The Shepherd File (2 page)

‘A necessary evil,’ agreed Holmes. ‘I take it that Shepherd died from drowning?’

The question was not entirely unexpected but it had come so quickly, as Holmes had been handing him the drink, that Morrison had not been prepared for it. For some reason or other he had expected some preliminaries, some explanation. He grinned. Holmes had never been one for preliminaries.

"He did,’ said Morrison and went into the details.

‘Do you think he committed suicide?’

‘I wouldn’t like to say without knowing more about the background,’ said Morrison, cautiously. One hand patted his jacket pocket.

‘Do smoke your pipe,’ said Holmes. ‘Sit down. Relax and all that. It may be a long session.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve got some of the background for you,’ murmured Holmes. ‘Not all, but some. A bit. A small glimpse into the complicated character of the late Mr Shepherd.’

‘Was it complicated?’

‘Very.’

‘Was he a crook?’

Holmes smiled. He poured a small whisky for himself and sat down in the easy chair opposite Morrison and drew it a little closer. ‘There are two meanings to the word “crook”,’ he said. ‘A policeman would take the second. Naturally you would. But a shepherd uses a crook to catch sheep. I am using, myself, both meanings. A little abstruse perhaps. But I couldn’t resist making my funny little drawings.’

‘It was intriguing.’

‘Yes, I meant it to be. First of all, Joe, I’m not quite sure where I should begin. Policemen always tell me to begin at the beginning. Very sensible and all that, but in this case I am not sure what the beginning is or how far back it goes. It might be more convenient to start at the other end — at what happened to Shepherd not long before he died. Incidentally when did he die?’

‘He must have been in the river about three days, they say.’

‘That’s the doctors’ opinion?’

‘Yes.’

Holmes nodded. ‘Three days ago. That’s right. That fits in. Three days ago Shepherd met a woman at Runnymede. Her name was Nina Lydoevna and she is a Russian agent. She is a second secretary at the Russian Embassy. She is also on Tirov’s staff.’

Morrison’s eyebrows moved slightly. It was his only expression of surprise. He had heard of the formidable Colonel Tirov, who was head of the Russian intelligence service in London, but had not met him. Very few people had. But he had a reputation which was not undeserved.

‘Runnymede,’ said Morrison. ‘By the river. Yes. That would be about right. The body was found about five miles downstream in a backwater at Staines. So he’d been meeting the Russians, had he? I suppose the contacts were authorized?’

‘No.’

Morrison’s eyebrows fairly shot up at that, ‘You mean he met this woman without the department knowing?’

‘Without them knowing and without their approval.’

Morrison whistled. ‘Well I’m damned. That’s different. What on earth was he up to?’

He was on sick leave,’ said Holmes. ‘He was supposed to have ulcers.’

‘Ulcers?' Morrison looked at Holmes and they both knew what was in the other’s mind. Morrison looked round for a telephone. There were three on Holmes’ desk.

‘Let’s hope they analysed the stomach,’ said Holmes. ‘The white phone,’ he said, ‘is the outside line.’

It took some time to get the senior consultant who had carried out the autopsy, but when Morrison eventually got through to him the reply was instantly available. There was no evidence of any ulceration of the stomach in the dead man.

‘Then whatever happened at Runnymede,’ said Holmes cheerfully, ‘it looks as though Shepherd faked his sick leave. It looks as though he did it to have an unauthorized contact with a Russian agent. I thought as much, but it’s nice to have the medicos confirm one’s theories.’

‘It looks pretty grim,’ muttered Morrison. ‘Have we any idea what was behind it?’

Holmes smiled. ‘I’ll come to that,’ he said. ‘I told you it was going to be a long session. Rut what do you think? Would you add murder to your list of probabilities? Or was it suicide in a fit of remorse after betraying State secrets? Don’t answer that, Joe, because I don’t know and you don’t know; but it looks, doesn’t it, as though it’s going to be a perfectly horrible case?’

Bugs
Pendlebury

Morrison put down his pipe and opened his notebook at a fresh page. He took out his new pen, a present from his wife, and, having asked how it was spelt, wrote down the name of Nina Lydoevna. He added one or two queries and the lines of enquiry which suggested themselves. ‘We’ll check up on her,’ he said. He switched his thoughts to Shepherd. ‘About these ulcers — ?’

Holmes looked at his watch. ‘If you’d like to wait,’ he said, ‘Lamb is coming over. There’ll have to be a good deal of co-ordination between you and MI5.’

‘Of course.’

‘And the Foreign Office comes into it too,’ said Holmes and Morrison grimaced. ‘It can’t be helped,’ said Holmes, noticing the grimace. ‘Shepherd was working for them. The man concerned at the Foreign Office is Scott Elliot.’

‘I suppose he’s coming over too?’

Holmes nodded.

‘Anybody else?’ Morrison spoke with some anxiety. The wider an investigation was spread the more people came into it and the more difficult it was for the police.

‘Only Pendlebury,’ said Holmes. ‘You know him, don’t you?’

‘I know of him,’ said Morrison, alarmed. ‘So they’re all in it. Lamb, the Foreign Office, Defence. Isn’t Pendlebury the bugs man?’

‘Pendlebury is, officially, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Alternative Warfare.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ said Morrison. ‘Bugs. That place at Porton. Bacteriological warfare. How’s he come into this? Is it bugs?’

‘Alternative warfare is more than bugs.’

‘Mostly bugs so far as I know.’

The word,’ said Holmes, ‘should be drugs.’

‘Bugs is drugs,’ said Morrison. His morale seemed to be returning. ‘The more the merrier. Let’em all come. So —
'
he said ‘ — Shepherd was investigating bugs for the Foreign Office, which means on loan from MI5, which means an overseas job, which means Defence comes into it because of the bugs. Damn these complicated cases. They’re all the same. Only this sounds worse. Shepherd betrayed secrets?’

‘Shall we say,’ murmured Holmes, ‘there is a good deal of apprehension about his activities.’

‘Tactfully put,’ said Morrison. ‘You ought to have been in the Foreign Office yourself.’

‘I was once,’ said Holmes. It was true and Morrison had forgotten it. Holmes had been in Foreign Office intelligence for a brief while at the start of his career. It was where his talents had been first noted. But all that seemed a long time ago.

‘I don’t think we’ll have long to wait,’ said Holmes. He got out of his chair and went over to the windows, which overlooked the Privy Council lawn.

In the centre of the lawn was a huge plane tree, very old and wrinkled. Yellow patches spotted its green bole like camouflage. The grass round it was withered and parched. A water sprinkler hissed gently in one comer, sending out a spray which sparkled in the sun.

Holmes stared at the view without seeing it with any clarity and without absorbing any of the detail. He watched the sparrows on the gutters and the pigeons waddling on the lawn and a blackbird standing under the falling water, ruffling its feathers, opening its mouth to drink the drops as though they were rain.

A tall elegant man with smooth grey hair was coming up the path from Downing Street. He was very tall and very thin. He had a supercilious expression, a touch of arrogance, an aloofness of manner, which were all emphasized by the long nose and thin mouth, but they were also expressed in the way he walked, the way he handled with a flick of the wrist his beautifully rolled umbrella.

‘Here’s Scott Elliot,’ said Holmes.

They greeted the Foreign Office man politely but without enthusiasm. Scott Elliot was not easy to get on with. He disliked being called away from his office, even if the call was to Downing Street, and he was inclined to claim privileges for himself and his department which irritated people. One of the first things he said to Morrison was: ‘So you have found the body.’

The implication was that the body should have been found much earlier and that the police had been slow. ‘Yes,’ growled Morrison, and found himself making an effort to be polite, which he disliked, because he liked being polite without any effort. Otherwise he preferred being what he called natural. With Scott Elliot, he felt, he would soon become very natural. Morrison tried to soothe his feelings by lighting a pipe; whereupon Scott Elliot asked for the window to be opened even more than it already was. ‘Just a little wider,’ he said. He was slightly mollified by Holmes producing a bottle of sherry.

‘Ah,’ said Scott Elliot. ‘The amontillado.’

‘In the amontillado bottle,’ corrected Holmes and Morrison nearly choked trying not to laugh.

‘Really?’ Scott Elliot sniffed at his glass. His finely cut and elongated nostrils opened in a desperate effort of discrimination. He spent a long time rolling the first sip round his tongue and although he could have sworn that it was the amontillado he was not now happy. ‘It tastes,’ he said, struggling to find the right word, ‘excellent.’

Holmes made an effort. He could have spent a long time encouraging Scott Elliot’s affectations but teasing the Foreign Office got them nowhere. ‘I think we might begin,’ he said. ‘Lamb and Pendlebury will be here in a moment but Superintendent Morrison would like to hear how the Foreign Office comes into all this.’

‘I wish we hadn’t,’ said Scott Elliot, taking the chair which Holmes offered him. The three men sat round the desk.

Morrison had his notebook open in front of him and took occasional notes. ‘I do wish we hadn’t,’ continued Scott Elliot. ‘One tries to be helpful. But I do wish we hadn’t. We should have relied on our own men. After all, Foreign Intelligence has been adequate in the past.’ He glared round but no one contradicted him. It would not, at that stage, have been of any use.

‘How did you come into it?’ asked Morrison.

‘We had heard, last year,’ said Scott Elliot, ‘of some rather unusual activity in the Libyan desert.’ He pronounced the words ‘Libyan desert’ as though they were distasteful. ‘Quite unusual activity,’ he repeated. ‘Quite unusual. Someone had started a very large chemical factory there. Very large. The Libyan desert was not normally a place where one would start a chemical factory.’ Scott Elliot used the word ‘chemical’ with an effort, as though the thought of it was repulsive. ‘So,’ he said, ‘it seemed necessary to investigate why someone had gone to great trouble and secrecy to establish a chemical factory in a desert. After all, why not on the coast, where there is cheap labour and communications are good? If’ — he went on — ‘it had not been chemicals, we would not have been so interested. But chemicals can be important. Frightfully important.’

Morrison asked a few questions on detail and location. The factory was isolated and labour was recruited on the coast and housed on the site. The first news of it had come through an agent in Casablanca, a man called Ian Dixon. Shepherd had been sent out to investigate.

‘Why Shepherd?’

‘Ah,’ said Scott Elliot, ‘if one could go into that — ’

They waited, but he did not.

‘Colonel Lamb,’ said Holmes, ‘picked Shepherd as the best man for the job.’

‘And was he?’ asked Morrison.

A dry smile crackled over Scott Elliot’s face. He rolled his eyes and spread out his hands. ‘He has had access to all my files!’ he said. The smile had turned out to be not so much a smile as an expression of agony. ‘All my files,’ he repeated.

‘God only knows what he has told that Russian woman. Imagine it! One of Lamb’s best men!’

‘Have you any idea what he told her?’

‘I told you,’ said Scott Elliot, ‘he could have told her anything.’

Morrison came back with relief to matters of detail. Shepherd had been sent out to North Africa in April to investigate and by June had sent a long report. The report had been sensational enough to be considered by the Cabinet committee on defence. The factory was a large one, financed by foreign capital, and it was producing a rare drug which could be of military use.

‘Then he was successful!’ said Morrison.

‘He was successful in finding out what was going on,’ said Scott Elliot grudgingly.

‘To that extent Lamb was right — he was one of his best men.’

‘My dear Superintendent,’ said Scott Elliot, freezingly.

Scott Elliot shrank from contradicting anyone; instead he called Morrison his dear Superintendent in such a way that it was insulting.

‘He was successful,’ persisted Morrison, ‘in finding out what he was sent there to find out. That’s what I mean. Now — when did you first believe that his conduct might be unsatisfactory?’

‘It was never satisfactory,’ said Scott Elliot.

‘No?’

‘Never.’

‘In what way?’

‘It was never satisfactory.’

‘You must go a little further than that.’

‘His expenses were enormous. He was late putting in claims. He never replied to memos. He was arrogant. He was critical of the department. He was altogether unsatisfactory.’

‘You didn’t get on?’

‘He was the type I should regard as a security risk.’

‘It’s easy to be wise after the event. You didn’t put in a report to that effect at the time?’

‘My dear Superintendent!’

The words were withering. Morrison, unmoved, proceeded to write out his notes. He put down his pen. ‘Now, then — ’ he said. ‘After the defence committee had considered Shepherd’s report, what happened?’

‘I can only reply for my department.’

‘Naturally.’

‘He was asked for more details. He didn’t reply.’

‘How were the messages sent?’

Scott Elliot shrugged. ‘I will send you over the file. You can have it all. So far as I can remember, first in code and some direct in clear. Whatever we did it had no effect. The next we knew he turned up in London.’

‘Where?’

‘He walked into my office one day towards the end of July. About a week or ten days ago.’

‘Were you surprised to see him?’

‘Of course I was surprised. I asked him what on earth he was doing. He said he’d been ill and had come home and was going into hospital.’

‘Did he go into hospital?’

‘So far as I know.’

‘What sort of an interview did you have with him?’

‘Whether or not he was ill,’ said Scott Elliot, ‘he had no right to come home without telling us.’

‘Did he tell you what was wrong?’

‘He said he had an ulcer. He had pains in his stomach. But he looked all right to me. I don’t see why he should not have been treated locally.’

‘You told him that?’

‘I told him I was sorry that he was ill but that his conduct and behaviour were entirely unsatisfactory and would be reported to Lamb.’

‘What did he say to that?’

‘Shepherd was a very offensive character.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I can’t remember the exact words. He was merely offensive.’

‘How?'

‘My dear Superintendent!’

‘I want to know what he was offensive about.’

‘Everything. The Foreign Office, myself, everything.’

‘He damned you all?’

‘More or less.’

‘Why?’

‘I gather he disliked the Foreign Office and he disliked me.’

‘Did he dislike Foreign Office methods?’

‘The man was an emotional casualty.’

‘I see.’ Morrison made a couple of notes. ‘What in particular did he dislike about the Foreign Office?’

‘Shepherd was not a man who would easily follow discipline.’

‘I didn't want to know that; I wanted to know what he disliked.’

‘Discipline.’

‘What part?’

‘He seemed to have taken an almost pathological objection to writing out reports.’

‘I see.’

That was one thing. There were others.’

‘Had you queried his expenses?’

‘Certainly. They were appallingly large. One week he had spent nearly a thousand pounds. I told him his claim could not be passed.’

‘What was it for?’

‘It was for information.’

‘Information about this factory?’

‘Yes.’

‘That was a very large amount.’

‘Preposterous.’

‘But he got the information?’

‘For probably half that amount.’

‘But he nevertheless got the information you wanted. Then you queried his expenses and he was angry.’

‘Naturally I queried his expenses. I wished to have a full account of everything he had been doing.’

‘Yes,’ said Morrison. ‘I understand.’

‘No one in the department could have done less.’

‘We also have to account for everything we spend,’ said Morrison. He made another note. ‘Well,’ he said amiably, ‘that all seems all right so far. Quite a few lines of enquiry there. But I would be grateful for some background. This chemical, for example. What is it?’