In Treacherous Waters

by Richard V Frankland

  ***

  Several miles east of Staunton, Alex Campbell also lay awake but his thoughts were far from triumphant. The previous evening he had received information from Lorna Parker-Davis resulting in him again attempting to persuade Sir Andrew Averrille to conduct a search for information associated with Jacobs. The conversation had been brief, with Sir Andrew thanking Campbell for his thoughts and informing him that he would put the matter in the hands of none other than Staunton. Argument on that matter was deflected by accusations of resentment towards a successor in post and the phone put down abruptly. Having given Sir Andrew the opportunity to possibly uncover Staunton’s dubious web of intrigue Campbell had no compunction in using alternative routes to obtain information.

  A call to Chief Inspector Brian Jackson from the tenth tee of the golf course was, however, more fruitful in that Jackson had received a similar request from De Lacerda of the Portuguese Servico de Informaçōes de Segurança and promised that any information would be shared via Lorna. The call also revealed that large sums of money had been moved into the Portuguese Banco Salvadore Tesoureiro and that Margaret Hutchinson’s team were currently trying to trace the money back to sources believed to be British. Jackson had also learnt that the fraud team were in touch with European and American tax officials in a combined attempt to identify potential Portuguese coup supporters.

  Campbell’s biggest problem continued to be one of communications and since using the neighbour’s house at the bottom of his garden was no longer an option he had now taken to long evening walks in Dulwich Park with Caroline or evening rounds of golf at the Dulwich and Sydenham Hill course, followed by a drink at the nineteenth. As the normal chatter with friends on his contract phone throughout the day and into the evening had continued at the normal rate, the eavesdroppers were becoming somewhat bored. It still meant that response times to any changing situation were far too slow, which meant leaving Vaughan to cope very much on his own. Every day that passed, Commodore Campbell was becoming more and more aware that his career, and indeed his whole future, depended upon a man who was a relatively new recruit into the shadowy world of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

  ***

  Arriving at his office the next morning Staunton was surprised, and a little anxious, to find that Sir Andrew Averrille had made a request to see him as soon as he arrived.

  “Any idea what this is about, Ann?” asked Staunton, brandishing her note.

  “No, Sir,” replied Staunton’s secretary, surprised that he had actually used her name when asking a question.

  “Damn,” he said, turning on his heels and leaving.

  Along the corridor he knocked and entered the reception area to Sir Andrew’s office suite. As usual Mrs March greeted him with that expression of hers that suggested a bad smell had entered the office.

  “Take a seat, Mr Staunton, I will see if Sir Andrew is available.”

  Struggling to be polite Staunton said, “Thank you, Mrs March.”

  Five minutes passed before Sir Andrew’s office door opened and Mrs March invited Staunton in.

  “Ah, Leonard, I have a task that I would like you to treat with ‘a’ the utmost urgency and ‘b’ the utmost discretion.”

  “I am at your command, Sir Andrew.”

  “Does the name Barry Jacobs mean anything to you?” asked Sir Andrew, noting that slight intensity in Staunton’s eyes that indicated recognition.

  “No, Sir Andrew, I can’t say that it does.”

  “Oh, I thought you might have served with him,” said Sir Andrew now wondering whether his reading of Staunton’s eyes was in fact correct. “I would like you to trawl through SAS records and see what you come up with and report back to me.”

  “This is sensitive, Sir Andrew?”

  “Yes, Leonard, very sensitive. Your earliest report if you would.”

  “Certainly, Sir Andrew, I’ll get onto it straight away. May I ask what it is in connection with, it may help me narrow things down. I doubt if there was only one Barry Jacobs who has served with SAS.”

  “I don’t want to restrict your search, Leonard. If there were as many as, say, ten, that would be fine.”

  “I see. Is there anything else, Sir Andrew?” asked Staunton, standing as if to leave. “Oh, you may not have heard yet, Sir Andrew, but that man Ian Vaughan, who we had to dismiss a few days ago has been killed. Our information, though limited I must add, suggests that it was a collision at sea.”

  “I see, Leonard, that is very interesting information, that changes a few patterns of perception. Thank you, now if you could deal with the Jacobs business.”

  It was a very satisfied Leonard Staunton that left Sir Andrew Averrille’s office that morning. A man in fact who knew personally that the file on 40128165 Sergeant Barry Jacobs had been pulled two years before.

  A few minutes later passing his secretary, sat at her desk, he said, “Get me the earliest appointment to view SAS records; then contact Bowen at Kingsbridge and tell him to return immediately to operation Nightjar.”

  ***

  On the beach, Vaughan had almost raised his gun and fired.

  “Penny?”

  “No, it’s me, Anna-Maria. Penny is here, but she has been hurt.”

  Relieved, Vaughan scrambled over the rocks to where the women lay, Penny’s head resting on Anna-Maria’s lap.

  “Where are you hurt, Penny?”

  “I think I stopped a bullet in the thigh, Ian. It hurts like hell.”

  “Right, I‘m going to fireman’s lift you up to the house on the hill and see what we can do for you there,” said Vaughan. “Anna-Maria, you bring the grab bags, here’s mine.”

  Vaughan helped Heathcote to her feet and putting her torso over his shoulder lifted her and picked his way up through the rocks to the road.

  “How are you, Penny?”

  “Not good, will this take long?”

  “I’ll get you there as soon as I can.”

  By the time Vaughan lowered Penny onto the porch bench of the house he was breathing heavily and took several minutes to recover. A careful tour of the outside indicated that the property did not have a burglar alarm system.

  Vaughan pressed the door bell and heard a chime sound from inside. Waiting a few seconds and seeing no lights appear he pressed the door bell again. “No one at home, pity, illegal entry it has to be,” he said, before leaving the two women again and disappearing towards the rear of the property.

  Anna-Maria heard the sound of breaking glass, then two minutes later the front door opened.

  “We better get Penny inside and close the curtains before we put any lights on,” said Vaughan, hoisting Penny over his shoulder again.

  Once they were inside, Anna-Maria hurried around closing curtains and internal doors. The small hallway led to the kitchen at the back of the house with a sitting room and dining room either side of it. Vaughan carried Penny straight through to the kitchen and laid her on the large refectory table in the centre, that was covered with a brightly coloured plastic cloth.

  “Anna-Maria, you look round in here for first aid stuff, while I look around upstairs.”

  Vaughan found what he was looking for in the bathroom cabinet, then had some success with a search of the sitting room.

  “This should do until we can get you proper attention,” he said, holding up a first aid box and a bottle of Vodka. “With tonic Penny?”

  Anna-Maria immediately walked across the kitchen and took a bottle of fizzy lemonade from a cupboard. “How about this?”

  “I couldn’t face a drink right now, Ian, thank you all the same.”

  “Oh I’m sure you can, Lieutenant.”

  The switch from her name to her rank had Penny looking at Vaughan questioningly for a few moments before nodding her head. “Oh, why not celebrate our survival.”

  “That’s the spirit, here we are have a good swig of that,” said Vaughan, putting a glass with a triple measure of vodka and the same amount of lemonade in her hand.


  “We need to get you dry and warm and that means getting your swimsuit off. Can you give Penny a hand when she’s finished her drink, while I find towels and some clean sheets and a blanket or two.”

  “Yes of course, Ian. You wait outside please while we’re doing this,” replied Anna-Maria, her expression very serious.

  Some twenty minutes had passed with Vaughan waiting in the hallway, then the kitchen door was opened slightly and a hand appeared, to take the sheets and blankets. Five minutes later he was waved into the kitchen.

  Surveying the scene, Vaughan was impressed with the way Anna-Maria had prepared Penny ready for him to treat. It looked just like the table in a hospital operating theatre with Penny laid face down covered from shoulders to feet except for the wound area.

  “Oh neat, nurse Anna-Maria, very neat indeed. Now let’s have a look at the damage,” said Vaughan, bending over and looking closely at the back of Penny Heathcote’s thigh. “Entry wound and no exit wound. On the bright side, though the wound is bleeding it’s not pumping out, so no major vein or artery hit, possibly you stopped a ricochet, which may mean the bullet is not in very deep,” said Vaughan, almost to himself. “Can you boil some water for me please, Anna-Maria.”

  As she moved away from the sink Vaughan went across and thoroughly washed his hands and lower arms, then he tore up a clean bed sheet and using pieces soaked in cold salt water delicately cleaned the wound site, the salt extracting a shriek from Penny. Using a clean dry cloth he tried to staunch the bleeding whilst the kettle boiled.

  “Find a clean saucepan and pour the water into it and put it on that gas stove and keep the water boiling please, Anna-Maria; then we’ll need a sieve,” said Vaughan, sorting through the first aid box and selecting a pair of tweezers and small scissors.

  Opening his grab bag he pulled out a double edged knife, the sight of which made Anna-Maria gasp, but she said nothing.

  Crouching down alongside Penny’s head, Vaughan gently brushed some hair from her face and stroked her cheek. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m very scared at the moment and the wound hurts so much I feel as if my leg has been blown up.”

  “I’m sorry to say that I’m going to hurt you a bit more shortly, but we must see if we can get the bullet out.”

  Penny bit her lip as tears trickled down onto the small pillow supporting her head.

  It was possible that the alcohol was having some effect as Penny hardly flinched as Vaughan, wearing a pair of latex gloves from the first aid box, pulled the wound open a little with his fingers.

  “Put the knife in the boiling water as far as it will go, and the tweezers and scissors in the sieve and place that in there as well, would you please,” he said looking at Anna-Maria. “Mind the knife, it is razor sharp.”

  “Are you going to use some of the vodka on the wound to kill the germs?”

  “Anna-Maria, you have been watching too many Bourne films, alcohol would damage the tissue and delay healing,” replied Vaughan, winking at her and smiling.

  “I did not know that,” she said somewhat chastened.

  “Neither did I until I went into training with SIS,” Vaughan replied, “I think it’s a common mistake that many people make.”

  Anna-Maria moved to the sink and again washed her hands and arms, drying them on the spare bed sheet then she took gloves from the first aid box and put them on.

  “Ah, are you going to assist, nurse?”

  Anna-Maria smiled.

  Having given the knife, tweezers and small scissors five full minutes in boiling water, Vaughan lifted the sieve out of the saucepan and handed it to Anna-Maria. “If you could stand that side, facing me.”

  He then used a fork to turn the knife so that the handle and the rest of the blade were immersed. “We better wait until those things have cooled down.”

  The knife blade was still slightly warm as Vaughan used the tip to probe the wound and saw Penny’s fists clench. “Sorry, Penny, ah, there it is. Anna-Maria can you hold the knife as still as you can, while I try and get it with the tweezers and scissors.”

  Penny yelled twice but bravely kept remarkably still.

  “Got it, fortunately the bullet was not in deep,” said Vaughan, great relief apparent in his voice. “Now to stop the bleeding and close up.”

  Washing the wound again in salt water brought another shriek from Penny.

  “Sorry, Penny, but we must make sure it’s clean.”

  Pinching the skin together as best he could Vaughan exerted pressure on the wound, holding it for over a quarter of an hour. “Anna-Maria, can you look in the first aid box and see if there is any antibiotic cream in there?”

  Picking up a tube Anna-Maria studied the small print. “Um, this is no good, er this one may be, um no. Ah yes here we go this is the one, and it has not yet been used.”

  ‘Okay, we also need that roll of surgical tape,” said Vaughan. “Can you cut off three strips about seven centimetres long.”

  Placing cream on the wound Vaughan again pinched it together whilst Anna-Maria applied the tape.

  “I’m going to bring down a mattress from upstairs, Anna-Maria. While I’m doing that can you clean up as much of the blood Penny is lying in as you can, but try not to open up that wound.”

  When Vaughan had found the cleanest of the mattresses and brought it down to the hall he discovered the kitchen door closed. Knocking he was firmly told to wait until he was invited. When he was finally granted entry he was relieved to find that, thanks to the plastic tablecloth, sliding Penny onto the mattress was easier than he had feared.

  “Okay, Penny, you and Anna-Maria try and get some sleep. I’m going to get that car and hide it nearby.”

  Leaving the house, Vaughan cautiously made his way down the hill to the beach, finding the car still where it had been left earlier. The problem was what to do with the trailer and unable to find another suitable spot he pushed it out into deep water. The Renault was old and reluctant to start at first, but on the fifth turn of the ignition key the engine sprang into life. Driving past the house he saw, further up the hill, a corrugated iron covered shed near the entrance to a grassy field. Turning into the field he parked the car out of sight of the road and walked back to the house.

  Anna-Maria was already asleep on a settee in the sitting room and Penny Heathcote lay, eyes closed but awake, on the mattress in the kitchen. Sitting on a chair beside her, Vaughan watched over her as she slowly dozed off, spending the time considering which was the best way to return to England.

  They left the house shortly after eight o’clock in the morning and drove in the ancient Renault to Acoruna where Heathcote had her wound checked and redressed at the Teresa Herrara Hospital overlooking the bay. Her explanation that she had fallen on a sharp gardening tool in a friend’s garden was readily accepted and she left after treatment, two stitches closing the wound and a course of antibiotics to take; by evening they had arrived at Santander to await the next ferry to Plymouth.

  “Penny, get checked in at the Hotel Bahia over there, the other side of the gardens, tell them that the airline will deliver your cases when they have found them. That should pass for arriving with no luggage. I’m going to ditch the car and get our tickets for the ferry, see you later,” looking at her he paused then asked, “Are you all right; you have been very quiet since leaving the house this morning.”

  “Yes, Ian, I’m fine just a bit shaken up that’s all, I’m not used to being shot at. I should have thanked you properly for what you did for me and for us,” she said pointing to herself and Anna-Maria, “You always seem to know what to do and how to plan.”

  “Come on get that hotel arranged.”

  ***

  Yakov Gorokhin had finally cracked the Vermeulen code at three o’clock in the morning and spent the rest of that day typing the decoded information into his primary computer. It did not take him long to realise that the information held within the pages of the notebook was of immense value to any
one who could decipher it. Names, places, transactions, cupboard skeletons, politicians’ weaknesses, it was all there. Ten pages were of particular interest to him personally as they contained information about senior Russian officials and their corrupt activities as suppliers of arms, who would pay a very high price to have the relevant pages destroyed. Maybe they would be able to find his wife and daughter, Gorokhin thought. His escape to the West had been for him a moral decision more than a political one, his stance on certain issues reaching a point where arrest and imprisonment were a possibility. His wife, however, had not shared his views and went out of her way to publicly denounce him the day after he had left. His then two-year-old daughter of course would not know of such things and she had over the years constantly been in his thoughts. He wondered now what had become of her, would she forgive him for abandoning her.

  In the eyes of Yakov Gorokhin the content of the notebook was far too valuable to just hand over to Leonard Staunton in return for money. As most valuable of all in the notebook were the two pages that held details of Leonard Staunton, British Intelligence Agent, these he carefully cut out. Aware that Staunton was not the type to negotiate once a deal had been done, Gorokhin decided to edit the information leaving out some of the Russian section and of course the dirt on Staunton himself. These particular edits were to be his downfall, for when Staunton arrived near midnight he had immediately skimmed through the stick Gorokhin had made for him along with the black notebook itself, and knew for certain that some important contact details and backgrounds were missing. He had also seen the minute gap left in the notebook’s spine where the two pages had been, which confirmed that the Russian had dangerous ambitions of his own.