Hardcastle's Frustration

by Graham Ison

  ‘I am in some doubt about Watkins’s motive,’ he wrote. ‘It seems to me that he was genuinely labouring under the impression that he committed the murder on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, and given that this country is at war, one assumes he imagined it to be an act of patriotism. Having been threatened with execution if he spoke to anyone about the task he had been set, he was, I believe, loath to approach even the police. In view of this apparent conflict, the sentence of death is commuted to one of life imprisonment.’

  A year later, Henry Watkins died of natural causes in Dartmoor prison.

  A month after Gerhard von Kleiber’s execution, Superintendent Hudson, the head of the Whitehall Division, entered Hardcastle’s office.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ said the DDI, rising to his feet and putting his pipe in the ashtray.

  ‘There’s an interesting item on the Court Circular page of the Daily Telegraph this morning, Ernie,’ said Hudson. He opened the paper and read aloud. ‘His Majesty the King has been graciously pleased to appoint Mrs Mavis Parker a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the State.’