‘What? Like a spy, you mean? Like Mata Hari?’
Joe managed not to smile at her innocent remark but his reply was light and teasing: ‘Something like that, perhaps. But I don’t envisage you making an appearance, like that unfortunate lady, before a firing squad. And seducing generals would be an entirely optional activity. No – I simply want you to blend in with the surroundings I’m going to pop you into. I want you to help me sort out a little problem I find I have.’
‘Why me, sir?’
‘Because I’ve seen for myself that you have pluck and initiative. From your file – and from the admiring Stan – I gather that you are utterly reliable. And – a rather essential element in my schemes – you’re a girl who doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. The task I have in mind is hardly one for a lady …’
Her glare told him he’d made a faux pas. Unaccustomed to making social gaffes, Joe was flustered. ‘Er … don’t misunderstand me. I intended no insult, Wentworth. And you will understand that when you embark on the very particular task I’m about to set you. I was merely trying to convey that I have no use for idle flibbertigibbets who spend their mornings in Asprey and their evenings in Ciro’s.’
‘Horses for courses?’ she suggested.
‘Exactly! You know where you are with horses,’ he said, grinning. ‘You read me right – I’m not looking for a thoroughbred so nervy you have to clap blinkers over its swivelling eyes to stop it dancing sideways.’
‘If you’re seeking a plodding percheron, I can’t help you, sir.’
‘Quite! I’d be looking at you a long time before a cart horse came to mind, miss! No – what I’ve got my sights on is a hunter. Light bay with an intelligent eye. Shows courage over fences. Ideally one that doesn’t bite your hand off down to the arm-pit when you offer it a sugar lump.’
At last she’d smiled at him. He returned her smile and forged on. ‘Now – a further test. The lout you sat upon at Paddington … the Sparrowhawk. Had you been in charge of the case instead of Inspector Proudfoot, how would you have proceeded with him?’
She nodded and sat forward in her chair, understanding that her interview had, at last, got under way. She spoke up with confidence. ‘I’d have located his headquarters and raided it.’
‘Easily said – but if he refused to reveal its whereabouts? And I have to tell you – he did refuse. Rather forcefully. Hard man under that foppish exterior.’
‘I would have assumed so. But there were other indications. The flowers were freshly bought and the florist whose wrapper was still around them might have something to tell. But, for speed, I’d have consulted the one reliable witness we already had at the scene. The witness who would have led us straight to his base of operations. I’d have just followed the dog, sir. Let it lead me to its home, which would most probably have been a shortish distance away – I’m guessing somewhere north of the park, along the Bayswater Road. Then I’d have mounted a raid.’
‘Good. Good.’ He nodded. ‘Proudfoot – and the dog – got there in the end.’
‘And the little girl and her brother?’
‘Are safely lodged with the aunt they’d set out to find in London. She lives out east in one of those streets between Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields … they’d never have found her under their own steam. The poor woman! She’d no idea they even existed, so it must have been quite a shock when the NSPCC knocked on her door. But she rallied round quite admirably, they report, and took them in. And what a Dickensian scene I imagine that to have been! They were runaways from a particularly distressing situation in their home village. Brave little pair. They’ll come through.’ Something in her expression made him add: ‘And yes, I shall be checking on their well-being.’
He slid a file across his desk at her. She’d passed the first two of his four tests. Physically: perfect. Under nine stone, less than five foot seven and attractive. Intellectually: astute. But what sort of a strategist was she? He needed a girl who could think for herself, and fast. He’d decided which fence to put her at.
‘And now we come to it … the reason I summoned you here. Your first case, Wentworth. Disturbing, urgent and of national importance. I want you to acquaint yourself with the contents of this file, which must not leave my office. When you’ve read it—’
She interrupted him. ‘Sir, excuse me but I’m meant to go on Park patrol in half an hour.’
Joe wasn’t pleased to be distracted by routine. ‘Park patrol? Forget it. Don’t concern yourself with regulations. Consider yourself removed from whatever were your daily duties. I’ll have a word with your commanding officer. Tell me – to whom do you report?’
‘To Inspector Margery Stewart, sir.’
‘Ah! There’s a piece of luck. The Honourable Margery, eh? A distant cousin of mine. I’ll square it with her. Leave all the boring operational stuff to me. Now – this file …’
The telephone rang and he snatched up the earpiece at once.
‘Speaking. Ah, yes. The matter is in hand. In fact I have her here in the room with me right now.’ Sandilands glanced across the desk at Lily, who was politely scrambling to her feet to leave the room. He flapped a hand to indicate that she should remain seated. ‘No. I won’t be pushed on this. You interrupt my interview. Yes, yes … entirely suitable. And I’m sure I can say ready and able … Not fully briefed yet, of course.’ He paused to flash a placatory smile at Lily. ‘Understood … I’ll work to that.’
He replaced the earpiece, deep in thought, then exclaimed, made a pantomime of shaking the fatigue from his head, and picked up the phone again. When the switchboard answered, he asked, ‘Can you reconnect me please with that last number? It was extension 371.’
‘You’ve got Sandilands back. I forgot to say – don’t try to get me here at my desk until at least tea time. I shall be out at the scene.’ A burble of protest at the other end was audible even to Lily and set Joe frowning. ‘It’s my back yard. My concern. My responsibility. You’ll just have to await further instructions.’
His broadside delivered, he hung up, grinned at Lily and picked up his conversation where he’d left off. ‘When you’ve read it – and assuming the telephone doesn’t ring in the meantime to announce that the Home Secretary has decided to accept the resignation I put on his desk first thing this morning – we’ll proceed to St George’s hospital with a notebook and a bunch or two of flowers. Now—’
‘Hang on a minute! You’ve turned over two pages at once there. Your resignation? Blimey! Sir!’ Astonishment stripped away the veneer of cool accent, revealing something more earthy and emotional below. ‘You’re never giving up. Over this business of the admiral? Go on with you. You shouldn’t do that, sir.’
He bit his lip. Fatigue. He’d said too much. But what the hell! It had provoked a spontaneous but sympathetic reaction. Joe decided to follow up his unexpected advantage. ‘Least I could do in the circumstances. You and me both – in the same boat. And if I’m scuppered, so are you. Your career and mine are hanging by a thread this morning. And, I’ll tell you, it’s the same thread. With gross unfairness I carry on as though nothing has happened … I offer you a new partner one moment only to have you discover the next that he is compromised. Professionally speaking, of course.’ He peered at her suspiciously, realizing that her composure was unusual. ‘Some girls would have been wailing at me by now … or weeping … Don’t you care?’
‘I’m still trying to absorb your news, sir. And its implications.’ She leaned towards him, fixing him with eyes which he could have sworn held a certain understanding and – at last – approval. ‘And of course I care. It would seem to me that a great injustice is about to be done. It’s not my place to say it, but – don’t go chucking in the towel. Surely there’s something you could do?’
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking away to glower moodily into the middle distance. And then, with the brittle firmness of a man who has just come uncertainly to a decision: ‘It seems to me we have three choices: we can co
mbine our strengths – such as they are – to plot a rearguard action and go down fighting; we can accept our fate and hear each other rehearsing our farewell speeches in the taxi; or we can simply jump ship. Leave this mess behind us. Climb aboard the next boat train and be in the casino in Monte Carlo by tomorrow evening, glass of champagne in hand.’ Joe fell silent, caught out by a sudden heady vision of eyes full of mischief holding his over the rim of something chilled and fragrant. The champagne bubbling between them was Pol Roger 1911. The eyes were dark and deceitful, and after all these months they still had the power to ambush his thoughts.
He saw Lily’s very different eyes flare in surprise and fix at once on the notes in front of her. All three of his suggestions were alarming and ought never to have been uttered, fuelled as they were by a cocktail of exhaustion, tension and guilt, and triggered by the lethal touch of female sympathy. Always his Achilles heel. Joe sensed, too late, that he was losing control, teetering on the crest of an emotional wave and threatening to drag this innocent down with him. What must she have thought?
She seemed aware of the danger and, when he might have expected a hissing intake of breath and an offended drawing away of skirts at his desperate third suggestion, she replied calmly, ‘I don’t agree. There is a fourth. And I suspect it’s a course you’ve already decided on. We simply carry on doing our jobs for a bit longer. I’ve got a week to work out. That’s the routine. Not sure how long you have – it’s probably different for the upper ranks. I would suggest carrying on normally while awaiting further developments. See what the Home Secretary has to say and then think again.’
He nodded glumly, regretting his outburst and avoiding her eye.
‘And then, sir, when you know the worst, I’ll join you in whichever of the above schemes seems most attractive. With a preference for the last.’
He looked at her in sharp astonishment, scanning her face for signs of flirtation.
‘But may I substitute Nice as our destination? I hear it’s much more agreeable than Monte Carlo in high summer. And they have palm trees along the promenade. I’ve never seen a palm tree.’
Her manner, relaxed and completely un-coquettish, let him off the hook. There was no hint in her tone that she had interpreted his suggestions as in any way salacious. The potential dynamite of his careless third proposition had, in a cool way, been acknowledged and playfully rendered harmless. Joe responded with a surprised stare and a cough, and was back in control again. ‘Point taken, constable. Nice it is, then. We’ll agree on that much. Though perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss Biarritz too readily … Now, finish up those biscuits. You won’t be getting any lunch today. I’m going to leave you here to absorb that lot while I dash to my rooms and change and then set out for Jermyn Street for a shave. There’s a man at Trumper’s who can make a down-and-out look like Douglas Fairbanks in ten minutes flat. He may well be able to work his magic for me. Can’t be seen going about London looking like a ruffian. To think that today of all days I chose to wear a slouch hat!’
He grabbed a black felt hat from the hat stand and put it on, pulling it down exaggeratedly low over his forehead and leering. ‘There! What do you think? Shall I be taken for a Bolshevist, do you suppose?’
Lily responded to his flash of good humour with a chuckle. ‘Well, it’s certainly a look, sir. It goes with the red eyes and the purple bags under them. Cosmopolitan roué – would that be what you’re aiming for? It may pass in Piccadilly but I wouldn’t try it out in Eaton Square. They’ll string you up from the nearest lamp post.’ She turned back to the notes he’d passed her, eager to make a start.
‘And don’t think of making a run for it,’ he said, before he left. ‘I shall alert my secretary on my way out and tell her she’s to have you detained if you so much as put your nose round the door. She’s just across the corridor and she has a button to the desk downstairs. Oh … er, should you need to … um … Miss Jameson will show you the way.’
Oh, Lord! That was another thing. Facilities: females for the use of … Could they provide? He assumed there were such things in the Yard as Miss Jameson would have complained otherwise. And it was likely to be the least of the problems this wretched scheme threatened to lumber him with. Joe glanced over his shoulder at the earnest young face already totally absorbed by the distracting bone he’d thrown her way.
Bloody orders! This was a good officer. She deserved better.
Chapter Six
Left alone, Lily sat for a few minutes trying to make sense of the hastily assembled file. This was decidedly ‘works in progress’. A pile of papers had been scraped together from various sources: scene of crime notes, press cuttings and even letters on headed writing paper. This bird’s nest was destined, she expected, after passing through Miss Jameson’s typing machine, to be the building blocks of the final case file. After reviewing all the material and admiring the quality of the scene of crime work carried out by torchlight through the night, Lily managed to put it all into chronological order.
A devastating tale was beginning to emerge. From the earliest documents, she understood that Sandilands had, last month, set up a protection force from the ranks of the Special Branch for Lord Dedham, along with one or two other prominent military gents. Evidence had led him to suppose that they were likely targets for the Irish gunmen of Sinn Fein. Three distinguished men, including General Lansing, had been attacked in varying and – Lily judged – amateurish fashion the month before on the streets of London. There had been an attempted cudgelling, a knifing and – most seriously – a shooting where the bullet, mis-aimed in the struggle, had passed harmlessly through the general’s upper arm. All the victims had defended themselves with spirit and none had been seriously hurt. None of the assailants had been apprehended.
‘Thuggery on the streets of the West End,’ had been the deduction of two of the victims. But the third, Lansing, had sought out the receptive ear of Sandilands to express a different, more thoughtful, view. He’d exchanged words as well as blows with his two assailants and had been intrigued to receive a torrent of abuse delivered with an Irish accent. A southern Irish accent, he’d said firmly. His family had property near Dublin and he knew what he was talking about. Apart from Lansing’s certitude, there didn’t appear to be an obvious Irish connection and no one had claimed responsibility for the outrages, but someone – Sandilands? – had taken the pattern as a warning of worse to come as the situation in Ireland grew ever more inflamed.
Every day Irish desperadoes were setting their own cities ablaze, shooting and blowing up their countrymen, with no regard for age or sex, it seemed. Lily had cringed at the reports of families bombed to bits in the middle of the night, of men kidnapped, tortured and executed, of bodies left in the gutter. Only the day before, a little girl had answered a knock on the door and been shot in the stomach. With a shiver, Lily remembered reading the press speculation that the daily murders and explosions being suffered by that country could easily be exported to England.
Beaverbrook’s journals had thundered on for weeks about the dangers. It was just a matter of time and opportunity, they asserted. Significantly, the words ‘desperado’ and ‘hooligan’ had been replaced by the more alarming ‘terrorist’. There was a large population of Irish settlers in London, many with military training in the British army. They would have easy access to the arms and ammunition which lingered on in anonymous dumps in discreet places after the war and they would have the will and the skill to use them. In a city crowded with immigrants from many nations, the Irish blended in better than most, being indistinguishable in appearance from the native Englishmen. And unless they cared to engage you in conversation, revealing their accents, or announce to you at gunpoint that they were Irish, you would never know who was about to blow your brains out.
Sandilands seemed to have been handed a list of endangered politicians and public figures. Police squads had been allocated to these gentlemen. But before his plans could be put into action, the patrols had been stood dow
n at the request of the potential victims themselves. Copies of their letters to Sandilands had been kept. Dear Commander … frightfully grateful and all that … military man myself … not in my own capital … no necessity … must therefore decline …
With the protection withdrawn and the admiral shot dead, questions would be asked in the press and in Parliament – to say nothing of every public bar in the land. ‘And where were our policemen in this?’ was likely to be the most politely phrased enquiry. Resignations would be expected. Sandilands was quite right to have fallen on his sword – Lily feared that his position was, indeed, untenable. Until she turned up a note he had carefully kept. The note authorized – indeed, demanded – the instant suppression of the police guard on the gentlemen concerned, who had no wish for it to continue. It was judged an expensive manoeuvre and an unnecessary one. The note was signed by the Home Secretary himself.
Lily put it conspicuously at the front of the file.
The investigating CID officer at the scene of the assassination of Dedham, a Superintendent Hopkirk, had been there in minutes and seemed to have done a thorough job in the short time that had elapsed. She noted and admired the neat handwriting, the succinct phrasing. The officer must have been miffed to find a deeply involved, guilt-ridden and angry commander on site and breathing down his neck, she guessed. With the map of London she always carried with her and the pencilled sketch on squared paper provided by the inspector, she was able to pull together the outline of the atrocity. And Lily was left, after absorbing all the dimensions, bullet counts, and initial witness interviews, with a feeling of sorrow for the dead man. And for his wife, who had reacted to the outrage with incredible courage, throwing herself into a firefight with the retreating gunmen. A formidable pair, the Dedhams.
Everyone in the land knew of Lord Dedham. Naval man turned politician, speechmaker extraordinaire, rather in the simple style of Mr Churchill, he told the truth as he perceived it with a clarity that appealed to everyone.
The Blood Royal Page 7
