‘If you are going to book me, book me.’
Stuart stepped over to the dressing table and fingered quickly through Stein’s US passport, airline tickets, keys and coins, and a wallet containing paper money, California driving licence, social security card and credit cards. ‘Ask yourself what kind of position you’re in,’ Stuart suggested.
Billy said nothing.
‘You’ve left your dabs all over that house in King’s Cross. The police still take fingerprints, Stein. I know that these whizz kids in the private-eye movies say it’s all out of date, but the cops get a lot of convictions every year on fingerprint evidence.’ Stuart lifted a Samsonite two-suiter on to the bed. ‘Fingerprints are computerized nowadays. Stein. No more time wasted while some civilian clerk compares arches, loops and whorls-all done in a flash nowadays.’ He opened the catches and rummaged quickly through the clothes inside. ‘And even if you are innocent, who’s going to believe it?’
‘You won’t find the Hitler documents in there, buddy.’
‘Won’t I? Well, that’s too bad, but I get an A for effort, right?’ Stuart waved the pistol at him. ‘Keep still until I tell you to move.’
‘Do you know what I really think? I think you killed those two people. Or, if you didn’t do it personally, someone employed by the goddamned British spy service did it. Then you put that phone message on my tape and staked out the house to watch me walk into your trap. It’s a frame-up, as sure as I ever saw one. And one day I’ll get even with you, if it takes me a million years.’
‘Never mind the histrionics,’ said Stuart, ‘You lean forward and put your hands behind you so that I can fit the handcuffs on you. Try to grab my gun and I’ll have to hit you over the head with the butt of it-you understand?’
‘OK,’ said Billy. ‘You’re charging me, are you?’
‘Like in the Hitchcock films, you mean?’ He got one cuff on to Stein’s wrist and struggled with the other until it finally clicked. It pinched Billy’s skin and he gave a grunt of pain. ‘No, you’ll be charged by a nice police inspector, in full dress uniform. You get an inspector for a murder charge, Stein, no lesser rank may do it. It will be something to write to your dad about. I just came along to collect you. We’re going out the back way. Cut up rough and you’ll go out feet first. Got it?’
‘Yep.’
Stuart had arranged everything with great care. He used two young probationary trainees from the Foreign Office to help him with the car and pacify the hotel staff. They hustled Stein out through the baggage door, and put him into a black Rover saloon which had been passed off more than once as a police vehicle.
They put Billy Stein into a safe house in Pentonville Road. A man named Benson, dressed up as a police inspector, went through all the formalities with Stein, and certainly the cells in the basement were convincing enough. They had been built in May 1945 to hold high-ranking Nazis brought to London for interrogation. Since then they had been used to store stationery, except when charades like this one necessitated moving all the boxes of paper upstairs.
‘It went all right,’ said one of the trainees. It was exactly the sort of task they had looked forward to when first selected for assignment to MI6.
‘Let’s wait until we’re sure that no one took the licence number of that Rover and finds it’s registered in the name of old Tom Morris in the accounting department. Did you put the fear of God into the hotel staff? We don’t want anyone phoning the Evening Standard news desk.’
‘I did just what you told me, sir,’ said one trainee obsequiously.
‘You’ll go a long way, Parsons,’ said Stuart. ‘Paid his bill, and checked his room carefully?’
‘Just the way they showed us to do it at the training school.’
Stuart pulled a face. ‘No one’s perfect,’ he said. ‘I’m going home now. You can give him some gentle interrogation for the next two hours. I’ll take over when I return.’
‘What is the prime objective?’ asked the first trainee.
Stuart recognized the terminology. They had been talking about primary and secondary interrogation objectives decades ago when he had first passed through the school. ‘Just ask him questions,’ said Stuart. ‘Any questions. Don’t try to solve the murders-just keep him awake for me. I want him tired and worried by the time I take over.’
‘Are we certain that he didn’t murder the people in King’s ‘Cross?’
Stuart looked at him. Only these young trainees asked that sort of direct question, but he let it go without complaint. ‘The two men were discovered dead by one of our own operatives while Billy Stein was still in the USA.’
‘I suppose that clinches it,’ said the trainee.
‘Let’s just say that we’d need a very persuasive prosecutor,’ said Stuart and went home.
28
The top two floors of the Pentonville safe house, in a shabby part of north London, were converted into a separate apartment. Meetings were sometimes held there, although these were never the high-level ‘policy meetings’, or the monthly so-called ‘Soviets’, or even the finance meetings. All those were held in more luxurious environments: the house that overlooked the Thames at Marlow or the equally fine manor house at Abingdon. Places where, or so it was always insisted, the extensive parkland provided better security.
The Pentonville Road safe house was where men met to discuss such mundane matters as travel and petrol allowances, extra paid leave and postings-the sort of decisions that did not affect the lives of the men at the top. But Pentonville Road was comfortable enough in its bourgeois way. On the sideboard the duty officers could be sure of a bottle of Yugoslav riesling or a rather fierce claret, together with warm Schweppes and recapped bottles of Perrier water, long since gone flat. Even the key for the cupboard under the stairs, where the gin and whisky were kept, was hanging by the electric meter with the fuse wire. There was a temperamental gas stove and a seemingly endless supply of eggs and sliced Wonderloaf. The more adventurous of the department’s employees had found it a convenient place to entertain young-and even not so young-ladies, when marital commitments stood in the way of more conventional social meetings.
Whether Sir Sydney Ryden knew any of this was not easy to decide, but he looked about him with a quizzical eye, and duty officer’s desperate search for a bottle of port for him had not only been successful but had also brought to light some Worcestershire sauce, half a bottle of malt whisky and a pink plastic hair comb.
At first the DG did not sit down. He strode about the large sitting room, picking up ashtrays and broken fountain pens in the restless way with which he was known to react to department bad news. He had not removed his overcoat when Stuart was shown into the room. The back of his collar was turned up and his hair was in all directions. Under the long overcoat, the director was in evening clothes, complete with old-fashioned wing-collar and pearl shirt studs. It was the small hours of Saturday, and cold enough for the duty officer to have a coal fire going in the tiny grate. The DG warmed his hands at it.
‘I was celebrating,’ explained the DG.
‘Something upon which I should congratulate you, Director?’
The DG smiled. ‘A dear friend was awarded a medal by the Royal Central Asian Society. It’s a great honour.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The DG turned to the sideboard. ‘A drink, Stuart?’
‘No thank you, sir.’ Stuart looked at his watch. It was three o’clock in the morning.
‘They have found me some port. I’m going to try some. Are you sure you won’t change your mind? We have… ’ he picked it up, tore off its paper wrapping and read the label carefully, ‘a malt whisky, according to the label.’