The Moscow Sleepers

30

Miss Girling knew most of Southwold like the back of her hand, but the address she had been given for the police station was a road on the outskirts of the town, on an unattractive 1950s housing estate which it had taken her two buses to reach. She got off the bus, cautiously looking round her. She dreaded meeting anyone she knew as she didn’t want to have to explain that she was out here visiting the police.

As she walked from the bus stop, looking for the number she had been given, she could see nothing that looked like her idea of a police station. She remembered the old one in the centre of the town, which had been closed for several years now. It had been a rather imposing red-brick double-fronted building with steps up the middle and a blue lamp over the door. But this was a street of single-storey buildings, some with small gardens in front and others with concrete for parking cars.

She found the right number house with no difficulty. The strange thing about it was that it looked very little different from all the other houses in the street except that its windows were covered with a fine metal mesh. As she approached, she could see that the building had been extended considerably, using all the space where the back garden had once been. Its front garden was concreted over and two cars were parked there, one an ordinary-looking silver car and one a police car. She walked up to the front door and noticed with some relief that underneath the bell was a small plate that read SUFFOLK POLICE. She rang the bell and the door clicked open.

Inside was a square hall with a low table and a couple of upholstered upright wooden-armed chairs – rather like the visitors’ chairs in a hospital ward. In one of these a young woman was sitting reading a magazine. As Miss Girling came in, she put the magazine on the table and stood up.

‘Miss Florence Girling?’ she asked smiling. ‘Do come in. I’m Diane Kingly. Thank you for coming. I hope you had no difficulty finding this place. It is a bit off the beaten track, I’m afraid.’

‘I had no difficulty,’ replied Florence, somewhat taken aback by the warmth of the welcome.

‘Well, if you’ll follow me, we’ll go somewhere a bit more comfortable.’

Florence followed the young woman along a corridor past several closed doors until she led Florence into a comfortable sitting room with chintz-covered armchairs and a two-seater sofa. Against the wall by the window was a small polished dining table on which stood a cafetière of coffee, cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits.

‘I should think you could do with a cup of coffee after trekking out here,’ said the young woman. ‘Do you take sugar? Biscuit?’

The coffee organised and delivered, the young woman sat down. By now Florence Girling had had a chance to sum her up. She looked most unlike a policewoman but Florence was modern enough to know that they came in all shapes and sizes these days. The young woman was wearing slim black trousers with ankle boots, and a soft grey cowl-necked sweater. Her hair was a shiny brown and held by a clip at the back of her head. She had very blue eyes.

‘Please call me Diane,’ said Peggy Kinsolving. ‘It’s a very strange story about your driving licence being found in Oswestry. Have you brought it with you and the letter I sent you, just as formal identification?’

Florence scrabbled in her bag and produced both documents. ‘Can you tell me what this is about? You see, I don’t actually own a car, and I haven’t driven one for over twenty years. So my driving licence has hardly ever been out of my purse since I got it and I’ve never been to Oswestry.’

‘Well, I’m afraid I think it’s likely that someone has been using your licence – or should I say a copy of it, or a fake licence with your details on it.’

Peggy examined the licence carefully. Then to Miss Girling’s relief, she smiled, and said, ‘It seems to be the genuine article.’

‘So how did my details come to be used in Oswestry? And how did the police get the false licence?’ asked Miss Girling. She was feeling more confident now that it looked as though no one suspected her of anything. She was genuinely interested to know what had been going on.

‘That’s what we’re hoping you can help us with. Do you know anyone in the county of Shropshire?’

‘Goodness no,’ said Miss Girling, for whom Shropshire might as well have been in Africa. She was Suffolk born and bred, and could count on the fingers of one hand the people she knew who, like her old schoolfriend now in London, had been foolish enough to move away from the county.

‘All right,’ said Peggy, ‘then I think our best bet is to assume that someone took down your details for use elsewhere.’ She saw the look of alarm spreading across Miss Girling’s face, and added sympathetically, ‘Without your knowledge, of course.’

‘But who could it be? I haven’t been burgled, and –’ she paused, recognising the grimness of her confession – ‘I don’t have many visitors.’ Not a single one in recent weeks, she realised, other than her next-door neighbour.

‘What about work? Could it have been there?’

‘I wouldn’t think so,’ said Miss Girling, though she was discomfited by the suggestion since it matched her own earlier speculation about her employers.

‘Tell me about your place of work, if you don’t mind. I gather you work at a school.’

Miss Girling wondered momentarily how this woman knew where she was employed but was soon distracted by her own account of the place. She explained how she had first come to work there many years before, on the recommendation of her mother’s oldest friend, and how much she had enjoyed teaching the students at what had then been a high-class private secondary school. She was pleased to find Miss Kingly nodding with interest as she talked about the school back then, the support it had had from the local community, the spirit of the place, evinced in the general good nature and willingness of both staff and students.

‘And now?’ asked Peggy quietly.

Miss Girling exhaled. ‘Don’t get me started,’ she said.

‘Go on,’ encouraged Peggy. ‘Is it as bad as all that?’

‘Worse,’ said Miss Girling.

She was beyond discretion by now, and found herself throwing caution to the wind since this young woman seemed so sympathetic. A year’s worth of stored-up resentment came out, in a long and highly specific account that reflected what she really thought about the place in its new incarnation. At one point, as she was describing the sinister Cicero, she realised that Miss Kingly was taking notes. But did that matter when Miss Girling was only telling the truth?

It was as she was describing Mr Sarnat – he of the businessman’s suits and Confucianist reading – that Miss Kingly interrupted. ‘Is Mr Sarnat the owner of the school?’

Miss Girling thought for a moment before shaking her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Who is then?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Though I’d dearly like to.’ If only to give them a piece of her mind, she thought to herself.

‘And these new foreign students? When are they arriving?’

‘It’s unclear. Or at least no one’s told me,’ she admitted. ‘But it must be soon, or they won’t be here for the start of term.’

‘Do you think you could find out, Miss Girling? And possibly who the new owners are as well? You must be the school’s resident memory, after all. No one knows as much about it as you do.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Miss Girling, pleased by the compliment. For once it felt nice – and useful – to be old. If only all young people were so polite and understanding as this Miss Kingly.

‘I wouldn’t want you to do anything that would get you into trouble,’ said Miss Kingly soothingly. ‘It’s just that you’re in a position to find things out that even the authorities can’t uncover.’

‘Do you think this has anything to do with my driving licence?’ asked Miss Girling, puzzled.

‘We can’t be sure,’ said Miss Kingly pensively. ‘Put it this way, Miss Girling: there have been suggestions made that all is not what it seems at Bartholomew Manor. The evidence points to the owners possibly skirting a line close to the edge of the law. If that’s the case, then pilfering an innocent civilian’s particulars from a driving licence would seem to them mere child’s play.’

‘But that’s monstrous,’ protested Miss Girling.

‘It is indeed. But these are awkward customers we’re dealing with.’

‘Criminals?’

‘Who’s to say? But it’s not impossible.’ Miss Kingly looked suddenly abashed, as if she had given away much more than she had meant to. ‘I hope I can trust you to keep this conversation strictly in confidence, Miss Girling.’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Girling, unsure what conspiracy she had enlisted in, but finding it oddly exciting to be part of it.

Miss Kingly went on, ‘Which means that this will not be our only conversation. If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to keep in touch. That way if you discover anything about the ownership of the school, you’ll be able to let me know. When the students do arrive, I’d be very interested in knowing what they are like and, most important, where they come from. In fact, if you could keep me posted about anything unusual going on, that would be very helpful. I’d leave it to you to decide what constitutes “unusual”, since you are the expert on Bartholomew Manor,’ she said with a smile. She added after this had sunk in, ‘Would that be all right?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Girling, finding it refreshing to be asked to do something off her own bat for a change, even if it came from someone young enough to be her daughter.

‘Then let me give you my card. You can ring the number on it at any time – day or night. I may not answer personally, but they will promptly relay any message to me.’ She handed over a small calling card, which Miss Girling deposited in her handbag. She could study it on her way home on the bus.

Miss Kingly continued, ‘But don’t ring from a phone at the school or anywhere where you could be overheard. At home is best. And I don’t want you to feel you have to do any of this. If you feel uncomfortable in any way, do let me know. But I can assure you that my colleagues – and not just at Suffolk Police – would be very grateful for any information you can provide. As I am sure you have guessed, I don’t always work on stolen driving licences.’

‘I gathered as much,’ said Miss Girling, though truth be told, this was the first time it had occurred to her that, much like the peculiar Mr Sarnat but in an altogether healthier way, Miss Kingly was not absolutely one hundred percent what she had appeared to be. And now she thought about it, the young woman never had claimed to be a police officer.