Confirm or Deny

by Graham Ison

  “How little?” Tipper was relentless.

  “Well nothing, actually.”

  “I see. You were involved, I suppose. We haven’t been misinformed?”

  “I was briefed, along with other members of the team, but it was fairly straightforward. Real textbook stuff, as a matter of fact. Straight drop at a DLB – er, dead-letter box—”

  “I do know what a DLB is,” said Tipper. “Why were you briefed then, if you were going to take no part in all this?”

  “For afterwards.”

  “For afterwards?”

  “Yes, after the arrest. I mean, the Armitage fellow would have been no problem. Just some poor guy with no resistance to a bribe, or whatever—”

  “Or a loose woman,” said Tipper. “So your job was to enquire into Dickson and his activities, was it?”

  “Yes. There’d be a tremendous amount of background work to be done. Always the chance of others involved, you know. And there’d be the damage report to prepare…” He tried to imply that these were the academic aspects – the esoteric – that mere policemen could not possibly be bright enough to deal with.

  Tipper was unimpressed. “So you were the junior hand – the dogsbody, so to speak?”

  Selby studied his right hand for a moment or two, a delicate artistic hand that looked almost too frail to support the heavy signet ring on the fourth finger. “I suppose so, yes,” he said. “Were you involved in the surveillance on Dickson?”

  “No. The watchers took care of that.” And not very well, thought Gaffney, but said nothing. “Geoffrey briefed them.”

  “But surely there were some enquiries made?”

  “Of course.” Again, the accentuated sneer.

  “What sort of enquiries?”

  “The usual checks. We confirmed where he worked, how old he was, where he was born – that sort of thing.”

  “And where was Dickson born?”

  “Australia, as a matter of fact.”

  “Confirmed?” Tipper’s questions came fast after the answers, giving Selby little time to think. He was an expert interrogator was Tipper.

  “Not yet.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We’re still waiting for ASIO.” He saw Tipper’s raised eyebrows. “Australian Security Intelligence Organization.”

  “I’ve got a pony says it doesn’t check out,” said Tipper. Selby looked genuinely puzzled. “A pony is criminal slang for twenty-five pounds,” said Tipper casually. “I suppose you sent them a letter?”

  “Not exactly – we did it through our liaison.”

  “Oh!” There was a wealth of sarcasm in that single word. “All in all, then, you didn’t know a great deal of what was going on?”

  “Geoffrey did tend to play it close to the chest.”

  “Why do you think that was?”

  “Standard practice in the office, I’m afraid.”

  “Who else was part of this little team?” Gaffney took up the questioning again, now that Tipper had softened Selby up a bit.

  For a moment or two, Selby said nothing, trying perhaps to recall the names, maybe wondering whether he should tell these two policemen even if he could remember. “Apart from Geoffrey, there was Douglas Craven, Patrick Hughes, Jim Anderson and Fred Weston.”

  “Seems a lot.”

  “You never know how something like this is going to develop. It’s easier to shed extra guys than take them on halfway through. Anyway, they each have their own skills – cyphers, handwriting, locks – that sort of thing.”

  “And you – what’s your speciality?”

  “Languages. I have a degree in modern languages, and I speak Russian – fluently,” he added, preening himself slightly.

  “And you will all have discussed this job among yourselves, presumably?” asked Gaffney.

  “Good Lord, no – that would have been most improper.”

  Gaffney didn’t believe that for a moment; that was just a formal denial. “Who, out of the six of you, would have known most about this job? Well, the five of you – you can leave out Hodder.”

  Selby pondered on that for a while. Eventually he said; “Patrick Hughes, I suppose.”

  “Why him?”

  “Well he’s – was – Geoffrey’s unofficial deputy.”

  “And what’s his particular qualification?”

  “Nothing really – he’s a mathematician.” He said it as though it was not the sort of thing one mentioned in polite company.

  Gaffney thumbed through his pocket book. “Lives in Twickenham, I believe.”

  “I have no idea,” said Selby, as though he couldn’t conceive of anyone living in Twickenham.

  “What was your impression of Hodder after the disappearance of Dickson?”

  “My impression of him?”

  “Yes, Mr Selby,” said Gaffney impatiently. “What was his demeanor like? Did he say anything – react in any way?”

  “Oh, I see.” Selby spoke in a tired way and passed a hand across his forehead. Gaffney noticed that there was a bead or two of perspiration there. “If anything, I suppose he was a little more withdrawn than usual.”

  “Was he normally a withdrawn individual, then?”

  “He was never very communicative.”

  “What I’m trying to get at is whether the failure to capture Dickson, particularly after the previous two failures, had got him down to the extent that he might have committed suicide—”

  “So he did commit suicide.”

  “—Or on the other hand, whether someone had decided to remove him in the most forcible way possible.” Gaffney had continued as though Selby hadn’t spoken.

  Selby looked startled, a quick show of fear that he too might be vulnerable. “Why should anyone want to kill Geoffrey?”

  “That is precisely what I am trying to determine.”

  “But surely you must know how he died.”

  “Not yet, no,” lied Gaffney. “There are tests to be carried out. No doubt you remember the Markov case – the poison pellet fired from an umbrella? Took quite some time to establish the cause of death in that case.”

  Selby looked appalled. “But surely…” He relapsed into silence, stunned by the concept that anyone working in the cozy little world of MI5 could actually be killed because of what he did. MI6 maybe, but MI5…

  “Well look at it this way,” said Gaffney. “Do you really see Geoffrey Hodder as the sort of man who would commit suicide in a public lavatory on Waterloo Station? Drunks, tramps and drug addicts maybe, but a senior intelligence officer of MI5?”

  “I presume, from what you were saying just now, that Patrick Hughes will have taken over where Hodder left off?” It was another of Tipper’s straight-to-the-point questions.

  “Er – yes, I suppose so.” Selby nodded vaguely.

  “In that case we’d better talk to him.”

  *

  “What’s the betting he’s on the phone to Hughes right now?” said Tipper with a chuckle, as they walked back to the car.

  “Not him, Harry. He’d be bloody terrified that we’d see that as conspiracy. He might look stupid, but he’s got enough sense to have worked out that the hunt is on. What’s more, he’ll probably think that we’ve got a tap on his line. No, he’ll just curl up into a foetal ball and stick his thumb in his mouth.”

  Gaffney and Tipper had discussed Selby at some length. Tipper’s mainline CID background had led him to believe that an unmarried, effete individual like Selby must be, as he put it, “as queer as a nine-bob note”, but that was not helpful. Contrary to popular belief, homosexuals do not automatically become traitors; the official view is that they are more susceptible to pressure. Or they used to be; nowadays, Gaffney wasn’t so sure.

  “He certainly didn’t give anything away,” said Tipper, “except that he was terrified. You could almost smell the panic.”

  “There’s too much at stake, Harry. Anyone in the Security Service knows the going rate for spying, in any form, and twenty-five years in the ni
ck is too high a price to pay.”

  “I don’t think he’s got the guts to go bent.”

  “Don’t you believe it. Very few of the people who betray their country seem to have the stomach for it. One of the things we have to deal with in Special Branch is the ideologically motivated traitor, and that produces some very strange characters. Selby wouldn’t have much physical courage but if he thinks he’s right in his views it produces a gritty sort of determination to stay with it. And he’s got all the hallmarks of a closet socialist.”

  “Too much for me, guv’nor,” said Tipper with a shake of the head. “What do we do now?”

  “I’m afraid there’s only one thing for it. Plain old-fashioned, tedious detective work.”

  “Now that I do know something about.” Tipper sighed.

  Gaffney leaned back in his chair and lighted one of his cigars. “But that will take time.”

  “We’ve got plenty of it.” Tipper paused. “Haven’t we?”

  “Yes. There’s no hurry, unless another similar job comes up, and the same thing happens all over again. If it does then we’ll get some of the backwash too.”

  “What about Armitage? That’s blown out, hasn’t it? We can’t just leave him, can we?”

  “I don’t see why not,” said Gaffney, smiling. “He’s locked up in a flat in Battersea with an attractive girl – what’s he got to complain about?”

  “What are you going to do then? Run through the list?”

  “I think so. We’ll interview the rest of Hodder’s little chums – see what they’ve got to say for themselves, then stop and survey what we’ve got. Unless we have a lucky break, we’ll probably have to interview them all a second time, but as you said, we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Don’t forget the Harrises, sir – the people who introduced Hodder to his second wife. They could afford us an outside view of the relationship – and the man: Hodder, I mean.”

  Gaffney looked thoughtful. “Yeah – but I don’t want to get confused. Let’s do the team first.”

  “Right, but where – their place or ours?”

  The table and chairs in the room at Security Service headquarters, which Gaffney had been assigned were standard government issue, spartan gray tubular steel and heavy-duty plastic. Gaffney was not sure whether that was an advantage to his enquiry or not. The one drawback was that his interviews would be conducted on the subjects’ home ground. He had considered Scotland Yard and dismissed it as a trifle melodramatic, and he had shied away from local police stations on security grounds and the fact that, although he and Tipper might regard them as suspects, he didn’t want them to think of themselves as such – at least not yet. Some of the wives did not, in all probability, know what their husbands did for a living, so that ruled out the sort of homely interview they had had with Selby. And that left the headquarters of MI5; not entirely satisfactory, but at least he had Tipper to offset any feelings of superiority that the members of the late Geoffrey Hodder’s team might have derived from being in familiar surroundings.

  Almost the first thing that Patrick Hughes told Gaffney and Tipper was that he had a degree, which caused Tipper to comment later that the only people who talked about their degrees were people with degrees that weren’t worth talking about. Hughes also adopted a languid superiority that implied that he didn’t rate policemen too much, even Special Branch officers.

  Gaffney explained the purpose of the interview: that he and Tipper were investigating the death of Hodder. Hughes remained apparently unmoved by the demise of his boss, sitting with a half-cynical smile on his face.

  “I shall be glad to help you, Mr Gaffney,” he said, a statement which left Tipper convinced that that was the last thing he would do. “I presume it was suicide?”

  Again, the casual and convenient presumption that Selby had made, that Hodder had done away with himself, and by implication, the sooner forgotten, the better. Again Gaffney made the same counter: “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  “What else could it have been?”

  “He could have been murdered. It’s a possibility that I am not dismissing.”

  Hughes smiled lazily. “Oh, I wouldn’t have thought so.”

  “Why do you say that? People do get murdered, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, but who could possibly have wanted to kill Geoffrey? He was such a quiet unassuming fellow.”

  “The Russians?”

  That startled Hughes, but then he smiled again. “Now that is being a bit melodramatic, surely?”

  “Is it? You know that he had been trying to find out where the leak was?”

  Hughes shook his head in puzzlement, still the sarcastic smile on his face. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow…”

  “I think you do,” said Gaffney. “I’m talking about the somewhat rapid departure of Peter Dickson – at the very moment that he was going to be arrested. And, as you well know, that followed the similar disappearance of Nikitin and Gesschner.”

  Hughes shrugged his shoulders. “These things happen.”

  “What things? Unexplained deaths – or jobs that go wrong?”

  “Cases that don’t come to fruition.” Hughes leaned back and crossed his legs, managing to look relaxed and comfortable in a chair that didn’t encourage either. “I mean, we can’t get it right all the time.”

  “Once in a while wouldn’t hurt, though,” said Tipper acidly. “I would remind you that two out of the three cases to which you allude also involved Special Branch. Can you be sure that the problems could not have been attributable to your own people?”

  Gaffney wasn’t going to rise to that. “Thank you, Mr Hughes,” he said icily. “I was aware of that. How much did you know about these cases in advance?”

  “If you’ll forgive me for saying so,” said Hughes, “We seem to have progressed rather rapidly from talking about Geoffrey Hodder’s death to recent and current operations. You will know that I can’t possibly talk about those things – even to Special Branch.”

  Gaffney handed him the Director-General’s letter.

  Hughes made a great show of taking out his glasses, wiping them with his handkerchief, and putting them on. Then he read the letter, appearing to give great attention to Griffin’s signature, as though it might have been a forgery. “Mmm!” he said, and handed it back.

  “Well?”

  “Hardly anything in the Dickson case. A little more of the other two, but not enough to be able to give any useful information to a foreign power.” He said it with a supercilious drawl.

  “Who said anything about giving information to a foreign power?” asked Gaffney.

  Hughes tensed slightly. “Well that’s the implication, isn’t it?” He realized that he might have said too much.

  “Not the implication, Mr Hughes – your inference.”

  He spread his hands. “Er – well, I assumed that was why you were making these enquiries.”

  “Well you assumed wrongly,” said Gaffney. “As I said just now, Mr Tipper and I are investigating the death of Geoffrey Hodder. However, if you have some information to volunteer about possible leaks within the Security Service, you are, of course, free to make a statement.”

  “No, it’s just that I thought…” Which was exactly what he hadn’t done; he lapsed into silence.

  “I understand that you were Geoffrey Hodder’s deputy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would have known more about these cases than any other member of the team, then. As much as Hodder?”

  “Who suggested that?”

  “Peter Selby.” Gaffney decided it was time to get them fighting among themselves.

  “Oh!” said Hughes in an offhanded way. “Well he would.”

  “What’s your view of Selby?”

  “D’you think he had something to do with Geoffrey’s death?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions,” said Gaffney.

  “He’s an insufferable prig,” said Hughes mildly. “Thinks he’s
a damned sight more important than he is. Quite frankly, I never knew why Geoffrey entertained him on the team. He was bloody useless.”

  “He tells me that he is a linguist of some merit – a fluent Russian speaker, he said.”

  “Quite possibly. Personally, I’ve never heard him speaking Russian, so I wouldn’t know. I think he spends most of his time reading Pravda – not a great deal of good when you’re trying to discover if the animal rights movement is a left-wing front organization.”

  “Huntsmen wear red coats,” said Tipper jocularly, and was rewarded with a withering glance.

  “Frankly, and between ourselves,” continued Hughes, as though Tipper hadn’t spoken, “I think Selby’s a raving poof.”

  “Nevertheless, it seems likely that as Hodder’s deputy, you would have known more about these operations than the others.”

  “The first two, certainly: Nikitin and Gesschner. But not Dickson and Armitage.”

  “Why d’you think that was? Why didn’t Hodder tell you, or didn’t he know either?”

  “I can’t answer that, can I?” said Hughes with a trace of sarcasm in his voice. “As he didn’t tell me, I couldn’t possibly know whether he knew or not.”

  “Let me put it another way,” said Gaffney. “With the amount of knowledge that you had about the Dickson case, could you have overseen the operation?”

  Hughes gave that some thought. “Probably not,” he said at length.

  “So we must conclude that Hodder didn’t tell you everything?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Why?” Gaffney gave him no time to answer. “Can I make one thing clear, Mr Hughes. I am investigating Hodder’s death, and anything else that may have a bearing on it – like Nikitin, Gesschner and Dickson. I am not here to indulge in verbal gymnastics.”

  Hughes sat up slightly, recognizing that he had been rebuked. “No, I suppose that he didn’t tell me everything.”

  “Then again, I ask you why not?”

  “He was desperately worried. This business of losing two in a row – Nikitin and Gesschner – really got to him. And when Dickson vanished, well that was really too much. He got snappy – bad-tempered with his staff – and that was something I’d never known him do before. I tried to talk to him about it, but he wouldn’t even discuss it. He said it was his problem, and that he would solve it. I told him that I was there to help, but he said it again: it was his problem.