The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [64]
Gaddis found himself saying that, yes, he knew exactly what Charles Crane was driving at.
‘Retired rather late. No children to look after, you see. Not like the rest of us. Nothing to occupy his time except the Foreign Office.’
It was clear that Crane did not even know that his uncle had worked for SIS. As far as he was concerned, he had just been a middle-ranking diplomat with ‘one or two postings overseas’.
‘Does the name Audrey Slight mean anything to you?’
‘Afraid not, Mr Gaddis.’
‘She was one of the two witnesses on your uncle’s Will.’
The name finally rang a bell. ‘Oh, Audrey. She was Eddie’s housekeeper for yonks.’ Crane sounded like a contestant on a game show who discovers the answer to a question fractionally late. ‘I think she died a few years ago. Getting on a bit. Thomas Neame was my main point of contact for the estate.’
‘You didn’t speak to Richard Kenner?’
‘Who?’
‘The other witness.’
‘No. But if memory serves, Kenner was also Foreign Office. A colleague of Eddie’s. Might be worth looking him up.’
Most probably another wild-goose chase. Kenner would almost certainly be dead, or erased from the official records to protect ATTILA’s anonymity. Gaddis asked Crane about his dealings with Neame but learned nothing that he did not already know; simply that the old man was ‘highly intelligent’, ‘irascible’ and ‘occasionally bloody rude’.
‘So you met him?’
‘Only once. Lawyer’s office in London. I spoke to him on the telephone a number of times as we ironed out the flat in Bloomsbury, the house here in Athens. The estate was rather substantial.’
This, at least, was new information, although Gaddis was still desperately short of facts about Crane’s post-war career. Then it occurred to him that he did not have a photograph of Crane and took a chance that a nephew might at least have an old family Polaroid lying around in an attic.
‘I was wondering,’ he said. ‘Would you have a picture of your uncle? Anything at all? I’ve had trouble tracking one down. When a man dies without children, with no siblings or close relatives, there are very few people who keep hold of such things.’
Crane was immediately sympathetic to Gaddis’s predicament. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’m sure I can dig one up for you from somewhere. There’s bound to be one lurking around. I’ll get on to it.’
‘That would be very kind.’
Gaddis gave an address at UCL to which Crane could send the photograph and then hung up. As he did so, he wondered if he should have invited himself out to Greece. If Crane was living in his late uncle’s property, there might be files or boxes lurking in a basement which could be of use to the ATTILA investigation. Instead, he put the mobile back in his pocket, walked to the ground-floor café and ordered a cup of tea.
Chapter 22
Gaddis bumped into Josephine Warner in the car park. She was unlocking a black Volkswagen hatchback and putting a Waitrose carrier bag on the back seat. She might not have seen him if Gaddis hadn’t waved and shouted ‘Hi!’ across a line of parked cars. He was halfway through a cigarette, having abandoned yet another attempt to quit, and stubbed it out on the ground.
‘Hello. Doctor Gaddis, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ he said. He came towards her, looking at his watch. ‘You already going home?’
He privately hoped that she was. Peter still wasn’t answering his phone and he had given up on going to Winchester. He was at a loose end, feeling restless, and might invite her out to lunch.
‘Not home,’ she said. ‘Just popping to Richmond to pick up a colleague. I’m the new kid on the block, so they’ve got me running errands.’
She looked at him, a quiet appraisal, and Gaddis was certain that he detected the faintest trace of an invitation in her eyes. Then he thought of Holly and wondered why the hell he was succumbing to a car park flirtation with an archivist from Kew. No good was ever going to come of it.
‘Thanks again for the Will,’ he said, taking a step back.
‘Was