her she would throw both aside and claim the comfort of her own north German. From her opening salvo it is apparent that her English has greatly improved since I last heard it during our stolen weekends eight years ago in a rattly cottage on the Baltic seashore with a double bed and a wood stove.
‘Are you absolutely out of your tiny mind, Nat?’ she demands idiomatically, glaring up at me. ‘What the hell d’you mean: private – ears-only – off-the-record conversation? Are you trying to recruit me or fuck me? Since I am not interested in either proposal, you can tell that to whoever sent you, because you are totally out of court and off the wall and embarrassing in all respects. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ I agree, and wait for her to settle because the woman in Renate was always more impulsive than the spy.
‘Stephanie is okay?’ she enquires, momentarily appeased.
‘More than okay, thanks. Landed on her feet at last, engaged to be married, if you can believe it. Paul?’
Paul is not her son. Renate to her sadness has no children. Paul is her husband, or was; part mid-life playboy, part Berlin publisher.
‘Thank you, Paul is also excellent. His women get younger and more stupid and the books on his list get lousier. So life is normal. Have you had other little loves since me?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve calmed down.’
‘And you are still with Prue, I hope?’
‘Very much.’
‘So. Are you going to tell me why you have summoned me here, or do I have to call my Ambassador and tell him our British friends are making inappropriate proposals to his head of Station in a London park?’
‘Maybe you should tell him I’ve been slung out of my Service and I’m on a rescue mission,’ I suggest, and wait while she gathers in her body: elbows and knees tightly together, hands linked on her lap.
‘Is that true? They fired you?’ she demands. ‘This is not some stupid ploy? When?’
‘Yesterday, as far as I remember.’
‘Because of some imprudent amour?’
‘No.’
‘And whom have you come to rescue, may I ask?’
‘You. Not just you singular. You plural. You, your staff, your Station, your Ambassador and a bunch of people in Berlin.’
When Renate listens with her large blue eyes, you would never imagine they could blink.
‘You are serious, Nat?’
‘As never before.’
She reflects on this.
‘And you are recording our conversation for posterity, no doubt?’
‘Actually not. How about you?’
‘Also actually not,’ she replies. ‘Now please rescue us quickly, if that is what you have come to do.’
‘If I told you that my ex-Service had information that a member of the British intelligence community here in London has been offering you information concerning a top-secret dialogue we are having with our American partners, how would you reply to that?’
Her answer comes even faster than I’d expected. Was she preparing it as she came up the hill? Or had she taken advice from above by the time she left her flat?
‘I would reply that maybe you British are on a ridiculous fishing expedition.’
‘Of what sort?’
‘Maybe you are attempting a crude test of our professional loyalty in the light of impending Brexit. Nothing is beyond your so-called government in the present absurd crisis.’
‘But you’re not saying that such an offer wasn’t made to you?’
‘You asked me a hypothetical question. I have given you a hypothetical answer.’
At which her mouth snaps shut to indicate that the meeting is over; except that, far from stomping off, she is sitting dead still, waiting for more without wishing to show it. The Indian family, tired of trying to fly the kite, descends the hill. At its foot, platoons of joggers run left to right.
‘Let’s imagine his name is Edward Shannon,’ I suggest.
Dismissive shrug.
‘And, still hypothetically, that Shannon is a former member of our inter-service liaison team based in Berlin. Also that he is enraptured by Germany and has the German bug. His motivation is complex and for our mutual purposes irrelevant. But it is not malign. It is actually well intentioned.’
‘Naturally, I never heard of this man.’
‘Naturally you haven’t. Nevertheless, he made a number of visits to your Embassy over the last few months.’ I spell out the dates for her, courtesy of Bryn. ‘Since his work in London didn’t provide him with a link to your Station here, he didn’t know who to turn to with his offer of secrets. So he buttonholed anyone in your Embassy he could find until he got handed over to a member of your Station. Shannon is an intelligent man