Betrayal at Lisson Grove

by Anne Perry

  ‘I’ll attend to it,’ he answered Austwick at last. ‘As soon as I have a few more answers on this present problem. One of our informants was murdered, which has made things more difficult.’

  Austwick rose to his feet. ‘Yes, sir. That would be a good idea. I think the sooner you put people’s minds at rest on the issue, the better it will be. I suggest before the end of this week.’

  ‘When circumstances allow,’ Narraway replied coolly.

  Circumstances did not allow. Early the following morning Narraway was sent for to report to the Home Office, directly to Sir Gerald Croxdale, his political superior, the one man to whom he was obliged to answer, without reservation.

  Croxdale was in his early fifties, a quiet, persistent politician who had risen in the ranks of the government with remarkable swiftness, not having made great speeches or initiated new laws, nor apparently having used the benefit of patronage from any of the more noted ministers. Croxdale seemed to be his own man. Whatever debts he collected or favours he owed were too discreet for even Narraway to know of, let alone the general public. He had made no individual initiatives that were remarkable, but probably far more important, he had made no visible mistakes. Insiders spoke his name with respect.

  Narraway had never seen in him the passion that marked an ambitious man, but he had noted the quick rise to greater power and it earned in him a deeper, if reluctant, respect.

  ‘Morning, Narraway,’ Croxdale said with an easy smile as he waved him to a brown leather armchair in his large office. Croxdale was a big man, tall and solid. His face was far from handsome in any traditional sense, but he was imposing. His voice was soft, his smile benign. Today he was wearing his usual well-cut but unostentatious suit, and perfectly polished black leather boots. He could have been the second son of any of the great families in the country.

  Narraway returned the greeting, and sat down, not comfortably, but a little forward, listening.

  ‘Bad business about your informant West being killed,’ Croxdale began. ‘I presume he was going to tell you a great deal more about whatever it was that is building up among the militant socialists.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Narraway said bleakly. ‘Pitt and Gower were only seconds too late. They saw West but he was already terrified of something and took to his heels. They caught up with him in a brickyard in Shadwell, only moments after he was killed. The murderer was still bending over him.’ He could feel the heat of the blood in his cheeks as he said it. It was partly anger at having been so close, and yet infinitely far from preventing the death. One minute sooner and West would have been alive, and all his information would be theirs. It was also a sense of failure, as if losing him were an incompetence on the part of his men, and so of himself. Deliberately he met Croxdale’s eyes, refusing to look away. He never made excuses, explicit or implicit.

  Croxdale smiled, leaning back and crossing his long legs. ‘Unfortunate, but luck cannot always be on our side. It is the measure of your men that they kept track of the assassin. What is the news now?’

  ‘I’ve had a couple of telegrams from Pitt in St Malo,’ Narraway answered. ‘Wrexham, the killer, seems to have more or less gone to ground in the house of a British expatriate there. The interesting thing is that he has seen other socialist activists of note.’

  ‘Who?’ Croxdale asked.

  ‘Pieter Linsky and Jacob Meister,’ Narraway replied.

  Croxdale stiffened, straightening up a little, his face keen with interest. ‘Really? Then perhaps not all is lost.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me, Narraway, do you still believe there is some major action planned?’

  ‘Yes,’ Narraway said without hesitation. ‘I think West’s murder removes any doubt. He would have told us what it was, and probably who else was involved.’

  ‘Damn! Well, you must keep Pitt there, and the other chap, what’s his name?’

  ‘Gower.’

  ‘Yes, Gower too. Give them all the funds they need. I’ll see to it that that meets no opposition.’

  ‘Of course,’ Narraway said with some surprise. He had always had complete authority to disburse the funds in his care as he saw fit.

  Croxdale pursed his lips and leaned further forward. ‘It is not quite so simple, Narraway,’ he said gravely. ‘We have been looking into the matter of past funds and their use, in connection with other cases, as I dare say you know.’ He interlaced his fingers and looked down at them a moment, then up again quickly. ‘Mulhare’s death has raised some ugly questions, which I’m afraid have to be answered.’

  Narraway was surprised. He had not realised it had already gone as far as Croxdale, and before he had even had a chance to look into it more deeply, and prove his own innocence. Was that Austwick’s doing again? Damn the man.

  ‘They will be,’ he said now to Croxdale. ‘I kept certain movements of the funds secret to protect Mulhare. His enemies would have killed him instantly if they’d known he received English money.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather what happened?’ Croxdale asked ruefully.

  Narraway thought for a moment of denying it. Special Branch knew who had killed Mulhare, but it was only proof they lacked; the deduction was certain in his own mind. But he did not need another moral evasion. His life was too full of shadows. He would not allow Croxdale to provoke him into another. ‘Yes.’

  ‘We failed him, Narraway,’ Croxdale said sadly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ Croxdale pressed.

  ‘He was betrayed.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I don’t know. When this socialist threat is dealt with, I shall find out, if I can.’

  ‘If you can,’ Croxdale said gently. ‘Do you doubt it? You have no idea who it was here in London?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘But you used the word “betrayed”,’ Croxdale persisted. ‘I think advisedly so. Does that not concern you urgently, Narraway? Whom can you trust, in any Irish issue? Of which, God knows, there are more than enough.’

  ‘The European socialist revolutionaries are our most urgent concern now, sir.’ Narraway also leaned forward. ‘There is a high degree of violence threatened. Men like Linsky, Meister, la Pointe, Corazath, are all quick to use guns and dynamite. Their philosophy is that a few deaths are the price they have to pay for the greater freedom and equality of the people. As long, of course, as the deaths are not their own,’ he added drily.

  ‘Does that take precedence over treachery within your own people?’ Croxdale asked with quiet, tense amazement. He left it hanging in the air between them, a question that demanded answering.

  Narraway had seen the death of Mulhare as tragic, but less urgent than the threat of revolution. He knew how he had guarded the provenance of the money, knowing those of whom Mulhare was afraid. He did not know how someone had made the funds return to Narraway’s own personal account. Above all, he did not know who was responsible, or whether it was incompetence or deliberately done in order to make him look a thief.

  ‘I’m not yet certain it was betrayal, sir. Perhaps I used the word hastily.’ He kept his voice as level as he could; still, he heard a certain roughness to it. He hoped Croxdale’s less sensitive ear did not catch it.

  Croxdale was staring at him. ‘As opposed to what?’

  ‘Incompetence,’ Narraway replied. ‘We covered the tracks of the transfers very carefully, so no one in Ireland would be able to trace the money back to us. We made it seem like legitimate purchases all the way.’

  ‘Or at least you thought so,’ Croxdale amended. ‘But Mulhare was still killed. Where is the money now?’

  Narraway had hoped to avoid telling him, but perhaps it had always been inevitable that Croxdale would have to know. Maybe he did, and this was a trap. ‘Austwick told me it was back in an account I have ceased using,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know who moved it, but I shall find out.’

  Croxdale was silent for several moments. ‘Yes, please do, and with indisputable proof, of course. Qui
ckly, Narraway. We need your skills on this wretched socialist business. It seems the threat is real.’

  ‘I’ll look into the money as soon as we have learned what West’s killers are planning, and prevented it,’ Narraway answered with a chill inside him. ‘With a little luck, we’ll even catch some of them and be able to put them away.’

  Croxdale looked up, his eyes bright and sharp. Suddenly he was no longer an amiable, rather bear-like man but tigerish, the passion in him like a coiled spring, only masked by a superficial ease. ‘Do you imagine that the sacrifice of a few martyrs to the cause will stop anything, Narraway? If so, I’m disappointed in you. Idealists thrive on sacrifice, the more public and the more dramatic the better.’

  ‘I know that.’ Narraway was stung by the misjudgement. ‘I have no intention of giving them martyrs. Indeed, I have no intention of denying them social reform and a good deal of change, but in pace with the will of the majority of the people in the country, not ahead of it, and not forced on them by a few fanatics. We’ve always changed, but slowly. Look at the history of the revolutions of ’forty-eight. We were about the only major country in Europe who didn’t have an uprising. And by 1850 where were all the idealists from the barricades? Where were all the new freedoms so bloodily won? Every damn one of them gone, and all the old regimes back in power.’

  Croxdale was looking at him intensely, his expression unreadable.

  ‘We had no uprising,’ Narraway went on, his voice dropping a level, but the heat of feeling still there. ‘No deaths, no grand speeches, just quiet progress, a step at a time. Boring, perhaps unheroic, but also bloodless, and more to the point, sustainable. We aren’t back under the old tyrannies. As governments go, ours is not bad.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Croxdale said drily.

  Narraway gave one of his rare, beautiful smiles. ‘My pleasure, sir.’

  Croxdale sighed. ‘I wish it were so simple. I’m sorry, Narraway, but you will solve this miserable business of the money that should have gone to Mulhare immediately. Austwick will take over the socialist affair until you have it dealt with, which includes unarguable proof that someone else placed it in your account, and you were unaware of it until Austwick told you. It will also include the name of whoever is responsible for this, because they have jeopardised the effectiveness of one of the best heads of Special Branch that we have had in the last quarter-century, and that is treason against the country, and against the Queen.’

  For a moment Narraway did not grasp what Croxdale was saying. He sat motionless in the chair, his hands cold, gripping the arms as if to keep his balance. He drew in his breath to protest, and saw in Croxdale’s face that it would be pointless. The decision was made, and final. The trap had him, like an iron gin on an animal’s leg, and he had not even seen himself step into it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Narraway,’ Croxdale said quietly. ‘You no longer have the confidence of Her Majesty’s government, or of Her Majesty herself. I have no alternative but to remove you from office, until such time as you can prove your innocence. I appreciate that that will be more difficult for you without access to your office or the papers that are in it, but you will appreciate the irony of my position. If you have access to the papers, you also have the power to alter them, destroy them, or add to them.’

  Narraway was stunned. It was as if he had been dealt a physical blow. Suddenly he could barely breathe. It was preposterous. He was head of Special Branch, and here was this government minister telling him he was dismissed, with no warning, no preparation: just his decision, a word, and it was all over.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Croxdale repeated. ‘This is a somewhat unfortunate way of having to deal with it, but it can’t be helped. You will not go back to Lisson Grove, of course.’

  ‘What?’ The word slipped out, leaving Narraway more vulnerable than he had intended, and he was furious with himself, but it was too late. There was not even any way to conceal it without making it worse.

  ‘You cannot go back to your office,’ Croxdale said patiently. ‘Don’t oblige me to make an issue of it.’

  Narraway rose to his feet, horrified to find that he was a trifle unsteady, as if he had been drinking. He wanted to think of something dignified to say, and above all to make absolutely certain that his voice was level, completely without emotion. He drew in his breath and let it out slowly.

  ‘I will find out who betrayed Mulhare,’ he said a little hoarsely. ‘And also who betrayed me.’ He thought of adding something about keeping this as a Special Branch fit to come back to, but it sounded so pettish he let it go. ‘Good day.’

  Outside in the street everything looked just as it had when he went in: a hansom cab drawn up at the kerb, half a dozen men here and there dressed in striped trousers.

  He started to walk without any very clear idea of where he intended to go. His lack of direction was immediate, but he thought with a sense of utter emptiness that perhaps it was eternal as well. He was fifty-eight. Half an hour ago he had been one of the most powerful men in Britain, even though very few people knew it. He was trusted absolutely; he held other men’s lives in his hands, he knew the nation’s secrets; the safety of ordinary men and women depended on his skill, his judgement.

  Now he was a man without a purpose, without an income – although that was not an immediate concern. The land inherited from his father supported him, not perhaps in luxury, but at least adequately. He had no family alive now, and he realised with a gathering sense of isolation that he had acquaintances, but no close friends. His profession had made it impossible during the years of his increasing power. Too many secrets, too much need for caution.

  It would be pathetic and pointless to indulge in self-pity. If he sank to that, what better would he deserve? He must fight back. Someone had done this to him. It made sense only if it were deliberate and, regrettably, he could think of a score of people who might be responsible, and a score of reasons. The only person he would have trusted to help was Pitt, and Pitt was in France chasing socialist reformers with violence in their dreams.

  He was walking quickly up Whitehall, looking neither right nor left, probably passing people he knew, and ignoring them. No one would care. In time to come, when it was known he was no longer in power, they would probably be relieved. He was not a comfortable man to be with. Even the most innocent tended to attribute ulterior motives to him, imagine secrets that did not exist.

  Whitehall became Parliament Street, then he turned left and continued walking until he was on Westminster Bridge, staring eastward across the wind-ruffled water.

  He could not even return to his office to look through the piles of papers he had and begin to search for anomalies, figures that did not add up, anything that would tell him where to look for the enemy who, for reasons of greed, hatred, or divided loyalties, had betrayed Mulhare, and in doing that betrayed Narraway also.

  Then another thought that was far uglier occurred to him. Was Mulhare the one who was incidental damage, and Narraway himself the target of the treachery?

  As that thought took sharper focus in his mind he wondered bitterly if he really wanted to know the answer. Who was it that he had trusted, and been so horribly mistaken in?

  He was letting himself hate, and there was no time for such self-indulgence. Anger – a small amount of it – was good. It fired the energy to fight back, to deny discouragement, weariness, even the awful void of being alone.

  He turned and walked on over the bridge to the far side, and took a hansom, giving the driver his home address.

  When he reached his house he poured himself a quick shot of single malt whisky, his favourite, Macallans. Then he went to the safe and took out the few papers he had kept here referring to the Mulhare case. He read them from beginning to end, and learned nothing he did not already know, except that the money for Mulhare had been returned to the account within two weeks. He had not known because he had assumed the account dormant. There was no notification from the bank.

  It was close to
midnight, and he was still sitting staring at the far wall without seeing it when there was a sharp, double tap on the window of the french doors opening onto the garden. It was a rhythm that only a person’s knuckles could make. It startled him out of his reverie and he froze for an instant, then got to his feet. The speed with which he did it, moving away from the glass and the light, made him realise how tense he was.

  The tap came again, and he looked at the shadow outside. He could just see the features of a man’s face beyond, unmoving, as if he wished to be recognised. Narraway thought for a moment of Pitt, but he knew it was not he. He was in France, and this man was not as tall.

  He must concentrate – think! He had allowed this blow to stun him. In a single act they had removed from him almost all that mattered to him, his purpose, his value in other people’s eyes, and perhaps in his own as well, and also a great deal of his pleasure.

  The man at the window was Stoker. He should have known that straight away. It was ridiculous to be standing here in the shadows as if he were afraid. He went forward and unlocked the french doors and opened them wide.

  Stoker came in, holding a bundle of papers in a large envelope, half hidden under his jacket. His hair was damp from the slight drizzle outside, as if he had walked some distance. Narraway hoped he had, and taken more than one cab, to make following or tracing him difficult.

  ‘What are you doing here, Stoker?’ he said quietly, for the first time this evening drawing the curtains closed. It had not mattered before, and he liked the presence of the garden at twilight, the birds, the fading of the sky, the occasional movement of leaves.

  ‘Brought some papers that might be useful, sir,’ Stoker replied. His voice and his eyes were perfectly steady, but there was a tension in his body, in the way he held his hands, that betrayed to Narraway that he knew perfectly well the risk he was taking.

  Narraway took the papers from him and glanced down at them, riffling through the pages swiftly to see what they were. Then he felt the breath tighten in his chest, and his own fingers clumsy. They referred to an old case in Ireland, twenty years ago. The memory of it was powerful, for many reasons, and he was surprised how very sharply it returned.