Confirm or Deny

by Graham Ison

  “And what would she have said if she had found out?”

  “I don’t know, really. I suppose that she would have been upset.”

  “So your implied view that pressure couldn’t be brought to bear upon you is a myth, yes?”

  “I don’t think it would have caused me to be disloyal,” said Hughes miserably.

  “Disloyal to whom – apart from your wife, of course?” That did not please Hughes.

  “To the state – to my country…”

  “I see,” said Gaffney. “So you can put all these little loyalties into convenient water-tight compartments, is that it?”

  “Well there’s loyalty and loyalty, isn’t there?”

  “There is? What about loyalty to Miss Rigby, then, who appeared to be under the impression that you were going to marry her, but whom you conveniently omitted to inform that you were already married? Is that another kind of loyalty that doesn’t count?”

  “No, but that’s different. Anyway, I’ve had enough of this. My private life is my affair.”

  “It strikes me that your private life is one long affair,” said Gaffney dryly. “But I shall decide when you’ve had enough of this. Right now, my inclination is to report the whole matter to the Director-General, and see what he wants to make of it.”

  Hughes sat up, went red in the face, and started playing with one of the buttons on his jacket. “There’s no need for that, is there?”

  “Mr Hughes.” Gaffney leaned forward on his desk, and stared at the man opposite him. “Do you honestly think that anything I am doing on this enquiry will not be reported to the DG? The only thing that is likely to help you is if I can report to Sir Edward that you have been very co-operative.”

  Deep down, Hughes had known all along that that would be the case, had been trying to convince himself that he could get away with it. He gripped his hands together in a tight bunch. “What can I say?” he asked.

  “For a start, you can tell me how it came about.”

  “We met on a flight. I’d been out to Vienna – special job.” Gaffney wasn’t interested in that – let him have his little secret. “And she was the stewardess. We got talking and I invited her out to dinner one evening. It just blossomed from there.”

  “Did she ever ask you if you were married?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Hughes dithered, struggling with his conscience. “I told her I was single.” He shuffled his feet. “I didn’t think it really mattered. It was never intended to be anything more than a one-night stand, but then it sort of got serious.”

  “And what would you have done if we hadn’t intervened?”

  “I don’t know. I did consider getting a divorce at one stage, but the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed – I mean Barbara and I being married. She’s not awfully intelligent, you know.”

  Any sympathy that Gaffney might have had evaporated at that moment. Not only was Hughes a philanderer – he was also a snob, an insufferable, immoral snob. And the immorality didn’t apply to his having an affair – a lot of men did that, and women too for that matter, but it was the way of his having one, and his attitude towards the girl in Hounslow. Gaffney agreed with him; she wasn’t very bright, but she deserved better than Hughes. “How much did you tell her of your work, Mr Hughes?”

  Hughes paled slightly. “Nothing – absolutely nothing – I promise you.”

  Tipper smiled. “I suppose that would have been what you call a breach of security,” he said.

  “She never asked what you did?” Gaffney again.

  “No. I think I volunteered that I was a civil servant.”

  “And she was happy with that, was she? Not very romantic, is it, being a civil servant? Miss Rigby’s an air stewardess, goes to exotic places, and being rather unintelligent – I think that was what you said – wouldn’t have been satisfied with that, surely? What did you lead her to believe? That you were a clerk in the DHSS? Surely not. You must have told her that you were something terribly dramatic.”

  “I didn’t. I assure you.” At last, Hughes was beginning to understand Gaffney’s line of questioning.

  “That isn’t true, Mr Hughes. Let’s go over it once more, shall we? You are on a flight from Vienna to London, and you meet this very attractive young lady. You chat her up, and she takes a liking to you – she’s attracted to you. Here’s a suave, well-educated man in his mid-thirties, just flown in from Vienna. There’s nothing to that, is there? You do it all the time – a veritable man-about-town. You suggest dinner, and she accepts. You must be something out of the ordinary, yes? And then you tell her that you’re a civil servant. And did she accept that? Or did she ask you what sort of civil servant you were? She surely didn’t just nod and go on to talk about something else?”

  “Honestly – I didn’t tell her a thing.”

  “And she didn’t ask?” Gaffney gave him a long, penetrating stare.

  “Well I might have hinted, I suppose.”

  “Ah! And what did you hint, Mr Hughes, eh?”

  Hughes fidgeted nervously. “I think I might have said something about not being able to talk about my work – that it was hush-hush – something like that.”

  “Why? Why not tell her that you were a clerk in the DHSS? After all that’s a perfectly honorable calling, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course, but—”

  “But not the sort of job to impress a nubile young lady who wasn’t very intelligent, but who was willing to let you screw her just so long as she thought you were a bit of a mystery man.”

  “No – I didn’t have to impress her. We got on very well together—”

  “In bed!”

  “Yes – but that wasn’t all. She was fun to be with, to talk to…”

  “And what did you talk about – when you weren’t screwing, that is?” Gaffney was being deliberately coarse to try to goad this man.

  “We… Well, I suppose we talked about television that we’d seen, and the places we’d been to…”

  “Have you traveled very much, Mr Hughes?”

  “A fair amount. There was one section I was in when I seemed to be forever getting on and off aircraft.”

  “So you compared notes, discussed the hotels you’d been in; that sort of thing?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “And didn’t she think it rather funny that a civil servant was gallivanting about all over the world? Doesn’t exactly match the image of the chap who goes up on the eight fifty clutching an umbrella and a plastic, government-issue briefcase with his sandwiches in it, does it?”

  “She never asked me.” Hughes’s head was bowed now, his elbows resting on his knees.

  “You’re a liar, Mr Hughes. You told her you were with MI5, just to impress her, and you gave her the telephone number of the office, but made her swear never to use it. And all that so that she’d keep opening her legs for you.”

  Hughes looked up, his hands clenched, and hate for Gaffney clear on his face. “I—”

  “Well?”

  “Yes. Yes, damn you.” He rested his head on his hands. “And you talk to me about loyalty…”

  “Can I go now?”

  “No,” said Gaffney. “I haven’t finished yet. Who is this girl?” Hughes looked up sharply. “What d’you mean? You know who she is. She’s Barbara Rigby and she works for—”

  “I know what she’s told you, and I know what she’s told me, but is it true?”

  “But I…” Hughes shot a panicky glance at Gaffney.

  “You never bothered to find out, did you, because you were so bloody obsessed with her? She could be anyone. You didn’t know, didn’t care, just so long as you got your end away.”

  “But I’m sure that she—”

  “Sure, Mr Hughes? Sure what? That she really is an air stewardess, and that her name really is Barbara Rigby. How do you know? What enquiries have you made?”

  “Well I—”

  Gaffney raised his hand. “You don’
t know at all. Does she work for the KGB? Does she have a controller who is rubbing his hands in some Iron Curtain embassy, delighted that an intelligence officer in MI5 has fallen for the oldest trick in the world?”

  Hughes was now sweating profusely; his self-confidence, and the bombast with which he had entered the room, had drained away completely. Gaffney’s questions had alarmed him to the point of open panic. He couldn’t be sure whether this damned policeman knew something that he didn’t, or was just provoking him. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came.

  Relentlessly, Gaffney went on: “I have a team of officers who are now spending a great deal of their valuable time investigating this woman’s background, Mr Hughes, and do you know why? I’ll tell you: because you think that you’re so bloody clever. You imagine that because you’re a so-called intelligence officer, you can do as you bloody well please, and that no one is bright enough to catch you at it.” Gaffney leaned back in his chair, and briefly surveyed the abject figure of Patrick Hughes. “If I was you, Mr Hughes,” he said, “I’d start to look around for a job: somehow I don’t think you’ll have your present one too much longer.”

  “What will happen?” asked Hughes eventually.

  Gaffney raised his eyebrows and sniffed. “It’s not up to me. It does reveal one thing though: your girlfriend might not be very intelligent, but you are downright stupid.”

  “Will my wife have to know?”

  “Only if you finish up in the dock. Then it will all come out. But in that case, it won’t really matter, will it? They tend to give rather long sentences for breaches of security.”

  “I didn’t tell her anything about the work I was doing, I promise you that.” Hughes’s face was working nervously, and Gaffney could see that his self-control was all but gone. “I didn’t know anything about the Dickson job. All that I told you last time is true: Geoffrey didn’t tell me anything.” He paused, staring at Gaffney with an expression of desperation.

  “I have only your word for that, Mr Hughes,” said Gaffney, “and so far, I haven’t found that too reliable.”

  “What are you going to do about him?” asked Tipper, when they had released Hughes from his torture.

  “Report the whole thing to the DG, I suppose,” said Gaffney. “But not yet. It’s true that we don’t know who Barbara Rigby is. Until we’ve got the results of that enquiry, we can’t write him off. If it turns out that he’s just an idiot who can’t keep his mouth shut, then the DG can have him to do what he likes with. Incidentally, how is that enquiry going? Anywhere near a result yet?”

  “I’ll chase it up, guv’nor; we should be getting something fairly soon.” Tipper stifled a yawn. “What d’you reckon the DG will do with him?”

  “If it was left to me,” said Gaffney, “I’d transfer him to the DHSS.”

  *

  “That didn’t take long,” said Tipper. Secretly he thought that three days to find some records was tantamount to bone idleness, but he would profit nothing by saying so. He replaced the receiver and walked round to the FCO Security Department.

  “It’s not very much so far,” said Naylor, a modest smile on his face. He consulted a file on his desk. “It appears that Mr and Mrs Simpson were killed in an air crash in 1975, in the Bight of Benin.” He looked up. “That’s just off the coast of Nigeria, south of Lagos.” His tone was slightly patronizing.

  “Yes, I know. Do you have any details?”

  “They were returning from Calabar to Lagos. Been on holiday there.” He glanced up again. “Quite a pleasant part that, you know – Calabar; the missionary Mary Slessor’s buried there, as a matter of fact.”

  “Really,” murmured Tipper.

  “Yes – well.” He studied the file again. “He was on the High Commission staff at Lagos. Private plane.” He was reading extracts from the file as they caught his eye. “Just the two of them – and the pilot of course. Circling over the Bight before coming in to land at Ijeka Airport. No explanation – just went down. Tragedy really after a lifetime of service. He was fifty-four; she was fifty. Tragic.” He shook his head.

  “Anything about the daughter – Julia?”

  “Nothing on here I’m afraid.”

  “No indication that she had been informed – next of kin – nothing like that?”

  “No – nothing. I’ve sent a signal to our man in Lagos, as I promised. He may be able to turn up something about this woman…” He paused. “Julia Simpson?”

  “Yes – Hodder now.”

  Naylor looked up sharply. “I knew a Hodder – in Five.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll give you a ring if anything turns up.” Naylor closed the file and smiled benevolently.

  *

  “You’re not going to believe this, sir. In fact, I don’t believe it myself.” Tipper walked into Gaffney’s office, holding the intercept file. “But Selby’s got a girlfriend. Well, I presume it’s a girl – might be a bloke, but if it is, he calls himself Rita.” He flopped down in one of Gaffney’s chairs and opened the file, taking a photostat copy of a letter from it.

  “Just because he looks like a poof doesn’t necessarily make him one, Harry, despite the fact that you’ve convinced yourself he is. What does it say?”

  “Well for a start there’s no address on it – no sender’s address that is, but it’s pretty powerful stuff. Listen to this: ‘My dearest darling’.” Tipper glanced at Gaffney. “Not bad for openers, is it?”

  “Get on with it, Harry.”

  “Yes, right. ‘My dearest darling. How wonderful it was to see you on Thursday. Now, I’ve a big surprise for you! You-know-who is away in Sweden on business – until Tuesday. Five whole days!! So why don’t you come down to Devon – at least for the weekend. We can have two days to ourselves. I don’t suppose you can get any extra time off at such short notice, so come down on Saturday morning, or better still, Friday evening – in time for bed!! See you soon – love, love and lots more love, Rita.’ How’s that grab you, guv’nor?” Tipper dropped the copy of the letter onto Gaffney’s blotter.

  “Well – there’s a thing,” said Gaffney. “Naughty, lucky, old Selby. Wonder who she is.”

  “Or him,” said Tipper.

  Gaffney laughed. “That’s a woman’s writing, if I’m any judge. He never said anything about having a bird, did he?”

  “We didn’t ask,” said Tipper. “More to the point, what are we going to do about it – anything?”

  “Why should there be no sender’s address, though, Harry?”

  “She’s married, isn’t she? She says so. Not in as many words, but ‘you-know-who is in Sweden’ – that’s a dead give-away. So she doesn’t put her address on it in case anyone else reads it – like nasty suspicious policemen who’re doing a postal intercept.”

  “He might have guessed – being in the trade – and warned her.”

  “In that case, sir, he’d have told her not to write at all.”

  “True, Harry, true. So he’s having it off with a married woman. Like Hughes, not declared for vetting, I’ll bet you.”

  “You’re probably right – well, it’s a racing certainty – but are we going to waste all our time chasing blokes who are over the side?”

  “As I’ve said before, Harry, we don’t know we’re wasting it until we’ve wasted it. At the moment, we’ve got nothing better to go on, and quite frankly, Selby is the most sussy of the lot.”

  “Apart from Hodder. I mean, he’s the one who topped himself, isn’t he?”

  “But there’s not a shred of evidence to say that he killed himself because of the leak. We’ve just got to keep going until something turns up.”

  Tipper shook his head. “I don’t think that Selby having it off with a married bird is going to be the answer, sir. He is single, after all.”

  “But she’s not, Harry. And that’s where the pressure could come from. Supposing it had been discovered that he was having an affair with a married woman. That could be used as a lever.
You’re probably right, and we’re beginning to look like an expensive firm of private detectives, but until we know a little more about Rita – and Rita’s husband – we can’t dismiss it. We’ve nothing else.”

  “There are the enquiries about Hodder, sir.”

  “I know, Harry. But so far we’ve turned up nothing helpful about him. And the further away we get from his death, the less likely we are to find anything – that’s my guess, anyway. In the meantime we’ll have a look at Rita.”

  “How? We’ve no idea who she is.”

  “We’ll find out, then. Set up a surveillance team and take him down to Devon.”

  “But we don’t even know when.”

  “Yes we do.” Gaffney picked up the letter. “She says come down on Saturday morning, or better still Friday evening. It’s my bet that he’ll get down there as quick as he can. My money’s on Friday evening. Take him from his office and see what happens.”

  “But we don’t know how he’s going to get there. He might go by train, but if he goes by car it’s going to be one hell of a following job. It must be about two hundred miles.”

  “Okay – so use a big team. Leap-frog with the vehicles. Use motor-cycles. Whatever’s needed. Don’t forget what the Commissioner told the DAC: we can have anything we want.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Tipper, and looked at the ceiling.

  *

  Detective Constables Henley, Bishop and Cane stood in a row in front of Tipper’s desk. Behind them was Detective Sergeant Ian Mackinnon, a half-grin on his face.

  “Any of you know how many charities there are operating in Africa?”

  The three new detectives glanced nervously at each other. Mackinnon continued to smile; he had been a Special Branch officer long enough not to be surprised by anything the governors came up with.

  “No, sir,” said Cane. The other two shook their heads.

  “You, skip?”

  “No idea, guv’nor,” said Mackinnon, “but I suspect that we’re about to find out.”

  “Dead right you are. Now then, I want you to list as many as you can discover – go to the Charities Commission, or some place like that. Most of these organizations are bound to have their headquarters in London; the British are suckers for giving away money – other people’s money. Then I want enquiries made of all of them; find out whether they ever had a Julia Simpson working for them.” He looked at Henley. “You’ve got her date of birth.” The DC nodded. “Don’t tell them why you want to know – well you don’t know anyway, but spin them some fanny about missing persons; you know the drill.” He looked enquiringly at the sergeant.