by Graham Ison
“Hodder drew me to one side and told me that he was just off to Teddington with your people to arrest an army officer and, hopefully, the contact.”
“What did you do then?”
“Rejoined Cutty and went into the DG’s office. It was a heads of department meeting; we were there until about a quarter past seven.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Bloody meetings,” he said. Then he beamed. “So you see, John, I couldn’t have told anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Cutty didn’t overhear any of this?”
“Certainly not. That’s the way we work here; but I must say, John, that I think you’re clutching at straws.”
“Didn’t you find that all rather strange? Hodder sidling up to you in the corridor and whispering that he was just off to arrest a spy. Wouldn’t you, as his boss, have expected to be told much sooner, and be given the full details?”
“Not really, no.” Carfax leaned back in his chair and stretched, revealing even more of his ample stomach. “Hodder was a strange fellow, of course…”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“He was a dark horse—”
“An admirable quality for an intelligence officer, I should have thought.” Gaffney smiled.
Carfax ignored that; he was a serious-minded individual. “I knew Geoffrey for…” He paused, calculating. “Nigh on twenty-five years, I suppose; and yet in all that time, I didn’t really know him at all.”
Gaffney thought that there would be no harm in revealing a little of what he had learned already; it might prompt the reticent Carfax into saying more. “The chaps he was in the army with said that he was a bit of a live wire.”
“Really.” Carfax spoke flatly.
“He lived quite a high life in Berlin apparently. Always drinking, and out with women most of his spare time.” Carfax knitted his bushy eyebrows together into a tight frown. “You surprise me; doesn’t sound like the Geoffrey Hodder I knew.”
“Or didn’t know.”
“What?”
“You said that you didn’t really know him at all.”
“Yes, true, but even so. If a man’s an alcoholic, it shows.”
“They didn’t suggest that he was that; just said that he liked a good time.”
Carfax nodded gravely. “Wouldn’t surprise me to hear that he was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde character. He was positively vetted though – naturally.” He said it as though it was utterly foolproof, yet both he and Gaffney knew that it was far from being so. “His divorce came as a tremendous shock to us.”
“I suppose you’d have known his wife? His first wife, of course.”
“Went to the wedding. Well we all knew her, those of us who were here at the time. She used to work for the service. In a secretarial capacity, of course.” He added the last sentence with some disdain; there was a clear demarcation in his mind between officers and the rest. “Pleasant enough girl.”
“Did you ever meet his second wife?”
“No. I don’t think anyone did – not from the office, anyway. I suspect that no one would have known about it, but he had to declare it for vetting and that sort of thing.”
“Was he a womanizer?”
Carfax appeared to give that some thought. Eventually he said, “No. No, I wouldn’t have thought so.” Then he added, earnestly, “That sort of thing’s frowned on in the service, you know.”
Gaffney suppressed a laugh. “I’ve no doubt; but does that stop it?”
Carfax considered the point with some care. “Probably not, but it does tend to blight one’s progress.”
“Let me frame it another way. Did you have any reason to suppose that Hodder had liaisons with other women?”
“No.” Carfax shook his head, and for the first time during the interview allowed a wintry smile to cross his face. “Not him.”
“And yet,” said Gaffney, “we know that he did have an affair, with Julia Simpson, whom he later married. If he’d done it once, surely he could have done it again.”
“Oh, I think that was rather different. In my opinion, his first marriage was a mistake. She wasn’t really up to much. As I said, she was a secretary. Ran after him by all accounts. Interesting that, now you mention him being a bit of a live wire. Up until his marriage – his first marriage – he was quite an amusing fellow; quite bright and lively. Mind you, he was much younger then; but marrying that girl, Elizabeth Barlow she was then, seemed to put years on him. Never the same after that.”
“What was she like – Elizabeth Barlow?”
“Strange girl. Been a nurse, I understand, but came into the service via the Ministry of Defence. Apparently nursing didn’t pay very well. Always a bit dowdy; clean and smart, but never attractively turned out, if you know what I mean. Don’t really know what attracted him to her. I must say it took everyone by surprise when he announced his engagement.” He shook his head. “Never can tell, of course; I suppose she must have had something.”
“Money, perhaps?”
“Good Lord no. Well I just said that she left nursing because it didn’t pay enough. Why d’you ask?”
“The house the Hodders lived in must be worth nearly a hundred and forty thousand. Seemed a bit high when you look at his rate of pay.”
“Yes, I suppose it does – now. But Geoffrey bought that house years ago, very shortly after he came out of the army; before he was married even. Wish I’d done the same thing. It was about the only bit of foresight he ever showed.”
“That sounds as though he wasn’t very good at his job.”
Carfax took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Frankly no. That’s not to say that he was inefficient. He was adequate, but somewhat pedestrian. Never had any flair, if you know what I mean.”
“Why did he get promoted then?” asked Gaffney. He could imagine the sort of annual confidential report Carfax had written on the hapless Hodder.
Carfax spread his hands. “These things happen,” he said. “Because someone is reasonably capable of doing the job they have, people automatically think that they’ll be able to do the next one up. Doesn’t always work. In fact, sometimes it goes the other way. A chap who’s not much good will shine when he’s pushed up. Probably happens in the police, doesn’t it?”
Gaffney nodded; he could apply that description to quite a few of his colleagues. “He’d reached his maximum then, would you say?”
“Quite definitely. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t too happy with his performance; intended to speak to the DG about it and get him moved.” He leaned forward as if to impart a confidence. “My view of this Dickson business and the two before it, is that it was due entirely to Geoffrey Hodder’s inadequacy. Personally I don’t think there’s a leak; just bad staff work. You’ve got to think it through, you see, John. One case goes wrong – Nikitin. That could be a leak. But three in a row; no one would take a chance like that. It’s the opposite of what it seems. Three times is too much to indicate a traitor; no agent in the world is going to take that sort of risk of exposure, because everyone’s going to suspect immediately…”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose, but it still doesn’t explain Hodder’s death.”
“Oh, my dear fellow, that could be explained in a variety of ways.”
Gaffney leaned back. “Go on then.”
“Well he’s got a flighty young wife—”
“I thought you’d never met her.”
Carfax looked pained. “I am an intelligence officer of some considerable experience,” he said. “One picks these things up.”
Gaffney gave him that. “All right,” he said, “but what has that to do with it?”
“Just imagine that she’s playing around. It would make him a laughing stock in that village where he lives. Very serious fellow was Geoffrey; he couldn’t bear that. Imagine the reaction; people sniggering behind his back. No.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with his death. Are you suggesting that she killed him?”
“Everyone I’ve spoken to automatically jumps to the conclusion that Hodder took his own life,” said Gaffney. “But they are then unable to suggest any good reason. You’re suggesting that he did so because his wife was playing around with other men.”
“Well it’s happened often enough in the past.”
“I don’t think so. I think you’re confusing it with murder committed to take one side out of the eternal triangle. You’ve already dismissed that; and so, incidentally, have I.”
“Then perhaps he feared exposure.”
“Of what?”
“These three jobs going wrong.”
“Oh come now,” said Gaffney. “You can’t be serious. If everybody who was no good at his job committed suicide, the world population would plummet overnight. In my experience, inefficiency is more often than not rewarded with promotion.” He looked hard at Carfax. “What did you learn from your investigation? Is what you’re saying a result of what you discovered?”
“Not really, no. I didn’t learn very much at all; probably no more or less than you have done.”
“Which was what?” Gaffney was beginning to tire of this cat-and-mouse conversation.
“Very simply that Hodder seemed to tell no one any of the details; at least nothing very much—”
“But enough,” said Gaffney. “As you yourself said, the mere indication that an army officer was involved would have been sufficient, if that information was planted in the right place.”
“True, yes true. But d’you not see the difficulty – for us as investigators, I mean…”
Gaffney was mildly amused that Carfax had not aligned himself with the suspects. “What do you mean?”
“All you need,” said Carfax patiently, “is a public telephone box and the right number to ring. It’s untraceable.”
“And is that the conclusion you came to?”
“Only because of the absence of any alternative. We’re dealing with seasoned intelligence officers here. They know the tricks of the trade, so to speak. They are not going to arrange clandestine meetings with Russian agents in Kensington Palace Gardens, are they now? No, of course not.” He answered his own question. “A quick telephone call and the damage is done.” He held up his hands in an attitude of surrender. “It’s as simple as that,” he said.
Not to Gaffney it wasn’t. “What form did your enquiries take?”
“Asked the usual questions. How much did you know? Who told you? Who did you tell?”
“And you were satisfied with the answers?”
“Case of having to be,” said Carfax. “What else can one do?”
It was a good question; and it was one that Gaffney had been asking himself ever since he had been assigned the enquiry. Short of massive technical and physical surveillance, there was little more that could be done; even then it might produce nothing. Unless, of course, you got very lucky. “What’s your view of Peter Selby?” he asked, deciding on a change of tack.
Carfax smiled. “No one seems to like him,” he said. “But it’s his unfortunate attitude, I think. He’s a very capable officer. He does have this rather supercilious approach that tends to rub people up the wrong way, but he’s utterly reliable. I’d stake my reputation on that. Trouble is that Hodder and people like him don’t trust him; think he’s homosexual…”
“And is he?”
“Good God no.”
“How can you be so sure? And don’t say vetting,” added Gaffney with a smile.
“Oh but I do say vetting,” said Carfax. “They’re a little more particular with chaps like him—”
“Like him?”
“Thirtyish and single; particularly when they’re working for the Security Service. I’m quite satisfied that he is heterosexual – and loyal.”
Gaffney shrugged. “If you say so.” He was prepared to take Carfax’s word for that. He didn’t like Selby personally, but he did not have the same downright view of his sexual proclivities that Tipper seemed to adopt.
“Did Geoffrey commit suicide, by the way?” asked Carfax.
“Don’t know. I’m still not satisfied, and I’m awaiting the outcome of further tests – and enquiries.”
“I hope he did,” said Carfax.
“That’s an odd thing to say.”
“Not really. Suicides happen but imagine the publicity if one of our people got murdered…”
Gaffney nodded. “Yes, I can quite see that,” he said. “Especially if he was killed by a jealous husband.”
*
Gaffney looked at the clock as the phone rang. “That’ll be her,” he said to Tipper. Three or four days after their visit to Hitchin, Gaffney had received a telephone call from a hesitant Tina Harris. She was going to be in London, shopping, the following day and asked if she could see Gaffney. He had arranged for her to call at the Yard.
“Would you have her brought up, please,” he said to the receptionist, and replaced the handset.
A few minutes later, Mrs Harris appeared in Gaffney’s office. “You remember Chief Inspector Tipper?” he asked, as he offered her a chair.
“Yes, of course.” She smiled briefly at Tipper as she sat down and arranged herself. She looked much less confident than when they had last seen her, even allowing for the overawing effect of Scotland Yard, and played nervously with the strap of her handbag.
“This business of Geoffrey Hodder,” she began. “It is rather important, isn’t it?”
Gaffney smiled comfortingly. He had deduced that whatever Tina Harris was about to tell him had taken some fortitude. “Yes, Mrs Harris. Unexplained deaths are always regarded by the police as extremely important,” he said quietly.
For a few seconds, she sat in silence, still wrestling with herself about the wisdom of having come to see Gaffney at all. Gaffney let her sit, knowing that having come this far, she would tell him in her own time why. Finally, she looked up. “I’m afraid that my husband and I weren’t entirely honest with you the other evening,” she said.
“I see.” Gaffney tried not to make it sound like an admonition. “In what way?”
Again a silence while she summoned up the courage to say what was on her mind. “About three years ago, my husband had an affair with Julia Hodder.” She spoke flatly, her face emotionless.
Gaffney smiled. “Why didn’t you mention it the other night?”
“I suppose we would have done it we’d had time to think about it. But it’s a bit embarrassing, and neither of us had the nerve to raise it – I suppose that’s the truth of the matter. It’s not taboo; we talk about it quite openly, even joke about it. You may think it’s silly, but I could hardly have mentioned it first, and I suppose Dick didn’t say anything in case it embarrassed me. Even so, I tried to prompt him.”
“And does your husband know that you’re here now?”
“No – but I shall tell him I’ve been to see you.”
“How did you find out – about the affair, I mean?”
“I had a letter – from a well-wisher.” She half smiled. “These things happen in villages, you know. They’re very parochial.”
“And what did it say – this letter?”
“Just that – that my husband was having an affair with Julia Hodder, and I ought to know. It was actually signed ‘A Well-wisher’ – I thought that sort of thing only happened in books.”
Gaffney nodded. “So did I. What did you do?”
“I burned it.”
“Is that all?”
“Oh no. I had it out with Dick. It was all very civilized. I just told him that I’d had this letter, and I asked him if it was true.”
“What did he say?”
“He admitted it – to my surprise. I’d honestly thought that it was a piece of malice, without any foundation. But he said he had – called it more a wild fling than an affair. Then he asked me if I wanted a divorce.”
“And what
did you say to that?”
“I laughed, and asked him where he would go. Then I told him not to be so damned silly.”
“And?”
“He promised never to see her again.”
“And did he keep his promise?” asked Gaffney, and then added, “I’m sorry to have to ask you that.”
She gave that some thought. “Yes, I think so.” She spoke pensively. She’d probably never asked herself that – deliberately.
“Mrs Harris, forgive me for asking this question, because I know that to come here obviously took some courage on your part, but why did you think it important?”
She didn’t react to that, looked neither surprised nor annoyed. “Because I don’t think the Hodders were as happy as they made out. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? If they were idyllically happy, why should Julia have had an affair with my husband? And if she had an affair with him, how many other men did she have affairs with?”
“Do you know of any?”
“No, I don’t, but there are other men in other places, aren’t there? It didn’t have to be one of our neighbors. There’s another thing too. If my well-wisher wrote to me, she could have written to Geoffrey Hodder as well.”
“You say she.”
“I’m sorry – I don’t quite—”
“The well-wisher – you referred to the well-wisher as she. Did you know who it was – that it was a woman?”
She shook her head and smiled. “No. I just assumed it was a woman. Men aren’t that petty, are they? It’s the men who have the affairs – it’s the women who complain about them.”
“Yes, Mrs Harris, but for every man who has an affair, there’s got to be a woman…”
For the first time, she laughed. “Yes, I suppose so. I’d never really thought of it like that. Perhaps I’ve been missing something.”
Gaffney studied her and decided that he wouldn’t mind having an affair with her himself. “When we saw you and your husband the other evening, your husband said, first of all, that Geoffrey Hodder wasn’t a very happy man, but later he – and you, if I remember correctly – described him as blissfully happy. Was that a slip of the tongue?”
“Yes and no. Once the trauma of the divorce was out of the way and he married Julia, yes, he was very happy. But after about a year he seemed to decline into his old introverted self. Perhaps Julia was playing fast and loose even that early.” She looked around Gaffney’s office, at the group photographs of his courses at the Detective Training School, and a later one from the Police College. Then she looked back at him, brow furrowed. “The thing that’s puzzled me all along, Mr Gaffney, is why on earth Julia should have married Geoffrey at all. She was an attractive woman; still is. She could probably have had any man she wanted. But why him? He hadn’t got any money – well nothing to talk of; he must have been supporting Elizabeth and the children. He certainly wasn’t good-looking, and he was quite a few years older than her. None of it makes sense – not to me, anyway.”
