‘So,’ she continued, ‘what do you want to know today? Where Montcalm drank all his money away? Or if Slaughter really is that stupid?’
It had become clear over the course of interrogating the ring’s members that not only was Sandra in charge but that she’d also seemed to know where her collaborators were and what they were doing without ever leaving her house in Richmond. Montcalm had indeed spent most of the cash he received from the KGB via the Hornes drinking and gambling his way up and down the country, creating a vicious circle of debt and addiction that always led him back to London and Calder Hall. As for Slaughter, he’d maintained throughout his questioning that he had no idea he was working for the Russians. In fact, the security guard claimed he’d been slipping secrets to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in exchange for money to supplement his meagre income.
But Knox hadn’t come to Holloway to push Sandra for information about Slaughter or Montcalm.
‘I want to know about Cecil Court,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ The broad smile was back. ‘That.’
‘I want to know who was leaving the messages.’
‘Well, I wish I could tell you, dearie. But I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it was.’
‘Sounds terrible.’
‘I’m serious. It’s the chloral they give us. Supposed to help us sleep, but half the poor loves in here can’t remember what day it is, let alone why they’re banged up. It’s sinful.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Knox replied. He had grilled Horne enough to know he’d have to play her game, but he wanted to shorthand it as much as possible. ‘And what do you think would help jog your memory?’
Sandra leaned back in her seat, relishing the small piece of power she held over Knox.
‘A stop to that chemical nonsense for a start. I just need some lavender on my pillows to help me sleep. Cotton pillows, stuffed with goose down, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘Lord knows what the linens are made of in here, but they aren’t very homely.’
‘I don’t think they’re meant to be.’
Horne’s smile turned cold again. ‘Maybe for everyone else. But I’m different, aren’t I? I’m special. And you want me to be comfortable.’
Knox nodded. ‘Tell me about Cecil Court and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Oh, dearie, you know that’s not how this works. Get me a good night’s sleep and then we can see if I remember anything about that ghost of yours.’
Knox knew if he pushed her there was every chance she’d shut down and not tell him anything. He might be in no position to give Horne anything officially, but she didn’t know that, and there were always ways to get things into a prison – even into high-security solitary confinement – unofficially.
‘Right, then. I think it’s time for my afternoon stroll round the grounds.’ Horne pushed her chair back, stood up, and straightened her shirt. ‘Oi,’ she shouted at the door. A moment later it opened, revealing the same guard who had delivered her a few minutes earlier. ‘I think we’re finished now,’ Horne told the guard, then turned back to Knox and said, ‘I’ll see you soon, dearie.’
The guard looked at Knox as Horne stepped past her. He nodded that they were indeed done, and the guard fell into step behind her prisoner, leaving Knox to find his own way out.
CHAPTER 13
Abey Bennett loved London. The city was literally and figuratively thousands of miles from Lakin, the township in rural Kansas where she’d grown up. Lakin was a small, tight-knit community of weather-beaten buildings and grizzled prairie folk who were only a few generations removed from the great push west. London was the complete opposite. It was a real melting pot, where the tall towers and endless streets were full of people from all over the world.
Bennett felt free in London. Free to be who she wanted to be. Free to be as visible or invisible as she needed to be. And when it came to trailing members of MI5 across the city, she needed to be invisible.
Once she was sure Knox was going to see Sandra Horne, Bennett went back to the tube and rode the Piccadilly Line all the way to South Kensington. If she’d been following operational procedure properly, she’d have reported Knox’s trips to Cambridge and Holloway to her superiors. But, as they’d already dismissed every attempt she’d made to convince them something was rotten at the highest levels of British intelligence and she was currently acting alone and without authorisation, she didn’t feel inclined to.
She knew who Knox was, and that he’d been suspended from MI5 just over twenty-four hours ago. What she didn’t understand was why he’d then gone to see Dr Ludwig Kaspar, a man who still had suspected links to Russia, and then Horne, whose Soviet connections were certain.
At South Kensington, she changed onto the District Line and travelled another three stops. At West Brompton she got off the tube, turned right out of the station, walked a hundred yards along Old Brompton Road, and turned right again.
It was now late afternoon and Brompton Cemetery was quiet. Streams of light cut through knotty old trees, bouncing off row after row of ornate tombstones. Bennett’s final destination stood just ahead of her, but she had another stop to make first. She turned off the wide central avenue and followed one of the smaller paths down towards the grand colonnades and catacombs that dominated the lower half of the cemetery. She weaved through the graves, following a route that almost entirely hid her from view behind tall headstones. She paused briefly at the top of one of the sloped catacomb entrances before walking down into the cool shadows.
Three bricks up from the ground to the left of the large, locked gate at the bottom of the slope, there was a wide gap in the mortar – wide enough for something to be wedged inside. Bennett eased a dull metal case out of its hiding place, adding to the scrapes that ran along its sides. The case was a dead drop. It was also an early warning system, and a trap. She opened the thin lid and checked that the small piece of paper she’d left inside weeks ago was still there. It was. If it hadn’t been, she’d know that someone was watching her as closely as she was watching Knox. And whoever it was would have come into possession of something that looked like a long string of code but which, after hours spent trying to decrypt it, would reveal itself to be completely meaningless.
She put the case back, walked up into the warm sun, and headed through the cemetery to the sandstone cross that stood just inside the northern entrance. The headstone had weathered over the years, but the inscription on it was still legible. It read:
In loving memory of Emmeline Pankhurst, wife of RM Pankhurst LLD, in rest June 14th 1928.
People tend to latch on to the heroes they discover when they’re young, but Bennett was probably the only child in the history of Kansas who had chosen to idolise a British suffragette. The other children of Lakin had their choice of brave pioneers and nation builders to look up to. Bennett, however, had been denied access to this pantheon, because she was half Native American. And, because she was also half white, she’d been just as shunned by the community that could have shared hundreds of years of stories about ancestors roaming the Great Plains with her. So, whenever she could she’d take the bus to the nearest big town to Lakin – the ironically named Garden City – and sit in the public library for hours on end, searching through book after book for her own heroes.
She found Emmeline Pankhurst in a biographical encyclopaedia of famous women in history. The book was short, ordered chronologically, and Pankhurst was the final entry. Bennett felt an immediate connection to this dead foreign woman, the cause she’d led, and her belief that acceptance was something to be claimed, not just asked for. This sentiment became Bennett’s driving force, and it had pushed her all the way from Lakin to the CIA.