The Consequences of Fear

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “The pathologist who conducted the postmortem on the man dragged from the Thames thought he had been killed by an assassin, and could well have been one himself.”

  “Looks like we might be able to make a guess about where they learned how to do that, eh?”

  “We might.” Maisie picked up her own notebook, and looked up at Billy. “Last night, as I was reading through Gabriella Hunter’s manuscript, I came across information that corroborates your friend’s report. Now, it’s not clear to me why Gabriella was in the Levant in 1920, but she was, and after I went to see her to ask if she had any information that might help me with the Hackett case, I think she was able to dig up a few things over and above what she already suspected. Sadly, I believe it was the digging that led to her being attacked.”

  Maisie studied her notebook, scanning pages she had filled the night before in the small guest room at Joan Hillman’s house, a cozy bedroom with electric lighting that enabled her to read Gabriella Hunter’s manuscript from the first page to the last, and where she found a folded sheet of paper between pages 50 and 51, with “Lady Margaret Compton” printed in bold lettering. Having refreshed her memory regarding certain details in that letter, she reached for her bag and put away her notebook.

  “Billy, about the dead man, the one Freddie Hackett saw murdered—we know he was a member of the Free French intelligence services, but he was also with Chaput in Damascus and another place called Aleppo—they were part of one of those units your friend told you about. There were a number of other men in this special strike group. I understand one of those men, named Claude Payot, was something of a . . . well, I suppose you could call him a troublemaker. Miss Hunter wrote that Payot and Charles d’Anjou—the dead man pulled from the Thames—are one and the same man. While in this unit, Payot constantly made fun of Chaput’s features—certainly he could pass for a Levantine—intimating to the other soldiers that Chaput might be more loyal to the Arabs than France. Payot was ambitious, according to Gabriella’s notes, and wanted to undermine Chaput. The cohesiveness of the unit was crucial because their orders were fraught with danger. Payot put the whole operation in peril. However, it is also true that Chaput might have been having doubts about the orders, not so much based upon the fact that he indeed has Arab blood in him—a Lebanese grandmother, I believe—but because he had begun to wonder if what he was doing was right, something he had never experienced before, according to Gabriella. The moral ambiguity of what he had been asked to do weighed upon him. The upshot of the discord between Payot and Chaput, together with Chaput’s personal doubts, was that the group walked right into an ambush. Chaput, Payot and one other man survived. Apparently in his report Chaput took responsibility for the deaths, though he also reported Payot for insubordination in a time of war—which is tantamount to mutiny.”

  “So you could say your friend Miss Hunter was right about honor.”

  “Yes, I suppose you could ” She checked the time. “Billy, there’s a pub called the Waterman just this side of Vauxhall Bridge—I want to go over there to speak to the landlord, and it should be open by the time we get there. I’ll tell you more in the taxicab on the way.”

  As Maisie took out her key to lock the office door, the telephone began to ring.

  “You go and flag down a taxicab, Billy, while I answer this call.” Maisie picked up the receiver.

  “Maisie, Julian here. Look, I hate to disappoint you, but I’ve had one hell of a job finding out about your man. However, I do have a couple of pieces of information for you.”

  “Good of you to telephone me, Julian.”

  “I’m glad to say a bit of digging revealed something rather nasty about the chap—I wouldn’t like to come back to you empty-handed, so to speak.” He cleared his throat. “One of my old colleagues put me in touch with Hackett’s commanding officer. He knew who I was asking about immediately, and said the man had a temper on him—apparently he would start a fight with anyone over anything. Had rather a violent streak—and as we know, war is already a stage set for violence, but he was in another league altogether. Very questionable individual. It seemed as if being a soldier gave him leave to indulge his love of violence. The most extraordinary thing is that it appears he might have saved the life of a French officer during the war—a fight in an estaminet that turned very nasty indeed.”

  Maisie recounted details of the incident involving Chaput that Gabriella had described in her letter.

  “Pretty much the same, Maisie.” Lord Julian paused, and cleared his throat again before continuing. “If that is the case, then do take care, won’t you? I don’t like the sound of this man—not only does Arthur Hackett hold a grudge, but from his commanding officer’s account, he is one to want recompense for his favors too.”

  “Please don’t worry, Julian. I’ll be in touch.”

  Maisie left the office and made her way along Grafton Street toward Tottenham Court Road, where Billy was waiting alongside a taxicab. As soon as they were on their way, he ensured that the glass partition between the driver and his passengers was closed, and turned to Maisie.

  “All right, miss?”

  “It was Lord Julian, confirming some of what we already know—but good to have the information. He gave me some additional intelligence too.”

  “So what do you think is going on, miss?”

  Maisie took a deep breath. “First of all, we know the dead man who was drawn from the river was Claude Payot, and not d’Anjou.”

  “Right, he was a Frenchman, and he’s the one who caused trouble for Chaput.”

  Maisie shook her head. “I learned more from Gabriella’s letter, and her manuscript. Payot was actually French Canadian by birth, and he fought in the last war as a young man. He came over to France from Quebec. However, instead of joining a Canadian regiment as part of the British Empire forces, he enlisted with the French.”

  “And then he went to Syria with Chaput?”

  “Indeed—though as far as Chaput was concerned, he would never see him again after the disaster in Syria. But when he turned up again in London and presented himself to the Free French, once more offering his services for the love of France, it was something of a reunion between him and Major Chaput.”

  “Oh, blimey.”

  “Blimey, indeed. Chaput believed that when they were in Syria, Payot had in effect caused the unit to walk into an ambush resulting in the deaths of all but two of the men. In addition, while in the unit, Payot had the support of one of the men, who egged him on and became another thorn in Chaput’s side—Payot’s French cousin, whom he met as a boy when his family sailed from Canada to France to see their people—and not surprisingly, he had a reunion with the cousin when he landed in France to join the French army. The cousin came from a village somewhere in the Lot region, but again, not so important, though it seems that at the time he was a naive country boy, easily led by his more worldly cousin. Yet in a way Payot was also naive, chasing the dream of being a hero for the old country—but morally corrupt in the manner he chose to exercise his so-called heroism.”

  Billy was thoughtful. “I can see all that, miss—but what I still don’t get is why Miss Hunter was attacked.”

  “To stop me finding out what had happened and to stall the investigation.” She turned to look at Billy and pointed to the driver. “I cannot say any more at this moment—I don’t want to take the risk. But I’ll fill in the gaps for you later.”

  “Looks like we’re here anyway, miss. The Waterman. Not one I’m that familiar with—and it’s not far from where—”

  “I know, Billy. Come on. According to Gabriella’s letter, a man named Sharpe is the landlord.”

  “What can I do for you, sir, madam?”

  “Half a pint of light ale for me and a cream sherry for the lady, if you please,” said Billy. He looked at Maisie and nodded.

  “Right you are,” said the publican as he lifted a half-pint glass, put it under the tap and drew a half-pint of light ale, filling the glass
slowly and leaving a perfect one-inch head on the beer. He placed the ale in front of Billy before taking up a sherry schooner.

  “Oh, just a small one, if you please, Mr. Sharpe,” said Maisie. “If I drink a whole schooner of sherry, I might never leave.”

  Sharpe raised an eyebrow, smiled, and exchanged the schooner for a smaller glass. He uncorked a bottle of cream sherry and poured the reddish brown liquid into the glass until it was almost at the brim, then placed the drink on a mat in front of Maisie. “Now then, are you two going to tell me how you know my name, and yet you’ve never even set foot in here before?” said Sharpe. “Are you from the authorities or something? I’m telling you—I pour according to regulations in here, and I keep my hours tidy. Everything’s above board.”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Sharpe, I know you do—and we’re not from the ministry.” Maisie took out a card identifying her as an associate of Scotland Yard, a leftover from a previous case when she had worked for MacFarlane. She handed it to Sharpe, who raised an eyebrow and returned it to her.

  “Follow me—there’s no one in the snug, so we can have a private conversation in there.” He turned toward a young woman serving men in overalls and flat caps in the public bar. “Rosie, hold the fort at both ends for a bit, love.”

  “All right, boss. I’ve got everyone here sorted out.”

  There was laughter and joshing among the men as Sharpe lifted a flap on the bar and came through, leading the way to a secluded area at the end of the bar, set off by a wooden partition with a sign identifying it as “The Snug.” They each took a seat at the round table tucked away in the corner.

  “You’d better tell me what this is all about,” said Sharpe.

  “First of all, my apologies if my approach seemed a bit cryptic. However, I think you have some information that would be of use to us. We’re investigating a murder, and we believe the victim was a man who was something of a regular here.”

  “Name?”

  “We think he went by the name Charles d’Anjou—he was French Canadian, so his accent would have been quite distinctive. His English might have been very stilted too.”

  “There’s one bloke, not been in for a while. He sounded French. Could drink a lot, but I don’t think his name was Charles. Something like ‘Clod.’ And when I say he could drink a lot, I had to keep an eye on him. I sometimes wondered if he’d had a few at home and then came in for the company, or to pick a fight with someone.” He nodded toward the public bar. “But our lot are working men, they don’t want trouble—mind you, if trouble finds them, I wouldn’t want to mess around with any of them. Strong lads. Know how to take care of themselves.”

  “I was born and bred in Lambeth. I understand.” Maisie took a sip from her glass. “Did he ever meet anyone here, as far as you can remember? Or did he strike up a conversation with another man?”

  The publican looked thoughtful, rubbing his chin. He turned around and called out to the barmaid. “Oi, Rosie—Rosie, just a minute, love. Over here.”

  “Yes, boss?” The barmaid was wiping her hands on a cloth as she entered the snug.

  “Remember that bloke who used to come in a fair bit; a French fella? Tall, mustache. Dark hair. Name of Clod.”

  “Knocked back brandy and was always asking if we had Armagnac. Him?”

  The publican nodded. “That’s right. Ever see him with anyone?”

  “I reckon I saw him with a bloke once or twice,” said the barmaid. “That fella from over the water, the one who always manages to get someone else to stand him a drink.”

  “Did you ever see him with anyone else?” inquired Maisie

  Rosie frowned. “There was one. Tall, dark, had deep lines on his face, and when he smiled it was a funny old smile. You know, sort of put on. He spoke really good English, but I didn’t think he was from here. Well, he came in once on his own—” She paused, looking at her hands as she wound the cloth around them. “In fact, it was just a few days before the last time I saw the other Frenchman, the drinker. You were off that night, boss. It wasn’t that busy, so I remember—that fella who was always broke was having a word with him. Then I saw the bloke with no money again outside, the last time I ever saw that Clod.” She frowned. “Funny, that, because he was drinking an awful lot that night and the man who never put his hand in his pocket was with him. At first I thought he seemed as if he’d had a few himself, though I’d not poured anything for him.” She shrugged. “P’raps they were drinking somewhere else beforehand, but I remember thinking I should keep an eye on them—you’ve always said to draw the line if I think someone’s had enough, and those two had definitely had enough.”

  Sharpe nodded. “Thanks, Rosie. You’d better get back in there, that lot are just leaving and another couple are just coming in.”

  “On my way, boss.” Rosie the barmaid cast a smile and nodded toward Maisie and Billy before hurrying back to the public bar.

  “What can you tell us about the man who managed to get everyone else to buy a drink for him?” asked Maisie. “I believe his name is Hackett.”

  “Can’t tell you much at all—except he’s the sort you have to keep an eye on, like Rosie said.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Nothing comes as a surprise in this job, even two bods with identification from Scotland Yard that may or may not be genuine.” He waited for a comment from either Maisie or Billy; neither said a word. Sharpe leaned forward. “It works like this—a bloke with not a penny to his name comes in and eyes up the fella who looks like he’s drinking not to feel lonely. The next thing you know, the only one putting his hand in his pocket is Mr. Lonely. But the next morning he finds that his wallet is either gone or it’s lighter by a few quid. Probably the latter—because the first fella knows it will be a while before the mark has him sussed, so he can do it all over again. I reckon that first bloke—this ‘Hackett’—bought himself a bottle on the way home or went into another pub with the money, because in truth he’s a serious drinker, and that sort usually likes to drink alone.”

  “Why didn’t you stop Hackett coming in, if you thought he was fleecing your customers?” asked Maisie.

  “If he’d been tapping up my regulars, I’d have had him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him out on the pavement. And it’s not as if he came in all the time—only a few appearances, so I reckon he did most of his business elsewhere. No, I reckon he was working some sort of racket with that other bloke, the one Rosie talked about who looked like that actor—oh gawd, what is his name?” Sharpe scratched his head.

  “Victor Mature?” asked Billy.

  “That’s the one. I suppose you know about him then.”

  Maisie nodded. “Yes, we know him.” She glanced at Billy, who shook his head. “I think I have enough information for now, Mr. Sharpe—and thank you for your time. I know you run a busy establishment here, so I’m much obliged to you.”

  They pushed back their chairs, and as they left the snug, Sharpe turned to Maisie. “There was another bloke who came in once with the one who looked like Victor Mature, a Scottish fella. You could see he enjoyed his malt whisky, I’ll give him that.”

  Maisie felt Billy looking at her, waiting for her to say something. Touching Sharpe on the arm, she stopped him as he moved to lift the flap and return to his place behind the bar. “What Scottish fellow?”

  “Big chap. Going bald. Didn’t say much, but went outside with old Victor. Started to take his drink with him, but I had to tell him drinks inside only. He was all right, said sorry, put down his glass—and he only had one sip, but it was a big one—then off they went.”

  “Was this before Hackett arrived? And the other Frenchman?”

  Sharpe nodded. “I reckon so. The Scots bloke didn’t stay long.”

  “And was this on a Friday, about two weeks ago?”

  “Friday, yeah.” He scratched his head. “I should know, shouldn’t I? Friday can be a bit noisy in here—but that’s probably why I remember, because people who don’t want to be remember
ed like to get lost in a crowd, don’t they? And people like me notice them.”

  Maisie thanked the publican again and Billy shook his hand as they left.

  “Let’s walk across the bridge, Billy,” said Maisie, as they stood outside the Waterman public house.

  They walked at a slow pace for some moments, Billy understanding that his employer wanted to think, to slot pieces into the puzzle as a picture formed of what had come to pass on the night Freddie Hackett witnessed a murder.

  At last, Billy could wait no longer. “What do you reckon, miss? Right spanner in the works back there, him talking about a Scottish bloke coming in.”

  “Indeed it is, but it makes sense too—though not in a way I might have hoped for. It renders things very tricky for us.”

  “Yeah, you can say that again.”

  Maisie stopped and turned, looking into the distance as if following the Thames as it made its way toward Greenwich, then onward to the place where it would become one with the open sea. She sighed. “In a short while we will have completed our investigation, and we will be able to tell Freddie that he really did witness a murder, but when he asks who did it, we won’t be able to confirm anything for him, though I have every confidence that I will be able to ensure his safety.”