Ha'penny (31 page)

“This afternoon. And it’s in the base, we just need to have the flowers put in on Friday morning and have it sent round. Everything was moving smoothly until now.”

Devlin shifted his grip on my arm, and that reminded me of Daphne and Mark at the reception. “Put your hand on my elbow,” I said. He did. I arranged it so it was the way Mark’s had been. It wasn’t at all comfortable, even with his hand quite loose. “Now squeeze just the tiniest bit.” It was excruciating.

“What was that in aid of?” he asked. “Something for the play?”

“No, it’s how beastly Mark Normanby was holding his wife’s arm at the reception last night. I knew it had to hurt, I just wanted to be sure of it. I think he must be some kind of sadist.”

“From what I hear he doesn’t have much use for women at all.”

I was starting to feel seriously worried about where Loy was. A park keeper came past us, strolling towards the gates. “About to lock up now, mate,” he said.

We walked out of the gates and towards the car. “I don’t know—,” Devlin started, when we both caught sight of Siddy, her camel hair coat swinging around her, walking fast down Piccadilly towards us.

“Let’s get into the car and go somewhere,” she said.

“Where’s Loy?” Devlin asked.

“Keeping a low profile,” Siddy said, opening the car door. She sat in the front next to Devlin and I sat in the back and leaned forward, so I could hear them talk. “Nobody’s following me.”

“Nobody’s following us either; hanging around in the park for all that time waiting for you pretty much confirmed that,” Devlin said. “Now what’s happened?”

“Uncle Phil has been arrested, and they’ve taken in practically everyone who was at Coltham, servants included,” she said, as Devlin started up. “It was very hard for my sources to find out, it was done quite secretly and on orders directly from the Home Secretary. Usually anything like this someone would have warned me, or warned Uncle Phil directly, but they must have guessed that. There was some kind of trouble down there, that’s the only reason I know anything at all.”

“So how did they get onto him? They knew about him and they knew about the box, but they didn’t come after Viola,” Devlin said. Siddy was lighting a cigarette, and I saw the side of his face clearly in the flare of the match; he looked fierce and intent, the way he did when he was making love.

Siddy blew out smoke. “We think it must have been through Lauria’s servants. The Greens knew. They were in hiding, such good hiding we couldn’t find them either, but they were caught last Friday. We managed to get Mrs. Green away, she’s safely in, well, safety, but Mr. Green must have talked.”

“What did they know?” Devlin asked.

“They knew about the original plan. Nothing about the later developments. Nothing about you, or Viola. And they’d have heard Loy’s name, probably only as Loy, but maybe as Sir Aloysius.”

“That’s as distinctive as a bloody fingerprint,” Devlin muttered, stopping at red lights.

“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

T
he 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?”