Then Kaminsky pulled himself up straight and shouted in French, just what Ranklin had told him. After a moment, a voice shouted back in another language – it sounded Slavic, but Ranklin didn’t know it – and Kaminsky began to reply in the same before Ranklin rammed his pistol against the man’s back. “Speak French!”
“Go on,” Kaminsky called. “Send her out.”
There was a muffled shout from the barge about Mrs Langhorn needing to get some clothes on. So they’d have to wait.
Kaminsky asked: “Can I smoke?”
“Sorry but no lights, please.” And then, mainly to get Kaminsky thinking about something other than trickery, he asked: “How did a man like you get mixed up with Gorkin’s schemes? You aren’t an anarchist, are you?” He had had to stop himself saying something like “You’re an honest, straightforward criminal, aren’t you?”
Kaminsky snorted. “Anarchism, anarchism – it’s an affair for dreamers who’ve got nothing. Or everything. For those who’ve got time to dream. What I am, the good God knows – if He exists. On Sundays I’m a late sleeper, that’s all.”
“Are you saying this was all Dr Gorkin’s plot?”
Kaminsky paused, probably wondering how much Ranklin knew. Then: “Him. If Gorkin doesn’t believe in God, it’s because he doesn’t need to: he thinks he is God. A Messiah for himself. Do what I tell you of your own free will – that sort of anarchist. I just wanted to put some sense into their schemes, stop them plotting themselves up their own arse-holes.” His bitterness sounded sincere, perhaps because it also sounded fresh. He could hardly have felt that way about Gorkin when the scheme was hatched.
Or had he joined in because he liked to think of the thugs who sat around his cafe as his followers, and Gorkin the Messiah looked like walking off with them?
“But a man like you must have seen a profit in it.”
He had the feeling that, in the darkness, Kaminsky was staring at him as if he were the dunce of the class. “Well of course I saw a profit it in. A woman who knows the King’s darkest secret – there must be a few jewelled goblets in that, mustn’t there? Or hefty payments from the Paris newspapers, the world’s newspapers. What do you want her for?”
“Not for profit,” Ranklin said instinctively. But then he thought of his own standing within the Bureau, and of the Bureau’s standing with the Palace in its perennial battle with the Foreign Office . . . But not profit. You couldn’t call it profit.
Kaminsky gave a disbelieving snort. Then there was a shout from the barge: “She’s coming.”
Ranklin leant out from behind his tree and peered. The barge was just a black shape against the blackness of the trees beyond, centred on the dim oil-lamp in the steering shelter. Movement interrupted the lamp, there was a thump and a shape on the slightly lighter background of the tow-path. And another. Then one shape seemed to be moving towards them.
“Are you going to do the honourable thing?” Kaminsky asked. So he had learnt, or guessed, a certain something about Ranklin.
“When I’m sure it’s Mrs Langhorn.” He added: “And then we won’t stop you unhitching the barge and moving on.” In fact, we’d be very happy if you’d lead the Surete away from here and us.
“Run the engine up to full power a few moments to clear the plugs first,” O’Gilroy advised.
Reminded, Kaminsky began: “And you, you puppy of diseased bollocks-”
“Shut up.” Ranklin stepped forward to meet the approaching figure which moved cautiously along the uneven dark tow-path. They stopped and looked into each other’s faces, just a few inches apart. She was, he realised, barely shorter than he, but was certainly the woman he’d met at the Portsmouth hotel.
“I remember you,” she said. Her voice sounded slow and thick, as if she’d just been woken. “You work for Mr Quinton.”
For a moment Ranklin was baffled, the London lawyer seemed so far away, then he remembered. “In a way, yes. Have we rescued you or did you come just because you were told to?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Have you?”
“Let’s assume that we have.” He took her arm and steered her back behind Kaminsky. “All right, you can go.”
Without another word, Kaminsky strode off towards the barge.
“By my reckoning, they’re jest about all-” O’Gilroy began.
“Get her under cover and lead her back to the motor-car. And warn Jay you’re coming,” Ranklin ordered. He himself stayed half in cover of the trees, watching Kaminsky’s retreating back. He heard O’Gilroy and Mrs Langhorn blundering through the undergrowth, then O’Gilroy calling to Jay.
The copse or wood or whatever – anyway, a tangle of trees, bushes and long grass – lay on the corner of the little lane from the village and the tow-path, opposite the dark cottage (which hadn’t come to life at the sound of shooting, so must be empty. Or inhabited by somebody with extraordinary good sense.). Anybody going through the copse cut across the corner and was in complete cover from view, and pretty good cover from fire: you could shoot a machine-gun into that tangle of trees and bushes without being sure you’d hit anybody. Equally, of course, it meant that O’Gilroy couldn’t see or shoot out of it. For the moment, they were down to two guns; two divided guns, and Ranklin felt a twang of unease . . .
Kaminsky’s shape blended into the bigger shape beside the barge. Considerably bigger: had O’Gilroy been about to tell him that everybody seemed to be coming ashore? Ranklin was taking an instinctive step forward when the whole shape charged into the lane. In the moment before he was unsighted by the trees, Ranklin fired twice. And he’d been right about the arsenal on the barge: his shots touched off a blizzard of gunfire.
Jay had placed himself on the lane-side between the motor-car, fifty yards down, and the cottage and barge at the canal. He could hear O’Gilroy and Mrs Langhorn crackling through the bushes on his left, the throb and occasional hiccup of the barge’s engine, could see the dark knot of people on the tow-path. A funny thing, darkness: you could see something but couldn’t be sure you could see it until it moved suddenly.
And then it was moving suddenly. Along with the gallop of feet, a shout and then a burst of shots and flashes. Jay knelt and steadied the heavy revolver with both hands, feeling how familiar it all was. Just like all those pictures from his childhood: the young officer facing the charging tribesmen. And now it was him in the picture.
Remember to aim low. He fired once, recocked, fired again. Bullets snapped past. He heard the clatter of the motor’s self-starter and the roar of the engine. How very sensible. He fired and a dark figure tumbled, then he felt a punch in the chest. No pain, but it had knocked his aim off. He tried to steady the gun but found instead that he was toppling forward. No matter; on the ground I’ll be steadier, I’ll re-aim from there . . . But when he hit the ground he found he couldn’t; it no longer seemed to matter.
20
Rushing – as much as he could rush through those bushes – O’Gilroy began firing before he could see what he was shooting at. Beyond, he saw a muzzle flash so he’d distracted one gun from Jay. Then renewed shouting and scampering, and a last shot overhead.
Cautious as he reached the edge of the lane, O’Gilroy crouched, gun roving for a target. Nothing moved. Gradually his hearing expanded with his vision. From down the lane he heard the motor: good, Mrs Finn was out of it. Forget her. Mrs Langhorn blundering in the bushes behind him. No problem yet. But then he realised there were still occasional shots from up by the canal. So somebody had stayed on the barge to pin Ranklin down.