She went across to the information desk. Pretty legs.

'Not a very nice evening.'

'Not very,' I said.

'What sort of flight?'

'Bloody awful.' We started walking, looking for somewhere we could talk. 'Been waiting long?'

'Half an hour,' he said.

'Did what I could. London was a mess.'

'Let's go over there,' Croder said.

'All right.' There was a lot of water on the floor below one of the big windows, which had sprung a leak, and we stood there with our backs to the dark glass watching the people near us. I didn't know whether he'd got here without any tags on him; as a rule the London directors aren't too good in the field. He stood with his hands in the pockets of the big military coat he was wearing, its buttons plain now and the marks still showing where the insignia had been taken off. It looked too big for him: he was a slight man, thin-boned and pallid, with a head like a skull and the hands of a skeleton and only the eyes alive, brooding in his face as if they were trapped there under the taut parched skin, their black luminescence shadowed by heavy lids. He hadn't looked at me yet.

'Good of you to come,' he said formally. 'I was surprised when they said you'd changed your mind.'

'So was I.'

He made a smile with his small teeth, like a rat nibbling.

'We nearly missed each other. They had to get back to me through Interpol.' It was a reprimand.

'Where's Shapiro?' I asked him.

He didn't answer for a moment. There was a lot of noise from a bunch of people over by the doors, and Croder gazed at them steadily. 'East Germans,' he said. 'They were going into Schoenefeld but an engine was out, so they came into Tempelhof instead.' His small teeth made a token smile. 'Half of them are demanding asylum. Wouldn't you? We don't know where Shapiro is,' he said without looking away from the group. 'His cover name is Schrenk. Forget Shapiro. Schrenk.' He spelt it for me. 'He was in Moscow for two months, working very well, then they uncovered him and put him through interrogation in Lubyanka. Then he escaped.'