by Hilary Green
CODENAME OMEGA
Hilary Green
Sharpe Books
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© Hilary Green 1985
Hilary Green has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1985 by Robert Hale Ltd
This edition published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter One
Nick Marriot folded his hands round the mug of coffee and watched the lights of the Pier Head pie stall reflected in the hurrying waters of the Mersey. A light breeze fingered its way inside the collar of his jacket and made him shiver. Although the May night was mild, three o’clock in the morning was a shivery sort of hour. He turned his head and looked towards the slope leading down to the landing-stage. With the tide ebbing the floating stage was out of sight, as was anybody who might be standing on it. He wondered how long Stone was likely to be and reflected with painful irony that he had no reason to hurry, bearing in mind the company he was in. If it had been him, he would have lingered over the meet as long as possible. For the hundredth time he resisted the temptation to walk over and look down.
The sound of the shot was so out of context with the picture in his imagination that it took him several milliseconds longer than it should have done to react. Then he was racing down the slope to the landing-stage. Only one figure stood by the edge of the water, slender, dressed in dark trousers and jacket, the lights from above striking a faint gleam from close-cropped blond hair and a darker, more metallic glint from the barrel of the automatic.
It was then that he registered that the sound of the shot had been followed by a splash. He skidded to a halt at the edge of the landing-stage. The dark water sluiced by below his feet, unbroken. He ran to the opposite side and looked over. No sign of form or movement disturbed the river’s oily flow. Wild-eyed, he turned back to the girl who still stood with the gun in her hand. Behind him, the sound of a police siren wailed and died on a dispirited moan and feet thudded heavily on the ramp.
‘Why?’ he gasped, staring at her. ‘Why?’
It was all he had time for before the two policemen were on them, disarming the girl, who made no attempt to resist, and bundling them both back towards the waiting car in spite of Nick’s violent protests that they should be searching the river – that somewhere in those dark waters Stone might still be alive.
*
‘Elizabeth Anne Walker, you are charged that at Liverpool in the County of Merseyside on the 29th May you did murder Peter John Stone. You are not obliged to say anything but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’
The detective sergeant looked at the young woman in front of him. Beneath the close-cropped hair the face had a sculptured perfection and the huge, delphinium-blue eyes looked back at him unwaveringly. There was something unnerving about the combination of beauty and icy calm. For a moment it looked as if she was going to speak but then the lovely mouth twisted into a faint, ironic grin and she shook her head. The sergeant looked down at the papers on the desk in front of him; the collection of leaflets which they had found at the girl’s lodging – each of them bearing the logo of a rising sun and the heading ‘Daughters of the Sunrise’ and dealing with subjects which varied from how to disrupt production in factories to how to foment street violence and racial hatred; the extra clips of ammunition for the automatic she had been carrying; and the signed statement admitting her guilt. He nodded to the constable and the WPC by the door.
‘Take her down.’
In the Bridewell below the police station Nick heard the door of the cell next to his own open and slam shut. Sitting on the edge of the bed he sank his head onto his hands and stared at the wall which separated them. His stomach was sick and his brain numb with the effort of going over and over what had happened, trying to make sense of it; trying to come to terms with the fact that his partner and closest friend had been shot by the woman whom they both loved, and whom either of them would unhesitatingly have trusted with his life.
It had begun like any other mission with a call over his car radio. He had been on his way home after a frustrating trip down to Southampton to check on a man who had been picked up by immigration and who had turned out in the end to bear no resemblance to the suspect he was looking for.
‘Delta Two, this is Control. Alpha wants to see you.’
Ten minutes later he was parking his car in the underground car park of the Spartacus Health Club, just off St Martin’s Lane, noticing as he did so Stone’s car already in the next slot. He called through to Control and then stepped into the special lift and inserted the plastic identity card which operated the mechanism to whisk him smoothly up past the swimming-pool and the squash courts, past the saunas and the gymnasia, to the top two floors which housed the offices of the Special Security Service; known to those who worked for it as Triple S but referred to by some outside of it, those who knew of its existence at all that is, as the Snake Pit. The lift carried him past the first of these two floors, where the control centre and communications room were situated, to the penthouse which provided both office and living accommodation for the organization’s Head, James Pascoe – known to his subordinates, by logical extension, as Hissing Sid.
Stone was already with Pascoe. In fact, from the relaxed atmosphere and the whisky glasses, Nick concluded that the official business had been completed. However, Pascoe came sharply to life, with an abruptness which helped to justify his nickname, as soon as Nick appeared.
‘I’ve given Stone all the details so I won’t waste time repeating them, since you both have to be in Liverpool tonight. You will travel separately, using the usual commercial rep cover, and check into the St George’s Hotel, where you will meet accidentally in the bar and strike up an acquaintanceship. After dinner, at Stone’s suggestion, you will have a night on the town.’
Nick glanced at his partner and grinned. The idea of a pub crawl at government expense was the sort of thing that would normally have appealed to his sense of humour, but to Nick’s surprise there was no response. Stone’s gaze was abstracted, as if he was only half listening.
Pascoe went on. ‘You will finish up in the small hours at the Landfall Club, a converted destroyer down in the docks, and shortly before 3 a.m. you will head back towards your hotel. On the way you will stop at a coffee stall on the Pier Head. You, Marriot, will wait there while Stone keeps a rendezvous with a lady with whom you are both acquainted.’ Pascoe leaned forward. ‘I want it clearly understood that only Stone is actually to be present at the meeting. She clearly specified that there should not be more than one of you.’
Nick drew a deep breath and kept his eyes turned away from Stone. ‘Very good, sir.’ Then, after a moment, ‘What is Leo involved in? I take it, it is Leonora we’re talking about.’ Pascoe rose. ‘Stone can tell you all you need to know. Collect anything you need to support your cover from Control – and make it good. One more thing I want you both to have absolutely clear. This operation is strictly a YOYO.’
Nick grimaced. He understood the meaning of the acronym only too well, and it always gave him a feeling of insecurity. It meant ‘if anything goes wrong, You’
re On Your Own’. In other words, they could not break their cover even to ask for assistance from local police and if they ended up in trouble Pascoe would deny all knowledge of them.
‘What happens after the meeting?’ he asked.
‘After?’ said Pascoe, and paused fractionally. ‘After, you can come back home again.’
‘What’s it all about?’ Nick asked Stone as they went down in the lift.
‘Pascoe didn’t tell me much,’ Stone replied. ‘You know what he’s like. He wouldn’t tell the Archbishop of Canterbury what date Christmas is, if he could avoid it. Apparently, Leo’s in the middle of some undercover operation which involves posing as a member of an extreme left-wing feminist organization called “The Daughters of Sunrise”. She’s got something to pass on which is highly sensitive and specified one of us.’
‘ “One” of us,’ Nick repeated. ‘Either one?’ Stone gave him a brief, lop-sided grin. ‘I guess I just got lucky – for once.’
Nick pressed his hands over his face. Lucky! It had been light for some hours now. He had asked every time anyone came near him if they were searching the river – if there was any sign of a body. The answers had always been negative. He had stuck to his cover story when they questioned him, and had seen that they were surprised at the intensity of his anxiety over the fate of a casual acquaintance. He knew he must try to pull himself together, but it was hard when his mind lurched so sickeningly from the thought of Stone’s death to the memory of Leonora, standing there with her eyes wide and calm and the gun still smoking in her hand.
The door of the cell opened.
‘The inspector wants to see you.’
He was taken up to an interview room. The DI behind the table got up as he came in and offered him a chair, then sent the constable for tea.
‘I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you waiting so long Mr – Marriot. But you’re free to leave any time now.’
Nick blinked. ‘Any time?’
The DI nodded. ‘The young woman has made a statement which makes it clear that you were not in any way involved. I’m sorry we had to inconvenience you, but I’m sure you can understand our position.’
Nick leaned forward. ‘You mean she’s confessed to the murder?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she – did she say why she killed him?’ The DI lifted his shoulders. ‘She’s involved in some kind of revolutionary women’s group, it seems. According to her statement, the man she shot was not an innocent commercial traveller but some kind of undercover agent for Special Branch or something. She maintains that he’d been hanging around for some time, trying to infiltrate the movement by striking up an affair with her.’
‘Could that be true, do you think?’ Nick asked ingenuously.
‘No chance!’ The DI laughed briefly. ‘Everything we found in your friend’s car and in his hotel room confirms that he was exactly what he told you he was – a rep for a firm of sports goods manufacturers. We phoned the firm and they confirm that he’s been with them for nearly three years. What’s more, he hasn’t been in this area for six months.’
‘Then why?’ Nick repeated.
Once again the DI shrugged. ‘Two possibilities, I suppose. Mistaken identity, perhaps. Maybe she thought he was some other guy who had been hanging around, someone she thought was a plain-clothes copper…’
‘Or…?’ Nick prompted.
‘Or she’s some kind of nutter. You say he took her for a prostitute. Perhaps she shot him because he propositioned her and then invented the rest.’
Nick stared at the carpet between his feet, remembering that calm, unnatural gaze. Was it possible that somehow, amid the conflicting strains of the different lives and personalities between which she was constantly moving, the central core which was the real Leonora had cracked? Had she begun to believe the fictions which she created with such conviction?
The constable came in with the tea. The DI said,
‘Will you be staying in Liverpool?’
Nick shook his head. ‘No. I’ll go straight back to London – if that’s all right with you.’
‘As long as we have an address where we can contact you. You will be needed to give evidence, of course.’
Nick nodded, only half listening. ‘You haven’t – found the body yet?’
‘No. The lifeboat is out now, searching, and we’ve got police divers checking the docks; but he went in on an ebb tide. The body might be washed up on Formby shore or somewhere, but it won’t surprise me if we never find it.’
‘There’s no chance that he might not have been killed – that he could have hauled himself out of the river somewhere?’
‘If he had, someone would have found him by now, or he’d have got himself to a hospital or dialled three nines.’ He looked at Nick sympathetically. ‘I know it’s tough when you come across this sort of thing for the first time, but I think we have to assume that Peter Stone is dead.’
Nick swallowed. ‘What about his – his things? Can I – help, at all?’
The DI shook his head reassuringly. ‘You can leave all that to us, Mr Marriot. We’ll contact the next of kin and so forth.’
Nick rose and the DI came with him to the door.
‘I should try to get some sleep before you think about driving back, if I were you. You look all in.’
Back at the hotel Nick showered and shaved and then went along the corridor to Stone’s room. The door was open and a chamber-maid was making up the bed. Obviously, the police had finished in there. The dressing-table was bare, the room empty except for the standard items provided by the hotel. Every trace of Stone’s presence had been removed. Not that there would have been much, Nick reflected. Stone always travelled light. Even his flat in London looked more like a hotel room than a home – tidy, immaculate, uncluttered with personal mementoes or the normal bric-a-brac of everyday living. Nick’s rooms, with their colourful muddle of posters and record sleeves and objets trouvés, used to annoy him intensely. He liked his living accommodation to be like his life; spare, ordered and stripped for action.
Well, Nick thought, as he drifted back to his own room, whoever had the job of packing his things wouldn’t find it a long one – except for the contents of the wardrobe. It was there, if anywhere, in the row of expensively tailored suits and the leather jackets and cashmere sweaters that some hint of Stone as a person might linger. The police would have trouble tracing the next of kin, he reflected, imagining them, with a trace of grim humour, following up all the carefully placed leads in Stone’s cover story until each one petered out or ended in a blank wall. Not that it mattered. There was no one. Nick knew that for a fact. He looked out over the skyline of the city. Odd that Stone’s life should have ended here, so close to where it had begun, across the water there in Birkenhead. Was it memories of those days that had made him so edgy on the journey up? Nick knew very little of the details – no one knew them, except possibly Leo – but he had been told enough to imagine a childhood spent between various council homes and unsuccessful attempts at fostering. There would be no blood relations to mourn the death of Peter Stone.
*
Six hours later he was back at Triple S headquarters. Control seemed unsurprised by his arrival and passed him through immediately to the private suite on the top floor. Pascoe was standing by the window, watching the opera-goers hurrying towards the Coliseum. He turned as Nick came in.
‘Well?’
Nick met his eyes squarely. ‘Stone’s dead. Leonora shot him.’
If he had expected to see shock or distress on Pascoe’s face he was disappointed. Only a momentary lowering of the heavy eyelids disturbed the mask. Pascoe gestured towards a chair.
‘Tell me.’
Nick told him, sticking to the facts, his voice flat and level. He began to understand why Pascoe never showed any feelings. It was the only way it was possible to speak of these things at all. While he talked, Pascoe went to a side-table and poured them both a glass of brandy. When Nick had finished, he took
a mouthful. It was good brandy, but it burnt his throat like raw spirit.
He looked at Pascoe, who was sitting now behind his desk. The room was growing dark and the reading lamp on the desk was switched on, illuminating the clean blotter, the paper-knife left ready for tomorrow’s personal letters, but leaving his face in shadow.
‘What now?”
‘Now?’ Pascoe spoke quietly. ‘I suggest that you go home and get some sleep. Take some sleeping-pills, or half a bottle of Scotch, or whatever it takes. And then have four- or five-days leave. Come and see me next Monday and we’ll decide whether you’re ready to start work again.’
Nick stared at him, trying to penetrate the shadows and read those hooded eyes.
‘But what are we going to do?’
‘Clearly, there is nothing we can do,’ Pascoe returned. ‘Stone is dead. We all know the risks which everyone in this organization runs – you as well as, perhaps better than, most. It’s a shock, but it can hardly be a surprise. You can leave everything that needs to be done to me. I’ll see that his belongings are channelled back here by some route, and get someone to clear his flat and see about terminating the lease etc. There wasn’t anyone in particular who should be informed, was there?’
Nick shook his head dumbly.
‘I take it there is a will?’
Nick swallowed. ‘Yes. With his bank.’
Pascoe was right. They had both known the chances of this happening to one or other of them and had discussed their arrangements.
‘Oh’, he added, ‘and he wants to be cremated…’ and then stopped abruptly as he realized what a ridiculous thing it was to say in the circumstances.
Pascoe let it pass without comment. ‘I’ll keep in touch, of course, through various channels. If the body is found I’ll make sure that we are informed.’
There was a silence. Nick waited for Pascoe to continue but he said nothing.
