Spy Sinker

23

England. March, 1987.

Bernard Samson was spending that Saturday at home with Gloria in their little house at 13, Balaklava Road, Raynes Park, in London's commuter belt. He was clearing all sorts of unwanted oddments from the garden shed. Most of them were still in the big cardboard boxes bearing the name of the moving company which had brought their furniture here.

Gloria was upstairs in the bedroom. The wardrobe door was open to reveal a long mirror in which she was studying herself. In front of her she was holding a dress she had found in one of the cardboard boxes. It was an expensive dress with a Paris label, a dramatic low-cut cocktail dress of grey and black, the barber-pole stripes sweeping diagonally with the bias cut. It belonged to Fiona Samson.

As she held it up she tried to imagine herself wearing it. She tried to imagine what Fiona was really like and what sort of a marriage she had enjoyed with Bernard and the children.

Bernard was wearing his carpet slippers and came noiselessly upstairs. Entering the room without knocking he exclaimed, 'Oh!' Then he recognized the dress she was holding and said, 'Far too small! And grey is not your colour, my love.'

Embarrassed to be caught with it, Gloria put the dress on the rail in the wardrobe and closed the door. 'She has been away four years. She will never come back, Bernard, will she?'

'I don't know.'

'Don't be angry. Every time I try to talk about her you become bad-tempered. It's a way of blackmailing me into keeping quiet about her.'

'Is that the way you see it?'

Still selfconscious, she touched her hair. 'It's the way it is, Bernard. You want to have me here with you; and you also want to hang on to the increasingly unlikely chance that you will ever see her again.'

Bernard went close and put his arm round her. At first her anger seemed assuaged, but as Bernard went to kiss her she showed a sudden anger. 'Don't! You always try to wriggle out of it. You kiss me; you say you love me; and you shut me up.'

'You keep asking me these questions and I tell you the truth. The truth is that I don't know the answers.'

'You make me feel so bloody insecure,' said Gloria.

'I'm always here. I don't get drunk or run around with other women.'

It was the sort of indignant answer he always gave: a typically male response. He really couldn't understand that that wasn't enough. She tried male logic: 'How long will you wait before you assume she's gone for ever?'

'I love you. We are happy together. Isn't that enough? Why do women want guarantees of permanence? Tomorrow I could fall under a train or go crazy. There is no way that you can be happy ever after. Can't you understand that?'

'Why are you looking at the clock?' she asked, and tried to move apart from him, but he held her.

'I'm sorry. The D-G is going down to Whitelands to see Silas Gaunt this afternoon. I think they are going to talk about Fiona. I'd give anything to know what they say.'

'You think Fiona is still working for London, don't you?'

The question came like an accusation, and it shook him. He made no move whatsoever and yet that stillness of his face revealed the way his mind was spinning. He had never told Gloria of that belief.

'That's why you won't talk of marriage,' she said.

'No.'

'You're lying. I can always tell. You think your wife was sent there to spy-'

'We'll never know the truth,' said Bernard lamely, and hoped that would end the conversation.

'I must be mad not to have seen that right from the beginning. I was just the stand-in. I was just someone to bed, someone to look after your children and keep the house tidy and shop and cook. No wonder you discouraged all my plans to go to college. You bastard! You've made a fool of me.'

'No, I haven't.'

'Now I understand why you keep all her clothes.'

'You know it's not like that, Gloria. Please don't cry.'

'I'm not bloody crying. I hate you, you bastard.'

'Will you listen!' He shook her roughly. 'Fiona is a Soviet agent. She's gone for ever. Now stop this imagining.'

'Do you swear?'

He stepped back from her. There was a fierce look in her eyes and he was dismayed by it. 'Yes, I swear,' he said.

She didn't believe him. She could always tell when he was lying.

At that moment the meeting between the Director-General and Silas Gaunt was in full swing.

'How long has Mrs Samson been in place now?' asked Silas Gaunt. It was a rhetorical question but he wanted the Director-General to share his pleasure.

'She went over there in eighty-three, so it must be about four years,' said Sir Henry Clevemore. The two men had worked wonders and were rightly proud of what they had achieved. The East German economy was cracking at the seams, the government had become senile and could muster neither will nor resource to tackle the problems. Fiona's information said that the Russian troops would be confined to barracks no matter what political changes came. The USSR had problems of its own. Bret Rensselaer's heady prediction about the Wall coming down by 1990 – considered at the time no more than the natural hyperbole that all SIS projections were prone to – now looked like a real possibility.

They had got some fine material from Fiona Samson that had enabled the two of them to master-mind the campaign as well as facilitating contact with the most level-headed opposition groups. To protect her they had given her a few little victories and a few accolades. Now they were enjoying the feeling of great satisfaction.

These two were alike in many ways. Their family background, education, bearing and deportment were comparable, but Silas Gaunt's service abroad had made him cosmopolitan, which could never be said of the aloof and formal Sir Henry Clevemore. Silas Gaunt was earthy, wily, adaptable and unscrupulous, and despite their years together Sir Henry always had reservations about his friend.

'Do you remember when young Volkmann came knocking at your door in the dead of night?' said Silas.

'The bloody fool had forgotten my phone number.'

'You were in despair,' said Silas.

'Certainly not.'

'I'm sorry to contradict you, Henry, but when you arrived here you said that Fiona Samson had made a dire error of judgement.'

'It did seem somewhat ominous.' He gave a dry chuckle. 'It was the only damn thing he had to commit to memory, and he'd forgotten it.'

'Volkmann turned up trumps. I didn't know he had it in him.'

'I'll get him something,' said the D-G. 'When it's over I'll get him some sort of award. I know he'd like a gong; he's that sort of chap.'

'You know his banking business is being wound down?' said Silas, although he'd briefed the D-G on that already.

'He's taking over that flea-bitten hotel run by that dreadful old German woman. What's her name?'

'Lisl Hennig.'

'That's the one, an absolute Medusa.'

'All good things come to an end,' said Silas.

'There were times,' said the Director-General, 'when I thought we would simply have to pull Mrs Samson out and give up.'

'Samson's a bull-headed young fool,' said Silas Gaunt, voicing what was in the minds of both men. They were sitting in the little-used drawing room of Gaunt's house, while in the next room workmen were slowly rebuilding the fireplace of Gaunt's little study. This room had been virtually unchanged for a hundred years. Like all such farmhouse rooms, with thick stone walls and small windows, it was gloomy all the year round. A big sideboard held well-used willow-pattern plates, and a vase filled with freshly cut daffodils.

Upon the lumpy sofa Silas sprawled, lit by the flickering flames of a log fire. Above him some steely-eyed ancestor squinted through the coach varnish of a big painting, and there was a small table upon which, for the time being, Silas Gaunt was eating his meals. Sir Henry Clevemore had made the journey to Whitelands after hearing that Silas was recuperating after falling from a horse. The old fool shouldn't have gone near a horse at his age, thought the D-G, and had resolved to say as much. But in the event he hadn't done so.

'Samson?' said the D-G. 'You mustn't be hard on him. I blame myself really. Bret Rensselaer always said we should have told Samson the truth.'

'I never thought I'd hear you say that, Henry. You were the one who…'

'Yes, I know. But Samson could have been told at the end of that first year.'

'There's nothing to be gained from a post-mortem,' said Silas. There was a tartan car-blanket over him, and every now and again he pulled at it and rearranged it round his legs. 'Or is this leading up to the suggestion that we tell him now?'

'No, no, no,' said the D-G. 'But when he started prying into the way the bank drafts came from Central Funding, I thought we'd be forced to tell him.'

Silas grinned. 'Trying to arrest him when he arrived in Berlin was not the best way to go about it, D-G, if you'll permit me to say so.'

That fiasco was not something the D-G was willing to pursue. He got to his feet and went to the mullioned window. From here there was a view of the front drive and the hills beyond. 'Your elms are looking rather sick, Silas.' There were three of them; massive great fellows planted equidistant across the lawn like Greek columns. They were the first thing you saw from the gatehouse, even before the house came into view. 'Very sick.'

Suddenly Silas felt sick too. Every day he looked at the elms and prayed that the deformed, discoloured leaves would become green and healthy again. 'The gardener says it's due to the frost.'

'Frost fiddlesticks! You should get your local forestry fellow to look at them. If it's Dutch elm disease they must be felled immediately.'

'The frost did terrible damage this year,' said Silas, hoping for a reprieve, or at least reassurance. Even unconvincing reassurance, of the sort the resourceful Mrs Porter his housekeeper gave him, was better than this sort of brutal diagnosis. Silas pleaded, 'You can see that, Henry, from the roses and the colour of the lawn.'

'Get the forestry expert in, Silas. Dutch elm disease has already run through most of the elms in this part of the world. Let it go and you'll make yourself damned unpopular with your neighbours.'

'Perhaps you're right, Henry, but I don't believe it's anything serious.'

'There are still a lot of unanswered questions, Silas. If the time has come to pull her out why don't we just do it without ceremony?'

Silas looked at him for a moment before being sure he was talking about Fiona Samson. 'Because we have a mountain of material that we can't use without jeopardizing her. And when finally she comes back she'll bring more material out with her.'

'We've had a good innings, Silas,' said the D-G, returning to the chintz-covered armchair where he'd been sitting, and giving a little grunt as he dropped into it.

'Let's not cut and run, Henry. In my memory, and privileged knowledge, Fiona Samson has proved the best agent in place the Department has ever had. It wouldn't be fair to her to throw away what is still to come.'

'I really don't understand this plan to keep her alive,' said the D-G.

Silas sighed. The D-G could be rather dense at times: he'd still not understood. Silas would have to say it in simple language. 'The plan is to convince the Soviets she is dead.'

'While she is back here being debriefed?'

'Exactly. If they know she's alive and talking to us they will be able to limit the damage we'll do to them.'

'Convince them?' asked the D-G.

'It's been done in the past with other agents.'

'But convince them how? I really don't see.'

'To give you an extreme example; she is seen going into a house. There is an earthquake and the whole street disappears. They think she's dead.'

'Is that a joke, Silas? Earthquake?'

'No, Director, it is simply an example. But the substitution of a corpse is a trick as old as history.'

'Our opponents are very sophisticated these days, Silas. They might tumble to it.'

'Yes, they might. But if they did, it would not be the end of the world. It would be a set-back but it wouldn't be the end of the world.'

'Providing she was safe.'

'Yes, that's what I mean,' said Silas.

The D-G was silent for a moment or two. The Americans are going to be dejected at the prospect of losing the source.'

'You don't think they guess where it's coming from?'

'I don't think so. Washington gets it from Bret in California, and by that time anything that would identify her is removed.'

'That business with Bret worked out well.'

'He took a dashed long time before he understood that I couldn't have called off that arrest team without revealing the part he played in running Fiona Samson.'

'I didn't mean that, so much as the way he went to convalesce in California.'

'Yes, Bret has organized himself very well over there, and using him as the conduit distances us from the Berlin material.'

'I shouldn't think Fiona Samson submits anything that would identify her,' said Silas. He never handled the material and there were times when he resented that.

'I'm sure she doesn't,' said the D-G, to indicate that he didn't directly handle the material either. 'She is an extremely clever woman. Will you use Bernard Samson to pull her out?'

'I think he should be involved,' said Silas. 'By now I think he guesses what is going on.'

'Yes,' said the D-G. 'That's why you want to bring her home, isn't it?'

'Not entirely,' said Silas. 'But it is a part of it.'

'The Soviets would leave someone like that in place for ever and ever,' said the D-G.

'We are not the Soviets,' said Silas. 'Are you feeling all right, Henry?'

'Just a palpitation. I shouldn't have smoked that cigar. I promised my doctor I would give them up.'

'Doctors are all the same,' said Silas, who had abstained and sniffed enviously while the D-G went through a big Havana after lunch.

The D-G sat back and breathed slowly and deeply before speaking again. 'This business… this business about switching the corpse. I don't see how we are going to handle that, Silas.'

'I know of an American… A very competent fellow.'

'American? Is that wise?'

'He's the perfect choice. Free-lance; expert and independent. He's even done a couple of jobs for the opposition…'

'Now wait a moment, Silas. I don't want some KGB thug in on this.'

'Hear me out, Henry. We need someone who knows his way around over there; someone who knows the Russian mind. And this chap is on the CIA's "most wanted" list, so he'll not be telling the story to the chaps in Grosvenor Square.'

Sir Henry sniffed to indicate doubt. 'When you put it like that…'

'Persona grata with the KGB, unconnected with the CIA and arm's length from us. The perfect man for the job. He'll take on the whole show for a flat fee.'

'The whole show? What does that mean?'

'There will be blood spilled, Henry. There's no avoiding that.'

'I don't want any repercussions,' said the D-G anxiously. 'I'm still answering questions about the Moskvin fracas.'

Silas Gaunt painfully lowered his feet to the floor and leaned across to the table to find some bone-handled knives in the cutlery drawer. He put three of them on the table and picked them up one by one. 'Let me improvise a possible outcome. Body number one; slightly burned but easily identified. Body number two; badly burned but identified by plentiful forensic evidence.' He looked at Sir Henry before picking up the third knife. 'Body number three; burned to a cinder but dental evidence proves it to be Fiona Samson.'

'Very convincing,' said the D-G after a moment's reflection.

'It will work,' said Silas, grabbing the knives and tossing them into the drawer with a loud crash.

'But isn't someone going to ask why?'

'You have been following the reports about Erich Stinnes and his drug racket?'

'Drugs. It's true then?'

'Our KGB colleagues have wide-ranging powers. Security, intelligence, counter-intelligence, border controls, political crimes, fraud, corruption and drugs have become a very big worry for the Soviets.' He didn't want to go into detail about the drugs. It was a vital part of the operation: it ensnared Stinnes as a trafficker and Tessa Kosinski as an addict, but the D-G would get very jumpy if he knew everything about the drugs.

'Stinnes,' said the D-G. 'Has he given us any decent material since going back there?'

'He's playing both ends against the middle. He feels safe from arrest by us, and safe from his KGB masters too. That's what led him into his drug racket I suppose. He must be making a fortune.'

'I think I see what you have in mind: some drug-running gangsters engage in a shoot-out and Fiona Samson disappears.'

'Precisely. That's why we have to time events to coincide with the shipment of drugs. When Stinnes brings the consignment of heroin from the airport we'll bring Mrs Samson to one of his contact points on the Autobahn – still in the DDK of course – and have Samson there waiting for her. Stinnes will believe it's simply a rendezvous to tranship the drugs. We'll supply a vehicle: a diplomatic vehicle would be best for this sort of show.'

'And send Samson to get her?'

'Yes. But not Samson alone. Deserted husband and errant wife reunited after all that time: a recipe for trouble. I'll have someone else, someone calm and dependable, there to make sure it all goes smoothly.'

'And you say we have to bring in this American fellow? Couldn't we do it with our own people?'

Silas looked at him. 'No, Henry, we couldn't.'

'May I ask why, Silas?'

'The American has had dealings with Stinnes already.'

'Drug dealings you mean?'

Silas hesitated and suppressed a sigh. He didn't want to go into details. There would be problems getting everyone there. They would all have to be told a different story and Silas hadn't yet worked it out. Like the rest of them in London Central, Sir Henry had only the barest idea of what went on in the field. Silas had been closer. 'Let me give you an idea of what's entailed, Henry. We will have to have a body there to substitute for Mrs Samson, the body of a youngish woman. I don't propose we take a dead body through the checkpoints, especially not in a diplomatic vehicle, because if something happened the publicity would be horrendous. We'll also need to leave there a skull with the right dentistry. We don't want the Russians to start asking why there is an extra skull so the body will have to be decapitated. Decapitated on the spot.'

'So how will you get the body there?' said the D-G still puzzling over it.

'The body will walk there, go there, drive there… I'm not sure yet.'

'You mean alive?' Sir Henry was deeply shocked. His body stiffened and he sat bolt upright. 'What woman? How will he do this?'

'Better you don't ask, Henry,' said Silas Gaunt gently. 'But now you see why we can't use our own people.' He waited for a moment to let the D-G regain his composure. 'Bernard Samson will be there of course, but we'll use young Samson simply to bring his wife out. He will see nothing of the other business.'

'Won't he…?'

'The American sub-contractor will stay behind and make sure the evidence is arranged to tell the story we want the Soviets to believe.'

'And you'll deal with this American direct?'

'No, Henry. I think that would reveal the Department's participation too obviously. I'll use a go-between. There is a fellow named Prettyman whom Bret uses for rough jobs. He's done a couple of things for us in the past. Very able, although not quite right for what I have in mind. I shall use him as a contact. No one will be told the full story, of course. Absolutely no one.'

'As long as you think you can manage this end.'

'Without Bret Rensselaer looking over my shoulder, you mean?' Silas pulled a face. 'We've managed this long.'

'I'll be glad when it's all done, Silas.'

'Of course you will, Henry. But we two old crocks have shown the youngsters a thing or two, haven't we?' They exchanged satisfied smiles.

There was a knock at the door and Mrs Porter brought tea for them. Tea was an elaborate affair at Whitelands, thanks to Mrs Porter. She arranged it on Silas' little table and the D-G pulled a chair up to it. There was buttered toast and honeycomb and caraway seed cake that only Mrs Porter could make so perfectly. That seed cake took the D-G back to his schooldays: he loved it. She poured the tea and left them.

For a few minutes they happily drank their tea and ate their toast like two little boys at a picnic.

'What was the truth about Samson's father?' the D-G asked as Silas poured more tea for them both. 'The real story, I mean. About the two Germans he was supposed to have shot?'

'Well, that's going back a bit. I…'

'There's no harm now, Silas. Brian Samson is dead, God rest his soul, and so is Max Busby.'

Silas Gaunt hesitated. He'd kept silent so long that some of the details were forgotten. At first the D-G thought he was going to refuse to talk about it, but eventually he said, 'You have to remember the atmosphere back in those days when Hitler was newly beaten. Europe was in ruins and everyone was expecting Nazi "werewolves" to suddenly emerge from the woodwork and start fighting all over again.'

'I remember it only too well,' said the D-G. 'I wish I could forget it. Or rather, I wish I were too young to have been there.'

'The Americans had no real intelligence service. Their OSS people were wasting their time looking for dead Nazis; Martin Bormann was at the top of the list.'

'Berchtesgaden. It's coming back to me now,' said the D-G. There was some sort of trap?'

'They had captured a Nazi war criminal named Esser – Reichsminister Esser – in a mountain hut near Hitler's Berghof. There had been a lot of Reichsbank gold found in that neighbourhood. Tons and tons of it was stolen by middle-rank US officers and never recovered. After they took Esser away, the Counter Intelligence Corps kept the hut – it was a house, really, a rather grand chalet in fact – kept it under observation. Martin Bormann's house was between Hitler's Berghof and this place they found Esser. The story was that there was penicillin and money and God knows what else hidden there for Martin Bormann to collect and get away to South America. It was all nonsense of course, but at the time it didn't seem so unlikely.'

'What was Brian Samson doing, there in the American Zone?'

'He was responsible for a prisoner from London: a German civilian named Winter,' said Silas. He offered the seed cake.

The D-G took a slice of cake. 'Winter, yes, of course.' He bit into it and savoured it like old wine.

'Paul Winter was a Nazi lawyer who worked for the Gestapo and who seemed to have an unhealthy amount of influence in Washington… a Congressman or someone. There was a tug of war between the State Department who wanted him released, the US Army who wanted him jailed, and the International Military Tribunal who wanted him as a defence lawyer. Meanwhile we had the blighter locked up in London.'

'He had an American mother: Veronica Winter. Her other son went to America and came strutting back in the uniform of a US Army colonel. Reckless people, Americans, eh? He wasn't even naturalized.'

'Very pragmatic,' said Silas, unwilling to make such generalizations.

'I seem to remember that the mother came of a good family. I heard that she'd died of pneumonia in one of those dreadful postwar winters. She was a friend of "Boy" Piper. Sir Alan Piper who was the D-G at one time.'

'Yes, "Boy" Piper was the one who sent me there to sort it out for the Department.'

'Go on, Silas. I want to hear the story.'

'There's not much to tell. The wife… Winter's wife that is, sent her husband a message…'

'Now this is the Nazi fellow?'

'Yes, Paul Winter the Nazi lawyer.'

'In prison?' asked the D-G, who wanted to get it quite clear.

'He wasn't in prison, in a billet. He'd been released in order to defend Esser. The Nazis accused at Nuremberg were permitted to choose anyone they wanted, even POWs from a prison cage, as their lawyers. The message said she was in this damned mountain hut, so off he dashed. He hadn't seen his wife since the war ended. His brother was a US colonel as you said: he got a military car or a jeep or something and they both cleared off without waiting for permission.'

'To Berchtesgaden?'

'And in particularly foul winter weather. I remember that winter very well. When this fellow Paul Winter got to the mountain house, his wife Inge was waiting for him. She'd had a child; she wanted money.'

'Did he have money?'

'There was a metal chest buried up there. Esser had taken it there and hidden it. During their sessions together he told Paul where it was. Then I suppose Esser must have told Inge Winter that her husband knew. They dug it up. It was gold; a mixed collection of stuff Esser had collected from the Berlin Reichsbank vaults, leaving a signed receipt for it.'

'And her child was Esser's,' supplied the D-G.

'How did you know?'

'It's the only part of the story that sticks in my mind.'

'Yes. Paul Winter must have suspected it wasn't his. They'd been married for ages and never been able to have a child. I can imagine how he felt.'

'And the two Winter boys were killed. But how did they get shot?'

'That's the question, isn't it? If you want the truth they were shot by a drunken US sergeant who thought they were werewolves or deserters or gangsters or some other sort of toughs who might hurt him. That region was plagued with deserters from both sides who'd formed gangs. They stole army supplies on a massive scale, ambushed supply convoys, robbed banks and weren't too fussy about who they hurt.'

'The story I heard… '

'Yes, there were lots of stories. Some people said that the Winters were shot by mistake: by someone who was trying to kill Samson and the General who was with him. Some said they were shot by the sergeant acting on secret orders from Washington. Some said Max Busby shot them because he was in love with Paul Winter's wife, or, in another version, involved in some black-market racket with her. It's impossible to prove any of those stories wrong, but believe me, I went into it thoroughly. It was as I told you.'

'But the report said Brian Samson had shot them,' said the D-G. 'I remember distinctly. He was bitter about it right up to the day he died.'

'Ah, yes. That was later. But at the time no one had any doubts. It was the drunken sergeant who was arrested and taken back to the cells. Only when the Americans asked for Samson to go and give evidence to their inquiry did things change. We couldn't let Samson face any sort of questioning of course: that's been Departmental policy since the beginning of time. When we refused to let Samson go down there, the Yanks suddenly saw a chance to get it all over quickly and quietly. By the time I arrived there, all the depositions were scrapped and new ones written. Suddenly they could produce eyewitnesses prepared to swear that Samson accidentally shot the two men.'

'That's despicable,' said the D-G. 'That verdict went on Samson's record.'

'You're preaching to the converted, Henry. I protested about it. And when "Boy" Piper wouldn't support me I made a devil of a fuss. Sometimes I think I blotted my copybook then. I was forever marked as a troublemaker.'

I'm sure that's not true,' protested the D-G without putting much effort into it.

'I don't blame the Americans for trying it on; but I was furious that they could get away with it,' said Silas mildly. 'You couldn't entirely blame the men who perjured themselves. They were American soldiers, draftees who hadn't seen their families for ages. An inquiry might easily have kept them in Europe for another year.'

'Was Busby a party to this?'

'Busby was the Duty Ops Officer at the Nuremberg CIC office that night. He was getting a lot of stick because he was in command of the party. He preferred an accident with some foreign officer as the guilty party.'

'I can see why there was such bad feeling between him and Samson when he came to work in Berlin.'

'That's why Busby went to work for Lange's people: Brian Samson wouldn't have him.'

'And the wife?'

'She took the gold, probably changed her name and disappeared from the story. There was no sign of her by the time Samson got to the house, and I never found her. She left Esser to face the hangman, and took her daughter and went into hiding; perhaps that's what Esser wanted her to do. She was a very resolute and resourceful young woman. She worked in a nightclub in Garmisch, so she would have had no trouble in contacting the people from whom she could buy permission to live in the French Zone, which is what she did. That removed her from the British and the US jurisdiction. Eventually she got a French passport and took her gold and her baby…'

'And lived affluently ever after,' supplied the D-G caustically.

'Crime does sometimes pay,' said Silas. 'We may not like to concede it but it's true.' He drank some tea.

'How much gold was there?' asked the D-G, helping himself to a second piece of seed cake.

'I saw the large metal box. It had been buried – the dirt was still on it. It was provost exhibit number one. About this big.' Silas extended his hands to show the size of a small steamer trunk.

'Do you have any idea what that would weigh?' said the D-G.

'What are you getting at, Sir Henry?'

'No one could carry gold of that dimension; it would weigh a ton.'

'If she couldn't carry it, what would she do with it? Why would you dig it out in the first place, unless you were going to take it away?'

The D-G smiled knowingly. 'Speaking personally, I might dig it up because too many people know where it is.'

'Her husband and Esser and so on?'

'And perhaps many other people,' said the D-G.

'And bury it again,' said Silas, following the D-G's thought processes. 'Ummm.'

'Now there would be only three people who know where it is.'

'And two of them are dead a few minutes later.'

'So only Inge Winter knows where it is.'

'Are you suggesting that she got this American sergeant to shoot her husband and her brother-in-law?'

'I've never met any of them,' said the D-G. 'I'm simply responding to the story you've told me.'

Silas Gaunt said nothing. He tried to remember the evidence he'd examined and the soldiers he'd talked to. The sergeant was a flashy youngster with jewellery and a vintage Mercedes that he was taking home to America. Was he really drunk that night, or was that a ruse to make the 'accident' more convincing? And there was, of course, the sergeant's missing woman friend, who was a singer with a dance band. Silas never did find her. Were the woman friend and Inge Winter one and the same person? Well it was too late now. He poured more tea, drank it and put the mystery out of his mind.

Soon, reflected Silas, the D-G would retire, and that would sever his last remaining link with the Department. Silas found the prospect bleak.

The D-G got up, flicked some cake crumbs from his tie and said, 'I want you to promise me you'll have someone to look at those trees, Silas. It's a beetle, you know.'

'I don't think I could bear to lose those elms, Henry. They must be about two hundred years old. My grandfather adored them: he had a photo taken of the house when they were half the size they are now. There were four of them in those days. They say one of them blew down the night Grandfather died.'

'I've never heard such maudlin nonsense. Elms don't blow down, they're too deep-rooted.'

'My mother told me it fell when Grandfather died,' said Silas, as if the honour of his family rested upon the truth of it.

'Don't be such a fool, Silas. Sometimes you have to sacrifice the things you love. It has to be done. You know that.'

'I suppose so.'

'I'm going to send Mrs Samson over to Bret when she comes out. California. What do you think?'

'Yes, capital,' said Silas. 'She'll be well away from any sort of interference. And Bernard Samson too?'

'No. Unless you…?'

'Well, I do, Henry. Leave Samson here and he'll roar around trying to locate her and make himself a nuisance. Bundle him off and let Bret take care of them both.'

'Very well.' The grandfather clock, which Silas had moved to this room because he didn't trust the work-men not to damage it, struck five p.m. 'Is that really the time? I must be going.'

'Now, you're leaving all the arrangements to me, Henry?' Silas wanted to get it clear; he wanted no recriminations. 'There is a great deal to be done. I'll have to have matching dentistry prepared, and that takes ages.'

'I leave it to you, Silas. If you need money, call Bret.'

'I suppose the special funding mechanism will be wound up once she is safe,' said Silas.

'No. It will be a slush fund for future emergencies. It cost us so much to set up that it would be senseless to dismantle it.'

'I thought Samson's probing into the money end might have made it too public.'

'Samson will be in California,' mused the D-G. The more I think of that idea the better I like it. Volkmann said that Mrs Samson has aged a lot lately. We'll send her husband there to look after her.'