Adrian Magson - No Sleep for the Dead

When she returned from downstairs, he was emptying the gun’s magazine and dropping the shells to one side. ‘You okay?’ he asked, ‘Or do you need another drink?’

‘I’m fine, Palmer. There’s no need to worry about me — I’m not a weak girlie.’ She tried to soften the words with a smile, but it didn’t quite come off, and Palmer guessed there was still some remedial work to be done.

‘Good news about Mitcheson coming back.’ His face was blank as he collected the gun parts and put them into the plastic bag he’d used for bringing back the burnt documents. He had always accepted Riley’s relationship with the former army officer, on the basis that it was no business of his who she took up with. The only thing that concerned him was her welfare.

‘Yes, it is.’ Riley stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. ‘He thought his name was no longer on the watch list and that it was worth coming in to give it a try. So far, so good. Why — don’t you think it’s a good idea?’

‘Sure. Why not? He’s done no wrong as far as I’m concerned. But he’s right to be cautious.’

‘Christ, Palmer, don’t tell me you’re worried about him, too.’

‘Actually, I’m more concerned about the cat. Where is he?’

Riley gave a half smile and slapped his shoulder. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be cranky. And thank you.’

‘What for?’

‘For that pep talk you gave me — about shooting someone. It was a close call, though. I nearly did it. I think I would have if John hadn’t come in at the crucial moment.’

‘I don’t blame you. But for what it’s worth, if you were still thinking about it, you probably wouldn’t have gone through with it — not unless he’d come at you. That might have been different.’

Riley pulled a face and hugged herself. ‘God, I wish I had your sense of certainty. You and John.’

‘Come again?’

‘You’d have shot him, too, wouldn’t you?’

Palmer thought about it for a second before shaking his head. ‘Actually, I’d have chosen his foot. More bones, takes longer to heal.’

‘He just… did it. It was so casual.’ Her face was a mixture of doubt and fear.

Palmer raised an eyebrow. ‘He was standing — what? — three feet away? Come on, he could hardly miss.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If Mitcheson had wanted to add another button-hole to Szulu’s jacket, or just shoot the tip of his ear off, he’d have done it. It was a warning. Warnings like that to people like Szulu are better than words.’

‘Oh.’ Riley smiled then, and Palmer realised it had answered an unspoken question in her mind, now Mitcheson was no longer in the room, about whether the former soldier had been quite so cold-blooded as he’d pretended.

‘About Lottie,’ said Riley, changing tack. ‘Do you really think she’s not tied in with Radnor?’

‘I doubt it. They’re hardly in the same social circle. And the idea of someone with Radnor’s background mixing with an old gang moll doesn’t sound quite right to me.’

Palmer’s mobile rang. He murmured a greeting, then listened at length, signalling for Riley to get a pen and paper. She did so and he scribbled some notes before switching off the phone. As he turned back to Riley, he was looking thoughtful.

‘That was Unger, the lawyer who arranged the meeting with Hemmricht. He was intrigued by what Hemmricht told us about the shooting, and did a bit of digging to see if the dead man, Wachter, had any family in the area. It seems he had a sister, Cecile. Unger tracked her down, but she didn’t want to talk about the past. Said it was all too painful and she wanted to bury it and move on. Unger says that means she was probably in the Stasi herself, or at the very least was used by them. Former members didn’t have a particularly nice time of it when they were outed, and plenty of them had to move from where they lived to avoid reprisals.’

‘Did she tell him anything?’

‘Only that shortly before his death, her brother admitted he was working for British Intelligence. She threatened to tell the authorities, but he insisted it wasn’t spying, merely moving things around. Things of value.’

‘Moving things for Radnor.’

‘She never heard him mention any names, only that he was hoping to make a future for her as well. By then there were signs that Communism was going pear-shaped, and he mentioned going to the States and starting again. She thinks he was offered papers by whoever he was working for.’

‘Could Radnor have done that kind of deal?’

‘No idea. Depends how high he was and whether he had something truly exceptional that would have excited the Americans enough to make a swap. I don’t think they’d have got too worked up about the odd work of art, though.’

‘So he was bluffing.’

‘Lying, more like. Anyway, Wachter’s sister clearly chose to believe it, because she kept her mouth shut. Maybe she also saw that the old order was coming to an end and wanted the chance of a fresh start. She said her brother became very secretive and withdrawn early in eighty-nine, and was travelling a lot. He would return with packages but he never told her what they were. Then one day he told her he was on the verge of completing a big deal that would ensure their future. He had to make one final trip, then he’d send for her.’

Riley’s eyes widened. ‘He was going across the wire.’

‘Sounds like it. But she never heard from him again. She was scooped up by the authorities shortly afterwards and spent several months in prison. All she was told while she was in custody was that her brother was a traitor and had died while trying to flee.’

‘Nice people. Is there any way we could get to speak to this Cecile ourselves?’

Palmer smiled. ‘That’s the good news. Unger says she left Germany three years ago. Fancy a trip to Streatham Hill?’

Cecile Wachter offered tea, and asked Riley and Palmer to sit while she made it. They were in the conservatory of a neat semi-detached house, nestling in a row of identical semis on the fringe of Streatham Common, a few miles from central London. The house, like the garden, was neat and tidy, and if there were any signs or ornaments from Fraulein Wachter’s past, or even that she had once abandoned her single status and married, albeit briefly, they were not in evidence. Beyond the windows, the quiet was marred only by muted traffic noise and the occasional shrill sound of children playing in nearby gardens.

‘I told Herr Unger all I know,’ Cecile Wachter insisted, returning with mugs of tea on a tray. Her English was very precise, although her accent was still strong enough to betray her origins many miles from this very English setting. She was as neat and conservatively dressed as her surroundings, with her greying hair pinned in a bun, and rimless spectacles perched on a small nose. Her movements were economical, too, as if she wanted to merge into the background and remain unnoticed. Riley guessed she had probably been a very good Stasi member and wondered if anyone in the street even knew she was here.

‘We’re trying to find out what happened to your brother, Claus,’ said Riley, stirring her tea. It was pale and watery, with a faint aroma of mint. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know, too?’

‘Why?’ Cecile stared at them in turn, a faint frown crossing her face. ‘That was all so long ago, in the past. Why should you be interested? Are you from the government? The security services?’

‘None of those,’ said Palmer easily, peering into his mug. ‘We think the person your brother was working with was involved in art thefts from Germany and the Soviet Union. The former Soviet Union. We’re trying to establish the details because we believe this man is also involved in other crimes.’