by M S Morris
‘As you no doubt already know,’ continued the woman, ‘the remit of the Security Service is domestic counter-intelligence and international counter-terrorism where it threatens the security of the UK.’
‘You mean spying on our enemies,’ said Bridget.
Jane stared back at her impassively. The man glanced at his watch.
Bridget tried a less antagonistic approach. ‘Is it possible that Diane Gilbert may have been considered a threat to national security?’
This time John answered. ‘Dr Gilbert was a person of interest to us. Somebody with her background and activities would always attract our attention.’
‘What can you tell me about her activities?’
‘What do you already know?’
God, it was hard work talking to these people. Like playing poker, and Bridget had never been any good at card games. They clearly had more practice than her at this particular game, and Bridget had no option other than to lay her cards on the table. ‘As a young woman, Diane Gilbert was arrested at Greenham Common for repeated breaches of the peace. In later life she conducted research into areas of policy relating to British and American arms exports to the Middle East. Shortly before her death she wrote a book which, to put it mildly, doesn’t portray the British government in a favourable light and puts at risk contracts worth billions of pounds.’
‘She was also an active member of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,’ volunteered Jane.
Bridget felt as if she’d been thrown a crumb. The news was hardly surprising given Diane Gilbert’s political views. Probably all the women at Greenham Common were members of CND. That was the point. She waited to see if any further information would be offered, but John and Jane had nothing to add. Bridget was damned if she had come all this way just to learn something she had already worked out for herself. ‘Given Diane’s political background, her research interests and the fact that she had written a deliberately contentious book,’ she said, ‘not to mention the fact that she had received a death threat, I have to consider the possibility that her death was a politically motivated assassination.’
She waited to see what effect that would produce.
‘What did your contact at the Saudi Embassy have to say to that theory?’ asked John.
Bridget tried to hide her surprise. She had said nothing about her visit to the embassy. No one knew about it apart from her own team – and Dearlove. ‘How did you know about that?’ she demanded.
‘It’s our job to know.’ Was that amusement playing on John’s lips?
The woman remained as sour-faced as ever.
‘The Saudis denied any involvement,’ said Bridget.
‘What did you expect them to say?’ asked John, giving her a patronising smile.
‘Not much,’ admitted Bridget. ‘But so far you’ve told me even less than they did. I came here hoping for some assistance. May I remind you that a British citizen has been murdered. How does the murder of a civilian rate as a threat to domestic security?’
She could tell that her accusation had finally hit the mark. John opened his mouth to speak, but Jane raised her hand to stop him. ‘We are doing our best to assist you, Inspector Hart. But perhaps you aren’t asking the right questions.’
‘What question should I be asking?’
But that only resulted in a shake of the head.
Bridget tried again. ‘Is it your belief that the Saudi security services played any part in Diane’s murder?’
‘If we had any evidence to suggest that possibility, we would be conducting our own investigation.’
‘And are you?’
‘I can’t answer that question.’
‘Then,’ said Bridget, ‘is it possible that the British Security Service had any involvement in her death?’
Jane was ready with her answer. ‘Contrary to popular belief’ – she cast a disdainful look in Bridget’s direction – ‘our officers are strictly prohibited from breaking the law. So it would be an impossibility for us to have carried out a murder or to have engaged in any kind of illegal activity.’
‘I see,’ said Bridget. The answer was the clearest and most definitive response she had been given this entire day, and she guessed that it was the best she could hope for. It was just as she had expected all along – an outright denial of any involvement by the Security Services in an extra-judiciary killing. Effectively a brick wall placed in her path.
‘On the other hand,’ added John, ‘sometimes our informants take matters into their own hands.’
‘Your informants?’
‘Sometimes known as agents. Members of the public acting informally on our behalf as intelligence gatherers. They engage in covert activities and report back to us on an ad hoc basis.’
‘And do you have an informant in Oxford?’
‘I’m afraid that we couldn’t possibly comment. To do so would compromise our operations and endanger our agent. If there was one.’
Jane rose to her feet, scraping back her chair loudly. ‘I think we’re done here.’
John also stood up, and Bridget was obliged to follow suit. Game over. She wasn’t sure how well she’d played, but the odds had been stacked against her from the beginning. ‘If I have any further questions, can I contact you again?’ she asked as they descended to the ground floor.
‘No, I’m afraid that would not be possible,’ said John. ‘But it was very nice to make your acquaintance.’ He shook her hand as he led her to the security gate. As before, Jane made no attempt to do the same.
*
‘Any luck yet, mate?’
Jake looked up from his computer where he’d been entering his notes into the HOLMES database. ‘Huh?’
‘Got any dates lined up?’ said Ryan, seating himself on the edge of Jake’s desk and dislodging some papers onto the floor.
Jake reached down in irritation to pick them up. ‘Careful where you park your fat arse. And keep your voice down, will you?’ He glanced in Ffion’s direction, but she was away from her desk for the moment. ‘I thought you were asking if I’d solved the case.’
‘Nah, I’m asking about the important stuff.’
Jake logged out of the database and shut down his computer. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to get any more work done today. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve had a few responses already.’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘Well…’ Actually Jake was quite amazed by how quickly his profile had attracted attention. He’d hoped that maybe one or two girls might get in touch, but to have garnered several replies from attractive women so quickly… well, it was good for a guy’s self-confidence, wasn’t it?
‘I told you it worked,’ said Ryan smugly. ‘So, have you fixed up any dates?’
‘Not yet. I need to consider them all carefully before I make my decision.’
Ryan let out a sigh, and Jake could tell that more advice was coming his way. ‘No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. You don’t want to spend ages thinking about it or they’ll assume you’re not interested. There’s no need to make any decisions. Just reply to all of them.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yeah, start with a bit of chat, then hit them up with an invitation to go out. These girls get a ton of attention. If you’re too slow, you’ll miss your chance.’
‘But how can I invite them all out? What if they all say yes?’
‘Try a different one each night. That way you’ll soon find out who’s right for you.’
Ryan leaned back casually, knocking some more papers off the desk. He looked like a man who knew what he was talking about. But Jake wasn’t so sure. Was this why Ryan had never settled down with anyone despite claiming to have loads of dates?
‘Here, pass your phone over, let me have a look.’
Reluctantly, Jake handed over his phone. Ryan opened up the app and started scrolling through the results. ‘What about her?’
The first woman who’d responded was a raven-haired, pale-skinned girl whose e
yes were loaded with heavy black mascara and eyeliner. She claimed that her name was Winter.
‘She looks pretty scary.’
Ryan resumed his scrolling, flicking lazily down the list with his thumb. ‘What about this one? She says she likes a guy with a great sense of humour. Sounds like fun. She looks nice too.’
‘Show me,’ said Jake.
The photo showed a woman with blonde, wavy hair that reached to her shoulders. Her full lips were curved into a generous smile.
‘Her name’s Tilly,’ said Ryan.
‘That can’t be a real name, can it?’ asked Jake.
‘It’s probably short for something. Matilda, Natalie, Tallulah… why don’t you fix up a date with her and you can ask her yourself?’
‘I don’t know…’
‘You’ve got nothing to lose.’
Jake glanced over at Ffion’s desk again. It was still empty. As was his social diary. Ryan was right – he literally had nothing to lose. ‘Oh, go on then,’ he said. ‘I’ll send her a message. See if she wants to meet up for a drink.’
He took his phone back and dashed off a message before his courage failed him. It was easier than asking a girl out in person, but his fingers still trembled as he tapped out the words. The idea that she might reject him was suddenly terrifying – almost as terrifying as the prospect that she might accept. How long would he have to wait for an answer?
Her reply came before he even had time to put his coat on. She would love to meet him tonight. Five minutes later, a time and a location had been agreed – a pub on the Cowley Road not far from Jake’s flat. There was just enough time for him to go home, have a shower, and get changed.
*
Normally Bridget would have liked nothing better than a day out in London, enjoying the hustle and bustle of the capital and passing an hour or two at a gallery or museum before calling in at a restaurant to round off the day. But this was a work day, and there had been no galleries or restaurants – no time for even a quick stop at a sandwich bar – and the hustle and bustle of the big city was simply exhausting. Her visits to the Saudi embassy and MI5 hadn’t got her very far, but perhaps her expectations had been too high. What had she been hoping for? A signed confession? She should perhaps be glad that she’d managed to get in and out without anything terrible happening to her. She turned to look behind her, half expecting to see a shadowy figure dressed in a raincoat and trilby hat lurking down the street, but there was no one sinister, just the usual assortment of people you encountered in London.
She was stressed, tired and hungry, and needed to get home to Oxford.
She walked a little further, as far as the Tate and was wondering whether ten minutes spent browsing the Pre-Raphaelite collection might put her in a better mood, when her phone buzzed with an incoming message. She was delighted to find a text from Jonathan. He’d landed at Heathrow and was on the Heathrow Express to Paddington, from where he would catch a train to Oxford.
Bridget called him back straight away. ‘Hi, it’s me. Don’t catch a train. I’m in London too. I’ll meet you at Paddington.’
‘See you by the clock?’ said Jonathan.
‘I’ll be there,’ said Bridget.
She made her way to the nearest underground station at Pimlico, and twenty minutes later she was standing under the famous three-sided clock on platform one as hassled commuters hurried towards the trains. Only the bronze statue of Paddington Bear, sitting astride his battered leather suitcase beneath the clock seemed at rest in the busy station.
When Jonathan emerged from the crowds, wheeling a small black suitcase, Bridget ran into his arms.
‘Well, this is romantic,’ he laughed. ‘We just need a steam train and some orchestral music.’
‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too. Next time you’ll have to take time off and come with me. Are you hungry?’
‘I’m starving.’
‘Come on then,’ said Jonathan, taking her hand. ‘I know the perfect Italian restaurant in Soho. Their tagliatelle with truffle cream sauce is to die for.’
20
‘Before I go into details about my trip to London yesterday,’ said Bridget, ‘does anyone have any updates for me?’
She was still feeling full after the previous night’s dinner in Soho. The restaurant had been tucked away in the maze of streets off Shaftesbury Avenue. Over delicious bowls of pasta, rich chocolate dessert and a bottle of the house red, Jonathan had told her about his time in New York and she had told him about the Saudi Embassy and MI5, without of course going into the details of the case. She had listened contentedly while he talked about the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Frick Collection, and all the colourful characters he had met during his trip. They had finally caught a late train back to Oxford and Bridget had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Now she was acutely aware that she had spent an entire day away from the office, and was keen to hear what progress everyone had made in her absence.
Ryan was first to deliver his news. ‘We got the toxicology report back,’ he said, waving a sheaf of papers in the air. ‘Definitely no Novichok so we can rule out the Russians.’ It was a bit too early in the morning for one of Ryan’s witticisms and his remark was met with little more than a polite chuckle. ‘However,’ he said, pressing on undaunted, ‘she was definitely poisoned. They found unusually high concentrations of phosphorous, magnesium and potassium in her blood. The guys in the lab were quite excited about it.’
Bridget raised a querying eyebrow.
‘Yeah,’ said Ryan. ‘They’d never seen that particular combination before. Magnesium poisoning is extremely rare because the kidneys normally remove it from the bloodstream, but in very high quantities it can cause cardiac arrest. Potassium can also lead to heart failure in very high blood serum concentrations, so a combination of magnesium and potassium injected directly into the heart… well, that would be very nasty.’
‘And phosphorus too, you said?’
‘Yeah. They weren’t too sure about the effects of that. But they were confident that the three substances mixed together would make a deadly cocktail, with almost instantaneous results.’
‘Which helps to explain why Diane was still in her bed when we found her,’ said Bridget. ‘She didn’t have time to move, or even to scream for help.’ It was yet another indication that the attacker had known exactly what they were doing. ‘Jake, how about you?’
Jake was sitting at the back of the room, his hands wrapped around his Leeds United coffee mug. He had a distracted air about him, but looked up when his name was mentioned. ‘Yes. I got hold of her phone records. There were no calls on the night of her death, but in the preceding twenty-four hours she made and received calls to her agent, her publisher, some of her work colleagues at the Blavatnik, and family. Oh, and also the journalist, Michael Dearlove.’
‘I expect that was about the interview at the literary festival,’ said Bridget. ‘What about her bank accounts?’
‘Ah, now that’s where things get more interesting. Diane had one bank account, and I’ve worked through all her statements for the past year. She spent a lot of money. As well as regular restaurant bills, clothes, and so on, she’s had a lot of refurbishment done to her house in the past twelve months. And it’s not what you’d call cut-price work.’
Bridget recalled the high-spec décor of the house and her impression that it was showroom-new. ‘Had she come into money recently?’
‘Well, there was a payment from her publisher a month ago.’
‘I suppose that would have been the advance for her book,’ said Bridget. ‘Enough to pay for all the work she had done on the house?’
‘Not by a long way. She also gets a monthly salary from the university. I checked and it’s in line with what you’d expect for a lecturer of her years of experience. Similar to a detective inspector’s salary in fact, ma’am.’
‘Enough to pay the bills, and put
a little aside.’ Bridget managed well enough on her income, but it certainly didn’t allow her to splash out on expensive refurbishments of her house in Wolvercote.
‘But there’s something else,’ said Jake.
‘Yes?’
‘She also received monthly payments from a company called Per Sempre Holdings. These payments vary from month to month, but they are way in excess of what she earned from the university or her publisher.’
‘Do you have the bank statements?’ asked Bridget.
Jake passed them to her. He had highlighted the mysterious payments in orange marker pen. Bridget’s eyes widened at the sums of money. No wonder Diane Gilbert had been able to fill her kitchen with high-end appliances.
‘I checked out her tax return too,’ said Jake. ‘These payments have been going on for several years, getting steadily larger. She declared them on her tax return as company dividends.’
Bridget looked again at the bank statements. ‘What do we know about this Per Sempre Holdings?’
‘The company’s registered in the Cayman Islands, so it’s not entirely straightforward to get the details. I’ve put in a request for disclosure, but it’s still pending.’
‘Per sempre is Italian for “forever”,’ said Ffion.
‘Italian?’ Ryan’s interest picked up. ‘Do you reckon it’s a mafia outfit?’
‘Could these payments be a bribe?’ asked Andy.
‘Or was Diane Gilbert blackmailing someone?’ suggested Harry.
‘Let’s keep an open mind on that, shall we?’ said Bridget. ‘At least until Jake’s found out a bit more about this company.’
She turned next to Ffion, who had so far said nothing about her own progress. ‘What’s the news with the phone and laptop?’
‘Not much,’ said Ffion. ‘Her phone is full of personal and work messages, as well as those steamy romance books I mentioned before.’
At the back of the room, Ryan sniggered and nudged Jake in the ribs. Jake immediately turned pink.
Ffion continued, taking no notice of the men’s behaviour. ‘Her emails and messages were mostly with family members and work colleagues.’