Flight From Honour

8

Looking back on that Thursday, Ranklin came to the self-pitying conclusion that the only person who enjoyed it less than himself might have been Princess Sophia of Saxe-Weimar, because she committed suicide that day. On the other hand, she thereby let herself off part of the day. He got it all.

It began innocuously with Dagner giving the new recruits a brief, chatty but pointed talk based on his own experience – in this instance, with journalists.

“Resist your immediate instinct to despise them, borne are pretty good at their job, and all of them have been doing that job longer than you have yours, at the moment. But remember that journalists have opinions, even if they may try not to let them show in print. And more: after years of listening to the policy-makers, they want – perhaps secretly, even unconsciously – to make policy themselves. One way, of course, is to publish a demand for such-and-such a policy. But that’s open, nailing your colours to the mast – and their editors may not let them do it anyway. The other way is not to publish: To support the policy-makers they believe in by withholding unpleasant facts about them, facts that might ruin their careers and place in society. And those, gentlemen, are the stories you want to hear. They may be well worth the price of a drink.”

He paused, swinging one long leg from his perch on the edge of a table. “Only – don’t fall into the same trap. Don’t conceal, in your own reports, the nastier side of people you have come to like or believe in. Show you are more reliable than journalists by reporting without fear or favour, and leave policy to your country’s policy-makers.”

He left them to clip or precis a pile of learned foreign-affairs journals, and Ranklin to get on with drafting the training programme.

Lock-picking, he wrote. Probably safe-breaking was an art that took years to acquire, but it would be useful if they could open ordinary doors, drawers and luggage without leaving traces. Perhaps Scotland Yard could recommend a reliable criminal to give a demonstration . . .

Forgery: The Commander presumably had access to the Government printers for elaborate and official-looking documents, but a spy in the field might need to alter a name on a passport or write his own letter of introduction. Again, the Yard should be of help, but British forgers might be a little insular. They really needed to study the slanting French script, the upright and rather childish Italian styles, the angular German . . .

Personal weapons . . . But then Dagner came out of the inner room with a letter from someone in the War Office. “I’ve got a chap here asking us to explore the suitability of the terrain in Schleswig for cavalry operations. He says we’re the experts on invasion by sea – are we? And is somebody proposing to invade North Germany?”

Ranklin pushed back his chair and relit his pipe. “As I understand it, an important argument for setting up the Bureau was to explore the threat of being invaded from North Germany-”

“We heard about that scare even in India. What did we conclude?”

“Oh, it’s rubbish, of course. But our elders and betters have a vested interest in keeping any sort of war scare going, realistic or not, to justify increased spending on new ships and things – even on us I suppose. So it isn’t in their or our interest to conclude that it’s rubbish. We just report – provisionally – from time to time that it’s unlikely to happen this week.”

“I see.” Dagner glanced at the letter again. “So that makes us the acknowledged experts at something we don’t believe in. It sounds positively theological. But do we believe in ourselves invading Germany?”

“I doubt it. But when a general gets a bee in his bonnet it can fly both ways. I’ll handle it if you like.”

Dagner passed the letter over but also asked: “How?”

“Sit on it for a week or so in case we need to send someone to Schleswig for a good reason as well. Otherwise, get someone – like Lieutenant P, he reads German well – to see what he can dig out of libraries. There was probably some cavalry action there in 1848 or ‘64. Finally, send in a report that’s coy about its sources.”

Dagner looked uncertain, so Ranklin added: “It helps the cause: shows willing but doesn’t waste too much of our time.”

Dagner sighed. “I suppose so.” He went back into the inner office.

Personal weapons – then it was the telephone girl with a call from a manufacturer of phonographs wanting to speak to the Commander. Ranklin got the call routed to himself and discovered, by roundabout questions, that the Commander was thinking of buying such equipment – presumably for mechanical eavesdropping. On the instant, he became the Commander’s assistant, hinted that it was to do with wireless training in the Navy, swore the manufacturer to secrecy, and said the Commander would be in touch when he returned.

Personal weapons – only now he had to support Dagner at a meeting with an Admiralty accountant over a proposal to set up a bank account in Amsterdam. It turned out that the accountant couldn’t authorise this himself, merely recommend it if they convinced him it was necessary. The argument quickly dwindled to whether “necessity” was an absolute concept like having a rudder on a ship or a sensible precaution like having a lifeboat. It was unlikely that the Admiralty accountant had ever seen a ship, but it seemed polite to use nautical analogies. Such tact meant the proposal was at least still breathing when it was shelved indefinitely due to the pressures of lunch.

“I hate to say this,” Ranklin observed as they walked back across Whitehall, “but the simplest solution would be to produce a document – code or technical drawing or order of battle – and swear we paid five hundred pounds for it in Brussels. And start the account with that.”

After a moment, Dagner said: “But don’t you think that, in our situation where nobody can really check on whether we’ve been strictly honest in our claimed expenditure, it behoves us to be strictly honest?”

“Perhaps,” Ranklin said, who no longer thought so.

Personal weapons, Ranklin resumed after lunch, and waited for the next interruption. It didn’t come, so he moved on cautiously. Carry a pistol only if your (adopted) persona would carry one in those particular circumstances. And then avoid anything exotic that suggests you care about pistols. Don’t carry a knife, but know how to use one. It’s not an Anglo-Saxon weapon, but it’s usually easy to come by. You only need a” four-inch blade to reach a man’s heart, thrusting slightly upwards through his ribs-

How the hell do I know that? he wondered, staring at the page as if it had spat at him. I certainly didn’t know it a year ago. Did someone in the Greek Army tell me? Or O’Gilroy? Or was it one of those odd scraps of knowledge that seem to settle and cling to me now I have the stickiness of a spy?

He shrugged mentally and tried to think of other personal weaponry that was both effective and unsuspicious – but then Lieutenant M got back from lunch having learnt from an old friend of his father’s that the Japanese were trying to stir up the Finns to revolt against their Russian masters-

“Really?” Ranklin put on an impressed expression. “What instances did he cite? And names?”

The point, Lieutenant M bubbled on, was that the Japs wanted to keep the Russians busy in the West while they machinated in the East. Surely the Cabinet should know about this immediately. Others could supply instances and names.

“The point,” Ranklin corrected gently, “is that those others are us. The Government can usually come by its own rumours. When it does, it should turn to us to verify or deny them by supplying the details. So can you go back to this chap and see if he knows any hard facts?”

“He’s rather a tetchy old boy.” Lieutenant M looked dubious. “I don’t how he’ll like some whipper-snapper like me cross-examining him . . .”

“But isn’t that our job?” Ranklin smiled sweetly. “We’re sp . . . secret agents, remember? We use tact, flattery, bare-faced lies – whatever’s appropriate – and we come back with the details, don’t we?”

Sometimes, Ranklin told himself when Lieutenant M had gone, I seem quite good at this job. Now: Personal weapons-

So then it was O’Gilroy with an aeronautical magazine and eager to explain the arguments for and against the Dunne ‘inherently stable’ biplane. Ranklin, who privately felt that anyone who got into an aeroplane was inherently unstable to start with, sent him out with any recruits he could find to practise shadowing again.

Personal weap- and now Dagner again, leaving the office in Ranklin’s charge while he went off first to meet Senator Falcone at the Ritz, then change into mess kit for a dinner at the officers’ mess in the Tower of London. Ranklin politely wished him joy of it and turned back to his notepad.

He hadn’t even got his mind into gear when the senior secretary came in, looking for Dagner and waving an official buff envelope that had just been forwarded from the War Office. The handwritten addressee was The Officer Commanding the unit to which Lieut. P-(their own Lieutenant P, in fact) is currently attached. And marked both Urgent and Private and Confidential.

Ranklin made chewing expressions as he looked at it. The secretary said: “Shall I keep it for Major Dagner in the morning, sir?”

Ranklin certainly wasn’t P’s CO, but strictly speaking, neither was Dagner. And he was getting bored with Personal weapons. He stuck a finger under the gummed flap and raised his arm at the secretary. “Jog my elbow, will you?”

She smiled frostily and gave him a nudge that wouldn’t have shifted a fly. He tore the envelope open. “Oops, look what I’ve done now. Oh well, I suppose I may as well see what it’s all about . . .”

But if the secretary thought she had earned a look, too, she was disappointed, and hobbled away with a distinct sniff.

What the letter and its enclosures boiled down to was that when Lieutenant P had left his last posting he had also left (a) an unpaid mess bill and (b) a young lady who claimed he had promised marriage, but taken (c) a motor-car of which he was only part-owner. Ranklin sat still until he had worn through surprise, indignation, amusement and arrived at exasperation, then went to look for P.

He had just got in, having failed to shadow O’Gilroy through the Piccadilly traffic. “Simply not your day, is it?” Ranklin said, handing him the letters. P skimmed them, smiled ruefully, and began: “About the motor-”

“Don’t tell me,” Ranklin said. “Just sort it out. You can’t marry without your colonel’s permission, and with any luck he’ll refuse it if you pay your mess bill, promptly. If that doesn’t work, write to the girl’s father asking will he lend you a thousand quid to pay your gaming debts. Now about the motor-car: where is it?”

“Here in London.”

“And who else part-owns it?”

“Two chaps from my battalion who-”

“Fine. It’s about time the Bureau had the use of a car. Tell them it’s being repaired in Scotland. Any questions?”

A bit dazed, P asked: “Are you going to show these letters to Major Dagner, sir?”

“What letters? I haven’t seen any letters. But . . . you won’t be much use to us until you learn not to get into trouble that’s going to catch up with you.”

In other words, solve life’s greatest problem by teatime tomorrow. Oh well . . . he had a feeling that Dagner might take the whole thing too seriously. And the Commander? He just couldn’t tell.

But it all added up to a long day and when he finally got down to the flat, he ignored the sherry and poured himself a serious whisky. He hadn’t even finished Personal weapons. But that was something he should consult O’Gilroy about, anyway.

O’Gilroy hadn’t meant to lose his followers. Not quite – just make it difficult for them. But they had obeyed only half his order to “stay back and think ahead” and missed the gap in the Piccadilly traffic that let him cross safely and unsuspiciously. So now . . . But it wasn’t, he told himself, something he could be absolutely sure about. Maybe they had suddenly got the hang of it, become invisible and were still shadowing him. So he had to play the game out. He kept going, but headed north from Piccadilly Circus to explore some Soho streets he didn’t know himself.

He was used to cities and their abrupt boundaries that let you go from high fashion to crumbling poverty in the length of a breath. The few steps that took him into Soho were like that, but different. Entering Soho, he seemed to have gone from England to Europe: here he was being jostled by French-speakers, Germans, Italians and politely avoided by Chinese. But no student spies. Past episodes of being a wanted man had given O’Gilroy an acute sense of when he was being followed, and there was no sign of . . .

But there was somebody.

A slightly shorter man in a wide cloth cap, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a donkey jacket. Turning a corner confirmed that he was following, and glancing both ways before crossing the street gave a glimpse of his face. O’Gilroy knew him: Patrick, Patrick something, from down Broad Lane way in Cork. And definitely one of the ‘boyos’ whom Ranklin had feared. Moreover, making no attempt at subtlety, but grimly plodding along behind.

O’Gilroy still had choices: he could run. Or just just hurry back to Piccadilly and hail a taxi. But perhaps it was best to try and bluff it out, settle the matter with a lie, and if that didn’t work, well, it was just one man and smaller than himself. But one choice he didn’t have was killing Patrick. He couldn’t have explained why, but would have thought anyone who asked for an explanation very odd indeed.

A few yards further was a narrow alleyway leading to a courtyard behind the buildings. O’Gilroy turned in, and waited in the deepest shadow, so Patrick would be outlined against the bright street behind.

Patrick stumped around the corner, stopped and said: “Good day to ye, Conall O’Gilroy – or did ye change yer name along wid the colour av yer soul?”

This, O’Gilroy realised, is going to need one hell of a lie. “Have ye got a message for me?” he demanded.

He couldn’t see if Patrick was surprised, since his face was shadowed, but he paused. Then he said: “We have that,” and glanced back as another, larger, figure turned into the alley behind him. “Me and Eamon. Right here in our pockets.”

How in hell did I miss the second one? But he knew just how: over-confident once he’d spotted Patrick’s open following, he hadn’t thought of Eamon moving less conspicuously, well back and on the other side of the street. Yet it was a trick he’d been teaching the two recruits half an hour ago. Now he longed for a miracle in which they found him again in the nick of time – but an angel swooping down to carry him off was more likely. Far more likely, if you believed the priests.

Patrick took out a short knife. “Mebbe ye’ll take a message yerself-” Behind him, Eamon made the same movement.

His only luck seemed to be that they weren’t carrying guns, but neither was he. Legally he could have done so, particularly since he was now a ‘gentleman’ at least by trade, but London had seemed safe enough, and a gun in the pocket was suspicious. All he had was his walking-stick.

“To yer dead nephew Michael-”

To Ranklin a stick was just a gentleman’s accountrement like a pair of gloves; he had never even thought of including it among ‘personal weapons’. But at least O’Gilroy had. His wasn’t a sword-stick or loaded in any way; like a pistol, such things could arouse suspicion. So it was just an ordinary silver-knobbed stick except that where the brass ferrule had worn and split he hadn’t closed the jagged break.

“-yez can tell him rest easy. He’s been revenged.”

Now O’Gilroy gripped the stick across his body, one hand at each end. It almost touched the walls at either side, leaving no room for sideways swipes. But that was why he hadn’t run for the unknown but certainly more open courtyard behind. Here there was no room for the two to come at him together; one had to lead and it was Eamon, the big one. He probably wasn’t a knife-fighter, just a knife-killer, but there was no stagey overhead stuff, either: he held the blade properly flat and underhand as he edged forward.

O’Gilroy let go with his left hand and jabbed towards Eamon’s midriff. Eamon didn’t bother with his knife, just tried to grab the stick with his free hand, and almost got it. He moved fast for a big man.

O’Gilroy took a step back and resumed his two-handed grip. Eamon feinted a lunge to test O’Gilroy’s response: he just pushed the stick forward to block. Eamon lunged further, expecting to hit the stick and slash sideways along it to cut O’Gilroy’s left hand. But O’Gilroy let go with his right, flipped the knife further aside, then stepped in and banged his right palm into Eamon’s face.

The big man bounced against the wall, blinking angrily – but didn’t drop the knife. And seeing an opening, Pat scurried past him, ducked as O’Gilroy threw his back to the wall and slashed with the stick, and went right on past.

Now O’Gilroy was surrounded.

He jabbed with the stick to keep Eamon unbalanced, and charged at Pat before he got into his stance, holding the stick like a lunging sword. It missed, he felt the knife slash and catch in his jacket, then he sprawled over Pat, flattening him.

Maybe Pat was winded, certainly he was slowed. O’Gilroy twisted onto his knees, slashed the jagged ferrule across Pat’s forehead, then grabbed for his knife arm. Pat screeched and let go the knife. O’Gilroy fumbled for it as he looked up for Eamon, cut his hand but had it before the bigger man reached them.

“Move an inch and I cut his fucking head off!” He tried to snarl it, but it came out panting.

Eamon stopped. “And yer own wid it.”

By now O’Gilroy had his left forearm across Pat’s throat from behind, soaking his sleeve in the man’s dripping blood. “Mebbe. But I’m done fighting the both of yez. If yer still want to kill me, it’s with him dead, and that’s plain sense.”

Pat wriggled, O’Gilroy tightened his grip and jabbed the knife right on the edge of Pat’s cheekbone, an inch from his eye. One push, two inches deep, and . . . Pat went very still, breathing fast and very shallow.

Eamon took a heavy breath himself. “Let him loose and I swear on me mother’s grave-”

“Shut up.” O’Gilroy eased from a crouch to a bend and began slowly dragging Pat backwards. “And stand yer ground,” he added as Eamon followed.

After perhaps three yards, the alley opened into a long cobbled yard, overlooked by the backs of two dozen small buildings, but with nobody in sight. Just a stack of old timber and a couple of hand-carts.

O’Gilroy got his back to a wall, the knife back at Pat’s eye, and told Eamon: “Walk past me and as far as ye can go. Move yeself!”

The big man moved, slowly and perhaps uncertain of what he was actually going to do. O’Gilroy said nothing, just held the knife very steady.

As Eamon passed out of reach, his movements became more sure; he had decided to obey.

Then Pat went limp. Assuming it was a ruse, O’Gilroy shook him, but his head just flapped, spraying blood; he was out . . . dead? Not when he was still bleeding freely. Half choked, shocked and losing blood, he had fainted. Then Eamon looked back and saw Pat’s lolling head.

“I didn’t, he’s not dead!” O’Gilroy screamed. But Eamon was past hearing, was roaring with rage as he charged.

Oh Christ!

O’Gilroy threw the knife. It most likely wouldn’t have stuck in, but was still a knife and Eamon swerved. O’Gilroy heaved Pat up by his scruff, toppled him at Eamon’s feet, and ran, ran for the alley and street and his life. He didn’t waste time looking back. He’d know if Eamon caught him.

He came into the flat with one jacket pocket ripped loose and the sleeve soaked with blood. He had a bloody handkerchief around his right hand and the rest of him looked as if he’d been rolling in a filthy alleyway. He’d lost his hat and stick.

Ranklin gaped. “What the devil happened to you?”

“Coupla boyos from Cork, they found me. Like ye was worried about.” It was almost as much a relief to tell the truth as reach the sideboard decanters. O’Gilroy felt he had given a lying explanation for his condition at every step from Piccadilly.

Ranklin was about to ask for details, but then didn’t. He’d be told if O’Gilroy felt like it; more likely, he’d never know. But before he went to fetch the travelling medicine kit, he had to ask: “Did you kill them?”

Without turning from the drinks, O’Gilroy shook his head. And for once Ranklin was sorry about that. It left unfinished business.