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how he’s been trained!’ urged the psychologist. ‘He could have shown her the sort of sex she’s probably never even heard of: gone through every trick there is. But that’s what it would have been, a set of tricks. Which she would have realized. They made love as they probably always have. He was actually reassuring her, keeping the tricks for his target. Showing Jutta she’s not threatened. Which, as I said, was absolutely brilliant.’
    â€˜I suppose so,’ said Turev, doubtfully. He was a butter-ball of a man, with heavy jowls and a shiny, pink face. The shortness of his neck was accentuated by a heavy moustache that hung like two question marks from either side of his upper lip. The moustache, like his hair, was pure white.
    â€˜He was doing something else, for his own satisfaction,’ continued Panin, reflectively. ‘He knows what he could have done: what he held back from her.’
    Turev frowned again. ‘Where’s the satisfaction in that?’
    â€˜Remember the circumstances!’ urged Panin. ‘He was sent to Berlin, to join the group of which she was cell leader. She was the cell leader when they got married, so she always had the superior authority. Always – professionally – he had to defer to her.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜That’s unnatural: completely so, for every minute of their private and working lives. He insisted at our last meeting that it didn’t worry him. But now I think it did. I think he was amusing himself with her: feeling superior at last. I think he’s resented her superiority all along.’
    â€˜Could that be a problem?’ demanded the KGB chief, quickly alarmed.
    â€˜The fact that he’s married has always been a potential problem,’ said Panin unhelpfully. ‘I’ve always wished the look-alike could have been a bachelor. But it’s Reimann. So we’ve got to live with it.’
    â€˜Isn’t there any precaution we can take?’
    Panin shook his head. ‘Just remain very aware that it is a weakness: something we should constantly monitor. And I think I should sit in when you brief her, on what she’s expected to do.’
    â€˜How should I handle that?’
    â€˜Flatter her.’

Chapter Five
    It was difficult to give absolute attention, even for someone as conscientious as Elke, because the security lectures had always been formalized and now seemed more so, nothing she had not heard a dozen (or was it a hundred?) times before. She glanced around the small conference room at the other supervisors, all with a clearance as high as her own, and guessed they all felt the same: boredom permeated the room.
    â€˜â€¦ continued and unremitting vigilance …’ she heard the speaker intone. He was a tall, intense, moustached man who had not addressed them before. She wondered if the speakers were changed in an attempt to keep the talks as interestingly different as possible. It wasn’t succeeding with this man: he was as pedantic as the title of the ministry he represented, the Federal Agency for the Preservation of the Constitution.
    â€˜â€¦ apparent relaxations between East and West do not mean Soviet intelligence efforts have diminished at all …’
    Last weekend’s visit to Ursula had been much better, although she’d been upset by Ida’s last-minute telephone call announcing she couldn’t come as promised. It hadn’t mattered, in the event. Ursula had seemed much quieter this time, happy to walk in the grounds, seemingly content for them to hold hands. Maybe it had been silly leaving Poppi in the car, as she had: it was a relief he had recovered so completely. And so quickly.
    â€˜â€¦ anything strange should be reported immediately to your superiors or to the security division here in the Chancellery …’
    Gerda Pohl appeared to have been corrected, which was another relief. The meeting with the union