The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy
Page 29
‘Is that what the big boss said? Give that Wiggins a slap on the back.’
‘Well, obviously, we try not to reveal the name of our operatives. Your anonymity is to protect you.’
‘While the credit goes elsewhere?’
‘Let’s not argue now, Wiggins, this is a new beginning. There are great challenges ahead.’
‘How’s Mrs Kell?’
‘Wonderful,’ Kell said, then corrected himself. ‘Mrs Kell is very well, thank you. She’s happy our work together bore such bounteous fruit.’
‘Any leads on Van Bork?’
‘Strangely he’s not on the embassy lists. That’s priority number one.’
They turned down one side street and then the next. High red apartment buildings shaded them on either side. ‘How about the leak?’
‘Bad business.’ Kell cleared his throat. ‘My deputy, Lieutenant Russell. Gambling debts, I believe. Would never have credited it, to look at him. LeQuin had him in a vice, I think. Blackmail.’
‘How long did he get?’
‘Good God, he hasn’t gone to prison. He’s been posted to the Quartermaster General’s office.’
Wiggins exhaled in theatrical frustration. ‘Look,’ Kell went on. ‘Russell’s uncle is an earl …’
‘And?’
‘That’s the world, Wiggins. But don’t worry, he won’t be allowed anywhere near our work again.’
They walked on in silence. Kell thought of Milton, dead in the river for a crime hardly worse than Russell’s. A thought he knew must be in Wiggins’s mind too. The agent’s feet scuffed angrily on the newly cut pavement flags.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ Kell said, ‘the crypt you so spectacularly destroyed in Kensal Green belonged to the family of one of Russell’s relations.’
‘They’re all fucking related though, ain’t they?’ Wiggins said, though he did manage a small grin.
‘Nobody’s perfect. By the way, we never discussed LeQuin’s money. A hundred and fifty pounds was it?’
‘Expenses,’ Wiggins said.
They walked on for a moment until Wiggins filled the expectant silence. ‘Most of it went on stopping that bloody bomb. The rest went to the Miltons. He’d never have died if it weren’t for us.’
Kell looked at Wiggins. His hair had grown long again, like some jungle native. Stubble had reclaimed his chin, his collar flapped open. A man of the streets, tough, razor-eyed and battle-weary. But Kell would trust him with anything, except money and a woman. Too damned handsome to leave alone with the ladies. They continued around a corner back onto the main road.
‘I don’t suppose anyone will come forward to claim it,’ Kell said at last. ‘The office is here on Victoria Street, but it’s safer to take a circuitous route, don’t you think?’
‘What’s the story?’
‘Ah, yes. Mansfield Cumming. He won’t like you at all, at least not on first impressions. But be yourself, Wiggins.’
‘Why should I care?’
‘Double pay, of course, double the excitement. Cumming is to take on the foreign half of the Bureau. And the committee was so impressed with your work they want to use you as much as possible. Haldane was particularly interested in the terrorist connection, as it happens. So your – how should I say – freelance work has also been much valued. We’ve decided to call you Agent W, by the way. Ah ha, here we are.’
Kell tapped up the short steps to an imposing block of residential apartments and pushed open the door.
‘Coming?’
Wiggins hesitated. He looked up at Kell, the elegant, wealthy, well-dressed owl, waiting in the doorway – a representative of power and privilege but a source of money, too, and excitement. They’d wrapped up the Woolwich job nice enough between them, a good team – Constance, Kell and him. Wiggins had managed to keep Jax out of the tidying up, for Sal’s sake, though he had a feeling he’d see them both again. Something about Jax still tugged at his mind, an unscratchable itch.
And Peter was still out there, scheming, killing, creating havoc in the name of all sorts of bollocks – him and the evil bastard Yakov. And what of Van Bork, whoever he was? Directly or indirectly, Van Bork had Milton’s blood on his hands. Bill was dead, Emily was married and Bela was gone. What remained?
‘Who the devil’s this?’
Kell coughed. ‘The, er, gentleman I mentioned?’
‘Gentleman!’ Mansfield Cumming exploded. ‘I see no gentleman.’ The old man marched out from behind his desk, his right leg swinging in an exaggerated limp. ‘And how many times have I told you to use my code name?’
Wiggins stood in the doorway of the office. He watched as the sharp-chinned Cumming strutted back and forth, upbraiding Kell. ‘I’m looking for agents, men of steel, intelligence and class. Not this …’ Cumming waved a hand, searching for the words to describe Wiggins ‘… Whitechapel scruff! What can he possibly offer the Service?’
Cumming turned back to his desk, his square frame closing like a door. Wiggins stepped forward.
‘You’re right, guv’nor,’ he said, deliberately playing up his accent. ‘I’m gutter class. I don’t know what you gents are cooking up, but it’s beyond me.’
The old man looked at Kell – I told you so – and began writing at his desk but Wiggins continued, the twinkle in his eye evident only to Kell.
‘What I would tell you, if I was asked like, is that the crank shaft on the Rolls-Royce Phantom IV is a real pig, especially when you’re running a heavy oil like you do.’ Cumming stopped writing. ‘As to you, guv’nor, all I can tell you – only if you asked, of course – is that you sailed in Malaya and spent time in Singapore, though I reckon you was born in India? Either way, you’re short-sighted, twice married, you take snuff but your wife don’t approve and you’re partial to the odd biscuit. Oh, and you suffer from gout in your right toe that you try to pass off as a war wound. Other than that, I can’t tell you a thing.’
Cumming leapt to his feet, his face red. ‘What did you tell him, Kell?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then how …?’
Wiggins paused. ‘I was taught by the best.’
Kell forced him to explain. The oil stains on the inside of Cumming’s wrist, his snuff box (inexpertly hidden), the ship’s-biscuit crumbs on the ink blotter. The old man’s weathered skin and leathery tan spoke of much time in the East, and he wore his shirt cuffs in Malay fashion. The gout passed off as a war wound was something of a long shot in terms of a deduction, but Cumming looked like the kind of man who lived a life of gout but didn’t want to admit it.
Cumming sat back at his desk as Kell recounted once more their recent adventures: the unmasking of the leak at Woolwich, the discovery of LeQuin and the capture of his murderous henchman.
‘Well, well,’ Cumming said finally. ‘So this is Agent W, eh?’
‘It is. The Admiralty insist after W’s rather exceptional work – and his skills – that he be made available to both parts of the Bureau. On missions, of course, but he may also have a role in any future spy school. Training, recruitment, et cetera.’
‘That’s certainly a clever trick you’ve got there in judging people. But my leg, truly, was injured in Borneo. I certainly don’t have gout.’
‘Of course,’ Kell murmured. ‘The method is not infallible. Merely a guide.’
Wiggins cleared his throat. ‘So you want me to work for both of you?’
Kell sniffed and addressed Cumming. ‘Of course, as the senior, official Service, I shall have first call on Agent W – but there may be times when you might need his, er, skills.’
‘Yes, I can quite imagine we would. We can hardly call him Agent W as well, though, that would never do. Can’t be confusing the two divisions of the Bureau. Home and foreign, keep everything separate.’ Cumming looked over at his young clerk.
‘What do you say, Michaels, you’re a Cambridge man, a new code name, do you think?’
‘Rather. I say we could always call him Agent double O –
instead of the double U, if you see what I mean?’
‘Yes, I like that, very clever.’
‘And then if we have any more special agents, we can give them an extra number, like double O one, double O two, double—’
‘I can count, thank you, Michaels.’ Cumming turned to Kell. ‘Right. It’s settled. Your Agent W is my double O.’
Kell looked across at Wiggins.
‘You can call me what you like, as long as I get paid,’ Wiggins replied.
At that, Cumming rose again from his seat and thrust out his hand, the first real gesture of acknowledgement he’d managed since Wiggins entered the room.
‘Agent OO,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the foreign arm of the Secret Service Bureau. You can call me C.’
HISTORICAL NOTES
Some of the events and many of the characters depicted in the novel have a basis in historical fact. In particular, events at Tottenham, the establishment of the Secret Service and the lives of Peter the Painter and Yakov Peters.
The Tottenham Outrage
Constable William Tyler lost his life at the hands of Jacob Lepidus and Paul Hefeld after a payroll robbery in Tottenham on 23 January 1909. The crime and subsequent pursuit became known as the ‘Tottenham Outrage’, a cause célèbre of Edwardian London. The events surrounding this day are much as they are described in the novel.
The Secret Service Bureau
After a series of meetings of the Committee for Imperial Defence, a Secret Service Bureau was formally established in August 1909. It was subsequently split into a home service, headed by Captain Vernon Kell, and a foreign service under Sir Mansfield Cumming. These services later became known as MI5 and MI6.
Peter the Painter and Yakov Peters
Peter the Painter probably existed. Certainly, someone of that name was operating in London at the time. Yakov Peters definitely existed, and you’ll find out more about what happens to both of them in a subsequent novel.
The Baker Street Irregulars
In his own accounts of Sherlock Holmes’s work, Dr Watson briefly acknowledges the role of the Irregulars on three occasions. Young Wiggins is cited as the leader of the gang working on two cases – A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four – while in a third case, Wiggins is mistakenly identified as ‘Simpson’. Dr Watson’s accounts are notoriously hazy on dates and names, however, and most historical sources are convinced that the Irregulars, and Wiggins in particular, played a far more substantial role in Holmes’s work than Watson credits. This would be in keeping with the mores of the time, where it was rare for lower-class people – and street ‘Arabs’ or urchins in particular – to be given prominence. It may also be that after the cases referenced above, Holmes himself wanted Wiggins’s name taken out of any accounts so as to maintain the effectiveness of the child agents.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my agent, Jemima Hunt, and my editor, Nick Sayers for making the book better and for believing in it. I’d also like to thank Cicely Aspinall and everyone at Hodder, as well as Caroline Johnson for an exemplary copy-edit. Any faults or errors in the text are mine alone.
Thanks also to the staff of the British Library, where much of this book was researched. I drew on too many historical sources to name them all here, but I must mention the following: The Defence of the Realm by Christopher Andrews, The Security Service 1908-1945 by John Curry, Outrage! An Edwardian Tragedy by Janet Dorothy Harris, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 by Keith Jeffery, The Quest for C by Alan Judd, and Six: The Real James Bonds 1909-1939 by Michael Smith.
I would also like to thank my sister Buki Armstrong, Julia Caithness, Giles Foden, Stephen Guise, Adrienne Maguire, Dan Teper, the redneck DW Wilson and especially my brother Tom, for introducing me to Sherlock Holmes and for his continued vigilance over the text.
I must pay homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose skill and imagination sparked the whole enterprise in the first place.
Most importantly, I’d like to thank my family – R and E, who hopefully will enjoy the book one day, and especially my partner Annalise Davis, who is supportive, inspirational, insightful and always funny.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Historical Notes
Acknowledgements