Page 91 - double revenge 3.

PART THREE

THE COTTAGE

ST
TUESDAY APRIL 21 1998

‘This just came through for you, details on a Michael Hagley, ugly looking brute.’

‘Not as ugly as he looks now Bren. His is the body in the mortuary, not Arnold Warner, as I and
everybody else believed. Whoever killed him and dumped him in the Thames also believed he was
Arnold Warner.’

‘Why do you think that?

‘If they had thought they had killed someone else they would have got rid of his prints,’

‘Cut off his hands, you mean.’ Brenda shuddered at the thought. ‘Who is he?’

‘He is, or rather was, an Assist. We have many of them worldwide. People who can do work for us
instead of having to send over a trained agent, all to do with cost efficiency. Anne employed him to
find Warner. Ah. Here we are. This is why Hagley says he didn’t drive. He has numerous motoring
convictions, which resulted in a ten year driving ban. If he had driven and been stopped then as far
as impersonating Arnold Warner was concerned the game would have been up.’

’‘How long had he been impersonating Warner?’

‘It must have been for some time. His so-called fiancée, Gabriela was fooled, which is probably why
she didn’t know where Warner’s office was situated or where he lived. I also think it answers the
question of how he could absorb so much physical abuse. He was being questioned about the
details of the Guatemala memo and of course, he couldn’t tell them anything because he had never
heard of it.’

‘But you said he gave an encoded memo to Gabriela.’

‘Yes I know, Bren. Fact is that is stumping me a bit.’ I sat back and closed my eyes. Brenda,
recognising I needed some thinking time, quietly returned to her office.

If Hagley had been in possession of a memo then he could only have got it from Warner, either
been given it or stole it from him. But why give it to Gabriela? It was encoded so he would not know
what it said unless Warner had told him the contents and if that was the case then he would not
have held out while being tortured. Henry Stimson! The name sprang to my mind and as I thought
about it, the implications were not what I wanted to hear.

‘Bren!’

She almost came running.

‘I’ve worked it out but almost wished I hadn’t. Albert told me about a former Secretary of State,
Henry Stimson. He didn’t believe in coded messages, he said “Gentlemen do not read other
gentlemen’s mail.”

‘So what does that mean?’