“I thought we had lost you!” said Mrs. Watkins when Marina opened the door. “I just heard you arrive and it is lovely to see you again. There has been so much going on here, and we have all been very worried for you, especially after reading the papers. Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Marina. “I’ve had a lot going on, too, but now it is all over, and I just want to get back to normal again. I will tell you all about it one day, but right now I have to settle in, then go to the shop for some groceries while they are still open and make a few phone calls and other things. It has been weeks since I was here and I am sure I have to do some tidying up and then check the state of everything, especially the fridge.”
Mrs. Watkins got the message and understood why Marina politely excused herself from an invitation to go next door for a cup of tea. “Let me know if I can help. I will see you tomorrow, if that’s okay,” she said as Marina closed her door.
After unpacking and hanging up her clothes, Marina turned her attention to the kitchen and soon filled a bin bag with much of the contents of her refrigerator. She worked out what she needed from the nearby one-stop shop and decided that this must be her next job. She put on her shoes again and a winter-weight coat, picked up her shopping bag and set off to walk the two blocks to buy the essentials she needed to see her through the next couple of days.
As she came back, she remembered to check her mailbox in the lobby. It was quite full, and she managed to fit a pile of correspondence, brochures and flyers into one of her shopping bags to take back to her flat. There, she put the kettle on and packed away her shopping. She made a cup of tea and started to look at her mail.
Apart from the usual junk mail, there were bills to be opened, a few personal letters and one large brown envelope which looked official – perhaps something from the Navy about my job, she thought as she pulled open the well-sealed flap….
Immediately, a cloud of white powder flew into her face and over her neck and her bare arms. It stung, and she quickly realised that this was something serious and not some sort of practical joke. Trying to wipe her face clean and with her eyes tingling, she staggered to the phone and dialled 999.
28.
THE CRIME SCENE
Chief Constable Terence Hardy, head of the Portsmouth City Police, was at home, getting changed out of uniform and preparing for guests expected for dinner when his phone rang. It was a somewhat agitated Paul Maggs, his CID chief.
“Sorry sir, but this is important… You need to know that we have an attempted murder on our hands, and it’s another stage in that Russian spy story.”
This quickly alerted the chief to take the call seriously. He thought the whole thing had ended with the Foreign Officer statement about the spy exchange. He listened alertly as Maggs began to outline the events of the past two hours, which, he said, had begun with the return of Marina Peters to her flat in Southsea, also believing that the episode was now over.
“It appears that she was opening her accumulated pile of mail from several weeks away when she opened an envelope which must have contained some kind of poison,” he continued. “She had the good sense to dial 999 at once, and when the paramedics arrived, they had to break into her flat and found her unconscious on the floor. They quickly recognised that she had a white powder on her face and hands, and with the Salisbury spy story still fresh in their minds, they decided not to touch her without protective clothing. They had the good sense to first call CID and then to contact the hospital for back-up by someone who understood this type of thing.”
“What do they think it is?” asked the Chief Constable. “They are certainly doing the right things.”
Maggs went on with his report and explained how one of the paramedics went back to their ambulance and found the protective plastic overalls, mask and gloves that they always carried, and he got close enough to ascertain that the patient was still breathing, though deeply unconscious. They made her as comfortable as possible until the emergency team arrived from the Police Station, followed by a specialist from the hospital.
“Our fellows then called me again to report the situation and said the doctor’s first reaction was suspected Ricin poisoning,” continued Maggs. “Well, we’ve all had some training on this sort of thing – and given the woman’s recent history, I realised that this was probably another security situation. Then I remembered those two Russian agents we talked to a few weeks back who were apparently looking for her. If you remember, we took their pictures, and MI5 recognised them as known agents based at the Russian Embassy in London. We have their names and we know they located the woman’s address.
“This is all circumstantial and guesswork at the moment, sir, but it has all the signs of an attempted murder, and I decided it was urgent enough to phone our contact at MI5. After I had briefed him, he agreed that we should take precautions to prevent any contamination from the spread of the material from the envelope and that we should get the woman to hospital quickly for a proper diagnosis – which, of course, we were already doing. He also suggested that we probably had enough information to issue an arrest warrant naming the two Russians on suspicion of attempted murder. Do you agree?”
“Absolutely,” replied Terence Hardy. “Who’s in charge at the scene at the moment?”
Superintendent Maggs told his chief that Detective Sergeant Bullock was there with a couple of DCs, and they were being very careful but also putting together as much evidence as they could find. It was agreed to set the wheels in motion for an arrest warrant right away and to follow up with Scotland Yard to get the Russian couple on the international wanted list at the airports and ferry ports.
Taking charge of the situation, the Chief Constable replied, “Let me know when the woman gets to hospital and also make sure we get the doctors to check out all the others who went to the scene in case they have also been infected by the Ricin, or whatever it is. And get our decontamination team on the job quickly to work on the flat and any other areas that might be affected. This is a block of flats, isn’t it, so maybe they should all be evacuated while the work is being done. I think I’ll call my opposite number in Salisbury to see if there is anything we haven’t thought of – and I’ll also let the Navy people know what’s going on before they hear it from anyone else. The press are bound to be on this once we evacuate the flats, so can you get one of your people to draft a statement and let me see it before it is released.”
“OK, chief. I’ve got all that and will stay in touch. I think I had better go to see what’s happening at the flat as soon as I can.”
The Chief Constable then remembered that it was his Navy friend, Commander Robert Gaffney, who was expected for dinner that evening with his wife. Simultaneously, he came to the conclusion that this was a fast-moving situation and his place was really at his office, coordinating the police operation. He made the call quickly.
“Robert, so glad I have caught you before you left home, but we have a bit of a crisis this evening. I’ve only just been briefed, and I was going to call you anyway. I am sure you remember the woman from your communications office who was caught up with this Russian spy business. We thought it was all done and dusted when they announced the spy swap last week, but now she has come back to her place in Southsea and has just been found unconscious – and probably poisoned.”