Daniel Silva - The Unlikely Spy

Robert and Vernon Pope were realistic men. They realized they were in a risky line of work and that one or both of them might die young. Like all siblings they fought sometimes, but Robert Pope loved his older brother more than anything else in the world. Vernon had been like a father to him when their own father, an abusive unemployed alcoholic, walked out and never came back. It was the way he died that had horrified Robert the most: stabbed through the eye, left on the floor naked. And Vivie, an innocent, stabbed through the heart.

It was possible the killings were the work of one of their enemies. Their operation had thrived during the war and they had branched out into new territory. But it didn't look like any gang murder he had ever seen. Robert suspected it had something to do with the woman: Catherine, or whatever her name really was. He had made an anonymous call to the police-they would have to get involved at some point-but he wouldn't rely on them to find his brother's killer. He would do it himself.

Dicky parked along the river and entered the hospital through a service door. He came out again five minutes later and walked back to the van.

Pope asked, "Was he there?"

"Yeah. He thinks he can get it for us."

"How long?"

"Twenty minutes."

Half an hour later a thin man with a pinched face dressed in an orderly's uniform emerged from the back of the hospital and trotted over to the van.

Dicky wound down the window.

"I got it, Mr. Pope," he said. "A girl in the front office gave it to me. She said it was against the rules but I sweet-talked her. Promised her a fiver. Hope you don't mind."

Dicky held out his hand and the orderly gave him a slip of paper. Dicky passed it across to Pope.

"Good work, Sammy," Pope said, looking at it. "Give him his money, Dicky."

The orderly took the money, a disappointed look on his face.

Dicky said, "What's wrong, Sammy? Ten bob, just like I promised."

"What about the fiver for the girl?"

"Consider that your overhead," Pope said.

"But, Mr. Pope-"

"Sammy, you don't want to fuck with me just now."

Dicky dropped the van into gear and sped away, tires squealing.

"Where's the address?" Dicky asked.

"Islington. Move it!"

Mrs. Eunice Wright of Number 23 Norton Lane, Islington, was very much like her house: tall, narrow, midfifties, all Victorian sturdiness and Victorian manners. She did not know-nor would she ever know, even when the entire disagreeable episode was over-that the house had been used as a false address by an agent of German military intelligence called Catherine Blake.

For two weeks Eunice Wright had been waiting for a repairman to come look at her cracked boiler. Before the war the tenants in her well-kept boardinghouse were mostly young men, who were always willing to help when something went wrong with the pipes or the stove. Now all the young men were away in the army. Her own son, never far from her thoughts, was somewhere in North Africa. She took no pleasure in her present tenants-two old men who talked a great deal about the last war, two rather daft country girls who had fled their dreary East Midlands village for factory jobs in London. When Leonard was alive he saw to all the repairs, but Leonard had been dead for ten years.

She stood in the window of the drawing room, sipping tea. The house was quiet. The men were upstairs playing draughts. She had insisted they play without slapping the pieces so as not to wake the girls, who had just come off a night shift. Bored, she switched on the wireless and listened to the news bulletin on the BBC.

The van, when it drew to a halt in front of her house, struck her as odd. It bore no markings-no company name painted on the side-and the two men in front didn't look like any repairmen she had ever seen. The one behind the wheel was tall and thick, with close-cropped hair and a neck so enormous it looked as though his head were simply attached to his shoulders. The other one was smaller, dark-haired, and looked mad at the world. Their clothing was odd too. Instead of workman's overalls they wore suits, quite expensive suits by the look of them.

They opened the doors and got out. Eunice took note of the fact they carried no tools. Perhaps they wanted to survey the damage to her boiler before dragging all the tools inside. Just being thorough, making sure they bring only those tools that are necessary for the job. She studied them more carefully as they moved toward her front door. They looked reasonably healthy. Why weren't they in the army? She noticed the way they glanced over their shoulders into the street as they came closer, as though they were trying to make their approach unobserved. Suddenly, she wished Leonard were here.

There was nothing polite about the knock. She imagined policemen knocked that way when they thought a criminal was on the other side. Another knock, so forceful it rattled the glass of the drawing room window.

Upstairs, the game of draughts went quiet.

She went to the door. She told herself there was no reason to be afraid; they just lacked the good manners common to most English handymen. It was the war. The experienced repairmen were in the service, working on bombers or frigates. The bad ones-like the pair outside-were holding down jobs at home.

Slowly she opened the door. She wanted to ask them to be as quiet as possible so they would not wake the girls. She never got the words out. The large one-the one with no neck-shoved back the door with his forearm, then clamped his hand over her mouth. Eunice tried to scream but it seemed to die quietly in the back of her throat, making almost no audible sound.

The smaller one put his face to her ear and spoke with a serenity that only frightened her more.

"Just give us what we want, luv, and no one gets hurt," he said.

Then he pushed past her and started up the stairs.

Detective-Sergeant Meadows considered himself a minor authority on the Pope gang. He knew how they made their money-legally and illegally-and he could recognize most of the gang members by name and face. So when he heard the description of the two men who just ransacked a boardinghouse in Islington he wrapped up his business at the murder scene and headed there to see things for himself. The first description matched Richard "Dicky" Dobbs, the Popes' main muscle boy and enforcer. The other matched Robert Pope himself.

Meadows, as was his habit, paced the drawing room while Eunice Wright, sitting bolt upright in a chair, patiently recounted the story again, even though she had told it twice already. Her cup of tea had given way to a small glass of sherry. Her face bore the handprint of her assailant, and she had received a bump on the head when shoved to the floor. Otherwise, she was not seriously injured.

"And they didn't tell you who or what they were looking for?" Meadows asked, ceasing his pacing only long enough to ask the question.

"No."

"Did they call each other by name?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"Did you happen to see the plate number on the van?"

"No, but I did give a description to one of the other officers."

"It's a very common model, Mrs. Wright. I'm afraid the description alone won't be of much value to us. I'll have one of the men check with the neighbors."

"I'm sorry," she said, rubbing the back of her head.

"Are you all right?"

"He gave me a nasty bump on the head, the ruffian!"

"Perhaps you should see a doctor. I'll have one of the officers give you a lift when we're finished here."

"Thank you. That's very kind of you."

Meadows picked up his raincoat and put it on. "Did they say anything else that you can remember?"

"Well, they did say one other thing." Eunice Wright hesitated a moment, and her face colored. "The language is a little on the rough side, I'm afraid."