Chapters (38)
- Cover
- Also by Philip Kerr
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
I glanced up at the spider again, which had been only momentarily deterred.
“How well do you know Comrade General Mielke?”
“I already told you. I’ve never heard of him, either.”
“Come now, Herr Gunther. Elisabeth Dehler—the woman who was living as your wife here in the South of France until quite recently—she knows Erich Mielke very well, doesn’t she? From way back. And what’s more, she also works for the HVA.”
“Elisabeth?” I smiled. “I doubt that very much.”
“Most assuredly she does work for them. And she’s now safely back in Berlin.”
“That much I do know.” I shrugged. There was nothing I could have said about that other than the fact that it was true. Elisabeth did know Erich Mielke. They were old friends from before the war, when Mielke was just a young KPD thug with a gun, but I hardly wanted to admit as much to my English interrogator. Certainly not until I knew of what I was being accused. “Look, she left me, a while ago. Couldn’t stand the heat. Couldn’t come to grips with the language. She missed Germany more than she figured she’d miss me, I guess. What she’s done since she got back home—I really have no idea. She hasn’t written to me in a while.”
“Let’s talk some more about the operation, shall we?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about a put-up job by Karlshorst to frame Roger Hollis, the deputy director of MI5, as a spy working for the Soviet military intelligence—the GRU.”
“Karlshorst? I know the area, in Berlin. But I’ve no idea why you mention it now, as if it means something to me.”
“It’s where the HVA is based these days.”
“MI5. The GRU. The HVA? You’ll have to remind me.”
“The Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung. The East German foreign intelligence service. The equivalent of the British MI6. Or the American CIA.”
“There you go again. You learn something new every day, I guess. Look, until a day or two ago, I’d heard of Guy Burgess. I’d even heard of MI6. But I’d never heard the name of Roger Hollis. And if he is a spy for the Soviet Union then good luck to him. I don’t care. None of this has anything to do with me. All I’ve done was act as a middleman between Hennig and Somerset Maugham. You make it sound as if I’m the one who has suggested Hollis is a spy. I didn’t. And I’ve certainly never mentioned him to Sir John Sinclair or Patrick Reilly.”