There was a lot of activity at the end of the street.
In fact, I tend to think that what I could see was actually a Police cordon.
That was definitely a first for the area. Not just one officer on duty but three, edgy and nervously glancing at the cars and pedestrians as they either passed by as a matter of fact or were just a bit inquisitive about the unusual goings on. A few brave persons on foot were poised to ask that inevitable question about what was up but a stiffening and bristling of those on guard duty was enough to deter them.
The reason for the formal roadblock was not, obviously, down to a leaking gas or water main. I could not see a glow nor smell the distinctive odour attributable to an outbreak of fire. I suppose it could have been a murder or a domestic incident.
The traffic had slowed enough for me to glance past the street end. In the cul de sac beyond there was a fleet of squad cars and those big black, unmarked marias used to cart off the naughty boys and girls to the nearest police station.
More of the local constabulary could be seen chatting with some quite ominous looking para-military types in full combat gear and casually swinging machine pistols on their hip bones as they hung from heavy duty canvas strap from their padded shoulders.
It was a couple of days before the local paper realised the newsworthiness of the event. They speculated wildly on the first front page account out of desperation to beat the free weeklies to the story.
Gradually some semblance of professional journalism emerged and in the following days an incredible tale was recounted.
The target of the attention of the authorities had been a single semi detached house in that quiet suburban road. It was just an ordinary red brick built place with a red rosemary tile roof, tidy woodwork and a neat front garden. In the windows hung those detestable net curtains giving just enough privacy and an implied message of 'there's nothing worth looking at or to be bothered about here, thank you very much'.
After the initial assault on the house and its occupant and a good proportion of its contents had been removed by the task force the newspaper had published some internal photographs to pad out its now top feature.
The source of the pictures was not clear. They may have been acquired in a plain brown envelope from a person in an official capacity. In fact, one of the neighbours trusted with a key for those emergencies that always occur when the owner is away on a trip was responsible either willingly for a cash consideration or had been duped by a young, attentive reporter type.
Again, there was nothing remarkable about the house. A bit plain and drab to the décor and furnishings but nevertheless functional and comfortable. There were, however, a lot of shelves packed with weighty books in every room, lavatory included.
This was not the norm from my experience of the typical residents of the street. They usually had a small collection of those thick volumes produced with regular monotony by Reader's Digest on such subjects as Heritage, General Knowledge, The Royal Family and of course the Book of The Road. These themes were all that was required to answer the persistent queries of small children or settle a dispute after a Pub Quiz Night.
The shelving was stout and wall to wall, firmly fixed to the masonry and not flat pack or unstable if overloaded. Most of the horizontal surfaces of tables, window cills, kitchen worktops and even either side of the staircase treads were covered with files and loose papers and more were protruding out of a great variety of cardboard boxes distributed under and around the furniture.
I had seen similar ordered chaos in the homes of academics and those of respectable and apparently harmless eccentricity.
The former was applicable in this instance.
The owner occupier was a lecturer at the city University. One of those small columns on an inner page of the local paper gave a potted biography of the man. Born up North, state educated but bright, scholarship to a prestigious southern place of learning, excellent First Class Degree , a gap year of letting rip on a global circumnavigation, a stop off in the Soviet Union, post graduate studies to Doctorate level, teaching posts at a number of worthy establishments, then what to me appeared to be a bit of a breakdown in that he ended up here in a good steady but lower league of academia.
The high flyer appeared to have hit one of those glass ceilings.
His subject had always been Economics and Social History. In his first Uni year he had joined the Communist Party. It was a small branch of disaffected sons and daughters of the wealthy. His motivation was primarily to meet the volatile female members who were like nothing else he had encountered in his previous life. They were an active group, mainly because being of limited numbers they only required the hire of one mini-bus for a campaign outing to support striking comrades or attend regional and national conferences and gatherings.
The highlight of each successive year of being a card carrying Communist was a visit to the Motherland. These were officially received and he had built up quite a network of contacts in a number of State Departments.
His profile in the newspaper column all pointed to one outcome.
He was eventually recruited as a Spy. It was not at all glamorous or hazardous. A job in London had enabled him to mix and fraternise with women working in Ministry positions. His handlers seemed pleased with the information that he was able to gather. It was then a period of upheaval and political activity in the eastern states of the Soviet Bloc. Solidarity Trade Union in Poland had begun the process of dismantling and then collapsing the Russian Empire. Their man in our city provided information of the level of support both collective and from powerful individuals on his side of the North Sea. A few in influential positions in UK Universities were exiles from behind the Iron Curtain and were befriended and quietly relieved of any matters of potential interest from their ongoing involvement with their beloved but imprisoned colleagues in the Old Country.
All of this was done with skill and diligence. To the neighbours he was just someone clever who worked at the University and was away a lot. His career in espionage lasted for 12 years being curtailed only by the change in outlook and regime brought about by the events around the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing domino effect.
It would be another decade before the day that I would drive past the end of his street.
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