The Spy Whisperer (Ben Sign Mystery Book 1)

by Matthew Dunn

  “So, that’s why you approached me, of all people in the service.” Parker banged his umbrella on the ground. “You suspected Archer was a double and you decided to use me to get to the truth.”

  Sign said, “The truth won’t bring him back.”

  “So, what’s the point?”

  “The point is, there is the slightest possibility that a garbage man is at play.”

  “A garbage man? What does that mean?”

  Sign handed him his business card. “Call me with any developments.” He walked off.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sign stoked the fire in his lounge and poured Knutsen a glass of calvados. “Let me look at your gun.”

  Knutsen retrieved the weapon from his bedroom.

  Sign held it in his hand. “A fine choice. One shot, anywhere in the body, causes massive trauma. It reloads quickly. It rarely malfunctions, providing it’s kept clean. And it puts the jeepers into opponents.” He laid the gun on a side table. “Drink up. We need to go for a walk. I need to do some late night shopping and could do with company.”

  They walked across Lambeth Bridge and into the heart of London. Sign explained that he needed to purchase some new brogues. Taking in Regent Street, Oxford Street, the City of London, and Saville Row, they stopped at thirteen shops. In each of them, Sign tried on shoes. It wasn’t until they were in the last shop that Sign bought a pair of shoes. They returned on foot to West Square.

  Inside, Knutsen rubbed his cold hands and asked, “What was that all about?”

  “My previous pair of brogues was getting worn.” Sign replenished their glasses. “Plus, I needed to think.” He took a swig of the spirit. “We have a limpet.”

  “What?”

  “You and I just walked an anti–surveillance route. The key is to draw any potential followers into a static environment. If they’re following, they can’t resist entering the static place – in our case shoe shops. Failure to do so could mean they’d lose us out a back door. Key to the technique is convincing the follower that we are oblivious to his presence and have a pattern of behaviour that makes sense. In our case, it was shoe shopping. And even though the route was convoluted, it didn’t look suspicious because my pre–planned pattern was to seek out select shoe shops that sold particular brands of shoes. A double sighting of a man or woman is the tell–tale indicator that you’re being followed. Tonight we had a limpet – someone who stuck to us. He was good. He changed his jacket three times, put on false glasses, removed false glasses, carried a cigarette, then a vaporiser, twice pretended to be on a mobile phone, different models of course, wore a woollen hat, didn’t wear a hat, and never once engaged eye contact with me or you. But he was most certainly following us.”

  Knutsen was confused. “I’ve done anti–surveillance. Why didn’t I spot him?”

  “Because you weren’t looking for him or expecting him.” He picked up his landline and called Roberts to see if she was okay. She told him that her husband was on the mend and would probably be home later tonight. Sign relayed this update to Knutsen. “The limpet isn’t police. I’ve got no evidence to support that assertion, but I can sniff a spook a mile off. He was western Caucasian, though not Mediterranean or Slavic in appearance, but that says nothing. People’s appearances adapt over time. But my hunch is he’s British.”

  “MI5?”

  “They have to work in teams because they’re so incompetent. And there was no team on our tail. No, this man was MI6.”

  “Freelance or cadre?”

  “Impossible to tell at this stage.”

  Sign handed Knutsen his gun. “It may be nothing.”

  “Or something?”

  “Yes. MI6 may simply be wishing to keep tabs on us.”

  “Or maybe Roberts’ burglary wasn’t random.”

  “The thought occurred to me.” Sign was deep in thought. “Somebody has got wind that we’re investigating Archer’s death. The route to that is via Roberts’ connection to us. Roberts left something compromising at her home, most likely my business card. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t want anything that linked her to us being kept in Scotland Yard. I imagine the commissioner instructed her to that effect. The limpet is off the books. That means he’s either a deniable agent or he’s a retired paramilitary officer. If the former, MI6 has tasked him. If the latter, he’s working for someone deeply embedded in MI6.”

  “Someone who wants to shut mouths?”

  “Or someone who wants to open them for their last gasp before the hangman’s noose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sign didn’t answer. “I think we should get a Christmas tree. It is the first of December, after all. Also, I’ve ordered peacock for the twenty fifth.”

  “Peacock for Christmas Day?”

  “Yes, unless you have anywhere better to go. I wouldn’t blame you. But if, like me, you’re on your tod then we could have game, celery, plums, roast potatoes, a citrus–cherry sauce, a pud with brandy, and I’d go head to head with you on the Trivial Pursuit board game. I must warn you – I’m superb at geography and history, arts and literature, appalling at science and sport.”

  Knutsen laughed. “I haven’t celebrated Christmas for a long time.”

  “Nor have I. Too busy being someone else overseas. I have fine vintners in Holborn and elsewhere who can recommend wines to match the peacock.”

  Knutsen sat and cupped his calvados. “I think we should invite the Roberts.”

  “Agreed. I’ll play host and Santa.”

  Knutsen chuckled. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

  Sign gave a dismissive gesture with his hand. “One of the first components of being a successful MI6 officer is that we must keep the world off kilter. We must always wrong foot people, usually in a positive way. Secondly, we must believe in the impossible and achieve what others can’t. Third, we mustn’t give a damn about protocol or what others think.” He smiled. “Life’s more fun that way. The peacock’s from Australia. Inspector Roberts’ husband was nearly murdered. You were a highly successful undercover cop. I was tipped to be the next chief of MI6. And yet we are reduced to peacock, a trivial game, and some good plonk. Life doesn’t get better than that.”

  “It doesn’t.” Knutsen stared at him. “You’re lonely.”

  In a strident voice, Sign replied, “So are you. And the reason we’re in this predicament is due to the nature of our jobs. They alienate us from normality. But we crave embracing human norms. Christmas is one of those norms.” His voice quietened as he said, “We need to go old school tradecraft when it comes to protecting this flat. Carry your sidearm at all times when leaving the flat. I will rig the door to see if anyone has entered when it’s empty. Also, I’ll leave misinformation – a draft file containing papers that state that in our opinion there was nothing untoward about Mark Archer’s death, another file containing details of a fake new case that we’re working on – completely unconnected to MI6 or Archer, and I’ll scatter other lies around this room.”

  “The limpet can’t be working alone. He can’t watch us 24/7.”

  “He can’t. But my hunch is that he’s the only person watching us.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if there was a team on us, he wouldn’t have needed to go to all that effort to change his appearance. A team would simply rotate its members, to avoid me getting a double sighting of one of them.”

  Knutsen weighed his pistol in one hand. “If I kill someone with this I could be sent down for life imprisonment.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.” He withdrew a sheet of paper from a stationary cupboard. “However, I have been busy.” He handed Knutsen the sheet. “This is from the home secretary. You’ll note it is countersigned by the prime minister and the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It gives you authority to carry a sidearm. You are able to use the gun only in accordance to the training you received as a cop. Specifically, that means you cannot use the gun unless you are facing
someone who has a weapon and is threatening your life or someone else’s life. The letter was produced in triplicate.” He took the letter off Knutsen, placed it back in the cupboard, and produced one of the copies. “This one I laminated. Whenever you carry your gun, carry this as well. If you’re stopped by police or security services who want to know why you’re carrying a gun, show them the letter.”

  “How did you manage to pull this off?!”

  Sign smiled. “I may be out of MI6, but I still carry some sway in the corridors of power. Let’s leave it at that.”

  Knutsen folded the letter and placed it in a pocket. “The letter will give me some protection. But, real life situations involving guns can be unpredictable. If I shoot someone who I think is reaching for a gun, but it turns out he’s reaching for a knife, I could still face a jury.”

  “Ah, but that’s where I come in. I’m very good at making things seem different to how they are.”

  “Contaminate a crime scene? Plant evidence?”

  Sign’s face was mischievous as he said, “Hush now with such crude words. I would protect you from the law. That’s all you need to know.” He walked to a window and opened the curtain by an inch. “Is the limpet out there? Or has he gone to bed? It’s too dark to know. So, there’s nothing to be done right now. Tomorrow, I want you to find out when the Archers bought their house in Godalming. It needs a copper’s methodology. I don’t just want an online land search. I want to know who sold the house, how it was paid for, all details.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “Tomorrow I have a matinee appointment at the Royal Festival Hall to watch the Philharmonia perform Sibelius’ Lemminkäinen Suite.”

  Sarcastically, Knutsen said, “Nice to know you’re busy.”

  “If I have time, I may also take in the Goya exhibition at the National Gallery.”

  “Jesus! Busy day for you, pal.”

  Sign smiled. “I’m also hoping to get an answer to something that’s been nagging me.”

  Hilt called Smith at eleven thirty PM. “I’m clocking off. The house is in darkness. I’ll be back on it tomorrow.”

  “Any unusual activity today?”

  “No. They went shoe shopping. I followed them.”

  “Where did they go?”

  Hilt gave Smith the details.

  “Shit!”

  “What’s up boss?”

  Smith said, “Sign always buys his shoes in one shop in Holborn. He sucked you in to an anti–surveillance route.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He didn’t clock me.”

  Smith exhaled deeply. “You’re dealing with one of the finest minds. Not only that, it’s a mind that’s been superbly trained in our craft. He clocked you.”

  Hilt asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Back off Sign and Knutsen. Watch Roberts and wait for my instructions.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Sign was drinking a glass of sparkling water as he sat in the library of his club in St. James’s. No one else was in the room. It was lunchtime and a weekend. The few club members who were in the building were dining. Sign tried to read a newspaper, but his eyes were not taking in words. Instead, his mind was racing.

  Colin Parker walked into the room and sat in a leather armchair, opposite Sign. The MI6 head of counter–intelligence was wearing a sports jacket, shirt and trousers. The only reason he’d chosen the apparel was so he could conform to the club’s dress code. Otherwise, today he’d have been in anything other than the formal attire he needed to wear during the working week. Quietly, he said, “This had better be worth my time. To be here, I had to lie to my wife and tell her that I’d like to take her clothes shopping. I’ve endured two hours of visiting shop after blasted shop. My frustration and boredom were real, but I made a show of ensuring she could see how agonising the jaunts were. She told me to leave her to browse while I get a drink. We were both relieved. So, I’m here and she’s probably buying up half of Oxford Street.”

  “It’s very good of you to come. I know weekends are your precious family time.”

  Parker checked his mobile phone. “I’ve got thirty minutes. Then I need to meet my partner in Selfridges.”

  Sign stood and walked to a trolley that contained tea, coffee, and snacks. He poured Parker a coffee and handed it to him. After sitting back down, Sign asked, “Were you followed here?”

  “Impossible to know. It’s heaving out there. Not ideal circumstances to run the drills.”

  “I’m sure. What have you found?”

  “I’ve been through Archer’s agent files. All of his reports were cross–checked by security and analysis. There’s nothing untoward in any of them.”

  Sign was still. “You of all people know that files are stories concocted by case officers, to their pleasing. It’s the beauty of our job. We go overseas alone, no one is watching over us, we meet our foreign agent, and we write up the contact in a way that makes us look glorious. We lie.”

  “You never lied, Ben. When things went wrong for you, you told the truth. And when things went unbelievably right for you, you heaped praise on your foreign agents, not you. It’s one of the reasons we wanted you to head up the organisation. You were our best operator; but more important, your moral compass was exactly where it should be.” Parker bowed his head. “Yes – the files only say what Archer wants us to hear. They’re useless. He got intelligence out of his people, no doubt about that, but none of it was remarkable. Low–level shit about troop movements, political posturing, that kind of stuff.”

  “But there’s one thing he couldn’t lie about.”

  Parker frowned, wondering how Sign knew what he had to say. “Yes. Overseas postings. One can’t lie about when and where one was deployed. His first posting was under second secretary diplomatic cover to Moscow. Three years later, he returned to London and was put on a year–long Russian language course. He’d told personnel department that he’d got a taste for Russia. Personnel loved that. It was at the time the USSR had imploded and Russia was seen as an unpredictable time bomb. Personnel needed people interested in what happens next with Russia. He was posted back to Moscow as first secretary.”

  “A prestigious job.”

  “Yes. Though, a weird thing happened after he’d completed that posting. Archer started messing up. We tried him in a variety of different London–based jobs. He was unremarkable in all of them. So, we thought a change of scenery was required. We gave him the opportunity to be head of station in Pretoria.”

  “Most people would have snapped up that promotion.”

  Parker shook his head. “He turned it down and asked to go back to Russia.”

  “As first secretary?”

  “Yes. A sideways move.”

  Sign nodded. “He needed to be back in the motherland.”

  “It seems that way.” Parker looked at Sign. “I know what you’re thinking, but I have no proof that Archer was on the take from the Russians.”

  “Nor do I, but his suicide speaks volumes.” Sign placed his fingertips together. “It’s impossible to know for sure when the Russians got their hooks into him. My guess is they used Russian businessmen under the pay of the SVR to get Archer to take money. Probably they told him that he needed an alternate career if ever he decided to leave the diplomatic service. But the money would have been chicken feed. On the second tour, the Russians upped the ante. More money was paid to him. The money would have been for innocuous stuff – consultancy on Norway’s position on the latest EU agricultural policy, that kind of thing. Then the businessmen really screwed him. They said they had a major client who wished to deal with him directly. If business came out of that contact, they’d get a ten percent introductory fee and would have no further dealings with Archer. The client wished to do business in the UK but had no idea how to navigate the minefield of our laws and regulations. The client, the businessmen said, was above board and wanted to invest billions in the more impoverished corners of Britain. This would be a huge feather in
Archer’s cap. But the client turned out to be the SVR. Russian Intelligence had him by the balls and paid him handsomely for the deal. He became their spy.”

  Parker rubbed his face. “You’re speculating and imagining scenarios, but loosely this hangs together. The thing is, Archer was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. Over years, he’d have known he was falling into that trap.”

  “He felt he needed the money.” Sign received a call from Knutsen. He listened, thanked him, and hung up. To Parker, he asked, “What were the years of Archer’s second posting to Moscow?”

  “Two thousand and one to two thousand and four.”

  Sign ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “I have a bloodhound. He’s very good. Today he’s ascertained the exact details of the Archers’ purchase of their home in Godalming. They bought it for two point four million pounds in two thousand and four.”

  Blood drained out of Parker’s face.

  “You should have spotted this, Colin. It’s your job.”

  Parker’s hands were sweaty as he said, “I can’t spot everyone. We have thousands of staff. And half of them are scattered across the globe. Still,” he looked wistful, “yes, it’s my job. I should have spotted this.”

  Sign stood. “Not to worry, dear chap. Archer’s dead and the overpriced house is just bricks and mortar that now need constant repairs by a widow who knew exactly what her husband was doing and indeed encouraged him to be a traitor, merely for financial gain.” Sign paused. “Let’s keep this between ourselves. Someone else in MI6 knew Archer was on the take. I wonder about that person.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sign said nothing, left the library, and exited the building via the basement kitchen back door.

  Through binoculars, John Smith watched a man walk across heath on the Scottish island of Skye. Beyond him, mountains were being caressed by swirling mist. The air was thick with the scent of grass and other flora. The man was alone; the nearest habitation was five miles away. The man was carrying a shotgun and was oblivious to the fact that he was being observed. He was probably hunting woodcock or grouse. Smith didn’t know or care. Smith was wearing a yellow waterproof jacket, with hood on. From one hundred yards away, he waved his hand and shouted at the man.