Just after sundown, Preston finished the paperwork at police headquarters and went to join Burkinshaw and his team. Before leaving the police station he thanked Superintendent King profusely for all the latter’s assistance to him.
“Are you going to sit in during the stakeout?” asked the police chief.
“Yes, I’ll be there,” said Preston. “Why do you ask?”
King smiled sadly. “Half of last night we had a very aggrieved railway porter downstairs. Seems someone knocked him off his moped in the station yard and made off with it. We found the moped in Foljambe Road, quite undamaged. Still, he gave us a very clear description of his assailant. You won’t be going out much, will you?”
“No, I shouldn’t think so.”
“How very wise,” suggested King.
At his house on Compton Street Mr. Royston had been urged to continue his normal routine, visiting the shops in the morning and the bowling green in the afternoon. Extra food and drink would be brought in after dark, in case neighbors wondered at the Roystons’ sudden and vastly increased appetite. A small television set was brought in for what Royston termed “the lads upstairs,” and they all settled down to wait and watch.
The Roystons had moved into the back bedroom, and the single bed from that room was brought to the front. It would be shared in shifts by the watchers. Also brought in was a powerful set of binoculars on a tripod, plus a camera with a long lens for daylight shots and an infrared lens for night photography. Two fueled cars were parked close by, and Len Stewart’s people were running the communications room at the police station, linking the Royston house, with its handheld sets, and London.
When Preston arrived, the four watchers seemed to have made themselves quite at home. Barney and Mungo were snoozing, one on the bed and the other on the floor; Ginger was sitting in an easy chair sipping a cup of fresh-brewed tea; Harry Burkinshaw was sitting like a Buddha in an armchair behind the lace curtains, gazing across at the empty house.
A man who had spent half his life standing in the rain, Harry was quite content. He was warm, dry, had a large supply of mints, and had his shoes off. There were worse ways of watching, as he well knew. The target house even backed onto a fifteen-foot concrete wall, the football grounds, which meant no one need spend the night crouched in the bushes. Preston took the spare chair beside him, behind the mounted camera, and accepted a cup of tea from Ginger.
“Are you bringing up the covert-entry team?” Harry asked. He meant the skilled burglars that Technical Support maintained for clandestine break-ins.
“No,” said Preston. “For one thing, we don’t even know whether there is someone else in there as well. For another, there could be a range of warning devices to indicate that an entry has taken place, and we might not spot them all. Finally, what I’m waiting for is another Chummy to show up. When he does, we take the cars and tail him. Len can take over the house.”
They settled down in companionable silence. Barney woke up. “Anything on the telly?” he asked.
“Not much,” said Ginger. “The evening news. Usual rubbish.”
Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday evening at the same hour, the news was quite interesting. On their small screen they saw the Prime Minister standing on the steps of 10 Downing Street in a neat blue suit, facing a horde of press and television crews.
She announced she had just returned from Buckingham Palace, where she had asked for a dissolution of Parliament. In consequence, the country would prepare for a general election, to be held on June 18. The rest of the evening was devoted to the sensation, with the leaders and luminaries of all the parties announcing their confident expectation of victory.
“That’s one for the books,” Burkinshaw remarked to Preston. He could get no reply.
Lost in thought, Preston was staring at the screen. At last he said, “I think I’ve got it.”
“Well, don’t use our loo,” said Mungo.
“What’s that, John?” asked Harry when the laughter died down.
“My deadline,” said Preston, but he refused to elaborate.
* * *
By 1987 very few European-manufactured cars still retained the old-style large round headlights, but one that did was the evergreen Austin Mini. It was a vehicle of this type that was among the many cars to disembark on the evening of June 2 from the Cherbourg ferry arriving at Southampton.
The car had been bought in Austria four weeks earlier, driven to the clandestine garage in Germany, modified there, and driven back to Salzburg. The car had perfect Austrian papers, as did the tourist driving it, though he was in fact a Czech, the second and last of the contributions by the StB to Major Volkov’s plan to import into Britain the components Valeri Petrofsky needed.
The Mini was searched at customs, and nothing amiss was discovered. Clearing Southampton docks, the driver followed the directions he had been given until, in the northern suburbs of the port city, he pulled off the road into a large parking lot. It was quite dark already and at the rear of the lot he was out of sight of those still speeding down the main highway. He descended and with a screwdriver began to work on the headlights.
First he removed the chrome ring covering the gap between the headlight unit and the surrounding metal of the car’s fender. Using a larger screwdriver he then undid the screws holding the headlight firmly inside the fender. When they came free he eased the entire unit out of its socket, detached the wires that ran from the car’s electrical system into the rear of the lamp bowl, and laid the headlight, which appeared exceptionally heavy, in a canvas bag by his side.
It took almost an hour to extract both headlight units. When he had finished, the small car stared sightlessly ahead with empty sockets. In the morning, the agent knew, he would return with freshly purchased headlights from Southampton, fit them, and drive away.
For the moment he hefted the heavy canvas bag, went back to the highway, and walked three hundred yards back toward the port. The bus stop was where they had said it would be. He checked his watch; ten minutes to rendezvous.
Exactly ten minutes later, a man in motorcycle leathers strolled up to the bus stop. There was no one else there. The newcomer glanced down the road and remarked, “It’s always a long wait for the last bus of the night.”
The Czech sighed with relief. “Yes,” he replied, “but, thank God, I should be home by midnight.”