Skydancer (24 page)

‘I think you'd better explain, Alec. Then we'll see if there's a way to avoid bringing in the police. Come on, now.'

The brass coach-lamp in the porch had been switched off. Anderson fumbled with his key, still hugging the parcel tightly. He opened the door and led the way inside.

‘You can leave your coat round here, Peter.' He indicated a small cloakroom. Peter hung his raincoat on a hanger, next to a remarkably shabby brown overcoat. Anderson must use it for gardening, he guessed.

‘Alec?' Janet called from upstairs. ‘Oh, I see you found each other,' she continued, as Peter was led across the hall towards the library.

‘Yes, it's all right, darling,' Alec reassured her. ‘You go to bed. I'll be a little while yet.'

‘I was in bed already,' Janet grumbled, before disappearing.

Alec closed the library door firmly behind them. At last he released his grip on the parcel, placing it on the desk. For a while he stood there, staring down at it, without a word. Peter sat in an upright Victorian armchair and waited. Anderson would start talking in his own good time.

Alec expelled a deep sigh, then he pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

‘You've seen these, have you?' he asked, indicating the paintings on the walls. ‘Janet showed you in here?'

‘Yes, she did. They're very fine.'

‘Well, they're the reason I'm in this mess!' he began to explain as he lowered himself into the swivel-chair. ‘Karl got most of them for me. Karl Metzger, that's what he calls himself. I don't know what his real name is.'

Anderson put his hand to his mouth and tugged at his lower lip. His eyes seemed to beg for Peter's sympathy.

‘Karl Metzger is a colonel in the East German intelligence service – the HVA. He's a spy!'

‘Good God!' Peter murmured.

He had suspected something like that, but it was still a shock.

Anderson's face showed the helplessness of a child.

‘I only learned this two weeks ago. They set me up, Peter. They just set me up; it was the oldest trap in the book, and I fell right into it. But it really wasn't my fault – I . . .' His voice tailed away.

‘Go on,' Peter urged grimly.

Alec pushed his fingers underneath the rims of his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

‘I've known Karl for about a year,' he went on awkwardly. ‘He joined our Friday group at the pub. Beer, billiards, dirty jokes – you know the sort of thing. All harmless fun and gets us away from our women-folk. Well, I must admit I
liked
the man when he joined us.' He seemed pained at having to make this small confession.

‘He was funny – made jokes about the Germans, and there aren't many Krauts who'll do that. He said he was from West Germany, of course. I had no reason to doubt that. He said Hamburg was his home town. He's in the travel business, sells German culture to tourists, or that's what he said. Well, er, he and I became . . . sort
of chums. We had plenty to talk about . . . specially the paintings. You see, we shared an interest in Victorian miniatures.'

Anderson shook his head.

‘Shared an interest, huh! He was just setting me up, of course. But he was good, oh, he was good! He really knew his stuff. Must have taught himself the lot just to get me on his hook!' He laughed bitterly.

‘Well . . . he knew what I collected. I only had three or four of them at that time, but he said he knew a dealer who specialised in them and who would look out for some for me at a reasonable price. They can be pricey, you see. And suddenly, one day in the pub, he appeared with a picture wrapped up in brown paper. That one there.'

He pointed to the small gilded frame nearest to the door.

‘The thing was so elaborate – that's what I can't get over. I mean, in my sort of job you're on your guard. Spies and so on. It never occurred to me that they would go to such lengths, just to make me feel everything was all right. That's what the pictures were for – just to lull me into a false sense of security.'

‘But what
happened
exactly? I still don't understand,' Peter sighed with exasperation.

‘There were photographs,' he whispered.

He seemed reluctant to continue.

‘It was one weekend,' he began sheepishly. ‘Karl said he and I had been invited to spend a couple of days at a house in Suffolk which belonged to the dealer who'd found the paintings for me. He claimed the man was keen to meet me, and it would be just Karl and me – no wives. It sounded interesting – a weekend talking with a real expert, and no women to be kept occupied.

‘And so it was . . . initially. The man said he was from
Eastern Europe originally and had come to this country as a child, just after the war. He lived in a lovely old farmhouse with enormous gardens. The house was
full
of paintings . . .'

Beads of sweat were breaking out on his brow.

‘He lived there on his own, but he had a . . . sort of servant. A . . . a young man.'

Anderson's face began to turn grey.

‘I . . . I . . .' He shook his head, faltering.

‘What
happened
?' Peter could guess the answer.

‘It's difficult to explain it . . .
cold
like this,' he stammered, wiping the sweat from his lip.

‘I mean . . . I'm not gay, I'm really not. But, it was just one of those occasions when the atmosphere made one think of doing things that one would never normally consider . . .'

‘I see.'

‘Please . . .
please
try to understand.' Anderson picked up a paper-knife from the desk and fiddled with it.

‘It was just the atmosphere. We were all very relaxed. We'd all eaten well and drunk plenty, and it was . . . bohemian, I suppose. The dealer and his servant were obviously homosexuals. It was the atmosphere – they might even have put something in my drink. And . . .'

He was searching for the right words.

‘And I suppose there are plenty of normal men who think about having that sort of sex –
think
about it but never
do
it, because of the social conventions. But . . . but there
weren't
any conventions that weekend, and so I . . . I did it!'

He completed the sentence in a rush of acute embarrassment.

‘But there was a camera,' he added in a whisper.

‘I never saw it, but there was a camera taking pictures of everything that happened.'

He swallowed hard.

‘Karl said he would send the photographs to Janet, to the Prime Minister, to the Defence Secretary, to everyone necessary to ruin my career and my personal life. Janet – God! If Janet ever saw them! – it would kill her. She could never understand. She worships me, you know,' he whispered pityingly. ‘Karl can destroy me and destroy everything dear to me. He's got me where he wants me.'

‘And what exactly does he want?'

‘Skydancer! The full technical blueprints for the warheads!'

‘And you've given them to him?'

‘No!' Anderson shouted defiantly. ‘No, I've given him nothing. Nothing at all. Not yet. But . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘But I did agree to do it! I had to tell him that, Peter, I had no choice, don't you understand?

‘I arranged to leave them under some leaves by a tree on Hampstead Heath, where he could collect them. Only I had a plan, you see. A trick so that he wouldn't actually get any of the secrets.'

He leaned forward, eager for Peter to accept his good intentions.

‘I reckoned that if I could make the handover go wrong in a very public way, I might be able to persuade him that the sudden security hoo-ha would make it impossible for me to get the stuff for him at that time, and that we should delay everything. That way I thought I could buy time to think. To try to work out a way of saving both the secrets and my own . . . situation.

‘So I pretended I had made a mistake about the place where I was to leave the papers, and I put the folder with just one sheet from the Skydancer plans inside a litter bin close to the real dead-letter box. You see, I
knew that General Twining walked along that path every morning early, regular as clockwork. I occasionally go for early morning walks myself, and I'd passed the time of day with him there in the past.

‘So after I left the folder, I rushed back to some bushes where I'd hidden some old clothes, and dressed up as a tramp . . . wore an old overcoat –'

‘The one I saw hanging up in your cloakroom?' Peter interrupted.

‘Yes. That one,' Anderson answered, obviously put out that he had not thought to dispose of it.

‘Yes. You see, I reckoned that if I got back to the litter bin right away and pretended to be rustling through it I could stop Karl's men collecting the folder, and could also see that it was conspicuous when the general came by. I knew he was a meticulous sort of man and was bound to pick up the mess.'

‘My God, Alec! You were taking one hell of a risk, weren't you? Suppose the East Germans had got there first?'

‘Well, there was only one page from the set, remember. They wouldn't have learned much from that.'

‘Don't be so sure.' Peter frowned.

‘Anyway, it worked. The general delivered the folder to the Defence Ministry just as I thought he would, but there was a hitch after that. I desperately needed a great public hue-and-cry to convince Karl that the hullabaloo would make it impossible to get the rest of the plans for the time being. Only, Sir Marcus Beckett decided to try to keep the whole business secret so as not to stir up the politicians. That was a potential disaster for me, so I did the only thing I could think of: I leaked the story to the press.'

‘So that was you, was it? But what was your friend Karl's reaction to all this?'

‘He went wild, of course. He had copies made of those dreadful photographs, and had the envelopes already addressed to send off. He didn't send them, though. I swore to him that it had all been an honest mistake, and said I would do what he wanted eventually – but that they had to give me more time. Well, that promise kept him quiet for a couple of days, but then . . . it was like a bombshell.

‘Mary Maclean was dead! Killed herself, they said, confessing to something she hadn't done! I was terribly upset. I couldn't believe it. But then suddenly I realised what it meant. The hue-and-cry was over. The pressure was off, and Karl could now demand that I get him the papers immediately. My excuse was removed by the death of one carefully selected victim!'

Alec caught Peter's look of anger.

‘Yes. Karl Metzger killed Mary. He admitted it this evening. He doped her with some hypnotic drug untraceable by forensic tests, then dumped her in her bath and cut her wrists.'

Peter recoiled at this abrupt summary of her end.

‘He gave me this.'

Anderson reached his shaking hand across the desk and lightly touched the brown-paper parcel he had brought back from the pub.

‘He said it was to remind me. I don't dare . . . Here,
you
open it, would you?'

Peter shook his head, struggling to control the bitter emotions welling up inside him. He had felt certain that Mary was murdered, but this confirmation was devastating. He felt his whole body begin to tremble. Just a short while ago he had stood within feet of the man who had killed her.

‘What the . . .?' Alec started in surprise. He had now opened the parcel himself. It contained a picture, and
he passed it across.

It was the photograph of Mary with her nephew and niece, the one that Peter had not been able to find in her flat.

Anderson stood up and crossed to the sideboard. He poured whisky into two glasses.

‘Here.' He passed one across, and Peter swallowed a mouthful.

‘The bastard!' Peter exploded. ‘The evil little bastard! He's got to be caught. Come on! Call the police now! You've no choice! Mary died because of you – you and your efforts to save your own skin!'

‘It's not just
my
skin! There are three people upstairs, two of them small children, who matter more than I do. Their lives will be ruined if those photographs get out!'

‘Look, if you co-operate fully with John Black, he'll probably be able to grab Karl before he has a chance to do anything,' Peter insisted, knowing he did not sound convincing.

‘John Black! You trust that man, do you? Have you ever asked yourself who he's
really
working for?' Anderson leaned forward intensely. ‘Karl has got someone in MI5! At the top. An informer,' he whispered.

‘What?'

Anderson nodded meaningfully.

‘How many people know that you went over to the United States to make alterations to the test missile, Peter? I didn't, and I'm head of the Nuclear Secretariat. It was my business to know, and I didn't – until Karl told me!'

‘Christ! Karl told you about that? Bloody hell! That was classified top secret! Only the most senior military men, some ministers and security chiefs, and a handful of blokes at Aldermaston knew about it. Did Karl say his source was in MI5? Was he specific?'

‘Well, yes, the hint was pretty heavy.'

Peter's thoughts were racing. If the Soviets knew that he had made changes to the Skydancer warheads, then what was to be done about the test launch? The weapons had been reprogrammed specifically to make the Russians doubt the genuineness of the plans they might have stolen – though it was now clear that they did not have the plans at all. If he turned Anderson in and got Metzger arrested, it still would not be the end of the affair for the Soviets. They would try some other way to get hold of the blueprints, he was sure of that. They would only stop trying once they had obtained what they thought were the real Skydancer plans.

Anderson, he suddenly realised, had a unique value.

‘What were Karl's last instructions to you?'

Alec shivered. ‘He's given me until midday Monday. I have to phone a number at twelve noon on that day to confirm I have the Skydancer papers, and to arrange a handover point. If I don't do this, he'll put the photographs in the afternoon post.'