More from Across the Pond

Long story today in the UK Daily Mail about the life and mysterious death of an MI6/GCHQ spy who was also on loan to the NSA as an expert on computer security. Consider this:

It was on August 23 that police were called to Gareth’s flat in Pimlico, Central London, an MI6-owned safe house. He had been missing for more than a week. They found his decomposed body locked in a large red North Face sports bag.

Wouldn't the definition of a 'safe house' mean it was safe to some extent? Such as video surveillance or something similar? Or have we been fed too many Bond movies?

In an original story from the London Telegraph, now unavailable, it said a couple with "Mediterranean appearance" had visited him at the safe house in the months before his death without being 'buzzed in' by anyone, meaning he was familiar with them. It also said they were using 'facial recognition' technology in US airports to see whether he'd been here with them, which strongly suggests they know what these people look like (otherwise why use the technology).

At any rate, previous leaks and the story today paint the picture of a kind of a super genius prodigy who couldn't connect well with the ladies, which frustrated him, so it's not hard to envision a domestic, non-espionage explanation for his demise in a place like London. Indeed, this Metro UK story from September claimed:

It is thought that investigators on both sides of the Atlantic have concluded that Mr Williams's death had nothing to do with espionage.

But that seems to leave the following scenario: valuable and patriotic near-genius spy (head of GCHQ attended his funeral and a plaque was erected there memorializing his service) was murdered (they seem to have ruled out suicide) and padlocked into his own sports bag--in his own MI6 safe house apartment--one that apparently had surveillance (since they seem to know the faces of two persons of interest of Mediterranean descent), who had been recently given a new identity while being detailed to US spy agencies as a counter cyber terrorism expert in the midst of Climategate, Wiki Leaks, Chinese hackers, and the Stuxnet worm--but they ruled out espionage almost immediately. Where is Angela Lansbury when you need her?