Mystery of the MI6 man who was found dead in his bath
An unassuming and private character, Gareth Williams only ever described his work as "something to do with codes". Over the years he had grown accustomed to fading into the background. But when he repeatedly failed to turn up for work at the riverside headquarters of MI6, colleagues became so concerned that they called in Scotland Yard to open up his flat. From that point on Mr Williams' death – if not his life – was to be very public.
The scene that greeted the detectives inside the top-floor apartment of an expensive central London house was gruesome. A decomposing body had been stuffed inside a large sports holdall in the bath. Nearby, Mr Williams' mobile telephone had been laid out alongside several SIM cards.
Yesterday the 30-year-old's work as a communications officer at the intelligence "listening post" GCHQ, seconded to the Secret Intelligence Service, led to speculation that he had been brutally murdered because of his job. Was he the first spy to be killed in Britain since the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006?
The reality, however, is likely to be more mundane. Sources within the murder inquiry led by the Metropolitan Police's Homicide and Serious Crime Command insisted that "the suggestion there are terrorism or national security links to this case is pretty low down the list of probabilities". They are believed to be concentrating on Mr Williams' private life.
While his body was discovered at around 4.40pm on Monday after the door to his flat was broken down, it appeared that he may have been dead for as long as two weeks. The first post-mortem examination proved inconclusive yesterday evening, though it did find that, contrary to earlier reports, he had not been stabbed.
Police have described the death as "suspicious and unexplained," and a further examination is due to be held soon to find out exactly how Mr Williams, yet to be officially identified, died. It will include toxicological analysis of his blood to test for traces of drugs or alcohol.
Both GCHQ and the Foreign Office have refused to say anything more than that it is policy not to confirm or deny the identity of any individuals working for the intelligence agencies. However, it is understood that Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command and the domestic intelligence agency MI5 are being kept up to date with the investigation.
Mr Williams normally lived near his work within the heavily secure environment of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), an intelligence agency in Gloucestershire which eavesdrops on global communications. But he had been based in a flat in London for the past year in a street populated by bankers and politicians.
In a twist befitting any spy thriller, the property in Pimlico, whose recent occupants all appeared to have Cheltenham links, was owned by a company registered in the British Virgin Islands called New Rodina – a term which means "motherland" in Russian. The well-to-do street is home to a number of distinguished residents, including former Conservative Home Secretaries Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan.
drive from www.independent.co.uk