so bloody angry. You work for me but you think you can twist me around your finger. Well, you listen to me, Bernard, you devious bastard: I know she was here to talk with you. Now who was she?’
‘A contact. I got the address of George Kosinski’s brother,’ I said. ‘It’s in the north-west and it’s a lousy journey on terrible roads. I thought I’d double-check that George was there before dragging you out into the sticks.’
Dicky evidently decided not to press me about the identity of my lady visitor. He must have guessed it was one of my contacts, and it was definitely out of line to ask an agent’s identity. ‘That’s a natty little umbrella you’re wielding, Bernard.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I bought it this morning.’
‘A folding umbrella: telescopic. Wow! Is this a power bid for Whitehall? I mean, it’s not really you, an umbrella. Too sissie for you, Bernard. It’s just desk wallahs who come into town on a commuter train from the suburbs who flourish umbrellas.’
‘It keeps the snow off,’ I said. Dicky was of course merely showing me that he didn’t like being deserted without permission, but that didn’t make being the butt of his tiresome sense of humour any more tolerable.
‘An umbrella like that is not something I’d recommend to the uninitiated, Bernard. A fierce gust of wind will snatch you away like Mary Poppins, and carry you all the way to the Urals.’
‘But the desk didn’t tell you anything about our pal Kosinski?’ I asked, to bring him back to earth.
‘I left that to you,’ said Dicky.
‘George knows his way around this town. He speaks Polish. He might lead us a dance before we get a definite fix on him.’
‘And by that time he could be on a plane and in Moscow.’
‘No, no, no. He won’t leave until he’s done what he has to do. With luck we’ll get to him before that.’
‘Very philosophical, Bernard. Abstract reasoning of the finest sort, but can you tell me what the hell it means?’
‘It means we can’t find him, Dicky. And there are no short cuts except miraculous good luck. It means that you have to be patient while we plod along doing the things that a village policeman does when looking for a lost poodle.’
This wasn’t what Dicky wanted to hear. As if in reproach he said: ‘Last night, when we first arrived, the reception people admitted that George Kosinski had been here in this hotel. So why won’t they tell us where he’s gone?’
‘No, they didn’t say he had been in this hotel, Dicky. They suggested that we try to find him in another hotel with a similar name. It’s on the other side of the airport. It’s a sleazy dump for overnight stays. He won’t be there. It was just a polite way of telling us to drop dead.’
‘I’ll never get the hang of this bloody language,’ said Dicky. He smiled and slapped his hands together in the forceful way he started his Tuesday morning ‘get-together meetings’ when he had something unpleasant to announce. ‘Well, let’s go there. Anything is better than sitting round in this mausoleum.’ He produced his room key from his pocket and shook it so it jangled.
I was tired after doing the rounds of the city. The official line was that the last of the political prisoners had been released the previous year, but for some unexplained reason all the people given to airing political views the government didn’t like were still serving indefinite detention in a labour camp near Gdansk which had been doubled in size to accommodate a couple of hundred extra detainees. Most of my other old contacts had moved away after the big crack-down, leaving no forwarding address, and my enquiries about them had not been met by neighbourly smiles or friendly enthusiasm.
Now I wanted to have a drink and then sit down to a leisurely lunch, but Dicky was a restless personality, ill-suited to the slow-paced austerity of communist society. I followed his gaze as he looked around with pent-up hostility at everything in the hotel lobby. Its institutional atmosphere was like that of a hundred other lobbies in such gloomy communist-run hotels. The same typography on the signs, and the same graceless furniture, the dim bulbs in the same dusty chandeliers reflecting in the polished stone floor, the same musty smell and the same surly staff.
The skittish way in which Dicky nagged his Department into doing his will was less effective when pitted against the ponderous systems of socialist omnipotence. And so Dicky had found that morning, as he tried to press the hotel manager – and individual members of the staff – into providing him with a chance to search the hotel register for George Kosinski’s name. I knew all this because a full description of Dicky’s activities had been provided to me by a querulous German-speaking assistant manager who was placated only after I gave him a carton of Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
‘I’ll have a quick drink, Dicky, and I’ll be with you,’ I said.
‘Good grief, Bernard, it’s eleven o’clock in the morning. What do you need a drink for at this hour?’
‘I’ve been outside in sub-zero weather, Dicky. When you’ve been outside for an hour or two you might find out why.’
‘Thank God I’m not dependent upon alcohol. Last night I saw you heading for the bar and now, next morning, you are heading that way again. It’s a disease.’
‘I know.’
‘And the stuff they call brandy here is rot-gut.’
‘I can’t buy you one then? The barman is called “Mouse”. Pay him in hard currency and you’ll get any fancy Western tipple you name.’
He disregarded my flippant invitation. ‘Make it snappy. I’ll go and get my coat. I didn’t bring an umbrella but perhaps I can shelter under yours.’
When we emerged on to the street Dicky seemed prepared to yield to my judgement in the matter of avoiding a senseless trek to the hotel’s inferior namesake on the other side of town. ‘Where shall we go first?’ he offered tentatively.
‘I heard George was trying to buy a gun,’ I said.
‘Are you serious?’
‘In the Rozyckiego Bazaar in the Praga. It’s a black-market paradise; the clearing house for stolen goods and furs and contraband from Russia.’
‘And guns?’
‘Gangs of deserters from all the Eastern European armies run things over there and fight for territory. It may look law-abiding but so did Al Capone’s Chicago. Keep your hands in your pockets and watch out for pickpockets and muggers.’
‘Why don’t the authorities clear it out?’
‘It’s not so easy,’ I said. ‘It’s the oldest flea-market in Poland. The currency dealers and black-marketeers all know each other very well. Infiltrating a plain-clothes cop is tricky, but they try from time to time. They might think that’s what we are, so watch your step.’
‘I can handle myself,’ said Dicky. ‘I don’t scare easily.’
‘I know,’ I said. It was true and it was what made Dicky such a liability. Werner and me, we both scared very easily, and we were proud of it.
The
