“Without one there would not be the other,” she replied in a voice that was laced with bitterness.
“When did you start seeing him?”
“March 16th. It was a Sunday. I was in the park at Great Windsor. He asked me for directions.” She smiled wistfully and blew her nose.
“What year?”
“Two years ago. 1987.”
Three days later, Henry Arnold received a call from the Special Branch officer at Aldershot with Mrs Hogan. The Chief Inspector had agreed that he could have half an hour that evening. After that, the plaintiff would be transferred to a woman’s remand prison and be unavailable until her trial.
“That’s me away then,” he said cheerfully to Callows’ secretary. They had developed a cheerful banter in the office with Arnold’s comings and goings.
“Where? Home to the moggy and the paper?”
“Aldershot Redcaps.” He winked at her. “To have a chat with Mata Hari Mortimer. All in life is never what it seems.”
An hour and a half later, he showed his pass to the gate guards, entered the establishment and was shown into the high security remand area.
The woman’s lawyer was present, sitting self-importantly at a table in the interview room, Mortimer in a shapeless pink cardigan beside him.
“I have only agreed to this because I have been assured it will bear well on my client’s case,” he said in a strained Birmingham accent.
“I wouldn’t know,” Arnold replied pleasantly, “but I don’t need long. “
“You may commence your half hour now,” he replied, tight lipped.
Arnold, his patience pushed, answered abruptly, “Don’t push it sonny. She is up for high treason, not some traffic offence. I am the man who caught her and I will take all the time I like! Now, why don’t you take a walk? You can listen on the intercom next door.”
“Rest assured, I will,” he said, standing.
After he had left, Arnold shook his head in wonder looking at Meredith Mortimer. “There are better lawyers than that around, you know.”
“He’s from legal aid,” she answered. “Anyway, he’s been very nice to me.”
He shrugged and sat down, his coat over his lap, and crossed one long bony leg over the other. “I just have the one question, Miss Mortimer.”
She nodded at him to continue.
“Why did you purge things from the system?”
“Purge?” she asked
“Yes.”
“I didn’t,” she said flatly.
“You sure?” Arnold pursued.
“Yes,” she replied, “I’m not that stupid.”
“You didn’t purge the Long Knives file from the system?”
“No!”
“You didn’t. You are sure of that?”
“I made a few mistakes – but, as I said, I didn’t purge anything…”
Arnold’s eyelids lowered and he gave a tight lipped smile, as if it were exactly the answer he was expecting. They talked for a few minutes about the file and then Arnold left.
The following evening, as he walked the last few yards down Blackheath Road toward his home, a light blue Cortina with two men inside climbed the pavement at speed and knocked him down. It then shrieked to a halt and, wheels smoking, reversed back over his broken body. Three witnesses saw the incident, one walking his dog, another a woman from her front room window. The third was the same man who had been sitting on the riverbank when Arnold and the Special Branch officers had arrested Meredith Mortimer. He remained in the shadows up the street, not talking to the police and careful not to be seen. Twenty minutes later, blue police lights illuminated the area as officers put up bright yellow tapes and a mobile incident control room arrived. Someone had already found his wallet, and inside the M.o.D. pass with its characteristic but tiny red dot in the upper left corner, which identified him as someone cleared for high security. As a result of this, Special Branch were informed. Half an hour later, Sir Martin Callows was phoned at home to be told of Henry Arnold’s murder.
At precisely that moment, Meredith Mortimer was stabbed to death by an unknown assailant inside the remand centre. The accuracy of the angle of entry led a Scotland Yard pathologist, called from his dinner table for the post mortem, to remark that it was either a very lucky assailant or an expert. The blows had both penetrated the heart and death had been virtually instantaneous.
Callows said nothing, listening with intent to the debrief from Adrian Black. It was midnight and John Burmeister, as usual immaculately turned out, sat in the second chair at Callows’ desk. They were awaiting the arrival of the Director General.
Black finished reading from his notebook and closed it with a final tired flick of his wrist.
“What the hell is going on?” Callows thought aloud. “First Simonov and the people in the house, then Arnold – and, at the same moment, the Mortimer woman…”
“The Soviets,” Burmeister offered, “cleaning up the loose ends perhaps.”
“Only in a paperback,” Black said, “but they are related. Simonov gave us the clue. Our sniffer and his target got killed because they were becoming dangerous. It’s not the Soviets. They were working on the same thing. That’s what Simonov said…”
He paused to let it sink in while he thought about his next step. “So the next question is, what happened yesterday that meant Henry Arnold had to go, and go quickly? Once again no time for anything subtle. This was almost a warning killing. Noisy. Dramatic...”
Callows caught his drift immediately. “You’re saying that Arnold’s investigation turned up something yesterday, and who ever killed him knew it.”
“Yes,” Black said, “something like that.”
“My God. That means they are all over us!”
Callows leant forward and spoke into the intercom. His ever present secretary had arrived back in the office along with Black and he called her in.
“Henry Arnold. Did he stop in to see me or anyone last night?” he asked as she entered his office, notebook and pencil in hand.
“He tried, Sir Martin, but you had gone. So had Mr Burmeister and Mr Black.”
“Dammit!” he muttered.
“He tried me today as well,” Black said, “but I was over at Century or something…”
Callows looked back at his secretary.
