Confirm or Deny (Gaffney and Tipper Mysteries Book 2)

by Graham Ison

  “Not quite.” Gaffney thought that he was going to have trouble getting this girl to take his enquiries seriously. “But we do have to make certain enquiries about such people.”

  “I suppose you want to know all about his bad habits, is that it?”

  “If he has any, yes.”

  She leaned back in her chair pretending to be thoughtful. “Well…” She drew the word out. “He’s always wanting me to go to bed with him.” She smiled. It had been said flatly, with no trace of embarrassment, as another woman might have said that her man spent all his spare time sticking stamps in an album. She crossed her legs so that the split skirt fell away; she made no attempt to adjust it. “Not that I mind,” she said, closing her eyes briefly, and looking down with artificial modesty.

  “As a matter of interest, do you know precisely what he does in the civil service?”

  “No, not really,” she said airily. “He never talks about it. But then I don’t talk about my job either. We’re usually much too busy doing other things to worry about our jobs.” Again, she smiled, but this time she had sounded insincere, and a little nervous.

  “Never mentioned what he does, or where he goes?” Gaffney hammered it home.

  She shook her head, avoiding his gaze. “I know he works in London, and I’ve got his telephone number at the office, but he’s asked me never to use it – unless it’s a real emergency.”

  Like about ten minutes from now, thought Gaffney. “Do you know which ministry he works in?”

  “No – but you must know surely?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Gaffney. “I just wanted to see how much he talks about it to other people.”

  “Does that include fiancees and wives, too?”

  “Rather depends how much he trusts them, I suppose.”

  “Are you saying he doesn’t trust me, then?”

  “No, not at all.” Gaffney smiled. “Has he introduced you to many of his friends?”

  She thought about that for a few moments. “No,” she said. “He hasn’t introduced me to any. He said that all his friends were the people he worked with, and that they were all pretty uninteresting anyway.” She giggled again and shrugged her shoulders. “Actually what he said was that he wouldn’t trust any of his friends near me.” She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them the other way. The skirt remained parted, if anything showing a little more leg than before. “Would you like a drink?” she asked suddenly. “I’ve got a cocktail cabinet simply stuffed with duty-free.” Gaffney sensed tension behind the brittle gaiety and wondered what she was hiding.

  “No thank you, Miss Rigby.”

  She pouted. “Oh, not on duty, eh?”

  Gaffney didn’t bother to tackle that old chestnut. “You are aware I take it, Miss Rigby, that Mr Hughes is married?”

  She sat up slowly and covered her knees, her bubbly demeanor dissipating instantly. “I don’t believe you. You’re joking, aren’t you?” She looked from one to the other, and shook her head. “No – you’re not joking,” she said, seeing no comfort in their solemn faces.

  “I’m afraid not, no.”

  With a long-drawn-out sigh, she pushed her hands up through her blonde hair. For some time, there was silence in the room, broken only by the heavy beat of a stereo playing in a nearby flat. She took a deep breath and, gazing directly at Gaffney, said, “The bastard – the absolute shit.”

  “I take it you didn’t know,” said Gaffney, and Tipper looked out of the window, willing himself not to laugh.

  “No, I bloody well didn’t.” She stood up and walked about the room, a latent bundle of human energy, waiting to explode. Gaffney thought that he wouldn’t care to be Patrick Hughes the next time she spoke to him. Suddenly, she stopped and turned. “How long?” she asked.

  “How long?”

  “How long has he been married?”

  Gaffney shrugged. “About twelve years, I believe, I don’t know precisely.”

  “He told me he wasn’t married,” she said bitterly.

  “They do,” said Gaffney quietly.

  “What?”

  “You’re not the first girl to have been taken in by a married man in that way, Miss Rigby.” He spoke sympathetically. She might be a flirt, but she had clearly had a raw deal. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I automatically assumed that you would know.”

  “I’m not the sort of girl to have an affair with a married man.”

  Gaffney was not wholly convinced of that. “Are you all right?” he asked. She appeared to be in a trance, but he didn’t want to hear, later, that she had taken an overdose of drugs.

  She nodded. “Oh yes, I’m all right. I’m just shaking with bloody anger.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t tell you where he worked, Miss Rigby?”

  She laughed, a short scornful laugh. “He said he worked for MI5, but I didn’t believe that for a minute. He was obviously trying to impress me. Silly of him really; he didn’t need to.” She looked blankly beyond Gaffney. “I loved him… I think.”

  “And is that all he said?”

  “He said he couldn’t tell me what he did – it was all secret. I don’t know why he bothered to make it all up.” She remained quiet for a while, then: “He doesn’t work for MI5, does he?”

  “No,” said Gaffney, giving himself some licence in prejudging what he saw as an inevitability.

  She opened the front door. “I’m sorry – it’s been a shock.” She paused. “I didn’t even get your name.”

  “It’s Gaffney.” He spelt it for her.

  She closed the door behind the detectives, walked through into the sitting room and sat down on the settee. Then she spent a long time staring into space.

  *

  “What a double-dyed bastard he turned out to be,” said Tipper, as they walked back to the car.

  “If it’s all true,” said Gaffney. “Mind you, I don’t altogether blame him; she was rather gorgeous. But she could also be a good actress. Assume for a moment that she’s an agent – and she could be anything from Mossad to the KGB – and she had deliberately targeted Hughes. She gets him into bed and he tells her all she wants to know.”

  “Mossad? Why would the Israelis want to know anything about Soviet spies, guv’nor, and that’s what we’re talking about.”

  “Harry,” said Gaffney patiently. “One of the things you learn very quickly in this unsavory and dingy world of intelligence, is that all information has a price. That price is other information. If one agency picks something up that’s no good to them, they’ll trade it for something that is.”

  “How very underhand,” said Tipper.

  “Conversely,” continued Gaffney, “She might just be a pawn, an unwitting pawn. Airports are good places for picking up information; there are foreigners everywhere. And you never know who’s working for whom. Just suppose she tells another girl at the airport something that Hughes has told her. That girl tells another girl, who tells her bloke…”

  “Blimey,” said Tipper, “and I thought villains were bent.”

  “There again,” said Gaffney with a smile, “She might be shacked up with a bloke who’s an agent—”

  “As well as with Hughes, you mean?”

  “As well as with Hughes. It’s all happened before, Harry. Nothing’s new in this game; there’s a limited number of permutations.”

  Tipper nodded. “We’d better put a team on her, then; full background and surveillance.”

  “Yes. I want to know everything about that young lady.”

  “Be interesting to read the transcripts.”

  “Of what?”

  “Her next conversation with Hughes. She’s going to be straight on the odey—”

  “Straight on the what?”

  “Odey, guv. Eau-de-Cologne: phone!”

  Gaffney groaned. “I do wish you’d speak English, now that you’re a Special Branch officer, Harry. Yes, she probably will, but it may not tell us anything.”

  “But if she thought he was singl
e…”

  “And if she is an agent, she’s going to work on the assumption – all the time – that his or her telephone is on intercept, and act accordingly.”

  “Meaning what, sir?”

  “Meaning that she might just try to salvage something. Put the arm on him: threaten to tell his wife unless he keeps on coming across with the goods. But it’s all speculation until we know a bit more.”

  “Do we pay him a visit – Hughes?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “But—”

  “We wait,” said Gaffney. “Right now, she’s probably working out exactly what she’s going to say to him. She’ll remember my name because I purposely spelt it for her, and when he asks how she knows, she’ll tell him. Then, Harry, he’s going to panic, because he won’t be quite sure whether we’re doing some sort of vetting review, or whether it’s a part of our wider investigation. Depends on what she says on the phone really… if she’s kosher.”

  “Now we’re back to Mossad again,” murmured Tipper. “Either way, he’ll eventually come to see us.”

  “You can be very nasty when the mood takes you, sir.”

  “Yes,” said Gaffney, filling the car with cigar smoke.

  Tipper coughed and opened a window.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harry Tipper, being a very professional sort of policeman, always believed in doing as much as he possibly could seated at his desk. Only then did he leave the office and start making enquiries. He also believed, as a detective chief inspector, that he only did those things himself if he couldn’t find anyone else to do them for him. Harry Tipper was a master of delegation.

  Consequently, the small team of officers which Gaffney had assembled for the Armitage – Dickson enquiry was now shaken out of its reverie and made to work. Which came as a bit of a nasty shock. But results were soon forthcoming.

  The most important piece of information to a policeman making enquiries about anyone is that person’s date of birth. These days, most people drive motor cars, and the easiest place to acquire this information is from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Center which for some inexplicable reason is situated in Swansea.

  Detective Constable Richard Henley – one of the new Special Branch officers recruited by Gaffney and put straight to work – knocked on Tipper’s door and entered nervously. “I’ve got her date of birth, sir – 7th July 1952,” and he laid a piece of paper reverently on Tipper’s desk.

  “All right – just leave it. There’s nothing clever about that. If there was, I’d’ve given it to someone clever to do.” Somewhat abashed, the young man turned to leave. “Hold on,” said Tipper, “I haven’t finished with you yet. Get up to St Catherine’s House and get a copy of her birth certificate.” He paused. “You know where St Catherine’s House is, lad?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well find out,” said Tipper, “You’re a detective now.”

  DC Henley left, hurriedly. He was beginning to realize that joining Special Branch was to be given a licence to kill time – not a licence to kill.

  Tipper then sent for DC Bishop, another new entry, gave him Julia Hodder’s date of birth, and told him to search every index known to man – quickly.

  Despite constantly harassing his team, it was still some days before he was able to assemble even the barest of dossiers on Julia Hodder, nee Simpson. And this he now presented to Gaffney.

  *

  “We are not a great deal further forward, sir. We have her date of birth, and we have a copy of her birth certificate.”

  “What does that tell us, Harry?” asked Gaffney.

  “She was born in the maternity hospital in Hammersmith – Queen Charlotte’s – the daughter of George and Helen Simpson. They were living in Richmond at the time, and his occupation was shown as Colonial Service. I’ve had a marriage search done as well, but that contains no surprises. Geoffrey Hodder, divorced, married Julia Simpson, spinster, in 1978. His occupation was shown as civil servant, and the addresses tally. Passport Office confirm that she’s got a passport, but then she would have, wouldn’t she? The details on it match what we know. All other indexes searched – blank, nothing.”

  “And you were the one who said he knew a few tricks,” said Gaffney, laughing.

  “Guv’nor,” said Tipper, “I haven’t even started yet.”

  *

  There wasn’t a Colonial Office any more and Tipper sought help from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office whose Security Department was accommodated in one of the little back streets of Westminster that seemed largely untouched by the modern world without.

  “I’m Naylor,” said the tall, gray-haired man, rising from his desk. “How can I help you, Chief Inspector?”

  “I’m trying to trace someone who worked in the Colonial Service in 1952,” said Tipper, flipping open his pocket book.

  “Ah, well in that case you’ve come to the right place. You see, the Colonial Office was merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1967, and then merged again to form the present Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1968.” Naylor smiled. “Complicated, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Tipper. “I have a delicate enquiry—” He gazed levelly at Naylor. “—a part of which is to attempt to trace a George Simpson who, in 1952, was in the Colonial Service, but was living in Richmond, Surrey, at the time.”

  “Is that all the information you have?”

  “He was married to Helen Simpson, nee Gibson, and they had a daughter called Julia, born on—” He paused to consult his pocket book again. “—7th July 1952.”

  “Mmmm!” Naylor scribbled a few notes on a pad. “The difficulty here, of course, Chief Inspector, is that when the offices were merged, we took over their records as they stood, but there was not a great deal of work done on them – not much point really, if you take my meaning. And they ran different systems to those of the Foreign Office.” He smiled again, benevolently. He was obviously a Foreign Office man. “What exactly can I do to assist you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Tipper. “Anything that you’ve got. Frankly, I don’t know what I’m looking for; I’m just ferreting at the moment.”

  “It’s a long time ago, of course,” said Naylor, “but I’ll do what I can.”

  Tipper gave him his telephone number at the Yard. “Will it take long?”

  “Difficult to say. There is obviously some urgency as far as you’re concerned?”

  “Yes indeed.”

  “Have you any idea where he may have served?”

  “Not really. But if it’s any help, I understand that the daughter, Julia, worked for a charity in Africa until about ten or eleven years ago. It may be that he was in Africa… Come to think of it, she said that she had been brought up in Nigeria, and that her family were old Africa hands – that was the phrase she used. Is that any help?”

  “At least it gives us a point of reference,” said Naylor. “Old Africa hands, eh? That’s not a phrase you hear too often now. Leave it with me, Chief Inspector. It may be that our man in Lagos can assist.”

  “Fine,” said Tipper, “but perhaps you could let me have anything as you get it, rather than wait for replies to telegrams.”

  “I take it you’ve dealt with the Foreign Office before,” Naylor said with a smile. He stood up and extended his hand. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve got anything at all.”

  *

  It took a mere ninety-six hours, which included what must have been an anguished weekend, for Patrick Hughes to come to Scotland Yard. He had telephoned Gaffney in the morning and asked if he could see him that evening.

  He was not, however, at all contrite; he was very angry. “What right have you got, going to see Miss Rigby and telling her I was married?”

  “Every right, Mr Hughes,” said Gaffney. “I am investigating, firstly a suspicious death, and secondly a serious leak in the service which currently employs you.” He made a point of emphasising the “currently”.

  “I don’t see what it has t
o do with Geoffrey’s untimely death.”

  “I don’t suppose you do, Mr Hughes, but then you’re not the investigating officer, are you?”

  “But—”

  “Why didn’t you declare this affair you are having at the time of your positive vetting?” Gaffney didn’t know that he hadn’t but guessed that that was the case. He hadn’t been allowed to see the vetting reports on any of the team, but didn’t see why he should tell Hughes that.

  “I – er – well…” The bravado had gone as quickly as it had been contrived, and he stumbled into a halfhearted explanation. “It doesn’t affect my work,” he said eventually. “What’s it got to do with them if I don’t get on with my wife? She’s quite happy – we go our separate ways.”

  “It is a question which is specifically put,” said Gaffney, who remembered his own positive vetting interview, and had been glad that he hadn’t been having an affair with anyone at the time, and had been able, honestly, to answer in the negative.

  “Yes, I know, but it’s only relevant if they think that pressure is likely to be put on as a result of it.”

  “And you think that in your case that is unlikely?”

  “Yes. I said we go our separate ways.”

  “Does that mean that your wife’s also having an affair?”

  As a proposition, that had clearly never occurred to him. At first he avoided the question. “Look – I don’t see what all this has to do—”

  “Just answer the question, Mr Hughes,” said Gaffney sharply.

  Hughes hesitated for a further moment. “Quite frankly, no. To be honest, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to have an affair with Shirley. Anyway, she’s too tied up in her work.”

  “Which is?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What is your wife’s work, Mr Hughes?”

  “She’s a social worker.”

  “I see,” said Gaffney. Tipper sniffed. “And she doesn’t have time for affairs, even though you said that you each go your own way?”

  Hughes looked down at his feet. “It’s not so much that,” he said. “She’s not the most attractive woman in the world. A bit of a bluestocking, as a matter of fact.”