Manhunt (4 page)

As the doors opened, she stepped into the lift, and pressed the button for the fifteenth floor.

Paxton Hall, Felsham, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

The land had been a part of the Paxton family estate in Suffolk since 1675, but the proximity of marshy fenland and the difficulty of providing proper drainage had ensured
that it remained relatively unproductive. In 1724 Roger Paxton decided to erect a new family seat at the edge of the land, and within eight years the Paxton family had built the Hall and moved
in.

Roger Paxton’s abiding passion, and his ultimate ruin, was gambling, and in 1742 ownership of the house, and the six acres of woodland that surrounded it, passed to one Giles de Verney in
settlement of numerous debts. The new owner took up residence with his family, put up with the damp and cold for just over two years, and then gave the property to his cousin Charles.

Charles de Verney actually liked living in the Hall, and his descendants continued to reside there until the early years of the twentieth century. The last de Verney to own the property was
Edith, who survived her husband by the better part of forty years and, after his death in 1876, retreated to the Hall in her widow’s weeds.

With the passing years, she became increasingly eccentric and erratic in her behaviour, virtually never leaving the premises and steadily filling each room of the large house with rubbish. Edith
finally died in her small single bedroom at one end of the east wing, all alone as she’d been for fifteen years, and her body wasn’t found there for nearly three weeks.

William Verney – whose branch of the family had dropped the ‘de’ in 1863 – became the new owner, but preferred the social life of London and his spacious flat in
Knightsbridge. He visited the property, and declared that it was one of the most unattractive houses he had ever seen, and certainly the ugliest property he had ever had the misfortune to own. He
had the place cleared out and cleaned up, then secured it against intruders and the winds blowing off the North Sea, and virtually forgot about it.

For no readily discernible reason, the house was requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence in the latter stages of the First World War, but was not actually used for any known purpose. In 1919,
with the male line of the Verney family all but exterminated in the carnage of the Somme and in Flanders, the few surviving members decided they had no need of this big, draughty old place on the
edge of the fens, and gratefully accepted the ministry’s somewhat niggardly offer to purchase it.

Builders were employed to sort out the damp in the extensive cellars, windows and doors were replaced, and the interior was repainted and redecorated. Then, perhaps not knowing quite what else
to do with the place, the ministry closed up the Hall and employed a local building firm to visit and inspect the premises on a monthly basis.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the place was hurriedly opened up again and converted: first into a rest and recuperation centre for injured RAF airmen, and then into a training
centre for Special Operations Executive (SOE) personnel. The explosions and noise of small-arms fire that echoed through the surrounding woods were a constant reminder of the difficult and
dangerous missions being undertaken by the young men and women that the locals occasionally spotted in the village.

Oddly enough, nobody seemed particularly surprised when those noises continued after hostilities had ended. Locals who thought they knew exactly what was going on – which in Suffolk meant
almost everyone – nodded wisely when asked about the Hall, and it soon became common knowledge that Royal Marine Commandos had taken over the estate for training purposes.

When the Special Air Service stormed the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980, word spread quickly around Felsham that the Hall had been used for the final training before the attack. Many
locals claimed to have noticed one or more of the troopers drinking in the local pubs before the assault took place and even to have recognized some of the black-clad figures seen clambering over
parapets on
News at Ten
.

All of which, of course, was complete nonsense, but the stories suited the authorities well enough. In fact, neither the Royal Marines nor the SAS had ever been anywhere near Paxton Hall. At the
end of the Second World War, ownership of the building had been quietly transferred from the Ministry of Defence to the Foreign Office, and the Secret Intelligence Service had moved in.

Or, to be exact, a caretaker staff moved in, and the Hall became one of two SIS safe houses in Suffolk. The cars and vans occasionally arriving at odd hours of the day and night did not contain
SAS troopers eager to improve their shooting skills, although there was a firing range on the property which was still used occasionally. Instead, the vehicles conveyed SIS agents who had to be
briefed prior to undertaking missions abroad; or defectors – only a few, but one of the most important sources of foreign intelligence – fetched in for initial debriefing, and
intelligence professionals who needed a secure and discreet location for their meetings with members of other services.

The first car to arrive, early that afternoon, was a dark green Jaguar saloon with a single occupant. The vehicle stopped at the guardhouse, just outside the electrically controlled gates, and
after a few moments was permitted to proceed up the drive. The second vehicle – also a Jaguar, but black and with three men inside – arrived ten minutes later.

Old Admiralty Building, Spring Gardens, London

The office assigned to Richter, on the first floor of the Old Admiralty Building, was almost exactly what he had been expecting. It was a small room, with yellowish-cream
walls that badly needed repainting, preferably in a different colour, and contained two metal desks, with somewhat worn swivel chairs, and four grey filing cabinets. The single window looked out
into a light well that extended up to the roof, and the gloom meant that the twin overhead fluorescent lights were switched on all day. Although clearly intended to accommodate two people, there
was no sign of any other occupant. The only good thing about it, Richter thought, was that at least he wouldn’t be spending all his working hours here.

He had driven up from Cornwall on Sunday, and found his room at RAF Uxbridge without difficulty. He knew the base well from his previous appointment at Military Air Traffic Operations –
MATO – which was then based at Hillingdon House, within the RAF Uxbridge station complex.

That morning he had travelled into London by tube, arriving at the Old Admiralty Building just after nine. He’d been greeted there in a somewhat perfunctory fashion by Colonel Baldwin,
before he was shown round the building by a young Royal Navy lieutenant. Getting his photograph taken, and sorting out his building pass and personal identity card – which identified him as a
Senior Executive Officer, but did not specify for which organization he worked – had occupied the rest of that morning. Richter had then gone for lunch in a nearby pub with the lieutenant,
who was on hold-over pending a posting abroad, and he had returned to his office just after one-thirty.

He had been sitting at his desk for less than five minutes, doing absolutely nothing because there was absolutely nothing for him to do, when Baldwin knocked on the door and walked in.

Richter looked up enquiringly. ‘This is somewhat sooner than I expected,’ Baldwin announced, ‘but it looks as if your first trip will be taking place on Wednesday this
week.’

‘Where to?’ Richter asked.

‘France, I think,’ Baldwin replied, ‘but you’re scheduled to attend a formal briefing tomorrow morning. It will take place in Hammersmith, at this address.’ The
colonel placed a single sheet of paper on the desk top.

Richter barely even glanced at it. ‘A formal briefing for a courier delivery?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t that a bit of overkill?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Baldwin said. ‘It may not be completely straightforward.’

Richter looked up and smiled thinly. ‘I’d have been very surprised if it was,’ he remarked.

Baldwin stared at him silently for a few moments, then turned on his heel and left the office.

Paxton Hall, Felsham, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

The main conference room was on the ground floor, but the four men had decided to meet in the first-floor library instead. The chairs were more comfortable for one thing,
and Sir Malcolm Holbeche, the current ‘C’ – the head of the Secret Intelligence Service – preferred an informal atmosphere. And in the library he could smoke.

‘Are you sure, absolutely sure, of your facts?’ he asked William Moore, the head of Section Nine of the SIS and responsible for Russian affairs, once the pleasantries were out of the
way.

Moore shook his head. ‘Not one hundred per cent, Sir Malcolm, no. With any data of this sort there is always room for some doubt, some uncertainty. The balance of probability, though,
suggests that we have been compromised.’

The man at the other end of the table snorted in disgust. ‘Why don’t you just come out with it? What you mean is that we’ve got a high-level mole.’

Holbeche looked pained by the remark. In his opinion, George Arkin – the head of the Security Service, MI5 – was rather too blunt in his opinion, especially where delicate
inter-service matters were concerned. Arkin’s background was north-country and police – neither of which endeared him to Holbeche – and both his origins and his career had
engendered a fondness for what Arkin liked to call plain speaking and common sense.

One of the tasks with which the Security Service was entrusted was the detection and investigation of traitors within the ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service, and this role had on numerous
occasions led to outright hostility between the two organizations.

‘Yes,’ Holbeche agreed, ‘we think we have a mole.’

He had been reluctant to involve Arkin at all, but the data obtained by Moore had left him with little alternative. He just hoped that this whole episode could be wrapped up fairly quickly and
quietly.

‘Right, then,’ Arkin nodded briskly, ‘what’s your evidence, and what do you want me to do about it? And who’s this Mr Simpson, and what’s he doing
here?’ He gestured to the smaller man sitting in the armchair to his right.

‘Mr Simpson is here as my assistant and advisor,’ Holbeche snapped. ‘Now, Moore will outline the data we’ve so far received.’ He sat back in his chair and reached
into his jacket pocket for a cigar.

William Moore took a red file from his briefcase and placed it on the table in front of him, but didn’t yet open it. He leaned forward and, in unconscious mimicry, Arkin and Simpson did
the same. When Moore now spoke, his voice was low and intense.

‘Ten days ago,’ he said, ‘a Russian diplomatic courier was taken suddenly and violently ill at Heathrow Airport. He had already passed through Passport Control, and was sitting
in the departure lounge waiting to board the flight to Moscow when he got up and made a dash towards the toilet, but vomited on the floor before he made it, and then passed out.’

Moore paused briefly, then continued. ‘The Heathrow medical staff were called immediately, and the Russian, whose name is Sinyavsky, was rushed to the airport medical centre, where the
on-call doctor examined him, and from there he was taken to Hillingdon Hospital. Heathrow security staff were notified, because Sinyavsky was carrying a diplomatic passport, and he had a locked
briefcase chained to his left wrist. In due course, the Metropolitan Police were notified, and they in turn called the Foreign Office and Special Branch.’

All of them there knew the Security Service had no powers of arrest – in fact, its very existence had only fairly recently been officially acknowledged – and it relied on Special
Branch officers to carry out executive actions on its behalf. The Special Branch comprised some four hundred detectives attached to local police forces throughout the country, but with the highest
concentration in London, and it was accountable to the Home Secretary through London’s Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

‘The duty Special Branch Inspector, Charles Wingate, immediately went to Hillingdon and saw Sinyavsky in hospital. The Russian was still unconscious, and the doctors thought he was likely
to remain that way. They were treating him, by the way, for salmonella poisoning.’

Arkin interrupted, and tried for a joke. ‘Most people get that
after
they’ve flown with Aeroflot, not before.’ He looked at the faces around him, but saw not a trace of
a smile. ‘And’, he added, ‘he seems to have suffered a very severe reaction, if it was salmonella. I thought most people just got stomach cramps, the squits, and so on.’

Moore nodded. ‘Normally, you’d be right, but there are several strains of salmonella, and subsequent tests showed that Sinyavsky had contracted Salmonella typhi, probably from
undercooked poultry. Salmonella typhi is a comparatively rare strain, but it causes typhoid fever, and proves fatal in about thirty per cent of cases. Sinyavsky, I’m pleased to say, is now
recovering.’

Moore finally picked up the file and opened it. ‘Inspector Wingate instantly ordered Sinyavsky to be kept in isolation – which simply reinforced instructions for what the hospital
was already doing – and had an armed police officer posted outside his room. The key for the handcuff on the briefcase was in the pocket of Sinyavsky’s jacket, and the doctors had
already removed it from his wrist so that they could treat him more easily. The briefcase, of course, was locked, and was considered diplomatic baggage, so Wingate himself took it into safe
custody.’

Moore noticed that Arkin had begun to smile. ‘Let me guess,’ the MI5 man said. ‘In order to notify the appropriate authorities, Inspector Wingate had to open the briefcase in
order to try to discover the name of Sinyavsky’s superior. And, while he was leafing through the contents, he happened to notice – and perhaps even copy – some of the papers it
contained?’

Moore shook his head. ‘Not exactly,’ he replied, ‘but close. Wingate knew from Sinyavsky’s passport that he was a Russian diplomat, so there was no reason why he should
not have contacted the Russian Embassy without even looking at the briefcase. In fact, that’s exactly what he did, but he waited until the following morning before taking action.’