The Moscow Sleepers

by Stella Rimington

  Liz pressed on. ‘You said you were divided into groups. What were the other ones working on?’

  ‘Social media mainly.’

  ‘Like Facebook?’

  ‘Yes. One group, I know, was working on updating the profiles of social network users. On Facebook, and Snapchat and Instagram, and Twitter – and many others too.’

  ‘Really? Did they have permission from the users to do this?’ It sounded very odd.

  A smile was struggling to break out on Thomma’s face. Finally he giggled.

  ‘What’s funny, Thomma?’

  ‘You asked if the users would mind. But you see, none of these users are real!’

  ‘Really? How do you know that?’

  Thomma explained that when one of the other boys made a mistake with dates, their teacher Mr Gottingen said it didn’t matter; no one was going to complain because no one owned these profiles. Thomma also heard Mr Gottingen talk to Mr Sarnat about their work – he said the ‘Legends’ group was doing very well. Gradually, Thomma said, the other boys had realised they were working on the profiles of people who didn’t exist.

  Liz was beginning to understand. Legends were the fake histories or cover stories assigned to Illegals – the spurious ‘facts’ of a CV that transformed a Russian agent into a thirty-four-year-old Norwegian businessman called Erik Nilson, educated in Oslo, married with two children, multilingual with a passion for painting. All the detail needed to bamboozle everyone from immigration authorities to his new neighbours in a Surrey suburb that he was who he said he was, and not the Russian Illegal he actually was. And Thomma’s fellow students were supplying the details for these phony personae.

  ‘That was one social media group,’ said Thomma. ‘There was another one too. They spent their time looking for real people on social media sites. I’m not sure why.’

  ‘Who were they looking for?’

  ‘They didn’t have actual names. They looked for interests and languages. American or English people who spoke Russian or Chinese. People who had travelled there. And people who had worked there.’

  ‘How did they find them?’

  ‘LinkedIn,’ said Thomma. ‘That was the best site for finding them.’

  Of course it was, thought Liz. It provided a useful first step to finding which young employee in a Western embassy didn’t have a Facebook profile or belong to LinkedIn. That would be equally revealing –a telltale sign that they might be engaged in clandestine work.

  From what Thomma had to say, it seemed clear that these teams at Bartholomew Manor were at work on much more than how to protect against hacking. Sixteen pupils working full time could get an awful lot done. But then why had they not been more effectively disguised? If even Miss Girling had had her doubts, surely other people would soon ask questions? It seemed very strange.

  Liz looked at Thomma. The boy was clearly tired. It might be better to continue talking to him tomorrow. But there was one further question she wanted to ask.

  ‘Thomma,’ she said kindly, ‘you’ve told us a lot and been very helpful. We may want to speak to you again, but in the meantime, we’ll sort out somewhere for you to stay tonight. Don’t worry – it will be completely safe. There will be a policeman to protect you.’ The boy looked reassured. ‘But before we stop, just tell me something. Are all the other boys on the IT course from the same school in Hamburg?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the teachers – are they from Hamburg too?’

  Thomma shook his head. ‘No.’ Then he hesitated. ‘Well, there is one. He’s a sort of assistant teacher. I knew him in Hamburg – he’s called Aziz. He’s a few years older than me. He went on a course in America and he stayed on there to teach. He must have been very good. I was quite friendly with him at school because he came from Syria too. I was surprised to see him here at Bartholomew Manor.’

  ‘Have you chatted to him at all? Did he tell you why he was here?’

  ‘No. He pretended not to know me, probably because I am a student and now he is a teaching assistant. And I was scared to approach him because he’s working for Mr Sarnat.’

  Liz flicked through her folder of photographs again and picked one out. It had been sent over weeks ago by the FBI, when they had first investigated the death of the man in Burlington, Vermont. It was a young man, slightly older than Thomma but not unlike him in appearance.

  Thomma nodded. ‘Yes. That’s him. Aziz.’

  Liz realised the network was now fully connected. Moscow with Blankensee, Blankensee with Suffolk, Suffolk with Vermont and Vermont back to Moscow. They were the nodes of a circular network, but it seemed that only one node, Suffolk, was live.

  Thomma looked drained now, and Liz turned to Pearson. ‘Shall we wrap it up for today?’

  Pearson nodded. ‘We’re most grateful to you, young man. You did the right thing getting out of that school when you did. The ones running it are not good people. We’re going to look after you now and keep you safe, and after a few days we’ll be talking to you about what you would like to do next. I’ll send in Miss Norton to look after you now while we sort out a nice place for you to stay. I think it must be time for something else to eat. What would you like? There’s a Lebanese in town if you want something that reminds you of home.’

  Thomma shook his head. ‘I’d like a burger,’ he announced with an enormous smile that said he was already becoming westernised. ‘With chips, please.’

  44

  Eddie Singleton was guiding his milk float cautiously up the drive to Bartholomew Manor. It was just getting light and the morning was faintly frosty. There was a faint red glow in the sky to his left and thin fronds of mist were hanging in the trees that bordered the drive. The red, brown and yellow fallen leaves lying on the verges sparkled in his headlights, each with its fringe of white hoar frost.

  He drove carefully because of the potholes in the drive. He knew most of them of old but they were increasing – no one seemed to be doing any maintenance these days. Eddie had been delivering milk to the school for years. Four crates twice a week; that used to be the order. Now it was just one – hardly worth the effort, especially now the drive was getting into such a bad state.

  He’d heard that the kids were all foreigners now – maybe that explained why they didn’t need so much milk. Lots else had changed. He used to drive right up to the kitchen door and carry the crates in for them. It would be all bright and warm and smell of bread and bacon. The cook’s assistant used always to give him a warm sausage roll or a bacon sandwich. Now the kitchen was empty when he arrived and he just dumped the crate at the door. The kids lived over at the farm and probably had their breakfast there but he didn’t deliver to the farm so he didn’t know.

  He took the final turn by the big elm tree cautiously. There was a bit of a slope there and he expected it to be quite icy. A dazzling beam of light struck his eyes, blinding him. He slammed on the brakes and the milk float jolted to a stop, then began to slide slowly towards the big tree, all the crates rattling in the back.

  ‘Steady,’ said a deep voice. A tall figure loomed up beside Eddie, who could just make out that it was a policeman.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ said Eddie shakily. ‘You could’ve killed me if I’d hit that tree.’ Another policeman, this one holding a firearm, materialised beside the first and Eddie could now see that there was a group of police cars parked beside the kitchen door.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ Eddie asked nervously.

  ‘Not for you, mate,’ said the first police officer. ‘Just leave the milk right there and skedaddle.’

  An hour earlier, while it was still dark, Liz had arrived at Bartholomew Manor in the third of the convoy of five black police cars. The convoy had assembled at the small police house in Southwold while Liz was snatching a few hours’ sleep on a narrow bed in the medical room.

  Just before they’d left, Pearson had taken a call from the police pathologist. He’d listened intently, said a quiet thank-you and turned to Liz. �
��We’re not the only ones who’ve been up all night. I’ve been pushing for the postmortem on Miss Girling, and it’s just come in. Apparently, she was dead before she supposedly hanged herself in her kitchen.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘She was strangled. Whoever killed her fractured some bones that couldn’t have been broken by hanging.’

  The convoy had driven through the crisp and misty Suffolk countryside, which was just a dark blur of trees and hedges and shadows where nothing was awake except themselves. They had driven slowly up the bumpy drive and drawn up at the side of the house by the service entrance, blocking the top of the drive so no car could leave. There were eight police officers, four of them armed, and also Chief Constable Pearson and Liz. The operational command officer was Inspector Singh. He split the team up, sending two officers to the back of the house with instructions to detain anyone found in the classrooms or the grounds. ‘Have a good look round that new computer room we’ve heard about,’ he added. Two men were sent to keep an eye on the farm where the students were sleeping. ‘No one is to leave until I give the order.’ Two other men were to stay with the cars and prevent anyone coming in or going out via the drive and the final two men were to accompany Inspector Singh into the house via the front door. Liz had firmly refused the invitation to ‘stay in the car, ma’am, until we are sure it’s safe’, and followed the police to the front door of the house, walking a little way behind, with the Chief Constable. She wondered how they intended to get in as she remembered the front door of the manor was a huge old oak affair, but she didn’t think it wise to ask.

  They climbed silently up the big stone steps in single file, the armed officer at the front. The steps sparkled with frost in the light of the police torches. The lead officer reached the front door and Liz held her breath, wondering what would happen next. But the door swung open to his touch and they were all able to walk in unhindered. Liz pointed to the left where she remembered the headmaster’s study and the offices were.

  Inside, the rooms looked as if a hurricane had struck them. In the headmaster’s office, the drawers in the filing cabinets were pulled out and papers and files were strewn messily all over the carpet, along with half the contents of the bookcase behind Sarnat’s desk. The video camera that had caught Liz on tape had been ripped out, its brackets swinging loosely from the wall.

  In the office where the secretaries had worked it was the same story – drawers pulled out, papers on the floor. It was as though a gang of hooligans had rushed through, creating as much havoc as they could as they went. Liz felt sure this wasn’t the work of the students, but why it had been done, she couldn’t guess. Maybe they had intended to burn the papers but hadn’t had time.

  As they searched through the rooms on the other side of the hall they discovered a uniformed security guard, sitting in a cubicle next to the nurse’s room. He was wearing headphones plugged into a laptop and from the drowsy look on his face it was clear he had been asleep and had not heard them arrive. When he finally spotted an armed officer, he then looked very awake. Opposite where he sat there was a bank of screens; they were all blank.

  ‘What’s happened to the CCTV system?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Don’t know, miss,’ he said, confused. ‘Looks like someone’s turned it off. It was working when I came on duty.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘Ten o’clock, miss.’

  ‘Did you go to sleep straightaway?’ asked Liz. The guard grinned weakly but said nothing.

  ‘Is anyone else in the building?’ demanded Pearson.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the guard again. ‘I haven’t seen a soul since I came on last night. I thought I heard a car earlier on, but it was going out, not in, so I wasn’t bothered.’

  ‘Who’s usually here at night?’

  ‘Mr Sarnat and Cicero. And the new chap – Gottin-something.’

  ‘Where do they sleep?’

  ‘Upstairs. I always hear them when they go to bed, but last night there wasn’t a peep.’

  ‘What you mean is, you didn’t hear anything because you were asleep,’ responded Pearson.

  While this conversation was going on, Inspector Singh had dispatched the police officers to the upstairs floors and now they returned. ‘Upstairs is empty, sir. No one’s there. But one room’s locked.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ Liz asked, turning to Pearson.

  ‘Of course. I’ll come with you. Show us please, constable. You know the layout now.’

  They went up the elegant curved oak staircase with its carved banisters to the floor above. The bedrooms were large but sparsely furnished. The beds had not been slept in. It wasn’t difficult to determine who slept in which room – on his chest of drawers, Sarnat had a large framed photograph of himself, standing in snow outside a ski chalet; on Gottingen’s bedside table were two postcards addressed to him, apparently from a girlfriend in Germany.

  In the third bedroom, among some correspondence, was a bill for a new tyre from the local Mini dealership. This must be Cicero’s room, though it was bare of any personal touches: no other letters or cards, no photographs or pictures. In the wardrobe a solitary jacket hung from a hanger, pristine in a dry cleaner’s plastic cover. Above the clothes rail there was a high shelf, which Liz reached to explore. At first she felt nothing but dust, then her fingers touched something rough. She stood on tiptoe, reached in further and tugged, and a large coil of rope came sliding out, unravelling snake-like as it landed on the carpet.

  ‘What on earth is that doing there?’ asked Pearson.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The constable who was watching what was going on coughed. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m PC Willis. It was me that found that woman who used to work here. The one that hanged herself in her kitchen – Miss Girling. It’s just the same rope.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Liz. ‘All rope is much the same, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, ma’am. You see this is thicker than what you usually find. It’s more what you’d use as a tow-rope for a car or a boat. I remember thinking the old lady hadn’t taken any chances: you could have hung an ox from what she used.’

  Liz turned to Pearson. ‘It makes sense, given what the pathologist’s told you. But why didn’t he get rid of it?’

  ‘He probably didn’t see the need. Thought he’d got away with it; thought no one would ever think it wasn’t suicide. Also, from the state of Sarnat’s office, it looks as if these three left in a hurry. If he was panicked about getting out of here, he probably forgot all about the rope.’

  ‘But why the sudden hurry anyway? It’s as if something – or someone – tipped them off that we were coming.’

  ‘Or else they just took fright when they couldn’t find Thomma?’

  Liz pondered this. ‘Maybe. But Thomma had been gone for hours before these guys left – if the guard’s right that it was late last night. If they were that scared of what Thomma might say, they would have left immediately.’

  Inspector Singh’s radio buzzed. ‘Go ahead, Walker,’ Singh said. He listened for a minute, then turned to Liz and Pearson. ‘Walker says the students are awake now. They say the last time they saw any member of staff was yesterday evening. Someone called Cicero came round to check on them.’

  ‘Right,’ interjected Pearson. ‘Tell Walker to keep them there for the time being. Tell them there are no lessons today. We’ll go over and speak to them once we’re done here.’

  Liz turned to PC Willis. ‘Where’s this locked room you mentioned?’

  Willis led them to the other end of the corridor and pointed; Pearson tried the handle and rattled the door. Like all the doors in the manor it was solid, heavy wood. Pearson shook his head. ‘We’ll need one of the locks team to get us in there.’

  Willis asked, ‘Shall I have a go at breaking it down?’

  ‘Not yet. The security guard must know where the master keys are. Try him first.’

  As Willis thudded off down the stairs
, Inspector Singh’s radio came to life again. It was the team from the back of the house.

  ‘We have apprehended a male at the rear of the house. Claims he is a teacher and lives in the house. What do you want us to do with him?’

  ‘Bring him in,’ replied Singh. ‘Upstairs.’

  Liz heard the sound of a door slam from the ground floor and heavy footsteps on the stairs. The steps grew closer and looking over the banisters she saw a slim young man in a black tracksuit climbing the stairs, followed by a large flak-jacketed policeman with a semi-automatic at the ready.

  As the pair reached the landing, the young man stopped abruptly at the sight of the group standing there.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Inspector Singh.

  ‘I think I know,’ said Liz. His photograph was back at the police station in her briefcase, along with a report sent by FBI agent Fitzpatrick several weeks earlier. And when they had questioned Thomma in Southwold the previous day, he had told them this man was here. He resembled Thomma but was slightly taller and physically more mature. ‘You’re Aziz, aren’t you?’ said Liz.

  The man nodded, glancing nervously at his armed companion. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Inspector Singh.

  Aziz pointed at the locked door. ‘That’s my room,’ he said simply.

  ‘Why’s it locked?’

  He shrugged. ‘I like to get up early and go out for a run. I always lock my room.’

  That would explain why the front door had been open, thought Liz. ‘What do you do here?’

  ‘I’m a teacher.’

  Liz continued, ‘Originally from Syria, but then from Hamburg, and most recently from Vermont. Is that right?’

  Aziz’s eyes widened. ‘How do you know so much about me?’

  Liz ignored the question. ‘Where are the others? Sarnat, Cicero and Gottingen?’

  Aziz hesitated, but only briefly. ‘They’ve gone; I heard them go. It was late last night.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ Pearson asked.