After his transfer, it would be the new head of F1(D) who would be the one to raise the issue of the Preston report, and Preston was satisfied the man appointed to succeed him, almost certain to be one of Harcourt-Smith’s most loyal protégés, would do no such thing.
He made one call to Registry. Yes, the report had been filed. He noted the file number, just for future reference, if any. Then: “What do you mean, NFA?” he asked incredulously. “All right. ... Sorry. ... Yes, I know it’s not up to you, Charlie. I was just asking. A bit surprised, that’s all.”
He replaced the receiver and sat back, thinking deeply. Thoughts a man should not think about his superior officer, even if there was no personal empathy between them. But the thoughts would not go away. It was possible, he conceded, that if his report had gone higher, its general burden might eventually have been imparted to Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party opposition in Parliament, who might not have been pleased.
It was also possible that at the next election, due within seventeen months at the outside, Labour could win and that Brian Harcourt-Smith was entertaining the hope that one of the new government’s first acts would be to confirm him as Director-General of MI5. His not offending powerful politicians in office, or those who might come to office, was nothing new. For a man of weak and tremulous disposition or of vaulting ambition, refusal to impart bad news could be a powerful motive for inertia.
Everyone in the service recalled the affair of a former Director-General, Sir Roger Hollis. Even to this day, the mystery had never been completely solved, though partisans on both sides had their convinced opinions.
Back in 1962 and 1963, Roger Hollis had known almost from the outset of the business the full details of the Christine Keeler affair, as it came to be known. He had had on his desk, weeks if not months before the scandal blew open, reports of the Cliveden parties, of Stephen Ward, who provided the girls and who was in any case reporting back, of Soviet attaché Ivanov’s sharing the favors of the same girl as Britain’s own War Minister. Yet he had sat back as the evidence mounted, and never sought, as was his duty, a personal meeting with his own Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.
Without that warning, Macmillan had walked into the scandal, leading with his jaw. The affair had festered and suppurated through the summer of 1963, hurting Britain at home and abroad, for all the world as if it had been scripted in Moscow.
Years later, the argument still raged: had Roger Hollis been a supine incompetent, or had he been much, much worse ...?
“Bollocks,” said Preston to himself, and banished his thoughts. He reread the memorandum.
It was from the head of B4 (promotions) personally, and advised him that he was as of that day transferred and promoted to head of C1(A). The tone was of the cozy friendliness that is supposed to soften the blow: “I am advised by the DDG that it would be so helpful if the New Year could begin with all fresh postings occupied ... most grateful if you could tidy up any outstanding things and hand over to young Maxwell without too much delay, even within a couple of days if possible. ... My warmest best wishes for your satisfaction with the new post. ...”
Blah, blah, blah, thought Preston. C1, he knew, was responsible for civil service personnel and buildings, and A Section meant that responsibility within the capital. He was to be in charge of security in all Her Majesty’s ministries in London.
“It’s a bloody policeman’s job,” he snorted, and began to call up his team to say good-bye.
A mile away across London, Jim Rawlings opened the door of a small but exclusive jewelry shop in a side road, not two hundred yards from the surging traffic of Bond Street. The shop was dark but its discreet lights fell on showcases containing Georgian silver, and in the illuminated counter display cabinets could be seen jewelry of a bygone era. Evidently the emporium specialized in antique pieces rather than their modern counterparts.
Rawlings was wearing a neat dark suit, silk shirt, and muted tie, and carried a dully gleaming attaché case. The girl behind the counter looked up and took him in with a glance of appreciation. At thirty-six he looked lean and fit, with an aura that was part gentleman, part tough—always a useful combination. She pushed out her chest and flashed a bright smile.
“Can I help you?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Zablonsky. Personal.”
His Cockney accent indicated he was unlikely to be a customer. Her face fell. “You a rep?” she asked.
“Just say Mr. James would like to speak to him,” said Rawlings.
But at that moment the mirrored door at the rear of the shop opened and Louis Zablonsky came out. He was a short, wizened man of fifty-six, but looked older.
“Mr. James”—he beamed—“how nice to you. Please come into my office. How have you been keeping?” He ushered Rawlings past the counter and into his inner sanctum, saying, “That’s all right, Sandra, my dear.”
Inside his small and cluttered office he closed and locked the mirrored door, through which a view of the outer shop could be had. He gestured Rawlings to the chair in front of his antique desk and took the swivel chair behind it. A single spotlight beamed down on the blotter. He eyed Rawlings keenly. “Well, now, Jim, what have you been up to?”
“Got something for you, Louis, something you’ll like. So don’t tell me it’s rubbish.”
Rawlings flicked open his attaché case. Zablonsky spread his hands.
“Jim, would I—” His words were cut off as he saw what Rawlings was placing on the blotter. When they were all there, he stared at them in disbelief.
“The Glen Suite,” he breathed, “you’ve gone and nicked the Glen Diamonds. It’s not even been in the papers yet.”
“So maybe they’re still away from London,” said Rawlings. “There was no alarm raised. I’m good, you know that.”
“The best, Jim, the best. But the Glen Suite ... Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rawlings knew it would have been easier for all if a route for disposing of the Glen Suite had been set up before the robbery. But he worked in his own way, which was extremely carefully. He trusted no one, least of all a fence, even a blue-chip, top-of-the-market fence like Louis Zablonsky. A fence, hit by a police raid and facing a long stretch of porridge, would be quite able to trade information on a coming heist against a let-off for himself. The Serious Crime Squad down at Scotland Yard knew about Zablonsky, even if he had never seen the inside of one of Her Majesty’s prisons. That was why Rawlings never preannounced one of his jobs, and always arrived unheralded. So he did not answer.
In any case, Zablonsky was lost in contemplation of the jewels that sparkled on his blotter.
He knew their provenance without being told. The ninth Duke of Sheffield, who had inherited the suite in 1936, had had two offspring, a boy and a girl. By 1974, when his son was twenty-five, the saddened Duke had been forced to realize that the exotic young man was what gossip columnists are pleased to call “one of nature’s bachelors.” There would be no more pretty young countesses of Margate or duchesses of Sheffield to wear the famed Glen Diamonds. So when the ninth Duke died in his turn, in 1980, be bequeathed them not to his son, the heir to the title, but to his daughter, Lady Fiona Glen.