by Tony Cape
“Of course, he had a pass key as a member of the council, and a skeleton for a commercial file cabinet is probably standard MI5 issue, I would think. Not that he needed it when you sent him back in to get the Bletchley file, Roger. The cabinet was unlocked. But it must have been hard to get him to do it—he looked guilty as sin when I saw him the following day, although, at the time, I didn’t know why. See, I realized G-L’s claim to have taken it himself was a phony, a cover, since he had no way into the room without incriminating himself, and I assumed that he was covering for Lauren, which he was, of course. Now, you weren’t going to tell him you’d had the file removed yourself, were you Roger? He had to continue to believe he’d been blown by my detective work, right? G-L and I both assumed Lauren had taken it, and I took it a step further and figured she’d used Allerton to lift it, the day he was in there with the sister. But it never sat right, and I didn’t work it out properly until just this morning. Very cunning. Am I losing you, George?”
Smailes looked over at Dearnley who was regarding him with a kind of wide-eyed bewilderment. Standiforth said nothing. Smailes stopped to light a cigarette, gathered himself, then resumed.
“My guess is Davies called you as soon as Bowles’ body was found, Roger. Probably pretty upset, never knew there was any physical threat to Bowles, or I doubt he’d have signed on. But you prevailed upon him one last time, he was implicated too deep by now, told him to get anything that might incriminate Gorham-Leach out of Bowles’ files before the police got hold of it, right? Anything about Bletchley, you probably said, not realizing that Bowles had written G-L’s bio elsewhere, and that I’d found papers in Bowles’ wallet that told me where his ideas were going. Of course, by now you’ve got George in your hip pocket, as a backup. Either he knew about this whole operation already, or he called you right after I told him about Bowles’ hobbies, and you enrolled him in your little club, right? After all, where’s George’s career heading from the top of Cambridge CID? The Yard or the Specials, that’s about it. He doesn’t have the political connections to make Chief Constable, does he? You need to stay on the right side of men like Roger, don’t you, George?”
Here Smailes swung round angrily at George Dearnley who made a guttural sound and tried to speak. Smailes waved him down.
“Now, the fact that Davies was an archaeologist meant he was careful with his hands, left no prints on the side of the case, or anywhere, jumpy though he must have been whenever he was over there. See, I knew all along he must’ve been over there, he fell for the oldest trick in the book as soon as I met him. Told him I’d seen a picture of a particular party in Bowles’ room and he corrected me, when he claimed he hadn’t been near the room in two years. G-L, well, he side-stepped the question perfectly, as you’d expect. I gave Davies the benefit of the doubt, which was my first big mistake. Almost as big as giving it to you, Roger.
“You see, I figure that Davies didn’t realize that Bowles was onto Gorham-Leach in time to warn you. So after he was found hanged you must have figured what had happened and known that Lauren and Gorham-Leach between them had found out and killed him. Again, since you and George are in cahoots, George is instructed to close the investigation and let the coroner jump through his hoop. But you’ve got Rob Roy at Lauren’s place so you know I’m on the trail myself. The odds are still against my finding out, and there’s a good chance Lauren or the Sorge goons will off me if I do. For some reason, you’re still waiting on the big round-up. Or maybe Gorham-Leach is most valuable to you as is, still operative and thinking he’s clear.
“Anyway, against the odds I find out what Bowles learned and your hand is forced. You have no alternative but to wind up the network. George must have known all of this, right, or he’d have had me scribbling away when G-L did his opera solo. So you go through the pantomime of arresting G-L and letting him do the Hermann Goring bit at the end. It’s crucial that he think he’s been blown by the Bowles-Smailes combo, right, otherwise he’ll know whatever he’s sent home is useless. Now he knows that the Bletchley file was missing, because I told him so myself, and he assumes, like I did, that Lauren had made a last attempt to neutralize Bowles’ work. I bet they kept their contacts to a minimum, there’s no way he can double check. But you’ve still got a big problem with her. You can’t make it seem she’s already blown for the same reasons. So you let me do my arithmetic and come up with the inevitable. You were pretty convincing arguing for the wire, Roger. Maybe she’s an illegal, but what type? No one can resist playing the spy, can they? Particularly a guy like me. And all the time, you and George, or maybe just you, I’m still not sure, are planning the Shoot-Out at the OK Corral; a hail of bullets, no survivors, the Leningrad boys escaping by the skin of their teeth, telling the brass back home that Conrad and his backup are wiped out, but the stupid cop who discovered them bought his too. Neat, eh? And I might have swallowed the whole thing, had I not seen our man Rob at the restaurant. He must’ve bugged the car one night when I was at Lauren’s. There were enough of those. Why did you tail me, Roger? Afraid I’d meet with the Fleet Street fellas, sell my tale? Must’ve given you the shits, when Iain showed up, with his background. I’d decided against that, until this morning, when I finally put it all together. Because either you explain pretty good, Roger, or I’m straight out of here down to Fleet Street. Don’t believe I wouldn’t do it.”
George Dearnley had grown progressively more slack-jawed and defeated by Smailes’ account. He had loosened his tie and was sitting well back from his desk, staring first at Standiforth, then Smailes. He broke the silence.
“For Christ’s sake, Roger. You’ve got to tell him, or…”
Standiforth held up his hand and waved a freshly-lit cigarette. “You’re a very bright man, Mr. Smailes,” he said eventually. “Yes, I owe you an explanation, I suppose, although you have most of it anyway. I suppose I owe the Chief Superintendent an explanation as well.” He let out a long, theatrical sigh. “Well, I’ll have to tell you the truth, much as it goes against my grain.
“First, I must stress that you have reached the wrong conclusions about Superintendent Dearnley’s involvement. The first time I ever spoke with him was truthfully on the evening you transcribed Bowles’ typewriter ribbon. He had, as you guessed, informed Special Branch when you first told him what you knew about Simon Bowles. Routine in any investigation involving national security, no matter how remotely. Special Branch had routinely informed me, although I already knew about Bowles’ death, you are quite correct, from Ivor Davies. The message that was relayed through Special Branch was simply to treat Bowles’ death as a routine suicide and let the coroner reach the obvious verdict. Nothing more. The Chief Superintendent was not told anything further, but I’m sure he assumed, correctly, that the security services knew all about Bowles’ research. But it was not obvious to assume that Bowles had therefore been murdered, which I of course suspected. We try to avoid asking our senior policemen directly to suborn the judicial process, you may be surprised to hear.
“When I eventually came up to Cambridge, I had to inform him about our surveillance of Gorham-Leach, of course, which understandably offended him. I was not able to tell him about the full extent of our operation, for obvious reasons.”
Standiforth did not look round at Dearnley during his account, and Smailes noticed that George’s color was rising. By this time, Standiforth was chain smoking, and there was a pause while he lit another cigarette.
“Secondly, you’re wrong with the order of our discoveries. We had the girl first. Completely unexpectedly. Our station chief in Vienna had a tape cassette delivered anonymously to his home, in the autumn of last year. Heavily accented English, giving the background on an agent to be infiltrated into England within the next three months. American, female, CP family background. And the destination—Cambridge. It was the crucial clue that led us to her when she enrolled at St. Margaret’s. Why the tip? No idea, except my guess would be that with all the musical chairs at the Kremlin, the peop
le at Yasyenevo, the KGB First Directorate, are fighting over turf. One section boss trying to torpedo another’s operation is the likely explanation. Not that he could have known whom Lauren Greenwald was being sent to cover.
“Yes, it was puzzling when we found her admission had been encouraged by Gorham-Leach. He was a very well-known and trusted man. His background had been checked a dozen times, at least. But we had to check again. The only real possibility was that he wasn’t Gorham-Leach, wasn’t it? Peter Raffles, your Rob Roy, officer, eventually found the record in the PRO, and it all fell into place, unfortunately. Your description was a little colorful, but yes, it did cause consternation when we realized how he had eluded us. I couldn’t blame Hawken directly. I’ve expected very little from him over the years, as you surmised.
“The rest of your construction is fairly accurate, except for one further point. I think you said we ‘eviscerated’ Gorham-Leach’s intelligence. ‘Adulterated’ would be a better word. We quickly discovered the drop—less than a mile from his house—and found we had twenty-four hours before it was serviced. So since last autumn we have had two senior theoretical physicists from Oxford writing alternative material—I don’t understand entirely, but the principle is that the physical findings they constructed were plausible but fundamentally flawed. That has been the real value of this operation, officer. I don’t know what you understood from what Gorham-Leach revealed before his death, but his current research represents the most important military discovery since atomic fission. Billions and billions will be spent on it in the next twenty years, on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It all sounds like science fiction to me, but it’s to do with lasers, defensive shields against nuclear missiles, the implications of which should be obvious.
“So, yes, Gorham-Leach had been tremendously damaging during his secret career. But he might finally have been of some use to us. I always thought it was too simple, you know, that there was a fifth spy still at Cambridge. I was wrong.”
Here Standiforth paused to adjust an onyx cuff link and to pick a thread from his trouser leg. He resumed slowly.
“Well, as for Mr. Bowles. Yes, you have that right. Ivor Davies was a little reluctant at first, particularly in view of whom his aunt had married and the embarrassment it had caused him professionally, but as you guessed he overcame his scruples when I told him I thought we could lean on the British Academy for new research funds. It wasn’t the best of arrangements, but in such an odd place as Cambridge, you work with what you have, I’m afraid. I’m surprised he did as well as it seems he did during your interrogation. Of course, I would never have sent him back into Bowles’ room had I not known you’d already interviewed him, and he really did remonstrate quite fiercely. But I had to obviate the possibility of some CID detective trying to pursue an investigation of those persons Simon Bowles had been researching. Of course, we couldn’t get it all, so I told Ivor to just take anything about Bletchley, which was a bit of a shot in the dark, I concede. It seems it missed. I was a little puzzled when Gorham-Leach said he’d taken it, of course, but that’s now all explained. But then you never really suspected Davies, did you? You got sidetracked by this Hawken and Fenwick business. They’ve both finally gotten the heave-ho, if you didn’t know.
“Indeed, it did seem likely Bowles was murdered, although hardly incontrovertible. I didn’t really work it out until you did, until after we’d heard Gorham-Leach’s rather ingenious story. Then it seemed clear that the girl had seen what you discovered, that Bowles had in fact worked the whole thing out. And I must concede, I was prepared to let her get away, Mr. Smailes. That was the sole reason for my fussiness, you see, messing about with microphones and the like. And I assure you, the Superintendent knew only that we had Gorham-Leach. We’ve had his telephone wired for months—his confession is all on tape, as you suspect.”
Standiforth’s explanation had begun to placate Smailes, but there was one crucial aspect that he still needed to clarify.
“Obvious reasons, Roger. You said you couldn’t tell George the full scope of your Cambridge operations for obvious reasons. What were they, please?” he asked.
“Really, Mr. Smailes. If I had told the Chief Superintendent about the girl, then it would have been clear she was involved in both Bowles’ death and the disappearance of Allerton. I knew he was already a little uneasy about the inquest business, and I could not expect that he would allow me to let a double murderer escape. At least, not without an enormous fuss. Please don’t believe that of him. But I had to let her go, you see, to preserve the viability of our work for the past year. I don’t regret it, only that my plan went so badly wrong. I didn’t want you endangered, detective sergeant—I already had other plans for you. It was almost a calamity, as you know, except in one crucial aspect it was a complete success. Our friends from Leningrad will escape with the right story—that Gorham-Leach was blown by the two of you, as you so aptly put it, and not any earlier. So you see, I really am indebted to you. And yes, I had to protect myself from your divulging your knowledge to any inappropriate sources, I concede. Peter watched you as best he could in Cormond, but it turns out you could be trusted. Now, I have some questions…”
At this point Dearnley could no longer contain himself. His color had returned to normal, and he interrupted with a cold venom. “You bastard. That’s the last time I co-operate with any of you. I don’t care what happens. You play me for a idiot, you risk my men, you throw the law down the toilet. You…” Words failed him and he leant back in his chair with a gesture of disgust. A distended vein in his temple was throbbing.
Standiforth gave a nervous smile. “You see, Detective Smailes. Obvious reasons. Now, I have a question for you. Can you still be trusted, I need to know?”
“Roger, you have a bloody nerve talking about trust,” Smailes said with difficulty.
There was a long pause, and then Dearnley, with icy control, added, “I agree, Derek. A right bloody nerve.”
The silence extended as Smailes sought for a reply. He looked hard at Standiforth. “This is a tough one for me, Roger. I can see you do unpleasant and dangerous work, it’s probably necessary, and maybe the fewer that know, the better your chances. But the way you’ve manipulated everyone throughout this whole business is downright criminal. You would have told me nothing more, right, unless I’d guessed it?”
“Absolutely. I would have told neither of you any more,” said Standiforth, stone-faced. “It’s a bigger view, that’s all, Mr. Smailes. You are a brave and intelligent man. I’m asking you to understand.” There was a distinct appeal in Standiforth’s eyes and a sudden vulnerability in his voice. Fine drops of sweat stood on his top lip.
“George?”
“It’s not my business to give you advice, Derek. I owe you an apology. It’s up to you,” he said.
“It’s a joke to ask whether I can believe you, Roger. But frankly, I just want to forget the whole business. It makes me sick. I’ve got nothing more to say. Period.”
Standiforth relaxed visibly and could barely contain his relief. He reached for a handkerchief and wiped his face and mouth.
“I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could count on you. Which brings up another topic I want to broach with you. Your resignation actually gives me some encouragement. Frankly, Mr. Smailes, I have been most impressed by your abilities. You are a simply superb investigator. I want to offer you a job. It so happens that protection of our diplomatic missions has recently become one of our major responsibilities, and we particularly need to strengthen our security at the U.N. Mission in New York. Bloody place has become a Third World country club, an espionage free-for-all. I can offer you the number two job with our office there. Of course, there would be training here in England first. Please think about it. No doubt, you have the typical view of our service, that it’s manned by overprivileged and incompetent people who all went to the same schools. Well, perhaps that used to be the case, but times have changed. You wouldn’t be the first recruit from a provinc
ial police force. Of course, it’s civil service pay, but there’s a special living allowance for New York, which is quite necessary, I understand.” Standiforth’s figure was approximately double Smailes’ current salary.
“Please take time to consider my offer. I’m interested to know your initial response, however.”
“You’re buying me off.”
“Not at all. We desperately need men like you in our ranks, Mr. Smailes. Had you decided not to cooperate with our appeal for discretion, then of course, there would be no offer. But my decision to recruit you was made long before this meeting. The Superintendent knew it was one reason I wanted to see you today, although he was reluctant to see you leave CID.”
Smailes looked across at Dearnley, who gave a grudging nod.
“It is you who would be doing us the favor, not the reverse.”
“I appreciate the thought. But I don’t think so.”
