As one Steinhauer and I raised our revolvers and returned fire. Fragments of plaster hit my face, blasted from the wall next to my right ear, but I kept shooting, and the hallway filled with thunder and gun smoke and the smell of cordite and dust. I felt my hat knocked back on my head and I saw the woodwork of the doorway where the anarchist stood shatter and splinter, but the man himself had the devil’s own luck—he seemed untouched. Then his gun clicked on an empty chamber, and he calmly stooped down, grabbed the girl, dragged her inside and slammed the door shut again, even as Steinhauer and I raced up the stairs two at a time. I was first to the landing and heard on the far side of the door the rattle of a heavy bolt being shot home and the clink of a chain. I fired four shots into the wood and was rewarded with a man’s yell of pain and a stream of Slavic curses.
I flattened myself against the wall to the left, Steinhauer to the right, moments before six shots from within smashed holes through the door while Steinhauer and I reloaded, scattering our spent shells on the floor. Now we could hear chaos in the room beyond—voices raised in panic and pain, babbling in Russian and German, scuffling feet, tumbling furniture. I caught Steinhauer’s eye; he nodded and raised his Colt in readiness.
I stepped out, turned to the door and kicked it with all my strength, aiming for where I’d heard the bolt slammed home. Even splintered by gunfire the old door was solid, but the frame was flimsy, and on the second kick the door burst inwards. Steinhauer dashed in ahead of me, gun lowered; he jumped clean over two bodies prone on the floor—Angela Minetti and one of Akushku’s accomplices—but the room was otherwise empty. I glanced down; the wounded man was Bozidar, clutching his bloody arm and groaning—the bones looked to have been shattered by my bullets. He had no weapon that I could see and was in too much pain anyway to resist. Angela was alive, but bleeding from her shoulder. All this I took in with a glance as Steinhauer swept the room, cursing in consternation.
“The window!” I said. I got to it first, and heaved it open in time to hear someone drop into the pitch-black alley below. The two remaining terrorists had clambered down using a drainpipe for support—an escape route they had clearly planned. I fired blindly into the murk only to hear my shots ring off stone, and the scuffle of fleeing footsteps.
“The mews entrance is back the way we came,” I told Steinhauer. “Go, quickly—I’ll be right behind you—”
Steinhauer hurried out the door by which we had entered and I heard him race down the stairs while I stooped to see to Angela Minetti. She was trying to sit up, her hair pasted to her temples and dark with sweat, her lovely face twisted in pain. I folded my handkerchief and held it to her shoulder where blood was blotching the fabric of her dress. “Lie still, lie still,” I told her. “It looks like the bullet’s gone through.” She nodded, and pulling the handkerchief from my hand pressed it to her shoulder. “Go,” she gasped, close to fainting. “Stop Iosif.”
I needed no second bidding. Grabbing my handcuffs from my pocket I wrenched Bozidar’s arms behind his back, heedless of his yells of pain, ratcheted the cuffs tight and dashed out the door after Steinhauer.
As I emerged onto the street, I could see our shootout had woken up most of the neighbourhood. Windows were being drawn up on every side, from which sleepy curious faces were emerging. Bad enough our quarry had fled our grasp, but now we had an audience. But by the look on Steinhauer’s face as he ran back from the direction of the mews entrance, that was the least of our problems.
“They hailed a cab,” he was saying. “Heading east. I just missed them—”
At that moment, as if summoned by wishful thinking, Forte’s cab appeared. I had arranged that he should follow us here ten minutes after we left him. His hackney had barely halted before I wrenched open the door and Steinhauer and I scrambled aboard.
“East,” I told Forte. “And hurry—we’re after another cab.”
The lurch of the hackney as Forte cracked the whip threw me back into my seat, almost on top of Steinhauer.
“How is the girl?”
“She’ll live. It’s these two I’m worried about.”
“We have one man. He will lead us to the others, if it comes to that.”
“Inspector!” Forte called down. I wrenched the window open and stuck my head out.
Half a street ahead of us was another cab, racing along.
“That’s the one!” called out Steinhauer, from the other window. “I am sure of it!” I sat back in my seat, hurriedly dug more bullets from my pocket and reloaded. Steinhauer followed suit.
“He’s slowing down!” called Forte. I stuck my head out the window again just in time to see a short dark man, bareheaded and without a jacket, swing from the open door of the cab ahead and hit the ground running. He almost fell, but finding his feet raced off down an alley to the left. The cab ahead picked up speed again and rattled on, its door swinging back and forth before slamming shut. “That’s the Bulgarian, Averbukh,” I snapped to Steinhauer. “You stay with Akushku—I’ll take this one.” Heaving our own cab door open, I leapt out without even a warning to Forte. I don’t know how I kept my footing as I landed, except that I knew I must. Reaching the neck of the alley, I glimpsed my quarry stop at the far end. Before he disappeared off to the right, I raced after him, my heart thumping in my chest and my breath roaring in my ears. He was heading towards the warehouses that served the East India Docks, and for the first time in this fiasco I felt a glimmer of optimism. The docks were securely fenced, the warehouses were patrolled by night watchmen, and once upon a time this had been my beat. I knew it better than my own face.
But tonight there were no coppers or even civilians around that I could call to my aid; the alleyways were deserted and every shop shuttered and dark. I paused, and over the rumble of a passing goods train heard the crack of hobnails on cobblestones off to my left. Drawing my revolver again, I peered around the next corner. The street was formed by two warehouses that faced each other, lined with blank brick recesses in the shape of windows, with a deep double doorway every fifty feet or so, and at the far end a tall blank brick wall ran the width of the street. I knew the place: Penny Street, a dead end with only one way out—back past me.
Halfway down, high above the cobblestones, a single large gaslight gleamed, hissing. Above each warehouse door jutted a loading girder, and their long shadows probed like grubby fingers into the alley below. I calmed my breathing, feeling a trickle of sweat run down my back, and waited, listening and watching.
There—a glimpse of pale linen. Averbukh had been concealing himself in the farthest doorway on the right and had leaned forwards, hoping to see if I was still following. I had him.
“Come out.” I paced slowly down the alley, my gun raised and ready. No answer.
“Venez, immediatement, ou je tire,” I called. And now the vague pale figure I had glimpsed in the doorway stirred again and took shape. It was indeed Averbukh, matching precisely the description I had on file, courtesy of my contacts in the Sûreté: short, slight, in his late twenties, with curly black hair, swarthy skin, heavy eyebrows and a squint that could make it hard to tell which way he was looking. At this moment it was clear enough he was looking at me as he stepped out from his hiding place and raised his empty hands wide from his sides, almost level with his shoulders, as if to offer me a hug.
“Keep those hands where I can see them,” I said. “And hold still.”
“What will you do? Will you shoot me, and tell everyone I was trying to escape?” His accent was thick, but his English was excellent, and he was smiling wolfishly.
“If I shoot you, friend, I won’t have to tell anyone anything.” I reached inside my coat for the specially tailored pocket that held my second set of handcuffs. The Bulgarian raised his hands until they almost touched behind his head. “I told you to hold still,” I said. “Turn around, and kneel down.”
Averbukh shrugged. “I wan
t no trouble,” he said, almost affably.
“I know what you want,” I said, pacing slowly towards him. “And if you try it, I’ll shoot. Turn around.”
He grinned again, with a look of injured innocence, and neither turned nor knelt, but brought his hands together behind his neck. I saw the muscles of his shoulders tense, and I pulled the trigger—once, twice, in quick succession. By now it was less than fifteen feet from the muzzle of my gun to Averbukh’s chest, and the impact of my shots hurled him flying back onto the cobblestones. I watched him fall, keeping my finger on the trigger, ready to fire a third time, but there was no need. The anarchist’s arms were flung wide again, and his left leg was kinking slowly, in a death reflex.
I went down on one knee beside him, grasped his right arm and lifted his body up a little. There it was—the throwing knife with its long gleaming blade, half-drawn from the scabbard he had been wearing between his shoulder blades. A party trick of his, one that had taken the life of a French policeman. That too I had read about in the Sûreté files.
From the entrance to the alley I heard more racing footsteps and stood, my gun at the ready—but it was Steinhauer, panting, with a sheen of sweat on his cheeks.
“William! I heard the shots—are you all right?”
“I am. What about Akushku?”
“It was a ruse, a decoy. I am so sorry—”
“What do you mean?”
“We stopped the other cab, but it was empty. He must have jumped before we caught up with it—”
“Sweet Saviour,” I said, taking to my heels, back the way we had come, yelling over my shoulder, “he’ll have doubled back! For Bozidar, and the girl!”
7
By the time we returned to Minetti’s house a crowd had gathered on her doorstep, jostling and gossiping, exchanging exaggerated versions of events they had not seen. Pushing through them, I climbed the stairs again to the apartment. Other tenants had gathered on the landings above, and questions and appalled whispers in half a dozen languages were drifting down the stairwell—but nobody, it seemed, had approached the shattered door, which still hung open. Entering I found my handcuffs lying discarded on the bed, not broken, but picked; apart from bloodstains on the floor there was no sign of the wounded Bozidar, nor of Angela Minetti.
“Can I ask what you two gentlemen are doing?”
The police sergeant nearly filled the doorway behind us, slapping his palm with his truncheon, red-faced, beefy and spoiling for a fight. He was late to the ball, I thought, but that was hardly his fault. I showed him my warrant card—it was all the explanation I felt inclined to offer—and his attitude immediately changed to one of servile deference and eagerness to impress. At that moment I found it immensely irritating.
“Sorry, sir—Sergeant Launceston, at your disposal.”
“Go out and blow your whistle—we need more men here. And talk to the crowd, ask if any of them saw three people fleeing the scene, two male, one female.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, I already have. I’m told two men flagged down a cab not five minutes ago. One of them was bleeding. Said they’d been robbed and were off to find a doctor.”
“There was no woman with them?”
“No, sir.”
“Did anyone hear them give instructions to the driver?” said Steinhauer. Launceston grimaced—it hadn’t occurred to him to ask.
“Find out, please,” I said. “Oh, and by the way”—the burly sergeant paused on the threshold—“there’s a dead man in Penny Street, east of here, near the docks. Pass the word when you get the chance.”
“Dead, sir?”
“Shot while resisting arrest. Quick as you like, Officer.”
Launceston nodded and headed downstairs, his boots thundering on the wooden treads. What a God-damned disaster, I thought. Why hadn’t I gone after Akushku and sent Steinhauer after Averbukh? Because I’d have lost both of them, I told myself. Steinhauer would have fallen to the Bulgarian’s knife, and at this moment would be lying dead in Penny Street with his blood soaking the cobblestones. I turned back to survey the room.
It was chilly and damp and cheaply furnished, with a chaise-longue against one wall draped in a patchwork quilt that touched the floor, and a double bed, neatly made up, against the far wall. The fire had gone out, but a few embers still glowed, and some singed fragments of pastel-coloured paper—tickets for the music-hall, by the look of them—lay on the hearth as if they had fallen from the grate. A few decorative touches, like the artificial flowers in a tin jug on the dresser, showed where Angela Minetti had tried to brighten the place. Pasted onto the wall above the bed were slightly less respectable decorations: a collection of photographs, some of famously beautiful actresses, others of less distinguished performers, the latter wearing very little—a display presumably intended to stimulate the appetites of Miss Minetti’s callers. Above the head of the bed hung a fan, spread out in a semicircle, that caught my eye. I had not noticed it on my first visit.
Its large panels of lace in delicate shades of blue matched nothing else in the room, and although I was no expert in fashionable accessories, it looked to me worth more than all the furniture in the place put together. Hadn’t the girl mentioned receiving a fan from Akushku as a gift? Reaching up I eased it from its nail for closer inspection.
Then I heard something—a mewl or a whimper, as if from a wounded animal.
“What was that?”
“What?” said Steinhauer, looking about. I heard it again; a faint, muffled groan, from somewhere close to hand—in the very room.
“My God,” said Gustav. “The girl, she’s still here—”
He rushed to the chaise-longue behind us, knelt down and flipped up the worn patchwork quilt to reveal the hem of a familiar green dress and Angela’s pale, perspiring face peeping out. She’d squeezed underneath like a little girl playing at hide-and-go-seek and had almost passed out from pain. I hurried over to help.
“Don’t move her,” I urged him. “Help me lift up the chaise—”
* * *
—
A few minutes later Minetti was in Forte’s cab—he was earning his fee tonight—with a constable to look after her. “I knew he would come back,” was all she’d managed to say.
“The nearest infirmary, Jack, and be quick about it,” I said. Steinhauer and I watched the cab set off at a brisk rattle and turned back to the scene of our failure. Now it was under control, at least: Launceston had rustled up half a dozen constables who had helped to seal off Minetti’s apartment and were taking witness statements from those onlookers who hadn’t already gone back to bed.
Gustav sighed. “I am sorry, William. I should not have been so easily duped.”
“You were only following my orders.” I stared up at the building. “It was I who misjudged this Akushku character. I should have come here with twenty men, and to hell with His Majesty’s orders. But thank you for your help tonight, Gustav. You acquitted yourself admirably.”
That was no idle flattery; it’d been years since I’d worked with a partner, but in the heat of that battle it had been almost as if he had read my mind.
“I am glad the girl is safe, at least.”
“She is. No thanks to me.”
“We should take that room of hers to pieces,” said Steinhauer. “Lift the floorboards.”
“My men will. But I doubt they’ll find anything. This Akushku character is scrupulous about burning evidence. And if he’s building a bomb, it won’t be here, where the girl would have seen him. They’ll have a lockup or a shed somewhere…”
I noticed Steinhauer was smiling wryly and looking at a spot above my head.
“You need a new hat,” he said.
I slipped off my bowler and inspected it; a neat hole had been punched in the crown. The bullet must have parted my hair. I remembered it now—that shot that had kno
cked my hat back, in the dark hallway, a lifetime ago.
“I have another at home,” I said, putting it back on my head. “What about you? Can I lend you a coat?” I nodded at his right sleeve, and looking down Steinhauer saw a ragged hole, just above the elbow.
“Hm,” he said. He dug in the hole with a finger, and after a moment dug out a spent, crumpled bullet.
“A ricochet,” I said.
“A souvenir.” He offered it to me. I took it and threw it away.
“I won’t want to remember this night, Gustav,” I said. “You should head back to Osborne House.” I would have instructed him to keep our misadventures to himself, but I was in no position to give him orders, and I was not going to beg—tonight had been embarrassing enough. But Steinhauer would have none of it.
“I can’t leave now, William, with the job only one-third done. I can still be of use to you. I have friends, here in London, who may be of assistance.”
“Do you, now?”
“Besides, if I return to the Isle of Wight, His Imperial Majesty is bound to ask where I have been and what I got up to.” Steinhauer grinned. “And if I do not return, I won’t have to tell him.” Reaching into his pocket he drew out the Colt and offered it to me, grip first.
“Keep it,” I said. “If you’re going to help out, you might well have need of it.”
8
On those rare occasions when I’ve had to reprimand a member of my team, I find a certain coolness and an air of deep disappointment are all that’s needed to make my point. I’ve heard of bosses who hurl inkpots and rant and rave to the verge of apoplexy, but in my opinion that merely demonstrates impotence and lack of self-control.
M, King's Bodyguard Page 7
