All Honourable Men (40 page)

“We will if you like,” the Commander said without enthusiasm.

“I think it would be best. They may settle for an assurance that he died bravely. I trust that he did?”

“I don't know,” Ranklin said. “I was half a mile away.”

Corbin looked irritated, so Ranklin shrugged. “I expect so. Men usually do.”

Satisfied, Corbin nodded. “Which seems only to leave the matter of Lady Kelso . . . What do you suggest we should do to express our thanks to her? Bearing in mind that any
public
acknowledgement of her contribution might bring the whole . . . complex story into the open.” He'd probably been going to say “shabby”, not “complex”.

Ranklin had known this must come, but that had been no help. “I'm afraid there's not much I can suggest, except—”

“She does rather seem to have everything already,” Corbin mused. “The title, the house in the Italian lakes . . .”

“I think she'd rather like an introduction to English society – at a level suitable to her rank.”

There was a moment of rather surprised silence. Then Corbin said: “Society . . . Yes, odd how people value that . . . But although, at the Foreign Office, we have to deal with some strange and even weird races, the upper reaches of English society are, thank God, not within our remit. So I'm afraid . . . A warm letter of appreciation from Sir Edward himself, perhaps?”

It was, as Ranklin had expected, the best they could do. On the way out, he asked: “Will you be letting the Admiralty and India Office know whatever's ‘appropriate'? Or do they expect us to report to them separately?”

This time Corbin looked vexed. “The Admiralty will be informed. But the India Office . . . They may have started this thing, but it isn't any risk to India that concerns us, it's the Gulf and oil.”

As they reached the pavement of King Charles Street, the Commander demanded: “What was that about the
India
Office? We don't have any dealings with them.”

“Spying,” Ranklin said cheerfully. “Corbin said the India Office started it. So now we know Gunther sold his secret to Hapgood, not the FO or the Admiralty. I suppose foreigners do tend to overrate our concern for India.”

“Are you still worrying about van der Brock?”

“Wouldn't we like to re-establish good commercial relations with that firm? Their terms seem to be strictly eye-for-an-eye: one of Gunther's partners wanted to balance their books by killing me. May still want to, for all I know.”

“We can't have
that
” the Commander frowned. “Could you suggest to them that it was the late Monsieur Bertrand Lacan who had Gunther killed? – he was in Paris, just a telephone call away at the time, wasn't he?”

Ranklin nodded. “Actually, I think it really
was
him – or his department or whatever. I think Gunther got his information from an informant in Paris, not Berlin. And from what they said, or didn't say, to O'Gilroy at Constantinople, I think Gunther's partners know that.”

“Fine,” the Commander said cheerfully. “So all you have to do is persuade them that Bertie found out, and Bob's your uncle.”

“Suppose,” Ranklin said cautiously, “they ask
how
Bertie found out?”

But the Commander refused to be uncheered. “They probably won't. Anyway, loose ends add veracity. It's only lies that explain every last detail.”

“How very true,” Ranklin murmured.

* * *

“I believe,” Ranklin said, “that you're an expert on the rupee?”

“Oh no, just an amateur, a pure dabbler on the fringes.” Hapgood, the outsider, had picked up the self-deprecation of the genuine insider. Only perhaps he overdid it.

“But you've never seen it in its native habitat? Never visited India?”

“No-o.” Hapgood was puzzled but kept a smile on his honest, open face.

“Now might be a good time.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because I'm going to have to tell Gunther van der Brock's partner that you betrayed Gunther to the French, had him killed.”

“I did nothing of the—”

“Perhaps for what you saw as the best of motives: so that, once Gunther had sold his secret to you, he couldn't sell it to anyone else. Only – I suppose you had the sense to make it an anonymous message? – you'd have to pretend that he was
coming
to this Office, not that he'd already been.”

“I tell you this is abso—!”

“I suppose you thought that was what a real born-to-rule insider would have done. Charming but ruthless. But you overdid it: more royal than royalty sort of thing. It can be tricky, knowing what to be true to, I know . . . And incidentally, you were wrong about Gunther. He would never have sold the same secret twice. He was, in his way, an honourable man – for purely commercial reasons, no doubt, but in these lax times . . .”

Hapgood had gone red-faced under his curly fair hair. “I had nothing to do with it. . . And why are you making a fuss about some damned little informer, anyway?”

“He was a
spy
– just like me. He spent his life risking his neck and being despised by people like you, and he'd learned to expect that, we all do. That doesn't leave us much to cling to. But one thing is not being betrayed by the people we work for: we don't have to stand for
that
– is that quite clear?”

Hapgood stared at him, truly bewildered. “But you can't compare yourself with
him
. . . You work for—”

“You don't understand.” Ranklin nodded to himself and stood up. Hapgood rose, too, towering over him. “And if you don't understand, don't
meddle
. . . I'm serious about visiting India.”

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Copyright © 1997 by Gavin Lyall

First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Hodder & Stoughton

The moral right of author has been asserted

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All characters in this publication are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 9781448200559
eISBN: 9781448201877

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