could do is show it. Yell at me, hit me. Anything."

"Oh do shut up."

"We've underestimated each other, haven't we?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Margaretha."

"Yes, I think that's been the problem all along. We've underestimated each other. We saw only what we wanted to see. We never looked past the skin ..."

And her skin still figured in his waking dreams, dreams inspired by an undraped mannequin or a riding crop displayed in a window. By secretaries bent over typewriters, the nape of the neck exposed. He supposed it was still cold in Berlin, so that even a fingertip across the thigh might leave a line suggesting a welt.

But finally it seemed that the consummate dream was simply what one was doing anyway: spying.

He loved the idea of himself as the deft puppeteer manipulating half a dozen lives. He also loved the concept of Berlin as the stage, and the challenge of running an agent like Nicholas Gray—a reasonable man with a quiet obsession.

The recruitment of Nicholas Gray took place in Paris, in the second week in April. It was a bleak day, with rain in the air and a stiff wind from the Seine. Dunbar had wired from Calais, and Gray met him near the place Contrescarpe, where they drank a vicious absinthe and smoked cheap cigarettes. Later they walked among the numbed crowds, then along the waterfront to a charming bistro where they dined on scallops and listened to the strains of Chopin from the floor.

Dunbar would report that when it was over the actual recruitment could not have been easier. One almost had the feeling that Gray had been expecting just such an offer, he wrote. Indeed, one almost had the feeling that the man had been preparing himself for it ... as though it were not only a logical but inevitable next step.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

GRAY'S recollections of that night by the Seine were not exactly Dunbar's. Yes, it was cold, with a wind through tattered advertisements; and yes, they ate scallops while a dull pianist played nocturnes. But Gray would also tell us that Dunbar was an idiot with all the worst assumptions of the ruling class.

Still, there was more than a degree of truth to Dunbar's account: Gray had indeed expected just such a meeting with someone from London. He had expected it for more than a month, somehow sensing that Zelle was close again. And they did initially meet near the place Contrescarpe, where the absinthe was vicious and the cigarettes were cheap. And yes, it was a bleak night.