‘So how can we help you?’
‘I should make clear that I’m off-duty at the moment, and this is just to satisfy my curiosity about some secondary features of the case that have been bothering me.’
‘Can’t let it go, eh?’ Toby nodded approvingly. ‘The new chap hasn’t been to see us. What’s his name?’
‘Superintendent Chivers.’
‘Yes, that’s him. Getting anywhere, is he?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not up to date with the investigation.’
‘Cutting you out, are they?’ Toby shook his head. ‘Turf politics, I suppose. So what are these secondary features?’
Brock took out the 1956 photograph and handed it to him.
‘Yes,’ Toby said. ‘John showed me this. That’s Chelsea Mansions in the background, right enough, but I couldn’t tell him who the people were. Not that I could see the relevance, frankly.’
‘We’ve always wondered if Nancy had a particular reason for wanting to stay here,’ Brock said. ‘And it appears that she did. We’ve now established that this is Nancy in the photograph, aged sixteen, and those are her parents. So she’d been here before.’
‘Good Lord.’ Deb took the photograph for a closer look. ‘I suppose it could be her… But she never mentioned this to us.’
‘That’s strange, isn’t it? I believe your aunt owned a hotel here in Chelsea Mansions, Colonel.’
He waved his hand. ‘Toby, please. Yes, my father’s aunt, Great-Aunt Daphne, next door at number seven.’
‘So it’s possible that these people were staying at her hotel. Certainly Nancy would have remembered being here with her parents. That’s presumably why she was so eager to stay here. And yet, having come all this way, she didn’t mention it to you?’
‘That does seem strange,’ Toby agreed.
‘Would you still have your great-aunt’s hotel records, visitors’ books, that sort of thing?’
‘I’m afraid not. John had a poke around in our attic, but I don’t think he came up with anything like that.’
‘Would you have been here at that time, Toby? April 1956?’
He frowned in thought. ‘Shouldn’t think so. I was in the army by then.’
‘There was a visit by the Soviet leaders to London that April.’
‘Oh, I do remember that-B and K, Bulganin and Krushchev. The papers were full of it. I remember the Daily Express ran articles instructing readers on how to say “Hello, how are you?” and “Did you have a nice trip?” in Russian, in case they bumped into any of the official party in the street. But no, I’m sure I wasn’t in London then. I would have been up at Catterick.’
Brock wasn’t altogether convinced by the way he dismissed the idea, but it was hard to read Toby’s expression, behind those dark lenses. ‘Pity. I was hoping you might have been the photographer.’
‘Sorry, no. But look, this is ancient history. What’s its relevance?’
He said it with a sudden vehemence, and Brock sensed an undercurrent of impatience, even anger in the man. Money troubles, perhaps. The place looked as if it was on its last legs.
‘Why are you wasting your time with this?’ Toby was going on, his voice hardening. ‘You and I both know what lies at the heart of it all. You had the answer in your hands. Money is what this is all about, the gangster Moszynski’s money, and the sickness and corruption that flows from that.’
‘You didn’t like him, did you? I believe he tried to cheat you.’
‘I detested him.’ Toby sat up straighter in his chair, sticking out his chin defiantly, and Brock had a glimpse of what he would have been like in the army, twenty years before.
‘He was one of those men who have no history, no tradition. They are opportunists who exist only in the present, preying upon those around them and using their money to spread corruption. And at the heart of that corruption squats that poisonous toad, Hadden-Vane. You had him, Brock! You had him in your grip, and he slipped away, thanks to corruption!’
He reached for a folded newspaper and slapped it down on the table in front of Brock, who saw the picture of Hadden-Vane, beaming smugly at the camera, and the caption, MP cleared. The short article stated that Scotland Yard had confirmed that Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane was not considered a person of interest in the murders of Nancy Haynes and Mikhail Moszynski. An unnamed source claimed that investigations on British soil had now been concluded and that a request to send detectives to continue inquiries in Moscow and St Petersburg had been rejected by the Russian government.
‘You’ve been duped.’ Toby sank back into his chair. ‘Outflanked and outmanoeuvred. The toad’s too wily for you.’
And perhaps it was true, Brock thought, as he walked back through Belgravia and Victoria. Or perhaps it was just the paranoia of an old soldier who had been defeated by the brutal realities of civilian life.
The officer at the reception desk at Queen Anne’s Gate had been told to expect him, and immediately showed him up to his old office, where Superintendent Chivers offered him a coffee and a seat. Chivers seemed unabashed to be in occupation of Brock’s old room. It was just an office after all, but still it seemed rather eerie, with the old clutter of books and papers swept away and someone else at Dot’s desk outside, as if Brock were dead and returning as a ghost to see how the world was coping without him. Extremely well, seemed to be the answer.
‘Yes, just putting the final touches to the report,’ Chivers said. ‘Then it’s up to the politicians if they want to pursue it, which I doubt.’
‘So it was the Russians all the time?’
‘Yes, a rerun of the Litvinenko case, except that they varied their method to hide the fact. No exotic poisons this time. They hired a local sub-contractor, Peebles, to do the dirty work.’
‘How did they get onto him?’
‘Through Danny Yilmaz’s cousin, Barbaros Kaya. We can’t prove it, but we’re sure he’s had drug dealings with Russian mafia from the Caucasus. That seems to be the link. We think they were used by an FSB faction that wants to ingratiate itself in the Kremlin by bringing Moszynski’s money back to Russia.’
Brock wondered if Sean Ardagh had inspired this idea. ‘And will they do that?’
‘That depends on which side of the fence Vadim Kuzmin chooses to jump. He holds the reins now. We’ve had the fraud boys working on the accountant, Freddie Clarke, but he’s giving nothing away.’
‘And Nancy Haynes?’
‘Peebles mistook her for Marta Moszynski. They wanted rid of her too-apparently she still has some influence with Putin because of her dead husband, Gennady Moszynski.’
‘The MI5 theory,’ Brock said.
‘Yes.’ Chivers scowled at Brock, irked by his lack of enthusiasm. ‘You have a problem with that, Brock?’
Brock took the 1956 photograph out of his pocket and showed it to him. ‘This turned up. It’s Chelsea Mansions, and that’s a teenage Nancy Haynes and her parents. The other man is probably Gennady.’
‘What?’ Chivers peered at it. ‘You sure?’
‘Reasonably. Not so as it would stand up in court.’
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Nancy’s companion, Emerson Merckle, had a packet of her old photographs.’
‘Well… what am I supposed to make of it?’
‘I’m not sure.’
Chivers stared at it for a while, then pushed it aside and gave Brock a grim smile and shook his head. ‘Brock, you bugger, you always do this.’
‘Do what, Dick?’
‘Try to complicate things. You’re never satisfied with the simple answer. You’ve always got to look for a more complicated explanation, a more interesting and original explanation. Well, you’re wrong. Remember Occam’s razor, Brock-the simplest of two theories is to be preferred.’
Brock hadn’t seen Chivers so worked up. He seemed to have touched a nerve.
‘My report is about to go to Sharpe,’ Chivers went on. ‘Don’t muddy the waters, please.’
‘Fair enough.’ Brock put the photograph back in his pocket and got to his feet. ‘Thanks for the update, Dick.’
