Squid: A Mystery Tale About Spies

By Elizabeth Greenwood

A London mini-cab driver thinks the image of James Bond as a typical British Secret Agent is outmoded and needs to be replaced by a more democratic one in keeping with the contemporary era. Based on gossip he hears as a minicab driver from two of his regular fares who work for MI5 he discovers that there are more Russian spies currently in London than during the Cold War. Picking up leads, he starts investigating the activities of Ukrainian migrs in London and, proceeding by trial and error, he manages to trace the whereabouts of a Russian master spy who goes by the code name of SQUID and proceeds to his arrest and demise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524677077

Elizabeth Greenwood

Elizabeth Greenwood is the author of Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, VICE, O, the Oprah Magazine, Longreads, GQ, and others. 

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© 2017 Elizabeth Greenwood. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/01/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7709-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7708-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-7707-7 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

1 When they went past the stable yard

2 ‘Get up!’ said Jeff Simmons

3 The picture was not as clear-cut

4 In order to make his Country-Club

5 As he had not heard from Thomas Bailey

6 Jeff Simmons had never thought of himself

7 Prior to waking-up

8 ‘Why didn’t you come forward earlier?’

9 A question that puzzled Inspector Bennett

10 Jeff Simmons’ immediate reaction to Inspector Bennett’s announcement

11 Following his casual visit to the Home for the Disabled

12 London had never looked so beautiful

13 Maybe it was due to his feeling below par

14 Yuri seemed strained when he let him in

15 One day, driving down the street

16 Another day, puzzled by the way

17 When the old nanny told Olga what had happened

18 To his great surprise, Jeff Simmons heard

19 Sitting in his cab listening to the news

20 ‘Is it at all conceivable’

21 She must have done’

22 Jeff Simmons awoke suddenly

23 Inspector Bennett could see that PC Morris

24 Overlooking the lake

25 Because Jeff Simmons had been

26 Dmitri didn’t think there was much time left

‘… I am involved in all mankind …’

John Donne, Meditation XVII

Dedication

Olga, this book is for you, across decades. I never knew you, Olga, although you worked in my mother’s kitchen as a refugee from the Ukraine who had managed to escape before the borders were closed as a result of Stalin’s collectivisation of the farms.

I was only an ignorant young girl home from boarding school. I remember your bellowing skirts, several layers of them, your triangular head scarf tied at the back. You were tight-lipped and never smiled. You were employed as a kind of cook cum charlady, keeping an eye on the pots and pans while doing cleaning chores during the school holidays when my mother was overworked.

This book is for you, Olga, with the regrets of the ignorant schoolgirl I was then, living in the midst of plenty, in a gilded cage. I wish I had been able to put my arms around you and hug you.

I’ll never forget you, Olga.

This book is for you with my apologies; I knew too little about the outside world to be able to understand while you ended up in my mother’s kitchen the way you did as a stranger.

Elizabeth Greenwood

Chapter 1

When they went past the stable yard, the staff were already there getting the horses ready for the morning rides despite the rain, but they exchanged no words with them about it, the weather having little impact on the residents up at the hospice as nothing, not rain nor shine, percolated through their minds, and the onus fell on the attendants to keep up an appearance of normality for the patients who had been admitted there as permanent residents.

The hospice was ideally situated in a low-lying wooded area, off a tarred side road which connected it to the main London-Portsmouth motorway over a railway bridge. It had once been the property of a young couple with a growing family and the railings across the windows of one of the rooms overlooking the lake testified to the fear of drowning which had preoccupied the minds of adult inhabitants in its heydays when it was a private residence.

‘Ever heard a horse neighing in the night?’ Thomas Bailey asked his fellow worker.

‘No, I can’t say that I have, but then I am a sound sleeper’, replied Jeff Simmons by way of an apology.

‘You know about the legend?’

‘Oh, yes! I don’t know how anyone coming to work here would not have heard about it at some time or other; people in the district seem keen to come up with it. I suppose it adds to the local colour.’

‘They say that when they found the child’s body she was clutching a fistful of weeds mixed up with horse-hair as though she’d been run away with on a chestnut mare. Well, what do you think?’

‘It depends how susceptible one is to atmosphere. Obviously to take on a job such as this one needs to be capable of being somewhat immune to it. Still, it is difficult to imagine why a young couple with a family of children in infancy would want to come and to live in such an out-of-the way place with a lake right in front of the house. The place is much better suited to its function now – to give those guys a minimal kind of life… I suppose you have a variety of casualties here?’

‘Yes, I am afraid we do: car accidents, helicopter crashes, name it, we’ve got it including a fair number of deep-sea diving casualties.’

‘Really?’

‘Chaps who surface too quickly and hit a beam on the way up like Petroski…’

By the time they came to the entrance gate of the house at the end of the road which led to the golf course, the last rumbles of thunder were heard dying away in the distance,