“But what could he possibly have to say to you, Joe? Do you need reforming? Why is he meddling in police business?”
“Well, of course, he oughtn’t to be. And, as far as I can see to it, he won’t. The police force isn’t at the beck and call of the government. We need to remind them occasionally that it’s the country we serve, not ministers. This new office of state someone’s thought fit to endow him with worries me. It’s a bit nebulous, a bit embryonic. I mean—name anything that couldn’t do with a bit of reforming! Where do you start?”
“You could start with the Met, if you think about it.”
Joe snorted with laughter. “We may well be on his list! But after a punishing war and a financial collapse, the whole country’s in desperate need of rebuilding … a change of direction, heaven knows! But, all the same, I’m wary of such unspecific, all-encompassing titles. He seems to have been given a roving brief to stick his aristocratic nose into anything that he considers smells less than rosy. And with a background of scientific knowledge—his degree’s in Natural Sciences I think—and all that philanthropic family tradition behind him.… Well, it’s very compelling.”
“Know what you mean,” Lydia said thoughtfully. “We do like our heroes! The Darwins, the Huxleys, the Galtons and the Trueloves—they’re all bound up with our national identity. And they have the advantage of having no whiff of militarism about them.”
“People hear the name, listen, believe and obey.”
“Ah—is that what you’re seeing? The messianic type? That wouldn’t appeal to you! Not sure it appeals to Marcus either. I’ve never met him so I can’t really give an opinion but … but … the man is not unknown in our house.” Lydia seemed about to add more and Joe waited to hear it. Finally: “I think Marcus knew his late father, Sir Sidney, rather better. He talks of James as a man who’s being groomed for performance at the highest level in government.”
“Sounds likely. He’s learning his political trade, Lydia. In a position powerful enough to bring him into contact with the nation’s most influential men.”
“So what’s he doing spending the morning with you?”
“It’s that school, Lyd, that’s sparked his interest. He said he was acting in response to the concerns of parents but … oh, I don’t know … he appears to have turned his reforming zeal on a very large target. Nothing less than the education system itself. Unchanged from Victorian days, he maintains. The public schools are backwards, reclusive, badly managed. And who will disagree with him on that point? He’s proposing a scheme to introduce compulsory inspection and reform. And the state-run establishments don’t escape his attention either. Academic achievement must rise, bodily fitness must be improved. Every school to have its football pitch, gymnasium and swimming pool. Lyd, he’d got with him a secretary holding a sheaf of statistics that (amongst other things) show just how miserable and unfit for anything the average recruit was at the time of the war. And he says, more than a decade on, things haven’t improved—they’re getting worse. Oh, yes, he’s putting the boot in with the Department of Health too. Mens sana in corpore sano would seem to be his motto.”
“In patria sana, could you add?” Lydia gave a comic shudder. “The man’s not newly returned from Germany with a few ideas, is he? You know what they’re like over there for building bodies and improving minds.”
Joe was silent for a moment. “I’ll check,” he said. “I’ll put Special Branch up that drainpipe. I wouldn’t think ‘National Socialism’ would be Truelove’s cup of tea but they’ll know. He is very patriotic. Not a sin, so am I. So are you. But he dares to voice harsh criticism bluntly. The country’s suffering, he declares, from the existence of what he calls a ‘social problem group,’ a section of society which is threatening to drag us all into the mire.”
“All very laudable. I had wondered myself. But I still don’t see what Truelove’s search for Utopia has to do with you.”
“This so-called group … no, legion of sickly degenerates he’s got in his sights is responsible for much turpitude, including the increase in the crime figures, according to Sir James. We’re all about to sink under a tide of lawlessness and public disorder, did you know?”
Lydia gave a gurgle of laughter. “So—he’s taking a poke at Health, Education and The Law all at once? I’d like to meet this modern-day Don Quixote! He sounds just my type. I can’t imagine he went down well with old Trenchard though.”
Joe gave an exaggerated shudder at the memory. “He didn’t! Truelove delivered his awful warning—nothing less than a finger-wagging rebuke—to the Commissioner’s face! What a nerve! I mean, you don’t talk to the ex-Marshal of the Royal Air Force and a war hero like that. It all seemed a bit ill-judged even for someone bent on establishing a reputation for innovation.”
“Ouch! Did Trenchard defend himself?”
Joe grinned. “Didn’t need to! Howgrave-Graham and I, with one mind, decided to preserve our boss’s dignity. We came galloping up, sabres drawn and attacked from two sides. First, we unseated his Sancho Panza and then disarmed the minister. We made a good double act. You’d have thought we’d rehearsed it! We took it in turns to bludgeon them with statistics. ‘Only twenty-nine murders in the Metropolis last year, burglary down eleven percent, grievous bodily harm down thirteen.…’ I pelted them with figures. ‘Recruitment to the Force up thirty percent.… Levels of fitness for entry raised,’ Howgrave-Graham assured them. Neither of us needed to refer to notes. I invented some of the figures, and we both managed to keep a straight face. Sir James had the grace to back down and come off it, and then he started to tell us what I’d really come to hear.”
Lydia put a warning finger over her lips. She reached over into the back seat, pulling a rug up to the boy’s chin and gently stroking his hair.
“It’s all right. He’s gone out like a light.”
“That school. He wasn’t forthcoming about his information sources but he seems to have concluded that there’s something not quite right with it. Fact is, Lydia—boys have been disappearing from it over the years. Complaints have been made ‘to the highest authorities,’ he told us mysteriously. No action by the local Sussex police and, of course, under the present system, no one’s responsible for checking it over. Truelove wants to make his mark with a root and branch reform of the English public school, I’m told.”
“And how is he going to use you in his schemes? I expect that this is what it’s coming to.”
“Operation Trojan Horse. I’m being sent in to sleuth about, looking every inch the concerned uncle, and deliver whatever mud I can stir up into his hands.”
“I suppose there’s something wrong with all this because you sound so cross, but can that be bad, Joe?—finding out what’s really been going on? Who are these parents who’ve raised storm warnings? And if Jackie’s in a dangerous place, we want to know about it, don’t we? Is the child in danger?”
“I think he is. I think he’s being pursued. The man Alfred trapped in the lift had come to do him harm in some way, though I don’t know why. We must think there’s a connection with the school and the murder of Mr. Rapson. Now, this Rapson may well have been all kinds of a villain—though we only have Jackie’s evidence for this—but the sudden appearance in our midst of what could be a hit-man tells us he wasn’t a single villain. He wasn’t working alone. And a network—that’s always more disturbing. But you’d already got that far, I shouldn’t wonder?”
“Oh, further. I haven’t had chance to tell you in all the stirabout.…”
“Tell me now.”
“I think that man could have come to do Jackie harm … kidnap, kill him.… Certainly capable of roguery of that nature, don’t you think? Did you notice his eyes?” Lydia shuddered. “More menacing than a cobra’s. But, no, I think he was after something else.”