Joe reckoned that the damage had been done, the precedent set, when he was a boy and going off to school for the first time. At that moment of uncertainty he’d been grateful for a bossy girl counting handkerchiefs, refolding his shirts and confiscating his cache of marbles. Today the twenty-nine-year-old, six-foot commander at Scotland Yard that he had become resented the attention. He decided to do a bit of commanding.
‘Do leave off, Lydia. I’m only going away for a weekend in the country.’
Lydia wasn’t listening. Up to the elbows stirring about amongst his things, she’d pounced on an alien element. ‘A Cerebos Salt tin? What’s this doing hiding amongst your dress shirts, Joe?’ She held it away from her and shook it. It rattled. Lydia stared at the familiar blue and white container with distaste. ‘What have you got in this rusty old thing? Not still smuggling marbles, are you? Or is this your stash of spare bullets for your big bad Browning?’
Joe snatched it from her and twisted off the lid, revealing the innocent contents. ‘Toothbrush, paste, shaving things. Happy with that?’
‘No. Not a bit. Think, Joe! You’re off to stay at the country seat of an earl, trying to make a good impression on your elders and betters … what’s his lordship going to think? More to the point, what’s his footman going to think when he unpacks for you? You’ll be a laughing stock below stairs. I’ll pop out to Bond Street tomorrow, first thing, and get you a decent wash bag.’
‘You’ll do no such thing! I’ve always used a Cerebos Salt tin and I see no reason to stop.’
‘But it’s disgusting — it’s rusting away.’
‘What do you expect? It’s travelled across oceans and halfway round India. It made an appearance at a far grander establishment than Gratton Court.’
‘India? Oh, no! You’re telling me you took this insanitary object with you when you stayed with the Maharajah What’s his name?’
‘I did. A humble salt tin stood on a marble bathroom shelf in the Palace of Ranipur, batting for England amongst the crystal, the jade and the gold accessories, placed there — without comment — by the bearer who unpacked my things.’
‘I’m surprised someone didn’t remove it.’
‘Someone did. When I unpacked on my return to Simla I noted that my faithful old receptacle had been taken away and replaced … with a brand new Cerebos Salt tin! This very one.’
Lydia chuckled. ‘Now that’s style.’
‘That’s Indian good manners — and humour,’ Joe agreed quietly. ‘Can’t tell you how glad I am to be home, but … I miss the laughter, Lyd. And the colour. In sober old London.’ He saw dismay dawning in her eyes and hurried to add: ‘But I’ve done with serious travelling for now. Got a career to relaunch!’
A sudden understanding of the tin’s significance silenced her. Schoolboys, soldiers and now, apparently, strapping great police commanders — they all needed a reminder of home in strange or threatening situations. Lydia put it back in the suitcase. ‘You can always claim then that it was a gift from a maharajah — should anyone ask,’ she said comfortably. ‘But I suppose they must be used to eccentricities at Gratton Court — the old Prince of Wales was a constant guest there in the good old days.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Now I shouldn’t have liked to view the contents of his salt tin!’
Joe responded to his sister’s unexpressed anxiety. ‘I’ll be fine, Lyd. Don’t worry about me. Big boy these days. And it’s not as though it’s an interview I’ve been called up for. There’s nothing much riding on this, you know. I’ve already got the job — had it for two years now. They just want to check I can drink my soup without slurping and get through dinner with a selection of rabid old fire-eaters without poking one in the eye with a fish knife. I shall keep smiling, tell a few tall stories, sing baritone in the after-dinner choruses round the grand piano and shoot a commendable but not showy number of birds.’
‘What are you using for guns?’
‘Pa’s old pair. I’ve sent them ahead. Respectable but nothing flashy. Now if we were going for real game, I could have impressed them with the Holland amp; Holland Royal I used in India. Sir George insisted on giving it to me. Not many charging buffalo offering themselves as targets on Exmoor, though.’
‘You used it in India? Joe, you don’t like shooting animals.’
‘True. But the animals in question were tiger. Man-eaters both. With hundreds of deaths on their rap sheets!’
‘Both?’
‘I shot two of them, in as many minutes. One male, one female. They were hunting as a pair.’
Lydia laughed. ‘You’re having me on. Sounds like the beginning of a good yarn, though, for when the port starts to circulate.’
‘Oh, if I were vandal enough, I could carve two grooves on the glossy French walnut stock of the Royal. It saved my life. But I prefer to carry my grooves concealed.’ With a sister-baiting grin of mischief, Joe pushed up his right sleeve to show her two raking claw marks, well healed by now. He enjoyed her squeal of horror. ‘I had the luck to be treated by an English doctor who’d studied ancient Indian medicine. Lord only knows what he poured into the wound but it worked a treat. Wounds can go rotten faster in India than they did in Flanders.’
Lydia shuddered. ‘Well, watch your back, little brother. I’ve sneaked a look at the guest list you’ve popped behind the clock on the mantelpiece. Impressive and surprising. Something’s brewing. And I think I can guess what — I read the papers! And I get Marcus to repeat the political gossip he comes by at his club. He can’t always make sense of it but he’s worth hearing. England’s not been standing still while you’ve been living it up in India, you know — it’s started rolling downhill. Joe, the men you’re meeting are not only running the country — they’re a ruthless, manipulative bunch.’
‘Oo, er … I shall think of them as the Gratton Gang.’
Lydia was not to be diverted. ‘These men aren’t going to be the slightest bit interested in your table manners and your small talk. In fact, I do rather wonder what exactly they might be wanting from a minnow like you.’
She squashed the suggestions he was about to make. ‘Well, you’re getting a reputation for defusing a crisis, Marcus says. “Defusing” — in my dictionary that spells danger. Don’t let these grandees use you for a cat’s paw while they skulk in safety behind the barricades, Joe. You know what you’re like for leading the charge.’
Sensing a sisterly assessment of his character about to be fired in his direction, Joe employed a diversionary tactic. ‘Lyd, why don’t you open up one of those boxes — you know you’re dying to. Pop on one of your new hats and I’ll take you out to dinner.’
Chapter Two
Scotland Yard
In his office on the third floor, Joe was putting the finishing touches to a frantic hour of desk work before leaving to catch his train to the west country. He picked up a fountain pen and signed the six letters remaining on his desk. The signature was in black ink, and unaccompanied by any flourish. He gathered the typed pages together into a neat pile, replaced them in a folder and ran a satisfied eye over the shining and — at last — clear surface of his desk.
He rang for his secretary.
‘Ah, Miss Jameson. All done. It just remains for me to apologize for the last-minute bustle, thank you for your stalwart assistance and say — I’ll see you again on Tuesday.’
‘Not quite all done, sir. You’d forgotten this. The latest assassination attempt.’
With an arch smile, she placed a file in front of him. ‘They’ve just sent it up. It’s the one you requested from Special Branch. I had to ask for it three times … they would keep trying to tell me it wasn’t for our eyes.’ Miss Jameson raised elegant brows to convey her disbelief at such lack of respect. ‘I have to say, Commander, I don’t much care to do business with those gentlemen.’ Her voice frosted the word lightly with distaste. ‘They are not the most congenial of people to deal with.’
‘I rather think that’s the whole point of them,’ Sandilands s
aid drily. ‘Thugs — I quite agree. Upper-class thugs, but thugs all the same. And a law unto themselves, they’d like us to believe. So very well done to have wrung it out of them.’ He opened the file and began to flip through the pages, frowning, instantly absorbed by what he read.
‘I had to threaten to go down there and fetch it myself,’ she persisted.
Joe sensed that he hadn’t sufficiently acknowledged her tenacity. He looked up and gave her a questioning smile. ‘Down there, Miss Jameson? Bold of you to plan a frontal assault! You’re not meant to know the location of their HQ.’
‘Oh, sir! Everyone knows they’re holed up in that little wooden hut on the island in St James’s Park. Duck Island, I believe they call it. It’s just beyond Horse Guards — a minute or two away. I’d have gained access if I’d had to swim across their moat!’
He believed her.
For a moment he savoured the vision of Miss Jameson arising from the water, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful — and crowned in duck weed — ready to challenge the doughty lads of the anti-terrorist squad and he smiled. He glanced across at the confident woman who thought nothing of taking on, single-handed, the Special Irish Branch. Should he tell her that her target had relocated some years ago? That ‘the Branch’ had moved into Whitehall and were even now beavering away not so very far from where she sat at her typewriter? No. She was happy with the folk story. And the élite squad were fanatical about preserving their anonymity. An anonymity that, in his recently acquired covert role at the Met, the commander was honour-bound to respect.
‘Just keep an eye on them for us, will you, Sandilands?’ He’d been briefed almost as an afterthought by a superior. And he’d realized, with a sinking heart, that he’d been handed a poisoned chalice. In addition to the CID role that went with his job, he’d been landed, since his return, with an ill-defined responsibility for this other clandestine and self-reliant branch of the British police force. Deliberately ill defined? Joe suspected as much.
‘They won’t give you the runaround, young man! Still full of beans and raring to go, I observe.’ This compliment, from a survivor of the Boer War with yellowing moustache and matching teeth, was never likely to turn Joe’s head. ‘Try to understand them,’ the advice flowed on, ‘with your background of skulduggery that shouldn’t be too hard. Takes one to handle one, eh, what? Make it your business to find out what these boys are up to. They’re on our side, of course — and we thank God for that mercy! — but an occasional reminder that they report ultimately to the Police Commissioner at the Yard mightn’t come amiss. They will try to ignore that.’
Sandilands had shrugged and smiled his acquiescence. His sister was right — he was never able to turn down a challenge. With the reins of the CID in one hand and the Branch in the other, however, he’d found himself in charge of a spirited and ill-matched pair. Steady hands, though. So far he’d avoided landing arsy-tarsy in the ditch. But his secretary would have been disturbed to know of the chain of command that ran from the political branch down below right up to his own desk. Chain? Thread would be more accurate, Sandilands thought. A fragile thread he’d already had to put a knot in twice since his appointment.
He rewarded his secretary with the response she best appreciated: a grin and ‘Attaboy, Jameson!’
A mistake.
Under cover of his approval, she was encouraged to slide in a supplementary question or two. ‘The latest attack in the West End, I take it? That’s what this is all about?’ She pointed to the file. ‘The shooting? Poor General Lansing. He’s a very old friend of Daddy’s. I do hope he wasn’t badly hurt?’
‘Lansing? No. Hide as tough as a cavalryman’s derrière. Er … bullets bounce off him, I should say.’
Four years of war, followed by three of intensive training for the Metropolitan Police and a further year on secondment to the Calcutta Police, had left Joe accustomed to an exclusively male working environment. He didn’t always manage to tailor his language for a female audience. Amalthea Jameson graciously affected not to notice his lapses.
The announcement that he was to be granted, on taking up his post again after his return from India, the services of a full-time personal secretary had been surprising. The two other officers of his rank, uniformed and in the later years of their service, were accorded no such privilege. Even more surprising was the failure of these fellow officers to take offence at the blatant preferment of the young upstart. A knowing smirk and a pitying shake of the head spoke volumes to Joe. They didn’t envy him.
‘I visited the general yesterday in St George’s. He’s doing well,’ he offered in reassurance.
‘I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been following events in the press. With no file available in our office, one gets one’s information where one may …’ She gave an apologetic smile, but her eyes accused him of secrecy.
‘Depressing stuff, Jameson, in the papers, and usually exaggerated. Believe them and you’d be running into a Russian Bolshevik or a Latvian anarchist round every corner. You’d never venture out,’ he reassured her lightly.
‘But that’s three attempted murders now in as many days, I gather. Three attacks on three military gentlemen,’ she persisted. ‘And each with — I wonder if it had occurred to you, sir? — a different modus operandi. Puzzling, that. Don’t you agree? The first, I understand, was no more than an assault with a blunt instrument — a cosh? — the second with a knife and this last with a pistol. And all unsuccessful!’ She gave a scoffing laugh. ‘How much practice can a self-respecting perpetrator need? What a bungler is at work, one might conclude.’
‘Not, perhaps, if a fourth attempt were to come off tomorrow, Miss Jameson. Even I can detect a certain escalation in the level of violence used. And the one vital feature the victims have in common. But thank you for your observation.’
His reprimands usually bounced off the shield of her smiling compliance but on this occasion she did not hurry to agree with him. In a tone which signalled sorrow rather than anger she said simply: ‘They’re here, aren’t they? Here with their bombs and their bullets. Spreading terror among us.’
‘There were over one hundred reported violent incidents in the Metropolitan area over the last week, Miss Jameson. Three of the victims happen to be known to you personally and you draw a dramatic conclusion from this slight evidence.’ He paused for a second before admitting: ‘But I have to say, I happen to agree with you. The editors of our daily newspapers don’t share your social connections and inside knowledge and they haven’t yet put two and two together. I’d … we’d … prefer that they didn’t. Keep it under your hat, will you? With the present undermanning in the force, I doubt we could contain the effects of an anti-Irish backlash tearing through London. Open warfare on the streets? It’s not inconceivable.’
She nodded. ‘Understood, sir. I’ll put this into your in-tray to await your return.’ She made to scoop the file on his desk.
‘No, I’ll keep it. I note they’ve only entrusted us with the flimsies.’
‘Third copies I’d say, sir. A calculated insult. But I can make them out. Would you like me to …?’
‘Thank you, Jameson, I’ll manage.’ He peered at the faint blue letters. ‘There’s nothing here I can’t take away to work on. I’ll slip it into my briefcase to read on the train. I like to have something to set the pulses racing when I’m travelling.’
‘Not taking your diary along for the journey, then, sir?’
It was a moment before he realized his secretary had attempted a joke.
‘I’m no Oscar Wilde, Miss Jameson,’ he said repressively. ‘However, if I were compelled to review the passage of my life between here and Devon, I would agree with Oscar that “each day is like a year. A year whose days are long”.’
He hoped he’d not been too squashing.
‘And the nights? Each one an eternity …’ She lowered her gaze to her immaculate calfskin shoes, sighed, and shook her head gently, hinting at some deep sorrow.
‘
Ah! Insomniac are you? It’s these hot nights … we all suffer. I may have the answer for your condition. Wincarnis, Jameson! The Mysterious Restorative. I recommend a slug before retiring. Ten thousand doctors and my mother swear by it, and my mother’s never wrong.’ He glanced at his wristwatch and, alarmed by what he saw, shot to his feet.
‘The Cornish Riviera Express leaves at ten thirty. Do be sure to take one of the slip carriages for Taunton, won’t you? No need to worry — you have a good forty minutes, sir.’ The voice, quite unabashed, dripped honeyed reassurance. It had the irrational effect of irritating the commander beyond reason. ‘I hope you don’t mind, sir, but anticipating that you’d be running late I took the liberty of ordering up a squad car and driver for you. You’ll find it sitting panting down below on the Embankment.’
Joe did mind. He toyed with the notion of making use of the dreaded word ‘austerity’ and wagging a reproving finger at her, but he hadn’t the time. He let the moment pass and here she was, smoothing down the already smooth chignon at the nape of her neck and dimpling.
‘Ten minutes to Paddington as long as you’re not held up in Park Lane … you’ll have time for a cup of tea. You have your ticket, sir? Clean handkerchief?’
Joe suppressed a schoolboy urge to present his freshly washed hands, front and back, and bare his faultless teeth in a ritual snarl for Matron’s nightly inspection. A spurt of mischief pushed him to pat his inside wallet pocket in a theatrical manner. Impervious to teasing, she tilted her head in acknowledgement of his gesture and nodded her approval. The woman was turning herself into his nanny.
If your taste inclined to the statuesque — and Joe’s did — Amalthea Jameson was undeniably attractive. She was a tall, well-shaped blonde from a good military family, a product of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Oxford. She had had her training with a recently retired deputy commissioner and was eagerly sought after by his colleagues. Sandilands had to agree with them that he was an ungrateful bastard who didn’t deserve her. Sly approaches suggesting her transfer to the department of a more appreciative boss had been made to him. Quite out of order, he thought. Miss Jameson was not a commodity to be traded, and as she seemed happy — suspiciously happy — to serve the office of commander in spite of the apparent demotion, there was little he could do but grind his teeth and try to appreciate her undoubted qualities.
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