I waited, listening.
“If this Akushku really wanted to kill the Kaiser or King Leopold or your King or any of that gang of fat, lazy parasites, I would gladly help him, in any way I could. You say you want to stop a war, but we are already at war. The ruling classes have declared war on the workers, and very soon the workers will start fighting back. You are a general for the ruling class. I fight for the workers. I am not on your side.”
He fell silent, watching me, his body tensed, waiting for the explosion, for the punch that would knock him out of his chair. He had called me a dog to my face, after all, and this time we were not sitting in a tea-shop hemmed in by genteel bourgeoisie.
“What do you mean, if he ‘really wanted to’?” I said.
Jakob blinked. He had expected a thump, not a question. “If?” he echoed. “What?”
“You said, ‘If this Akushku really wanted to kill the Kaiser or King Leopold…’ ”
“I am sure he does. I would, given the chance.”
“Yes,” I insisted, “but you said, if he ‘really wanted to.’ Why did you put it like that?”
“My English is not so good.”
“Your English is not so bad, Jakob. Your English is excellent. You’re telling me that Akushku isn’t planning to attack the funeral?” I wasn’t entirely sure where I was headed with this. But Jakob’s turn of phrase had puzzled me, and the more I focused on it the more agitated he became, so I kept going. “Then why is he here? Taking pot-shots at me and my officers?”
“Why are you asking me?” Jakob tried to wave his hands in exasperation, forgetting his handcuffed wrists. “I have never met this man, I have no idea where he is, I don’t know what he intends—”
“You see, Jakob, this is what I meant by ‘protesting too much.’ I don’t believe you. Oh, I know you want a revolution, and that’s no skin off my nose, as long as it’s back in Latvia and not here. And I don’t believe you’re helping this man Akushku. In fact it looks very much like you’re afraid of him. But that’s what bothers me. Why would you be afraid of him, when you’re on the same side? Are you worried he’ll find out that you and I have been talking? That he’ll think you’re working for me as an agent provocateur?”
Jakob snorted with laughter. “Me? I am not the agent provocateur!”
I had to fight to hide my astonishment. “You’re saying that he is? That Akushku is working for the Russians?” The young Latvian laughed and shrugged and shook his head, but this time it was fake—hopeless playacting. He could not take it back now. My own mind was whirling at the implications. “Mother of God, if you think Akushku’s an Okhrana agent why the hell didn’t you say so, instead of giving me this blasted runaround?”
“I am not here to help you!” snapped Jakob. “I don’t work for you. I told you, I am not on your side! You, the Okhrana, you are all the same—if you want to waste your time chasing each other’s shadows, why would I stop you?”
“How do you know this?” I blustered, before I could stop myself. It made me sound like an idiot, but I already felt like one and had little to lose. “That he’s a Russian police agent—do you have any evidence?”
Jakob practically giggled at my discomfiture. “An anarchist who emerges from nowhere, a Latvian with no family back home, no record? Who has plenty of money, who manages to outwit the great policeman Melville? And you want me to show you proof!” He was laughing in my face now, as if my predicament made his black eye worthwhile.
“God damn it—” I kicked back my chair and stood, so furious at the lad I briefly envied the Okhrana their firing squad. I strode to the door and thumped it with my fist.
“Don’t forget your steak, Mr. Melville,” sniggered Jakob.
I had a good mind to betray him to his comrades, the brat, but I knew I might yet have need of him. “Away and shite, Jakob,” I snarled. The key rattled in the lock and I was out of that damned place, striding down the corridor. Jakob’s mocking laughter rang in my ears until the metal door slammed shut.
* * *
—
Quinn was upstairs at the custody desk, flicking through the logs of that evening’s raid. “Do you want to question any of the others, sir?” he said.
“I do not. Send them home.”
“Including Piotr, sir?”
“Especially him, the little gobshite. And don’t give him his shoelaces back.”
* * *
—
The night-time rooftops of Whitehall loomed around me like hard-edged hills shrouded in smoke. I had climbed the maintenance staircase to our roof, where a small patch of gravelled felt, half-hidden among the chimney stacks of Scotland Yard, offered the only solitude I could ever find around this place. The gaslights in the street lit the smoky air from below, so the gaps between the buildings were like glowing canyons—or like a glimpse into the pits of hell, tonight. I took a deep breath to calm myself; the air was almost clear, the building’s boilers having been banked for the night. Beyond Whitehall the dark sprawling mass of London stretched out farther than the eye could see, or the mind conceive: the world’s greatest, wealthiest city, at the heart of history’s greatest empire. I liked it up here; the streets of Whitehall never slept, not entirely, but up here there were no distractions and nobody pestering me for orders or opinions. I hadn’t been up here for a year or two, but by God I needed to be here now.
I sighed. It wasn’t Jakob I was angry at, but myself, for missing what should have been obvious. Everything the boy had said about Akushku made sense. Most anarchists were incompetents, who shared their plans with a dozen informers, or whose shots went wild, or who blew themselves up with their own bombs. But the man I sought spoke multiple languages fluently, shifted between identities and had rescued his wounded colleague from under our noses, after picking my handcuffs. All of this was field-craft. Akushku had been trained, by professionals.
God knows, I’d used agents provocateurs myself in the past. A decade before, in the so-called Walsall affair, I’d locked up several Fenians who had planned to bomb the church where Queen Victoria worshipped. It was I who had planted the germ of the plot, and I’d even sketched out the device they could use. When the truth about my involvement came out—as I’d known it would—it sowed panic and mistrust among terrorists of every stripe, not just the Fenians. Any radical too fierce, too eager for action, was immediately suspected of being in the pay of the police, and the ones too timid to break the law were just as suspect. Anarchists ended up fighting among themselves like rats in a sack, denouncing and informing on one another; persecution mania did much of our work for us.
It had also become a favourite tactic, I knew, of Rachkovskii, head of the Okhrana. If Jakob was right, and Akushku was an agent of the Tsar’s secret police, then this anarchist conspiracy was a hoax—a trap for exiled Russian dissidents. In a few days Rachkovskii would bring me the whole story of Akushku’s plot, name the conspirators who had helped him and demand that they be arrested en masse and deported back to Russia to face the tender mercies of the Lubianka. While the supposed ringleader, the “terrorist” Akushku, would mysteriously vanish—only to pop up again elsewhere in Europe with plans for a fresh atrocity.
If Jakob was right.
10
It was way past midnight when I reached my front door and dug in my pocket for my latchkey. The house was dark and quiet; everyone was in bed, I didn’t doubt. Miss Minetti needed rest, but I hoped all the same she hadn’t sat all day in that poky little bedroom hiding from Amelia’s disapproval; I knew how the girl hated to be judged.
But when I stepped into the hall and slipped off my coat I heard voices from the kitchen, and saw the warm glow of a lamp beyond. Somebody was burning the midnight oil. I had shut the front door softly so as not to rouse anyone, and now I tiptoed down the hallway and paused at the top of the steps.
And there they were, Angela Minetti an
d my wife, sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of sherry between them, chatting away like a couple of conspirators. As if I didn’t get enough of those at work, I thought.
“Ladies,” I said, entering. Amelia nearly jumped out of her seat.
“William! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
Miss Minetti, I noted, had not even flinched. She was wearing a blue dress I’d seen before—one of Amelia’s—and her smile lit up the room.
“Have you eaten?” said Amelia.
“I have,” I said. “But I haven’t had a drink.”
“I’ll fetch you a glass.” She bustled off to the parlour while I pulled up a chair at the head of the kitchen table. With the heat from the stove the kitchen was cosier than the parlour, if not as comfortable. But kitchens have always been the place where women can exchange confidences. I worried briefly what confidences Amelia might have shared, then chided myself for fretting; my wife never asked about my work, and I never discussed it, and what little she deduced she was shrewd enough not to pass on.
“So how are you, Miss Minetti? How’s your day been?”
“I am well. Mrs. Melville has been very kind to me.”
“Am I Mrs. Melville again?” came Amelia’s voice from the hall. “I thought we’d dispensed with that, Angela.” She set a glass before me and poured me some sherry. The bottle had been full a few days ago, I remembered—now it was half-empty.
“What about the shoulder?” I asked.
“Is much better. I want to help in house, but Amelia—”
“You’re here to rest, and there’s an end to it,” insisted Amelia. “And you have helped, with James’s German homework.”
“Your son is a very clever young man.”
“News to me,” I said, sipping my sherry. James was my younger boy, and though I loved him dearly, or tried to, he was an awkward adolescent—truculent, contrary and opinionated. “Hold on—” I said. “German?”
“Angela speaks fluent German, didn’t you know?” Amelia beamed. Miss Minetti went pink, like a little girl. It had been a long time, I could see, since she had simply sat at someone’s hearth and felt welcome and had had to fend off compliments.
“Not fluently,” she said. “But is easier than English.”
I grunted. “Well, I hope the boy minded his manners.”
“He was good as gold,” said Amelia. “Quite tongue-tied, for a change.”
You mean smitten, I thought. And who could blame him, with such a girl leaning over his shoulder? Even in that old blue dress I’d often thought so dowdy, Minetti would turn any young man’s head.
And an old one’s too, I realised. Had I been staring? I busied myself with my sherry glass.
“And how was your day, Mr. Melville?”
“You’re in my kitchen—I think you may call me William,” I said.
“And you must call me Angela.” She smiled.
“Well, Angela, there’s not much to report.”
“You have not caught Iosif?”
“It’s only a matter of time. His friend will need medical help.” Amelia said nothing and asked no questions, but clearly she had already heard the whole sorry story from Angela herself. “The local hospitals know to look out for them,” I said. “And the doctors too.”
“Anyway, it’s late,” said Amelia. She knew how much I hated discussing my work, and perhaps she sensed that the day I’d just been through had been worse than most.
“Iosif will not go to a doctor,” said Angela.
“Then his friend will lose his arm,” I said. “Or likely die of infection.”
“I mean—” She looked down. Again that tic of shame; Amelia saw it too.
“I’ll just go and turn your bed down, Angela,” she said, and slipped out of the room. Angela waited to hear her footsteps ascend the stairs.
“I mean,” said Angela, “Iosif will go to a doctor the police do not know. One who does not advertise.”
I confess I stared at her, only slowly realising what she was referring to, and when I saw it I nearly kicked myself for not thinking of it first. Rising from her chair, Angela gathered up the sherry glasses and turned to rinse them at the sink, so she would not have to face me. “The other girls in Whitechapel told me of a man they would go to when they were…in difficulty. He is American, I think.” Her back was still turned to me, and her voice was barely audible. “His name is Remington. If I was Iosif, I would seek this man.”
* * *
—
Church bells were chiming all across the West End and the City as I rode a hansom up to Bloomsbury, moving at a brisk pace through the near-deserted streets. After my conversation with Angela I had caught a cab straight back to Scotland Yard—to Amelia’s dismay—and set the night relief to the task of tracking down this dubious Dr. Remington. No easy task in the early hours of Sunday morning, but with six days to the funeral we had to seize every lead. I had snatched a few hours’ sleep on the couch in my office, and now I was off to chase up a contact of my own, splashing early churchgoers with gutter-water in my haste.
My thoughts drifted briefly back to Angela, wondering how long this cosy domestic arrangement could last. Amelia seemed to be enjoying her company, but eventually our maid Brigid would return, and what then? I could hardly turn the girl out on the streets to resume her former trade. The obvious solution was to provide her with a reference, find her decent employment and lodgings, and with luck all else would follow—a husband and a home, either here or back in Italy. I had done a lot more for informants who deserved a lot less. The hansom clattered to a halt.
Antoinette de Bosanquet’s Bloomsbury domain was in a quiet, tree-lined backstreet; wide granite steps led up to a tall, handsome Georgian building, its elongated windows lined with green velvet curtains. In the summer flowers cascaded from troughs on every windowsill, and even today, in the depths of winter, clumps of jasmine and hellebore brightened the building’s sooty redbrick façade and scented the air. I hammered twice firmly on the front door with the great brass knocker and waited, listening to the echoes die away within. Every afternoon and evening a string quartet or a pianist entertained the clientele; at this early hour however there would be no clientele and no music, and the staff would be abed, recovering from their night’s exertions.
The door was opened by Susanne, a slight and modest serving-maid who rarely spoke, conscious of her harelip. She kept her eyes cast downwards as she took my hat and coat; no need to send her for the woman of the house, because Madame de Bosanquet herself, wreathed in smiles, was descending the grand marble staircase.
“Monsieur Melville! It has been so long since we had the pleasure!”
She glided down as gracefully as a ballerina, wearing a magnificent dress of claret silk, blond curls piled high upon her head. I made a deep bow; though she was nearly my own age, the lady never failed to impress. She had led a hard life, I knew, but she had the complexion of a thirty-year-old, and her brown eyes danced with mischievous promise.
“Can we offer you coffee, or something stronger?”
“Alas, Antoinette, it’s a little early for me. And I’m on duty.”
“William!” She pouted prettily. “You are always on duty. Someday you must allow us to show you some proper hospitality.”
“Someday, maybe. But today all I need is a few minutes of your time.”
She had opened her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by a scream from upstairs—not one of pleasure or excitement, but fear. Madame’s smile was instantly replaced by a snarl of indignation and anger.
“But who is still here?” she hissed at Susanne.
“The gentleman with Alice, mum,” the girl squeaked. “He paid for the night.” Now came a male voice raised in anger, and the sound of glass breaking.
“Where’s your man Harold?” I demanded.
“H
e hurt his knee, dealing with a difficult client—”
I did not wait for an invitation but pushed past her and took the stairs two at a time, heading for what was now a stream of female screams, mingled with drunken male roaring. The racket was coming from the room at the farthest end of the first-floor landing, and as I passed the padded bedroom doors several of them opened and anxious young women peeked out, a few in flimsy peignoirs, most in less.
I didn’t bother to knock, but flung the door open just in time to see a gilded chair go flying into the mirror of a gilded dressing table, smashing it into shards of glass and wood. In the corner by the window a girl of barely twenty with a bloody nose was trying to drag a curtain over her nakedness, cowering from the muscular young man who was standing over her clad only in a pair of linen drawers. His left hand had seized her hair, to drag her sobbing back into the centre of the room; around his right was wrapped a leather belt, the buckle on the outside.
He was too angry and too drunk even to notice I had entered, and as I strode over to him he raised his right fist to punch the girl in the face. It was the work of an instant to grab his wrist, wrench his arm back and force it up between his shoulder blades. His turn to yell; releasing the girl’s hair he writhed in my grip, trying to turn and clawing at my face with his left hand. I spun him round and slammed his comely face into the wall panelling so hard it bruised the wood. He roared in pain and indignation.
“Damn it! Take your hands off me, you ignorant oaf!”
“I will, just as soon as you’ve calmed yourself down.”
Madame de Bosanquet entered and was immediately so incensed at the sight she forgot her accent and blurted out in broadest Geordie, “Oh bloody hell, not again!” Plucking a handkerchief from her sleeve, she rushed to comfort the girl and wipe the blood and snot from her nose.
“I am calm, damn you!” the lout snarled at me. “Look, I paid for the little bitch, I can do what I like!”
“You’re in the wrong establishment for that,” I said. “That dish is not on the menu.”
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