Maggie and Shawn were already home when Beth got in. Tiredly, she removed her coat, scarf and gloves and hung them up behind the door. She took the packet from the butchers that she'd queued two hours for through to the kitchen. It would have to do them for the next few nights.

'You're late tonight,' Maggie said, standing at the clunky white cooker and ladling lentil and spinach stew flavoured with a few pork bones into bowls. She passed one to Beth. Maggie looked as tired as Beth felt. They were always tired, working twelve-hour days at the factory.

Her brother Shawn was sitting at the yellow Formica table in his uniform shirt, eating.

'The queues,' Beth explained, sitting down with him. 'Is there a food shortage at the moment? Half the shops were shut.' She glanced at Shawn. Being a border guard he sometime heard things that ordinary people didn't. But he didn't answer, merely scowling down at his bowl. The government's inadequacies were not his favourite subject.

'Hey, Beth.' Glenn Rhees, Maggie's boyfriend, came in from the living room and joined them at the table. She liked Glenn. He was clever and witty, and he adored Maggie. He also worked at a greengrocers so there were always decent vegetables on their table, even when the meat was terrible.

Before Maggie sat down, she inspected the package Beth had brought. 'Ugh. Barely even good enough to stew. I know you did your best, though.'

'I think I can get some potatoes tomorrow,' Glenn offered. He had his own flat but he was often round at theirs. Maggie said it was easier to pool the food that they obtained and cook it in one place, but Beth knew that was mostly just an excuse for him to be there. She didn't mind, though.

'Sometimes it feels like all we talk about is where we can get food,' Maggie grumbled. 'Seeing an egg is an event. And sausages – it's been so long that I'm starting to think they're a myth.'

'You have a job, you have a roof over your head,' Shawn said, glaring at his sister. 'You think you'd be looked after so well in the West? The capitalists hog all the food for themselves and the workers go hungry.'

'I'm hungry,' Maggie mumbled, but under her breath so Shawn couldn't hear.

Beth looked at her brother a little sadly. They'd been so close when they were younger. He'd laughed and joked with her all the time. But since Hershel had been taken to prison, Annette had stayed in West Berlin and he'd become a border guard, every time he opened his mouth out came Party propaganda.

They ate in silence. Maggie had done her best with the stew but it was still quite plain. Beth couldn't concentrate, wondering if she should tell them about Ana and what had happened near the wall. Needing to confide in them, she said, 'A Stasi officer spoke to me on the way home.'

Everyone stared at her, horror etched on their faces. Even Shawn. The border guards were afraid of the Stasi, too. Everyone was.

Beth said, 'You know Ana, downstairs? She was acting really strangely, staring at the Wall.' Beth didn't specify which wall. They all knew which wall. 'A troupe of Stasi soldiers marched past and the officer called out to her. She looked so upset and suspicious that I grabbed her and pretended we were meeting. He … he let her go.'

Maggie had turned pale. 'Beth, you didn't. It had nothing to do with you.'

She stared round the table. No one was eating. 'I couldn't just let them take her away. She would have said something dangerous about her brother, about the government, I was sure of it. I had to help her.'

'What did the officer say to you?' Glenn asked.

'He checked my papers and asked me if I know Ana,' she said, fibbing slightly, 'and then he offered me a job.' They all looked at each other, as confused as she was.

'Who was the officer?' Shawn asked.

Beth thought hard, trying to remember his name. 'Commandant Blake.'

Shawn raised both his eyebrows and then looked down at his food.

She grabbed his arm, suddenly afraid. If Commandant Blake was infamous it could only be bad news. 'What? Do you know him?'

He shook her off, annoyed. 'Of course I don't know him. I know of him. He runs the security for this district.'

'What's he like?' Maggie asked.

Shawn thought for a moment. 'Unpredictable.'

Glenn nodded. 'I heard that too. Charming one minute, and then ruthless the next. I've seen him being driven around in a big black imported car.'

Beth remembered the way the commandant had snapped at her to stand on one spot and wait, and then a few minutes later had winked at her and offered her a job. Unpredictable seemed like a good description.

'What's the job?' Maggie asked.

'I don't know. He told me to report to Stasi Headquarters first thing. I – I couldn't say no.'

Maggie and Glenn looked uneasy.

Maggie said in a soft voice, 'No. We know you couldn't.' But her eyes reproached her sister for having caught the Stasi officer's attention in the first place.

'It doesn't mean he wants her to be an informer,' Shawn said, and Beth felt a rush of gratitude toward him.

'Really?' she said, smiling hopefully at him.

'Yes. Women wouldn't make very good spies anyway.'

Maggie was indignant. 'Women would be good spies. Why wouldn't a woman be a good spy?'

Shawn rolled his eyes. 'Women can't be deceptive. And they talk too much.'

As Shawn and Maggie's argument intensified Glenn caught Beth's eye and grinned. Beth smiled back. Her brother and sister loved to fight. Shawn loved to pretend that he knew everything that went on in East Berlin, and Maggie liked to tell him that he knew nothing.

'OK, you two, that's enough arguing,' Glenn said after a few minutes.

Two spots of colour burned on Maggie's cheeks. 'We're not arguing. We're discussing.'

After dinner Beth washed up the dinner things and took a book to bed. Her bedroom was small, the only furniture a small single bed and an even smaller chest of drawers. She put on a nightgown and tried to relax and read but her stomach was churning. Tomorrow she would be stepping into the unknown. If only she'd kept her head down and minded her own business.

…

Stasi Headquarters were located in a blocky, brown edifice of a building, set with row upon row of blank windows. With shaking hands Beth pushed open the front door and found herself in lobby of cream paint and ash wood. There was a receptionist, and Beth approached.

'Excuse me. I was asked to report for work.'

The woman gave her a blank look. 'By whom?'

'Commandant Blake.'

'Sixth floor.' The woman looked away from Beth and back to her typing.

Beth found the elevator and took it to the sixth floor. More cream paint. More ash wood. The floors were grey linoleum. There were no decorations anywhere except for the Stasi seal, a red flag flying from a rifle with fixed bayonet.

She heard the sound of typing and walked down the corridor toward it. She came into a room with a woman sitting at a typewriter. She wore a white blouse that looked like it might be made of silk, and her long, dark hair was put up into an elegant chignon, and she wore lipstick. Beth couldn't remember the last time she'd seen a woman in lipstick.

The woman's gaze was friendly but Beth noticed the way her eyes travelled over her old rayon shirt and patched grey skirt.

'Can I help you?' the woman asked.

'I was asked to report for work this morning.'

The woman hesitated, and then looked across at the empty desk opposite. 'Frau Adler isn't here, and she's never late ... so I suppose you're a new secretary.'

She was? Beth was relieved. A secretary, that was much better than being a spy.

The woman came toward her with a smile on her face. 'I'm Frau Lori Grimes. You can hang your coat up there, and sit yourself down at that desk.'

'Fraulein Beth Greene. Um, what happened to Frau Adler?'

Lori's smile became brittle. 'Don't you trouble yourself about her. Now, let's take a look at you.' Frau Grimes studied her, and then gave a little laugh. 'Well, you look like you've come straight from the factory. Where did he find you? Here's a pair of earrings you can wear today, and my lipstick which you can borrow,' she said, collecting the items from a drawer in her desk. 'Tomorrow I recommend a skirt suit or dress in blue or green or light brown and twisting that lovely long hair of yours up or setting it in waves. Heels too. The commandant likes us to look our best for him.'

Beth stared at her blankly, but sat down.

'You haven't got heels?' Frau Grimes asked her with a worried frown.

Beth shook her head. No heels, no skirt suit, and she didn't know the first thing about setting or twisting her hair.

'Well, you'll get some. I can tell you where. Now,' she said, glancing at the typewriter in front of Beth. 'How many words per minute?'

Beth had never touched a typewriter. She began to panic – What am I doing here? This isn't better than being a spy – but kept her face carefully blank. 'I don't rightly know. It's been a while.' She flashed Frau Grimes her sweetest smile.

There was a harsh buzzing sound from Frau Grimes' desk and the woman flinched. Then she walked over to her desk, picked up a notebook and pen and went to a door with a brass plaque that read COMMANDANT PHILLIP BLAKE. The secretary took a moment to pat her hair, smooth her skirt, arrange her face into a smile, and then opened the door and went inside.

Beth bit her lip and sat back. What was she doing here? She wasn't beautiful and sleek like Frau Grimes. She didn't know how to type or do the hundred other things she that a secretary was supposed to do. Was there a hundred? She didn't have the first idea. Commandant Blake was going to take one look at her and send her back to where she belonged.

Beth felt a surge of relief. Thank goodness.

Although … couldn't she talk to him about daddy? No one in her family had Stasi connections, and they'd never even been told why he was in prison or been allowed to visit him. Maybe Commandant Blake would help her if she could perform her duties to his satisfaction.

Beth looked at the typewriter in front of her. It was a shiny olive colour with dark brown keys and the name ERIKA embossed in the top right-hand corner. She wondered who Erika was. Then she looked at the stack of clean paper beside her. Somehow one of those sheets went in there. She glanced at Commandant Blake's door, then at Frau Grimes' desk. There was the faint rumble of a male voice but otherwise all was silent. She crept over to the other desk and examined Frau Grimes' typewriter. A piece of paper had been fed in from the back into the big roller.

All right. Didn't seem too difficult. Beth went back to her desk and sat down.

Ten minutes later she had thrown four crumpled pieces of paper into the wastepaper bin and had a sheet fed into the typewriter at a wonky angle. It was a start. She looked at the keys. They were all jumbled up. How was anyone supposed to find the right one?

Tentatively, with her forefingers, she slowly typed beth greene. Then beth greene is not a secretary. Then beth greene what are you do –

Then she had to stop because a little bell had rung and she'd run out of space on the line. She was fiddling with the roller when Commandant Blake's door opened and Frau Grimes hurried out. She looked pale, but gave Beth a shaky smile.

'How are you getting along? Shall we have a cup of coffee?'

Beth stared at her. Coffee? Just in the morning like it was nothing? Glenn had once brought them a tin of freeze-dried coffee and they had eked it out over a month, having a cup after dinner with a cigarette and pretending they were French intellectuals.

She followed Frau Grimes down a corridor into a kitchenette, and watched Frau Grimes pour them both a cup from an electric coffee brewer.

'He's in a dark mood today,' she said. 'I think an operation went sour last night.'

An operation? Beth wondered if that was where he was heading when she crossed paths with him.

They perched in a corner against a counter and dug out their cigarettes. Beth's were the East German-made f6 brand, but Frau Grimes surprised her by pulling out a pack of Kents. She couldn't help staring.

'I know,' Frau Grimes said, grimacing. 'It seems a waste to actually smoke them when you can swap two packets for a pair of silk stockings or a chicken, but I just can't bear the taste of those f6s.'

'But how do you even get them?' Beth asked. She tasted the coffee. It was real coffee, from beans. 'The coffee, the cigarettes, the clothes. I've never seen anything like it. Where do they come from?'

Frau Grimes laughed. 'The West, of course. They're all imported. You didn't think the Stasi and the Party members eat and drink the same rot that the workers do, did you?'

Beth felt hollow inside. Yes, she had thought that, because it was what they'd been told: that they were all equal under communism. That they lived in a classless society. It was the decadent capitalists who exploited the people at the bottom for their own gain. 'But how is that fair?' she asked.

Frau Grimes studied her face. 'Where the hell did he find you?' she muttered. 'Look, it's not fair, but you're here now so you might as well enjoy it.' She handed Beth her packet of Kents. 'For you, a welcoming present. And tonight after work we'll go to my flat and see if there's anything in my wardrobe you can borrow while you sort out some decent clothes.'

They finished their imported coffee, the imported Kent cigarettes clutched in one of Beth's hands. She couldn't help but remember what Maggie would be doing right at that moment: sitting in a freezing, gloomy factory on the production line, counting the hours until lunchtime. Inside the Stasi building it was warm enough that you didn't even need a cardigan, and Frau Grimes had stopped for coffee just because she wanted to.

When Frau Grimes saw Beth's typewriter with its wonky paper she laughed and said, 'Not used to this make, are you?' She yanked the page out and read what Beth had typed. Then she froze. Her eyes slowly travelled to Beth.

'You can type, can't you? Take shorthand?'

Beth bit her lip. 'No. I can't. I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm doing here. He just told me to come here today – I'm a factory girl – I've never even touched a typewriter in my life.'

Frau Grimes closed her eyes for a second. The she opened them, looked at Beth, and took a deep breath. 'All right. It'll be OK.' She chewed her lip, thinking. Then she gave a short laugh. 'You're a clever one. How did you do convince him to give you the job? Flashed those baby blues, I suppose. He's a sucker for a pretty face, that man.'

Beth shook her head. 'I didn't, he just –'

'Well, you're just going to have to get up to speed as fast as you can. There's an evening shorthand and typing class you can go to, and you can fetch his coffee and do his errands, and I'll do my best to keep up with … the rest.' She said this last part with a grimace, as if 'the rest' was quite a bit of work.

She touched Frau Grimes' arm. 'Thank you. You're being so nice to me. I can see I'm going to be a burden to you.'

Frau Grimes patted her hand. 'It's all right. I didn't much like Frau Adler anyway. She wasn't any fun. If we can both please him then things will be better for both of us. Now, let me show you how a typewriter works so you can at least look the part for the rest of the day.'

…

It was seven-thirty pm when she left Frau Grimes' apartment and headed home, carrying a heavy bag of clothes that the woman had given her. They'd left the office at six pm, something that had floored Beth as they had only started working at eight and she was used to twelve-hour days.

'When he goes,' Frau Grimes had said, nodding at the commandant's door, 'we can go.'

When Beth came in the front door Maggie was cooking dinner and Glenn was reading to her from the paper. Both of them stopped what they were doing when they saw the bag she thumped down on the table. Goods being brought into the house was always cause for interest and both of them stared at it.

Beth couldn't help grinning. 'You won't believe what's in here.' As soon as she pulled out the first blouse Maggie squealed, ripped off her apron and plunged into the bag.

'Beth, where did you get these?' Maggie asked, pawing through the skirts and dresses. In awed tones she said, 'Is this a leather handbag?' She held up a neat brown bag with a gold clasp.

'Frau Grimes, the other secretary who works for Commandant Blake. She was so kind to me even though I'm going to be completely useless for weeks, maybe months. We went back to her apartment after work so she could loan me some clothes, but then she said she didn't wear these things and I was going to have to take them in anyway, so I should just have them, and I should give her the first two pairs of silk stockings that Commandant Blake gives to me and then we'll be square.'

Maggie stared at her, open mouthed. 'He's going to give you silk stockings?'

Beth couldn't believe it either. 'Apparently he just does that for his secretaries. Can you imagine! Frau Grimes has told me where I can take lessons and I'm going to start tomorrow night. I don't have to be a spy. Isn't that wonderful? And look what she gave me, just as a present.' Beth placed the Kent cigarettes on the table and then, next to it, a bar of chocolate.

Maggie grabbed them up, staring at them. 'American cigarettes? Swiss chocolate? Where did she even get these?'

Beth grinned. 'She said that she gets them from those special shops and kiosks that the Party members and officials are only allowed to shop at. If you're dressed well then the assistants know that you must work for an important man, or are married to one, and they'll sell you Western goods, too.'

Glenn had been silent this whole time, watching them with the newspaper crumpled in his lap. He frowned, saying, 'Why is she being so nice to you? Don't you think that's suspicious?'

Beth felt her smile fade. She hadn't thought that Frau Grimes was being anything but kind. Was there an ulterior motive to her generosity?

Maggie glanced at her sister. 'Glenn,' she scolded. 'Why would you say such a thing?'

Beth just shrugged, her excitement spoiled. 'Well, she's just nice, I suppose … and, and felt sorry for me or something.' Suddenly the clothes and Western goods she'd been showing off seemed vulgar in their plain little kitchenette, and she wished she hadn't been so enthusiastic over them.

'There are good people out there, Glenn,' Maggie said. 'Generosity can still exist.'

Glenn looked annoyed and dropped his eyes. 'I wonder what Shawn's going to think of all this,' he muttered.

Maggie bit her lip and smiled at Beth, her eyes sparkling once more. 'Oh god, yes, we better put these decadent Western goods away before he gets home and sees them in the hands of the proletariat.' She helped Beth scoop them back into the bag. 'After dinner I'll help you take in some of these clothes so that you have an outfit to wear tomorrow.'

Beth smiled at her sister. 'Thank you, Maggie.'

When Shawn got home and Maggie served dinner Beth saw that Glenn had brought the potatoes he'd said he would get for them. Beth thanked him, but he didn't reply.

…

What do you reckon, does Lori have an ulterior motive to be nice to Beth? How do you think the story's going so far?

And if you're hanging out for him, the next chapter will have LOTS of Daryl.