by William Shaw
I, Sergeant Cathal Breen of the Metropolitan Police Force (D Division) agree to abide by the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act 1920 (10 & 11 Geo 5 c 75).
He looked up. Sand pulled out a fountain pen. ‘You may not discuss any of this with your colleagues, you understand? Sign and date please.’
‘Quaint,’ said Breen.
‘Maybe. But personally, I take such things very seriously, and as a policeman I would hope you would, too.’
Breen took his pen and marked the document, then handed it back. ‘I’m sure plenty of your colleagues have signed it too. How seriously did they take it?’
Sand put the lid back on the pen and replaced it in his jacket pocket. ‘One of the difficulties we face is that many people think all this a daft game. But our freedom in the West depends on it. Intelligence is a delicate network of truths, half-truths and lies. The power in the network is in discovering precisely how much other people know, or think they know. That way you can know where they are in the web of relationships, ergo, you have power over the network itself. As much as anything –’ he held up the sheet – ‘this is a record of exactly how much you know.’
‘Or think I know.’
‘Well put,’ smiled Sand. ‘I will only give you information if I can rely on you to tell no one else about it. I am taking a calculated risk here. I’ll be honest. My colleagues have a very low opinion of the Metropolitan Police. If you think our reputation is poor…’
Breen had no choice. ‘OK. You have my word. This is between the two of us.’
Sand seemed to be scrutinising Breen. ‘Don’t even tell that girlfriend of yours, Miss Tozer.’
Another reminder of their power. They had investigated him, had been observing him, waited to see if they felt they could trust him. ‘Like I said,’ Breen repeated, ‘between the two of us.’
Sand looked at him a little bit more, as if weighing him up, then spoke. ‘You asked about Lena Bobienski. What do you know about her?’
‘I know she was a prostitute. I know she was Polish. Her father went back to Poland after the war but disappeared into a Soviet gulag.’
‘That’s what we know too. She remained here because she was ill. The rest of her family went home.’
‘You know what happened to her father?’
‘No. Millions disappeared during that time. We are still trying to build a picture of what took place in the gulags, but it appears that his story was not an exceptional one. I would be astonished if he had not died there.’
‘So Lena was a spy? For you?’
‘One thing at a time,’ said Sand. ‘According to your superior officer, McPhail, you wished to know which department searched her apartment. We are willing to discuss that. It was, as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, our operatives. I would guess you also wish to know whether anything we discovered there might help you in your investigation into who murdered her? The answer is, sadly, no. We did not. We found, I assume, pretty much what you found. I’ll admit, we had been hoping for more. Her flat was full of the idiosyncratic tools of her trade as a prostitute, but very few other items of interest. So we couldn’t confirm that she was a spy. Or rule it out.’
‘Although, presumably, you weren’t looking for evidence of who killed her. You were looking for something else.’
A brief hesitation. ‘Actually, yes. I suppose we weren’t looking for quite the same thing as you. There is a bias involved in any observation. But we were pretty thorough.’
‘I saw. Why were you interested in her? What were you looking for?’
‘That is complicated.’
‘By what?’
‘We were keen to find a list of her clients or contacts. Or any information along those lines. Because we were also looking for indications that there may have been more to Miss Bobienski than met the eye.’
‘That she was an agent?’
‘Possibly. We were looking for equipment that she might have used to communicate with handlers, or cyphers, code books. The usual paraphernalia.’
Breen picked up his coffee and sipped it. It was insipid.
‘Did you find any?’
‘We don’t think so.’ He didn’t elaborate.
‘What made you think she was a spy?’
‘A little bird told us.’
Breen looked at him for a while, hoping he would say more, but he didn’t.
‘There was a loose floorboard in her bedroom where she may have hidden something. Did you find anything there?’
‘Again. Possibly. We found some old letters. And a book which may have been used as a crude cypher. Unlikely, but we’re not really sure. We’re analysing it. You interviewed her maid, I believe. Did you ask her about it?’
Breen paused, looked at him. He didn’t appear to know that Florence Caulk was dead.
‘No.’ Breen raised the cup again and forced himself to drink some coffee, to give him time to think. If Sand knew they had spoken with the maid, somebody, presumably McPhail, was keeping them briefed about the investigation but he was clearly a day or two behind. The power in the network is in discovering precisely how much other people know, or think they know.
‘One of the clients was possibly Russian,’ Breen said. ‘We have some information about him. At the moment, he is one of our chief suspects.’
Mrs Caulk had called Mr B, the gentleman who brought wine, ‘Slavic’, and given that Breen was sitting here opposite a member of MI6, it was worth a guess that he had been a Soviet, or from one of the Eastern Bloc countries.
Interrogation technique was one skill that they probably shared, at least. Breen registered the slightest sideways flicker of his eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Sand. ‘He was actually the reason why we were interested in Miss Bobienski.’
‘So he was the little bird?’
Pause. ‘Yes. Not that he knew he was.’
‘But you weren’t going to tell me that?’
Sand looked uncomfortable. ‘As you appear to know already, there is no harm, I suppose.’
‘And he is…?’
‘I can’t give too many details, but interestingly we’ve been employing some modern techniques to identify foreign agents. Instead of waiting for material to drop from the sky by chance, we’ve been analysing the movements of alien nationals to see if they tell us anything. It’s been surprisingly successful. As a result, we recently identified a number of what we believed were dead drops in London.’ He stopped. ‘You know what a dead drop is?’
‘Of course not,’ said Breen. ‘I’m a humble copper.’
Sand smiled. ‘They’re places where agents can pass information to their handlers without even meeting them. Or even knowing who they are. If we were right, then this was a golden opportunity for us, so we posted surveillance at every location. And within two days, tra-la, your man turned up at one of our locations, appeared to check it for a drop, and then left. Up until then, we hadn’t been aware of him.’
‘The Russian? He is KGB?’
‘Not entirely sure yet. That or GRU. The Soviet Intelligence Directorate. We’d not had our eyes on him before. Unfortunately, he was the only person who we ever saw using this particular dead drop. We maintained surveillance for over a month, which was an enormous strain on our manpower, but nothing else happened.’
A woman in a pinny came to wipe the tables. Sand raised his voice to say, ‘I didn’t think so much of the watercolours this year,’ as she emptied their ashtray.
When she’d passed on to the next table and was sufficiently out of earshot, Breen said, ‘You were wrong? About the sites being dead drops?’
‘No. Almost as soon as we learned of the dead drops, they changed all the locations. Which is fairly routine, for security reasons. But at least we spotted the agent. We could have had him expelled, and that would have been that. But we decided not to do anything about it; we want to use him to help us find the new drops. He’s the perfect spy. One who’s not very good, but is arrogant enough to think that he is. We p
laced him under round-the-clock observation instead. So far he has done nothing out of the ordinary. He is not a particular danger. His tradecraft is sloppy, which makes him easy to follow. He’s a drunk and a womaniser. He visits prostitutes. Miss Bobienski is not the only one.’
Breen considered for a while. ‘What if Lena Bobienski’s death is connected to all this? What if he feared exposure and panicked?’
‘Voice down,’ said Sand evenly. Breen looked around, realising he must have been raising his voice as the idea occurred to him, but nobody seemed to be paying them any particular attention.
‘What if he killed her because… well, maybe he thought she might expose him?’
‘Nice theory. But why would she do that?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m just thinking aloud… So that’s why you requested the police to remove patrols from Harewood Avenue. Because you didn’t want some inquisitive bobby arresting your man.’
‘Correct. Or spotting our own men, for that matter, and wondering why they were there.’
‘He has a regular appointment on Fridays. Why didn’t you just leave it to that one day?’
‘The thing is, he’s turned up on several other days and times. He seems to have known her rather more… closely than her other customers.’
Breen looked into Sand’s grey eyes. ‘So they might have been working together? Was he there on Thursday – Thursday the third?’
‘The night you believe Miss Bobienski was killed?’
‘Yes.’
Sand looked down. ‘Well. Thursday is difficult. Unfortunately our operatives lost him that night. Unusually. The man who was following him at that point has been reprimanded, but it does happen, occasionally.’
‘Lost him?’
‘It’s not that easy, you know, following a man in London.’
‘Could he have deliberately given your man the slip?’
‘Yes. He could. And that’s when you think the murder happened?’
‘Yes. Thursday evening.’
‘We were out of contact for about an hour. He was at Victoria at around ten, but we lost him at the bus stop until about an hour later, when he was spotted drinking in one of his favourite watering holes. One of those decadent night spots where all the fabulous people go,’ he said drily.
‘It doesn’t sound like he’s particularly discreet.’
‘Not exactly the picture of Stakhanovite rectitude, no. Our man watched him getting drunk there until he was poured into a taxi around two a.m. Let’s go for a walk. This place is depressing me now.’
They stood and ambled slowly to Green Park. The grass was full of deckchairs, the curves of striped canvas in which men and women dozed in the London warmth. ‘Where did you pick him up?’
Sand tightened his lips. ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Well, how far from Bobienski’s flat?’
‘I’d say it’s a little over half an hour’s walk from the prostitute’s apartment.’
‘A pub? A gentleman’s club?’
‘A nightclub.’
‘A girlie club? Raymond’s Revuebar?’
‘No.’
‘Danny La Rue’s in Hanover Square?’
‘God, no. Not that indiscreet. And you’re not going to get the location out of me by listing every nightclub in London.’ Sand smiled.
‘So which direction would he have been coming from? The south? Soho? Piccadilly?’
‘I know what you’re doing. But I am not going to give you information which might lead you to jeopardise our operation.’
‘I just need to know if he is a suspect. That’s all.’
‘He would have been coming from a south-easterly direction, as you policemen might say.’
‘Good. So you picked him up again after eleven. He was missing for, what, an hour?’
‘Maybe a bit longer. I’ll have to check our notes. Sometime after eleven p.m.’
He’d have had to be fast to travel from Victoria to murder Bobienski and make it back to wherever the British agent picked him up again, thought Breen. ‘So he could have made it from Victoria, then to the flat and then back within, say, an hour? Or, as you say, maybe a little longer.’
‘Yes. Just about, I suppose.’
‘You can’t arrange for me to see this man?’
‘I know it must be difficult for you but we can’t afford to spook him. If you do, he’ll know we’re on to him. Rather tricky, isn’t it?’
‘Not being able to interview the suspect in a murder investigation? Yes. Will you tell me where he lives? Or works?’
‘Again, no. I’m afraid.’ Sand looked apologetic. ‘Same reason. Very awkward, I know.’
‘Awkward?’ said Breen.
‘It’s just the way I talk. It must be bloody frustrating for you. I’m very sorry. There is a way you could help us, of course.’
‘You want me to tell you who Lena Bobienski’s other clients were.’
‘Exactly.’
Breen walked a little further. ‘But I assume you have a direct link into our investigation anyway. So you probably know who our suspects are already.’
‘You’re an intelligent man. Your insight would be appreciated.’
They had Mrs Caulk’s list already, he suspected. In the future, he would have to be careful about what he wrote down, thought Breen.
‘There’s another suspect you would also be interested in.’ Breen scanned Sand’s face to try to discern a reaction.
‘Who?’
‘Ronald Russell. He’s a journalist for the Sunday Times.’
‘Why are you looking into him?’
‘Because he was also one of Julie Teenager’s customers.’
Sand stopped. ‘Well, that is fascinating,’ he said.
‘Is it? You know him?’
‘Yes, of course. He’s a pundit on the Soviet Union. Fairly good. We talk to him from time to time ourselves. How long had he been using the prostitute?’
‘Three, four month’s, he says.’
‘I’ll look into it. Very interesting. Thank you.’
They were approaching Constitution Hill. A pair of horses ridden by the Queen’s Life Guards trotted past. The men looked uncomfortably hot in their uniforms.
‘One thing. Quite a big thing, really. One of your men attempted to contact the papers about this case. We had to come down quite hard. You understand it’s of national importance that nothing happens to let this Soviet agent know that we are on to him.’
‘I assume you were behind the D-Notice.’
‘And we know you’ve been in touch with a member of staff of a pornographic magazine that styles itself as the alternative press.’
‘How? How do you know that?’ He hadn’t told Creamer or McPhail about his meeting with Felix.
‘We just do.’ Sand smiled apologetically. So it was more than just a paper trail that they had. Was his phone bugged? Or Felix’s? That would be equally likely, perhaps. ‘You’ll understand how important it is not to let a publication like that know any of this. They’re loose cannons. They do not share the same interests as us, obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ said Breen.
‘Good.’
‘How shall I contact you?’ asked Breen.
He handed Breen a business card. ‘Calliope Trading Ltd?’ said Breen.
Sand shrugged, and gave a small smile, as if he was slightly ashamed of the subterfuge. There was a phone number, but no names.
‘Another thing,’ said Breen. ‘You mentioned Mrs Caulk. How did you know we had interviewed her?’
Sand had the grace to look embarrassed again. ‘We are monitoring your progress. You understand, don’t you?’
‘Spying on us?’
‘Observing, that’s all. Spying is what we do to our enemies.’
‘But you haven’t asked anything about her, yet.’
‘She’s not of interest to us,’ he said. Then he looked less certain of himself. ‘Should she be?’
‘Perhaps she should. She was found dead o
n Friday.’
Mr Sand looked genuinely shocked. He was right. They hadn’t heard. ‘I’m very sorry to learn that. Was she killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh.’ Breen could see the concern on his face. By refusing to allow the police to investigate the Russian, there was a possibility Sand might be protecting a murderer.
‘I would like to think you have been straight with me,’ said Breen. ‘But I’m not sure you have been.’
Mr Sand turned away from the trotting horses, looking uncomfortable. ‘Look. No hard feelings. It’s just the way it is. For us it’s about what’s best for the whole country. Which, you’ll appreciate, we believe is slightly more important than the life of one person.’
‘Two people,’ corrected Breen.
‘Yes. Two, I suppose,’ said Sand.
‘See,’ said Breen. ‘That’s where we’re different. I don’t believe that at all.’
‘Yes,’ said Sand again, looking at his black shiny shoes on the dry summer grass. ‘I appreciate that.’
Breen wondered what it was that he was holding back.
He held out his hand with a final smile, then he turned to a mother pushing a pram over the lawns and said, ‘I think it’s going to rain, don’t you?’
Breen left him and walked across the grass and back into Piccadilly’s traffic jam, feeling unsettled. Everything he did was being observed, scrutinised.
Mint was eating a pork pie at his desk. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.
‘I’m not permitted to say.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
Mint nodded to the sheets of paper pinned on the wall at the end of his desk. Notes had been added to all but B, G and I, who remained unidentified.
Someone had put a large black cross through Florence Caulk’s sheet. Breen looked at it and winced, then leaned forward and added a question mark next to B; the Russian.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I’m beginning to think it may be him,’ said Breen. ‘But he also might have an alibi. I can’t verify it.’
‘What do you mean?’
Breen didn’t answer.
‘But seriously. Just because he has an alibi. Besides, just because they turn up or call up, doesn’t mean it’s not them, does it? Maybe they’re just being clever.’
