She Was a Pretty Girl: A spy story

by S G Read

  ‘We can handle trouble, unless they are going to spray us with an oozy.’ Marion replied. ‘But thanks for thinking of us. Bye.’

  John put his phone back into his pocket and pushed the button for the lift a second time as it had already gone. He waited for what seemed to be an eternity to him and then started down the stairs, telling himself that the exercise was good for him anyway.

  He arrived at the front of the hotel and ordered his car to be brought round, just in case a bomb had been planted and attached to the ignition. The car arrived, the young driver jumped out and John climbed in. He drove on but stopped when he was out of sight to fully check the car and decided he was getting bored with having to do it. He drove out of Brighton heading for London but the traffic suddenly stopped moving.

  A little worried John turned on his blue flashing light and drove through the traffic, using the hard shoulder when there was one. Ahead he saw Marion’s car, damaged on the side of the road. He drove over to where it was with his light flashing to clear the way. The police were already there and he climbed out, flashing his card as he did so. No one stopped him as he approached the damaged car and was pleased to hear Marion cursing in her usual way, as he moved closer.

  ‘Are you the owner of this car?’ He asked formally.

  ‘No you are and if I get my hands on that ruddy Winfield I will ring his bloody neck.’ Marion replied loudly.

  ‘Where is your proof?’ John asked.

  ‘I’ll find some when I get this heap back to my lab.’ Marion declared.

  ‘What happened?’ John asked while the traffic policeman stood waiting.

  ‘I was run off the road, then a police car arrived but while one was talking to us they popped the boot and nicked the container in there.’ Marion answered. ‘I realised that they weren’t real cops when they legged it before the real police came.’

  ‘So they took the specimens?’ John asked but it was more an assumption.

  ‘Oh no, they took an old sample case. The real one is in front of Judy’s feet and it is going nowhere without me.’ Marion answered.

  ‘Good show. Is anyone badly injured?’ John replied.

  ‘I have been well and truly air bagged but I think I will live.’ Judy answered.

  ‘The two girls in the back are not hurt I have already asked.’ The traffic policeman added.

  ‘Are you fit to travel then or do you need the paramedics?’ John asked.

  ‘Get us out of here!’ Marion ordered. ‘I have a spook to fry!’

  ‘Ring this number and a breakdown lorry will come and get the car, until then no one goes near it is that understood?’ John ordered and held his card up for close inspection.

  ‘Yes Mr. Fairchild. I will deal with it personally.’ The traffic policeman answered.

  ‘Good man. Now I will take these fair maidens home.’ John replied. ‘Pile in girls and don’t forget the bag.’

  He drove back to London and into the car park at the office. Marion and her girls climbed out yawning and walked inside with the bag of things they were going to test. John drove on and parked after watching them go inside, just to make sure they were not mugged on the steps. Desperate men do desperate things.

  He parked his car in his parking spot and climbed out, it had been a long day and he still had to type out his daily report. It would get better when Lorna returned. He walked into the office, flashing his badge as he went.

  ‘Good afternoon Mr. Fairchild the guard inside the door greeted.

  ‘Good afternoon George.’

  ‘Another late one?’

  ‘It looks like it George, I will be glad when Lorna comes back of holiday!’

  He rode the lift up and walked into his office. No one was there to greet him and it made John smile when he imagined them staging the accident and then finding out that they had stolen the wrong bag.

  He had paperwork to do and emails to send to answer questions. He had to do everything himself or get in an agency girl and she would almost certainly be working for Winfield. It also meant he had to make his own tea!

  It had been a mixed day today. Victor was almost certainly dead but wrongly accused of spying. They had tried to cover up what had happened to him and then thrown the chain of custody of the evidence into question, which failed thanks to John’s nose for smelling a rat and Marion’s deception. What came next? Marion was already working on the evidence in her laboratory so what would Winfield try next?

  John sat down with the pot of tea he made himself and thought about it. He did not actually have to destroy the evidence as long as he could throw doubt on to the chain of evidence. One way was a bomb in the laboratory but that was a bit drastic, even for Winfield. The other was just to create enough doubt for a judge, in this case the Prime Minister, to give Winfield the benefit of the doubt! To cut the seals on the evidence bags was just as feasible but if it could be proved who it was, then it would be another clean up job for Clementine.

  On the brighter note; at least John was happy, Winfield would think that Clementine was still active and on top of her job. Once John heard about Mrs. Lautrec’s passing he could inform Winfield who the imposter was which would mean Winfield possibly researching the name and coming up with triplets. Something John could do, was to build up a dossier on the triplets, listing the demise of the other two and make it believable. He knew it would stand only so much scrutiny, once they had the name but should the fact that the other two triplets were still alive come to light, he could blame their skill as adversaries.

  It sounded feasible so he started doodling facts but only in his mind, nothing went down on paper as Winfield was like a bloodhound on paper trails. Part of it had to wait until Lorna returned from holiday as it meant hacking into the Belgium death registry and modifying it slightly. That way the paper trail for the two surviving twins would stop there and they could continue to be staunch allies and very useful.

  It was a shame about Victor but to the remaining two triplets, he was just a name and income. They were paid quite well for every assignment and that showed up in the petty cash payment. An extra payment of the amount a hit cost hidden there, either in one payment or several smaller payments. Keen eyes could find them and Lorna had very keen eyes. He laid the groundwork for the dossier on the Lautrec family, including the death of their mother without putting a date on it as to his knowledge she was still alive.

  He worked on into the evening without even glancing at the clock, making mental notes here and ringing dates on the calendar. The ringed dates on the calendar did not correspond to any dates he was using, they were all part of his code and only one other person had worked out his code, and that was Lorna! He had not told her but she had seen his calendar and knew that the dates did not apply to anything, not even birthdays. The dates seemed to be randomly ringed, some in circles to the left and others to the right. Some had squares round then and some triangles. It had taken her three years of seeing the markings and dealing with all his important dates to come to the conclusion there was a message there. It took another two years for her to work out what it meant and it took their work together to a new level.

  John sat there thinking about that long after he had ringed a certain date. All Winfield had to do was to take Lorna out of the picture to delay John’s finding out his sordid little secrets and that worried him! The last thing he wanted was Lorna to be put out of action just to keep Winfield’s name clean but he would not do it unless the benefits outweighed the fact that he would have to watch his own back, especially if Lorna was killed. The best answer was to put her out of action for a while so that he could tie up any loose ends. On that maudlin note he stopped work and drove home, he needed a drink and to reflect on how difficult things were getting for Winfield. It was not a good idea to back Winfield into a corner, as he actually imagined that he was untouchable.

  He drove off and headed for home but as soon as he was inside the door, he thought of Victor’s flat. Had everything been taken from it, that they
could match their findings to. He felt silly that he had not thought of it before, he was sure Winfield had. He walked out into his shed and turned on his music to mask the noises made when he went out the back. Instead of riding to Lorna’s aunt’s house, John rode his bike all the way to Victor’s flat. He hid the bike behind a tree and picked the lock to get into Victor’s flat. It looked like a bomb had hit it, obviously to make it look like a burglary. Everything of value had been taken, including Victor’s spare shoes which pointed to Winfield’s men. He cursed his slow wittedness but searched the flat carefully, more carefully than Winfield’s men had. They may have taken his spare shoes but the bin yielded not only polishing rags and an empty polish tin. The word empty only held water where polishing shoes were concerned as there was still enough inside for Marion to test and compare with her evidence. In the black bags outside, John found more to help Marion, including a pair of discarded shoes. He smiled. If you ill-treat the people who work for you, you end up with them doing half a job and you suffer for it in the long run and Winfield never had a good word to say about any of his staff. John bagged up the evidence in the correct bags and signed each one to make sure the chain of custody was maintained.

  For his trouble john had to ride back to his house with a black bin bag over his shoulder. It might as well have swag written all over it but no one took any notice, as he rode away from Victor’s flat. He took a circuitous route to make sure he did not pass by the man watching his house, as that would really surprise him if he recognised john!

  Marion made sure the evidence was secured in the safe when it was not being tested and all chain of evidence protocols were followed to the letter. When she tested the scrapings from the floor where it looked like Victor had been dragged, she found what she wanted, traces of polish. This led her to phone John on his mobile.

  ‘I need samples of polish from Victor’s flat, to test against the samples I have found.’ She explained.

  ‘Okay Marion I will find the time to get round to Victor’s flat tomorrow and collect all the samples you want.’ John answered idly.

  ‘Just get there before Winfield burns it to the ground; that is the only way he will stop me matching my evidence with things from the flat.’ Marion declared and rang off.

  John flipped the mobile shut and smiled. When that message ended up in front of Winfield he could imagine him ordering that very thing after grilling the men who removed the obvious evidence. He settled down to listen to music indoors for once, choosing to drink an expensive red wine to Strauss. His phone rang while he was listening to his music but he ignored it, now was his time!

  Winfield did just that. He called the men who had removed anything which they thought could be used against him and questioned them.

  ‘Did you remove everything that might prove that it was Victor who was dragged away and no one else Peter?’ He asked, when the two men who were responsible for the so called cleanup operation at both the hotel and the flat, stood in front of him.

  ‘Yes Mr. Winfield.’ Peter answered. ‘We cleaned the floors, took the polish and any shoes still in there.’

  ‘What about brushes?’ Winfield asked.

  ‘There were no brushes.’ Peter answered.

  ‘Then how did he buff the shoes up?’ Winfield asked.

  ‘Must have used a cloth I suppose.’ Peter answered.

  ‘Must have used a cloth!’ Winfield cried, his voice rising. ‘Did you bring the cloth, did you check the bin for discarded cloths or empty polish tins. What did you do?’

  ‘Do you want us to go back there and make sure?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Yes I want you to go back there and make sure but just do a thorough clean or they will think we are listening to them. Do not torch the place!’

  ‘Yes Mr. Winfield.’

  The two men left in a hurry. They had made only a cursory check on the flat as they thought they had removed all traces from the floor of the garage floor. They drove to the flat in a hurry and made a thorough search, taking what they thought was pertinent and anything that might be remotely pertinent. While they searched the second man Jacob Court smoked, he could not go that long without a cigarette. He squeezed the first cigarette out and dropped it into the bin in the kitchen and lit another one as the next thing was the wheelie bin outside. They locked the door to the flat and took the bin liner out of the wheelie bin to take with them before slipping back out through the gate to make their getaway. In the kitchen smoke started to rise wispily from the bin in the kitchen.

  In the morning he took out his trash and threw it into his car before driving off. He chose to ride round past Victor’s flat, even though it took him out of his way. The flat had been burnt and it was already a shell. One fire engine was still there damping down the flat and surrounding flats. John did not stop, he merely drove by and on to his office. He walked in still carrying his trash and delivered it to Marion. Marion was just finishing debugging the laboratory when he walked in.

  ‘This should be enough to match up with all the evidence you were able to gather from the crime scene.’ He announced as he put the bag on her desk. ‘Don’t throw it away as it is in a bin liner, it was all I had at the time.’

  ‘How did you get that?’ Marion asked. ‘The flat caught fire last night after I phoned you. I called you back but you didn’t answer!’

  ‘I went there before you phoned, to get what you wanted but Winfield had already been there, well his men had but they weren’t very thorough. This is enough to do what you want but make sure you don’t lose this, there won’t be any more.’ John answered.

  He walked back to his office and set about answering the post. He pinned the postcard from Lorna up on the notice board for her to see when she returned. He imagined that there would be one waiting for him when he returned to his house tonight. Marion probably had one but he knew Winfield would not get one. It was John’s reason for pinning it up on the notice board, just as Marion would when hers arrived.

  ‘Get in here you two!’ Winfield yelled. ‘What did I say to you? Don’t burn the flat comes to mind?’

  ‘We didn’t Mr. Winfield. We took everything that might have been of use to anyone looking in there to try to match anything with Victor and the trash bag from the bin and come out.’ Peter explained. ‘The flat was fine when we left!’

  ‘Then how come it is a burnt out shell now?’ Winfield asked frostily.

  ‘Search us, as I said it was fine when we left it, wasn’t it Jacob?’

  ‘Yes Mr. Winfield fine and dandy when we left it, like you wanted.’ Jacob answered agreeing with Peter.

  ‘So what went on then?’ Winfield mused, believing his men. ‘I wonder if John went along last night and found nothing so he torched the place just to make people think I did it after Marion phoned him.’

  ‘It isn’t like Mr. Fairchild to do things like that.’ Peter argued.

  ‘No it isn’t is it? So what is his little game? I will have to watch him extra closely!’

  John went home at the normal time and after a meal he went to Lorna’s aunt’s house to see if there was any movement on the sale of his other house. He read the emails and answered the only offer for the house which was under the asking price. He did want to sell the house but he did not have to sell it quickly. He emailed an answer to the estate agent and shut the computer down. He opened the post and read it, even those that were addressed to Lorna.

  It was all mundane now as they had all the information they wanted on the triplets. He shredded the information and then burnt it in the wood burning stove. He did not want to leave anything around in case Winfield stumbled on the house. John removed the hard drive from Lorna’s computer and hid it with the hard drive from Ralf.

  If Winfield did find the house, all he would find were two computers without hard drives and nothing else. John knew that Winfield was pulling out all the stops to make sure he kept his job and he would do anything to make sure he kept it, which made him a dangerous enemy.

  John
slipped back out through the back fence and rode home. He was going to have an early night so that he could be in work on time in the morning. It took him a lot longer to do the things Lorna did while keeping the office running smoothly which is why he was going in earlier than he usually did.

  His first port of call was Marion’s laboratory to see what news there was, he found Marion looking through her microscope and oblivious to the world.

  ‘What have we found so far?’ He asked but Marion merely put the index finger on her right hand to her lips for quiet, which in itself told him the bugs were still there or Marion feared more had been planted overnight. John produced the bug detector and worked his way round all three rooms, pointing out each bug as he found it. Being a scientist she took each bug to take the fingerprints and DNA from it and then dropped each one into a bowl of acid. When the rooms were cleared of bugs she spoke.

  ‘I have found enough evidence to be sure that Victor was dragged out by someone holding his shoulders with his hands under his arms. He had to be at least unconscious when he was dragged and it was probably by someone who was being paid to kill him.’ She explained. ‘I don’t expect to see Victor again unless it is in a pine box ready for burying.’ She added.

  ‘Can we make any of the mud we stir up hit Winfield and stick?’ John asked.

  ‘It is possible.’ Marion answered.

  ‘In that case be very careful who you say what to!’ John declared.

  ‘My lips are sealed until I can nail him.’ Marion replied. ‘I will let you know when that happens.’

  ‘Well be careful what you say to me if it is in my office, I am well bugged and use it to my advantage as much as possible.’ John added.

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘I pass on information that I want Winfield know and act on.’ John answered. ‘And when you told me about Victor’s flat I knew that it would soon be either blown up or burnt and burning is the easiest one to cover up.’

  ‘I never thought about that.’

  ‘So should you fail to make any mud stick we could set him up by telling him you have, via the bugs that will soon return.’