On the first floor of the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand there is an area called the Bear Garden. Anyone who needs to ask his way to it will probably never get there, for, as with members’ clubs, newcomers normally arrive only in the company of old hands. The Bear Garden consists of two large, high-ceilinged rooms connected by a short corridor, and in some ways it resembles not only an exclusive club but also a medieval palace ante-room. The setting is much the same: heavy wooden tables with carved chairs and benches along the walls, dusty portraits of old men clad in flowing, scarlet robes, even a gallery at one end; and the rooms are thronged with gossiping, conniving courtiers ready to present their petitions, make their requests. But there the resemblance ends. The carpet is twin to that in Royston’s office, the air is heavy with cigarette-smoke and the twentieth-century princelings who occupy the seats of power wear dark grey suits.
Leading off the short corridor which connects the two main rooms is an office known as ‘Room 98’. Here a judge of the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court sits daily to hear matters within his jurisdiction, including applications for bail, and it was from Room 98 that Laurence Sculby emerged at four o’clock on the day after his meeting with Royston.
‘Wasted brief fee,’ murmured the young barrister who followed him.
‘Nah,’ said Sculby. ‘Worth every penny.’
The barrister laughed uneasily.
‘“I’ve read the affidavit, Mr Gyddon, I don’t see the police, order as asked, two sureties in the sum of five hundred pounds.” I wasn’t exactly overworked, was I?’
‘Beautiful bit of advocacy,’ said Sculby. ‘Lovely touch, Spence. I’ll just have a word with the judge’s clerk and we’ll get that order down to Brixton tonight. Then first thing tomorrow, he’s out.’
‘That’s fast,’ said Spencer Gyddon. ‘I’m surprised you got in front of the judge so quickly, Laurie. How do you do these things?’
Sculby winked. ‘Trust me,’ he said.
‘I do,’ said Gyddon as Sculby turned away from him and started towards the stairs. ‘I think,’ he added under his breath.
At eleven o’clock next morning, formalities complete, Sculby met Loshkevoi at Brixton jail. To the lawyer’s surprise his client looked in better health, and he remarked on the fact. ‘Sleep,’ replied Loshkevoi. ‘Fourteen hours at a stretch, Mr Sculby. I needed it. Nothing else to do, anyway.’
‘Please call me Laurie,’ murmured Sculby. ‘Everyone does.’
‘Victor.’ Loshkevoi held out his hand and grasped Sculby’s in a painful squeeze. ‘You do a fine job, Laurie. What next?’
‘I expect you want to get home, see to things…’
‘For that I have a manager. He’s been in charge two days, another couple of hours won’t break him. All I want right now is to beat that fucking charge. You excuse my language, please.’
Sculby’s grin widened. ‘S’long as you’ll excuse mine. Tell you what. There’s a nice little Italian place up the hill. I’ll buy you lunch.’
‘It’s on me.’
Sculby put a friendly arm round Loshkevoi’s shoulders. ‘Argue about it over the coffee,’ he said.
Loshkevoi made a good lunch. Sculby wondered if he always ate that much or if prison had sharpened his appetite. Only when the coffee came, and they were well into the second litre of Soave, did the two men begin to talk seriously.
‘I come from Italy, you know. Years back. The food travels well, even here it’s good.’
‘What part of Italy?’
Loshkevoi raised suspicious eyes to Sculby’s face and evidently decided the question was innocent, for he replied ‘Bergamo’.
‘Why’d you leave?’
‘The war.’
Loshkevoi swilled down half a glass of wine and wiped his beard with his napkin.
‘I was a boy then. My father was killed, my mother went missing. There were plenty like me, wanted in Russia by the Bolsheviks. I made friends with the right captain, he took care of everything.’ Seeing Sculby’s look of puzzlement he added, ‘Sure I slept with him. I’m not bent, you understand. But rather that than a bullet in the neck. Illegal, too: it gave me a hold over him. Too late to do anything about that now, eh?’
‘I hope so,’ said Sculby thoughtfully. ‘Why do you think they’d have sent you to Russia?’
‘It’s where we came from. My parents, I mean. They drifted from place to place. In Bergamo my father was mechanic. He taught me. So, I come here with a trade.’
Sculby reached for his briefcase and pulled out a notebook. ‘Tell me a bit about yourself. Married?’
‘No. You get yourself a wife, you got overheads. I select the company I want, when I want.’
Sculby grinned. ‘Me too.’
‘I’m starting to like you, Laurie.’ Loshkevoi lit a thin, black cigar and offered the pack to Sculby. ‘Smoke?’
Sculby hesitated only a second. He was trying to give up, but Royston said to make an effort. All in the line of duty… ‘How long have you had your own business?’
‘Ten years. I bought it off my boss when he retired, did it up a little. Jaguars, that’s my speciality. The occasional Daimler, maybe. Your Fords and Vauxhalls…’
Loshkevoi made a heavy gesture of dismissal with the cigar. Sculby found his diction curiously irritating. A mixture of styles, it sounded put on, but the lawyer was coming to realise that it wasn’t.
‘You haven’t got a regular solicitor?’
‘Never needed one. Except when I took over the business, but that was years ago and I didn’t like him anyway.’
‘No previous? Convictions, I mean… ever been in trouble with the police before?’
‘No.’
‘Straight up.’
Loshkevoi’s head was sunk on to his chest. At Sculby’s question he lifted his eyes and subjected the solicitor to a long stare.
‘Straight up?’
‘Sorry. But I have to know. You’d be surprised the number of people who tell you they’ve no form when they have.’
‘Laurie, I deal in used cars. Nothing surprises me.’
They haggled amicably over the bill. Loshkevoi overrode his lawyer, and paid. Outside the restaurant Sculby said, ‘I’ll give you a lift. My car’s just round the corner.’
It took less than 15 minutes to drive to Loshkevoi’s garage. Sculby watched him scuttle inside the workshop, waving a hand to the man in the cashier’s booth. Nobody seemed surprised to see him. Sculby hung around as long as he decently could but in the end had to drive away without being any the wiser about his client’s affairs.
Loshkevoi closed the sliding doors of the workshop.
‘Sammy!’
A bald, fat man emerged from behind an XJ6 wiping his hands on an oily rag.
‘Vic… Didn’t expect to see you. The Old Bill was here yesterday, give the place a right going-over.’
Loshkevoi brushed him aside.
‘Half day. Come on lads, I’m shutting up.’
The man called Sammy stared at the gaffer in puzzlement.
‘Yer wot?’
‘We’re closed until eight tomorrow morning.’
‘How’d you get on, boss?’
A young mechanic had slid from under a jacked van and was grinning up at Loshkevoi from the floor.
‘Button it, Kelly. Go home.’
Other men in overalls began to appear from the hidden recesses of the shop. No one tried to argue. Within minutes Loshkevoi had the place to himself.
For a while he did nothing but stand with hands on hips, treating every inch of the walls and ceiling to a minute scrutiny. He started with the bottom left-hand corner of the rear wall and worked horizontally along the line of bricks before, at the end of the row, lifting his gaze a fraction and working back over the second line of bricks the way he had come. It took a long time for him to be convinced that nothing had apparently changed. But of course, the ferrets would have taken photographs before they began, and replaced everything in order afterwards.
Only after he had satisfied himself by this superficial visual inspection did Loshkevoi go in search of a crowbar and a torch.
Once inside the inspection pit he peered closely at the wall. It all looked the same. He began to hack at the bricks. Inside the cavity the light-sensitive cell attached to the ultra fast camera concealed by MI5 picked up the first flash of Loshkevoi’s torch. At once the shutter began to operate, 90 times in the first minute, then a pause of a minute, followed by a further 90 exposures. As the last frame of infra-red film passed the shutter the camera automatically switched itself off. When the film was retrieved and developed Loshkevoi would be identifiable on approximately two-thirds of the shots, which was more than the makers of the camera claimed for it.