Thomas Hart had joined Customs in 1977. After postings to Dover and Hong Kong, he returned to Britain. In 1989 his car was found near the coast. No body was recovered.
Six months later, Thomas Weller began working for a shipping-security company in Singapore.
Relf laid the employment records beside Hart’s photograph.
Eleanor recognised the face. Younger and thinner, but unmistakably the man she had met in the hotel bar.
“Different date of birth,” Relf said. “Different history.”
“How did he get back into Customs?”
“As a civilian consultant. We’re checking who supplied his references.”
She looked at the two sets of papers.
“Someone helped him become Weller.”
“Yes.”
“And then he was in a position to help others do the same.”
Relf gathered the records.
“We need to speak to him.”
Weller’s house was empty.
Some clothes remained in the wardrobes. Others had been taken. His car was gone and his telephone was switched off.
The enquiries placed his departure about six hours earlier.
Relf stood in the hall.
“He knew we were getting close.”
“Did you tell him about the recording?” Eleanor asked.
“No.”
“Or the mark on the bell?”
“No.”
She looked at the open wardrobe.
“Then something else warned him.”
“Or someone.”
“Hatherley?”
“Possibly.”
“Hale?”
Relf turned towards her.
“We need to find him.”
“We haven’t had anything since 2003.”
“Bull found a way to ask about him.”
She thought of the notebooks.
“Then we should follow what Bull was doing.”
There were twenty-seven church inscriptions among Bull’s notes.
They had used them as sources for decoding messages. Now Eleanor worked through the words he had marked, rather than the numerical groups beside them.
Hart. Wren. Lamb.
Names and fragments appeared in dedications, casting marks and abbreviations. Bull had begun matching them to the language used by the organisation.
The inscriptions supplied a vocabulary. But a numerical message was useful only to someone with the right transcriptions and a way of locating the words.
Near the back of the notebook, Eleanor found three entries:
HART — 7/T/14\ WREN — 3/5/8\ LAMB — 2/4/11
Below them:
HALE — ?
And underneath:
not a bell?
She showed Relf.
“He couldn’t place Hale.”
“We couldn’t either.”
They had read the worn casting mark as HALE. The recording and the closer examination had corrected it to HART.
Eleanor turned back through the preceding pages.
Hale chose own name?\ Keeper?
Beneath that:
Ask S.M.
“Stephen Marris,” she said.
Relf took a copy of the page.
Marris read the notes in silence.
Then he gave a short, weary laugh.
“He worked it out.”
“What did he work out?” Relf asked.
“Ben wasn’t one of the people being moved.”
“He arranged the journeys?”
“He ran part of the organisation. In the eighties and nineties.”
“What part?”
Marris looked down at the page again.
“The part I knew about.”
“And Hart?”
“He was in Customs.”
“Taking money to let people through?”
“Not then.”
“Why did he help?”
“Some of them needed to get away.”
“From what?”
“Their governments. People they’d informed on. There were witnesses, families.”
Relf waited.
“Once there was a girl whose father meant to kill her,” Marris continued. “She’d refused a marriage and run away.”
Eleanor watched him.
“And Wycliffe?”
Marris folded his hands.
“That came later.”
“How much later?”
“After Ben left. It changed.”
“Who took over?”
He did not answer.
Relf let the silence last.
“Thomas Hart?”
Marris looked up.
“Yes.”