Nothing Occurred

By David Wiltcher

What would we do to protect those we love? To what or whom do we ultimately owe allegiance and loyalty? Kathi
continues to struggle with these moral problems as she breaks out of the lock the security services have upon her and accepts a dangerous assignment – a return to Berlin. Her goal remains unchanging, to be reunited with her d

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Printing UK
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912694532

Book preview

1

LONDON

‘What is legitimate? What is lawful?’

I test Jane my solicitor on this. She is tall, slim, well dressed, perfectly spoken and as unlike me as you can get. Naturally, I know the answer she will give.

‘That which is the law.’

Nicely put.

‘Well Kathi, what do you think?’

We play these games with one another. I know she’s playing a game. She doesn’t know that I know, but I read between lines. It’s called survival. I like her, mind you. Her treachery was designed for her, not by her. I fear for this young woman. She will be dispensed with. I’ve seen it happen. Casualties of the peace are everywhere and usually unseen. Aren’t they Sergei? He’s undoubtedly dead, murdered, but I still talk with him. It’s called guilt. But back to my question, or conundrum.

‘Nagasaki, Hiroshima, eight years ago. Were those actions legitimate? I like the atomic nicknames, Little Boy and Fat Man. American humour?’

‘Kathi, I’m a lawyer not a politician. Although I do remember we discussed this in my sixth form, shortly after the bombs were dropped. Our boarding school class was reconvened during the summer holidays to discuss just that.’

‘Impressed with your schooling, Jane. Result?’

‘We concluded those actions were necessary.’

‘Did you now.’ White people dropping atomic bombs on Asian cities – necessary. ‘What about the new bomb, Ivy Mike? It was in the papers. Dropped on an atoll. Bang, no more atoll. Dropped on a country. Bang. You get my drift Jane. Legitimate?’

‘Kathi, stop please. I know why you do this.’

‘Fascinating word. I’m not legitimate, neither is my daughter, and we are prevented from living together.’ The traitor reflects. ‘How about this – legitimacy is power.’

‘The law.’

‘As you say. Are Russians Asians?’

I was once a Red, of sorts. Now Ivy Mike looms over its enemies like a mantis.

‘Kathi, enough.’

Of course. Why did you have that post-Panel briefing Jane, without me? Was that legal or legitimate? What’s cooking?

Like a hornet, I home in. We sit in her attic office. I plot.

Jane, by upbringing and schooling, is only comfortable with civility and good manners. I try, but an orphanage is not a private school, and I have roughed it a bit in Nazi Germany, wartime London, and once operating for the new ‘enemy’, the Soviets.

‘What gives J?’

‘If you could indicate what took place five years ago then I would be better placed with the Panels.’

Twenty years solitary for disclosure of treason. No thanks. ‘All in the past.’ A sigh from Jane. ‘What a privileged life you have had, Jane.’

She frowns. Bad manners. ‘Kathi, I suggest we discuss our next Panel presentation. Now, on contacts, shall we try again to see if they are amenable to an increase?’

‘Amenable!’ They can never be that with me. I have sinned against their State, stolen secrets. Now they’ve stolen my daughter. What is legitimate?

She is staring at her black, sensible shoes. I know their game – hold the child and the mother will not stray far. True. But this cannot go on. I wave the cigarette and create smoke rings.

‘Drink?’

‘Kathi, you know it’s unprofessional.’

She can’t hold alcohol.

‘I want to talk.’

‘About?’

I steer her towards the door. She bites her lip and looks at the phone. ‘Five minutes.’

We go down the rear fire escape and then drive to my choice, a dingy, backstreet pub, all grime and stink, to sit in a shadowed corner. I buy double gins – she asked for small.

‘Is this small?’

‘As they get. Chin, chin.’

I have two escape routes from all this: work for the British or go back to the Soviets. Naturally, I have hesitated for five years. I do like to stay alive. I play the child’s game.

‘You tell me your secret, those briefings, and I will tell you what happened, confession if you like, five years ago.’

‘We should go back to the office.’

For a tape recorder. ‘We’re having a drink.’

She is excited and anxious. The long hair twists around her finger. She has been Jane the Devious. You play hard, you get hit hard. She gambles and thinks, I could be rid of all this and this dreadful woman. Draws breath.

‘They are talking about your daughter being adopted. This is in strictest confidence.’

Low blow. Can’t be surprised. The rules of this business are there are no rules. ‘Thanks.’ I drain my glass and stand up. She is alarmed, mouth open.

‘You agreed to share with me what happened five years ago.’

I’m a traitor and treacherous. This is not my State. I breach agreements at will. In my world it’s legitimate.

‘So I did.’ I reach out and shake hands. I stand, she still sits. Flummoxed and cheated. ‘I can get a bus.’

I leave her seated. So be it. I have the motive now. I half-guessed they would hit me with the adoption thing. My feet stride along the pavement. To act or not to act. Well, five years of the latter becomes the former. Just two phone calls and the future will open before me. Like a chasm. For you, Greta, and for me. Ok, for us. I can be single minded. Pity about the solicitor. She will have to re-think the nature of lawfulness.

Call number one. A public phone box down by the river, just me and the black machine. These moments come in life. Buttons A and B. To press or not to press. Press. I was always going to do this, one day.

‘Hallo.’ Same husky voice as five years ago.

‘Is that the devil?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Deal time, Carter. Here I am.’

‘Carry on.’

‘Looking for work, AC.’

‘Yes.’

‘That works for me.’

Same cold, dry, mind and speech. ‘There might be something.’

I bet there is and it’s dangerous. She will not be offering a cleaning contract.

I take a long, slow and pensive walk home to the flat, trying to establish how I feel. It is a momentous decision yet taken so quickly and with so few words. Reflection is not my strong point, but this has to give me pause. Inside the flat I make a hot drink and curl up in bed. I feel very alone and tense. It is moving from five years of being in limbo to a state of uncertainty and high risk. The unknown. I am not the same reckless and heedless Kathi of past years. If this goes wrong the consequences are immense for me and the person I love beyond life itself. I turn to look at photos of Greta and her dad on the bedside table. I could cry, but that would not help, so, sentimental perhaps, but with my hands shaking, I lift up the two photos and kiss them. One is dead, the other very much alive. My duty is to the living. I have tears on my face. I am crying after all. May this all go right, is all I can think.

Sit in the kitchen and smoke. So, back into their ludicrous Cold War machinations, for certain. Anne Carter will try and use me and dangle Greta like bait. I can be a slippery pike, and equally dangerous. We all swim in the same swirling waters. No time for nostalgia and reflection.

Phone call two is also on my mind. Hallo Soviets. Me again. If you’re doing risk, do it in doubles. First, the Carter meeting, then Russia time. The dances of death. I like a touch of melodrama sometimes. I could end up stone cold dead in a canal. No romance in that.

2

Horrible, horrible, all of it. Legitimate, illegitimate, treasonous actions, security of the State; awful. I was trained to be a solicitor not an undercover agent, but I allowed myself to be used against this woman. She was always far too clever and adroit. If she fooled trained interrogators, was she not likely to fool me? I have now lost confidence in myself as a lawyer and as a woman. Why did they choose me? Because I was, and perhaps remain, naive. The head of chambers hinted as much five years ago. ‘Jane, she is more likely to lower her guard with you.’ They took advantage of my youth and inexperience and I cannot forgive that.

That dreadful and devious woman they call AC orchestrated all of it. I just know it. A family friend, my father said, and for the good of the country. I love my country, but I was the wrong choice, yet they would not let me resign. I find that unforgiveable, and that my own father was part of it. He can be so weak and pliable. I used to hear AC talking to him and he would almost kneel at her feet. I hear she is ill. I wish her no harm, but sometimes, in the dead of night, I have quite dreadful thoughts and wishes about her.

I did try to uphold the rightness and legitimacy of the law. Not as part of a conversational game, but because I believed in what I was saying, even in the face of Kathi’s endless arguments. She wore me down, but I still tried to act on the basis of principle. She is so driven, so obsessed.

She knew it was all a lie and a game.

Mother was her usual kind, hapless self. ‘Jane darling, I never interfere in your father’s work and business.’ And my elder brother was worse. ‘Good opportunity. Grab it. Set a girl to catch a girl.’ All this must change some day. We are not just the playthings of men, are we? Well, that woman is most certainly not.

I do feel sorry for her and the child, Greta. Nevertheless, she committed treason. I am so relieved it’s all over now and that she just walked away, even if she tricked me. I must trust her not to say anything. Why did I mention the word adoption? She will use it, I just know. I would picture her sitting in my office, smoking and exuding ruthlessness. I cannot sleep at night for worrying. My blunder, but I am sure it will damage both me and my father.

Robert has moved onto the vulnerable ground that is me after all this and asked for my hand again. I said yes, and then cried all night. Am I going to be a re-creation of my mother, kow-towing to men? He wants us to buy a large house in Warwickshire. I will practice part-time, children will come, and he will live and work in the city during the week. ‘It is written.’ I wrote those words in my diary, then slammed it shut. Something is not right about all this.

Envy. I shouldn’t feel it, but I do, for that strange woman, the traitor. She can come and go, and does, with her falsified passports. I would never have wanted her life, but her freedom – yes. But to lose a child must be simply awful. Although she brought all that on herself and her daughter. And continuing to talk about nuclear catastrophe. That is something we just have to live with, isn’t it? And then about Asians, and the West.

I never remotely understood her. How could I? Nothing in my background or education prepared me for such a person. I have a large file on all her neighbours and friends. The ‘exotics’ as my senior legal mentor called them, as if they were from a different race. This country is still so divided. Their world and mine, so far apart. How could I possibly deal with a woman who sprung from all that, not forgetting her time in Nazi Germany and being brought up in an orphanage. I tried, but we would gaze at each other across the cups of tea in mutual incomprehension. The difference was that she could lie without blinking and manipulate me from one session to the next. But was that sensible? She never got the child back. Now I hear she might embark on some other piece of dangerous work. I cannot understand her, at all.

No doubt I will become pregnant and give up work. The future seems to lie ahead, as it does for so many of my school friends and generation, predictable and frightening. Perhaps I could have shared some of this with Kathi, madam bare legs and smoke rings. What a conversation that would have made. I do wonder what will become of her. I do not hate or even dislike her, but fear for her future. She lives with recklessness. Surely you can only do that for so long.

It’s best to forget this whole episode as if it never happened. I will close it down in my mind. There. Done. Let them get on with their horrible, mad, dangerous world and all its scheming.

I say to myself, ‘Jane, do not become a victim,’ but the odds are stacked against us. Us. We women of a certain class and station. She was free of all that. I cannot resolve my ambiguous feelings about her, admiration and dislike, rejection of who she is and envy. I feel that I missed a chance with Kathi Muller but cannot decide what that was.

3

We arrive at eight in the morning, walk inside the café as if unknown to each other, then sit at the same table. That makes me laugh and eases my nerves. She needs cigarettes more than I do and has one alight straight off. Smoke disappears over my head as she ignores the looks and smirks of the assorted drivers, labourers, old people and down and outs. She has the same or similar white pearls around her throat. Nothing changes, everything changes.

‘Well, here we are again.’

Five years on, the same Anne Carter. Smooth, slim, snappy dresser, but older, shaky, the sharp edge dimmed. Is she ill?

‘You plotted the long game and here I sit. Jane did a good job.’

‘Did she?’

I rest back. A definite tremor in her voice and both hands shake. The café windows are steamed up and the place stinks of boiled tea and fried food. She complains of the dirty spoon and cup. I bring back another cup, clean but chipped. She swishes the spoon and taps the saucer. She won’t touch it. We stare at each other, old adversaries in mutual need. Difficult for her, having to treat me as an equal. She surely detests me. Traitor, unproven, a file that will not close itself. Are we going to talk or dwell on our grievances in silence? I light a cheap cigarette and blow smoke rings. She has aged, thin lines, the neck giveaway and a flatness to her eyes. Something is wrong. Is this a liability or a card in my favour?

‘You have work for me?’

‘Yes.’

‘What will happen to Jane?’

‘Who? Oh, nice girl. She’ll return to her market town and a small practice, not a city girl. Casualty of war and peace. We don’t need to dwell on that do we? What about these overseas trips you have made over the last three years, studying insurgencies in East Africa and Palestine?’

‘We don’t need to dwell on that, do we? What work?’

She stubs out the cigarette. ‘Greta will be five soon.’

‘Getting her anything, Carter?’

‘Anne, or AC, if you don’t mind. The clock ticks for both of us.’ She holds her right hand just above the table. Now the tremor is noticeable. ‘Neurological, poor prognosis, but let that be, and you and your daughter get no younger.’ She takes out another cigarette. ‘Motives are key.’

The customers lose interest. Just two women talking. We lean forward at the same moment and our faces are close. She says I look older with my grey streaks. I am, and weary. She quickly gets to the point, as I remember from her interrogations.

‘Three of my agents have disappeared in East Berlin. A vanishes. B sent to find A, and C then went for B. All gone. Deplorable, baffling and tragic. Three lives lost, all under thirty, and I want to know why. They were merely pursuing a simple inquiry. This time I want someone different. It’s a last chance before I have medical retirement imposed on me.’ She makes a face at the cup and sips it. ‘Disgusting. Fancy sharing this with you, but it all troubles me.’

Guilt, a good motive to match my feelings of revenge. ‘What’s the inquiry that proved so deadly?’

‘To establish evidence that the Soviets might take military control of all Germany and Europe.’

‘Nobody seriously believes that. Not in this age of nuclear weapons.’

She sighs. ‘If only that were true. I regret that some men are so fanatically anti-communist they will believe anything, and a number exist inside my organisation, The Place. They take the disappearances as certain proof of Soviet malign intent. There are many more of these men in the USA. Their mindset envisages communism as a plague demanding total eradication.’

‘Ok. A fanatic minority. Does it matter?’

‘How strange that we should be having this conversation. It matters because, my information indicates, a group of these men, a rogue unit and all American, now operate in East Berlin. They do so under the guise of representing the United States government and actively plot a coup against the East German regime. Their strategy is to provoke a military response from the Soviets and then demand that the United States government intervene and employ the threat, or the actuality, of the new hydrogen bomb.’

‘Ivy Mike and the like! Not a chance.’

‘Incorrect, there’s a real chance. The United States is riven with internal conflict. Allegations fly that communists, the ‘Red Menace’, have infiltrated every branch of government, including Defence. Unfortunately, they can quote our own recent Soviet spies. The men in Berlin argue that these infiltrators will actively stop America defending a ‘democratic’ government, won on the streets via an uprising. Their logic will be, today the Reds occupy Berlin and East Germany, tomorrow Western Europe, and then the world. They will then call for a coup in America by people prepared to launch a nuclear attack.’

‘Fantasy land.’

‘That’s what my so-called colleagues say. They consider my illness affects my thinking. If they knew I was having this conversation,’ she laughs out loud and people swing round and stare at us, ‘they would summon the men in white coats.’ She leans forward and fixes her eyes on me. ‘What I have outlined to you is a serious scenario. There are men very willing to use the ultimate weapons in the United States armoury. They say, ‘What are the weapons there for if not to be made effective? We stopped Japan in its tracks.’ She pauses and stares into my eyes. ‘Believe me. It can happen.’

Is she crazy? ‘Ok. Got it.’ I half think of leaving but desperately need options. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go around asking too many questions in a police state.’

‘Or be careful how you do it. My man in the sector, Morton, says all three ignored his advice.’

‘Ok. Who do you think is responsible for their disappearance?’

‘Always look for motive. It is hard to believe, yet I wonder about the rogue Americans. I want to see what you can uncover about that, and the supposed Soviet plot against the West. If you can bring proof of who is involved, perhaps the rogue Americans, and that there is no Soviet plot, then I will deal with the sceptics here about the existence of such an American unit. Let me emphasise that any American plot is my concern. Clear on that?’

‘As glass.’

She lights another cigarette. ‘You don’t want this do you?’

‘Well who would?’

‘But there is your daughter.’

‘There is, as you neatly put it, Greta.’

She wipes the cup rim with one finger. We sit in silence. I am conscious of the tremor in her hands and the strange flicker in her eyes. She is seriously unwell. A crackpot? Maybe she is right with her ideas. How could I possibly know? A case of drowning and grasping at any straw.

‘And will I do it?’

‘Would you?’

‘Guarantee me Greta. Deal. Another cup of tea?’

‘I cannot give a guarantee. No more tea. But if you can bring back evidence, in writing, documents, whatever it is, that shows what happened to the three agents, and that there is no proof of Soviet aggression, then it will weigh mightily in your favour.’

Will it? ‘I wonder if that is true. Your State has been mightily unforgiving for five years.’

‘Things change. People change.’

‘Supposing there is proof of a Soviet takeover and invasion plan?’

She shakes her head. ‘I honestly do not know. It is too frightening and seems so unlikely, but the world is off-balance, and anything is possible.’ The tremor increases in her hands. ‘This is all I can offer you.’ She smiles and for a moment looks well and younger.

‘If I accept then I won’t officially exist. True?’

‘We will keep a secret file. If you succeed, then I present it as a fait accompli.’

‘I was hoping you’d offer an assignment in the Pacific or Patagonia, somewhere quiet.’

‘I have others who can do quiet. I want someone who can do…’

‘Crazy? It’s fifteen years since I was in Berlin. They will laugh at my German.’ I put my face close to hers. ‘Did you engineer the adoption move?’ I regret saying that. Jane’s career and reputation is now dead.

She taps ash off her cigarette into the saucer. ‘You are here, and the clock is ticking.’

The bastard. ‘I once killed two Nazi German police officers. Never told anybody that. At this moment I feel you should be my third victim.’

‘Understandable. We work in a very rough trade. I feel unwell. You have the deal on the table. Your answer?’ She puts her cigarette case back in the bag. What can I do – wait five more years? I dislike her, sickness notwithstanding, for the cold calculation and the obsessions. Something about her is not quite