A Conspiracy at the Barley Row?
Tony Talks
Michael Braithwaite and Special Branch Detective Inspector Grice were still deep into the interrogation of Tony Palmer. He maintained he was a courier, recruited by the nameless “posh southern git”. When Henry telephoned in his report from Warrington, Michael immediately suspected the antiques dealer could be the man, but it was flimsy and with so little to go on there was little option but to pursue what meagre leads they had and keep plugging away at Palmer. After all, there was a lot of incriminating evidence against him.
Grice eagerly pointed out that having bank accounts in false names was a crime. Palmer couldn’t deny it, he of course claimed his recruiter sent him the Midland Bank account book through the post. Although the bank manager wasn’t forthcoming with generous information, the result of the HOW was a listing of ingoings and outgoings, a fairly substantial sum of money was changing hands. Money was being deposited in cash from a branch in London and Palmer was withdrawing it in Bootle. The amounts coming in and out always matched precisely, more importantly was that since his arrest all deposits had stopped. This set alarm bells ringing for Michael, already his network had become aware of the stop in the flow of information and perhaps had already begun to go to ground. When the watchers arrived at Harringay Post Office they found they were too late, a man had already opened the box and finding it empty had quickly left. There was a brief description of the man, a check in the files at Scotland Yard failed to find a matching known suspect. To Michael it only confirmed the worst.
Michael had to press Palmer harder, he had to make him reveal all the sub-agents the dead letter boxes, carelessly left on the map found in Tony’s house, belonged to and where all the dead letter boxes were precisely located.
“I don’t know their names. It wasn’t safe for me to know,” Tony whined. The sky on the other side of the grilled window was still dark.
“How many agents were there Tony?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know!” Michael thumped the table, “Look at the map Tony, all these neat little circles. Count em’!”
“But… I wasn’t to use the same places all the time.”
“Count the circles Tony, how many drop offs, how many letters, how many did you pick up each month Tony!”
“There were four, only four,” Tony rubbed his tired eyes, red from lack of sleep.
“Who are these four people?”
“I told you, I don’t know their names!” Tony shouted, his voice hoarse.
Michael changed tack, “Ok, so who gave you this map? You can at least tell us the name of the man who gave you this.”
Tony shook his head, “The map is mine. The guy gave me a list of the places and I drew up the map.”
“What guy? The man who recruited you?”
Tony nodded.
“Well he must have had a name, people don’t go around offering money to complete strangers without introductions,” Michael was getting annoyed but he tried hard not to let this overplay his force to make Palmer talk.
“Smith, he was called Smith. Joe Smith,” Toby slouched in his chair.
Michael knew the name was a phoney, it wasn’t even inventive. “So this Joe Smith had already selected the drop off points and sorted the collection details before he approached you?”
Tony nodded, “He just gave me the list and told me what to do.”
“Where is the list now?” Grice asked, he was sitting the corner of the room.
Tony looked up from the table at Grice, “I burned it. Once I’d made the map I burnt it.”
“And you’re quite sure it had all the contacts already worked out, you didn’t arrange any yourself?” Grice continued.
Tony nodded, “The guy had thought of everything. All I was needed for was to collect the letters and then leave the rubs in the second place the following night.”
“Now then,” Michael said, with a touch of menace in his voice, “tell us exactly where the drops are located.”
His tongue now loosened and wanting nothing but for this to end, Tony started to talk.
After the interview Michael and Grice talked things over. It was clear Palmer was no genius and unlikely to be the brains behind the network or responsible for recruitment. They sat down and began to sketch out what they knew. The leader of the network was doubly insulated from the sub-agents in the field. There were two couriers. Palmer who collected the information from the four sub-agents and dropped off their pay, which he drew from the Midland Bank from the false account.
“But Palmer gets his pay via a separate method, he gets his posted to the newsagent in Aintree, that’s very peculiar,” Grice mused.
Michael smiled, “It’s another precaution. Presumably Palmer’s tenner a month is posted from Harringay Post Office when the courier collects the Palmer’s mail. No information means no payment, no pay means nobody picked up the stuff. So both sides know immediately if something’s gone wrong at either end.”
Grice puffed on his cigarette, “So where does Erich Stoben fit in?” Grice asked.
“Aston was cultivated, I think it’s no coincidence that the German commercial attaché happens upon him begging in a doorway and within weeks he’s been found by Erich at the YMCA, transported up north and a hundred quid finds its way into his pocket. Erich is a German immigrant, there is probably some link between Erich and the commercial attaché.”
Grice wasn’t convinced, he hated supposing anything without evidence and so far the involvement of the Withington Shelter staff was open to varying interpretation. “Maybe, but there’s still the fact that he didn’t give Aston the hundred pounds personally. The mysterious Joe Smith, possible antiques dealer. Presumably he recruited Aston, placed him in Warrington and recruited the other three sub-agents and Palmer to boot.”
Michael tossed his hands into the air, “You coppers always like motives, there’s no motive for Aston to do any of this except for money and revenge. What better revenge than spying for Germany to get his own back on the Service, who he thinks sold him down the river. The Attaché would have known Aston from the embassy, he may have had suspicions or Aston may even have confessed he had been spying. They put two and two together and offer him the chance to betray us and he takes it. Erich might just be a bit player, but if we can prove a link between him, Aston and the embassy then we’ve got Aston over hot coals.”
Grice stubbed out his cigarette, “Maybe, but us coppers like evidence too. Right now this case has too many holes. One, Erich might or might not be involved. Two, who is Joe Smith, who presumably isn’t the ring leader but someone trusted enough to set everything up and handle the money. Three, who is the ring leader. Four, who is the courier at the London end who scarpered when he found the post box empty. Five, I’m running out of fingers, who are the other three agents, who as far as we know are still roaming free and as soon as they don’t get paid will smell a rat and run. Right now we have little to show except for Aston and Palmer.”
Michael wasn’t so pessimistic, “Aston is the most vital member given the information he could potentially send, and with Palmer in our hands the network has shut down. The flow of information is severed.”
“Presuming the agents didn’t have a back-up in case Palmer cocked up,” Grice interrupted.
Michael frowned, “Then let’s ask Aston. He ought to be able to tell us.”