“That may satisfy Sir Basil, but what about Mrs Finn?” Dagner asked. “And I’m not sure that any version of events is going to satisfy me.” He shook his head. “I don’t like the Bureau’s integrity depending on so many ifs and maybes . . . Can you see any alternative, Captain?”
“We could,” Ranklin said as casually as possible, “always kill Gorman. It would need some arranging, but perhaps in the street as he arrives for the police court hearing . . . And the Italian community would probably get the blame.”
Kell had stopped dead on the pavement, leaving the other two peering back at him in the lamplight. Pop-eyed by nature, he now looked as if he were about to fire both eyeballs across the street. “Do what?”
Dagner said mildly: “You must admit it would solve the problem of Gorman talking in open court. However-”
Kell stiffened where he stood. “I’m not being a party to anything like this! If you’re seriously thinking of . . . then I don’t want to hear any more.”
But he hesitated. Dagner said: “I’m only thinking of the national interest, which the Bureau represents in a peculiarly pure form.”
“Pure? You call that pure?”
Dagner affected a look of surprise. “Indeed. We certainly aren’t concerned with concepts of Truth or Justice, just with what’s best for the country and Empire. But if you don’t want to hear . . .” Kell strode away.
Dagner smiled. “Perhaps it’s as well. Just as a matter of interest, how serious were you being, Captain?”
Ranklin didn’t want to answer that, especially to himself. In battle, you sent men into danger, but only that. Or so you told yourself. But the murky half-lit world of spying had some sudden harsh lights . . .
Dagner didn’t press for an answer; his zigzag mind seemed to have found a new topic. “When we talked about acting alone, I never thought of our whole service having to do so. We seem to be quite friendless. First the Foreign Office, now the police, even Major Kell and his people . . . But so be it.” He didn’t sound overly worried. “We were considering alternatives . . .”
Ranklin already was. If, next morning, they all turned up at the police court in uniform and claimed O’Gilroy was a deserter and multiple military criminal, might the police . . .? It seemed doubtful, but surely something along those lines . . .
But Dagner was looking up and down the street. “Really quite quiet, even this early. So in a few hours . . . You’ve got all their addresses at the office? We’d better get started.”
Ranklin goggled. He hadn’t been considering that.
20
The middle-aged constable had just stepped outside “to make sure things were quiet”, which the desk sergeant understood meant having a quick smoke. London was never truly silent; if it did nothing else, it breathed, and stirred in its sleep. But a quarter to four was around the quietest time. The moon was down, leaving the Gray’s Inn Road a broad corridor of darkness, patched with yellow-green light from the street lamps that were already fuzzed by the pre-dawn mist. And empty, save for one stocky figure in a long overcoat humming and mumbling towards him. As he shuffled into the light from the lamp over the station door, the shadow of his hat hid his downturned face, but not the broad red beard. Now that was peculiar: the beard looked false-
– but not the heavy pistol that suddenly poked into his face.
“Be brave,” a stage-lrish accent whispered. “I love Englishmen bein’ brave. Ut gives me a chanst to see de colour av deir brains. Now: how many more av ye’s awake inside dere?”
“Th-th-three more.” The constable was dimly aware of two other figures slipping past him into the station, but most of his attention was on the red-bearded man, who called softly: “Tree more av ’em. An’ r’mimber more asleep upstairs.
“Now be turnin’ around gentle and walkin’ inside.” The pistol vanished but the feel of it rammed into his spine. At the second try, his feet recalled how to climb the steps.
Inside, the desk was empty. He was hustled through the door beside it and almost stumbled over the sergeant, flat on the floor. For a moment he thought . . . then the sergeant snarled at his boots.
“Lie down yeself.” And that wasn’t difficult at all. He heard a gabble of awakened voices from the cells below, abruptly hushed. Then silence, and the constable found time to collect his thoughts. I am a London policeman with nearly ten years’ service, he told himself. And no rotten Irish brigand can outwit-
“Be brave,” the same voice whispered hungrily. “Ah, it’s longin’ I am for wan av yez to be brave and the blood spoutin’ out an’ drippin’ av the walls . . . English blood.”
But on the other hand, thought the constable . . .
Then more feet tramped through his line of sight and another voice commanded: “On yer feet. Up! Begorrah,” it added. “And back inside.” Along with the desk sergeant he was pushed along the corridor and downstairs into a dark cell. The door was closed gently – when he himself shut it on a prisoner, he liked to make a point with a chilling slam, but the quiet snap of the lock was convincing enough. Silence again.
Then the desk sergeant said: “We’d best call and try to wake the lads upstairs.”
“Yes, Sarge,” the constable agreed. There was more silence.
“So,” the sergeant said eventually, “both together, right?” He coughed. “When I’ve cleared me throat.”
Outside, another and younger constable returning westward along Clerkenwell Road noticed the big motor-car parked beyond the junction, beside the railed garden of Gray’s Inn. It was a funny place to park, not outside any house, but its tail-light glowed, its engine rumbled faintly in the stillness, and a man was leaning against the hood, so perhaps it had some minor breakdown. The constable knew almost nothing about motor-cars but was ready to show willing on a quiet night, so marched forward. He made almost no noise, having slipped rings cut from motor tyres around his boots, a trick learnt from the older men.
He had almost reached the junction when two men came out of the police station and turned towards the car, not hurrying, but moving with purpose. A bit odd. The constable paused at the kerb. Two more men came from the station and walked quickly after the others. Definitely odd. And had that been a gleam of metal in one man’s hand?
The constable stepped forward and called: “Wait a minute.” The men started running, and so did he. By the time he had crossed the road he was going flat out but the men were scrambling into the car. Except for the one who had been leaning on the hood. He had straightened up to the rigid stance of a pistol duellist, arm and glinting metal pointing towards . . . There was a flash, smoke, and what the constable afterwards remembered as a “boom” rather than “bang”. He was so surprised he forgot to stop running. The man stayed quite still, there was another flash and boom and the constable’s head was jerked back as his helmet tried to leap from his head. He stopped then, eyes watering from the jerk of the chin-strap. When he had blinked them clear again, the car was far down Theobald’s Road.
Dagner had the car stopped in Horse Guards to let him and Ranklin walk the last two hundred yards while it delivered O’Gilroy back to Whitehall Court. A few lights burned in the War Office, but the wide streets were empty. This had become so much a self-sufficient government enclave that the police virtually ignored it at night. After a few slow paces, Dagner said: “I want O’Gilroy got back to Brooklands now, tonight. Use P’s motor-car, don’t go near railway stations. And tomorrow, abroad: make sure he takes enough kit with him now.”