Chelsea Mansions bak-11

by Barry Maitland

  She hurried upstairs to John’s room. He opened his door with a yawn, rubbing his eyes. ‘You’ve been out already? Boy, you’re keen.’

  ‘Listen, John,’ she said urgently. ‘There’s an MI5 officer downstairs, come to take me back to London.’

  ‘What?’ He froze, startled. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain later, but I have to go straight away. I don’t think he knows about you, so let’s keep it that way. It would just complicate things. Will you be going back to London?’

  He blinked, clearly still trying to get his head around what was happening. ‘I… yes, yes sure.’

  ‘Good. We’ll talk when you get there. Sorry about this.’

  ‘Me too. Kathy, you won’t tell Brock, will you? About what I told you last night? I have to do that myself.’

  ‘Of course.’ She leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘It’ll be just fine, you’ll see. And thanks for coming over here.’

  The taxi was waiting at the door when she got downstairs. She found Peter and paid and thanked him, then hurried out. As she got into the cab she looked up and saw John’s face at his window, then she slammed the door and they moved off.

  ‘Pretty town, Boston, don’t you think?’ Sean said as they sped into a tunnel. ‘Wonderful what they did, burying that expressway by the harbour. You had a chance to get a good look around, did you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kathy said sourly.

  ‘Mm. I’m never a great talker first thing in the morning either. But then, this is lunchtime for me, and I’ve been up half the night coming over here to get you, so you’d better get used to it and find your tongue.’

  Kathy saw the taxi driver glance at them in his mirror and she turned away and stared out of the window.

  When they checked in at the airport Kathy was glad to discover that they wouldn’t be travelling together; Sean was booked into business class, while she was in economy. He led the way to a cafe and bought them coffees and a hamburger for her. She thought she couldn’t touch it, but after the first bite she wolfed it down.

  ‘Better now?’ he said. ‘So tell me all about it.’

  She’d had time in the cab to decide that she wouldn’t tell him about Gennady unless it was absolutely necessary, her reasoning being that if Gennady had been a spy, and involved with MI5 or the Americans, it would probably be better to feign ignorance. But Sean Ardagh’s sudden appearance had unnerved her. Had the FBI put a tail on her? Did they know about John, and their trip to the Widener Library?

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘much better,’ hoping she sounded contrite and cooperative.

  ‘So what possessed you to come out here?’

  ‘I thought there was an angle that we’d overlooked, and that Superintendent Chivers might not be interested in.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘I was puzzled by why Nancy Haynes had chosen such an uncomfortable hotel. Emerson complained about her choice-he could hardly climb the stairs to his room. I wondered if Nancy had had a particular reason, perhaps some family connection with Cunningham Place.’

  ‘Would that be relevant to her death?’

  ‘Probably not. That’s why it was never pursued, but it bothered me. When they took me off the case they told me to take a holiday, the further away the better, so I thought I’d come over here and try to satisfy my curiosity.’

  He shook his head with a sarcastic smile. ‘When you’d been told to keep your nose out of it. So what did you discover?’

  She took him through her conversations with Emerson, their visit to Nancy’s house and the trip to Provincetown to see if Janice could identify the people. ‘And then there was this.’ She opened up her laptop and showed him the group photo. ‘That looks very much like a teenage Nancy and her parents in front of Chelsea Mansions.’

  He studied it carefully, then said, ‘What about this other man?’

  Kathy shrugged. ‘Janice didn’t know who he was. Some family friend, I suppose. Or someone they’d met in London.’

  She was glad that he kept his cool grey eyes on the picture and not on her. It was disconcerting being on the wrong side of an interrogation.

  ‘Can you put a date to this?’

  ‘Janice thought it was around the time of Nancy’s sixteenth birthday, in April 1956,’ she said, wanting to appear eager to help. ‘Her birthday was the twenty-sixth.’

  Now he did look at her, hard and for a long moment, studying her face for signs of duplicity. ‘So Nancy had been to Cunningham Place when she was a girl. So what?’

  Kathy pursed her lips, trying not to overdo it. It was remarkably hard to appear innocent once every muscle twitch became self-conscious. ‘I don’t know. I got my answer, I suppose, as to why she chose Chelsea Mansions.’

  ‘A nostalgia trip, you think?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that’s everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll need a full, detailed report of every minute you spent in the United States, with a verbatim account of your conversations with Emerson and Janice-particularly Janice. You were way out of your jurisdiction, Kathy, and you could have done a lot of damage. The Americans and ourselves, we have to cooperate on so many levels. We have to rely on people following the rules. You should have known that.’

  ‘Yes, Sean. I’m sorry. It was thoughtless.’

  ‘It was damn careless, that’s what it was. You thought you wouldn’t get found out.’

  She nodded, head bowed in contrition.

  ‘I want that report when we land at Heathrow, with copies of the photos and everything. Put it on this.’ He handed her a flash drive. ‘We may have to give it to the Yanks, so try to sound as if you’ve got at least half a brain-your reasons for going, your reasons for not informing the American authorities, and especially the fact that you did it on your own, without reference to us. Be frank and open and penitent. Okay?’

  ‘Yes. Will you be informing Commander Sharpe?’

  He hesitated. ‘No, I’ll leave that to you. Tell him if you want. Personally I’d let sleeping dogs lie.’

  ‘Thanks, Sean. I appreciate it.’

  ‘So you damn well should.’

  She did as she was told, composing the report on her laptop on the seven-hour flight home, trying to make her actions seem innocuous. Most of Sunday had to be invented, with John and the Widener Library edited out. He had insisted on paying for the harbourside meal the previous evening, which was a blessing if they checked her credit card usage. Would anyone do that? She thought not, mostly reassured by Sean’s response to her explanation, but she wasn’t certain. What had she done to warrant a senior MI5 officer dropping everything and crossing the Atlantic to escort her home? Why hadn’t he just phoned her and told her to get on the next plane? Had the Americans really been that annoyed?

  She handed over the memory stick when they landed. Sean had no luggage and they parted on the way to the carousels, leaving Kathy relieved that he wasn’t going to confiscate her laptop, or take her in for more questions.

  It was almost midnight when she got home, her day compressed by the flight across the spin of the earth, and she was in two minds whether to ring Brock. She decided she’d better. He was still up, restless from inactivity and excited by her outline of her trip. They agreed to meet the next morning in the city for breakfast.

  THIRTY-TWO

  B rock spied Kathy cradling a mug of coffee at a table beneath a large poster of the female toreador Cristina Sanchez, who was poised, arms raised, to deliver the death blow with her sword. He noticed straight away that there was something different about her-Kathy, that was-though he couldn’t identify at first what it was.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  She gave him a big smile, then jumped to her feet and planted a kiss on his cheek, which was quite unprecedented.

  ‘Goodness,’ he said. ‘What have I done to deserve that?’

  She laughed. ‘Well, we’re off-duty, and it’s a lovely morning. You’re looking great. You’ve got some colour b
ack.’

  ‘Yes, I am feeling almost normal again.’ A delivery truck ground past outside, pumping diesel fumes into the cafe. The sky was overcast with a threat of rain, and it didn’t seem to him like a particularly lovely morning. Her eyes were shining, her complexion subtly different. He remembered how low she had been when she left for America, but now her posture suggested optimism and energy, as if Cristina Sanchez looming over her had filled her with new life. ‘And you look as if the change has done you good too.’

  ‘Yes, it was what I needed, just to get out of London for a few days.’

  ‘So you liked Boston?’

  ‘Brilliant. I’d have loved to stay longer, if Sean Ardagh hadn’t stuck his ugly nose in.’

  ‘But it doesn’t seem to have fazed you.’

  A waitress came to their table, and Brock ordered an omelette and toast, Kathy the full English breakfast.

  ‘Well, I hope I convinced him of my abject contrition. He demanded a full report, which I had to write on the plane coming back. I’ve got a copy for you. There’s no mention of you, of course. And I didn’t tell him about identifying Gennady Moszynski in the photos.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do that, I wonder?’

  She hesitated. ‘I didn’t think he was being open with me, about why he was there and what his interest in the case really was. I think they’re involved somehow, perhaps with Vadim.’

  ‘Vadim?’

  ‘Yes. Suppose Vadim is secretly working for MI5 or MI6 when he goes to Russia, and suppose they know, or suspect, that Vadim had a hand in the Haynes and Moszynski murders. Would they protect him?’

  ‘I suppose,’ he said slowly, ‘it might depend on how valuable he is to them.’

  ‘That’s what I think. So I thought I’d hold the Gennady angle back until we’re more sure of our ground.’

  ‘Hm, a dangerous game, Kathy. But I’m impressed with your discovery. A great piece of research.’

  Brock noticed a faint trace of colour appear in Kathy’s face, and a hint of guardedness when she replied.

  ‘Well, I did have some help.’

  ‘Ah, at Harvard? An American?’

  ‘Actually no. It was that Canadian who gave us the opinion on the authenticity of Moszynski’s letter, remember?’

  Brock exaggerated his frown of confusion. ‘But… he was in London, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but I emailed him the photos that Emerson had, so that he could ask Toby Beaumont at the hotel if he could identify any of the people. And John-that’s his name, John Greenslade-noticed the similarity between the man in the San Francisco photo with Maisy, and the one with the family group in the 1956 picture. So he hopped on a plane and came over to help me identify him. He had a pass for the Widener Library, where the archive was, and that’s how we found Gennady. I couldn’t have done it without him.’

  Aha, Brock thought. She was beaming an open smile at him, hands held palms up, like a magician who’s just performed a neat trick demonstrating there’s nothing up her sleeve.

  ‘That was extremely public-spirited of him, to rush across the Atlantic just to give you a hand.’

  She had the grace to fully blush this time. ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it? He’s fascinated by the case, and… he’s a great admirer of yours, Brock. I’d really like the two of you to meet up.’

  Good grief, he thought, she doesn’t need my approval. Surely she doesn’t see me as some kind of father figure, does she? But he was touched all the same.

  ‘And does he figure in your MI5 report?’

  ‘No, I left him out too.’

  Brock nodded. Their food arrived and there was an interval while they sorted out salt and pepper and cutlery and began eating. Kathy seemed to be extremely hungry.

  ‘Well now,’ Brock said when he’d finished, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin, ‘it was a brilliant discovery, but where exactly does it leave us?’

  ‘Nancy nursed her mother, Maisy, in the last years of her life, before she died last summer. My guess is that they talked about the old days, and Maisy gave her the photograph and told her about Chelsea Mansions and about their friendship with a Russian official called Gennady Moszynski. Now, if you google “Chelsea Mansions”, you get the hotel, but you also get lots of references to Mikhail Moszynski and his marriage to Shaka Gibbons. Imagine how astonished Nancy would have been. She must have been very curious to find out if he was related to her parents’ friend.’

  ‘But why keep it a secret from Emerson? Why not talk to the hotel people about it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s interesting. Emerson wondered if there was something she didn’t want to talk about, perhaps that she’d been abused or something like that.’

  ‘She looks relaxed enough in the picture, doesn’t she?’ Brock stared intently at the photograph. ‘I wonder if there’s anything else it can tell us. If we had the original we could have got the lab to check it.’

  ‘I had the same thought. I brought the original back with me and gave Emerson a copy. Also, there’s another interesting possibility,’ she said, and told him about the dates of Gennady’s visit to San Francisco and Nancy’s birth.

  ‘Intriguing,’ Brock said. ‘But let’s not jump to conclusions. And I’m not sure we could get the lab to check their DNA without alerting Dick Chivers.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Kathy frowned. ‘Sean Ardagh seemed interested in the date of the photo.’

  ‘Fifty-six,’ Brock mused. ‘A big year for the spooks, I think. That was the year Burgess and Maclean turned up in Moscow. And the year Krushchev made a secret speech to the Party Congress, denouncing the cult of Stalin. People thought it would signal a thaw in the Cold War, but it didn’t. There were riots in Georgia, then Poland and later Hungary, all put down by Russian tanks.’

  Kathy had her laptop out, looking up 1956 on the web. ‘Elvis released his first gold album,’ she said. ‘Jackson Pollock died in a car crash.’

  ‘What was happening in April?’ Brock asked. ‘When Gennady was in London?’

  Kathy searched for a moment. ‘Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco… the first episode on CBS of As the World Turns

  … first demonstration of video tape… British navy diver Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb vanished in Portsmouth harbour… heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano retired… Got it. There was an official visit to the UK by the Russian leaders, Bulganin and Krushchev. On the twenty-sixth, the day of Nancy’s birthday, there was a big banquet lunch held for them at the Mansion House in London. You can see a video of it.’

  ‘So Gennady was probably in the official party, and met up with Nancy’s parents in Chelsea. How did they manage that, I wonder? They must have been in touch.’

  ‘But it’s all so long ago.’ Kathy was scrolling down through the 1956 calendar. ‘And then in October there was the Suez Crisis. Toby mentioned that. He called it the end of innocence. He was in the army then.’

  ‘I wonder if he can tell us anything more about what happened that April.’

  ‘He told John that he didn’t recognise the people in the photograph.’

  ‘Yes, but still, we might be able to jog his memory. I think it’s time to pay a visit to Chelsea Mansions.’

  ‘I’ve been banned, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t. You’d better stay out of trouble, Kathy. I’ll do this alone.’

  Brock paused at the corner of Cunningham Place, gazing over at the bulk of Chelsea Mansions as if for the first time. He’d been hardly conscious of the place when he’d been there before, at night, his head spinning with fever. Now it stood, its brick gables glowing blood-red in the sun, with all the confidence and swagger of the late Victorian age. It was too overbearing for Brock’s taste, too full of bluster, but he could see how it might appeal to a rich Russian whose father had perhaps told him as a boy about the grand London house in which he had once stayed.

  He mounted the hotel steps and went in. Deb put her head around the sitting room door, her mouth full. She gulped, choked, the
n swallowed.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Brock introduced himself and she cried out, ‘Thought I recognised you! Of course, on telly. I’m Deb.’

  ‘Hello, Deb. I wondered if Colonel Beaumont might be able to spare me a few minutes.’

  ‘Of course. We’re just having a staff meeting-Toby!’ She threw open the sitting room door and Brock caught a glimpse of people sitting on plump faded armchairs, holding mugs of tea and plates of cake.

  It took a few moments for Toby to struggle to his feet and make his way out to peer at the visitor through the dark discs of his glasses.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Brock, Toby!’ Deb cried, as if she’d just conjured up the most wonderful treat.

  ‘Ah! Of course. Welcome, welcome. You’ll have some tea? Julie has made us Dundee cake. One of her best, straight from the oven. Come, come. Let’s go into the office.’

  Brock followed him, a rather precarious figure leaning on his stick, but with the broad shoulders of a once powerful man. He indicated seats and said, ‘So we meet at last. Obviously we’ve been following events closely. John Greenslade will be very disappointed to have missed you-one of our guests, but of course you’ll know all about that. He’s disappeared somewhere for a few days. Taken a great interest in you, Chief Inspector. Yes, he will be disappointed. So what can we do for you?’

  Deb bustled in with a tray. ‘Here we are. Do you need me too?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘By all means,’ Brock said, ‘if you can spare the time.’

  ‘Certainly! I don’t think the troops will mutiny while I’m away, will they, Toby?’

  Toby chuckled. ‘We have a first-class team here, Chief Inspector.’