Bacchus murmured something which might have been agreement.
‘What do you think of our chances?’
‘Not much. They’d have been better if we hadn’t been required to pussyfoot about. In fact, I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole thing … I just hope we can get through the preliminary pantomime without loss of life and reputation. Never underestimate the Russians, sir. We ought to remember: “Russian grain will not grow in foreign ways.” We think they’ve acclimatized, adjusted to western methods, but they haven’t.’
‘Mmm … I’ll remember that about the alien corn. Your friend Pushkin, Bacchus?’
‘No, sir. His friend Shakhovskoy.’
‘Ah! I haven’t yet had the pleasure. Just one thing – or three. The moustache, James. In view of what’s to come, perhaps …?’
Bacchus put a finger to the moustache as though surprised to find it still on his upper lip. ‘Oh … Sorry, sir. Left over from the last job. I suppose it does attract attention. I’ll get rid of it.’
‘And you mention feeling, James? Not a recommended activity in your line of work. You are perfectly clear …?’
‘My orders are precise and either have been executed or are about to be carried out. Commander.’
Joe smiled. The Branch seemed at last to be responding to a firm hand. And there was nothing better than a cry of ‘View halloo! Fox in sight!’ to get them racing off in the right direction.
‘Our target? Our “loose cannon” as the princess calls her?’
‘You know as well as I do, sir, there’s only one sure method of dealing with those rolling disasters at sea.’ He extended a hand and mimed a downwards diving motion. ‘Open a gun port and let gravity take care of the rest.’
‘Heaven forbid!’
The exclamation drew a hard glance from Bacchus. ‘We’re in the business of saving lives, sir. The right lives. Sometimes you have to make a trade. We’ve had our orders from above. And if we refuse them the matter will be … er … taken out of our hands and passed to others. The type who don’t ask questions. At least this way we still have room for manoeuvre.’
‘Yes. We’ve wangled ourselves one more throw of the dice. It might just come off … Bacchus, I want one of your men on board that liner to monitor – or if the worst should come to the worst manage – the outcome.’
‘I’d thought of that. I’ve got a ticket. Second class. Cherbourg to New York and back. That should be far enough to know what’s what. And I’ll go myself. Always wanted to see New York.’ He began to take an interest in his well-kept finger nails. ‘The constable, sir? Would you like me to manage her outcome as well?’
‘You’ve enough on your plate, man, getting yourself off to the liner. I’ve made other arrangements for Wentworth.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Foxton was all smiles. The princess was all smiles. She even leaned forward and pecked at each of Lily’s cheeks in welcome while she held her hands.
‘How simply delightful to see you again, my dear Lily! This is not too late – or too early – to join me in a pot of chocolate? I was just about to indulge … Good.’ She turned to the maid. ‘And we’ll have French macaroons with that, Katy.’
There was a trace of something … roses, Lily thought … in the air. The princess had smelled of nothing more than Pear’s soap when she approached. So, Lily guessed, it was reasonable to suppose that Anna Petrovna had until a moment ago been in the morning room conferring with Princess Ratziatinsky. Her hostess was in receiving mode but at leisure in a purple Circassian kaftan. Lily’s own white linen dress, borrowed at the last minute from her aunt Phyl, would pass muster, she thought. Restrained, unlikely to attract attention.
They chatted of this and that as the maid poured out the chocolate and handed macaroons and shortcake biscuits. When she bobbed and left, the princess’s tone became brisk.
‘So. You come, the commander tells me, equipped with olive branch, white flag … something of that nature?’
Lily laughed. ‘It’s more of a message in a cleft stick.’ She was determined to keep the business light. She had chosen to bring her documents with her in a battered old military messenger’s pouch she had been given by her soldier grandfather. ‘This bag,’ she said with an air of mystery, ‘was once the property of the Royal West Surrey Regiment. It carried the news of the relief of the siege of Ladysmith. It is still doing its bit.’
The princess smiled. ‘Coming to the relief of besieged ladies?’
‘Yes, that. But its main purpose is, as it always was, to serve its country. I know you understand that.’
The princess raised an eyebrow and smiled again. ‘Produce your rabbits,’ she said.
Lily was pleased to have raised both pencilled eyebrows when she handed over the photograph of the Koptyaki grave.
‘But this is …’
‘Given to me by His Royal Highness. And I am delighted to have it. If there’s anything our secret service is good at, it’s spotting secrets and decoding messages. One look at this and the interpretation was clear.’
The princess peered more closely at the picture. On the hook, Lily judged. She launched, in a confiding, excited but carrying voice, into Sandilands’ invention of Romanov survival. She noted that, by the end of her account, the princess was looking pale and disturbed, thin fingers twisting in the pearls at her throat. ‘And all escaped? Is this what your government is thinking?’ she murmured. ‘The painting had not spoken to me.’ She placed the picture on the table at her side, not offering to return it.
Lily dived into the bag again and took out the Californian letter.
‘For Anna? But this has been opened,’ the princess objected, before correcting herself. ‘Ah. Yes, of course … it would have been opened.’
She listened carefully to Lily’s prepared explanation and nodded her understanding. Unfolding the letter itself, she gasped as the lock of hair became visible. Mastering her emotion, she read the letter and read it again. She held it to the light and examined the watermark. With a quivering hand she extracted a slender skein of hairs from the thick lock and wound it round a finger, tears gathering in her eyes. Then she replaced the letter in its envelope. This also came in for scrutiny.
‘We haven’t finished yet,’ said Lily. ‘Here’s a news cutting explaining the letter. Perhaps you saw this? Tatiana has been indiscreet, clearly. Distance from the centre of things leads to lack of concentration. Our consul is aware and taking steps. But in San Francisco she remains for the foreseeable future. Last exhibit: a passage to San Francisco for Anna Petrovna.’
Lily talked on, delivering her rehearsed speeches, reacting to the princess’s sharp questions when they came. She gave information when she could, admitted ignorance where an answer was outside her brief or her invention. And the moment came for her departure.
‘You may keep all these items. Except for the bag I brought them in. My grandfather was badly wounded carrying it between General Buller and Spion Kop,’ she said. ‘I like to think those are his bloodstains. I would not want to lose it.’
The princess shuddered delicately and gestured to Lily to take it back.
Coming to the end of the exchange, the princess walked to the bell-pull to summon Foxton. Lily was puzzled to see that she did not actually tug hard enough to make contact. A few moments later: ‘Foxton? Curse the man! Where can he be? I’ll show you out myself.’
At the front door and out of earshot of any listener, the princess grasped Lily’s hand and spoke urgently. ‘You have done your best. And now it’s up to me to do mine. You must understand that our loyalties are like railway lines … they are going in the same direction but they never actually converge. Disaster if they did!’ She smiled. ‘I have many irons in the fire – you know that. I trade with this side and that, trying to keep a balance, but my loyalties are always with my people. And Anna is very dear to me. I would move heaven and earth to protect her and achieve her happiness … if that is still possible. I have been making my
own quiet arrangements to resolve our problem. But I see I must put on a burst of speed to keep up with Sandilands. He is moving faster than I would have wished.’
Her voice became more sombre. ‘I cannot promise I shall succeed. Great hatred runs deep and, once under way, gathers momentum and powers itself. It is not easily diverted from its course. In fact, I know of only one thing strong enough to counter it. An equally great love!’ Her face lit up with youthful mischief as she added: ‘What was the date of the sailing? So soon! I must make a telephone call to Paris without delay!’
Lily knew she was walking unsteadily, and put it down to euphoria. She took a deep breath of fresh morning air, hitched the leather bag more firmly on to her shoulder, set her eyes on the end of the elegant row of houses and made for the Thames.
It had gone better than she had expected. And faster – hastened by the princess’s understanding and anticipation. Passing the conversation anxiously in review, she couldn’t recollect a slip. She prepared to entertain Sandilands with her account. There were no taxis about to speed her journey but there was really no hurry and it was only a mile or so from Kensington to Westminster. She had time enough to stroll along down Birdcage Walk on her way back to the Yard. There was nothing more she could do. It was out of her hands and into Bacchus’s. The thought brought relief.
She passed Buckingham Palace, and wasted several minutes mingling with the crowd watching the guard change. She was skirting St James’s Park when the hairs on the back of her neck gave her warning. By the time she entered Great George Street with the Thames sparkling ahead of her, she was sure she was being followed. One of Bacchus’s men? With an unprofessional rush of mischief, Lily decided to flush him out. No shoelace business – these men would scorn such a ploy. The street was relatively empty. He should be easy to spot. She stopped abruptly and looked behind her.
A young woman in a cream linen walking suit was striding out in the opposite direction. Across the road, a nursemaid was pushing a baby in a pram into the park to visit the duck pond. A vicar in a black homburg hat had stopped to shake a rattle and coo to entertain this youngest member of his flock. Two men, walking purposefully, bowler hatted both of them and practically invisible on the London streets, caught her eye. One of these? Lily waited until they were within yards of her and she was sure of receiving an unprepared reaction, then stood in the middle of the pavement and nonchalantly lifted her skirt. She bent over and proceeded to straighten her stocking and adjust her garter. Whichever man she caught staring at her leg she reckoned would be an innocent city gent, the one looking hastily aside at the architecture would be Bacchus’s man.
To her confusion, both men stared and hurried by. One uttered a ‘Faugh!’ of disgust, the other turned and objected: ‘I say, miss! This is Westminster! The Wellington Barracks are a hundred yards back down the road. You’ve missed it.’ He pointed helpfully.
Lily was still shaking with silent laughter when her arm was seized from behind and clamped tightly to the side of a tall woman striding out towards the Thames. Lily had to scamper along to avoid being swept off her feet, such was the onward rush, the iron grip on her arm.
Cream-coloured linen, no gloves, no handbag. She’d left home in a hurry. But she’d snatched the time to pull on a cloche hat in natural straw. A waft of Attar of Roses confirmed Lily’s identification.
‘Anna?’ she murmured. ‘Anna Petrovna, is this you?’
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘No. I’m Anna Peterson, my dear, according to my new passport. Thank you for that. And you, I take it, are Lily Wentworth. Constable in the British police force?’
Lily nodded, alarmed but puzzled. The voice was low and well modulated. It had, surprisingly, what Lily could have sworn was a reassuring trace of a Scottish accent. Every time she raised her head to look at her companion the wretched woman looked aside, hiding her profile with the brim of her cloche. The first swift glimpse Lily had had of the stranger’s face revealed familiar features and she tried in her mind’s eye to link them with the face she’d so fleetingly seen under a frilly lace cap at the Claridges reception.
Could she be sure this was Anna? Lily decided to be certain. ‘Before I forget,’ she said, ‘I have to pass on regards and good wishes from Ethel and Jack.’
‘I think you mean Ethel and Jim,’ the stranger corrected wearily. ‘If you mean my young friends in Hogsmire Lane. Do let’s stop all this secret service rubbish, shall we? We’re not overgrown Boy Scouts. And we haven’t much time to set the world to rights. I’ve been longing to talk to you – I feel I know you, having listened in to your chats withmy guardian. Now, thanks to you, I have some exciting shopping and packing to do. You may have advice to offer me on that … And I’m sure you’re looking forward to spending some time with the handsome commander, drinking a celebratory glass of champagne and toasting an absent friend.’
They walked on for a while, Anna relaxing the grip on Lily’s arm and slowing her pace. And then: ‘Ah! There’s Westminster Bridge straight ahead. One of my favourite places in London. Your Wordsworth seems to have liked it. Earth hath not anything to show more fair and all that. But then he’d never seen the river Neva flowing in majesty. He’d never seen St Petersburg. In fact he hadn’t seen much, your national wordsmith – I cannot call him “poet” – nor had much experience of places or people. To his naive eye, the French Revolution was a wonderful thing along with daisies, peasants and this view of a polluted river lined with grey buildings. Still, it is the best you have to offer so we’ll go on to the bridge and watch the Thames flow for a while, shall we?’
To all appearances the best of friends, Lily strolled with Anna Petrovna, self-appointed Nemesis of the royal family and possibly mentally deranged killer, on to the bridge.
‘On no account should you confront Anna Petrovna,’ Sandilands had told her. But how did you break off a discussion with a friendly girl on the relative merits of Lillywhites and Harrods when it came to buying hot-weather clothes? How did you leave in the middle of a laughing disagreement over the comparative virtues of cotton and celanese knickers? How did you make your excuses when your arm was being clutched in apparent friendship?
They leaned companionably over the waist-high parapet and decided that the current was flowing east.
‘There’s a tide running and it’s going out fast,’ remarked Anna, staring into the black water swirling fiercely around the piers. ‘It’s racing along with the current, you see. Anything falling into the water from here – if it survived being sucked down into that whirlpool – would be swept up and come ashore … um … round about there.’ She pointed. ‘The Savoy’s back garden. Let’s test our theory, shall we?’
Catching Lily completely by surprise, she tore the bag from Lily’s shoulder and threw it into the river. Lily squealed and turned on the taller girl, who had reapplied her hold on her right arm, squeezing until it was painful. The only way to attempt to break it was to smash upwards with the left fist at her face and stamp down on her instep at the same moment. Not a difficult manoeuvre. Lily had practised it on bigger and stronger targets. But it would be a desperate move and possibly a noisy one which she’d rather not attempt in a public place with people passing by. A punch in the face would get her out of trouble but she knew that the London bridges were patrolled by beat coppers. Sandilands would not be amused by a report that his plainclothes woman policeman had been arrested for an attack on a Russian aristocrat on Westminster Bridge.
‘Why did you do that? It was my grandfather’s bag. And very precious to me,’ she said, hoping to elicit a response she could understand.
‘Inherited goods mean nothing. They weigh one down. There it goes – the sweat, the screams, the bloodstains. The memories. It’s not popped back up again … it’s settling to rot on the river bed. Gone.’
‘I haven’t much of a past to let go,’ said Lily. ‘I can’t afford to be so cavalier with the little I have.’
‘Poor creature.’ There was no sympathy
in the voice. ‘You are upset by the loss of a dirty old bag? I have lost the world. A country. A family. A fortune. A name. All I have left is my life and what is that to anyone? An embarrassment. An anachronism. Even a threat. I’ve become a danger to Aunt Tizzi and my own people. Time to move on.’ Her eyes were drawn in fascination again to the water. ‘They tell me this is the most popular spot in London for suicide. One sees why. How those dark depths call one to oblivion!’
She dropped Lily’s arm and edged a few paces further on to the bridge. She put her hands on the parapet, leaning dangerously forward to stare into the river.
Lily sidled after her. She recognized suicidal despair in the girl’s voice and at last realized why she’d been brought here. Many people killed themselves quietly, dying alone in holes and corners all over London, hugging their unbearable sorrows to their breast. But some – those who seemed to bear a grudge against society – preferred to go with a flourish, screaming out their hatred … or their guilt. Lily knew with a chilling certainty that she’d been chosen, lured on to the bridge, to hear the last words, to witness such a death.
‘I’ve stood here before, you know. Many times. Never quite having the courage … and always stopped by the same thought. Do you suppose, Lily, that if one were to jump, and … natural impulses changed one’s mind at the last moment, one could swim to the bank from here?’
Lily prepared to share her suffering and her speculation. She looked down into the water and shuddered. ‘It’s possible,’ she lied. ‘You might survive. But of course it would depend on the strength of the undertow and the swimming skill of the jumper. Only a strong swimmer would make it. You’d have to be very certain that you really wanted to die and weren’t just calling attention to your own sorrow.’ She remembered with a stab of pity that the moody girl at her side was the survivor of rape, slavery and goodness only knew what other horrors. Horrors which, if Sandilands and his psychiatrist had it right, had affected her mind with the destructive force of unremitting shelling.
The Blood Royal Page 36
