‘Forty-eight hours.’
‘One thing’s certain,’ said Dick. ‘I’m not spending a minute of it in the Public Record Office. Feel like a trip to Brighton?’
Jane frowned. ‘The ex-MI5 man? I thought you’d got all you could from him.’
Dick steered the Renault out of Shoe Lane into the flow of traffic westward along Fleet Street. ‘It’s true he answered my questions about Hess, but he was incredibly jumpy. He broke off the meeting very abruptly.’
‘You believe he could have said more?’
‘I didn’t press him as I should have done.’
Jane turned to face Dick as they stopped at a traffic signal. ‘Are you sure you want me to come? I thought he didn’t trust women.’
‘Have you wondered why?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Women could be his weakness. Unfashionable in the spy world, but not unknown. One smouldering look from you, and he may open up.’ Dick eased the car forward again.
‘How are we going to find Stones? We don’t have an address.’
‘We’ll stop off at my flat and make a couple of phone calls.’
The homeward movement west was already slowing the traffic, but once they were through Knightsbridge, they had a clearer drive on the Cromwell Road and reached Dick’s flat in Shepherd’s Bush soon after 4.00p.m.
Cedric was inquisitive when Dick got through to him at the office, but he could hardly refuse to provide Stones’ number.
‘What now?’ said Jane. ‘Will Directory Enquiries give us his address if we call them?’
Dick shook his head. ‘We don’t even know his real name, do we?’ He tapped out Stones’ number.
Jane stared at Dick in surprise. ‘You’re going to call him direct?’
Resonant with suspicion, the voice at the other end said, ‘Yes?’
‘This is the telephone engineer, sir,’ said Dick breezily. ‘Just checking that your fault has been corrected.’
‘I didn’t report a fault.’
‘Didn’t report it?’ said Dick. ‘Are you Mr Hatton of Trafalgar Street?’
‘No, I’m not. I’m Salter-Smith of Regency Square.’
‘My mistake,’ said Dick as he wrote it down. ‘Sorry to have troubled you, sir.’
They stopped for beer and sandwiches in Putney on their way out to the A23, but were soon back on the road. A steady drizzle smeared the windscreen without providing enough moisture for the wipers to work, except with the washer. They were in the thick of the rush-hour now, and each car had its slipstream of mud particles.
‘I’m looking forward to this,’ Jane announced. ‘I’ve never met a real MI5 man. As far as I know, that is.’
‘Don’t expect too much of this one. He has no respect for the cormorant press, as he calls us.’
‘What are we going to call him – Stones, or Salter-Smith?’
‘Neither, if we can avoid it.’
‘We’ll get nothing out of him if we’re not civil.’
It was around seven when the grey band of the South Downs was behind them and they cruised into Brighton in a stream of traffic. Their headlights picked out the floral displays along the edge of Preston Park, the sprinklers working on them, despite the rain. They kept straight on through the Grand Parade and the Old Steine to the lighted sea-front, and there turned right by the Palace Pier.
Jane had a town map open. ‘Keep going for a bit. Regency Square faces the West Pier.’
They parked in the King’s Road on the front, close to where Dick had stopped before.
To locate Salter-Smith, they had to make a tour of the elegant Georgian entrances, looking at the names against bell-pushes, a familiar exercise to them both. Salter-Smith’s, when they found it, was not handwritten, nor even typed, but printed on a visiting-card. Damian Salter-Smith CBE.
‘It sounds better than Stones,’ said Jane.
‘It doesn’t suit him so well.’
Dick pressed a bell marked Maggie, Davina and Ruth.
Jane frowned at him. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘You never know your luck.’
She gave him a dig with her elbow, but not too hard, because it was the first real attempt at humour she had heard him make.
The footsteps on the other side of the door promised someone the size of a Sumo wrestler, and whether it was Maggie, or Davina, or Ruth who opened the door, or all three of them in one set of clothes, the promise was fulfilled. Her folded arms were like two small pigs asleep on the shelf of her stomach.
‘Er, Miss Salter-Smith?’ tried Dick in all solemnity.
She shook her head. ‘Salter-Smith? Upstairs.’ She gestured with her thumb without unfolding her arms.
Dick thanked her, guided Jane across the threshold – not easy in the circumstances – and stepped inside himself. The reason for the stratagem dawned on Jane as they started up the stairs: if Salter-Smith had come to the front door, they might not have got past it.
He had another of the visiting-cards neatly mounted in a gilt frame on his door. Dick knocked.
The door opened slightly. It was secured with a safety-chain.
‘What the devil …’ piped the ex-MI5 man.
‘Sorry,’ said Dick, at the same time sliding his foot inwards to prevent the door being slammed. ‘Haven’t brought a Daily Mail this time. Brought a young lady to see you instead.’ He motioned to Jane to step into Salter-Smith’s narrow strip of vision. ‘Miss Jane Calvert-Mead. The Court and Diary correspondent on my paper, and very well connected.’
‘I hear you’re a writer,’ Jane remarked in a piercing cocktail-party voice. ‘Is the book published yet? It sounds a super subject. I simply adore books about the secret ser-’
‘Not here!’ Salter-Smith cut her off in alarm. ‘You’d better come in.’ He unfixed the chain.
He was wearing a faded blue overall that rather tarnished his MI5 image.
There was a sharp chemical smell in the apartment that Jane recongnized as soon as she saw a squadron of model aircraft suspended from the ceiling in the hallway: modelling-cement. They were shown into a living-room where Salter-Smith had been at work. A balsa-wood castle was partly erected on a table covered with newspaper.
‘Colditz, isn’t it?’ Dick observed, aided by the glossy photos pinned to the wall above the table. More aircraft waged a dogfight above their heads, and battleships were at anchor on the window-sills. A framed press picture of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill at one of their wartime conferences hung over what looked like a victory procession of handmade soldiers on the mantelpiece.
‘I thought I made it abundantly clear when we last met that I didn’t want this kind of intrusion,’ Salter-Smith barked accusingly at Dick, at the same time brushing wood-shavings off a chair for Jane. ‘How do you like your sherry, my dear?’
With an amused glance in Jane’s direction, Dick made a tactical retreat to an armchair the other side of Colditz. A video of Reach for the Sky was running on the television.
So the initative passed to Jane. She decided to lead the ace right away. ‘I’d give anything to read your book,’ she said. ‘You chaps in the security services are the real heroes of our time, and you have to put up with so much ill-founded criticism from the media.’
‘Can’t defend ourselves because of the Official Secrets Act,’ Salter-Smith said resignedly, basking in the flattery. He poured her a large amontillado, ignoring Dick. ‘Hope it’s all right. Never touch the stuff myself. Have to keep a clear head at all times.’
‘Of course. It’s no accident that your work is known as intelligence. Did you get a very good degree? I expect it’s all in the book.’
‘As much as I felt I could disclose in the national interest. I think it makes a damned good read. Do you read for a publisher, Miss Calvert-Mead?’
Jane hesitated, and then countered well. ‘That’s amazing! Hardly anyone ever gets my name right the first time. I suppose it’s your training. Actually everyone calls me Jane. Do you have a photographic memory, Mr Salter-Smith?’
‘Damian.’
All this was encouraging to Jane, but there was calculation in the way her new friend Damian watched her. They were definitely in a contest, sparring, looking for openings, and none were coming. She kept nudging him back to the topic of his book.
‘It would be interesting to your readers to know how you trained your memory.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to see a copy of the script,’ he suggested. ‘Do you have an hour to spare? I dare say you’ve been through one of those rapid reading courses.’
‘What a wonderful suggestion, Damian.’
‘Perhaps you can help me to find a decent publisher.’
‘Well, I won’t make any promises, but if I could take a copy back to London …’
He took hold of one of her hands and placed his palm over it affirmatively. ‘You shall read it here. Garrick can watch the film and I’ll carry on assembling Colditz.’ He crossed the room to a writing-desk and fussed behind the flap. When he turned back towards Jane, he wasn’t holding a manuscript, but a gun, a large black automatic. ‘Garrick, come out and join the lady,’ he ordered. ‘I’m damned if I’m risking a bullet through my castle.’
Dick was as surprised as Jane. He moved around the table and stood beside her. ‘Who do you think we are?’ he said. ‘We haven’t come to do the place over.’
‘Say precisely what you want from me.’
‘At the point of a gun?’
‘It’s in good working order. I keep it ready for emergencies like this.’
Jane kept very still. This was bizarre and dangerous. You didn’t take chances with a nervous old man holding an automatic, and she hoped Dick wouldn’t try anything rash.
Wisely, he decided on the reasoned approach. ‘What you know about us is the truth. Jane is on the team with me investigating the Hess story. When you and I met on the beach, I handled it badly. I wanted a second …’ He hesitated. ‘… shot.’
Salter-Smith grinned. ‘Fire away.’ The grin was no comfort. He had a very unreliable look to him.
Dick talked on, trying to sound unalarming. ‘I came away with the impression that you felt Hess has been unjustly treated by our people.’
‘So you still believe there’s some great mystery?’
‘We’re both convinced of it.’
‘And you think I can help solve it?’
‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘I never met Hess.’
There was an interval of silence. Dick appeared stunned by the admission.
Jane stepped in. ‘But you were in the service,’ she insisted. ‘Is there anyone in MI5 who might be willing to help us?’
Salter-Smith shook his head. ‘They’re all gone. They were senior people, not youngsters, as I was then.’ He broke off for a moment, his eyes losing their sharp focus as his mind wandered.
‘There is someone?’ Jane asked him eagerly.
He rubbed his chin with his free hand. ‘No, I was reminded of something else. An incident in Bedfordshire …’ He was distracted again. The gun was starting to dip towards the floor. Then his concentration returned. He eyed Jane and Dick in a calculating way. ‘If I were able to recall the details, would you guarantee to answer a question truthfully?’
‘Yes,’ answered Jane at once.
‘Of course!’ Dick confirmed.
‘Let’s try it, then. From what your editor has told you, what chance does my book have of being published? A straight answer. No fudging.’
Dick took a deep breath and answered, ‘No chance at all.’
Jane confirmed it with a nod.
‘Thank you,’ said Salter-Smith gravely. ‘Very difficult to get an honest answer. Made a fool of myself.’
‘No less than we did,’ Dick commented.
‘That’s permissible in the young. Old men should be wiser, or shut up.’ He placed the gun on the writing-desk.
Jane glanced towards Dick and then told Salter-Smith, ‘I feel ashamed. It must be obvious that I haven’t been very honest.’
He gave a bleak smile. ‘That was obvious from the beginning, my dear. I bear no malice. Pretty young women don’t often deceive me these days. I think I will have a drop of sherry. Let’s all imbibe, and then I’ll keep my side of the bargain, for what it’s worth.’ When each of them had a glass, he picked up his own and said, ‘First, a toast. To one very old man who has kept his dignity. I think you know who I mean.’
They drank.
He went on, ‘This is the only thing I can recollect. In 1941, when Hess parachuted into Scotland, I was a very junior MI5 officer based in Bedfordshire, supposed to keep a lookout for Fifth Columnists in the civilian population. It was dreary, I can tell you. Until one night in June, five or six weeks after Hess arrived. I got a message telling me to report to Luton Hoo because two Germans in civvies had been detained by the Special Branch. Well, they were Germans all right, and pretty damn scared by the time I questioned them in the police cells. They’d parachuted in during an air-raid. Still had the harness-marks on their shoulders. They were wearing German-made suits with the labels ripped out. And they were carrying maps. They had Cockfosters marked – that was the RAF interrogation centre, you know – and also Dungavel.’
‘The Duke of Hamilton’s house?’ said Jane in excitement.
‘Yes. It was fairly obvious that they’d been sent to locate Hess, though whether to rescue him or murder him I never discovered. They were SS men, quite young and pathetically inept. They tried telling me they were part of a peace mission, and it didn’t impress me much, but one of them did claim to have come to Britain three months previously. His story seemed fantastic to me. He said he’d been part of a German delegation that came in via Dublin to negotiate a peace. He’d actually remained in Dublin while the senior members of the party flew into Britain.’
Dick stared at Salter-Smith. ‘Germans in Britain in 1941?’
‘I know it sounds a tall story,’ said Salter-Smith apologetically, ‘and there may be nothing in it, but the fellow swore it was true. He told me how to verify it. Came up with the name of the British pilot who met the group in Dublin and flew them out.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A Warrant-Officer Perry. Out of interest, I checked. There was a pilot of that name based at Kidlington, in Oxfordshire. The next day, after these chaps had been taken over by pukka MI5 interrogators, I tried phoning Perry. He wasn’t available, but my call was intercepted, and within the hour I was carpeted and warned off by my boss. Whatever Perry had been engaged in, it was top secret. So I never met him. But I did hear indirectly that he had some bad luck later. Lost both legs in an air-raid. From time to time I’ve wondered about him, whether it was just a tall story from a frightened German, or not.’
‘What happened to the two SS men?’ asked Jane.
‘They were interrogated by B Division of MI5 at Latchmere House in Surrey and executed.’
‘Without trial?’
‘Those were the rules of war, my dear.’