‘Yes.’ Riley gave him the address and said she’d wait to hear from him, then switched off and turned to Mitcheson. ‘He’ll ring back if he finds anything.’
Mitcheson smiled and took hold of her. ‘Let’s hope he takes his time.’
‘If he doesn’t, I’ll never forgive him. How much time do you have?’
‘Enough. Just.’
Behind them, the cat appeared from the kitchen and sat watching, neat and tidy as if Szulu had never intruded. Riley sensed his presence and disengaged herself long enough to turn and say with a smile: ‘Top shelf tea for you tonight, my brave boy.’
The cat sniffed haughtily, before turning on his heels and walking away.
Szulu climbed in the car and stared through the windscreen, eyes on the house where Riley Gavin lived. Apart from the excruciating pain in his arm, he was feeling bruised and humiliated and wasn’t sure what he was going to do about any of it. His options were limited. He knew of a former surgeon who’d been caught playing hide the stethoscope with a patient in an empty operating theatre. The man sometimes took on a bit of back-street work for ready cash and no questions asked, so maybe he’d give him a call. It would cost, but it was better than going to a hospital, where they’d report gunshot wounds the moment he walked in. Before they finished their stitching, he’d find himself pinned to the bed by an Armed Response Unit. No way would they believe he’d been shot accidentally by a drive-by, which had been his first planned explanation.
Oddly enough, though, he felt relieved. Even with the constant threat of Ragga lurking in the background, he’d decided this whole business had gone far enough. No matter what Lottie Grossman said or did, no way was he going back anywhere near Frank Palmer, Riley Gavin or the big lug who’d just put the shot in his arm without hesitation. He shivered, partly through the onset of shock, but mainly at remembering the complete absence of expression on the man’s face as he’d pulled the trigger. Like he was swatting a fly.
He started the car and nudged it into gear with a grunt of pain, then headed towards south London. He’d get his arm fixed, then go back and face the old woman. Whether he’d tell her what had happened in detail was something he’d decide at the time. If she didn’t like it, she’d have to go look for another gofer — preferably a stupid one with a death wish.
Chapter 25
Donald’s return call dragged Riley and Mitcheson apart, and they surfaced with reluctance. Brask had been quicker to respond than they had anticipated or hoped, but he had little in the way of solid news.
‘Sorry, Sweetie,’ he intoned smoothly. ‘Not a lot on the hateful Lottie, I’m afraid. Any interest she had in clubs and so forth seems to be long gone. Her house was finally put up for sale last year following the Spain fiasco, and the proceeds dealt with by her solicitor. I got a name, but thereafter, no joy; client confidentiality and so forth. I think we can take it that she had the money sent abroad and has been living off that ever since. The amount would have been sizeable, I expect, so she wouldn’t have had a problem finding a bolt-hole somewhere pleasant. To be honest, only the police would be able to follow a money trail — if one exists. Apart from that, a woman her age would have fitted in anywhere alongside a retirement-age community of Brits in Spain, France, Portugal or elsewhere, and nobody would have suspected a thing.’ He paused. ‘I take it this is another story? Is there anything in it for us?’
‘It is looking like two separate ones, actually,’ said Riley. ‘I’ll get something to you on all of this as soon as I can.’ She put the phone down just as the buzzer sounded from downstairs. Mitcheson motioned for her to pick up the entry-phone, then went to wait at the top of the stairs.
It was Frank Palmer.
He entered the flat, eyeing Mitcheson guardedly before shaking hands and going through to the kitchen. Riley followed him and brought him up to date about Szulu’s latest visit and the real name of his employer. Mitcheson hovered in the background, saying nothing. It had been a long time since he and Palmer had last spoken, and there was a hint of unease in the air between them, like two opponents meeting a long time after their last match.
‘You shot him?’ Palmer gave Mitcheson a wry look. ‘Will he live?’
‘Of course.’ Mitcheson showed him the gun. ‘It’s only a.22. This time tomorrow he won’t even notice the wound.’
Palmer grinned, knowing that was unlikely. ‘Serves him right. Any flak from the neighbours?’
‘No,’ said Riley, handing him a beer from the fridge. ‘Mr G downstairs had the Polish Symphony Orchestra on at full bore. It would have drowned out an earthquake.’ She sniffed. ‘Palmer, what the hell is that smell? Have you been sipping meths?’
‘Funny, that’s what the taxi driver asked me. I told him it was a new aftershave on test. He lost interest after that.’
Palmer had come in holding a Tesco carrier bag reeking of smoke and petrol. Using his free hand, he unravelled a roll of kitchen towel onto the kitchen work surface, then carefully slid out from the bag a collection of burned papers.
‘Palmer!’ Riley protested.
‘Sorry. I’ll clean up for you afterwards. Those folks at VTS had a big burn-up just after we left,’ he explained. ‘Somehow I don’t think they were just having a little tidy. Fortunately, the bloke setting the fire wasn’t the conscientious sort. I liberated the scorched remains.’
They poked through the papers and found several delivery note copies showing shipments to various customers on SkyPrint paper, but with VTS Transit as the carriers. Other scraps were VTS documents. The same phone and fax numbers appeared on both sets of papers. There were also cardboard and packaging suppliers’ advice notes for bulk deliveries to VTS, but with payment by SkyPrint. Most damning of all, there were several letters from both companies to suppliers, signed with the same signature and the name A. Perric.
‘The man in the white shirt,’ said Palmer, getting a nod from Riley. He looked at Mitcheson. ‘They look like different companies, but the same faces and numbers fit both.’ He related what he had seen and heard in the warehouse, and filled Mitcheson in on the connection with Radnor and his colleague, Michael.
‘Neat,’ said Mitcheson. ‘At the first sign of trouble, VTS bug out and set up somewhere else down the road, using a different name. But it’s all run by this bloke Perric at SkyPrint?’
‘Looks like it,’ said Palmer. ‘Although I doubt he’s the top man. They’ve cleared out the secure storage area of several heavy boxes we saw when we first got there. That must have been the handguns and laser sights they were talking about. They left everything else and disappeared, but what I’ve got here is enough to prove they were working together.’
Mitcheson nodded, then looked at his watch. ‘Sorry, kiddies, I’ve got to be going. My time could be running out.’ He turned to Riley. ‘I’m going to find a safe house where I can stay for a while. If it looks okay after a few days, and I haven’t been arrested by the rubber-truncheon squad, I’ll take it I’m no longer anybody’s hot property.’
‘Why not stay here?’ Riley suggested. ‘There’s room.’
‘It’s tempting. But if I am being watched, it would compromise you. Don’t worry — I’ll stay in touch. Once I get the all-clear, I’ll hop back to the States and clear up a few things, then I’ll be back.’
‘What will you do?’ Palmer asked.
Mitcheson shrugged. ‘Same as I’m doing now: security work, that sort of thing. There’s a big demand for it.’ He looked at Riley. ‘Some of it quite close to home, by the looks of things.’
Palmer nodded but said nothing.
Taking it as his cue to depart, Mitcheson took Riley’s arm, and the two of them left the flat and walked downstairs.
Palmer busied himself taking the Llama apart, putting each part aside for disposal later. There was no sense in holding onto it, and throwing it away intact could lead to some kid getting hold of it and ending up facing the Met’s firearm squad.
He had no illusions about the shock Riley wou
ld have suffered after being confronted by Szulu’s handgun. That and the news that Lottie Grossman was back. Mitcheson being here would have helped soak up part of the immediate reaction, and she at least seemed fairly relaxed, especially with the news that Mitcheson was going to be around for a while.
When she returned from downstairs, he was emptying the gun’s magazine and dropping the shells to one side. ‘You okay?’ he asked, ‘Or do you need another drink?’
‘I’m fine, Palmer. There’s no need to worry about me — I’m not a weak girlie.’ She tried to soften the words with a smile, but it didn’t quite come off, and Palmer guessed there was still some remedial work to be done.
‘Good news about Mitcheson coming back.’ His face was blank as he collected the gun parts and put them into the plastic bag he’d used for bringing back the burnt documents. He had always accepted Riley’s relationship with the former army officer, on the basis that it was no business of his who she took up with. The only thing that concerned him was her welfare.
‘Yes, it is.’ Riley stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. ‘He thought his name was no longer on the watch list and that it was worth coming in to give it a try. So far, so good. Why — don’t you think it’s a good idea?’
‘Sure. Why not? He’s done no wrong as far as I’m concerned. But he’s right to be cautious.’
‘Christ, Palmer, don’t tell me you’re worried about him, too.’
‘Actually, I’m more concerned about the cat. Where is he?’
Riley gave a half smile and slapped his shoulder. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be cranky. And thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘For that pep talk you gave me — about shooting someone. It was a close call, though. I nearly did it. I think I would have if John hadn’t come in at the crucial moment.’
‘I don’t blame you. But for what it’s worth, if you were still thinking about it, you probably wouldn’t have gone through with it — not unless he’d come at you. That might have been different.’
Riley pulled a face and hugged herself. ‘God, I wish I had your sense of certainty. You and John.’
‘Come again?’
‘You’d have shot him, too, wouldn’t you?’
Palmer thought about it for a second before shaking his head. ‘Actually, I’d have chosen his foot. More bones, takes longer to heal.’
‘He just… did it. It was so casual.’ Her face was a mixture of doubt and fear.
Palmer raised an eyebrow. ‘He was standing — what? — three feet away? Come on, he could hardly miss.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If Mitcheson had wanted to add another button-hole to Szulu’s jacket, or just shoot the tip of his ear off, he’d have done it. It was a warning. Warnings like that to people like Szulu are better than words.’
‘Oh.’ Riley smiled then, and Palmer realised it had answered an unspoken question in her mind, now Mitcheson was no longer in the room, about whether the former soldier had been quite so cold-blooded as he’d pretended.
‘About Lottie,’ said Riley, changing tack. ‘Do you really think she’s not tied in with Radnor?’
‘I doubt it. They’re hardly in the same social circle. And the idea of someone with Radnor’s background mixing with an old gang moll doesn’t sound quite right to me.’
Palmer’s mobile rang. He murmured a greeting, then listened at length, signalling for Riley to get a pen and paper. She did so and he scribbled some notes before switching off the phone. As he turned back to Riley, he was looking thoughtful.
‘That was Unger, the lawyer who arranged the meeting with Hemmricht. He was intrigued by what Hemmricht told us about the shooting, and did a bit of digging to see if the dead man, Wachter, had any family in the area. It seems he had a sister, Cecile. Unger tracked her down, but she didn’t want to talk about the past. Said it was all too painful and she wanted to bury it and move on. Unger says that means she was probably in the Stasi herself, or at the very least was used by them. Former members didn’t have a particularly nice time of it when they were outed, and plenty of them had to move from where they lived to avoid reprisals.’
‘Did she tell him anything?’
‘Only that shortly before his death, her brother admitted he was working for British Intelligence. She threatened to tell the authorities, but he insisted it wasn’t spying, merely moving things around. Things of value.’
‘Moving things for Radnor.’
‘She never heard him mention any names, only that he was hoping to make a future for her as well. By then there were signs that Communism was going pear-shaped, and he mentioned going to the States and starting again. She thinks he was offered papers by whoever he was working for.’
‘Could Radnor have done that kind of deal?’
‘No idea. Depends how high he was and whether he had something truly exceptional that would have excited the Americans enough to make a swap. I don’t think they’d have got too worked up about the odd work of art, though.’
‘So he was bluffing.’
‘Lying, more like. Anyway, Wachter’s sister clearly chose to believe it, because she kept her mouth shut. Maybe she also saw that the old order was coming to an end and wanted the chance of a fresh start. She said her brother became very secretive and withdrawn early in eighty-nine, and was travelling a lot. He would return with packages but he never told her what they were. Then one day he told her he was on the verge of completing a big deal that would ensure their future. He had to make one final trip, then he’d send for her.’
Riley’s eyes widened. ‘He was going across the wire.’
‘Sounds like it. But she never heard from him again. She was scooped up by the authorities shortly afterwards and spent several months in prison. All she was told while she was in custody was that her brother was a traitor and had died while trying to flee.’
‘Nice people. Is there any way we could get to speak to this Cecile ourselves?’
Palmer smiled. ‘That’s the good news. Unger says she left Germany three years ago. Fancy a trip to Streatham Hill?’
Chapter 26
Cecile Wachter offered tea, and asked Riley and Palmer to sit while she made it. They were in the conservatory of a neat semi-detached house, nestling in a row of identical semis on the fringe of Streatham Common, a few miles from central London. The house, like the garden, was neat and tidy, and if there were any signs or ornaments from Fraulein Wachter’s past, or even that she had once abandoned her single status and married, albeit briefly, they were not in evidence. Beyond the windows, the quiet was marred only by muted traffic noise and the occasional shrill sound of children playing in nearby gardens.
‘I told Herr Unger all I know,’ Cecile Wachter insisted, returning with mugs of tea on a tray. Her English was very precise, although her accent was still strong enough to betray her origins many miles from this very English setting. She was as neat and conservatively dressed as her surroundings, with her greying hair pinned in a bun, and rimless spectacles perched on a small nose. Her movements were economical, too, as if she wanted to merge into the background and remain unnoticed. Riley guessed she had probably been a very good Stasi member and wondered if anyone in the street even knew she was here.
‘We’re trying to find out what happened to your brother, Claus,’ said Riley, stirring her tea. It was pale and watery, with a faint aroma of mint. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know, too?’
‘Why?’ Cecile stared at them in turn, a faint frown crossing her face. ‘That was all so long ago, in the past. Why should you be interested? Are you from the government? The security services?’
‘None of those,’ said Palmer easily, peering into his mug. ‘We think the person your brother was working with was involved in art thefts from Germany and the Soviet Union. The former Soviet Union. We’re trying to establish the details because we believe this man is also involved in other crimes.’
‘What other crimes?’
‘We think he might
now be bringing weapons into the country. Weapons bought from armouries and depots across the former eastern bloc.’
‘And you will do what with this information — put this man in prison?’
Palmer shrugged, wary of making rash promises he was in no position to keep. ‘I can’t say. That would be the ideal solution.’
Cecile nodded her head slightly. ‘Of course. But this man… this person who Claus worked with, he is with your British Intelligence, you know that? Claus told me. But if he is a criminal, also, how can you touch him? Where I come from, such people are beyond reach. To try to make them answer for what they have done is to invite retaliation.’
‘Things are sometimes different, here,’ said Palmer. ‘Not always… but there are ways.’
Cecile shook her head and sighed, staring down into her mug as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘I was such a person myself, for a while. I was never an official, not important, although I was trained in their ways of…doing things.’
‘Tradecraft?’ said Palmer.
She nodded. ‘As you say, tradecraft. I don’t mean I was a spy — not in espionage. But I was expected to do certain things.’ She looked up at them, her eyes steady. ‘I was a translator for many years, and worked with some important people. People who were expected to be…exposed to the West in their work. As part of my responsibilities, I was expected to listen and to report on anything unusual — anything which was not in accordance with proper thinking. Here and now, I cannot imagine why I did such a thing. But back then, so many others were doing the same.’ She shrugged. ‘It was normal. Even your closest friends might be informing on you, and you would never know. It was the way things were. We were all part of the system. But now I have left all that behind. That is why I have come to London. I wish to forget it all and become… someone else.’ She waved a hand. ‘I don’t mean a different identity, but a different person. It is not easy, however.’
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