Mrs. Singh was frowning. “Another intelligence officer, like Pryce. He runs his own spy network, all ex-Army chaps. His methods are a little more direct than ours, and a lot less subtle.” Under her breath she muttered, “Bloody Gascoigne of all people . . . ?”
Kitty turned her attention back to the conversation on the radio.
“Gentlemen,” said the Old Man in a soothing tone, “let us not fall to recrimination. You both are valuable assets to the Ministry, and I need you to set aside this foolishness and carry out your duty. For England.”
“Yes, of course, sir,” Mr. Pryce replied quickly. “On that note, this meeting . . .”
“Yes?”
Mr. Pryce sounded rather hopeful. “Do I take it to mean that you’ve reviewed my surveillance request?”
There was an awkward silence.
“Do I have your permission to investigate Smythe?” Mr. Pryce asked. The hope in his voice diminished slightly.
More silence.
Mr. Pryce spoke again, and this time his confidence had faded entirely, replaced by a kind of grim realization.
“This meeting isn’t about Smythe, is it?”
“No,” the Old Man said. “Pryce, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Stay away from Sir Richard Smythe. He is off limits to you.”
“But sir!” Mr. Pryce protested.
“After that disastrous operation in Belfast, you should consider yourself fortunate,” the Old Man cautioned him. “There is no evidence tying Smythe to any of the illicit dealings your report accuses him of, and I cannot sanction action taken against a respected Member of Parliament without evidence. It simply isn’t done, Pryce. He’s one of us.”
“One of us?” Mr. Pryce repeated, almost spitting out the words. “Sir, he’s a bloody—”
Gascoigne’s voice roared over the radio. “A what, Pryce? A patriot? An Englishman? A Conservative?” He scoffed. “Someone far better than your miserable lot of foreigners and socialists.”
“I’m a Conservative, Gascoigne,” Mr. Pryce retorted. “You’re a Conservative. Smythe is a fascist and you know it. And don’t you dare talk about my agents in that condescending tone. They are as brave and loyal and hardworking as any of your lads. And if you think you can walk into my office and insult them . . .”
The anger in Mr. Pryce’s voice was startling. Kitty had always known him to be calm and jovial, but from his tone she imagined him looking red with anger, bounding out of his chair to wave a finger under Gascoigne’s nose.
The Old Man coughed just loudly enough for the microphone to pick it up.
“Settle down, Pryce,” he said. “We’re all friends here.”
“Indeed, sir.” Mr. Pryce sounded skeptical, but he didn’t argue. “With respect, if you aren’t here to discuss my proposal to investigate Smythe, why are you here?”
“We have a new assignment for you,” the Old Man said. “It’s top priority, and I’ve assured the Minister that you are the best man for the job. Gascoigne’s men did the preliminary work, which is why he’s here. But I felt that your agents were better suited to the task than his. I want all your people working on this right away.”
Kitty heard some papers rustling. It sounded like someone was opening a folder. There was a lengthy silence and then Mr. Pryce spoke again, his voice twisted with a mixture of astonishment and outrage.
“The Anti-Apartheid Movement?” he exclaimed. “You want my agents to infiltrate The Anti-Apartheid Movement? Sir, is this a joke?”
“It’s a serious operation, Pryce, and I expect you to address it as such.” The Old Man’s tone remained gentle and calm, but Kitty heard a sharp needle of irritation poking around inside it.
“Now I see why you didn’t want Mrs. Singh here,” Mr. Pryce said. “She’d give you a bloody earful over this nonsense! But I assure you, I can do that just as well in her absence. Of all the ridiculous assignments—”
“I told you he’d be difficult,” Gascoigne said. “You should leave it with my men. Or better still: close down Pryce’s farce of a spy network and give me his resources. I’ll ferret out the traitors, just you watch.”
“Easy, Gascoigne,” the Old Man answered. “We all have our part to play in the defense of Britain.”
“Sir, this is absurd!” Mr. Pryce protested. “The members of the Anti-Apartheid Movement are peaceful activists. By contrast, I have evidence that Sir Richard Smythe is smuggling weapons into London—”
“Circumstantial evidence,” Gascoigne countered with a snide and dismissive tone. “Flimsy circumstantial evidence.”
Mr. Pryce ignored him. “—and you want me to waste resources spying on human rights activists? Has the world gone mad?”
“We have reason to believe that the Soviets are responsible for the Anti-Apartheid Movement,” the Old Man answered. He still sounded calm, but Kitty noticed the needle of anger grow into something more like a knife. The Old Man was getting impatient with Mr. Pryce.
“Respectfully, sir, I think you’ll find that apartheid is responsible for it! And as I’ve said before, the best way to stop the spread of Soviet influence is by taking a firm stand against injustice.”
“That is a matter for the government to decide, not us,” the Old Man replied.
“Don’t start whining about injustice, Pryce,” Gascoigne said. “You sound like a Labour MP on election night.”
Mr. Pryce’s answered him angrily, “As long as we sit by and let corrupt regimes deprive their citizens of basic rights, we hand a propaganda coup to the enemy! Giftwrapped for Christmas, no less!”
The Old Man coughed, and that alone was enough to silence both of them. “Settle down, boys,” he said. “The real fight’s out there, not here in the office.”
“Indeed, sir,” Mr. Pryce conceded, and was echoed by Gascoigne.
The Old Man continued, “You have your assignment, Pryce. I expect you to carry it out. Gascoigne will fill you in on everything his men know already. And I should not have to repeat myself, but stay away from Sir Richard Smythe. The Minister’s already warned me off him.”
“Why should the Minister care?” Mr. Pryce asked. “Smythe is in the opposition.”
The Old Man laughed and sounded quite astonished. “Can you imagine the headlines, Pryce? ‘Labour Government Spies On Conservative Member of Parliament.’ Oh no, that wouldn’t do at all.”
“I see what you mean, sir,” Mr. Pryce said.
“So no harassing Smythe.”
Kitty heard chairs scraping against the floor. The meeting was over. Gascoigne and the Old Man were leaving. She quickly took off the headphones and put them down on the table. The others did the same. They all stared at each other, uncertain what to say.
Mrs. Singh looked like she wanted to strangle someone. Her hands were clenched into fists. “Of all the bloody nerve,” she muttered.
Faith looked grim. “Is that all true, Mrs. Singh?” she asked. “We’re gonna start spying on people protesting apartheid?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Mrs. Singh replied, springing out of her chair.
“My uncle’s a member of the movement,” Tommy said, staring into the distance, horrified. “Are we gonna spy on ’im too?”
Mrs. Singh shook her head, still seething with anger. “No, we are not. We do not spy on innocent people.”
“But the Old Man,” Liam said hesitantly, “I mean, he gave orders, didn’t he?”
“He gave Pryce orders. No one has said anything about it to the rest of us, have they?” Mrs. Singh flashed a wicked smile. Then she beckoned to Kitty. “In the meantime, Kitty, come with me. I need to tell you about your new assignment. Something tells me it’s now more important than ever.”
Chapter 14
Mr. Pryce was waiting for them in his office, stewing over a cup of tea. Kitty saw anger in the lines around his eyes, but he put on a cheerful smile as she and Mrs. Singh entered the room.
“Mrs. Singh and Miss Granger! Just the two people I wanted to se
e. Have a seat. I’d offer you tea, but I fear I’m out of fresh cups.”
Kitty sat in one of the chairs and glanced at the tea service, in particular at the tea chest. The bug was still there. Were the other Young Bloods going to listen in?
Mrs. Singh looked at the tea chest too. She picked up the tray and said, “Why don’t you get started on the briefing, Pryce? I’ll clean this up.”
“Generous of you, my dear, but there’s no need for that,” Pryce assured her.
“There is,” Mrs. Singh answered.
Mr. Pryce sighed. “Did Faith and Liam bug my office again? I warned them last time.”
“I take responsibility for it,” Mrs. Singh said, “and I’ll make certain it doesn’t happen again. But consider, Pryce: a last-minute visit from the Old Man and Gascoigne, and I’m not invited? That kind of thing worries the rank and file.”
“Under the circumstances, I can’t blame them,” Mr. Pryce admitted. “But make it clear to them both: not again, ever, or there will be serious consequences. The Old Man and I could have been talking about anything. State secrets, perhaps.”
“Thankfully, it was just Gascoigne being an ass as usual,” Mrs. Singh said, as she carried the tea tray out of the office.
Mr. Pryce now removed two folders from a drawer in his desk and set them in front of Kitty. He opened the top one. Inside was a typewritten dossier with a man’s photograph pinned to it. The man was middle-aged, with graying temples and a jaw that jutted out like he wanted it to look more impressive than it actually was. Kitty skimmed the first page of the dossier and immediately recognized the name.
Sir Richard Smythe.
Kitty quickly flipped through the following pages, taking in every detail. She didn’t understand a lot of it, but she knew that it was all important so she did her best to absorb all of it, even the parts that made no sense to her.
“This is Sir Richard Smythe,” Mr. Pryce said. “Member of Parliament for Lower West Wickham, and an utterly despicable man. We’ve been following him for the better part of three years.”
“What’s ’e done?” Kitty asked.
“My investigation has been able to tie Smythe to at least half a dozen acts of murder, extortion, blackmail, and bribery, and he has some uncomfortably close ties to ‘friendly dictatorships’ around the world. Unfortunately, the evidence is almost entirely circumstantial—based on common associates, unverifiable eye witnesses, and other unreliable methodologies.” Mr. Pryce sighed. “To be honest, I’d probably dismiss the evidence myself if there wasn’t so damn much of it. Pardon my language.”
“I’m from the East End, sir,” Kitty reminded him. “Swearin’ don’t bother me.”
“Of course.” Mr. Pryce returned to the matter of Smythe. “On top of everything else, Smythe is a fascist.”
“I thought ’e were a Conservative,” Kitty said, rereading the file. She’d never heard of a Fascist Party MP. It was probably illegal, or at least it ought to be.
“Officially yes,” Mr. Pryce said, “but in his younger days, dear Sir Richard was a disciple of Oswald Mosley.”
Kitty knew the name, but she was astonished to hear it. “What? Best friends with Hitler and Mussolini, that Oswald Mosley?”
“That’s the one,” Mr. Pryce confirmed. “Sir Richard was a teenager in the ’30s, when Mosley was playing would-be dictator with his British Union of Fascists. Apparently, he followed Mosley around like a dog and absorbed as much right-wing drivel as he could. The man was a card-carrying Blackshirt until the mid-thirties.”
Kitty grimaced. The war had been well before her time, but her father had told her stories about it. He’d had plenty of choice words to say about the “bloody Germans” he’d fought, but some of his harshest sentiments were reserved for Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. As Kitty saw it, fascism was for sore losers who wanted to blame someone else for their own failures, petty men who started wars other people had to fight.
“Then ’ow’s ’e a Member of Parliament now?” Kitty asked.
“After ’36, Smythe’s family forbade him from being publicly associated with Mosley, and they pulled on the right strings to get any record of his fascist associations suppressed,” explained Mr. Pryce. “But there’s evidence that the two of them corresponded and met privately up until a few years ago. It seems they had a falling out when Mosley came back into politics in ’59.”
“Why?”
“Sir Richard had already been a member of the Conservative Party for more than ten years at that point,” Mr. Pryce answered. “He still shared Mosley’s ideology, but he’d managed to tailor it to the party line. I suspect but can’t prove that Sir Richard is trying to shift Conservative politics further to the right, gradually converting the party to fascism from the inside.”
As he said this, the door opened and Mrs. Singh joined them again. She wrinkled her nose at the mention of Smythe.
“Suspect,” she scoffed, folding her arms. “We all know he’s doing it.”
“Knowing and proving are two different things, Mrs. Singh,” said Mr. Pryce. “I can’t arrest a man just because I ‘know’ he’s guilty.” He turned back to Kitty. “Anyway, when Mosley came back, he ran for Parliament as his own party, the Union Movement. He was utterly trounced, and Labour won the election. Rumor is, Sir Richard believed that the Conservatives would have won if Mosley had just kept out of it.”
“After that, the two of them parted ways on very bad terms,” Mrs. Singh said. “As far as we can tell, they haven’t spoken since. Not that it matters. Mosley is old news. Smythe is the dangerous one now. He’s not a major figure in the party, but he has some influence. Over the past ten years, he’s arranged for dozens of his fellow covert fascists to stand for election as Conservatives, and about twelve of them are currently in Parliament. And that’s just the ones we know about. It’s possible he’s lured sitting MPs over to his camp as well. He plans to turn the Conservatives into a modern-day British Union of Fascists.”
“He can try,” Mr. Pryce interjected. “Speaking as a Conservative, I think the party has too much sense to let that happen. At any rate, politics aren’t our concern, espionage is—and we have a whole list of conspiracies and crimes that Sir Richard might be involved in.”
“You said ’e murdered someone?” Kitty asked.
Mr. Pryce gave her a nod. “Last year we connected him to the murder of a Northern Irish politician who was trying to resolve the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants. Smythe wants Britain to become uniformly Anglo Protestant, so inflaming sectarian violence in Northern Ireland plays right into his hand. It ‘justifies’ men like him repressing the Irish Catholics.” Pryce grimaced. “I saw Sir Richard and the assassin plotting together with my own eyes, but I didn’t get any tangible proof, so my superiors dismissed it. And now, it seems that some of Sir Richard’s associates are smuggling weapons into London, and we don’t know why.”
“But I thought . . .” Kitty began. She had heard the Old Man tell Mr. Pryce to stay away from Smythe.
Mr. Pryce answered her unspoken question. “After the debacle in Northern Ireland, my superiors warned me off investigating Smythe in any official capacity, so instead we’re looking into one of Sir Richard’s main associates. That brings us to your mission.”
Mr. Pryce moved Smythe’s file to the side and opened the next folder. It was another dossier, this time for an older man with a balding head and a wide gray mustache.
“This is Henry Lowell, Earl of Chiswick,” Mr. Pryce said. “He’s a member of the House of Lords and close friends with Sir Richard Smythe. Ideologically, he’s somewhere to the right of Francisco Franco.”
Kitty shivered. Hard to imagine someone more hardline than the Spanish dictator.
“Given free rein,” Mr. Pryce went on, “he’d gladly close down the House of Commons, divert all power to the hereditary lords, and deport anyone not Anglo Protestant while he’s at it. Of course, that’s not politically acceptable language so in public he jus
t talks about a return to tradition and ‘keeping Britain British.’ But it’s clear where his sentiments lie.”
“You can see why he and Smythe are such good friends,” Mrs. Singh added. “Britain for the Britons was one of Smythe’s actual campaign slogans. His policies are just a slightly dressed-up version of Lowell’s reactionism.”
Kitty waited a moment for some things to line up in her head before she spoke. “You think that if there’s anyone who’d be workin’ with Smythe, it’ll be Lord Lowell, aye? So you’re gonna investigate ’im and hope it leads you to evidence against Smythe. Once you get the evidence, you take it to the Old Man an’ then ’e’s got to let you go after ’em both.”
“Very good, Miss Granger,” Mr. Pryce said with a smile.
“So I’m to . . . what?” Kitty asked. “’Ow do I investigate a lord?”
Mrs. Singh chuckled. “I like the enthusiasm, Kitty, but you won’t be doing it singlehandedly. In fact, the investigation into Lowell has been going on for nearly a year now. We were watching him before then, but after the mess in Northern Ireland, Lowell’s become our only real option. Anyone lower down is too insignificant to make a difference.”
“At the moment, Lowell is being watched by Verity Chase,” Mr. Pryce said.
“So that’s where she’s been!” Kitty exclaimed, far more loudly than she meant to. It had been a mystery bothering her for weeks.
“Indeed. Two years ago, Miss Chase arranged a chance meeting with Lord Lowell’s daughter, Diana. She’s maintained the link since then, and she recently made contact while the family was abroad.”
“Monaco?” Kitty asked.
Mr. Pryce looked astonished. “How did you know?”
“On me first day, Verity told Debby she’d been in Monaco. I were just guessin’.”
“On your first day?” Mrs. Singh asked. “Honestly, Kitty, the things you remember.”
“Well, we’re going to put that memory of yours to work,” Mr. Pryce said. “For the past few weeks, Verity has been Diana’s guest at the Lowells’ country estate, keeping an eye on Lord Lowell. As far as she can tell, he doesn’t suspect her. Periodically, most of the family will go traveling somewhere, like a weekend in France or a trip to the seaside. Lowell always remains behind, and Verity believes he’s using those times to meet with Smythe and others.”
The Secret Life of Kitty Granger Page 10
