The Smoke by Tony Broadbent

Author:Tony Broadbent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 2010-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

18

A NEW ONE ON ME

Of course, MI5 insisted on the pleasure of my company the next day. And I’m sure that them letting me go home for the night was a test to see whether I’d do a runner or not. I’d declined their kind offer of sending a car to pick me up in the morning. I mean, I had appearances to think of, especially with all the nosy sods down Church Street. I just hoped that all the plain-clothes officers hanging around the place didn’t get under everyone’s feet too much.

Walsingham started off by softening me up again with tales of Flash Harry Raffles, I mean Count Henry von Bentink. And you’d have thought the bugger was Professor Moriarty’s long-lost younger brother, all the daring and dastardly things he was supposed to have done and got away with. In the end I began to feel quite put out about it. After all, one’s also got one’s own reputation to think of, even if it is only you that’s looking over your shoulder.

Once Walsingham was satisfied he’d got my blood going again, he nodded, and Bosanquet dutifully opened his file and got us all down to business. “There’s been a marked increase in the number of burglaries in London and the Home Counties in the last six months. As you might expect there was the usual parade of victims: City types, company directors, stockbrokers, prominent local businessmen, as well as one or two famous show-business personalities. And nothing very unusual in that, but remove them from out of the picture and a short list of a very different sort emerges, and all VIPs. A senior Government scientist involved in atomic energy at Harwell, an Oxford don and a Cambridge mathematician both specialising in subatomic particle physics, three government civil servants, one of whom is very senior indeed, and, rather too close to home, someone at the War Office.”

They exchanged another one of those looks, but I didn’t think it proper to press for any hidden meaning. Bosanquet took a moment to consult his file. “Initially, each incident was regarded as a simple case of burglary. All the better pieces of jewellery were stolen, as were gold wristwatches, gold sovereigns, and any cash on hand. Various fine art pieces were also taken, but nothing major: a first edition here, a small painting or two there, a Meissen figurine; all quite exquisite, and all easily carried. And that’s what put us off the track, at first; we couldn’t see the wood for the trees. All the VIP break-ins bore the hallmarks of a highly sophisticated gang operation. There were no marks, no clues, and not one tip-off, before or since, from any of Scotland Yard’s legion of informers. All seemingly perfect crimes, all giving perfect cover for what we now believe was the real purpose behind the burglaries. For in each case it was later discovered that other more personal and intimate items had also been taken: address books, bank statements, notebooks, work papers, family photographs.

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