The Fourth Protocol

Burkinshaw laughed. “Thank God for the British police. Sheffield is Yorkshire; this is Derbyshire. They’re going to have to sort it out between their chief constables in the morning. It gives you time.”

“Yeah. Where are the others?”

“Down the street. We came back by taxi and dismissed it. John, we’ve got no wheels.

Also, come the dawn, this street’s got no cover.”

“Put two at the top of the street and two down here,” said Preston. “I’m going back into the town to find the police station and ask for a bit of backup. If Chummy leaves, tell me.

But shadow him with two of the team— keep two on that house.”

He left the garden and walked back into central Chesterfield looking for the police station, which he found on Beetwell Street. As he walked, a thought kept repeating itself in his head. There was something about Winkler’s performance that did not make sense.

Chapter 19

Superintendent Robin King was not pleased to be woken at three in the morning, but on hearing there was an officer from MI5 at his police station seeking assistance, he agreed to come at once, and was there, unshaven and uncombed, twenty minutes later. He listened attentively while Preston explained the gist of the story: that a foreigner believed to be a Soviet agent had been tailed from London, had jumped train at Chesterfield, and had been followed to a house on Compton Street, number as yet unknown.

“I do not know who lives in that house, or why our suspect has visited it. I intend to find out, but for the moment I do not want an arrest. I want to watch the house. Later this morning, we can sort out a fuller authority through the chief constable for Derbyshire; for the moment the problem is more urgent. I have four men from our watcher service on that street, but come the daylight they’ll stick out like sore thumbs. So I need some assistance now.”

“What, exactly, can I do for you, Mr. Preston?” the senior police officer asked.

“Have you got an unmarked van, for instance?”

“No. Several police cars, unmarked, and a couple of vans, but with police insignia on the side.”

“Can we get hold of an unmarked van and park it on that street with my men inside, just as a temporary measure?”

The superintendent called the duty sergeant on the phone. He put the same question and listened for a while. “Raise him on the phone and ask him to call me right now,” he said. To Preston: “One of our men has a van. It’s pretty battered—he’s always having his leg pulled about it.”

Thirty minutes later the sleepy police constable had made rendezvous with the watcher team outside the football stadium’s main entrance. Burkinshaw and his men piled inside and the van was driven to Compton Street and parked opposite the suspect house. On instructions, the policeman climbed out, stretched, and walked away down the road, for all the world like a man coming home after working the night shift.

Burkinshaw peered from the van’s rear windows and came on the radio to Preston.

“That’s better,” he said, “we’ve got a great view of the house across the street. By the way, it’s Number Fifty-nine.”

“Hold on there for a while,” said Preston. “I’m trying to fix something better.

Meanwhile, if Winkler leaves on foot, tail him with two men and leave two to stay with the house. If he leaves by car, follow in the van.” He turned to Superintendent King. “We may have to stake out that house for a longer period. That means taking over an upstairs room of a house across the way. Can we find anyone in Compton Street who might let us do that?”

The police chief was thoughtful. “I do know someone who lives on Compton Street,”

he said. “We’re both Masons, members of the same lodge. That’s how I know him. He’s a former chief petty officer in the navy, retired now. He’s at Number Sixty-eight. I don’t know where it’s located on the street, though.”

Burkinshaw confirmed that 68 Compton Street was across from the suspect house and two buildings up. The second-floor-front window, probably a bedroom, would provide a perfect view of the target. Superintendent King rang his friend from the station.

At Preston’s suggestion the policeman told the sleepy householder, a Mr. Sam Royston, that this was an official operation—they wished to watch a possible suspect who had taken refuge across the street. When he had gathered his wits, Royston rose to the occasion. As a law-abiding citizen he would certainly allow the police to use his front room.

The van was quietly driven around the block into West Street; Burkinshaw and his team slipped between the houses there, over the garden fences, and entered Royston’s house on Compton Street from the back garden. Just before the sun flooded the street, the watcher team settled down in the Roystons’ bedroom behind the lace curtains, through which they could see No. 59 across the way.