MRS. SELFTON WELDON SENSED SOMETHING WAS WRONG as soon as the young couple walked in. The detective in the Marks & Spencer store in Richmond, England, picked them out as they strolled through the glass door. It wasn’t the way they looked, which was ordinary enough. The man had short auburn hair and a skinny mustache and was wearing dress slacks and an unwrinkled new windbreaker. The woman was stylishly clad in a dressed-for-success suit with an expensive silk scarf wrapped around her neck and draped over her right shoulder. Her dark brown hair fell neatly to her shoulders. What Weldon found odd was that the two seemed to be together yet were trying very hard to act as if they weren’t. That and the fact that each was carrying one of the store’s distinctive green shopping bags. That is, they came
into
the store with Marks & Spencer totes.
Marks
&
Spencer is a well-known British department store chain, sort of a cross between a K-Mart and a J. C. Penney’s. It is popular among British shoppers for its consistency and convenience. At the time, it also had two policies that made it stand out: one was the company’s willingness to exchange merchandise for cash as long as the shopper had a receipt; the other was its readiness to accept payment by check.
The company has forty outlets spread throughout greater London, which vary in size and range of products. The store in Richmond, an upper-middle-class bedroom community southwest of the city, covered two floors. On the ground level was food, wine, and notions, while the upper floor was devoted to clothing, men’s at the front, women’s to the rear. Behind the women’s section was a small customer service area. As Weldon watched, the couple made straight for that
section, where they emptied their bags and asked for cash refunds. Their receipts were in order, so the clerk smiled and handed over the money.
Then they separated, the man peeling off into the women’s section and the woman heading for the men’s department. As they wandered, they picked out items for purchase: the man chose slips, panties, and blouses; the woman selected jockey shorts, socks, and a blue blazer. Weldon noted that each time they passed in the narrow aisles, which was frequently because the store is not large, they deliberately looked away from each other. She found that particularly curious. After about thirty minutes of shopping, they went to separate checkout counters and whipped out checkbooks and wallet-sized cards.
In Britain, as in the United States, when someone opens a checking account, the bank provides blank checks the new customer can use until the personalized printed documents arrive. In Britain, it is usually two books with fifty checks in each. Since no names are printed on these checks, British banks also issue an identification card with each new account. With that card a customer usually has little trouble cashing a check for up to fifty pounds. Depending on the fluctuating rate of exchange, £1 equals about $1.65; £50 would be about $82.
Standing a discreet distance away, Weldon watched as the man and woman each wrote checks for the amount of purchase, which was just shy of the £50 limit. Still ignoring each other, they took the escalator downstairs and walked out the door. Each was carrying approximately £50 worth of newly purchased merchandise and £50 in cash, which they had received when they returned the merchandise purchased at another Marks & Spencer store.
Still curious, Weldon followed the couple out onto the busy main thoroughfare, which the British call the “high street.” They walked four blocks down the road and turned into an electronics store called Dixon’s, an upscale version of a Radio Shack. As Weldon watched from outside, the two suddenly became a couple again, walking through the store
hand in hand, jointly examining an expensive-looking sound system.
They left that store without buying anything and walked a few more blocks to the subway station. Since Richmond is at the western end of London’s District Line, there are always trains sitting in the station. Riders may enter the trains at any time, but the trains will not leave until another one pulls in. It is not unusual to sit on a train for ten minutes or more waiting for it to depart.
By then, Weldon was sure some sort of fraud was going on, but she felt powerless to act. She did not have the authority to arrest the young couple. By chance, also waiting at the station was a policeman she knew. Although he was off duty and wearing civilian clothes, she told him what she had observed and pointed out the man and woman, who were sitting on the train chatting and laughing, their green Marks & Spencer bags at their feet. The policeman jumped aboard just as the train was about to leave. Approaching the couple, he introduced himself and said there were a few questions he would like to ask them if they wouldn’t mind. They agreed and all three got off at the next stop, Kew Gardens. He hustled them off to the Richmond stationhouse so they could be questioned further. He turned them over to Detective Sergeant Kenneth Beever and Detective Constable Terry Wright.
The forty-two-year-old Beever, who had joined the Metropolitan Police twenty-two years before as a beat-walker in Acton, was a little surprised. A jolly-looking, round-faced man with dark hair and quick, dark eyes, Beever was friendly and easy-going on the surface, stubborn and tough underneath. Beever’s accent was sharp—he obviously had not gone to Oxford—and he peppered his speech with street slang. But he was a shrewd judge of people, and his experience with some of London’s toughest criminals, from Chinese gang members to international drug smugglers, had left him somewhat jaded. When he first set eyes on the man and woman the constable had brought in, he was surprised; they weren’t the type he expected to see in his line of work.
His first impression of the woman was that she was a Sloane Ranger, the London version of the female yuppie, so named because they normally prowled the expensive boutiques on the streets that radiate outward from Sloane Square, in Chelsea, a considerable distance from Richmond. Beever glanced at the man. Medium-sized, solidly built, he was wearing dark, heavy-framed glasses with thick lenses that magnified his dark eyes and gave him a studious, owlish look. Beever looked at him and thought “boffin,” which is roughly the equivalent of the American nerd.
When they spoke, his impressions were confirmed. Distinctive public school English flowed out of her mouth; she had just a hint of an American twang. The man sounded like an American or a Canadian.
She told Beever she was Tara Lucy Noe, a twenty-three-year-old Canadian who had come to England to write a book for a New York publisher. The man claimed he was her husband, Christopher Platt Noe, who would be enrolling at a university in Bath for the fall term. In the meantime, they said, they were spending a few days sightseeing and doing some shopping.
While in the city, they were staying in a furnished onebedroom apartment, the kind of lodgings the British call “holiday lets,” on Glouster Place near Marylebone Road, almost out the back door of Westminster City Hall. A hop and skip away was 221B Baker Street, the address of Sherlock Holmes; Madame Tussaud’s wax museum and the London Planetarium were also nearby. The flat, however, was far from Richmond, and Beever wondered how two tourists ended up at a Marks & Spencer in a rather ordinary London suburb.
The detective flipped through their identification and asked if he could see their bank books. Thumbing through the documents, he was surprised to see that every check they had written had been made out to a single store. “Rather fond of Marks & Spencer, aren’t you?” he asked drily.
Pulling Wright into another room, Beever quickly laid it
out. “There’s something strange going on here, Terry. I’m not sure what it is, but it just doesn’t feel right.”
“I get the same impression,” replied Wright, tall and slim with a dark beard and a hooked nose, an extremely intense man with none of Beever’s underlying humor.
“They could be perfectly legitimate. They’re well-dressed, well-spoken, and they look like they come from good homes. But where’s all the shopping money coming from? And why do they patronize exclusively Marks & Spencer? Why Richmond?”
“I agree with you,” Wright said. “Something’s fishy. Do you want to take it a little farther?”
“We don’t have anything to lose.”
Rejoining the couple, Beever began asking them more detailed questions about their visit to England. The man was affable, but the woman was cold. She was behaving, Beever felt, just like someone from a snooty British prep school, pretending to be outraged, tossing her hair, reaching for a cigarette, then pointedly waiting for someone to light it for her. She’s an actress, he decided, and a bloody good one.
The more he talked to them, the more suspicious he became. Before being assigned to duty at Richmond, Beever had been a member of the city’s central drug squad and headed the police detachment at Heathrow Airport. He was particularly sensitive to potential drug smugglers, and he was becoming increasing concerned that the man and woman may be involved in the drug trade.
“Do you mind if we take a quick look through your flat?” he asked.
“It would just be a waste of time,” the woman answered haughtily.
“Probably,” agreed Beever, slipping into the bad cop role Ricky Gardner had occupied in Virginia. “But we don’t have much else to do this afternoon.”
“Don’t you need a warrant for that sort of thing?” she asked.
“Not with your permission,” he replied.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Why not?” Beever persisted. “We’re asking you very politely. Do I have to remind you that you’re a visitor in this country? We don’t know when you arrived or where from. You could be a drug smuggler for all we know.”
She and the man exchanged glances.
“We wouldn’t have any trouble getting a magistrate to sign a paper if you want to force us to do that,” Beever pressed. He probably was bluffing but he was gambling on their lack of knowledge of British court procedures and their desire to erase his suspicions that they might be involved in drug smuggling. “It would be a lot easier if you’d just say yes,” he urged. “We could pop around, take a quick look to satisfy ourselves, and you could be on your way.”
“I think we ought to do it,” the man said after a pregnant pause.
The woman nodded her agreement.
THE FLAT WAS A TYPICAL LONDON LODGING, A SMALL apartment in the basement of a four-story building. At the basement and ground level, the brick had been faced over with stone, which had been freshly painted white. A wrought-iron fence running along the front was also freshly painted. There was a gate in the fence opening onto a short flight of stairs that angled downward from the sidewalk. They ended at a blue door with a brass knocker, the entrance to the apartment.
At that time, Beever did not know enough about the two inhabitants to appreciate the ironies of the location. Diagonally across from the flat was a narrow street which deadended into Gloucester Place. It was called Salisbury Place. Salisbury, Rhodesia, is where Elizabeth Haysom had been born. A five-minute walk away was Marylebone Station, a terminus for trains to the Chilterns, including the town of High Wycombe. A person making the journey between High Wycombe and London with any frequency undoubtedly would be familiar with that section of the city.
Standing in front of the flat on Gloucester Place, Marylebone Station was to the left. Also to the left, a short walk
away, was the Edgware Road underground station, which also is on the District Line. Someone so inclined could get on a train at the Edgware station, ride two stops to High Street Kensington, where there is a Marks & Spencer, get back on the train and ride to the end of the line at Richmond.
“How long’ve you been here?” Beever asked as the man fumbled with his key.
“About a week,” he said. “We were staying in a B&B, but the place was infested with crabs. We got the hell out of there and gave away our clothes.”
Opening the door, he waved them in. Beever and Wright took one step into the apartment and stopped cold. Spread around the room, covering most of the floor space, were green shopping bags.
Wright whistled. “I guess you do favor Marks & Spencer,” he laughed, starting to count. There were thirty-two bags, each containing almost exactly £50 worth of clothing. Each bag also was labeled with a neatly printed card identifying the merchandise inside the bag, when it was purchased, and from which store. In addition, the labels noted what the two had been wearing when they shopped at that particular store.
“Hey, Terry,” Beever called from across the room, “come have a look at this.” He was standing over the bed. On the coverlet was a hat, a wig, and a document that looked like a diary. Wright looked at the wig, then at the man. Then he strode angrily across the room. “Take that damn thing off,” he said, reaching up and grabbing the man’s mustache. With a flick of his wrist, he ripped it off. The man’s eyes watered, but he said nothing.
“Here’s some more goodies,” Beever called, peering into a drawer in chest. Inside was a stack of bankbooks, mostly from rural branch banks. Each book had a different name. There was also a pile of identification cards with names matching those on the bankbooks. In the back of the drawer was a thick leather wallet, which Beever lifted out and opened. Inside was a West German passport with the man’s
picture inside the front cover. The name on the document was Jens Soering. Also in the wallet was a stack of British currency. Carefully, Beever counted it out. Now it was his turn to whistle. “Almost E800,” he said. “That’s a lot of money. Where did it come from?”