The Secret of Spandau (20 page)

Harald Beer only had time to utter the words, ‘What is it?' before he succumbed to the onset of vertigo and loss of breath. The respiratory centre of his brain was paralysed. He reeled, staggering into a pile of contracts and fell dying on them, permanently discharged of any more obligations.

The murder weapon was a seven-inch gas-gun fired by a KGB hit-man. Really it was just a sophisticated version of that simple toy, the water-pistol, except that the spray it fired was concentrated hydrogen cyanide.

The hit-man took a step backwards into the hall again and closed the door. Julius, the KGB agent known falsely to Harald as Pröhl, was waiting there.

‘Done?'

‘Done,' answered the hit-man.

‘And now we must wait?'

‘Five minutes. There is a mask for you in the case.'

They had brought in the briefcase containing their equipment when Harald had released the electronic lock on the front door to admit the visitor. The hit-man had come into the building with Julius and waited in the hall for his cue to kill. Had Harald greeted them in the hall, the hit-man would have been passed off as one of the Hess family.

While they waited for Harald to die and the fumes to disperse, Julius reviewed the encounter. He felt he had handled it reasonably well. In a few minutes he would take possession of the typescript and the contract. That was the good news.

The bad news was that Harald Beer had not been able to disclose anything about the present whereabouts of the original manuscript, the hundreds of scraps of paper that Hess must have managed to smuggle out of Spandau. Harald had not even known how his father had acquired the typed copy. At Karlshorst, they would not be overjoyed about that. This assignment was by no means completed.

The other piece of news – about the mass slaughter of the Poles – was best forgotten. For Julius, it was superfluous, but dangerous knowledge. It would not be prudent to mention it at Karlshorst. The KGB chiefs would read it for themselves in the memoir. And he would make a point of mentioning that he had made only a cursory inspection of the typescript.

The hit-man was looking at his watch. ‘Ready? Better put on our masks.'

‘One moment,' said Julius. He took a cigar from his pocket and struck a match to light it.

‘You can't smoke that thing now,' the hit-man testily told him.

‘I need it.' Julius inhaled to get the cigar well alight, then cleared his lungs with several deep draughts of air. Holding the cigar between two fingers, he drew the gas-mask over his head. Then he pushed open the door of Harald's office.

Harald's body lay sprawled among the contracts, the eyes fixed in a hideous stare, the teeth clenched and traces of froth at the edges of the mouth. The hit-man felt for the pulse at the side of the neck, then confirmed with a nod to Julius that the job had been successfully executed. There would be nothing to tell that the death was due to anything except a cardiac arrest.

Julius still had instructions to carry out. It was necessary to force each of the dead man's fingers away from the Hess memoir to obtain it. He checked that he had the correct script. Then he opened a filing cabinet and spent a few minutes searching for the office copy of the letter Harald had originally addressed to Hess.

When he had found it, he held the flimsy paper at arm's length and touched the lighted cigar to one corner until a small flame was kindled. He placed the burning paper next to a heap of contracts, which soon ignited. There was enough paper in the place to ensure that the fire would not go out. The desk was of wood, and the walls were panelled oak.

As a final touch, he pressed the cigar between the dead man's fingers.

The room was already filling with smoke as Julius and the hit-man left the building unseen and walked two blocks to where their car was parked.

‘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.'