Chapter 13: Virtual Private Network

Warwick and Moscow. 7 days after Jennifer reappears

A Remembrance of Things Past

Wednesday morning finds Inspector Ackroyd making an early start. He is looking forward to his first call. He had not warmed to Professor Dawney when he interviewed her in the immediate aftermath of the Jennifer McEwan disappearance. It was a sort of love-at-first-sight but in reverse. In his opinion she was a self-obsessed woman with a surprisingly callous streak. He wonders if she has been mellowed by time? He spends several minutes travelling the corridors of the Department of Psychology before finds his target: the door marked Professor Angela Dawney.

He knocks. Silence answers him. He knows she is in the office because he saw her sat there as he walked past from the University garden. He knocks again and moments later receives a testy invitation, "Come"

Angela was not expecting company this morning and the interruption is an irritation – one among many. She looks up sharply. "Yes?"

"Professor Dawney?" The window behind Angela has cast a bright pool of light on her desk and as she cannot properly see the visitor who is in shadow. However, his voice is familiar, from somewhere.

"Yes, but I am really very busy this morning. Who are you? Do you have an appointment?"

"No," replies the stranger. "It's Detective Inspector Ackroyd again. You might remember our last little chat?"

"I said I am very busy: you will have to..."The words tumble out but Angela's voice dies away, stemmed by very unpleasant memories of her last encounter with Ackroyd.

Her memory brings the previous conversation back into all-too-sharp focus.

"... . I am sorry to interrupt", he had begun, although Angela could tell immediately that he was not sorry in the least, "but this is an important matter. Someone known to you, a Mrs Jennifer McEwan, disappeared in London in unexplained circumstances," It seemed to Angela as though Ackroyd had deliberately chosen the word 'unexplained' to increase the anxiety of the interview, "and the police are anxious to speed her return. We thought you might be able to help?"

"How exactly? I'm not a detective?"

Ackroyd had noticed the barb and understood that Angela's irritation was close to the surface. "Of course not but you are her boss and will no doubt have some helpful observations to share."

"Observations? I do not spy on my staff if that's what you mean?"

"No, that is not what I mean." Ackroyd ploughed steadily on. "What I had in mind was some back ground information about the work she was doing, progress being made, difficulties in the office. Anything which might explain her absence and who knows? Even help us to find her."

"Well as far as I was concerned Mrs McEwan was just another of my several", Angela remembers emphasising the word, "doctorate students. It's quite impossible for me to follow their individual circumstances. She was making reasonable progress. Nothing special. Pedestrian sometimes."

"But she had an unusual subject to research?".

"Inspector, it was just a convenient experimental model for our main work which is about psychological stress and how it gets modified. Now if that's all I really do have to get back to work"

"Do students often fail to complete? Just walk off the job?"

"Well how should I know? In my department it's never happened before. Never. McEwan's - absence - is a very big inconvenience."

"That's a surprising word?"

"Oh is it? Well it's an honest word!"

"Professor, the police take the unexpected disappearance of an adult, particularly when it comes out of the blue like, this extremely seriously. Amongst the reasons for people to go missing is suicide, unhappiness at work, bullying, poor relationships, conflicts within relationships. It's surprising how often a missing persons enquiry ends up as a murder enquiry." Ackroyd drawled out the word murder. "Most people who get murdered are killed by people they know. You will understand now the motivation behind some of my questions?"

Angela recalls her complete dismay at Ackroyd's suggestion all too clearly:

Murder? Surely, they did not think she had murdered the silly little bitch did they?

"Oh and one more thing", Ackroyd had said leaning back in the chair, "routine catch all question really, but is there anything else you feel you can tell me which might shed some light on these events?"

Angela was keen to see the back of the Inspector, so she could collect her thoughts and martial some plan in her mind to deal with the situation.

Angela's memory of the next exchange makes her squirm as she revisits her ill-considered reply to Ackroyd's sly and calculated question: "No, I can't think of anything but if you can give me some contact details I can get in touch if anything should come up."

"And might that" continued Ackroyd, delivering the coup de gras, "and might that include some recollection of being arrested by the CIA?"

Angela still feels angry at falling headlong into the trap he had languidly set for her. His thick accent and ungrammatical turn of phrase grate on Angela's nerves like squeaky chalk on a blackboard and detracted from two important facts about Ackroyd. First: he was an expert at what he did. Second: he was dangerous. This time Angela manages to change down into emotional neutral as the detective approaches her desk.

"Is there somewhere to sit?"

Ackroyd surveys the academic clutter of the office. Angela rather likes clutter and it means that her student visitors have to sit at her feet which pleases Angela very much but of course, this police man will have none of that she realises, so she has to rise from her desk and spend several moments moving books and files to make a space for him across the desk.

Ackroyd knows a psychological battle when he sees one and so far he has won four rounds before the main match has really started: arriving unexpectedly, forcing the Professor to stop what she was doing, gaining admittance to her office and making her accede to the basics of hospitality. That's a good start, for him at least.

Angela resumes, politely, "I'm sorry, you rather caught me unawares. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Perhaps if she is polite she can get rid of him quickly?

Ackroyd however is determine to drive the interview along is second gear. If this irritable woman gets flustered, she might drop any guard she is holding; reveal more than she intends. He clears his throat and slowly, carefully he explains the reason for his visit.

"Some new facts have come to our attention about your former colleague, Jennifer McEwan, facts which I have to discuss with you. I recall from our last little chat that you are a very busy person and I just wondered if it would be more helpful to continue this conversation at the police station? Remove you from the distractions of your many responsibilities? I have brought a WPC with me if you would like to accompany us?"

Angela knows intimidation when she hears it and sensibly, she retreats. She offers patience and her full attention. "Inspector, I am more than ready to help is any way I can. Of course I can come to your office if that would help you but to get on to the business promptly I would be very glad to give you as much time as you need, here, right now."

Ackroyd smiles in reply. "I am interested in the little episode when you and Mrs McEwan were asked to help the CIA with their enquires?" 'Helping with enquires'. A cliché of the British police vocabulary and so obviously out of place in the same sentence as the phrase 'CIA'.

Angela remembers the episode only too well. Every terrifying and humiliating moment of it. She had done all she could to put it behind her. Angela sighs. "What do you want me to tell you about it?"

"Well, try beginning from the beginning"

"McEwan was away doing some preliminary field work at an organisation called Inward Bound. I had a number for her and needed to get in touch. Shortly after, I had a call from an American who said he had a research proposal he wanted to discuss. This was unexpected but not exactly unusual for someone in my position. I mean I am often asked for operational advice about research projects or asked to review the results. Anyway, perhaps the day after, I had agreed to see the American and I was walking home from the building when a man came up to be. He said he was the man I had spoken to. He was standing in front of me and we were by a car and the door opened and they pushed me in and just took me away."

The memory of these events begins to have an unusual effect on Angela: she begins to weep as she re-lives them. The surprise. The terror. The humiliation of her interrogation and the degradation of the way she was kept in confinement until her release.

Ackroyd helps out:

"And what did they want?"

"They wanted to know about a man I knew, well still know actually."

'Oh. Who?"

"There – that's his picture. He is called Anatoly Kustensky. He has sponsored a conference and some research meetings I have been to in Moscow."

"And how did you come to meet?"

"I met him when I was younger. I think he worked at their Embassy. Anyway, now he is just a business man."

"And what did you have to tell them?"

"Just that I was not 'working for' him, I suppose you could say. That I did not 'report' to him or anything like that. That he was just a friend and nothing more."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Was that the truth?"

"Yes", Angela blows her nose, "Yes, that's all."

"Seems a bit of a sledge hammer to crack a nut if you ask me."

"Yes" agrees Angela. "It does, doesn't it?"

"And you have had no contact since?"

Angela looks up and Ackroyd sees her face is tear stained.

"No," she replies, "none at all."

"And Mr Kustensky?"

"None – well I met him for dinner in Moscow in the spring of 2009 I think it was, but it was just a social evening. That's all. I was at a meeting and he was and, well he lives there so why shouldn't he meet me?"

Ackroyd recognises the truth when he hears it and he is now reasonably sure that Professor Dawney has put her cards on the table at last - but not all of them.

"Now think carefully, Professor. It there anything else you can tell me. Anything - at - all?"

Angela is completely alert now and does not miss the implications in Ackroyd's last remark. He knows something. Something which Angela knows, but what? She frowns in concentration and at last, a surprisingly long last, her brain computes.

"Oh, well there was something strange, recently."

"Oh?"

"I read a thing called 'Psychological Letters', it's a Russian journal and there was a preliminary research report in it. Their project was very similar to Mrs McEwan's project. I was a bit disappointed really because I thought we had a lead in this research field. Still, Academia is an open country and ideas tend to circle round quite widely. There is no reason for this other group not to work on the same problem as us – but it's always disappointing, to lose your lead, don't you think?"

"Did you know the people involved?"

"I know Mendeleyev and Romanova but not the last author, Kuznetsova. I expect she is a research student a bit like Mrs McEwan."

"Ah... " Ackroyd clears his throat. "Well, I have some happy and unexpected news for you."

'Happy news' from Angela's perspective would be seeing the last of Inspector Ackroyd and being able to forget Jennifer McEwan once and for all.

Ackroyd continues; " ... because Mrs McEwan has been found. In Sweden. I believe she may even be home now. If you do remember anything else which might help us understand what has happened, you will let me know?"

Inconspicuous Contact

It is lunch time and Dr Hahn is eating a sandwich in Pret, in Upper Regent Street before he enjoys a walk in Regents Park. He wants to be easily seen, should the Metropolitan Police or their colleagues, wish to keep an eye on him. (1)