CHAPTER FIFTEEN – DOUBLE BEDS AND DOUBLE AGENTS
Bill Clayton found it difficult to concentrate on Monday. Monday mornings weren’t usually like this, but then neither had the weekend been quite like any other. He hadn’t been to the toy hospital at all, but he had managed to spend more time with Catherine.
He could hardly believe the way his relationship with her had developed, or how quickly. For months on end, he had sat in his office, secretly admiring the girl who worked for him and who ran his registry. Admiring, and wanting to talk to her like a human being, rather than as a fellow member of the Army. But the fact that he was commissioned and she was not, was like an insurmountable wall between them – an artificial barrier put in their way by the Army. He had never dared hope that, one day, they might at least be able to see across that barrier, even if they could not break it down, and to regard one another as people with feelings rather than people with different ranks. But now the barrier was beginning to crumble, and they were at last able to start sharing their feelings towards one another. It had taken a huge effort on his part to first suggest that they should meet outside the cramped and stifling conditions of the office. It was gamble, which could have dramatically misfired, and yet, as if by some miracle, Catherine had agreed. Agreed so readily and without question that he believed she might, in some small way, feel the same about him.
Somehow, he managed to drag his mind back to the present.
Monday morning it was, and there was work to be done. He called his team together, into the now cramped office. They made themselves as comfortable as possible, clutching mugs of coffee that Sergeant Catherine Wilson had made.
“The first thing I need to tell you,” said Bill, “is that this little team will soon start to wind up. Everyone, from the Prime Minister downwards, is full of praise for all the work we’ve done in helping to create the climate within which a political solution can be made to work at last. We all know what that solution is, but it would never have been possible if terrorism here had not been brought to an end. In the wider sense, we have contributed towards a major victory in the global war against terrorism.”
They all nodded, sagely, inwardly pleased.
“There are still one or two loose ends to be tied up before our role in Op. Honolulu can be said to be finally finished, and in a minute, I want to discuss one of them which is proving particularly difficult.”
“But we must now start concentrating on closing down this office completely.”
They looked at him, puzzled.
“The Americans are coming,” he said. “And soon. The FBI has already sent a couple of chaps to the Northern Ireland Police Service to start the process of turning it into a US Federal Police Force, and we must soon expect to get the CIA and the US Marine Corps breathing down out necks, because they will be taking over from us when the Army eventually withdraws to the mainland.”
Nobody seemed to have thought of that.
Catherine sat in shocked disbelief. Surely the Army wasn’t going to engineer their separation now, just at the very time they were beginning to get together? That would be just too cruel. That simply must not happen – it cannot happen; she felt desperate, and suddenly brimming with unhappiness where only moments before she had been so elated.
“The first thing we need to do is have a very thorough search through all our files and records,” Bill Clayton continued, “to weed out anything which we think Uncle Sam might not want to see, or might not need. We have to get everything into apple pie order for a hand-over, probably starting quite soon. Perhaps you could take the lead in that, Sergeant Wilson. ”
She nodded, as he paused.
“We are all going to be very busy, again.”
“And we need to start thinking about a formal handover, Brian.” he said to Captain Foley. “Would you have a word with the General’s ADC to find out what they are doing, and how we can dovetail into it? And then start thinking about the format of a presentation of our own, going into a lot more detail, for the chaps who will actually be doing this job. All that will need careful drafting, visual aids prepared, and so.on The sooner we start, the better.”
Clayton almost felt he was making work, just to take his mind of things.
He turned to Lt. Cmdr. Nick Marsden.
“Nick, you’ve been a tower of strength during recent weeks, and we couldn’t have done what we have without your support and professionalism.”
“Great pleasure,” he said, “Thoroughly enjoyed it, as a matter of fact. But I suppose this is leading up to telling me to push off, back where I came from.”
“Almost,” said Bill Clayton, with a grin. “Although I wouldn’t have put it quite like that! But you don’t need to hang around to help us sort out years of old files.”
“Not my favourite job, anyway,” said Marsden. “I’m not good at paper.”
“But I do want you to help us sort one final problem before you go.” said Clayton. “It’s been nagging me for a week or more, and I simply cannot think my way through to a solution. I’ll start at the beginning, not just for your benefit, Nick, but also to help remind the rest of us of what we know so far.”
He started with the death of his uncle, Edward Benbow, and told them something of his background and his most recent role in Libya. He went on to tell them about his uncle’s old envelope, which had been used to house the list of terrorist bank accounts, and how the envelope had ended up in the hands of Alistair Vaughan.
“It has always seemed pretty obvious to me,” he said, “that there has somehow got to be a link between that envelope and Benbow’s death. Then our man Father Sean Doyle died. He had given us the list with most of the information we needed to close the terrorist bank accounts – the list which was put in the envelope. Doyle was an ex-Army Padre, working in the Falls Road as parish priest, and had for some time been the IRA’s Treasurer. He was one of our best men out in the field, as you all know.”
“In fact, it was his death which gave us our first clue as to a possible link between Edward Benbow and Op. Honolulu,” continued Clayton.
He pulled Doyle’s note from his tunic pocket.
“Nick,” he said, “you haven’t seen this before, but it was posted to me by Doyle shortly before he was fished out of Strangford Loch.”
“My dear Bill,” it read. “I’m sure you know me well enough to recognise what is in my character and what isn’t, in spite of what may be suggested. And I’m sure I know you well enough to be confident that you will spot a red herring when you see one. May the Good Lord bless you. Regards, Sean.”
Marsden read the note with a puzzled look on his face.
“Cryptic, to say the least,” he commented. “What do you make of it?”
“It made no sense at all at first,” replied Clayton. “We had all assumed that Sean was murdered by the IRA because they suspected him of creaming off their funds, but they’re not in the habit of leaving their victims lying around. Then the post-mortem showed that he had committed suicide – he was full of barbiturates. We then assumed that he had taken his own life to avoid the attentions of a suspicious IRA, but the Police also discovered child pornography both in his flat and downloaded onto his computer, so they have assumed that he killed himself because he was about to be uncovered as a paedophile. We, on the other hand, and because of his note, thought it was all designed to divert attention from us, and to prevent the discovery of any possible link to us and our activities.”
“Hence his reference to a red herring, and you knowing his character better than the evidence suggests.” said Nick Marsden.
“Exactly,” said Clayton. “But there was another, hastily scribbled, note in with his letter.”
He showed it to Marsden.
“Pass it across to Brian – he hasn’t seen it yet, either.”
“Your man Vaughan a fund raiser – links to Libyan arms dealers.”
“Vaughan, for God’s sake,” said Foley. “Why Vaughan?”
“That’s what I had to find out, and fast. It seemed out of the question that Vaughan could be some kind of traitor, but if Vaughan thought that Benbow was about to uncover his links with Libyan arms dealers, then he could well have arranged for my uncle to be killed. And until I knew one way or the other, I could no longer trust anyone involved in our venture. There was no one, it seemed to me, that I could talk to about it, except the Prime Minister, and Sergeant Wilson. ”
“I was pretty safe,” she said, “because I had only been on the fringes of this business, and because I’d never met Vaughan or Benbow.”
“But you had seen the envelope,” said Marsden.
“Quite so,” continued Clayton “It was gamble, but it seems to have paid off. By pure good fortune, Sergeant Wilson had a contact at Scotland Yard. Somehow, she persuaded him to dig out Vaughan’s old records from the vaults – you remember he was a Commander there running the Fraud Squad before he went to the Bank of England. But we needed to know more about the man – his background, life-style, possible links to Ireland or Libya – that sort of thing. That’s why we went to London on Thursday, Nick. You’d better take it up from there, Sergeant, since you did all the work.”
“Very well, sir,” said Catherine Wilson.
She glanced at her notes. This wasn’t going to be easy. Normally she would have had no problem going over the events of last week, but suddenly things weren’t normal any more. Not between her and Bill, anyway. She found it hard to concentrate, and even harder to believe that she and Bill were at last behaving towards one another like two human beings. Like two people who cared. She realised, too that Bill wasn’t finding this easy either. The death of his wife had hurt him terribly, and she could tell that he had determined never to be hurt like that again. He had shut himself off from life, almost. Buried himself in his work, and when that wasn’t enough to keep him away from mixing socially with people, had shut himself away in his toy hospital. She understood the reasons, but had nevertheless longed to be able to get close enough to him to help. Suddenly, as if by some miracle, the ice had cracked, and they had been out together. Not once or twice, even, but four times. She began to think that he really might share her feelings, but knew how very careful she had to be not to send him back into his protective shell. If she showed her true feelings too soon, or too quickly, she would loose him. That’s if the Army didn’t wrench them apart again.
She struggled to bring her mind back to the office, and knew that Bill was having the same problems. They had to be so careful, both of them, not to betray their new, fragile relationship to their colleagues. Damn the Army, she thought.
“The plan was,” she said, “for me to go through the records at Scotland Yard in the morning, then meet Major Clayton so that we could both have lunch with Mr Vaughan. It was my job to investigate the man as thoroughly as possible and as quickly as possible. If necessary, I was even authorised to set up a honey trap.”
“Christ, Bill, that was risky,” interrupted Marsden.
“I can look after myself quite well, thank you sir,” said Sergeant Wilson primly.
“Well, I know that, damn it. But it was still hellish risky,” said Marsden.
“Anyway, in the end it wasn’t necessary,” continued Wilson. She glanced at her notes again.
“There was absolutely no hint, from his records at Scotland Yard, that Mr Vaughan was anything other than what he seemed. Good security clearance, excellent annual reports, no hint of financial problems, only a small mortgage on a small house in Buckinghamshire, and no obvious Irish links – nothing. The man looked squeaky clean.”
Bill Clayton took up the story.
“We probed as much as we decently could without raising his suspicions over lunch, but turned up absolutely nothing. Certainly not a lavish lifestyle - he let me pay! But I had half wondered, if Doyle’s claim that he was a fund raiser for the IRA was true, whether he might have creamed off some of the terrorist funds from the accounts he was closing down for us. However, when I was with the Prime Minister later that afternoon, he was able to quickly check what had been put into the special Treasury account, and it was all there so far as we could tell.”
“I stayed on after Major Clayton had left,” continued Sergeant Wilson, “and Mr Vaughan offered to show me around the Docklands area of London, and eventually to meet him again for dinner. He also offered to put me up in the spare room of the flat the Bank provided for him, and I accepted, as this would give me the perfect opportunity to scout round for bank statements and so on. I was also supposed to bug the flat, but eventually, because of a total lack of evidence of anything untoward, I took the decision not to. Throughout my time with him, he behaved impeccably, and even rang his wife to tell her I was staying in the flat overnight. She was due there the following afternoon, I discovered, so I took the opportunity to visit and search their house in Buckinghamshire after she had left for London.”
“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Captain Foley.
“The point is, Brian,” said Clayton, “That neither of us found anything in the least suspicious about the man. He is what he appears to be: as straight as a die and as clean as a whistle, if you’ll excuse the mixed whatsits!”
“Which means,” said Marsden, “that the dear departed Father Doyle had it all wrong.”
“Which is exactly the point of this little brainstorming session. We still can’t link Edward Benbow and his wretched envelope to Op. Honolulu, although the link has to be there somewhere.”
“I agree,” said Foley. “But I drew a blank as well, when I got on to the Sussex Police as you asked, sir. They have no clues at all about your uncle’s murder, and no one locally has been able to suggest a motive. They’ve recovered the bullets from Mr Benbow’s body, and found the spent cartridges, but forensic tests have thrown up no links to any other crime.”
“There are two things I’d like to know,” said Commander Marsden. “I’d like to know more about that bloody envelope, but first of all I’d like to know if the gallant Sergeant can make some more of her excellent coffee!”
“Good idea,” said Clayton. “Let’s take a break for a few minutes and have a stretch. It’s a bit cramped in here,” he said, looking at Marsden’s radio in the corner.
“I’ll get rid of that in a day or so, and then you can have your office back,” promised Marsden.
Armed with fresh coffee, Marsden repeated his question.
“Bill, old chum, tell us more about this envelope. It’s obviously central to the whole puzzle, because without it, no one would ever know that Benbow existed. By the same token, only those who have ever seen the envelope can be in the frame for his murder – hence you not trusting anyone. So! What’s the history of the envelope? How did it get here in the first place, and how did it come to have that list put inside it?”
They all turned to Major Clayton, expectantly.
Bill Clayton realised that he hadn’t traced events back that far himself. Perhaps he should have done. Where had it all begun?
“So far as I recall,” he said, frowning, “Benbow had sent me a couple of keys for clockwork toys, wrapped up in that envelope. He’d picked them up in an antiques market place in Petworth, not far from where he lived. It was in my pocket when I met Doyle to collect the list from him.”
“And where did that happen?” asked Marsden.
“In the Mess, here, would you believe,” said Clayton. “It’s coming back to me, now.”
He lent forward.
“You know we have regular liaison meetings with all sorts of public bodies, including church leaders. We’ve never got round to having all denominations together,” he continued, “but at the last one we had with members of the local catholic church, Doyle was invited, as he always was to these events, as one of the most important parish priests in Belfast. I knew he was bringing the list with him, but it was hardly the sort of thing he could hand over openly in front of all his colleagues. The arrangement was for him to put the list into the envelope which I had given him, and for him to leave it in the loo, on top of the cistern, where I would collect it later.”
“So Doyle actually saw the envelope,” said Marsden, probing.
“Not only that,” said Clayton, “he had it for long enough to note down Benbow’s address.”
“But why would he want to do that?” asked Foley. “He had no idea who Benbow was or what he did.”
“Yes he did,” replied Clayton. “I told him. Like everyone else who’s seen that bloody envelope, he naturally asked who Benbow was. And I told him. Everything, including his probing visits to Libya.”
They all looked at Bill Clayton, as the significance of what he had said sunk in.
“What an absolute bloody fool I’ve been,” said Clayton, “not to have remembered that before.”
“But if the good reverend really was on our side, Nick, as you had every reason to believe, it wouldn’t have mattered a jot.” said Marsden.
“Are you suggesting he might not have been?” asked Foley.
“Only that it’s a possibility we should perhaps look at,” replied Marsden. “In the same way you thought the unthinkable about Vaughan. You now have to add Doyle to the list of people who knew about the envelope, and who you therefore can no longer trust. Except that he’s dead, of course.”
There was silence, while they all pondered this latest revelation.
“I need to get down to Sussex,” said Bill Clayton eventually. “I want to talk to the local police, and in particular, I need to borrow the bullets and spent cartridges from them. I’ll bet they haven’t thought that they could have originated from here.”
“Now that would be significant,” said Marsden.
“What it is to have a fresh brain looking at things. Thanks, Nick.”
“My pleasure,” said Marsden.
“I’ll go at the weekend,” said Clayton. “In my own time and at my own expense, and not the firms’, I think. It’s time I visited my aunt again, anyway. Brian, perhaps you would be good enough to get back to your contacts in Sussex, and ask them if I can pick up the spent ammo while I’m there, so that we can run our own forensic tests. I think Petworth is the nearest Police station to Fittleworth, so it would be handy to collect them from there, if that can be arranged.”
Catherine was having a bad day. Just to add to her growing misery, Bill now seemed to be planning a weekend away from her. She decided to go back to the office after supper, and bury herself in the job of sorting out their files and records, ready for a hand-over. It might just keep her mind off things, although in fact it didn’t. The more she thought about the mornings’ events, the more depressed she became.
The phone rang.
At half past eight in the evening?
“Sergeant Wilson,” she said.
“Major Clayton!” came the response. “What on earth are you doing in the office at this hour, Catherine?”
“I thought I’d start going through the files,” she said. “To try to get my mind off things.”
“What things?”
“Well, the team breaking up for a start, you going away for the weekend to see your aunt, that sort of thing. I was feeling a bit depressed about things, to be honest.”
“Well, don’t,” said Bill Clayton. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and never thought you’d be in the office, of all places.”
“I just had to do something,” said Catherine Wilson. “But now you’ve found where I am, what did you want?”
“I want to know if you’re free to come with me to Sussex at the weekend, that’s what.”
“I thought you were going on your own,” replied Catherine.
“I couldn’t very well invite you to come with me in front of the rest of them, could I? But if you can’t come, then I shan’t go.”
“Oh, Bill! Of course I’d love to go with you, if you’re sure,” she said.
“Brilliant,” said Bill Clayton. “We’ll go Saturday morning to miss the weekend exodus, otherwise we might be spotted. We can go from Belfast City airport straight to Gatwick, and pick up a car from there. We can put up in a pub for the night somewhere, if that’s all right.”
“Is this my dirty weekend in Brighton you promised?” she asked.
“Don’t be cheeky!” replied Bill. “And no, it isn’t! Most of Brighton’s sordid, and in any case the Sussex police HQ is in Lewes, which is even worse.”
“Suddenly, I’m feeling more cheerful,” said Catherine.
“I should hope so,” said Bill Clayton. “We can discuss the details over dinner one day this week, if you’d like.”
“I’m definitely feeling better now!”
“How about Wednesday?”
“I’m not doing anything, and if I was I’d cancel it!” she said.
“We’ll go somewhere new,” said Clayton, “where we shan’t be spotted. I’ll let you know where, but I’m getting a bit fed up with this hole-in-the-corner business, aren’t you?”
“It would be so much nicer if we could be open about things,” she agreed.
“One day, my dear,” said Clayton. “One day. By the way, you do realise that there’s a downside to our trip, don’t you?”
“What’s that?”
“Meeting my aunt,” replied Bill. “She’s a nice enough old stick, really, and I’m sure you’ll get on, but, - well - it’s family, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t mind in the least,” replied Catherine.
“And I really ought to drop in and see my father, while we’re there. He lives in Worthing, not far away. Would that be all right, too?”
“Of course it will be all right. I’d really like to meet him.”
“He’d like to meet you, too. I’ve told him about you. He’s a bit of a fiery old sod – retired Generals often are – but he’s got a heart of gold beneath it all. I think you’ll like him. But we’ll go over the details at dinner on Wednesday. Now you pack up, and relax a bit.”
“I will,” replied Catherine. “I’m feeling better now I’ve talked to you.”
They made their way separately to City airport on Saturday morning, in case someone saw them together. Frankly, Catherine no longer cared whether anyone saw them or not. Not after dinner on Wednesday. No peck on the cheek when they had parted then, but a proper, if hesitant, embrace.
They picked up their car from Gatwick, and headed for Petworth, to collect the spent ammunition.
“Do you know Sussex?” Bill asked her.
“Not at all,” she replied. “Never been here in my life before.”
“Well,” said Bill, “you’ll find it a bit different from the Fens of your childhood. There’s not much flat in this county, apart from the water meadows and flood plains around the rivers that flow into the sea – rolling, wooded down land, narrow winding lanes, and picturesque villages mostly. I’ll show you around properly one day, when we have more time,” he promised.
“Meanwhile, I think we should go to Petworth first to collect the ammo, then that’s the business side of our trip taken care of, more or less. You’ll like Petworth. Plenty of old antique shops, and Petworth House is a stately home well worth a visit one day. After that, I thought we could head for Worthing to meet the old man, if that’s all right with you, and then that’s over, too.”
“Whatever you like, Bill. I’m more than happy just being here.”
“Dad’s only got a small flat, so we shan’t be able to stay there. It’s on the front, overlooking the sea, and just right for him. Then, I thought we would head to Fittleworth this evening, and see my old aunt tomorrow. There’s a lovely old Inn at Fittleworth – The Swan – where we can get a good dinner and spend the night, if they have rooms. I’ll ring them from Worthing.”
“All that sounds perfect. But how come you know Sussex so well?” she asked.
“Born and bred in the county,” he replied. “This is home, for me.”
They found the Police station in Petworth without too much trouble, and the Detective Inspector in charge of the case was expecting them. He handed over the ammunition in a sealed plastic bag, and confirmed that they still had no idea who had killed Edward Benbow, or why.
“Two shots fired at close range,” said the Inspector. “There was a chap fishing just below the bridge who heard the shots, and saw two men on a motorbike speeding off towards Bognor. We assume they were the killers, but the man was too far away to be anything like a witness – no description of the men, or anything. It’s all very odd,” he continued. “Things like that just don’t happen around here.”
The couple managed to park in the town square, and had time for a quick look round, including the antiques market where Edward Benbow had picked up the clockwork keys. Bill managed to buy a map of Sussex in the newsagents, so that he could show Catherine where they were and where they were going.
“See?” he said. “Fittleworth is only a short way down the road from here, and we shall pass it on our way to Dads’ place. But we won’t stop; there’ll be plenty of time for a look round tomorrow, but it is a lovely little place.”
They got to Worthing quite quickly, and parked in the forecourt of the block of flats, to the west of the town centre, where the General lived.
“We used to live a bit further along the coast, that way,” said Bill, pointing west. “Village called Ferring; I was born there.”
Catherine wasn’t sure she was altogether looking forward to meeting Bills’ father. She didn’t have a great deal of experience of Generals, and certainly not socially. As it happened, she needn’t have worried – they hit it off immediately.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, my gal,” he said, “and I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Bill’s not usually wrong about people,” he added. “Come on in, and make yourself at home.”
He turned to Bill. His booming voice wouldn’t let him whisper, but he did his best. “You were right, boy. Damned good looking.”
Catherine was surprised and flattered that Bill had even mentioned her at all.
Bill asked if he could use the phone. “I thought we could put up at The Swan tonight, if they have rooms free,” he said.
“Excellent place,” enthused the General. “Stayed there m’self.” He turned to Catherine. “Just sorry I can’t put you up here,” he said. “It would do me good to have you around the place. But you’ll probably be more comfortable at The Swan, and it’s handy for visiting my sister Edith tomorrow. She’s still a bit cut up about Edward, of course, but like me, can’t wait to meet you.”
Bill came back from using the phone in the hall.
“They don’t have any single rooms tonight,” he said, “but they’ve got a twin, with en suite and everything, so I said we’d have that, if it’s OK with you, Catherine.”
“Of course it’s all right with Catherine,” boomed the General on her behalf. “Something wrong with the gal if it’s not!”
Catherine grinned.
“Your father’s quite right, of course,” she said, “I shan’t mind a bit.”
“Told you so,” the General beamed.
“I’ll take a turn round the block while you’re using the bathroom,” announced Bill.
The General looked at Catherine, raised his eyes to heaven, and went in to the small kitchen to put the kettle on for tea.
“Any clues yet about Edward’s murder?” he asked Bill, later. “If you want my opinion,” he continued without waiting for a reply, “you can blame the bloody Arabs for that. Been poking around in Libya, by all accounts, and no doubt he was on to their illegal arms trade.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Bill, “There could well be a connection.”
He explained why they were there, and about the mystery surrounding his uncles’ envelope. They chatted on for ages, and Catherine became more and more relaxed in the company of the two men.
Eventually, Bill looked at the old carriage clock on the mantelpiece.
“We really must get going, Dad,” he said. “They will have closed the dining room at The Swan if we’re not quick.”
The General walked with them to the car park.
He put his arm round Catherine’s shoulders. “I can’t tell you how nice it’s been to meet you,” he said to her quietly. “Bill’s a changed man since I last saw him – much more like his old self again. He’s very fond of you, y’know.”
They parted already the best of friends.
“I know we haven’t got all that time, if we’re going to eat this evening,” he said, as they were on their way, “ but we’ll go into Fittleworth from a different direction so I can show you bridge over the river were my uncle was shot.”
They drove along the coast, passed a sign to Ferring, and eventually went through Arundel, with its castle on the hill, and north up the A.29. They turned off up the road signposted to Fittleworth, and Bill pulled over as they approached the river. They leant over the little bridge.
“I wouldn’t mind a quid for every time I’ve scrambled over that stile next to the bridge when I was a kid,” he said. “I used to go fishing down there quite often with my father and uncle Edward. And now he’s dead. Murdered at the very spot where we used to have such fun.”
Catherine put her arm through his.