“Do you?” she returned.
“That depends. But if you’re interested in finding out the answer, there’s a red Mercedes in Northumberland Avenue. I’ll be out anon and I’ll do my best not to keep you waiting long.”
The lift stopped and she got out without answering, but the look she gave Shaw as she disappeared wasn’t entirely without its suggestion of hope. Shaw went on up with a song in his heart; and ten minutes later was once again with Latymer.
Latymer gave him a searching look. “Seem pleased with yourself,” he grunted, “and knowing you, I’d say that’s not entirely due to a clean bill of health — which I’ve already heard from Jackson is what he’s given you.”
“Is that all Jackson told you, sir?”
“No, it’s not. He’s made a check… the girl’s name is Prunella, and the best of luck to you, though my information includes the fact that she doesn’t.”
“Thank you very much, sir,” Shaw said smugly.
“Don’t mention it. And now I’ve got some more important information for you that for various reasons I didn’t want to come out with in front of Fellowes.” Latymer paused, dramatizing the moment. “Siggings has turned up.”
Just for a moment Shaw failed to place the name. “Siggings?” Then it came back, all of it. “Siggings… the little bastard who tried to blow up the New South Wales!”
Latymer nodded, pushed at documents on his desk. “That’s him. Junior Engineer Officer Siggings, who most successfully vanished from the time he jumped ship in Melbourne — until now. You’ll remember the details, of course, and you’ll remember one very vital and currently topical point — namely, that it was Red China that was behind the REDCAP business, and it was Red China that was Siggings’s ultimate paymaster. Now, since Siggings has managed to lie low all the time between, we can assume he’s had help of some kind. It’s a pound to a penny that help originates in Red China, that in fact Siggings is still on the payroll. No doubt he’s under threat of exposure on counts of treason and attempted mass murder if he doesn’t play ball. And it occurs to me, Shaw, that it might be very interesting indeed to find out exactly what kind of ball game it is that he’s playing. Especially since I’ve gathered Siggings is well in with some of London’s more dangerous Coloured elements. Now, my crystal ball tells me there could be a link. Agree?”
“I certainly do… but why didn’t you want Fellowes to know, sir?”
Latymer said irritably, “Fellowes is basically a civil servant and the Home Office is… well, let’s just say it’s a hidebound institution and leave it at that. You, Shaw, are neither a civil servant nor hidebound, and I fancy you know how to apply pressure to Siggings better than Fellowes does — in the circumstances. Do you follow?”
Shaw grinned. “I think so, sir. We trade Siggings’s past for the Dead Line’s future?”
“Something like that — I’ll leave it entirely to you, Shaw. Now, Siggings lives in a hostel in the East End — he has a wife and child but he also has housing difficulties, so they’re split up. I’m aware that you never met Siggings in the flesh, and he may be hard to identify from the photographs you saw at the time — and anyway, I don’t want you going along to his hostel and asking for him. But—”
“Where does he work, sir?”
“Exactly, and I was coming to that. He drives a crane in the King George V dock and tomorrow morning at 1000 hours a friend of mine, man by the name of Hargreave who happens to be a V.I.P. in the Port of London Authority, will be expecting you at the dock. He’ll let you have a sight of Siggings, who, by the way, calls himself Jack Seldon now. After that, it’s all yours.”
The girl was waiting in the Mercedes. Shaw slid in behind the wheel and murmured, “Hold tight and away we go…’
“Where to?” Her accent was patrician; she was eminently O.K.
“I have a flat in Kensington, but we can always dine out if you’d rather.”
“Yes, I’d rather.”
“Thy will be done, Prunella.”
She stared at him as he eased the Mercedes out into the traffic. “How the hell…?”
“Grapevine,” he said, and left it at that. “I know a little place just off Kensington High Street.…”
She had settled comfortably now. “Right,” she said, and added, “I let myself in for this all by myself, didn’t I?”
“Yes,” Shaw said brutally. He glanced sideways; she was hellish attractive… not exactly pretty; dark and vivacious and with a tiny dimple in her chin and a gurgly kind of voice. Concentrating on his driving, he took the Mercedes into Trafalgar Square and turned along Cockspur Street for Lower Regent Street, only to be stopped by a harassed policeman who had jumped out of a patrol car near the Athenaeum. The man demanded, “Where for?”
Shaw said, “Piccadilly for Knightsbridge. Why?”
“You can’t go up into Piccadilly, that’s why. All traffic is being directed into Pall Mall, then left at St James’s Palace.”
“Oh — really? What’s all this in aid of?”
The policeman jerked a hand in the direction of Eros. “There’s a mob going mad up there. Now if you’ll just take—”
“One moment. I’m interested and I’d like to look.” Shaw produced his special Defence Ministry pass. “Can I go forward on foot?”
The policeman stiffened when he saw the card. “At your own risk entirely, sir. Leave the car at the head of the Duke of York’s steps and I’ll keep an eye on it. Best not take the lady.”
“I won’t, don’t worry.”
“Look here,” Prunella began. “I’m quite—”
“You heard what the officer said.” Shaw’s tone was curt and she subsided, giving him an appraising look. Shaw parked the car. Then he fought his way up towards Piccadilly Circus, going against a stream of men and women, Black and White, getting away fast. He could hardly believe his eyes or his ears when he reached the circus. Never, except perhaps on Guy Fawkes or election nights, or on New Year’s Eve, had he seen Piccadilly so jam packed. Never — ever — had he seen fighting going on there — not on this scale. Bodies were everywhere, it seemed; the police, charging time and again with drawn truncheons, seemed to have lost all control of what was in fact a howling mob. Blacks filled the street, outnumbering Whites — here in the heart of London.… On the corner of Lower Regent Street and Piccadilly Shaw ducked as a chunk of something solid like a segment of paving stone flew past his head and smashed into the window of a tobacconist’s shop. Glass sprayed inwards and a big Negro came for Shaw, fists flailing, eyes rolling. Shaw sidestepped and stuck out a foot. The Negro went down, smacking his face hard into the pavement. Blood spurted, feet trampled the man; no attention was paid to his cries. Shaw was being carried by the crowd now, by more Whites trying to beat it to safety. Everyone was yelling, screaming, shouting. The mob carried Shaw helplessly backwards along Lower Regent Street, towards the corner of Jermyn Street, and out of Jermyn Street a moment later came the cause, or 50 per cent of the cause, of the riot: a detachment of blackshirted thugs — about a couple of hundred strong at a rough check, looking scared at what they had started — and the banners. keep britain white, they read, and stop coloured immigration, and niggers go home you stink. The banners wavered and some of them were dropped as the thugs got on the move, fast. Behind them came a stream of Negroes, mainly West Africans by the look of them, and all identically dressed in light blue jeans and white singlets… almost a uniform. Shaw didn’t like it at all; this wasn’t a spontaneous riot. It had been organized, it had the feel of a pitched battle fought on a pre-arranged site at a prearranged time.
Whose fault? The fascists, or the Negroes? Who was behind it?