The words sprang at Patrick from a newspaper placard as he walked towards Sam’s hotel:
THEATRICAL AGENT FOUND DEAD.
It meant nothing at first. He walked on. Manolakis had taken the car back to Bolton Gardens, with instructions to park it carefully near Liz’s flat. They were to meet there later. Patrick’s immediate plan was to lurk about in the hotel in case Sam left, or had any recognisable visitors. At least he would be on the spot and might have a chance to speak to Sam again.
As he went on he saw more hoardings with the same headline, but the message did not register until he read one that said:
STAR’S AGENT KILLED IN FALL.
Then he bought a paper.
Leila Waters had been found dead early that morning on the pavement beneath her flat.
Patrick felt a sick shock.
Surely Sam would see this news and wonder what had happened? First the man with red hair; then Tina; now Leila Waters.
People were sacrificed in spy operations.
Was this one, and if it was, were these deaths justified? Deaths, as far as he could judge, all in the interests of winning over a possible defector. Surely such a person need only ask for asylum? Other people did not have to be slaughtered to achieve such a result.
At the hotel, Patrick sat in the lounge reading the newspaper item again; it was thought that Leila had slipped while opening the window, which was rather stiff. Well, she might have done, but she must have been used to her own windows.
Patrick turned the facts over in his mind. Leila had, it seemed, willingly helped in the deception over Sam’s supposed death; she had suggested him to impersonate the ailing man, and Sam had said she had done such things before. She could be an agent working for Special Branch: or a double-agent. Which was the right answer?
Patrick went to one of the telephones supplied for the use of guests, and asked to be connected with suite 538.
‘The suite is empty, sir,’ he was told. ‘The party checked out this morning.’
The telephonist would not disclose where Sam, in his assumed identity, had gone, and nor would the porter or the desk clerk. They said they did not know.
Patrick swung out of the hotel and went down the road looking for an ordinary telephone box, for he did not want the hotel to overhear him ringing the polColin, at Scotland Yard, was out, so he rang Sergeant Bruce.
‘Do you still say we must leave it to Special Branch?’ Patrick demanded. ‘Who’ll be next?’
‘I’m sure Special Branch knows what it’s doing,’ said Bruce in an official sort of voice.
‘Well, I’m not,’ said Patrick flatly.
He remembered something a policeman had once told him: any corpse found as Sam’s supposed body had been, would have been automatically finger-printed. Its identification could have been proved, if the police had wanted to do it. Had they?