Confirm or Deny (Gaffney and Tipper Mysteries Book 2)

by Graham Ison

  Peter Selby was another matter altogether. The Director of Public Prosecutions had ruled, some time ago, that proceedings should not be taken unless there was at least a fifty per cent chance of a conviction. So far, the lawyer had been unable to frame any charge upon which there was even a remote chance of securing such a conviction. Reluctantly, the assembled company were forced to agree that about all that could be proved against Selby was that he had been incredibly stupid. To date, stupidity had not been made a criminal offence. Which was probably as well for a lot of politicians, lawyers, civil servants, councillors, doctors, policemen, stockbrokers, business men… Again, it depended upon Julia Hodder and the extent to which she implicated Selby.

  *

  Detective Sergeant Mackinnon sat at his desk high in New Scotland Yard. Everything was happening around him, but still Harry Tipper would not release him from his mundane report-writing.

  He let the phone ring three or four times before answering it, remembering the advice of an old Special Branch officer who would never answer it on the first ring. “Let ’em think you’re busy, lad,” he would say.

  He grabbed the handset impatiently. “DS Mackinnon.”

  “Oh, Mr er – it’s—”

  “Hallo, Mr Marsh.” Mackinnon recognized the ex-Foreign Office man’s voice instantly. He also instantly regretted having answered it. Apart from being amazed that Dudley Marsh had found the piece of paper with his telephone number on it, he guessed that he was in for another lengthy period of irrelevant reminiscence. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve remembered about the Simpsons’ daughter…”

  “And what’s that, Mr Marsh?” Mackinnon lodged the handset in the crook of his neck and reached for the file and a pen.

  “She’s dead.”

  Mackinnon threw down the pen and looked at the ceiling. A sergeant opposite grinned and Mackinnon mouthed the words, Why me? “Dead, you say, Mr Marsh?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Perhaps you’d better tell me about it.” Mackinnon glanced at the clock then at the other sergeant. Putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he asked, “Which boozer you going to, Pat?”

  “Star,” said the sergeant. “I’ll get you one in.”

  “Yes,” continued Marsh. “Their daughter died in – now when was it? Must have been about 1954. They told me all about it one day. They were in London for a spell and the girl was born there. Old George should have gone off to Malaya, but there was all that terrorist trouble at the time, and he cried off, having a young baby and that, so they came out to Nigeria – that was his first tour. Kiddy caught some awful local bug and died. About two years old she was. Ironic, wasn’t it? I mean going there because of the trouble in Malaya.”

  “I think we’re at cross-purposes here,” said Mackinnon. “I didn’t know they had two daughters. I’m talking about Julia.”

  “So am I,” said Marsh. “They only had the one. Biggest disappointment of Helen’s life. They tried for another, you know. No good. Damn’ shame, really.”

  “Are you absolutely sure, Mr Marsh?”

  “Certain. Why don’t you check with the Foreign Office? Probably on a file somewhere. Very good with bits of paper, the Foreign Office.”

  It took Mackinnon about fifteen minutes to get from Scotland Yard to Rochester Row police station, and a further five to explain in detail what he had been told by Dudley Marsh.

  Gaffney immediately sent for Tipper. “Your background enquiries on Julia Hodder look as though they’ve come up trumps, Harry. She wasn’t Julia Simpson.”

  “Eh?”

  “The real Julia Simpson died at the age of two, in Lagos. Our Julia is bogus.”

  Tipper held up his hands. “Why in hell didn’t the vetting people find that out? I’ll bet that was my old guv’nor did that one.”

  Gaffney laughed. “Be fair, Harry. You find a birth certificate in St Catherine’s House; you don’t then trawl through the deaths to make sure she’s still alive. Anyway, if she died in Africa, which is what Mackinnon’s informant said, it won’t be there.”

  “It should be; in the consular section.”

  “Even so, Harry, you don’t expect to find that everyone up for vetting has adopted a dead person’s identity.”

  “It’s slap-dash,” growled Tipper, unwilling to make allowances.

  “Anyway, confirm it if you can. See your bloke at the Foreign Office; take Mackinnon with you, and he can explain more fully on the way. Better still, I should go to St Catherine’s House first, if I was you; might save yourself a bit of time.”

  *

  “Dead?” said Naylor. “But I thought you said you’d spoken to her.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Tipper patiently. He knew this was going to be difficult to explain. “I have interviewed a woman who purports to be Julia Simpson. I have seen a birth certificate for her, and I have seen her passport application. I can even tell you where she is right now. But my detective sergeant here—” He indicated Mackinnon with a jerk of his thumb. “My detective sergeant went to see your Dudley Marsh – the High Commissioner’s friend – and he told him that Julia Simpson had died in Nigeria in 1954, aged two.”

  “How extraordinary,” said Naylor. “What d’you want me to do?”

  “Is there any way of checking what Marsh said? To be fair, DS Mackinnon said he was a bit forgetful, and appeared to be rambling at times.”

  “He kept telling me he was forgetful,” said Mackinnon, “when he could remember.” He was only slightly mollified by his bit of information; still smarting that he seemed to have missed most of the action.

  “He could have been mixing the Simpsons up with someone else,” continued Tipper. “Or at least mixing their daughter up. Apart from anything else we’ve some loose confirmation that she was working for a charity in Ethiopia.”

  “Or someone purporting to be?” Naylor smiled archly. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his teeth with a pencil. “The normal procedure with births, deaths and marriages abroad is that they are registered with the consular section. A copy of the certificate goes to Somerset House—” He paused. “No, it’s not there any more…”

  “St Catherine’s House,” said Tipper.

  “Ah yes, of course. Well it’s sent there and lodged in the consular index or some such thing – it’s separate from the United Kingdom indexes anyway.”

  “Yes, I know all that,” said Tipper. “We came via St Catherine’s House on the way here. No trace. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Mmmm! I see. Yes, well, they don’t always get registered. The British abroad often don’t bother. Causes a lot of problems with nationality subsequently, when it comes to getting passports – that sort of thing. Our people are always getting letters from the Home Office about it.”

  “Really,” said Tipper. “Fascinating.”

  “Oh yes. Mind you, this fellow Simpson wouldn’t have forgotten; well, I wouldn’t have thought so, being in the service. It could have been a slip-up in Lagos, of course.” He reached across to his bookcase and selected a paperback book. “Let me see – 1954, you said?”

  “When she died? Yes.”

  “Mmm! No. I couldn’t remember exactly when independence was. There was always a Royal hopping on a plane about that time to do the flag-lowering thing.” He ran a finger down the page. “Ah! No, 1963, Nigeria. Still…” He read to himself for a while. “There was a lot going on – autonomous regions, then federation. It was jolly difficult for our chaps in those days. Never quite knew what was what. Still, they shouldn’t have slipped up on something like that.” He replaced the book carefully in its allotted place and swung round to face Tipper again. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do—” He drew a pad towards him and felt in his pocket for a pen. “I’ll shoot off a signal to HE and get him to have one of his fellows poke about in the basement, see if they can find anything. How would that be?”

  “Thank you,” said Tipper. “It is very important. I understand from one
of my senior officers that the Prime Minister is interested in the outcome of this enquiry.”

  “Oh!” said Naylor, and stood up.

  *

  The signal, addressed to Gaffney of Handcuffs, was remarkable for its brevity. It informed him that there was a record of the death of an infant named Julia Simpson at the High Commission. She had died on 15th September 1954. The informant was George Simpson, a member of the Colonial Service stationed at Lagos. It regretted that, according to records, no copy of the entry had been forwarded to the General Register Office in London at the time. A photostat copy of the entry, said the message in conclusion, was being forwarded by diplomatic pouch.

  “Careless bastards,” said Tipper.

  *

  The next morning, Julia Hodder, wearing the white slacks and black shirt in which she had been arrested, was brought into the interview room. Gaffney and Tipper were waiting, together with Ray Grierson, the deputy director of MI5, whose task it was to sit in the corner and say nothing; just to listen; to hold a watching brief for the Security Service. Sir Edward Griffin had decided to send his deputy to undertake this rather mundane task, he had said, because of the “Serious implications for the service”.

  For a whole hour beforehand, Gaffney, Tipper and Grierson had sifted the evidence, trying to deduce from it what had happened over the past ten years, and how Julia Hodder had succeeded so brilliantly in penetrating MI5. Finally, they had produced a summary which Gaffney was now going to use as a basis for his interrogation.

  “What’s your real name, Mrs Hodder?” asked Gaffney.

  She looked sullenly at him, then at Tipper, and then pointedly turned to gaze briefly at Grierson; she knew instinctively who he was. She faced Gaffney again. “I have nothing to say,” she said.

  “Would you like a cigarette, Mrs Hodder?” Gaffney asked. He had noticed, when he had interviewed her previously, that she smoked; he had taken the trouble to buy a packet of her brand of cigarettes, and now laid it on the table. “Coffee will be along in a moment.”

  She hesitated, then reached out and took one. Gaffney met the end of her cigarette with the flame of his lighter. “Thank you,” she said, and blew smoke into the air. “But I still have nothing to say.”

  Gaffney knew that this wasn’t going to be easy, but he had plenty of time: days, weeks even, if necessary. “In that case,” he said, “I shall talk to you. Two or three days ago we searched the house at Bere Watton – Tanglewood.” There was no reaction; she continued to gaze coolly at him, smoking her cigarette. “As you will probably realize, we found the transmitter, and quite a lot of other spying equipment. More important, we found the car in which Peter Dickson’s escape was effected, just as he was about to be arrested. We also found two passports in the names of Mrs Rita Hamilton and Madame Estelle Bisson; each of which had a photograph of you in it. There was currency, too – a lot of currency, and some travelers’ cheques. But then I am not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?” Still she said nothing. “And we found a coded message that you had omitted to destroy, which gave you quite specific instructions to ensure that that car was disposed of immediately after it had been used. You failed to do that, Mrs Hodder – you failed to comply with orders, and as a result we now have possession of it, and were able to undertake a number of tests – tests which have given us valuable information.” It wasn’t true; they had found a number of unidentified fingerprints, that was all. Not that it mattered. “I don’t think that your masters are going to be terribly happy with you, Mrs Hodder. If the director of the Chernobyl plant can get ten years in a labor camp for negligence, I tremor to think what you’ll get for downright disobedience – if they ever get you back.”

  For the first time, she looked slightly disconcerted, and stubbed her cigarette out with a little more determination than was in keeping with her character. “You don’t frighten me,” she said, but Gaffney reckoned that he had.

  “And then,” continued Gaffney, as though she hadn’t spoken, “We come to Peter Selby.” There was a spark of interest, no more. “We arrested him the day before yesterday, by the way; I should think he’ll spend quite a long time in prison – poor Peter.” He waited, letting that sink in. “He’s been very forthcoming.”

  She shrugged her shoulders, but she obviously hadn’t liked that piece of information very much.

  “Your three great successes were to ensure the escape of Nikitin, Gesschner and Dickson, each of whom is doubtless safely at home in the Soviet Union or wherever they belong.” It was true that recent information had come into the hands of MI5 that Nikitin was back in Moscow. Nothing had come from the East German liaison about Gesschner, and it was early days yet to get any intelligence on the whereabouts of Dickson. “They have no doubt been given a great welcome.” He paused to light a cigar. “Which is more than you will get, Mrs Hodder.” He pushed the packet of cigarettes across the table. “Your people have long memories, and even after you’ve spent twenty-five years in an English women’s prison – which is probably what you’ll get – they will still want to exact their revenge for your gross stupidity. They’re like that, aren’t they?” He carefully rolled the ash off his cigar, “I think you’ll die in prison, Mrs Hodder.”

  She gently stubbed her half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray. “Can I see Peter?” There was no sign of emotion.

  “Perhaps. It rather depends on you. We’ll talk about it another time.” He stood up and banged on the interview room door. A WPC entered. “You can put Mrs Hodder back in her cell now,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  They reassembled at four o’clock that afternoon. On Gaffney’s instructions, a change of clothing had been brought from Surrey for Julia Hodder, and she now wore a plain black dress. Gaffney noticed that she was looking a little more strained than she had done earlier in the day.

  “Peter Selby,” he began, concentrating on what he thought might be a weak spot in her reserve, “was a mistake on your part, wasn’t he?” She raised a quizzical eyebrow, but remained silent. “He wasn’t meant to feature in your arrangements at all. Your instructions were to come to this country and suborn Geoffrey Hodder. And you did. You were sexually attractive, glamorous, and younger than his wife. He was flattered that someone like you should be interested in him, let alone want him. You seduced him – and he was more than willing – and you succeeded in marrying him. To make certain of him, you even telephoned his wife one afternoon so that she could come and find you in bed with him… and you left the back door open.” The briefest of smiles flitted across Julia’s face. “And you were patient. It was some considerable time before you started to extract information from him, well after the time when he might just have been suspicious, and perhaps start wondering. And you did it under the pretext of counselling him when he started to feel depressed. But it was you, Mrs Hodder, who sowed the seeds of that depression, that nervousness. By insidious methods you set him doubting his own abilities, sapping his confidence; very slowly you wore him down until he felt that he could do nothing, make no decisions, without consulting you. He discussed every operation with you, but for the first few years you didn’t use that information, did you? That was clever, building his trust in you like that. But then you started; started passing that information to your masters in the Kremlin. You, or they, were even careful to pick a house at Bere Watton so that you could send your fast transmissions when helicopters were flying overhead on one of their routine checks of the prison, and so make detection much more difficult.” It was guess-work, all along the line, but it seemed logical to Gaffney.

  “But the one thing you couldn’t control was yourself. And that is what started the chain of events which resulted in your arrest.” Still she showed no reaction; just sat with a bland expression on her face. “You couldn’t resist other men, and Geoffrey couldn’t resist other women; but there are different rules. Men think it’s all right if they have affairs, but not if their wives do. It’s unfair, but that’s the way it
is. When he found out about you and Dick Harris – and the others – he would have left you, but he couldn’t afford to; he’d got no money, and he was still supporting his first wife. But he could – and did – stop sleeping with you. And that was too much for you. One of the things you said to me the second time we met was that you couldn’t live without sex; that was not only true, it was your undoing.

  “And then Geoffrey started to doubt your trustworthiness. Suddenly it came to him that you were the one person he’d told everything to. All about what he did; about Nikitin and Gesschner and Dickson, and God knows how much else that you’d wheedled out of him. And that terrified him. The poor devil didn’t know what to do. How could he go to the Director-General and tell him that for the last ten years he’d been married to a KGB agent?” Gaffney walked to the door and turned on the lights, illuminating the high, white-walled room with a stark light. “Now you were in a quandary; your source of information had suddenly dried up. Even so, your husband couldn’t bring himself to report what he had discovered about you, despite being certain of his suspicions; instead, he killed himself. But during the anguished months leading up to his death, you had to find a new source of information. Geoffrey had told you all about his staff, their foibles and their problems, and Selby was the one that you chose as the most malleable: an aesthete, a single man – possibly a homosexual – and all round, a bit out of the ordinary.”