Piccadilly

Copenhagen, 1993. A Danish citizen of Italian origin is interrogated for 20 consecutive hours by Scotland Yard and both the Danish and Bulgarian Secret Services. He is under investigation for the infamous and so-called Umbrella Murder at Waterloo Bridge in London in 1978. The victim was the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who had fled to the UK years earlier, and it was most likely performed by the man now under interrogation, Francesco Gullino, aka codename Piccadilly. The murder on Waterloo Bridge made headlines for months all over the world, as this was the first of its kind where a former citizen of Eastern Europe was cleverly assassinated by an Eastern secret service agent. On this occasion, a small bullet containing a very deadly poison was injected from an umbrella into the dissident’s thigh. Georgi Markov died shortly after without being able to point out his killer. But who was this Francesco Gullino, aka Piccadilly, operating in the West and apparently working for Eastern Governments during the height of the Cold War? On the surface, he is an antiques tradesman; in reality, a brutal and clever spy working as an agent for the Bulgarian Secret Service for almost 20 years. The evidence against him is impressive. In Denmark, he is charged with spying against the state, and Scotland Yard is well aware that he is, in fact, the man behind the murder on Waterloo Bridge. Yet, Piccadilly escapes all charges and disappears. One of Piccadilly’s close friends feels betrayed by his double life and starts investigating Francesco Gullino’s life. Unfortunately, the investigation leads nowhere, as the friend suddenly dies, which is not the only mysterious death in Piccadilly’s wake. Following his disappearance, we trace Piccadilly’s tracks and whereabouts over decades, through several European countries, eventually tracing him to Austria for a final confrontation.