Confirm or Deny (Gaffney and Tipper Mysteries Book 2)

by Graham Ison

  Geoffrey Hodder, however, was not a happy man. Last summer, he had been in charge of an operation involving a man called Nikitin. Special Branch had been involved in that too. But at the very point where an arrest was to be effected, Nikitin had disappeared, only to be heard of months later when MI6 had reported his reappearance in Moscow. As if that were not bad enough, two months ago, an East German, Gesschner, had disappeared as well, just as MI5’s operation was intensifying.

  Hodder had five men in his section, and normally they would have been deployed to investigate this new affair. But was one of them a traitor? Should he use someone else? That would look suspicious – that would be accusing them in an obtuse way, with no evidence whatever. Eventually, he decided that he had no option but to use the same team, but this time he would make sure that not one of them, not even Patrick Hughes, his deputy, had the complete picture. It would be difficult, and it would involve Hodder himself in doing more than he would normally have done. But he could not afford to take chances – not this time. Not again.

  There were enquiries to be made, nonetheless, and he allocated them piecemeal, not telling his staff why they were doing them or what the operation was about. In fact, he didn’t even tell them it was an operation.

  For all his distrust, of which, obviously, the team were unaware, the results came quickly, and he now knew that the two parties to the strange goings-on at Teddington were Major James Armitage and Peter Dickson. He knew their addresses and he knew where they worked. When he learned that Armitage was stationed at the MOD in a section that handled high grade material, and that Dickson was ostensibly in the computer business, he knew that he was about to trap another spy.

  But that was in the future, and would involve all manner of careful preparations. What he had to do now presented no problem. “I should like to see the Director-General immediately,” he said to Sir Edward’s secretary.

  “Well, Geoffrey, and what gloom have you for me today?” For once in his career, Griffin knew what was coming, would rather it wasn’t, and knew that he was on the verge of having to make decisions that he would rather not have been faced with.

  “It looks remarkably like an Official Secrets job, Sir Edward,” said Hodder in bored tones. It was not an indication of boredom; he always spoke like that. He opened the buff folder on his knee. “What we have, sir, is an army officer—” He looked up. “Major at the MOD — high grade stuff, and a computer salesman who lives in a rather expensive flat off the Tottenham Court Road.”

  “What do you have so far, Geoffrey?”

  “Good old-fashioned dead-letter box – Teddington Lock. No idea what was passed over, not at this stage, obviously, but it looks to be a classic routine.”

  “This army officer – know much about him?” Griffin wanted to make sure that the unthinkable hadn’t happened, and that two jobs weren’t about to erupt simultaneously.

  “Major James Armitage – known as Jack. As I said, he works in a secret communications section at MOD Army.” Hodder glanced down at his notes again. “Married to Marilyn Armitage, nee Lester – housewife; they live together in a rented flat in Battersea. Been married about two years. He was formerly married to Annie Hsieh, a Singaporean—”

  “Annie?”

  “I presume that was the anglicized form, sir.”

  “Presumably,” murmured Griffin. “Go on.”

  “We now have him under close observation, and we are of course liaising with the Ministry of Defence. He has access to some very sensitive stuff apparently. I tremor to think how the damage report will read. No doubt we shall all get a wigging from the Prime Minister for not having spotted him before.”

  “No doubt we shall,” said Griffin with feeling. “How did you spot him, incidentally?”

  Hodder looked down at his feet. “Anonymous telephone call made to Special Branch actually, Sir Edward.”

  “Very scientific,” said Griffin.

  *

  Later that morning, Gaffney saw Sir Edward Griffin and received from him the names of the six MI5 officers deputed to investigate the Armitage affair. At the top of the list, naturally, was the name of Geoffrey Hodder.

  “Mr Gaffney, I suppose there’s no way that…”

  “No way what, Sir Edward?”

  Griffin shook his head gloomily. “I was going to say, no way that we can make absolutely sure that this business doesn’t go wrong this time.”

  Gaffney leaned forward and picked up his coffee cup. “That would be something that we couldn’t guarantee under normal circumstances,” he said, “but it’s hardly what we’re about, is it? We have deliberately set this whole thing up with the object of tracing a leak. We must let it run naturally, otherwise you’ll be faced with a similar problem next week, next month, next year…” He took a sip of coffee and set down his cup and saucer. “And next time it could be very much more serious, much more damaging. And all the time there would be that nagging doubt that someone in your organization was betraying you.”

  Griffin nodded. He recalled the words, the harsh words, of the Home Secretary: “If you’ve got a cancer, Sir Edward,” he’d said, “cut it out.” “You’re right, Mr Gaffney, it’s just that…” He let the sentence lapse, eloquent for what was left unsaid, and stared into space.

  *

  In the afternoon of the same day, Geoffrey Hodder called at New Scotland Yard by appointment, and saw Commander Frank Hussey, the operational head of Special Branch. He outlined what the Security Service had learned and made a formal request for police assistance.

  Hussey assigned Detective Superintendent Terry Dobbs to oversee the enquiries from the Special Branch standpoint, and to liaise with MI5. It would be Dobbs and his team who eventually effected the arrests of Armitage and Dickson. It had to be done that way because MI5 had no powers of arrest, save those accorded ordinary citizens at common law. The police would also be responsible for the preparation of the case papers and their submission to the Director of Public Prosecutions who, in turn, would apply to the Attorney-General for his fiat to prosecute. One of the other things that Special Branch had to do was to acquire as much of the evidence as they could themselves, in order to keep the MI5 officers out of the witness box when eventually the prisoners were arraigned, usually before the Lord Chief Justice, and more often than not in Number Two Court at the Old Bailey – traditional venue for the hearing of espionage cases.

  *

  Terry Dobbs, in total ignorance of the plan which Gaffney had conceived and put into effect, set up an incident room. There was a hand-picked sergeant controlling the paper-work, and a number of experienced Special Branch detectives who had been involved in Official Secrets Acts prosecutions before. There were also a couple of young officers who were there simply to learn the trade, and who in the future would take the places of the more experienced as they were promoted and eventually retired.

  The plan was very simple. A team of MI5 watchers and Special Branch surveillance officers would combine to keep round-the-clock observation on Armitage depositing and Dickson collecting. There were two likely problems, however. The location of the DLB might be changed. Gaffney would certainly learn of this from Armitage, but he had no way of passing it on without arousing suspicion among his own colleagues. Again, the DLB method of passing information might be abandoned altogether, and another substituted for it. But the watchers should learn of that by the simple expedient of continuing to watch both men. The only difficulty in those circumstances was likely to be one of evidence; if the information was sent by post, anonymously for example, there would be grave problems in supporting a charge against either man.

  But there was nothing new in all this; it was something that spycatchers had to face every time they embarked on an investigation.

  In the meantime, full postal and telephone intercepts were put on the two principals, and the Security Service bided its time.

  *

  “I’ve got a list of six names here, Harry,” said Gaffney. “Each of them is
an MI5 officer, currently engaged on an Official Secrets Act job.” He carefully aligned the piece of paper with the edge of his blotter and stared at it for some time. Then he looked up. “And each one of them is under suspicion of having committed a similar offence himself.”

  Detective Chief Inspector Harry Tipper pursed his lips and whistled silently. “Blimey, you do go in for the complicated stuff, sir. What’s the evidence?”

  “There isn’t any, Harry. It’s pure speculation. But I can tell you this: Terry Dobbs is handling the job from our side, and the whole thing is a set-up – pure fiction.”

  “Oh dear,” said Tipper. “I think I’d better go and have a lie-down.”

  Gaffney grinned. “There is a man called Armitage, an army officer at the Ministry of Defence. He’s my bait, and it looks as though he’s hooked a man called Dickson. Armitage has passed secret information – bogus information – to this individual, all under my control, of course. Both are under surveillance, and we’re waiting to spring the trap.”

  “Sounds horribly like agent provocateur to me, guv.” Gaffney waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that; there are bigger fish – one bigger fish actually, in the shape of an MI5 officer.” He tapped the piece of paper on his desk. “One of these, possibly.”

  “How d’you know, sir? You just said there’s no evidence.” “I’m hoping to acquire some,” said Gaffney.

  “But you must have some reason for suspecting them – or him.”

  “Yes,” said Gaffney. “Two similar jobs have gone bent in the past. The same team of MI5 operatives were involved on each occasion. Which leads me – and, I may say, the Director-General of MI5 – to the conclusion that one of them is working for the other side.”

  “Reasonable,” said Tipper. “So you’ve set him up?” Gaffney nodded, smiling. “Christ! And I thought we were devious in mainline CID.”

  “Ordinary crime is a bit different, Harry. A villain will always come another day. These characters are much too fly for that – apart from the Armitages of this world, the real Armitages, I mean, who just get taken for suckers. And they’re dumped when they’ve outlived their usefulness.”

  “But what about those six?” Tipper pointed at the list on Gaffney’s desk. “Are they all under suspicion?”

  “Got to be, Harry. They were all part of the same team-twice. On each occasion the controller, the spymaster, the contact – call him what you like – vanished, just as the forces of law and order were closing in. That is the only evidence – if you can call it that – that the Director-General has. Not much, is it?”

  “It’s sod-all, if you’ll forgive the expression, guv’nor. So what do we do now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “We wait. Wait for Armitage to be arrested, and we wait for Dickson to disappear.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Gaffney held up his hands. “God knows, Harry. We’ll be left with egg on our faces, and a bit of squaring up to do. Major Armitage is entirely innocent, of course – working for us. But if we do land Dickson… Well, frankly, I don’t know. That, I imagine, will be something for the DG to work out. It’ll be all right if Dickson turns out to be an illegal—”

  “A what?”

  “An illegal. It’s the term used for foreign agents who are in the country masquerading as something else.”

  “You mean they’re not official spies?” asked Tipper, grinning.

  “Oh, you can laugh, Harry, but that’s exactly what I mean. Every embassy has its spies, usually the military attache. Everybodyy knows it, and everybody’s reasonably happy. You can watch them like hawks; it’s the illegals that give us headaches.”

  Tipper shook his head. “Guv’nor,” he said with mock seriousness, “Why couldn’t you have left me downstairs dealing with ordinary straightforward honest criminals?”

  “If it’s all too much for you, Harry, just say the word.”

  Tipper laughed. “I’ll manage. But what do we do after Armitage is arrested – presuming, of course, that Dickson’s taken it on the toes? Obo?”

  “I’m not sure that observation is the answer, at least not to begin with. I think what we need is full background enquiries on each, but covert; none of them must know that he’s under suspicion, let alone being investigated. It’ll call for some very delicate detective work. It’s distasteful in a sense, too, because almost certainly five of them are completely innocent – possibly all six. It might just be a horrible coincidence, but it’s too serious a matter to overlook, because if it’s true it won’t go away.”

  “And what if that proves nothing, which it probably will? What do we do next? Anyway aren’t all these blokes vetted?” Gaffney nodded. “Well if there was anything dodgy, aren’t they supposed to have picked it up?”

  “Supposed to,” said Gaffney. “But they aren’t looking for something specific – they’re just looking for anything. What we’ll be looking for is a crack, a blemish, the slightest thing that will tell us they’re working for the Russians – or for that matter, the East Germans, the Poles, or any of the other Iron Curtain countries.”

  “Some hope,” said Tipper.

  “Oh, it won’t be easy, and I’m conscious of the fact that if they are, we probably haven’t got a cat’s chance in hell of discovering it by plain footslogging detective work. These blokes are much too sophisticated – you’ve only got to look at the likes of Burgess, Maclean, Philby and Blunt to see that.”

  “You’ve only got to look at the blokes who tried to catch ’em,” said Tipper acidly. “Couldn’t catch a cold, half of them. They’ll all tell you afterwards that they always had their suspicions, but they didn’t do much at the time.”

  Gaffney laughed. “You’re much too cynical for one so young.”

  “Is there going to be any stage at which we can come out into the open in all this, sir?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well if we’re investigating bent coppers, we suspend everyone in sight; then we have them in and give ’em a good talking to – under caution, usually.”

  “What are you suggesting, Harry?”

  “Supposing this thing comes out right. Armitage gets nicked official, and Dickson does a runner; can we move in then and interrogate these monkeys?”

  Gaffney pondered on that. “I’d never given it a thought. Launch a full-scale investigation, you mean?”

  “Why not? To be perfectly honest, if we put surveillance on them, I reckon they’d spot it straightaway. After all, they’re in the trade – sort of.”

  “Would they spot it, though?” asked Gaffney with a grin. “How often do you look over your shoulder when you’re walking anywhere?”

  Tipper laughed. “Never, guv’nor. But then I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Chapter Six

  “Armitage received a greetings card yesterday morning,” said Geoffrey Hodder. “It congratulated him on his ‘success’, whatever that may mean. And it was signed ‘Alex’.”

  Terry Dobbs burst out laughing. “Good God,” he said. “Talk about tried and trusted methods. They’ve been using that name ever since the end of the Second World War.”

  “Yes,” said Hodder, and looked blank. “I suppose it’s an intimation that there’s to be another drop.”

  “Thursday?”

  “There’s nothing to indicate that on the card, but there wouldn’t be.” Hodder spoke in rather superior tones. “But I think we ought to increase the effort.”

  “How do we do that? We’ve got a heavyweight team on now.”

  “Well at least alert them to the possibility that something’s in the wind, so to speak.”

  “What a good idea.” There was sarcasm in Dobbs’s voice – a sarcasm that completely eluded Hodder; it annoyed him that these people from what was euphemistically called “another government department’ tended to overlook the fact that the police were carrying out investigations all day and every day. “There’s always the chance that they’
ve changed the day or the venue, of course.”

  “How? We’ve been intercepting their calls and their post.”

  “Pre-arrangement. It might be Thursdays one month – Fridays the next. Or every twenty days – or three days after the card. Christ, Geoffrey, you know the drill as well as I do.”

  Hodder nodded slowly and shrugged. “We’ll just have to be on the qui vive, that’s all.”

  *

  “It looks as though an arrest is imminent,” said Frank Hussey. “Terry Dobbs reckons it’ll be this Thursday. Do you think you ought to let Armitage know?”

  “No, sir. I advised him at the outset that he was likely to get nicked at some stage. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let him know now; we need his reaction to be as natural as possible when Terry Dobbs picks him up – for MI5’s benefit, because they’ll be there. It would be difficult anyway, MI5 having taps on the Battersea flat that he and Lester are living in; I have to wait for Marilyn Lester to ring me from a call-box, and she has to be damned careful in case they’ve put surveillance on her as well.”

  “They haven’t – according to Dobbs.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” said Gaffney, and laughed. “I was just about to say that Terry Dobbs’ll kill me when he eventually finds out that I set this all up, but now I don’t care.”

  “Have you thought what you’re going to do when Armitage is arrested, John?”

  “Yes and no. I’ve told both Armitage and Marilyn to make sure the flat’s clean – from our point of view, I mean. I’ve arranged that there’s something incriminating for the MI5 blokes to find: camera, few photographic negatives – that sort of thing. But what concerns me more is what happens if Dickson’s arrested. We’ve been working all along on the basis that when it comes to the crunch, he’ll be gone. Supposing he hasn’t? That’d knock the bottom out of Sir Edward’s case, and would leave us with a nasty allegation of agent provocateur to contend with.”

  “Bad luck,” said Hussey mildly. “Armitage would have to be released – that goes without saying, and that means that Five would have to lose Dickson. Just have to hope that he’s an illegal, here on false papers, then they could deport him. Think about it, John. We’re expecting him to escape anyway. It comes to the same thing in the long run.”