by Jo Walton
“They won’t find Loy, you can trust him for that. That’s why I’m here now and not him. I’m quite sure they only heard my name as Siddy, which doesn’t mean anything to anyone official.”
“It does to people who know you. Policemen might not know you, but you danced with the Prime Minister yesterday!” I said.
“I danced with Heinrich Himmler too, and I didn’t vomit and I wasn’t arrested, therefore they don’t know about me,” Siddy said, turning to look at me. “And if they don’t know about me they don’t know about you and we can go ahead. Besides, Mark Normanby calls me Lady Russell, which is still my name, although Geoff and I are divorced.”
“Whether or not we go ahead is my decision,” Devlin said. The lights changed. “Where am I supposed to be going, Siddy?”
“I don’t see why you can’t just go home to the flat,” she said. “Loy and I are moving, to be on the safe side, but the flat ought to be fine. No breaking pattern. And the bomb’s there, anyway.”
“The bomb’s there?” I asked, alarmed. I didn’t like the thought of sleeping so close to it.
They ignored me. “Lord Scott, and Malcolm, and Bob, all know about Viola and the current plan,” Devlin said. “That ought to mean that we all up sticks immediately.”
“In an ordinary sort of operation,” Siddy agreed. “But this one is so important, and such an opportunity. They know that. They know the timing. They’ll hold out that long. I think we should risk it.”
“You think?” Devlin was looking hard at her. “Or Moscow thinks?”
“I haven’t spoken to Moscow since I heard,” she said. “But I assure you, Moscow would think it was quite reasonable to lose all of us to take out Hitler. Loy thinks we should go ahead.”
“Loy is addicted to taking risks, you know that,” Devlin said. “It’s my decision.”
We drove in silence for a while. “I know it isn’t up to me at all,” I said, after a while. “But I think we should try it. We’ve got a good plan now, one that should work. And this is a chance to get rid of some people who really are evil.”
“This is a change. I thought you thought they were only doing their jobs and would be replaced by people just like them?” Siddy asked.
“That was before I met them,” I said, firmly. Lord Ullapool had been afraid. I kept thinking of that.
“We’ll see how it goes tomorrow before I make up my mind,” Devlin said. “Tell Loy to keep his head down, and you keep yours down too just in case. If all goes well, you and I have the Friday morning rendezvous at the florist. Be careful, but be there. If I’m not there, it’s off, and I’ll probably already be out of the country.”
Devlin slowed the car as he was saying this, and drew to a halt outside Notting Hill Gate Underground station.
“Can I call you tomorrow?” Siddy asked, her hand on the handle of the door.
“Don’t call the flat at all, from anywhere. Give me your new number. If I need you, I’ll call from a box,” Devlin said, firmly.
“All right,” Siddy said, getting out. “Friday morning then.” There were people going in and out of the Underground. She waved jauntily and went in through the doors.
“Those two,” Devlin said, talking more to himself than to me. “Come on then,” he said, looking at me in the mirror. “Is there anything you absolutely need from the flat for tomorrow morning, love? Because if not, as I swear nobody’s following us now, I think we’re going to stay on the safe side and spend the night in a little hotel I know near Victoria.”
“Won’t a hotel need an identity card?” I asked.
“A passport will do, for an Irishman, and I have any number of Irish passports,” Devlin said, smiling. “If you can try hard to look as if you’re not my wife, I don’t expect they’ll want to see anything from you at all. Do you need anything?”
“I think I can manage,” I said.
“Can’t have you going to your dress rehearsal in dirty knickers,” Devlin said, teasingly.
“I can buy some in the morning, or we could call Mrs. Tring and ask her to bring me some from home,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Devlin said. “There’s a pack in the boot with a change of clothes for both of us. It’s been there since the day you first stayed with me. Just in case.”
He drove on through the backstreets of London, and it struck me again how wonderful it was that he knew exactly what he was doing, not at all like me, who when it came to anything that wasn’t acting generally just muddled through as best I could.
28
The Home Secretary’s idea of the backup necessary to beard a peer of the realm in his den consisted of a Black Maria and another van full of eager constables under a sergeant. Carmichael and Royston led them in the Bentley. The sun beat down on the little procession as it left London and headed for Coltham.
“Kent, Inspector,” Royston said, glancing away from the road towards Carmichael. “Remember you said you’d never suspected me of having a Kentish aunt?”
It seemed like something at the other end of a dark tunnel. “On the way down to Farthing,” Carmichael said, as he might have said “When I was a boy,” or “Before the War,” or even “Before the War of the Austrian Succession.”
The sunlit countryside was quite unlike the Hampshire countryside that had oppressed Carmichael on that occasion. Here everything was much more open. Villages could be seen from a distance across the rolling Downs. Crows circled above fields of standing corn. Occasional white oasthouses stood up, their towers giving the landscape an almost Dutch feel. “Do you think it’s any prettier, sir?” Royston ventured.
“A bit, perhaps. But give me a good Lancashire moorland any day,” Carmichael said, making an effort. He wished suddenly that they could get out of the car and walk in the clean country air until he was exhausted.
“No stopping at a pub with this lot behind us, neither, even if it is lunchtime,” Royston said, encouraged.
“I think any pub would find that a bit intimidating,” Carmichael said.
Royston laughed. “Just a bit,” he said. “Do you really think we need them, sir?”
“No,” Carmichael said. “The two of us and perhaps a stout bobby to hold the handcuffs would have been quite sufficient, and probably a good deal less alarming. But I couldn’t argue with the Home Secretary.”
“Of course not, sir,” Royston said. “But at least we’re getting one of them this time.”
“One of who, sergeant?” Carmichael inquired.
“One of the nobs, the bigwigs. He’s a lord, isn’t he, that we’re going to arrest. Lord Scott, Green said, and Sir Aloysius. It isn’t always a protection. They don’t always get away with it.”
Carmichael digested that thought quietly. It didn’t give him as much comfort as he would have liked.
Royston broke the silence. “Nearly there now, just over this hill and up the drive. You can’t see the house from the road, but there’s a pair of big gates, like the ones at Farthing, and I remember seeing them when I was a nipper coming down here to my auntie’s. Always did wonder what was inside them.”
“Would you like a new job, Royston?” Carmichael asked as the car began to take the ascent.
“What do you mean?” Royston kept his eyes on the road. “Aren’t I giving satisfaction?”
“I mean that Lord Timothy Cheriton and Mr. Mark Normanby, both of whom you remember well enough, have offered me a new job, heading a new branch of special police to deal with terrorists and that sort of thing. I wondered if you’d like to transfer with me. It would mean a pay rise, maybe even a promotion.”
Royston was silent as the car swept over the crest of the hill.
“Going to be called the Watch,” Carmichael added.
“No offense, but I’m not sure that’s the kind of job I’d like,” Royston said at last as the road took them down.
“Me neither, sergeant, but I don’t have much choice in the matter,” Carmichael said. “Well, it would have been nice to have you on board,
but I do understand.”
They turned in at a pair of magnificent wrought iron gates, which stood open in the sunshine. The procession followed them. They crawled up the gravel driveway and drew to a halt in front of the massed mullioned windows of the house. There were rosebushes everywhere, and a profusion of roses in pink and yellow and red-streaked white. “Not as grand as I expected, somehow,” Royston said. “With it being called a Court. Smaller than Farthing. And yellow. Nice roses though.”
“I’d better have a word with the escort and make sure they understand they’re to wait until called for,” Carmichael said.
“Yes, sir, much better not to look as if we’re expecting trouble,” Royston agreed. “We’ve always got them there if we do need to manhandle anybody.”
Carmichael got out of the car and walked back towards the Maria. He wondered if it would have been more dignified to have sent Royston back to speak to them and waited in the car. Too late now. He’d have plenty of time to get used to dignity in his new appointment. They’d probably keep him stuck in an office like Penn-Barkis. He had taken only a few crunching steps on the gravel when he felt something hard hit him in the shin. It immediately took him back to summer afternoons at school and the blow of a cricket ball. It was the blast that came with it that brought back those nightmare days in France, culminating with Dunkirk, that had been Carmichael’s experience of war. He flung himself flat. There was another blast, farther away, and this time he recognized it properly. He wasn’t being shelled from a tank or machine-gunned from a plane; someone was shooting at him with a shotgun. That second blast would have been the second barrel, so he should be safe for the time being while they reloaded, assuming there was only one gunman, which was a bad assumption. Lord Scott, Sir Aloysius, Nash, Nesbitt; four men at least, and heaven knows who else. Without raising his head Carmichael drew back behind the Bentley. The gravel would ruin his suit, he thought, and wanted to laugh at the incongruity of it.
A car door banged, and then another. There was another shotgun blast. Then there came the crack of rifle fire. Utterly unarmed, as was the custom of the British police, Carmichael stayed down between the back of the Bentley and the front of the Maria. Judging by the angle of the rifle fire, the Home Secretary’s backup were violating police tradition. Carmichael was in general all for tradition, but in this particular case he couldn’t feel anything but relief.
After a small eternity, the firing stopped. Then he heard a firm young London voice shouting, “This is the police. Come out with your hands up, all of you.”
He raised himself to a crouch and then, attracting no fire, to his feet. He could see a number of bodies on the gravel. The golden stone of the house was streaked by creamy bullet marks, and some of the mullioned windows were broken. At the side of the house an old man with a shock of white hair was leading out a file of servants and retainers, hands in the air.
“Sir,” someone said at Carmichael’s elbow. He jumped, then turned. It was the flat-faced Deputy Inspector of the Home Secretary’s forces. He had lost his uniform cap and looked older than he had when they had set off from the Yard. “Ogilvie, Inspector. Glad to see you’re alive.”
“I think they winged me,” Carmichael said, remembering the blow to his shin. Looking down he was surprised to see his trouser leg soaked with blood. “A pellet I think?”
“That’s what they were using, sir, shotguns and quite heavy pellets, like you’d use for hare, maybe, not light birdshot. I saw you go down and thought they’d got a direct hit.”
“No, I was lucky,” Carmichael said, automatically. “How many of them were there?”
“Four,” Ogilvie said. “My marksmen shot two of them, and then the other two surrendered. I’ve sent an armed search party into the house to check we have absolutely everyone.”
“That’s right, good,” Carmichael said. He felt quite distant from the whole affair. He couldn’t even feel any pain from his wound.
“I think you should sit down in the van, sir,” Ogilvie said.
Carmichael nodded. Ogilvie supported his elbow and guided him around the side of the vehicles. The bobbies were putting handcuffs on everyone who had left the house and herding them into the Maria.
“Make sure you get their names and papers,” Carmichael said as they passed them.
“Yes, sir, they’re doing that, sir, as a matter of procedure. But I don’t think there’s going to be any problem putting this one under the Defence of the Realm Act, considering they shot at us.”
They walked down the far side of the van. The back doors were open. Carmichael did not want to climb inside, but he settled himself there on the high floor. It was a relief to get the weight off his leg. Ogilvie stood beside him, looking worried.
“There might be a bomb,” Carmichael remembered.
“Yes, sir, I have apprised the men of that possibility,” Ogilvie said. “I think you need a doctor sir, to dig the pellet out of your leg. I can carry on here if—”
“You’ve done very well, Deputy Inspector, and I entirely endorse all the decisions you made when you thought you were in charge,” Carmichael said. “But I need to know who has been arrested and if there’s any more resistance in the house. I’ll stay here.”
“Yes, sir,” Ogilvie said. One of the bobbies came up with a list, which Ogilvie took and handed to Carmichael. “This is the list of detainees, all matched to identity papers.”
Carmichael looked at it. Lord Philip John Scott headed the list. None of his other names were on it, nor were any of the women’s names anything like Siddy. “Do we know who we shot?” he asked.
“Just give me a minute,” Ogilvie said.
Carmichael sat back, out of the sunshine. He could smell blood, and over that the scent of the roses in front of the house. The lazy peace of a June afternoon was stealing back over what had been the scene of a battle. Somewhere out of sight, high above, a skylark started to sing. Royston must have gone with the inside party, Carmichael thought, because he couldn’t see him anywhere. He hoped they didn’t run into more trouble. He was glad Royston was with them. These men were all very keen, but Royston had common sense.
Ogilvie came back. “Malcolm Nesbitt and Robert Nash, according to their papers,” he said.
“Damn,” Carmichael said. He had wanted to speak to Nash for so long now that it seemed a terrible disappointment to know he never would. Death was the end of all possible answers.
“The other man with a shotgun, besides Lord Scott, was his butler, Goldfarb.”
“No women arrested, apart from servants?”
“None, sir.”
Well, it would be easy enough to get Green to identify the mysterious Siddy if she were hidden among them. The same went for Sir Aloysius, if he were disguising himself as a Jewish butler or anything else. They had them all. He was disappointed that Nash was beyond questioning, but they would probably get all they needed from Lord Scott.
“We mustn’t lose any of them in processing,” Carmichael said. “Make sure they’re all taken to the same place and kept together. I know there’s a lot of overcrowding at present, but this is really important. Probably most of the servants will be released soon, but I need to question them all.”
“Most of them seem terrified,” Ogilvie said. “All the shooting coming out of nowhere. As best I can tell from what they’ve said so far, Mr. Nesbitt saw us coming up the drive and came downstairs in a panic, at which Lieutenant Nash and Lord Scott snatched up shotguns from the gun room and prepared a defense.”
“I can’t think what they hoped to gain from it. It was impossible odds for them. They weren’t covering the escape of anyone else by the back?”
“I suppose it’s possible, but not from anything anyone has said. Shall I send out a patrol under a sergeant, sir? Or lead one myself?”
“How many men do you have in your command now?” Carmichael asked.
“Twenty-one active, sir. One was shot dead, and another three are wounded.”
“Then
a patrol isn’t worth it. This country looks flat, but it rolls, and there are spinneys, so someone who knows it could easily hide from twenty men, especially with the start he’d have had, even if we could spare them all. We’ll find out from the servants who was here and when.”
“Yes, sir,” Ogilvie said.
A red-faced young constable with a snub nose came up to them. “House secured, sir,” he said to Ogilvie, in a manner much more military than Carmichael was used to.
“No bombs, no armed hideouts, nothing of note?” Carmichael asked.
“No, sir. One dead body, a woman, papers identify her as Muriel Nest, Jewish, parlor maid.” He hesitated, then added, “Shot through the window by a rifle, sir, pure bad luck.”
“These things happen, and they certainly started the shooting, knowing they had innocents on their side,” Carmichael said. “We may have killed her, but we were undoubtedly acting in self-defense.”
“Yes, sir. And they killed two of us, not to mention the wounded,” the red-faced constable said.
“Two?” Carmichael asked. “I thought you said you’d only lost one man, Ogilvie?”
“That’s right, sir,” Ogilvie said, looking embarrassed. “I thought you knew, sir. The other one was your driver. They took him out early on, quite close range, in the chest, just as he was getting out of the car. Made a mess of the car too, dinged it up badly. Sorry about that, sir.”
29
Devlin’s idea of a hotel near Victoria was a beastly hole in Pimlico. Our room was actually underground, with a window at street level. It must have been a servant’s room when the so-called hotel was a proper house. The bathroom, which was down the hall, had a big old-fashioned bath with claw feet and a free-standing pipe that provided first warm and then lukewarm water. After checking us in, Devlin went off to hide the car. I had a good soak in the bath. When I came back to the room, wishing for talcum powder and face cream, not to mention my Dutch Cap, Devlin was fast asleep right in the middle of the bed. I had to poke him to make him move over.
