Breaking Cover

46

Nothing surprised Staff Sergeant Wilkinson. He’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan and he’d seen it all – the bad and the good and everything in between. Now he had a comfortable job as resident porter at Georgian Apartments on the borders of Islington and Hackney. It was a smart new building, not Georgian in any sense in spite of its name. Most of the flats had been bought off plan with cash by people who intended to let them, not live in them. He’d settled down in the pleasant porter’s flat on the ground floor with his cat and didn’t hope for or expect any more excitement in his life. So when a young woman from the Ministry of Defence turned up one morning and told him that as a matter of national security she wanted to ask him most confidentially about Mr Hansen, the occupant of flat three on the second floor, he was neither surprised, alarmed nor even more than casually interested. He rather took it for granted that in a building like this someone might turn out to be of interest to MI5, because he assumed that was where she came from.

He told the young lady, Pamela she called herself, that he saw very little of Mr Hansen. He was often away from town and when he was in residence he was out a good deal, sometimes all night. Sergeant Wilkinson presumed he had a lady friend whom he visited but he had never seen her or any other visitor to flat 2/3. Mr Hansen kept a BMW320 in the basement car park and when he drove it out it was usually a signal that he was going to be away for several days. In fact he had taken the car out yesterday morning and was still away. He got very little mail at the flat and did not use the services of Mrs Hollins, the cleaning lady who did for most of the occupants. Yes, as porter Wilkinson had a pass key to all the flats in case of fire or other emergencies but if he used it, a record would show on the keypad in the flat, so the resident would know and Wilkinson would need a good explanation.

Sergeant Wilkinson readily agreed to phone Pamela’s office when Mr Hansen returned. He tucked her card away safely in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and ‘Pamela’, alias Peggy Kinsolving, walked off with Mr Wilkinson’s mobile number and the registration number of the BMW320 written in her notebook.

Twenty-four hours later an A4 surveillance team had set up a temporary observation post in a half-built block of flats across the road from Georgian Apartments. The camera was attached to a scaffolding pole and hidden by the tarpaulins that stretched across the construction site. A discreet gap gave the lens a clear view of the front entrance of Hansen’s apartment block and the ramp to the underground garage.

At ten o’clock the morning after the camera was installed, the monitors in the A4 Control Room picked up the BMW going down into the car park exactly eight minutes before Staff Sergeant Wilkinson telephoned to report its arrival. At about the same time, a few people lounging in parks and cafés and dawdling in shops near Georgian Apartments suddenly began to move purposefully towards various parked cars.

In the A4 control room in Thames House, Wally Woods phoned Peggy. ‘Your man’s back. We’ve seen his car but we didn’t get a clear picture of him. We’ve got your description but you’re the only one who’s actually seen him in the flesh. Would you come up and help us identify him in case he leaves on foot?’

So Peggy spent the next five hours up in the control room, sitting at one of the desks ranged in a line along one wall, gazing at a large TV screen suspended from the ceiling in front of her. The room was busy; several different operations were going on and all the other desks and screens were manned. Peggy found it quite difficult to concentrate on her task, her attention wandering between watching the entrance to the Georgian Apartments and trying to identify the assortment of residents and van drivers coming and going, in and out of the building. Occasionally Sergeant Wilkinson came out, chatting to a van driver or directing someone, but she saw no one who looked anything like Laurenz Hansen. Cups of coffee appeared at her elbow and, at lunchtime, a ham sandwich in its wrapper. Wally Woods liked to make sure guests to the control room were properly looked after – at least those he approved of, and that included Peggy, as a close colleague of Liz’s.

Out in the streets, cars were moved, the occupants changed, coffee was drunk, takeaways bought and eaten, until suddenly at three-thirty Peggy said ‘That’s him!’ as a tall dark-haired man, dressed in a smart suit and carrying a briefcase, came out of the door of Georgian Apartments, turned right and walked off down the street in the direction of City Road.

‘On the move, on foot, heading to City Road,’ said Wally over the microphone as he pressed a button to send the picture from the remote camera to the teams waiting in the cars. Back came pictures from the street as Laurenz headed towards one of them. He walked on, down the City Road in the direction of Old Street tube station. ‘He doesn’t know we’re there,’ said Wally to Peggy. ‘He’s completely relaxed. I thought you said he was a pro.’

‘We’re pretty sure he is. But he’s been getting away with it for quite a bit and he probably feels secure.’

‘OK. It’s our job to make sure he goes on feeling that way.’

The little procession went on, sometimes with Laurenz leading, sometimes one of the A4 team out in front, until at Old Street Station, Laurenz took the escalator down to the southbound Northern line with just two observers behind him. The others climbed into the cars that had been following and headed off fast to Moorgate station, the next one down the line, as well as stations further on. And it was at Moorgate that Laurenz got off, walked a short distance to a tall block of flats, let himself in with an electronic key fob and disappeared from sight.

‘Couldn’t see the flat number,’ came the report from the team, ‘and it looks like an unstaffed block – no porter.’

Wally looked at Peggy, eyebrows raised. ‘What next?’

‘Could we hang around to see what he does next? And photograph everyone else who goes in.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m going back downstairs to see what we can find out about those flats. Ring Liz if you need us.’

This meant another long wait for the A4 teams, though the area was ideal for hanging around in – well supplied with cafés and coffee shops, with one right next to the apartment block’s entrance. For an hour and a half no one went in or came out. Then from about five-thirty there was a steady stream of residents letting themselves in, mostly young people in office clothes, and some couples. A few came out, went across the road to a convenience store and went back in again. At half-past six came the first visitor. A young woman, brown-skinned, Indian origin probably, thought Wally, still on duty in the control room, receiving all the pictures. She pressed a bell and was let in.

Wally contacted Liz Carlyle, who had rung several times during the afternoon to see what was happening.

‘There’s a visitor to the block of flats. It may be the one you’re interested in. Indian-looking young woman, early thirties I’d say. Do you want to come and look at the picture?’

‘Yes. That’s the one,’ said Liz when she went to Wally’s room and saw the photograph of Jasminder, standing at the door.

‘She doesn’t look too happy,’ remarked Wally, who had not been briefed on who this was or the full background to the case.

‘No. She looks miserable,’ agreed Liz. ‘Please will you hang on there and house her if she leaves? And him too if they leave separately.’

Liz went back to her own floor and found Peggy hovering outside the office. ‘Any news?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Jasminder has gone to meet Laurenz at what appears to be a cover flat. She has got herself well and truly in the net. We need to get Geoffrey Fane and Bruno over here to put them in the picture and it’s time to brief Miles Brookhaven too. Have we heard from Charlie Simmons what he’s made of that phone of Tim’s?’

‘Just that he’s finding it difficult but I’ll ring him again tomorrow. Perhaps we should ask him to come down to brief us all. Shall I set up a meeting for the afternoon?’

‘Yes. Do that. Perhaps we’ll have a bit more on Laurenz by then.’

Jasminder left the flat in Moorgate by herself at ten-thirty and took the tube to Angel then walked home to her flat. She was accompanied all the way by a team of A4, who commented on how very sad and depressed she looked. Laurenz remained in the Moorgate flat until Liz had Wally stand down the teams at eleven-thirty. She thought it unlikely anything more of interest was going to happen that night.