“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.
Royston, ramrod-stiff in camel dressing gown and bristling with the self-importance of a patriot asked to assist the Queen’s officers, glowered through the curtains to the house almost opposite. “Bank robbers, are they? Drug traffickers?”
“Something like that,” assented Burkinshaw.
“Foreigners,” growled Royston. “Never did like ’em. Should never have let ’em all into the country.”
Ginger, whose parents had come from Jamaica, stared stolidly through the curtains. Mungo, the Scot, was bringing a pair of chairs up from below.
Mrs. Royston emerged like a mouse from some secret hiding place, having removed her curlers and hairpins. “Would anyone,” she inquired, “like a nice cup of tea?”
Barney, who was young and handsome, flashed his most winning smile. “That would be lovely, ma’am.”
It made her day. She began to prepare the first of what turned out to be an endless relay of cups of tea, a brew upon which she appeared to live without any visible recourse to solid foods.
At the police station the desk sergeant had also established the identity of the inhabitants of 59 Compton Street.
“Two Greek Cypriots, sir,” he reported to Superintendent King. “Brothers and both bachelors, Andreas and Spiridon Stephanides. Been here about four years, according to the constable on that beat. Seems they run a Greek kebab and take-away joint at Holywell Cross.”
Preston had spent half an hour on the phone to London. First he raised the duty officer at Sentinel, who put him through to Banks. “Barry, I want you to contact C wherever he is and ask him to call me back.”
Sir Nigel Irvine came on the line five minutes later, as calm and lucid as if he had not been asleep at all. Preston informed him of the night’s events.
“Sir, there was a reception party
at Sheffield. Two Special Branch and three uniformed, authorized to make an arrest.”
“I don’t think that was part of the arrangement, John.”
“Not as far as I was concerned.”
“All right, John, I’ll handle it at this end. You’ve got the house. Are you going to move in now?”
“I’ve got a house,” corrected Preston. “I don’t want to move in because I don’t think it’s the end of the trail. One other thing, sir. If Winkler leaves and heads for home, I want him to be allowed to go in peace. If he is a courier, or message carrier, or just checking up, his people will be expecting him back in Vienna. If he fails to show, they’ll switch off the cutouts from top to bottom.”
“Yes,” said Sir Nigel carefully. “I’ll have a word with Sir Bernard about that. Do you want to stay with the operation up there or come back to London?”
“I’d like to stay up here, if possible.”
“All right. I’ll make it a top-level request from Six that what you want is accorded to you. Now, cover yourself and make your operational report to Charles Street.”