8

"It's a shame Hector couldn't have stayed longer," Sandra said suddenly. "I would be interested in hearing his opinion concerning enigmatic Mediterranean couple, about which so much spoke about in the media."

"That is one of the issues on which I plan to speak to about when I next meet up with him," I replied, "although I have little hope of making much progress."

"Of all the bizarre details about this case," Sandra said, "the story of the secretive couple appears to be the only one formally recognised by the police. I wonder whether this is particularly significant, or whether -- "

"Whether it's just additional diversion?" I finished her sentence. "The likelihood cannot be disregarded, specifically because it would be an astute move for the crime squad to make."

"Do you think they're using some distraction here?"

"That is the problem," I replied. "If I were running the investigation, I would be careful regarding the evidence I circulated. To the degree, I felt compelled to reveal details about the crime scene or, as in this case, as the police are not yet calling it a crime, each time I explained the place where I found the corpse. I would stay meticulously to the realities. I would do this because I would try to obtain the offenders' confidence and confidently recollect what they left behind. But, on the other hand," I continued, "to the extent that I wished to disclose material about the enquiry, mainly its advancement and forthcoming routes, I would lie about every solitary element!"

" Purposely confusing the community?" she asked.

" Bewildering the culprits, I would hope," I answered.

"So, you what would fib about?"

"The accused and lines of inquiry," I replied. " I would never proclaim I was watching out for a man and a woman, both of Mediterranean presence, aged between 20 - 30 years old unless I were looking for someone quite dissimilar. If I were looking for a young Mediterranean-looking couple, I might tell the press I was looking for two middle-aged Asian men or a young Muslim woman. Some weeks ago," I continued, "I was hoping, with a hopefulness that now seems irrational, that your associates at the Met might be deliberating along the same lines. Possibly, I thought, all this dialogue of a Mediterranean couple was a distraction. Or else, on the exterior, the story has no logic at all."

"It seems impartially workable to me," she replied. "This young couple, concurring to the media, at any rate, came to the safe house late one night during the summertime, maybe to see Tina Davis. Is it not practical to ask why?"

"It may be more acceptable to ask why your co-workers are considering these people if they are searching for them if they exist. The stories about them in the media have been less than substantial. In the Telegraph, the only people unaccounted for at the flats on Suffolk Street are the Mediterranean man and woman. Witnesses told the police they were let into the shared front door late one evening, either in June or July. If these two people were there at this time and Tina Davis killed in August, it would seem quite a stretch to associate them to the crime. But, on the other hand, if everybody else who visited 36 Suffolk Street since that time, does that do not point us in an exhilarating course?" I asked.

"Corresponding to the police files," I continued, "the opinion would seem to be that someone let in this couple into the building through the communal front door. But, not into any specific flat and later recollected the occurrence, but not the particular day of the week, and declared it to your colleagues. So, here's another problem for our list, are we meant to believe that someone living in an MI6 safe house would admit indiscriminate visitors through the front door?"

Sandra gasped softly. The more I spoke, the more bizarre the story seemed to become.

"Recently," I continued, "the media reported that the police, once they discovered that somebody locked the door to the flat from the outside, and a set of keys presumably belonging to Tina Davis on the inside, now believe this mysterious couple have, or had their keys! And why do they consider this? Because according to the Daily Mail, not a single person can recall having buzzed them into the building!"

"Let me see if I have this all above-board," she said, "my colleagues at the Met found out about this couple from a resident who remembered permitting them to enter, but now no one can recall letting them in, so they must have had a set of keys?"

"Exactly!" I said. "Are you starting to see how all this comes together?"

"Aside from the hint that the mysterious couple, if they exist at all, maybe from abroad," Sandra said, "there has been very little in the press regarding the one characteristic of this which I should think would be primary."

"Surely you mean the national security angle?" I replied, and Sandra nodded in agreement. "How MI6 come to grips with this," I continued, "maybe one of the captivating facets of the task."

"It has been perplexing," Sharon continued. "On one hand, we've lost, most appallingly, one of our leading combatants in the battle against terrorism, and yet, on the other hand, it's as if his job, the most extraordinary part of Tina Davis' life, were the most commonplace thing ever!"

"Quite," I said, "and one could relate that declaration similarly to the media and the metropolitan police. Scotland Yard announced almost instantly that they were searching for signs of the mystery in Tina Davis' private life, even though she had no private life. Then the media, even with their so-called security specialists at their side, still don't find whatever thing that is stimulating about the professional life of a woman who worked not only for also MI6, but GCHQ and if the trips to the USA are any indication, NSA as well."

"Before Hector turned," I continued, "I had the feeling that the police might be working an elaborate loophole, feigning they were concerned in the private life of this luckless young woman while they were doing the opposite, to further their inquiry. But, you and Hector say that's not true, and I suppose we're left to wonder whether the police are running an elaborate ruse for different reasons completely."

"The security professionals who remark on such problems seem to reach an agreement," Sandra said, "that there could not be a danger to nationwide safety unless Tina Davis had sold, or given away, the nation's secrets."

"Right," I said. "Sir William Frederick Patterson of MI5 said the very same thing, in just so many words. And all the experts seem to agree; they are unfazed by the rather obvious fact that some foreign power has executed a bold and ruthless crime, presumably against MI6, within walking distance of MI6 H.Q. and in a supposedly MI6 safe house!"

"It's almost like," Sandra tried a simile, "someone broke into a gallery and destroyed one of its most valued displays. Then the police, the media, and even art connoisseurs all said they hadn't trashed the gallery's safety because nothing looks as if it is missing!"

"Definitely!" I said. "We would expect one of them to mention that since the burglars damaged a valuable work of art within the confines of the gallery, the question of whether somebody breached security is a ridiculous one."

"Quintus," Sandra asked excitedly, "do you remember the Sherlock Holmes story, Silver Blaze? The horse goes missing one night. Holmes worked out that the abductor must be known to the dog that slept there as it didn't bark."

"Yes, I loved that story," I replied.

"These security experts are beginning to remind me of that dog," she said, and I almost laughed.

"There's another dog that didn't bark in this story as well," I continued. "For all Tina Davis's adult life, she served her nation at the uppermost point, first at GCHQ and later at Vauxhall Cross. With esteemed provision permanently comes to safeguard, and with any desecration of that protection, one would expect a response, at least on the political front."

"In other words," Sandra said, "if an assassin of a foreign dominion killed Tina Davis -"

"-- or if MI6 even suspected as much --" I interjected.

"-- then the authorised reaction would have been very dissimilar, wouldn't it?" Sandra asked.

"One would expect the ambassadorial controls to be roiling, but there has been no sign of any unfamiliar action," I said. "Quite the opposite, the official statements from the security services on this matter have been peaceful and comforting. If foreign participation were assumed," I continued, "one would expect the Official Secrets Act actioned, otherwise we would not have heard about this incident at all until Brian Flynn appeared at my front door. So what does an occurrence such as this due to the optimism of the security services? I can hardly imagine what Tina Davis' former contemporaries at MI6 and GCHQ must be thinking!"

"I don't think too many of them imagine she zipped herself into the bag and locked it," I replied, and again we sat quietly for a time, listening to the sound of the train heading further west.