(2013) Collateral Damage by Colin Smith Page B

clever.
    'But if we can keep her incommunicado for forty-eight hours Koller
might come back to the flat,' Fitchett had objected.
    'You don't really believe that do you?'
    'No. I think he's scarpered. Apart from the shooter and her cannabis
the place was dean. No shaving tackle; no clothes. Nothing. The gun makes me believe he's left the country. Didn't want to
risk carrying it through airport security. We're checking out his known aliases
with the lads at Heathrow and Gatwick now. But someone else from his mob might turn
up. Someone we don't know about. It would be worth sitting on that gaff for as long
as possible. Do the Funnies know?'
    It was a good question. MI5 would have wanted to play it Fitchett's
way. Keep the arrest quiet for a day or two, post some men in and around the flat
and see what turned up. If you don't go fishing you won't catch any fish.
    'No, I haven't informed the Security Service yet,' said the Commander,
standing on his dignity. He prided himself on never using slang.
    I would have bet a thousand quid on that, thought Fitchett. But
all he said was, 'Oh?'
    'Look, John,' said the Commander, fiddling with his pipe, 'you
know there are special problems here.'
    'I know the law is supposed to be the same for everyone,' said
Fitchett. He decided to play stupid. Make the gutless, arselicking bastard spell
it out for him.
    'That's not the point,' said the Commander sharply, 'and you
know it isn't. If we really had something on this girl I wouldn't hesitate to throw
the works at her. But we don't. She's probably telling the truth when she says she
didn't know who Koller was. I don't believe people like him go around telling their
sleeping partners what they do for a living. All we have on her is the gun, which
she probably didn't know was there, a few drugs and the circumstantial evidence
that she's a member of some tiny leftwing party. What does PERPP believe in anyway?'
    'They call themselves Ecological Marxists. You know, "Fair
deal for Comrade Seal". That sort of thing.'
    'Do they really say that?'
    'Almost.'
    'Hmm. You know her father was a member
of the CP up to 1939. One of those who saw the light when Stalin
and Hitler carved up Poland.'
    'Yes, I've seen his file.'
    'Well, he's changed a lot since then, hasn't he? Compared to
a lot of his Right Honourable colleagues in the Cabinet he's a true blue. As you
know a lot of those gentlemen want to come down pretty hard on us. State within a state, secret police, that sort of baloney. They
want to make us more accountable, discover what we and the intelligence services
spend our money on etcetera. Of course there's always been a bunch in that lot who
think people like us are nasty fascists adding up how many trade union trips they
made to Prague in 1952 and drawing the wrong conclusions. Or the right ones, as
the case may be. Her father happens, at the moment, to be on our side and we want
to keep him that way.'
    Fitchett rubbed his hands on his pin-striped knees and briefly
examined his hand-stitched Chelsea boots. It was a plausible tale but he knew it
wasn't the truth or, at most, a very exaggerated version
of it. There was no real threat in the Cabinet towards the Branch or the security
services. The truth was that the girl's father was close to the PM and there was
an Honours List coming up. The Commissioner knew he could rely on his old acolyte
commanding Special Branch not to lose him the seat in the Lords he was anxious to
retire to.
    'We could charge her with conspiracy to murder,' said Fitchett.
'Koller must have been living with her when he attacked the Palestinian. I don't
think it would take much to get that out of her.'
    'No, not conspiracy. We haven't got
enough to go on. And there's too much controversy over the conspiracy laws as it
is. We've got to use it sparingly or we'll lose it altogether. We'd have a hell
of a job proving that she knew about a murder attempt just because she was living
with him.'
    'I think she'd break. She's tired now.