Yes, Cornelius would have died along with Joe, a double sacrifice to Armitage’s ambition.
It was self-interest that had brought him back with a gun in his hand though Joe identified a more emotional motive behind the whipped-up warmth of patriotic indignation. Revenge played a part in the attempt on Joe’s life but it was no more than a cover for an unspeakable act. Joe had heard the same wails from wife-killers: “She’d been asking for it. She made me do it. All her own fault.”
Joe thought he detected an element of envy also in this noxious cocktail. Which of the conspirators had attacked Julius Caesar with the greatest vigour? According to Shakespeare, it was Casca. See what a rent the envious Casca made …
The spider in Kingstone’s cup. The sergeant was the traitor in all this. He might make much of his loyalty to his country, whichever that was, but he found it impossible in the end to feel loyalty to his friends. At least he’d made Joe see and test out his own patriotism.
Joe had found himself holding a gun on a choice of victims—on a virtual stranger, a troubled foreigner who, he knew, had not been straight with him, and a fellow Briton, a man he’d soldiered alongside, admired, liked. Joe had turned the gun on his old army mate without a second thought.
Time now for that second thought?
This was going to take a bit of working out. In his distress, Joe called out silently to Dorcas. He needed Dorcas to help him. To listen to him, smooth his brow and try to convince him he wasn’t the ineffectual blunderer he feared he was. He resolved that if the wretched girl hadn’t come home by the weekend, or put herself within reach of a telephone, he would pursue her through France and fetch her back.
The officer staggered up with the bucket of sand and Joe took it from him. “Here, I’ll do that. Let me perform the last rites, such as they are.”
With a quick glance around to make sure he was not observed, Joe took his hip flask from his pocket and poured out the scotch to mingle with the spilt blood. “Sippers, Sergeant? Gulpers, Captain.” Joe remembered the polite army formula for a shared drink that he’d exchanged with Armitage at a bleak moment many years before and hot, embarrassing tears dripped down, uncontrollable, to join the cocktail. Blood, tears and strong spirits, a fitting send-off for a soldier.
He’d been a damned good soldier.
Joe retained sufficient grip on his emotions to recognise that, in his shocked state, in the bleak fatigue that succeeds violent action, grief had crept in and ambushed him. Grief, an emotion so overwhelming it permits only the starkest expression, by means of tears, ritual and phrases fashioned by other and better wordsmiths. Our Glorious Dead. His grief was not for Bill alone, but for the thousands of young Armitages whose bodies he’d seen, wrecked, twisted, soaking the soil with their blood. There shall be in that rich earth a richer dust concealed. All in the cause of fertilizing the ambition and greed going under the bright banner of Patriotism. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
The simple, seductive words came first to Joe’s mind, moving smoothly along the well-trodden path of mourning. He reined in his clichéd thoughts, scattered the concealing sand in handfuls, bowed his head and murmured his own rebellious prayer for unsettled souls.
AS THE POLICE launch swirled to a halt by the steps at Waterloo Bridge, Joe brought Cornelius and Julia forward out of the shadows to get aboard. Each was holding a small bag and dressed in what Lydia would have called ‘good sensible clothing and stout shoes.’ Cornelius bustled forward to greet the captain.
The two men had found the time to say goodbye moments before while they waited in the policemen’s shelter on the Embankment. The restrained English handshake, proving inadequate for their feelings, had been abandoned in favour of an embarrassed and utterly unmanly bear hug.
Joe watched the senator scramble aboard but held Julia back by the shoulder.
“Look—Kingstone made the right choice of transport. Anonymity over comfort but the accommodation may be a bit Spartan for a lady. In fact there may only be one cabin. They were expecting two male passengers. You’ll have to do some negotiating with the captain when you get on board the frigate. Promise him a crate of whisky if that’ll help! They’re not used to having females aboard.”
She looked up at him with what, in the pale light of the Embankment lamps, he could have interpreted as indulgent but pitying. “That’ll be no challenge for either of us. We’re both used to roughing it. You should see some of the dressing rooms they gave us in Argentina! And Cornelius was a soldier. He’s survived rat-infested trenches. At least nobody will be shooting at us on a Royal Navy boat.”
“Have you told him yet? Your good news, I mean? From St. Catherine’s?”
“I thought you’d got there, Joe Plod. Yes. I told him an hour ago.”
“Was he pleased?”
“Hard to tell.” Julia gave her Cockney Sparrer shrug and grin. “Stunned, I’d say. Though that could have been the whack on the head. I’ll tell him again when he’s feeling more himself. It’s a bit of a facer for a bloke, isn’t it? To want to have a child and then find it’s on offer but from the wrong quarter. I mean there was only the one time. Last Easter in Vienna. Wasn’t right. He was upset—hitting back at Natalia, I’ve always thought. We both put it to the backs of our minds and went on as if it had never happened. But then fate bites you in the bum. You don’t ask if I’m pleased but I’ll tell you anyway. I am. I love the old bugger, Joe. Always have. I could have wrung Natalia’s neck, the way she treated him. If I’d known the real reason she was doing it—I would have done. Anyhow whatever he thinks, I’m glad to be having it. There’s no way, Joe, I could ever have made use of the other facilities on offer. Know what I’m talking about?” She waited for his nod. “No, this kid’ll have a good life. Better than mine. I can afford it now. The rotten little cow left me all her money, did you know? Most of it came from Cornelius but I’m damned if I’m giving it back! I’m keeping it for the child. He’ll understand. The lawyer says he can get it to me in good time. Money coming across an ocean on a wire—takes some believing!”
“And Armiger? Any regrets?”
“Of course I have! Always will. You can’t kill a man and not have it hanging round your neck for ever more like the bleedin’ albatross in that poem I could never stand. But sometimes, you’re faced with a beast that just has to die before it does more damage. When it comes to protecting the man you love, you don’t have a choice. Or time to think.”
“Not quite sure I believe that. You made a choice—not an easy one—and set up your stalk with the skill of a tiger hunter. I must say, I felt rather like a tethered goat out there in the park.”
“The hunt may not yet be over, Joe.” She drew him back into the shadows and spoke quickly. “He’s going to have a tough time when he gets back. He kept going on about Hydra heads and said I was to be sure to pass this over to you at the last minute.” Julia reached down, pulled her skirt up to her knee and slid a hand into her boot. “He didn’t want to be caught with this on him. It was safe enough here, we reckoned. Who’s ever going to frisk a cripple?”
She handed Joe a folded sheet of Claridge’s writing paper. “Names. More names. Blokes worth watching. He said someone over here’d better know who not to trust. He thinks you’ll know what to do with it.”
“Me?” Joe was suddenly uncertain as he took the sheet from her. “I’m just a policeman …”
“Who else? You’re different styles but cut from the same cloth.”
He pushed the paper into his inner pocket. “I’d like to know you’ve both arrived safely but I suppose …”
“You read the papers, Joe. If there’s news of good things happening in Tennessee, Cornelius says you’ll know his watch is still ticking. Does that make sense? That reminds me to pass on something else he wanted to say. He made me learn a couple of lines to whisper in your ear. Annoying me with his quotations again! He said I was to say it without laughing or sneering and to be sure to mention that he’s changed the words a bit and
apologises to Kipling for taking the liberty. Well, here goes …” She straightened her spine, clasped her hands and launched into a recitation in her best classroom manner:
“But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand back to back, though they come from the ends of the earth.”
Joe chuckled. “Down to two are we? But, no mention there of strong women! Julia, we’d neither of us have survived if …”
She cut short his thanks. “Who is there to assassinate the assassin? Muggins at the bottom of the pile. Dirty work. There’s no pride in that.”
Joe smiled, remembering. “ ‘It wasn’t the airplanes that got him. It was Beauty killed the Beast. Better than this one deserved.”
He took her hand and passed her up into the safe grasp of a Thames River policeman. “Goodbye and good luck, Beauty!”
A Spider in the Cup Page 33
