The Falklands Intercept Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the army they had a thankless task. Most soldiers had had a run in with them at some point in their career. Jacot remembered being arrested by a detachment on Cyprus. He and some friends were enthusiastically attending a wine festival officially “Out of Bounds to Troops”. He shouldn’t have been there and it was fair enough that the Cypriots did not want their festivals overwhelmed by refreshed British soldiers, even young Foot Guards officers. But the military policemen who had rounded them up and returned them to their base, and extended periods of extra-duties as a result, seemed a little officious. This time round Jacot was certainly pleased to see them. To a man they were trained in observation skills and more importantly for his present purposes to brief succinctly.
    â€˜I am Colonel Jacot from the National Security Adviser’s office.’ He flashed his military identity card. ‘What happened?’
    â€˜Found about eight o’ clock this morning. Both doors to his rooms locked from the inside and a small chock inserted beneath the inner door. Standard security at night for someone like that I suppose. Somebody called the Fellows’ Butler, whatever that is, took him up his breakfast just after eight. No reply to the knocking. Door appeared to be locked and bolted. In the end this butler type and the head porter broke down the door. And there he was, lying dead in his bed. No blood. No signs of a struggle. No cyanide fumes. No gas. No poisonous snake slithering into the pantry. No weird stuff either – wigs or high heels like that case in London a couple of years back. Thank God. All the windows of the set of rooms overlook the river. No way in. No way out. Not formally identified yet but almost certainly General Verney the current Chief of Defence Intelligence. Body about to be taken away for a post mortem. I was despatched down here by the Provost Marshal no less, who also told me to expect you sir. Seems to be a big flap on – more than just about a dead general I would say. That’s all I can tell you Colonel. We await the post mortem.’
    â€˜Has anyone been inside?’
    â€˜I doubt it. Only the people that found the body and the local police. The nearest Provost detachment is in Wisbech and we had a car here just a few minutes after the Cambridge Police. And the Provost Marshal’s orders were absolutely specific about keeping people out.’
    â€˜Can I see the body? I used to know him.’
    It was Verney all right. Lying under a duvet drawn taught as if for an inspection at Sandhurst. It looked as though he had died in his sleep. The set of the face itself waspeaceful, like someone’s grandfather dying at the end of a long life in a rather nice room overlooking the River Cam. Jacot moved on from the body inspecting the room itself. He glanced around for a quick first impression and then divided the room into segments in his mind and inspected each one in turn, in detail. He began with the windows overlooking the river – mullioned, as you would expect. They might even have been the originals when this part of the college was built in 1560. Like those dark and tragic chambers at the Tower of London there were letters scratched into the glass. Jacot could see a number of scallop shells scratched into the central window and, as was well-known to just about everyone in the college over the years, the initials “WS” in 17th-century script. No one knew who WS might have been and despite the best efforts of some very clever History and English dons there was no record of a William Shakespeare ever being put up in the college, let alone matriculating there. What a prize that would have been if the great poet and dramatist William Shakespeare himself had been a Jamesian. The truth of it was that these were casual graffiti – the equivalent of “Kilroy woz here” or “Chris fancies Carol” rather than cryptic messages from