He presumably didn’t want to be murdered, but – Ranklin guessed – he didn’t want British officialdom watching his every step, either. And Ranklin was in no position to insist on anything. But neither could he abandon Falcone now.
“Then I suggest you move out of the Ritz as soon as we get back – and leave no forwarding address. I don’t know how easy it is to register under a false name in London hotels . . . You don’t belong to a London club, or an Italian one with a reciprocal arrangement with one here? Or would your ambassador put you up?”
“No.” Presumably Falcone was answering the last question first: he didn’t want his embassy looking over his shoulder, either. “Perhaps I am going to a hotel by here?”
Why not? The Hound and Spear probably didn’t meet the Senator’s standards, but there must be others within easy motor-ride. Probably Corinna had a guide book in the car. Corinna! – Ranklin suddenly realised that if Falcone was in danger then so, until they got rid of him, was Corinna. His own eyes started flickering and he wished he were armed.
But, once they were in the car and with the window to the chauffeur firmly shut, he had to explain as much as he could. “It seems that somebody’s stalking the Senator and they’ve pinpointed the Ritz. We have to assume they were watching, this morning, and saw him get into this car and they’ve pinpointed it, too.”
She took it quite calmly. Which was useful but a little disturbing, as if she expected Ranklin to move in an aura of trouble like a permanent garlic breath. “Then,” she suggested, “we could stop before the hotel and Senator Falcone could switch to a taxi. Or there must be some back way.”
“No,” Ranklin said firmly. “The other way around. We’re going to try and unravel any association between him and this car, and you, by delivering him back to the main entrance in plain view. I am not,” he went on, looking at Falcone, “having your problems spill over onto Mrs Finn. That is my first concern. We can start playing taxi-cab games after that.”
Falcone was all gallant protestations that of course Mrs Finn’s safety came first. Then he smiled and said: “You are most skilled in such . . . affairs. Like the Mr O’Gilroy who met me in Brussels.”
“Oh, just my Army training,” Ranklin said dismissively. “India, and all that,” he added.
“Ah yes.” Falcone seemed satisfied. And Corinna was watching the landscape as if it were the first time she’d ever seen a tree, a hedge or even the sky.
Ranklin went on being worried until he was holding in his pocket Falcone’s own pistol, left uselessly in the Ritz suite, and watching as the Senator directed the packing of his luggage. He had taken a casual look around as they dismounted outside the hotel, but Piccadilly was far too busy for any watcher to show up at a glance. In such a situation without O’Gilroy he felt incomplete, like Lancelot fighting Sir Meliagrance with only half his armour on. But at least he could get Corinna out of the arena by sending her, disappointed but obedient, back to her flat in Clarges Street.
Falcone had picked on a country house hotel, Oatlands, just outside Weybridge itself. The Ritz hadn’t been told the new address, merely asked to send letters to the Italian embassy. Now Ranklin was working out how to obscure the trail back to Weybridge and had decided to start by switching cabs at the relatively quiet Marylebone station.
There were several taxi-cabs waiting outside the hotel and Ranklin made Falcone show himself by going out to watch his luggage being loaded into one while he himself hung back in the doorway and watched. Particularly he watched the second cab on the rank, and when somebody came up to it, stepped forward himself.
Pretending not to notice it had been taken, he yanked open the door – it was a closed Unic – interrupting a cloud of Italian-flavoured explanations and getting a vicious glare.
He became Utterly English. “I say, I’m most frightfully sorry. Didn’t notice you’d taken it, what?” But he was still holding the door open. “Perhaps I can help, what? I speak a couple of words of Italian and I couldn’t help overhearing . . .”
“Can’t make out what the gent wants, guv,” the driver said. “I ask him ‘Where to?’ and he just points straight ahead and gabbles.”
“Il autista demande dove . . .” Ranklin began slowly. Ahead of them, Falcone’s cab pulled away and was quickly lost in the jumble of Piccadilly traffic. Ranklin’s passenger gave him another superheated glare, then banged out of the far side of the cab and stalked off down the street.
“Oh dear, I seem to have lost you a fare,” Ranklin apologised, thinking about five foot ten, longish dark hair with slight sideburns and down-turning moustache . . .
“No matter, guv, he’d probly of tried to pay me in somefink foreign any’ow. Where can I take yer?”
“Marylebone station, please.” . . . age about thirty-five, long nose, broken uneven teeth . . . If I hadn’t given Falcone back his pistol, would I have tried to “arrest” him? But what for? – I’d have caused a rumpus, had to explain myself and probably learnt nothing but his name. And I certainly daren’t have followed him, not after meeting him face to face. That’s where O’Gilroy would have fitted in . . . high-buttoned Continental style of black suit but looks as if he’s bought a new English brown felt hat . . . Lacks observation, too, he reflected, because nobody wears a brown hat in town.
But on balance, he felt quite pleased: he’d snapped the thread of Falcone’s followers and probably not even revealed himself. He’d double-check at Marylebone, but if that was clear, they could take Falcone’s cab on to Waterloo and put him on a Weybridge train. And then to Clarges Street . . .
14
Corinna had tea waiting, which showed remarkable confidence in Ranklin’s ability to handle such affairs – or, more likely, she didn’t care about wasting tea.
“Meet a Gunner and see the underworld,” she said cheerfully. “Was that the Senator’s past catching up with him?”
“It may be his future. He’s up to something, so far up that somebody from back home wants to kill him for it, but he won’t tell me what.”
She got more sombre. “Is it anything to do with airplanes? That could involve Andrew?”
Ranklin hoped she didn’t see his shiver as he remembered the fatal crash in Brussels. “I don’t think it’s directly connected . . . But I’d like to know if he approaches your brother again.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She reconsidered. “No, I’ll damn well do it. Andrew just doesn’t know Europe, the way things can happen over here. You could have told me the Senator was on someone’s Wanted list.”
Ranklin nodded gloomily, and not only at the way she seemed to lump Britain in with the Continent as “Europe”. “I’m afraid we all assumed the danger was over once he’d reached London. The trouble is, he’s an amateur at being someone’s enemy. His caution comes in spasms. And unless he tells us what the danger really is, we can’t do much . . . ”
The sight of his gloom seemed to cheer her up. “It may never happen, whatever it is. And it’s been a great day – and we’ve still got supper to come.”
“Look, about that . . . With O’Gilroy away, there’s nobody but me to mind the . . . shop.” We must set up a weekend roster, he realised. One of the new boys to move into the flat whenever it’s empty.
She solved that easily. “All right, I’ll pack up the supper and we can have a picnic in your flat.”
“I’d love that but . . . I mean, there’s a doorman and he’ll see you . . . what time you come out and . . . I’m thinking of your good name.”
“That’s very sweet of you. But I’ll tell you a Very Dark Secret.” Her voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve got a friend – I can’t mention his name – who works for the Secret Service! Imagine that! And he’s Frightfully Clever at being secret, so why don’t I just leave the problem to him?”