grim admiration.
‘Anyway, Eleonora came to visit the family ten months ago, travelling on a three months tourist visa… After discovering her still here, we’d have offered her invitation to return, which she’s evidently appealing. I expect, when I’ve had a chance to speak to someone at the London office, that it will turn out that the grounds for requesting an extension of leave for Eleonora are compassionate: that she’s missed her beloved daughter these recent years, perhaps that she wants leave to stay permanently.’
‘Will she get it?’
‘I don’t know. Now the case must be a complex one, as it’s been going on since Monday — there was even a note here of it being referred to the Russian Embassy in London.’
‘Which all means?’ asked Grey.
‘Which all means,’ explained Rose, ‘that if Ludmila has been in London attending her mother’s hearings, then there’d be no reason to go there just today.’
‘She’d have been there all week?’
‘And unless Ludmila is commuting to and from London every morning and night…’
‘…then she hasn’t been home to give Mars his alibi these past two nights.’
‘That seems to be the crux of it,’ concluded their visitor. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have things to be getting back for.’
‘Of course.’ Rose thanked the man from the ministry. ‘I’ll call for someone to take you back to reception.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll go,’ announced Cori, jumping up to escort him.
‘You didn’t have to show me to the door,’ said Robert Grange in a clever way that left Cori with the firm impression that he was still glad she had done.
‘I wanted to say sorry for how I spoke back there,’ she said once out of others’ earshot. ‘Very unprofessional. I don’t think I’ve spoken that way since university.’
He stopped her by the security doors, ‘If it’s any consolation, I feel just the same. I’m here representing the Agency, I can’t voice my own opinions.’
‘Of course.’
‘For what it’s worth, what your Superintendent said was true about the myth of the Ukrainian peasant farmgirl. Many are from slums and old industrial towns where unemployment is through the roof. If not by this way, then they may only turn to gangsters to help get them out, and then end up smuggled into nightclubs and brothels in Paris or Amsterdam.’
‘Ludmila’s one of the lucky ones then.’
‘Certainly not the worst off. So, what was your degree?’
‘Huh? History and Sociology.’
‘You know, you’d fit right in at our place. Our Policy Unit would have you like a shot.’
Grey waited at the door to Rose’s office as she came back upstairs,
‘All made up?’
‘Better — I think I’ve just been offered a job. Don’t worry,’ she said in response to his look of horror, ‘I’m in no hurry to take it… though it’s always nice to be asked.’
Back in the room there was much brooding, their visitor gone and so the staff now free to show their true feelings. Inspector Glass was already reflecting the discussion through his pragmatic lens,
‘So Patrick Mars has been home alone all week, with time and space to brood, free as a bird to come and go from his house at all hours.’
‘It’s more than that,’ thundered Superintendent Rose, who hated dishonesty above all other things, ‘it means we have a recorded lie of his on tape. What’s more, he obviously intended to get his wife to lie to us too.’
‘But that’s not all bad, sir,’
‘Go on, Grey.’
‘It also means he hoped to get to her before we did.’
‘To feed her his alibi… so she’s not coming back this evening, and might already be here. Glass, have your men on the street look out for Ludmila Mars returning home and pluck her off the pavement before Mars knows she’s back.’
‘It might be better if we knew how she was arriving, sir; then we could catch her before there’s any risk of him seeing a commotion in his own street.’
‘I’d say our best bet’s the train,’ thought Cori, struggling to remember if anything had been said in the Mars interview.
Rose had the same thought, ‘Check the tape, would you? Does she drive? Sarah, check DVLA now. Where did that photo go?’ Rose looked through the copies of what documents Robert Grange had been able to leave them, searching for the colour reproduction of her photograph held on file.
‘Here it is — now would you look at that — have it blown up and a copy passed to every officer we have out there. Meanwhile, Glass, let’s get a car at each end of Mansard Lane, stopping any young woman until we get them the photo.’
The group dispersed to attend to their allotted tasks, each knowing that at any moment a company owner like Mars could choose to knock off work and be coming home.
The photograph of Ludmila Sergeyevna would have stood out as a magazine cover, let alone a passport photo — pale skin, blonde hair, willowy looks; and at five foot ten (as the file advised them she was) then Grey hoped easily distracting of the attention of the men amongst the officers Glass had positioned in the vicinity of her house. But it was those sent to the town’s train station — and not a moment too soon — who almost managed to miss her. Arriving to cover all exits, two carsful of them spotted her walking from the platform of the just arrived four- fifteen from London, beside her a grateful porter carrying her cases.
‘Lidia Mars?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Mars, I’m Inspector Rase of Southney Police.’
‘I am a citizen here. I have papers…’ She displayed the sudden panic of one used to more robust state apparatus. Grey stopped her as she went for her ‘papers’ evidently held at all times in her leather shoulderbag,
‘You’re in no trouble yourself, please be assured of that; but if you could spare a few minutes to talk to us… I can see you’re desperate to get home.’
‘Is this another immigration raid, like you carried out on my mother?’
‘We’re not immigration, we’re the police.’
And then something in her clicked, ‘It’s Patrick, isn’t it. What’s he done?’ she asked with barely an accent. ‘He’s finally done something, hasn’t he?’
‘It would be better if we spoke in private.’
‘It’s that company of his. They’ve finally killed someone.’
‘If you’ll come this way.’
No sooner were they back in Cori’s car, Glass in front, Grey in the back beside their passenger, than she was talking again,
‘I am a good wife, an honest wife. All is above board with us.’
‘There is no doubt of that, no doubt at all.’
‘I obey the law in England, so none of this is to do with me. It’s Patrick, isn’t it?’ she asked again, Grey seeing no use in denying it.
‘Has he done something very bad?’
Again, little point in answering.
But she was canny, ‘There wouldn’t be all of you policemen if it wasn’t something bad.’ She could see the squad car, full of what uniformed officers had been available, behind them. ‘I have the right to stay in this country.’
‘That isn’t in our power to take from you. We’re police officers,’ again Grey attempted to reassure her.
‘Then I want protection from him, so he can never get to me; then I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I can tell you what he’s like, what he talks about, how he treats me like you wouldn’t believe any Englishman would treat his wife…’
‘Mrs Mars, we can’t talk here, we need you on tape.’ Grey tried hopelessly to stem the flow.
