Текст книги "The Blood Royal"

Автор книги: Barbara Cleverly

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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 said 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.

Ah, well … perhaps she would find some poor soul, marry him and leave? And then he could put in for a male secretary who wouldn’t sigh in his ear and concern himself with the state of his handkerchief. Trivialities! Joe reproved himself for being distracted by them. Time he followed his guns to the country.

He was under no illusion as to the style of entertainment on offer: an all-male gathering, the other guests being stars from the government and the military. A general flown in from Ireland, an admiral snatched from his battlecruiser, the flamboyant head of the Secret Service lured from the Savoy Grill and a press baron: all these featured on the list Commissioner Horwood had himself written out for him in pencil. It had concluded with the name of the head of the diplomatic service. And perhaps this outspoken mob would be needing the active services of a diplomatist before the weekend was out. The presence of Max Beaverbrook, leader of what he himself called ‘the Press Gang’, promised to be somewhat inflammatory when another name on the list was that of Winston Churchill, the man he had seriously annoyed with his articles in the Daily Express.

Joe expected a clash of antlers at worst, point-scoring at best. They’d been promised a soothing after-dinner performance from the exiled Russian bass, Chaliapin, accompanied by Rubinstein on the piano and, according to the pencilled note, a soprano called Olga?/Vera? would be released from Covent Garden to put in an appearance on the second night. Nothing but the best on offer for the Gratton Gang, evidently. But his sharp sister had it right, Joe reckoned. ‘Minnow’ had been a little derogatory, perhaps, but all the same … he did wonder what on earth a not-very-exalted policeman could be expected to contribute to the occasion.

He would have been glad of the reassuring presence of his mentor and friend, Sir George Jardine, at his side. It had been some time, in the turbulence of Calcutta, before Joe realized that the deceptively suave governor of Bengal was the eyes and ears of his Britannic majesty in India, the éminence grise behind the viceroy. The man who oiled the wheels of empire. But he was by no means a sinister presence in company. Whenever the affable and approachable Sir George entered a room, the mood lightened, the chatter speeded up and laughter broke out. And George had been quick to see, in the new Scotland Yard detective seconded to his police force, a sociable and clever young aide. Together, the two of them, with mutual understanding, made up a tongue-in-cheek charm department that eased the social levers. Joe sighed and comforted himself with the thought that at least the Commissioner, as his present boss, might possibly be in his corner.

A working weekend and Sandilands, if anyone noticed him, would be on trial of some sort. The Commissioner had said as much in his forthright, old soldier’s way: ‘Don’t be shy, Sandilands. Sing for your supper. I’m sorry I can’t promise any young ladies for you to fascinate but at least you’ll be able to concentrate on the matters in hand.’ The ironic gleam in the brigadier’s eye told Joe that unofficial reports of his encounters in India had followed him home. ‘We’ll see what your year’s apprenticeship with George Jardine has done for you,’ the brigadier chuntered on. ‘I hear very good things from my old friend. He rather curses me for enticing you back to London. He had expectations that you might be persuaded to stay on in India and train up in the dark arts of … er … dynamic diplomacy. Would that adequately convey the flavour of the strong-arm shenanigans and double-dealing you and George go in for? Help him keep the Raj on the rails is what he meant.’

Joe had politely disclaimed any talent for diplomacy, dynamic or otherwise.

‘Well, you turned down what could have been a spectacular career, young man. I’m sure you had your reasons.’

By his silence and downcast eyes, Joe indicated that he was unwilling to share them and the brigadier hurried on: ‘Still – you survived a year with George. Takes some doing! It must have left you supremely placed to undertake the very particular demands we’re about to make on you. You thought India was a serpents’ nest of intrigue and violence? Just wait until you get your briefing on the capital. Some silly oafs tried to bomb Westminster while you were away pig-sticking and sinking the chota-pegs. And they were a whisker away from blowing up Scotland Yard. And now we’re getting these attacks on military gents. In broad daylight and on the street! Work to be done, my boy! And not much time.’

Joe was uncomfortably aware that he could be absenting himself from London at an inconvenient moment. He’d calculated that on these last long days of a long hot summer the regular villains would be cooling their toes in the sea at Southend, but the tug of war between his impatience to be off and his feelings of guilt at a fancied dereliction of duty was making him uneasy. No one would blame him. The Special Branch wouldn’t even notice his absence. And the CID superintendents he’d be leaving in charge would heave a sigh of relief. The granite features of that Yorkshireman he was beginning to trust … Superintendent Hopkirk … loomed into his mind. Yes – Joe was both annoyed and reassured by the thought – Hopkirk and his team of inspectors would be glad to be getting him off their backs for a bit.

On a whim, against all protocol, he’d nipped into the inspectors’ room without being announced the other day. Just to keep them on the hop and remind them of who he was. He’d remembered and put a name to most of the faces through the thick fug of cigarette smoke, faces that glowered back at him with suspicion. The resentment hadn’t lasted longer than the few seconds it had taken him to dive with his usual military authority straight into a discussion.

The moment had been a good one – the men appeared to have been sunk, not in the usual seditious talk, but in a serious discussion of police business when he burst in, and they hadn’t felt caught on the back foot. The impromptu meeting ended with good-humoured quips on both sides. He’d felt easy enough in their company to announce that he might be off the scene for a few days and to demand reassurances that they wouldn’t go about the place getting into trouble while he was away. He’d been pleased to provoke the traditional response delivered with ponderous irony: ‘Won’t do anything you wouldn’t do, sir – you can bet on that much!’

Predictable but, at least – less stiff … more accepting.

And yet the relief at his news, though silent, was perceptible. He harried the troops. He knew that. He had no intention of letting up.

And now – decision time: to go or to make his apologies? He toyed for a moment with the notion that he had a choice in the matter and tried out one or two of the dozen convincing excuses available to him. He selected one. Correctly reading his uncertainty, Miss Jameson sighed in understanding.

It was the sigh that triggered his decision. The undemanding open moorland beckoned. And, after all, he wasn’t going quite to the ends of the earth. Hopkirk could always send a telegram to summon him back if anything blew up. Oh, Lord! There was a thought that could have been better expressed. He grimaced.

The company gathering for the weekend party promised to be intimidating but they might well be congenial – if the birds were flying well and the right mood was struck. Joe enjoyed shooting and lively conversation. And the food at the grand house would be good; he thought he could count on that. There would be wine – perhaps with a bit of luck tankards of foaming Exmoor ale would accompany Cook’s game pie?

Joe grabbed the old army trenchcoat he kept by him winter and summer from the branched hatstand by the door and threw it over his arm; he tweaked his bowler hat from the topmost twig. The daily reminder of his slavery to the city, the hat was a hated object and, in a gesture of defiance, decision and mischief, he lobbed it across the room at Miss Jameson.

She caught it in flight with the swift reaction of a lacrosse player and clutched it dramatically to her bosom: a lady accepting her knight’s gage of honour. The size seven and a half bowler was barely equal to the task of encircling her left breast, he noted, and looked away, disturbed by the image. It was his guess that she would take the opportunity of having the wretched headgear cleaned and re-blocked during his absence. Well, let her get on with it. He’d decided to replace it with a soft stalker’s hat from the gents’ outfitters in Taunton High Street.

It usually poured with rain when he was in Devon but the promise of being back in the country, at peace under a dripping tweed brim, the scent of wet earth and heather filling his nostrils, made him quiver with anticipation. He was eager for the undemanding company of two or three tail-wagging, slobbering spaniels at his heels. In imagination he scratched their throats, turning his head this way and that to avoid their blasts of pungent breath. With a jaunty wave he dashed off to clatter down the stairs and out to the waiting motor car.

A day or two of freedom and comradeship on the moors stretched before him, walking, riding and tracking wild creatures instead of predatory humans. And no Miss Jameson! Bliss!