‘Why?’
‘I want to see if we can identify the man who was with Frame when he picked up Hassett.’
‘Do we need to know that? He’ll have been a Six operative, and they hate us snooping on their people.’
Skinner smiled. ‘The DG’s wrong about me in one respect: I do need to know the answers to all the questions. Don’t delegate; do it yourself, and have it all ready for me when I get back.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘We’re off to take a look at the Bulrush.’
Thirty-nine
They found it without difficulty, on a mooring in Chelsea, not quite within sight of the homes of one or two world-famous rock stars. The barge looked deserted, as Skinner had suspected it would be.
He stepped on board and took a look around: most of the accommodation appeared to be under a long wooden deck, but close to the short gangplank there was a wheelhouse, complete with steering gear. He looked inside and saw a hatchway.
‘What are we going to do, sir?’ Shannon asked. ‘Wait here for the owner?’
‘We could do that, but my gut feeling is that he’s not coming back.’
‘You mean we’re going in? Without a warrant?’
‘The outfit we’re working with tend not to use those. Let’s look for an alarm system.’ By the clock, it was still afternoon but the light was fading: he produced a small torch and looked around for sensors, spotting one on the cockpit door. ‘Gotcha,’ he said. ‘There’s no sign of a telephone land-line, so it can’t be monitored: it must be a bell-only system. So where the hell is it?’
‘Here, sir,’ Shannon called out, from behind the superstructure. ‘There’s a bell housing out of sight of the pier.’
Skinner produced an aerosol can from his coat and tossed it to her. ‘Shake that up and spray it inside the casing; get as much as you can in there. It’ll set in an instant and keep the thing quiet. While you’re doing that, I’ll get us in there.’ Amanda Dennis had provided him with a set of locksmith’s tools; he took them from his back pocket and set to work on the door. ‘I used to be quite good at this,’ he told Shannon, ‘but it’s been a while. Hold on, yes, there we are.’ He opened the door and waited, listening as the alarm bell let out a strangled whisper. There was a light switch just inside: he threw it, but nothing happened. He looked back on to the pier and saw a service point, with a heavy plug attached: he jumped back on shore, found a switch and turned on the power.
‘When did you learn to do that, sir?’ the inspector asked him.
‘During my interesting and varied career,’ he replied. ‘We don’t always open doors with sledgehammers. Come on.’ He led the way into the cockpit, raised the hatchway and eased his way down the steep stairway that led below.
The accommodation was more spacious than he had expected: the headroom was adequate, although he was glad that he was no taller than six feet two. He explored and found a double bedroom and bathroom off the big living area. He looked at Shannon. ‘What do you think?’
‘It doesn’t look lived in, sir. It’s well furnished, and well looked after, but there’s no personal feel to it. There are no photos, for example, no television or music system.’ She stepped into the bedroom, returning after a few seconds. ‘There are clothes in the wardrobe, though, men’s clothes.’
‘I’ll take a look; you search in here.’ He went through to see for himself. Sure enough, a sports jacket and blazer and three pairs of trousers hung there. He lifted a pair of jeans out and checked the size. ‘Waist thirty-four, inside leg twenty-eight,’ he murmured. The jackets looked as if they belonged to a much bigger man: he tried one on and found that it fitted him round the chest, although it was much too short in the sleeve. He replaced it; and searched through the storage drawers, finding socks, shirts and underwear, but nothing else. There was one pair of shoes tucked under the double bed, and a travelling alarm in the drawer of a small side-table. Leaving the bedroom, he walked into the bathroom and looked in the cabinet, finding shaving foam, razor and aftershave, but nothing else. He checked the galley kitchen, looking in the fridge: he saw five bottles of lager, and one of white wine, a carton of UHT milk and a tub of spreadable butter, which was three weeks past its best-before date. There was coffee in a cupboard and a pack of biscuits, but no other food.
He returned to Shannon in the living accommodation. ‘You’re right, Dottie,’ he said. ‘This isn’t a home, it’s a bolt-hole. There isn’t enough of anything for anyone to have been living here. This is either a fuck-pit, pardon my French, well trendy to impress the ladies, or a place for secret meetings, or both. Have you found any mail? Any papers?’
‘No, sir, none at all. What do you think? Were Moses Archer and Rudolph Sewell one and the same?’
‘If they were, Rudy must have been pretty conspicuous when he went out in those trousers: they’re four inches too short for him. On the other hand, the jacket would have been pretty baggy. No, Moses was someone else.’
‘D’ you know who? Could he walk in on us here?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said grimly. ‘I know who Moses was, and I can promise you he won’t be dropping in here any time soon.’ He glanced at her. ‘No mail at all?’
‘None: I’ve been through all the drawers and cabinets.’
‘Then let’s give it a real search.’ He picked up an armchair and turned it upside down, then took a clasp knife from his pocket and slashed open the webbing underneath.
They spent the next half-hour taking the place apart, probing for weaknesses in the wood panelling, stripping the bed, overturning its frame and looking under the mattress, ripping drawers from their runners and searching underneath them for anything that might have been taped there, easing the fridge from its slot and using the torch to peer behind it. ‘It’s clean, sir,’ Shannon announced at last.
‘Not quite,’ Skinner told her. ‘There’s one place I’ve still to look.’ He went into the bathroom, lifted the top off the toilet cistern and looked inside. ‘And why the hell didn’t I search here first?’ He sighed. ‘There was a time, after the Godfather movie came out, when everyone did this.’ He rolled up his sleeve, reached inside and drew out a package, wrapped tightly in a waterproof bag. He dried his hand on a towel, then used his knife to slash through the binding tape. He carried his find through to the kitchen and emptied it on to the work surface. It contained a pistol, which the DCC recognised as a Sig Sauer P229, a serious, special weapon, an extra clip of ammunition and a zipper-sealed clear plastic envelope, which held. . photographs.
‘What’s this?’ Shannon murmured.
‘The gun’s probably a back-up,’ Skinner replied. ‘These?’ He opened the envelope and let the snapshots it contained spill on to the counter: as they sorted through them they saw a man in uniform, alone, and with a woman, two children, another younger woman, alone in some, but in others with a stocky smiling young man. ‘This is a life, a life left behind.’
He was about to replace them when something caught his eye: a slip of paper, folded and mixed up among them. He picked it up, opened it, and read. ‘ “This is your man,” ’ he murmured. ‘ “Peter Bassam, Turkish Delight, Elbe Street, Edinburgh. He’s mine from way back; you can trust him.” It’s signed “T”, that’s all. So who the hell are you, T; who the hell are you?’
‘Peter Bassam?’ Shannon exclaimed.
‘Yup.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Good question. It brings us back to this: if you think of agencies with the need and the capacity to run intelligence operatives in the Balkans, and you take out our SIS, the list’s a pretty short one.’
He pocketed the gun, ammunition, photographs and note. ‘Come on, Dottie,’ he said. ‘We’re out of here.’