She Was a Pretty Girl: A spy story

by S G Read

  ‘That Patrick Mountfield is almost anal with his petty cash.’ She announced suddenly, which was actually the truth but brought the subject of the petty cash up neatly. ‘Everything he spends money on has a receipt and is accompanied with the correct voucher.’

  ‘He is the sort that still manages to slip through a receipt that should not be repaid right under your nose.’ John declared as he picked up the menu which had just been slid onto the table in front of him. ‘How come you are still looking at the receipts?’

  ‘Oh I started with Patrick’s and you know I like to finish what I start but it is boring as hell. Is there anything doing on Clementines imposter?’

  ‘We have a request out to Interpol asking if his DNA or fingerprints can be matched.’ John answered. ‘We have yet to hear back yet.’

  ‘Do you want me to represent the information?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘It can’t do any harm can it?’ John answered. ‘The duck looks good to me.’

  ‘I will have the mussels as you are paying.’ Lorna answered. ‘I am sure you filled up with Argentinean food while you were over there.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do like to feed the inner man.’

  That night they did no work at Lorna’s aunt’s house but they had introduced the possibility that Lorna would ask Interpol about the fingerprints taken from the man in the mortuary again without Winfield smelling a rat, although this time Lorna would send the prints from the Clementine john spoke to in Argentina. It was a good evening’s work and Lorna was in work early the next day to submit the fingerprints to Interpol to see if there was any luck there.

  ‘Good morning early bird.’ John said when he walked in at his usual time. ‘Did you enjoy your mussels?’

  ‘I did and I enjoyed the fact that you paid for them as well.’

  ‘I will put it through as a working lunch old girl and if the person who fills in the form wants any more meals paid for by me, she will have to make sure they go through.’ John answered.

  ‘With what I see put through on PC vouchers a meal is small fry. Carstairs sends in his receipt from his Harley Street osteopath and that would pay for a lot of meals.’

  John looked up. The mentioning of another petty cash voucher could set alarm bells ringing and Lorna had spoken out of turn. The look on her face meant she knew she had slipped up.

  ‘You only know that because I told you about it, or have you started on his PC’s?’ He asked lightly.

  ‘Oh it was you was it?’ Lorna answered. ‘I thought it was Spearforth who told me. It might even have been Winfield himself, he doesn’t like Carstairs either.’ She wiped the imaginary sweat from her brow and John smiled. ‘I suppose you are going to make me carry on with them now that I have brought him up?’

  ‘Not at all old girl. You will only keep bringing them in to me to decipher words that you well know what they are really, just to get me involved. So you can send the receipts back if you like?’ John answered. ‘Oh hang on, the PM did push it in our direction didn’t he so it would bad if we sent them back without some kind of report. Do you think we can wait him out?’

  ‘What the PM? Hardly he will demand and answer before the next election and he will want heads to roll to make him look good.’

  ‘Damn, it is a shame we sent for them in the first place. Just sit on them for now but make sure no one comes across them or they might ask questions.’

  ‘I can put things in places no one will find.’ Lorna answered. ‘I sent that request off to Interpol but I think they were all still asleep there, I should get an answering email later today. I did it as a new request, was that alright?’

  ‘Yes, far better than having some spotty nosed urchin trying to find the original request and not being able to old girl. I somehow don’t think they will spot the repetition in the order.’

  ‘That will be the day.’ Lorna declared and carried on with her work.

  ‘Did you know that Carstairs sends in his PC vouchers for osteopathy Spearforth?’ Winfield asked.

  ‘Oh yes Mr. Winfield. He even sends in his wife’s beauty treatment.’

  ‘My God, they would need a bucketful for her face!’ Winfield exclaimed. ‘Did you mention it to Lorna?’

  ‘I might have, it is no secret and I was tipsy at the Christmas party.’

  ‘You were paralytic Spearforth!’ Winfield declared. ‘It was a good job you passed out when you did or you might have divulged things I would rather were kept under the hat.’

  ‘I know Cotton slipped me something in that drink he brought me sir.’ Spearforth replied stiffly.

  ‘For the good of the country.’ Winfield retorted and walked into his office.

  That night John arrived at Lorna’s aunt’s house to find Lorna deep into a pile of receipts. She looked up when John walked in.

  ‘I think we have him by the balls John. He has been sending receipts for electronic equipment through as office equipment and I know what is what in that line. I also know that what he bought is more for spying than for typing.’ She declared.

  ‘Well, keep it under your hat until we need it and carry on with the other receipts, we might as well get in front with our work, as it is the PM’s brain child.’ John replied. ‘And no more slips like that one today or I might end up looking for a new secretary.’

  ‘Secretary?’ Lorna repeated incredulously.

  ‘Well that is your job description, I know you get extra pay but you are still a secretary. Not just any secretary though. You would be hard…’

  Lorna gave him an icy stare which told him he was digging a hole.

  ‘…impossible to replace.’

  ‘Getting better.’ Lorna declared.

  ‘I’m stopping digging now.’ John replied.

  ‘Not a bad idea.’ Lorna advised him.

  John remained quiet and started on the receipts, getting them ready to be loaded on to the computer. That way they had a list of the receipts on the computer. Lorna also copied the receipts and the vouchers, just in case the original receipts mysteriously vanished. She was very thorough.

  There was no real hurry so they worked until eleven o’clock and then went home. John stayed a while longer in his shed as there was a track on he really like. In fact he stopped the disc and replayed the track before he switched the music of and walked in for a late supper.

  He was awake late in the morning and had to miss breakfast. The drive to work was the same as usual and he pulled into his parking space at the normal time. When he walked in Lorna was working as usual and he carried on into his office to deal with the post.

  It was three in the afternoon when Lorna had an answer about the prints she had sent off to Interpol. It was a curt message telling her that sending the same prints in a different email did not alter the fact that they had no information to offer about it. She stood up to go and see John but sat down again to think about it. She knew she had sent the latest prints and Interpol were saying that they were the same as the first prints she had sent. It needed John’s input but not here, it would have to be at her aunt’s house.

  She continued with her work, after putting the printed email into her bag. She also put a copy of the two sets of prints into her bag as well, just in case they were needed.

  When John arrived later at her aunt’s house Lorna was waiting. John had not closed the door when she thrust the email in front of him. He stopped halfway in the back door and read it, then closed the door and read it again.

  ‘That computer of yours, can you overlay one print with another print, or compare prints?’ He asked.

  ‘Yes I can do either.’

  ‘Well check the first print against the second print and see what we get.’

  Lorna loaded the first print onto the computer to check against the second print which was still on there. Once it was loaded it took twenty two seconds for the computer to agree that they were a match.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So what does your pho
tographic memory tell you about prints being the same on two people?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘So it was pain I saw in Clementine’s, well the person who was impersonating Clementine again’s face. It must have been his twin brother who we have in the mortuary.’

  ‘Twins have the same prints?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘Identical twins do and the same DNA!’

  ‘Wow, that’s why I couldn’t match him with anyone, I didn’t check all the dead files.’ Lorna declared. ‘It didn’t actually occur to me to do that.’

  ‘Leave no stone unturned when looking for something…’

  ‘I know, lest it is under that very stone!’ Lorna cut in finishing the sentence for him.

  ‘Is there a register of identical twins old girl.’

  ‘There might be, in fact there should be if they share their DNA and their fingerprints. Shall I just start with Belgium and then move worldwide?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘Sounds like a good plan. While you set that in motion I will start on the receipts, we might as well finish the job completely so that I can place it in front of the PM, at the right time.’

  Lorna wrote an email and added one of the set of prints, with a copy of the DNA as an attachment and started listing places to send it to. It went out to over forty different agencies, some in Belgium, others just in Europe. With that done she started on more receipts. She was still finishing off the report on Winfield’s expense claims and loving every minute of it. She would have liked to be the one to hand it in to the PM but it had to come from John.

  John sat down and started looking through Carstairs receipts. He opened his eyes in amazement at some of the things Carstairs put through as legitimate expense claims.

  ‘Osteopathy I could understand but his wife’s beauty treatment, their son’s odontal work and their daughter’s new bicycle!’ He cried in disbelief.

  Lorna merely looked up and then carried on with her own work.

  ‘The man has no morals.’ John declared and carried on with Carstair’s receipts.

  Lorna finished Winfield’s petty cash exposé and then decided to go home. She reckoned she was overdue for an early night. John worked on, wanting to get ahead, it was nice to be able to give out files when he was asked for them. Unless it was for someone like Winfield, then if he considered them an unimportant case, he merely said that it was still in working progress, just to annoy them. On the important cases, he did his job as best he could. That was always good enough and the results were hand delivered to the person who wanted them.

  This Clementine caper was interesting. He had allayed Winfield’s fears about Clementine still being active and in good health, when in fact he did not know where she was and what she was doing, as the person he had spoken to was not Clementine. He was planning to find these twins to find out what happened to Clementine and kill them if he thought they had killed her. She was too pretty to allow someone to kill her and get away with it!

  John became engrossed with the receipts and consequently in was early in the morning when he went home. The shed was in darkness when he opened the rear of the shed and there was total silence. He knew his actions would be heard so he closed the rear of the shed as quietly as possibly while he blundered about deliberately looking for a torch.

  ‘Bloody power cuts!’ He hissed as he searched in the darkness.

  By the time he turned on the torch the rear of the shed was closed and locked. He looked round for the put you up bed and opened it out. Safer to sleep where he was then to try to go up to the house to sleep and the put you up was comfortable enough. He stripped off and settled down to sleep.

  He woke early the next morning and walked up the path carrying his shirt and tie. He had a shower and drove into work, beating Lorna to work for once.

  He read the post and filed it or left on her desk with hand written answers for her to type out when she arrived for work. She looked up in amazement when she saw him.

  ‘Don’t tell me you were in the shed listening to Wagner or something when the power cut caught you out.’ Lorna guessed, using John’s own logic against him.

  ‘Well actually I fell asleep for once…’

  ‘For once!’ Lorna exclaimed interrupting.

  ‘Again then and when I woke up it was pitch dark in there and as silent as the grave. I fell against the back of the shed and nearly did myself a mischief so I decided to use the put you up.’ John continued. ‘The trouble with it being pitch black you don’t know what time it really is so when I walked up it was too late to go back to sleep so I showered and came to work.’

  ‘Doesn’t your watch have a light on it?’

  ‘I don’t use it that much, I tend to look at my mobile as that always has the right time no matter where I am in the world but I never thought to look at it.’

  ‘Men.’

  ‘Now that you have finally deigned to come into work old girl, will you see if there is an answer about the prints you sent off again?’ John asked and noted the over the glasses look Lorna gave him.

  Lorna sat down at her desk and read her emails before answering.

  ‘Not bad, they even picked up on the fact they were the same as the last lot.’ She announced as though she had just read the email.

  ‘So no joy there then. I will have to find a way to learn his name for Winfield or he will be down here asking about it every day until I do!’ John declared. ‘Time to put my thinking cap on, hold all calls except the PM’s for a while.’

  ‘Yes bwana.’ Lorna answered. ‘I suppose that does not preclude me bringing in tea?’

  ‘On no, tea helps me think.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’ Lorna retorted and started typing.

  John remained in his office for four hours until nature and the second pot of tea Lorna brought in, forced a call of nature.

  ‘Any ideas?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘I will tell you when I return from the little boy’s room.’ John answered and kept walking.

  Winfield came in while he was in there.

  ‘Any news on the Clementine case John.’ He asked idly as he combed his hair.

  ‘A dead end on the DNA and the fingerprints but I am still thinking about it Winfield.’

  ‘What about donors, you know bone marrow and the such? They might have put their name forward earlier in life before the decided to take over some of Clementine’s work.’ Winfield asked.

  ‘Ah, I feel that is an idea worth trying Winfield, thanks for the tip.’ John answered and left him preening.

  Winfield was there by no accident, he had his own toilet attached to his office. That meant that he did not have to leave the office all day if he did not want to and John knew it.

  ‘Well?’ Lorna asked when he returned.

  ‘Try the DNA at all the donor agencies you can think of. Even try the Anthony Nolan trust in this country, just in case there is a match.’ John answered without mentioning that it was Winfield’s idea.

  ‘Worth a try. I will get on to it right away.

  Lorna spent the rest of the day researching agencies which dealt in donors, finding an email address and sending out the details to see if they had a match. She did not expect immediate responses and did not get them although some generated automatic answering emails to let her know they had received her request, which was reassuring.

  At the end of the day John and Lorna went their separate ways. John to cook himself a roast meal and Lorna to order in a takeaway meal. It was nine o’clock when John arrived at Lorna’s aunt’s house and Lorna was surprised to see him.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming tonight?’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to but I had an idea which I thought was worth bouncing off you and as you are sending out emails with samples I thought you could add Clem’s DNA.’ John answered.

  ‘Why exactly?’ Lorna asked.

  ‘To cover all bases old girl. If she is ill she might be on one of these registers waiting for a donor or she might just have volunteered to be a donor and we can find a
way to pick up the contact address or number from them.’

  ‘Getting me to hack in I suppose?’

  ‘If they won’t give us it. Probably better to hack in anyway, that way nothing can get back to Winfield about it.’ John answered.

  Lorna repeated her emails, this time with Clementine’s DNA substituted for the imposters. She then carried on with her receipts while John went back home again to catch up on some sleep. No music tonight, he went up to bed and sat reading a book until his eyes started to close, then he went to sleep.

  Lorna worked on, adding another file to Winfield’s file so that it was complete. She then picked up Carstairs receipts where John had left off and worked through them with the odd snigger, before she too went home. There were no answers for her request about twins yet so she had nothing to report there but she was hoping to get some answers the next day. She reflected on her work, she did very little in the office but had to make it last all day as every key stroke was probably recorded and every phone call overheard. After that she had to do her day’s work, in the evening.

  Without Winfield and his snooping ways she could do her job properly in the office like a normal secretary. She baulked when she thought of herself as a secretary but that was all she was really. John had most of the ideas but not all of them. If she could leak out Winfield’s petty cash file and people learned just what areas he had bugged in the office and in worker’s homes he would be finished and she could get more done.

  The office the next day was the same sham with emails from donor trusts not shedding any light on the imposter but at least it was office work and she was doing it in the office. The answers to the request about Clementine’s DNA sample would come to the computer in Lorna’s aunt’s house and she would not know anything about it until her next visit, which would not be that evening as she was going to see her sister. They usually went out for a meal and talked about the world and life in general, and of course men, as sisters do.

  John went to Lorna’s aunt’s house and did some more work on the receipts, for once finding an honest civil servant, which was refreshing. He did not look at the emails on Lorna’s computer, as he was not really into computers. He could work one if he had to and he did send the odd email from his own computer. It was her computer so he left it alone.