Hardcastle's Secret Agent by Graham Ison

Author:Graham Ison [Ison, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2021-02-16T22:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

PC James Davis and WPC June Taylor, the two officers selected by Superintendent Swain and briefed by Hardcastle, started duty that same evening. Davis was twenty-eight and had nine years’ service. June Taylor was twenty-two and had been a policewoman for just eighteen months. She was forever being bawled out by her unforgiving woman sergeant for having her hair touching the collar of her uniform. It was, therefore, something of a relief to be on duty in plain clothes so that she could wear her hair the way she liked it.

Thanks to the introduction of double summer time in February of that year, it was light until about eleven o’clock. In Pine Walk, Surbiton, where the Shaws lived, there was nowhere to hide and it made it a very difficult place to keep observation in broad daylight without being spotted. Foreseeing difficulties, Hardcastle drove to the area that afternoon and saw for himself that there was nowhere from which a discreet observation could be mounted. However, there was a telephone kiosk on the corner that gave a view down both Pine Walk and Chiltern Drive. And that gave Hardcastle an idea, but he would have to move swiftly.

Driving back into the centre of Kingston, he parked the car and made his way to the office of Henry Marsh, the area manager responsible for telephones.

‘Yes, Inspector, I can see your problem.’ Marsh was probably nearing sixty years of age, was overweight and grey-haired. He put the tips of his fingers together and touched his lips with his two index fingers. ‘We’re always willing to assist the police, especially now there’s a war on.’ He lowered his hands, linked them together on his desk and leaned forward, an earnest expression on his face. ‘I’ll tell you what I can do: I’ll show that kiosk to be out of order and I’ll have one of our canvas shelters erected in front of it. Your chaps could remain inside the shelter until they needed to move. How would that be?’

‘That would be extremely helpful, Mr Marsh, thank you.’

‘I’ll have to put one of my chaps on site as well, because he’ll need to drive the van that takes the shelter equipment up there. He’s all right, though; he’s one of your special constables.’

It had been the previous Friday night when Shaw had ventured out to his fictitious masonic meeting, and Hardcastle doubted that he would go out again as soon as this evening. However, if Shaw did go out, Hardcastle had taken a gamble on him doing so not long after he returned home from work, and he told the two officers to take up the observation at six o’clock that evening. His gamble paid off and Davis and Taylor saw their target leave his house at half past six.

To the surprise of the two officers, Shaw set off at a fast pace, finally leading them into Kingston town centre, a distance of about a mile and a half. Without a backward glance at any point since leaving his house, he entered the Griffin Hotel, close by the market place.

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