We’d remained at the scene of the bombing long enough to rally my men and check for casualties: there were none, thank God, save a few scrapes and cuts from flying glass and metal. As Steinhauer had predicted, windows and doors had been blown in for half a mile in every direction; local people had dashed out into the street, shaken and fearful, but they were in more danger from their own panic than from the explosion or the fire. The supply to the ruptured gasometer had been quickly shut off and the secondary gasometer brought into service, and apart from a brief drop in pressure, the gas supply to West London had been unaffected. Thank God for German engineering, Steinhauer had remarked with a smirk; Chelsea Gasworks had been built by his compatriots—there was even a square named after them nearby.
Uniformed officers had quickly arrived on the scene, and I had told them what they needed to know, which naturally included nothing about bombs or terrorists. An accidental fire in the coking plant had led to an explosion, I said—and despite the evidence of their own eyes, Special Branch was not there, had never been there, and was in no way involved. As I’d said to Steinhauer, what the public did not know would not hurt them, or hurt the reputation of Special Branch.
Akushku had planned his trap days before—weeks, possibly. Once again he had been three steps ahead of me and once again I’d nearly paid for it with my life. But then my men and I were at a disadvantage—death in service was not something we aspired to. For fanatics like Akushku it was the ultimate glory, especially if he could take twenty coppers with him.
Now we had one fewer of Akushku’s friends to worry about, but that was small consolation. For a conspirator as thorough as Akushku one assassin would be enough. Was the man really Russian? I wondered. Rachkovskii had denied it, and perhaps for once he had been telling the truth. What had Bozidar said, in those moments before the explosion? That I should ask Steinhauer.
Was Steinhauer still hiding something, after all we’d been through together?
I glanced across at the young German, who was half-asleep, his head lolling on his chest. At that moment he looked less like an elite policeman than a tramp who’d slept in a ditch. I must look much the same, I realised. I was not going to dance to Akushku’s tune, I decided. He had tried to kill us, and failed, and though we were both exhausted and at the end of our strength, we had to persevere—the man we sought was still on the loose, and now only Lady Diamond could lead us to him.
I felt a surge of anger when I thought of Lady Diamond, with her melodramatics and her fake tears of pity for her servants. She had been prepared all along to sacrifice them and herself for her lover, her hero—whatever Akushku was to her. She had led me and my men a merry dance, straight to the slaughterhouse. I made an effort to remain calm and dispassionate; she would not fool us again. In fact, I had to give her credit—she had proved herself a consummate actress. Yet another talent her social position forbade her to indulge. I smiled bitterly to myself, and felt my skin crack—my face was scorched, and stiff with dirt.
Our growler slowed and clattered to a halt; Steinhauer shook himself awake and climbed down after me, and we found ourselves in Berkeley Square, directly outside Lord Diamond’s residence. No need for discretion now. Steinhauer and I brushed ourselves down—a hopeless endeavour—and ascended the broad granite steps. But when I lifted the knocker, the door drifted open on its hinges.
For the briefest moment I was baffled, then I understood. Something was badly wrong.
Heaving the door back, I stepped into the hall, Steinhauer at my heels. There were voices coming from upstairs—hushed, urgent, confused and alarmed. The two of us headed up there two steps at a time and found the servants clustered on the landing like frightened geese, the old butler Musgrave hissing at them to return to their stations and Elsie the mousy maid weeping in the arms of a buxom older servant whom I took for the cook. Musgrave glared at us, but made no protest—this avalanche of events was far beyond his control. And now, farther down the landing, I could hear raised voices: the indignant, patrician tones of Lord Diamond, and what sounded like a working man reasoning with him, urging him to calm down, all coming from Lady Diamond’s bedroom.
Steinhauer and I entered to find Diamond, still in his waistcoat, but with his shirt-collar removed and cuffs flapping, standing swaying by a concealed door in the corner that gave into the dressing room. He was red in the face, still drugged, clearly furious and waving a pistol in his right hand, its muzzle pointing now here, now there. Calmly pleading with him to put it down was Sergeant Anderson, one of the uniformed officers I had stationed outside the room earlier to guard Diamond’s wife.
Lady Diamond herself lay sprawled across the four-poster bed, a crumpled form in a long black dress. Blood was staining scarlet the cream-coloured bedspread beneath her, while the other constable who had been on duty—PC Jacobs—was trying to staunch her wounds with a towel.
“I have exercised my rights as a husband!” Diamond was bawling to anyone who would listen. “I am not standing idly by while my good name is dragged through the mud by this, this Slavic whore—”
Ignoring his babbling I hurried to help, but it was too late; Lady Diamond’s eyes were staring upwards, glassy and lifeless. Her face wore an odd expression—a grimace of pain, or a smile of triumph? No way of telling now. At rest her face had a sharp angular beauty; I glimpsed in it the passion and spirit that had turned the King’s head. She was the only reason, I saw now, that Edward had tolerated that chinless popinjay Diamond.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jacobs. His hands were red with blood and he could not think where to wipe them, afraid of making the bloody mess worse. “He must have come in through her dressing room—we didn’t know there was a back door—”
“It’s all right,” I told him, though it wasn’t.
“She betrayed our country, and our King. And she disgraced my name,” cut in Lord Diamond. There was spittle on his chin.
“Leave,” I said to Anderson. “You too, Jacobs. Send the staff downstairs, and get yourselves cleaned up.”
“How dare you point a gun at me in my own house!” Diamond was looking at Steinhauer, who I saw had levelled his weapon at Lord Diamond’s head. The German did not waver.
“Put down the gun you are holding, my Lord, and I will lower mine,” said Steinhauer.
“Gustav,” I said, “holster your weapon.” Steinhauer instantly obeyed, keeping his eyes fixed on Diamond. “My Lord,” I said, “what happened here?”
“What happened?” Diamond snorted. “What does it look like? I confronted the bitch, and she confessed—she laughed about it, damn her.” He was flapping the pistol around as if it were a flannel. I stepped around the bed, closing on him; if his wife had said anything to him about Akushku, we had to know what it was.
“She confessed to a relationship with the King?” I asked.
“I knew about that, damn it. That, that, that—that was a mere dalliance—”
“The gun, please.” I held out my hand. Diamond frowned, as if he had forgotten he was holding a pistol, then passed it to me without protest. I checked the cylinder; three bullets remained.
“And the other man?” I said. “I presume she told you of the other man.”
“She practically threw it in my face. Some blackguard she called Aleksandr. Another damned foreigner like her, I shouldn’t wonder. Once a peasant, always a peasant. They prefer farmyard animals.”
“And what did she say about Aleksandr, exactly?”
“Some nonsense about trying to kill the King. Stuff.”
“What else?”
“Damn it, wasn’t that enough?”
“Did she mention Aleksandr’s surname? Where he is hiding? Anything about his plans?”
“Who gives a damn about her nonsense? Hang it all, I’ve had enough of this—”
He skirted round me and headed for the bedroom door.
“O
ne moment, please, my Lord.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to a blasted Paddy peasant—”
But Steinhauer had shifted to block his path, and now looked him coldly in the eye. Diamond had several inches on the German, and a stone in weight; but I knew it would be no contest if the drunkard was stupid enough to try fisticuffs. Diamond must have thought the same, for he turned back to me.
“What do you intend to do, arrest me?”
“I could. This was murder, plain and simple.”
“Don’t be such a cretin!” Diamond yelled, and he was perfectly serious. “She was an adulteress! No jury in the land would convict a man for defending his reputation—his family’s ancient name—”
“Adultery is not a capital offence, my Lord,” I said, “and a title is no warrant.”
Diamond rolled his eyes, clearly running out of patience.
“You bloody fool,” he sneered. “It’s not just about me. Do you really think that slut was the only entertainment I arranged for Bertie?” Lowering his voice, he leered at me. “Your job, Melville, is to protect the good name of the Crown. To draw a veil over His Majesty’s…indiscretions. So do your damned job.”
He was right, of course. It was my sworn duty to protect the royal family, even from its own mistakes. Especially from those. I sighed, and surveyed the broken body. “Yes…, we could record it as a suicide,” I conceded. I examined Lady Diamond’s corpse more closely. “But three bullets in the stomach might stretch the credulity of the coroner. And there are none of the powder burns on her clothing you would expect if she had held the gun in her own hand. See for yourself, my Lord.”
There was nothing to see, of course, but Diamond did as I asked without thinking about it, and paused to look down at his wife’s corpse. In that moment, in one swift movement, I raised the revolver’s muzzle to his right temple and pulled the trigger.
The shot was deafening in the confined space. Diamond’s brains and blood blew over the rear wall, and a deal of it back over me, but then I was filthy already. Diamond’s legs folded awkwardly under him and he was dead before his body hit the floor. There was a short scream from downstairs—another housemaid, I guessed, already hysterical at the carnage—and a thunder of constables’ boots approaching, but I ignored all that. Stooping down I placed the gun in Diamond’s lifeless hand and wrapped his still-warm fingers around the handle and trigger.
“Dear God in Heaven,” said Steinhauer faintly.
“Ruthless enough for you, Gustav?” I said.
The door burst open and the constables reappeared. I rose to my feet, wincing as my knee joints protested.
“Sir?” said Anderson, his eyes wide with horror. I looked to Steinhauer.
“Lord Diamond has shot himself,” said Steinhauer. “Confronted with his wife’s infidelities, he murdered her, then took his own life.”
“Before either of us could stop him,” I agreed.
“Sir,” grunted Anderson, and I saw him catch Jacobs’s eye. But I did not care what they believed.
“Take charge, Sergeant. I’ll send officers from Special Branch to clear this up. Gustav?”
Without a backwards glance either at Steinhauer or at Diamond’s twitching corpse still bleeding into the rich wool rug, I headed for the door. We had some answers, but nothing like enough; our mission had failed. Akushku was still out there, closing in for the attack, and every lead to him was gone. There was naught to be done but pray, and hope, and brace ourselves for whatever would befall us tomorrow.
Steinhauer and I parted at midnight with barely a nod. He headed to his hotel, but it was pointless for me to go home—in five hours I was to brief the officials in charge of the funeral about security arrangements. I returned to Scotland Yard, sent men to clear up the mess at Lord Diamond’s home, cast aside my ruined suit and shirt and hat—there was a change of clothing in my locker—took a hot bath and collapsed onto the couch in my office.
And for a few precious hours I slept like a corpse.
23
“About thirty years of age, of muscular build, about six feet tall, missing the ring finger of his left hand. Do not concern yourself with his superficial appearance—he is adept at disguise and at blending into his surroundings. Rather, your men should look for behaviour that provokes suspicion.”
The audience in that room, made pale already by the harsh yellow gaslight, watched me in solemn silence and barely disguised dismay. These were the foremost dignitaries of the Government and the City and the Court—including the Earl Marshal the Duke of Norfolk, the Lord Chamberlain the Earl of Clarendon and Sir Frederick Ponsonby, Victoria’s erstwhile private secretary. The Earl Marshal and the Lord Chamberlain had nearly come to blows a week earlier over which of them was in overall charge of the funeral; Ponsonby had been forced to take charge, and he’d done an admirable job. Everyone present knew their roles and responsibilities, and this meeting had been planned as a mere formality, to iron out last-minute details of logistics and protocol.
Instead these appalled dignitaries were learning for the first time that their precious ceremonies might quite possibly end in bloody catastrophe.
My public reputation, I knew, had always been one of competence and unflappable calm. The calm I could still manage, but my reputation for competence was disintegrating with every word I spoke. Anderson, my boss, was conspicuous by his absence; insisting that his presence was needed “on the ground” to supervise arrangements, he’d secured for himself a place in the procession among the mourners walking behind the catafalque, some distance behind the kings and emperors. No doubt he felt less exposed there than standing in this briefing room with me.
I made no mention of the explosion at Chelsea Gasworks; why would I? It had no bearing on the matter in hand. And despite Gustav’s crack, there had been next to no coverage about it in the morning papers—the royal funeral dominated, to the exclusion of all else. I had expected as much: the papers’ editors would have already composed their memorial editions and would never scrap those layouts and start again just because of what appeared to be an industrial accident. And there had been zero casualties, officially at least, which made it less newsworthy still.
“The mourners today,” I went on, “will be interested in the royal catafalque; that is what they have come to see. The man we are after will be far more interested in the dignitaries that follow it—His Majesty King Edward, His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser and His Majesty King Leopold of Belgium. All police officers and personnel helping with security are to face the crowd. Any man carrying a parcel or bag who looks tense or apprehensive, they must take aside and question immediately.”
“Face the crowd?” The speaker was an old acquaintance, the Chief Constable of the Metropolitan Police. I had long considered him an idiot, and his next question confirmed it. “Are you suggesting my officers turn their backs on Her Late Majesty?”
“It is not a suggestion,” I said. “Your officers are not on parade. They are there to guard the late Queen’s dignity and the safety of her subjects. They can best honour Her Majesty by performing their duty.” I nodded towards Steinhauer, seated on my left. “With the help of Herr Steinhauer here, of His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser’s household, we have eliminated this man’s two accomplices. He is now working alone. A single gunman, even at the front of the crowd, has little chance of success. If our man dares to make an attempt, he will almost certainly use a dynamite bomb. Your officers must be ready to challenge anyone, male or female, with any sort of package. With all shops and businesses closed along the funeral route, no one will have any good reason to carry a parcel.”
“Might I ask,” Steinhauer interjected, “if the sewers and drains have been secured?”
“All of them. Checked and checked again.” The speaker was Bastion, a burly, red-faced engineer from the Office of Works, and he looked almost offended that his beloved underground
labyrinth was being impugned. “I’ve had men down there two days now, sweeping the lines twice a day.”
Steinhauer nodded, satisfied.
No one thought his concern far-fetched. Twenty years ago the Kaiser, Chancellor Bismarck and the entire German Imperial Court had very nearly been blown to shreds by a massive bomb planted in a drain under their feet. The device failed only because rain had washed out the fuse; it was not even discovered until weeks later, after an anarchist arrested for an unrelated offence had confessed to planting it.
“I take it, Chief Superintendent, you will be at the operations centre in Marble Arch?” This time the speaker was the Deputy Mayor of London, a slight, prematurely balding man whose name I could never remember. I had the impression that he was less interested in my answer than making himself look important.
“Inspector Patrick Quinn will be there,” I said, “co-ordinating our forces. I will be out and about with Herr Steinhauer, on foot among the crowd.”
How casual that sounded, how assured, as if I had planned it all along, when in truth it was one last desperate throw of the dice. I had to be doing something, anything, not just sitting on my arse in an office waiting for the worst to happen. At one point I had even considered riding in the cortege, so that if it came to it, I might be able to place myself between the King’s party and the assassin. But the order of procession—who would lead, who would follow, who would ride and who would walk—had only been agreed, I’d been told, after torturous negotiations over precedence and protocol. And anyway I was no horseman, especially compared with aristocrats who had spent half their lives in the saddle. I’d learned to ride on Sean Casey’s carthorse, a vicious beast better at biting and kicking than dressage, forty years ago in Kerry, and I’d got no better since.
Steinhauer was probably a better horseman than me—anyone was—but he had declared earlier that he too would rather be on foot. “For most of the route His Imperial Majesty will be surrounded by an escort hand-picked from Queen Victoria’s German regiment. Half a dozen officers.”
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