Chelsea Mansions (49 page)

John had moved to another hotel, not far from Chelsea Mansions. When Kathy called on him that evening she found him ironing a shirt.

‘Catching up with the laundry?’ she said.

‘Helps me think,’ he replied.

‘Have you been doing much of that?’ The truth was that she had half expected him to be gone, back home to Canada.

‘A bit.’

‘Not theorising though, I hope.’

He smiled. ‘Yes, that too. I’ve been making my head hurt.’

She noticed a pile of books and pamphlets on the table. She looked at a title. ‘Imperial War Museum?’

‘I spent a bit of time there today. Interesting.’

There was a certain intensity in the way he said it. ‘Anything you want to share with me?’ she asked.

He switched off the iron and hung his shirt in the closet, then turned to face her. ‘Yes. Let’s sit down.’

They sat, and for half an hour Kathy listened without speaking. Finally he said, ‘What do you think?’

She took a deep breath. ‘I think it’s brilliant. You must tell Brock.’

‘Oh no.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘I got burned the last time, Kathy. You can take this to him if you think it’s worth it, but leave me out of it. That way he may give it a fair hearing.’

‘No. If you believe this then you’ve got to tell him yourself. And I’m going to be there and I’ll make him bloody listen.’ She got out her phone. ‘Okay?’

He bowed his head and, after a long pause, agreed.

Brock was still at the office, Kathy found, and hadn’t had an evening meal. ‘How about Mexican?’ she asked.

‘I’m not very keen on Mexican.’

‘You’ll like this,’ she said, and gave him the address of the place in Brompton Road.

They watched him come, look around, then respond to her wave. He shook hands with John and sat down, taking the menu the waiter gave him.

‘I can never remember what these things are,’ he grumbled, looking down the list. Kathy made some suggestions and poured him a glass of wine.

‘Well,’ he said, sitting back. ‘Cheers. It’s been a beautiful day to be out and about, and not stuck indoors like us. What have you been up to, John?’ It sounded as if he was trying to be neutral and polite.

‘John’s been working too,’ Kathy said. ‘He’s got an interesting story to tell you, Brock. He told me, and I thought you had to hear it, all the way through, without interruption.’

Brock looked at her in surprise, then gave a quiet smile. ‘Excellent. I enjoy a good story. Fire away, John.’

So John cleared his throat and began.

Half an hour later the enchiladas lay cold on Brock’s plate, untouched.

‘So that’s about it,’ John concluded, looking at him warily.

‘Import–export,’ Brock said at last with a chuckle. ‘Well, it’s a very good story, John. Why can’t I find detectives with that sort of imagination?’

Kathy looked at him to see if he was being sarcastic, but he seemed genuinely impressed. He began attacking the enchiladas without apparently noticing them, his mind clearly still fixed on John’s account.

‘Circumstantial, of course, but we can fill in some of the gaps. Kathy, what do you think?’

‘Quite interesting.’

‘
Quite
interesting? It’s bloody brilliant.’

‘You think there might be something in it?’ John asked.

‘I think it may be exactly what I’ve been looking for.’ Brock chewed for a moment. ‘This isn’t too bad.’

forty

T
he interagency meeting reconvened on Monday morning at eleven a.m. The same people were there from the Home Office, Foreign Office and the police, all except Brock, who had taken Kathy’s place at Commander Sharpe’s side.

‘A wrap-up session, then,’ Sir Philip opened the proceedings. ‘Shouldn’t take too long, I hope.’ He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘Commander Sharpe, a brief summary? We have all read your report, I take it.’

Sharpe outlined the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Toby Beaumont and his team, and made some recommendations about what should be released to the press. His account was accompanied by chuckles and raised eyebrows from the Foreign Office man.

‘Excellent,’ Sir Philip said. ‘No international ramifications, almost all of Moszynski’s millions recovered, first-class result all round. Any comments?’

‘Just a small rider,’ Sean Ardagh said, ‘regarding the human remains found in Beaumont’s suitcase.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Our lab has completed tests and they support Beaumont’s story—probably a young German soldier from the First World War.’

Sir Philip shook his head sadly. ‘Disgusting. I think we’ll keep that quiet, don’t you?’

‘What about the strip of material with the bones?’ Brock asked.

‘Collar of his uniform,’ Sean said.

‘Really?’ Brock looked puzzled.

‘Something worrying you, Chief Inspector?’ Sir Philip was gathering up his papers.

‘Well, I didn’t realise the Germans went to war in rubber uniforms, Sir Philip.’

‘Rubber?’ Sir Philip stared at him. They all stared at him.

‘Yes. Our lab also carried out extensive tests on those bones before MI5 removed them, and they came up with rather different results. They say that the skull belonged to a man aged about fifty, rather old for an infantryman on the Western Front one might think. Also that he died no earlier than 1950. And the strip of fabric was of a rubberised material, very like the collar on a 1950s Heinke diving suit. There’s one in the Imperial War Museum.’

‘Diving?’ A ripple of astonishment went round the table. Only Sean Ardagh, lips pursed, wasn’t looking at Brock. ‘What are we supposed to make of that?’ Sir Philip demanded.

‘Well,’ Brock went on, ‘it’s interesting that Toby Beaumont’s father, Miles Beaumont, was in the Special Operations Executive during the Second World War, and in Operation Harling in occupied Greece in 1942, against the German supply lines for the Afrika Korps. He was a qualified diver, and is understood to have taken part in limpet mine attacks on shipping in Piraeus harbour.’

‘You think Beaumont was carrying his father’s remains?’ Sir Philip said.

‘No. Miles Beaumont died in 1956, at about the right age certainly, but of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the temple. There’s no sign of such a wound on our skull.’

‘What then?’

‘Well, it’s only speculation at this stage, but there was another diver fatality in that year, 1956 . . .’

‘If I may suggest, Chairman,’ Sean broke in. ‘What Chief Inspector Brock is about to raise may touch on national security, and some of our own concerns. I would request that this meeting be closed and the last comments of DCI Brock deleted from the record so that we and the police can confer.’

Sir Philip looked a little put out. ‘Just when it was becoming interesting. Very well, Sean, if you insist. Commander Sharpe?’

‘We’re always happy to talk to our colleagues in MI5.’ Sharpe looked upward at the ceiling. ‘But we won’t suspend our inquiries for vague hints of national interest. We will need to understand Sean’s reservations, in detail.’

‘No problem,’ Sean said, looking unhappy. ‘Perhaps we might have a few words, after this meeting.’

‘Right.’ Sir Philip jumped to his feet, snatched up his papers and name plate and said, ‘Let’s leave them to it, shall we?’ and swept out of the room, followed by the others.

‘Well,’ Sean said, looking across at Sharpe and Brock balefully. ‘That was a fuckin’ ambush, yeah?’

‘Of your own making, Sean,’ Sharpe said affably. ‘Let’s have no more obfuscation, shall we?’

‘Very well. Care to tell me how your mind is working, Brock?’

‘In early 1956 a man called Lionel Crabb, nickname Buster Crabb, was summoned to a meeting with the First Sea Lord, Louis Mountbatten, who asked him to undertake a special mission organised by British and American intelligence agencies. Crabb was a war hero, a frogman who had fought against the Italian underwater forces attacking British convoys and naval ships sheltering in Gibraltar, but by 1956 he was retired, drinking too much, a bit out of condition. Nevertheless he agreed to do what was required of him, to carry out an underwater inspection and photography of a Soviet cruiser, the
Ordzhonikidze
, which was due to bring an official delegation of the top Soviet hierarchy to the UK in April. The ship was of interest to the British and Americans because of its extreme manoeuvrability, thought to be due to underwater turbines. On April the nineteenth Crabb dived into Portsmouth Harbour near the Russian cruiser, and was never seen again.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Ardagh looked bored. ‘Everybody knows the story. So what? How can you connect this to Chelsea Mansions, for goodness’ sake?’

‘In June of the following year some fishermen near Pilsey Island, about ten miles east of Portsmouth Harbour, found the badly decomposed remains of a man wearing a Heinke two-piece diving suit, similar to the one Crabb had been wearing. However the head and hands of the corpse were missing, and identification was difficult. Nevertheless, an inquest determined that it was Crabb, cause of death unknown, an open verdict returned.’

‘So?’

‘There’s very little information about what Toby Beaumont’s father did after the war. Toby told us he was in import–export, which sounds to me like a euphemism for spooks. I think he was involved in Crabb’s death, and Nancy Haynes heard about it from her mother, whose husband had been the American intelligence liaison officer on the case, just before she died. And Nancy probably thought it would be tremendous fun to go to London and tell Toby, whose father had been the senior MI5 man, and Mikhail Moszynski, whose father had been their KGB contact, about this fascinating bit of Cold War history that tied them together. Except that Toby idolised his father and would do anything to suppress the story, and Moszynski saw it as a way to blackmail Toby into selling him the hotel. How does that sound?’

‘A bit far-fetched,’ Sean said. ‘Why would the CIA and MI5 have the KGB involved?’

‘I don’t know, but that photograph of them together outside Chelsea Mansions proves they were. There have been theories that Anthony Blunt, the British Soviet spy, was involved in the Crabb story. Maybe Miles Beaumont was a Russian agent too. The first step will be DNA tests with Crabb’s relatives to see if that skull really is his.’

‘Oh dear.’ Sean examined his fingernails. ‘You know that the files on Crabb are locked away, classified until 2057, do you? Speculations like this, flying around the Met, could make a lot of people very uncomfortable.’

Sharpe said, ‘Who else is party to your
speculations
, Brock?’

‘DI Kolla, and a Canadian consultant, John Greenslade. He’s signed the Official Secrets Act. It won’t go beyond them, provided I’m satisfied that we’ve got to the truth.’

Sharpe turned to Ardagh. ‘Well then, what do you think?’

Sean sighed. ‘All right. Let’s get together again later today. I’ll tell you what I can.’

They met again in Sharpe’s office at five thirty. This time Brock brought Kathy, and Ardagh too was accompanied, by Vadim Kuzmin, who gazed around the room with the keen eye of a public servant picking up clues of status in the size of the desk and the quality of the leather chair behind it.

Sean cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to warn you that we may discuss matters that are covered by the Official Secrets Act 1989.’

Sharpe said, ‘What about Mr Kuzmin?’

‘Vadim has signed the Act, Commander. He is a consultant to MI5 and MI6. I’d like to invite him to speak.’

Kuzmin continued looking around the room. ‘Do you have a drinks cabinet, Commander Sharpe?’

Sharpe frowned. ‘I do.’

‘I’d like a small Scotch, if you don’t mind. Just as it comes. No ice or water.’ Then he added, when Sharpe got to his feet, ‘But not too small.’

‘Anyone else?’ Sharpe glowered at them. Kathy and Sean shook their heads, but Brock said, ‘I’ll keep Mr Kuzmin company.’

Sharpe handed out the tumblers and sat down again.

Kuzmin tasted, nodded approvingly, and began. ‘One day, when Mikhail was down in the cellars, directing the men working on the latest building stage, I made a joke. “Mikhail,” I said, “what is going on? Is this where the bodies are buried?” He looked shocked and hurried me away upstairs. “What do you mean?” he said. “What have you heard?” Eventually I persuaded him that it was just my little joke, and he relaxed and told me a story. When his father Gennady was in his final days in the Marlinsky Hospital he was haunted by bad dreams. During his life he had had many dark experiences. For two and a half years he had endured the siege of Leningrad and witnessed terrible things—bombing, starvation, cannibalism—and he had killed Germans. But there was one death in particular that bothered him, not in St Petersburg, but in London. He told Mikhail of a house in London where he had murdered a man with his bare hands. The house was Chelsea Mansions, he said, and the body was still there. By this stage Gennady had returned to the Orthodox faith, and he was convinced that the victim’s body would rise up and drag him to hell if it was not given a proper burial.