by David Menon
Sylvia’s hand gripped her lover’s firmly as he went on to explain about specific operations that he’d been involved with and he brought up the issue of Vincent Taylor and Arrow Aviation. James explained that the KGB saw an opportunity to get an operative into a position of influence in one of the UK’s leading aerospace companies. And so it was that they sent Sergei Antanov to pose as the previously defected Vincent Taylor and take over his place as Chairman of the company. He’d been stationed there before, both he and his wife, and was a favoured son in Moscow because he’d executed his own wife after it had been discovered that she’d been selling secrets to the British so a posting like this was his kind of reward. And of course he looked so like Taylor. When it became known that the secret might come out after all these years certain steps were taken to retain silence over the issue because of all the political ramifications. The British and the Russians had used Arrow Aviation to feed false information to each other but Antanov also supplied his bosses back in Moscow with industrial information about what Arrow produced in order to use it within the Russian aerospace industry. But we’re living in a different world now and the old ways of keeping quiet are dying out in an ever more inquisitive human race. The Greater Manchester police started sniffing and that was that. Antanov has always known the score. All FSB operatives knew that a charmed life can come to an abrupt end and it’s up to him what he does now.
‘Do you feel any sense of responsibility for the fact that Yuri Kuznetsov, an operative that you’ve confessed to controlling on behalf of the FSB, is in custody pending trial for the murder of three innocent people?’ asked the journalist.
‘No’.
‘You don’t?’
‘No’.
‘Why not?’
‘Because all is fair in love and war’.
‘Simple as that?’
‘Look, we didn’t want it all to come out’ said Matthews. ‘The political fallout as you know has set back relations between the UK and Russia but I guess that will only be temporary. This was a situation that started in the dark days of the Cold War when things were so very different. But we had to try to keep it under wraps like we’ve done for all these years. We had to try to avoid the public spat between governments that you’re seeing now. But we’re in a different world now and things leak. And this would’ve leaked eventually’.
‘And you feel no bad conscience about any of this?’
‘Well look, everything else will be covered in my autobiography which I’m now going to start writing now that Sylvia and I are settled here’.
‘You’ve defected’.
‘No, we don’t defect anymore’ James countered. ‘I’ve come here because we’re living in an open world now and no longer behind an iron curtain. I can come and go as I please, so can Sylvia, but the overall offer was better on this side’.
‘And your Russian hosts wouldn’t let the British extradite you if they decided to?’
Matthews smiled. ‘They won’t do that. I know too much that I’ll be leaving out of my autobiography unless I’m pushed’.
‘And your family?’
Matthews paused. It was the first slightness of uncertainty the journalist had seen since the interview had started. ‘I’ll miss my children and my granddaughter, especially my granddaughter but it isn’t like we can’t be in contact’.
‘And what do you know about what happened to the real Vincent Taylor all those years ago?’
Matthews sighed. ‘His wife died. He took to the bottle for solace. He was homesick like many of them were who defected. It was all so very different back then. He was dead from the booze within a couple of years of getting here’.
‘So Mrs. Fleming, what can we do for you?’ asked Barton after Mary Fleming had turned up at the station for her meeting. They were sitting in an interview room and DS Bradshaw was sitting alongside Barton.
‘You can call me Mary’.
Barton smiled. ‘Alright then, Mary’ he said. She was one of those elderly ladies who liked to look her best and whenever she went out it was always in the clothes that a generation ago people would save for wearing on Sunday. A very neat two-piece with a woolen top underneath. Not a lot of make-up.
‘Well don’t you know why I’m here?’
‘Well we know that you owned a house in Mallingham Road, Chorlton at the end of the fifties that was rumoured to be used as a KGB safe house and where it was also rumoured that a murder took place there that has never been solved. Am I right on all counts?’
‘Yes’ said Mary. ‘Now allow me to fill in the gaps. I was a revolutionary in my younger days, detective. I was a member of the Communist party. I attended meetings, I went on marches, I thought that the Soviet Union was the savior of the working class and that all the negative stories about what went on there and what life was really like for ordinary people was just a load of Western propaganda and lies. I was approached by the KGB who wanted to use my house and I agreed. They housed a couple there, Igor and Oksana Antanov who were posing as an English couple called Brian and Valerie Oates. They both spoke perfect English and they both got administration jobs at Arrow Aviation. They guided Vincent Taylor when he defected and took all the company secrets with him. Only Vincent and I knew who they really were and as far as the outside world was concerned I was just renting them a room in my house’.
‘So they were recruiters for the KGB?’
‘Yes, that’s right’.
‘So what led to the murder in your house?’
‘They started falling out’ she explained. ‘They argued in Russian of course so I couldn’t understand what they were arguing about but I got the feeling that Oksana was getting a taste for Western life. It was more than just being undercover. I could see that she liked the clothes, the food that was in plentiful supply, the Hollywood films and all the music of the time. She was bewitched by it all. Then one day I came home from work early because I was coming down with the flu and I felt rotten. I went straight to bed. I heard Igor come in but I didn’t call out so he didn’t know I was there. I heard him pottering about downstairs and then I heard Oksana come in. I don’t know why but I got out of bed and opened my bedroom door quietly so I could listen to what was going on. And I was shocked. Oksana had been selling out to the British. I heard Igor click his gun and fire the shots. Poor, poor Oksana. My heart was breaking for her. The next thing I knew I heard Igor leaving and then there was the sound of people downstairs, there must’ve been three of four of them, all speaking Russian. I’ve never been more terrified in all my life. After they’d gone I left it an hour and then I went downstairs. There was no mess anywhere. It was as if nothing had happened’.
‘They’d done a thorough job of cleaning up?’
‘Oh yes’ said Mary. ‘I ran to the bathroom and threw up. I dreaded seeing Igor again because I just didn’t know what I’d say to him. But I never got the chance. I received a note from Igor later that evening through the letterbox. He said that he and Oksana wouldn’t be needing the room anymore and thanked me for all I’d done for them. He said I could do what I liked with their clothes. I burned them. That’s when I decided to sell the house and move away. I had a friend who lived in Wandsworth in London. I went to stay with her for a while before I found my own place. I met my husband Bob, we had our family and I put all that crazy business behind me. I’ve had a happy life, detective’.
‘So what made you come and see us now, Mary? I mean, after all this time?’
‘I couldn’t report it to the police at the time because of my KGB link and I would be putting my life in danger if I did. Besides, I thought Igor had gone back to Moscow and was untouchable which was true. What I didn’t know was that he’d come back ten years later pretending to be Vincent Taylor. When I saw him on the news the other day I was furious. I wanted justice for Oksana. She was a good woman whose only crime was to get caught between the two ideologies battling for the world at the time. We were all like that. We were naïve and a bit stupid but we really
did believe that Communism was the way to make the world a fairer place. I’m sorry I waited so long, detective. I hope I haven’t left it too late to put things right now?’
‘Oh I think that the fact you’ve made the effort to come all the way up here today means you should get a result, Mary, as long as you agree to be a witness?’
‘Of course’ said Mary.
‘Then we’ll take a statement from you and take it from there’ said Barton who knew that Mary’s testimony would be laying her open to espionage charges to do with letting the KGB use her house but he wasn’t going to say it. He didn’t want to worry her unnecessarily because he’d be doing everything in his power to make sure that no charges would be brought against her. She was one of the good ones in all of this. A little misguided in her youth but that goes for most of the population. At least she didn’t kill anyone.
Igor Antanov who’d been masquerading as Vincent Taylor for all these years was arrested as he tried to board a flight at Manchester airport that was bound for Moscow. Barton got his way with the DPP and Mary Fleming would not be charged with anything. It was a satisfactory result all round but Barton was edgy as the team celebrated their efforts in the pub.
‘We haven’t heard a squeak out of the security services’ said Barton after taking the first gulp of his pint. ‘And we’ve trodden on so many of their toes to seal this case it’s untrue. The political fallout from all this has been intense as you know with a war of words breaking out between London and Moscow. But it’ll pass. I’m sure it will’.
‘Maybe things really have changed, sir?’ suggested DS Bradshaw. ‘No more Cold War, no more iron curtain. And however historical the links are then if you’re Russian found to be on the wrong side of the law here then you’re liable to due process like everybody else’.
‘I hope you’re right, Adrian’ said Barton. ‘Unless they had a reason for letting us handle this particular scenario. I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. But it’s just something that crosses my mind’.
‘I see Julian Rankin went back under his stone as quickly as he appeared from under it’ said Bradshaw.
‘Yes but have no fear’ said Barton who was still thinking about Rankin’s words about how easily he was able to sail through the legal system and the suggestions he made about force corruption. ‘He’ll be back and just at a time when he’s least welcome. Where’s Joe by the way?’
‘He’s had to go home, sir’.
‘Had to?’
‘Erica-Jane commanded him’ said Bradshaw. ‘She’s so desperate for him to make her pregnant’.
Barton rolled his eyes up. ‘He doesn’t half get himself into some situations with women, doesn’t he’.
‘Well this one isn’t a woman, sir. She’s just a girl’.
Barton had another pint and then called it a night. DI Ollie Wright did the same a little while later and then it was just DS Adrian Bradshaw and Louisa.
‘This is getting to be quite a habit’ said Louisa as she clicked her glass with Adrian’s.
‘I know’ said Adrian. ‘People will start talking’.
‘Let them’.
‘Absolutely. You’ve made a very good impression on the team and the boss, Louisa. You’ve just slotted in and it’s as if you’ve always been here’.
‘Thanks, Adrian. It was important to me that I made a good impression’.
‘Well you’ve certainly done that’ said Adrian. ‘But I get the feeling with you that you’re on a mission and you’ve got something to prove about yourself. Am I right?’
Louisa looked down at her glass of wine and then just said it. ‘I’m transgender, Adrian. My name used to be Neil. I completed the surgery two years ago. My family won’t have anything to do with me and it gets a bit lonely sometimes even though I’ve got some good friends. So yes, I do have something to prove. Perhaps more than anyone else in our office’.
THE END
But DSI Jeff Barton and his team will be back later this year in ‘LANDSLIDE’.
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