Percy Crow

by Daniel Kemp

  I clapped harder, with my hands extended above my head, noticing for the first time the group of friends Rosemary had brought with her. David must have been cramped in Serena's jet, with the dozen or so women that his wife had brought with her on the flight. Seri saw me, beckoning me to approach, but I pointed to George who was almost hovering above the ground in his excitement with Katherine and an equally happy Sophie at his side. Franco presented the biggest bunch of red roses I'd ever seen carried by a single man, laying them gracefully at her feet. Then the bouquets arrived, and arrived, and arrived. I couldn't stop applauding.

  As I looked around to see if Sir David Haig had made it out of the hall in one piece, a tall grey-haired man at the back of the crowd, gesticulating and seemingly asking questions of himself, caught my eye. I could see no phone nor ear attachment that would account for his behaviour.

  “That was a kind gesture, Harry, but I doubt your wife will want my son on the platform with her. It's you she wants!”

  * * *

  The consummation of the chase had left me expressionless, without a word to say as I turned towards the unmistakable Russian accent that was all I could hear above the noise in front of me. I had not recognised the man asking questions of himself. It had been Paulo. Katherine was right. He had changed.

  “You have things to do here, Harry, not least the introduction of my daughter to your wife. That should amuse both ladies. Later we will meet and discuss our business. For now, enjoy the family reunion, if that's possible, which I hope it is. There's a piece of paper in your right hand jacket pocket with the address of where I'll be in an hour's time. Please come alone. There are no Americans to interrupt our conversation, nor Russians.”

  He was as tall as I remember, but the silver-topped cane that had seemed purely decorative in Moscow, was now a necessary aid as he walked arduously away, leaning on it heavily. The scar on his chin had disappeared, as had the mark of a once broken nose and although his skin was still tanned, the absence of wrinkles was no longer the case. Wide, sunken lines had eaten into his forehead and around those now grey eyes, making them appear smaller but more intense. I thought the changes were not just through age. My guess was that most had been achieved by cosmetic surgery. The stage had cleared by the time he had faded from sight, leaving a splattering of stylists and managers laughing merrily about their particular successes or failures. Sophie was at George's side. Serena was missing. Katherine was beside me.

  * * *

  “Will you go and meet him later, Harry?” she asked.

  “I will, yes!”

  “He followed you to All Saints' Anglican Church, thinking you all went for a blessing for George's wedding, but when he saw you and Serena at the altar he realised it was your marriage service. He told me he giggled like a child as he left. He said that he was pleased. Said he knew that eventually you would find the right woman. I'm not jealous, if that's what you're thinking, Harry. I'm happy you've found love. Serena has a good man in her life but I won't tell her that, otherwise I'll have to explain how I know.”

  “Then I appreciate your subtle compliment, if that's what it is. I hope she's made the right choice,” I added, as she smiled.

  George was happy that Katherine had found him.

  “Katherine said it was my goatee beard and how you had described me, Harry; handsome, elegant and dignified.” He laughed, with a glowing smile that Sophie copied as he clung to his sister's arm.

  “I have a wonderful sister, Harry. It will be good for the three of us to get to know one another. New York is not the end of the world, just a few hours in a plane that's all. Perhaps Katherine could come and stay in London with us, Sophie?” he asked as he turned towards his bride.

  “The two of you in Serena's outfits would certainly get heads turning down the King's Road.”

  “Perhaps, George, we'll have to see,” she laconically replied. Leaving me, for one, silently questioning her true feelings.

  “Well, whatever happens it's just fantastic. I have a beautiful wife and a lovely sister to share my life with from this day on!” he exclaimed.

  The area was being cordoned off and the chairs cleared away as salvers of champagne began to drift in and out of the gathering euphoric celebrities spilling out from the hall onto the piazza. The warmth highlighted the intoxication of the day that for me was far from finished.

  “There you are, Harry. I've been searching everywhere for you. Where have you been hiding?” Serena, being carried in Tanta's arms, burst into the fading sunlight as if Michelangelo had cast molten gold for his Pietà, confusing the sexes of Mary and Christ. Both were wearing bright yellow without a trace of crimple.

  “Where's the lion's mane gone?” I shouted.

  “Back to the zoo. We're on the way there now to spray all the animals in Tanta's colour! Want to come?” she asked.

  “You can't! I have to introduce someone to you, Seri.”

  “I've met so many lovely people today that I cannot possibly meet anyone else, H. Ask them to make an appointment for when we get back.”

  “This is Katherine, George's sister, Seri.” Tanta stopped and lowered Serena to her unsteady feet.

  “I'm a little tipsy, but I'm fine really. It's the occasion more than the booze. Only drunk a jeroboam of champers and not eaten a thing all day since a slice of toast at breakfast. Haven't got a packet of nuts on you, Harry, have you? Katherine, you say. You didn't say that I once called her a bitch, did you?”

  “I'd probably call you the same,” Katherine announced with a smile that cut her face in half. “You are a very lucky woman, Serena. Congratulations! A great show by the way.”

  “And I'd say you were a woman of superb taste, Katherine. Great dress you're wearing. From anyone I know?” The two laughed in that stilted way that women do when not completely sure of themselves.

  “Tanta knows of a place where they serve the best steaks in Italy. We're off there now. You coming, H, as I've got no money? Someone forgot to sew pockets in these trousers.”

  “We're coming, Sophie and I. I've got some cash,” George declared. “You coming along, Katherine?” pleadingly he asked.

  “No, I'm afraid I can't, George. There's something I must see to before I go back to New York. I have your number though, and the address in Eton Square. I will be in touch. I promise you I will.”

  “What about you, Harry? Fancy a juicy steak, do you?” he asked.

  “Can't either. Have an appointment in less than an hour and it's the other side of the city. Don't forget we have a flight at eight, Seri.”

  “And don't you forget you're married now, Mr Paterson.” she blurted out and Tanta almost fell over in shock.

  “Bloody hell, Harry,” he said. “I guess that's my dreams of rapture crushed. Always fancied you myself. You are a bitch, Serena, but I love you just the same.” I'm still not sure to this day who laughed the loudest.

  Demoted back to the ranks, I made off to meet with George's father, never telling him, nor Serena, of his arrival. I didn't want to keep it a secret but neither did I want to disappoint George, if Paulo was his normal uncooperative self.

  * * *

  Sir Edward Rosewood was far from uncooperative in granting Charlie's wishes. Promoting him to Ireland's permanent trade developer assigned to Germany. Charlie had ten more years to feast his depraved sexual habits on the youth of that country, as illness ate his body turning it into the monstrous figure his warped mind had always been. His bleeding caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus may have been shallow on the surface, and hidden in places, but the shameful, visual truth was as hard as Percy's death for him to accept.

  Chapter Forty-Four: A Man Of Talent

  “I bought the renting ledger from Charlie, after he told Douglas Simmons, and Douglas told me of its existence. Drink loosens tongues when there's nobody to brag to. All those mentioned in that book are dead now of course, but not their relatives. Some still practise that evil perversion that Lord Montague ruled over. The photo was n
ever the prize I sought. A son of your Queen Victoria, Prince Arthur, Duke of Coburg and Severndoog was long gone for my interests to be aroused. I wanted fish that would smell fresh in today's market, Harry, and happily I was far from disappointed in Percy's collective bookkeeping skills.”

  It was in a market café that we met, enveloped by the smells of coffee, freshly baked bread with strong, pungent aromas of cheese wafting through the covered arena. He was alone and as elegantly dressed as I remembered him to be on our last meeting. His trenchant command of drama had not diminished, as I was soon to find out. There was a bottle of Lacrima di Christi on the table and two glasses. One, mine, he was filling when I arrived. Whose tears were we about to drink I wondered?

  “Why the need for such shrouded clues, Paulo, and how were they collected?” I asked, as I sipped the wine.

  “I was in Central and Southern America from the late seventies onwards. There were links there to people and organisations I fostered in the Middle East that needed my hands to coax together, helping one another to help me. I ran across the name of Appendia from a deceased great-uncle to your bride. Funny how things go round in circles, don't you think, but more of that later. I met Simmons very early on that journey. He was crucial in many matters that were happening in those days. I've written most of what happened in Panama on this slip of paper,” He passed it to me and I pocketed it.

  “I had a good guess at what went on there, threatening the American CIA agent who'd been holding Katherine with the possibility of disclosing some of my guesses. It appears it worked, as I haven't seen anything of him in Milan since I arrived.”

  “He wouldn't need to be here, Harry, would he? His department doesn't work in the open, wearing suits and badges announcing their presence. He lives in the recesses, the worm holes along with similar such from my once motherland. There are eyes watching that have closed lids to us. I told you once of a general who described the best assets of a sniper to me. One of them was their invisibility. People in my trade have perfected that nowadays. Let's not talk of them. Let us talk of a past that we shared in Maudlin. That's where any future that I have now rests!”

  He bowed his head slightly in recognition to two well-dressed men who passed our table. They returned that gesture of recognition without the passage of a word in either direction.

  “Yours?” I enquired.

  “As long as I can afford them. Which for now and the foreseeable future I can adequately do!” he replied.

  “Back to the beginning then. I had told Maudlin what Simmons had told me of a photographer named Percy Crow who liked little boys, adding that royalty shared the same pleasure but with both sexes. I was disgusted to think that my father, who stood for all that was good about England, had royals of his lauded country that behaved so badly. Sure, I knew those things went on. We had degenerate politicians, as did the Americans, and all other countries. But royalty from England? No! I think I was going through that stage of my life when I foolishly believed that one day I could be knighted by your Queen Elizabeth and sit beside Maudlin in his latter days in the House of Lords. Stupid, I know, and it didn't last for long. Shows how vain I am, or was in those far off days.” A break for wine, and deliberation.

  “Maudlin too was shocked. Offered to trace the royal. I hadn't that royal name, and I was content to let the trail ended in Panama. But not Maudlin though! Told me the photographer's name was on a list that he'd been given by your civil service, of guests to invite to a party. A member of parliament had inferred that Crows were important birds, but didn't know why. He did what I suspect you've done, research. The art behind our craft. Wrote me a letter suggesting that I would eventually need a get-me-out-of-here ace up my sleeve. He said he had been on a photographic tour of Monmouth, where Percy and his sister Rachel were born, southern Ireland where they were taken and Grange Manor where they lived. He was thorough, was Maudlin, always had been. Found out about a policeman and his family, and a hospital with a cemetery. And that's where kismet played a hand. The children's hospital was in a place called Drogheda, in another language —the bridge of the ford. Did you find that clue, Harry?”

  “I did, but I don't know how the clue you left came to be on that plaque. Did Franco write it on there?”

  “Maudlin at his best, Harry. The imagination of the man was outstanding. Told me he commissioned an ornamental tablet on which he'd inscribed some lines from Pushkin. Said it would be discoverable for a hundred years to come. It was to be my escape route if ever I needed it.”

  'I've left the other side blank. All you have to do is turn the thing around, and write your eventual exit point on that side then stand back waiting for the cavalry.'

  “He'd found out what you have, Percy's sister was murdered by a prince. Maudlin thought that if I could get the photo of the prince and Rachel together it would buy my freedom if ever I needed it.”

  'You will only have the one shot at it. Make sure the person who finds your clue is persistent and clever.'

  “Then you waltzed into my life, Harry, with my daughter on your arm. I had my way out, if ever I needed it. But no, it was not Franco who wrote the four lines. It was me, Harry. I could trust no one to do it. I went alone to Ireland three days before Katherine told the CIA of Percy Crow. I was satisfied then that all was in place.”

  “What makes you want to use it now and not when you were in Switzerland?”

  “I'm getting there, Harry. Just a little longer to go in the story.”

  The bottle of wine emptied and immediately was replaced by a full uncorked one. A scribbled note passed between the waiter and Paulo.

  “Good news, I hope,” I enquired, without receiving a reply.

  “When I was informed of your reply to the policeman who told you of Elliot's murder; 'out shooting crows on a neighbouring farm,' I couldn't decide between coincidence or you knew something of your great-grandfather's scheme. That information took me quite some time to assimilate. I sent someone to Harrogate who never came back! That was worrying, Harry.”

  “Why didn't he return? Fall in love with Yorkshire, did he?” I asked.

  “I'm told it's a very charming place, but no, that wasn't the reason. I have mentioned my involvement with the mafia. You have seen it here. It was they who took care of my disappearance from Switzerland. The man I sent was one of them. It's them I finance. The man I sent was arrested for a brawl he was caught up in while in London. Deported back to Italy after a few months, but by the time that news reached me, Katherine had been seized and taken to America. I deal mostly with idiots and drunks today, Harry. I had to find another man to send, then I needed someone who could access her, passing on the message that I wanted to activate Percy's name.”

  “You know of Vasilyev's death, I take it?”

  “I had Alexi Vasilyev killed when I knew you had Katherine's message. Not all the agents that Mercer and his agency employ can withstand the lure of money, especially if they are in debt. Vasilyev was the only one who knew that Paulo Korovin was alive. Those I deal with in the Mafia do not know that name.”

  “If I'm reading you correctly, Paulo, it's your belief that Percy's ledger will get you a pass into the land of the free, but Mercer waits there looking to avenge Vasilyev's murder. He won't give you absolution for your past indiscretions.”

  “You're correct in assuming that there are American names in the ledger, Harry, or more correctly in the separate appendix. In the ledger the most prominent one is simply noted by some initials. His full name is disclosed at that back of the book. But I totally agree with you, no name will get my absolution from the CIA, or any other American agency that wants a slice of me. America is not where I want to go. The medical care and protection I would need in America would seriously drain my resources. Besides, I have no affinity with the American people nor do I have any admiration of their intelligence services. However, I have a name that will gain my freedom from them, but it's not written in any book that I know of.”

  “When you say yo
u will need medical care, Paulo, does that mean you have a serious illness?”

  “I'm dying from two of the worse diseases known to mankind; boredom and old age. There are other things but they're not as instantly damaging. I want to come to England, Harry. Not to your palatial palace in Yorkshire where my father once lived, nor the address I sent George's mother to in London. I make no claim on the Patersons, dead or alive, in this life or any other. There's an apartment block in Knightsbridge, backing on to Hyde Park, that's serviced by the hotel next door. I bought one of the top floors last year as an investment for Katherine and George. Cost me a fortune in exchange rates and bribes. It will serve my closing needs extremely well.

  The ledger, with the appendix intact, has no copy anywhere in the world. Charlie Reilly died in 1993, Simmons two years before that. They, along with Percy and Montague, were the only ones to know of its existence. I give you my solemn oath on that.”

  “Is there enough there to get you a passport, do you think?”

  “I believe there is. I have supplied some of the distinguished names on that paper I gave you. There are a couple of other points I'll raise before we say goodbye for a while. First the American ace I have up my sleeve. They have been losing treasured secrets to my equivalent department for years and years Harry. They are aware of this, but what they don't know is where it all started and where it all went.”

  I jumped in, both guns firing from the hip before I'd given it any thought.

  “I guessed that you would know the identity, and told Jimmy Mercer that if he stayed away that name might be disclosed to him.”

  “That disclosure coming from you or from me, Harry?” he quietly asked.

  “I never made that clear, Paulo.”

  “You are as clever as I hoped. That's whetted his appetite, no doubt.”