The Irregular: A Different Class of Spy

by H. B. Lyle

  Kell coughed. He’d followed Tinsley for a week and found nothing. Daily trips to Woolwich, afternoons and evenings spent hopping between steam rooms and gentlemen’s clubs and Piccadilly eateries. The one place Tinsley rarely went was his home in Kensington. He had many companions, men younger than himself, but Kell could never fathom their conversations or even work out who these other men were. Once, he suspected Tinsley was on to him when they bumped into each other in the revolving doorway of the Criterion Bar. Tinsley flashed a knowing smile and left.

  At a loss to explain the man’s behaviour and exasperated, only the morning before meeting Wiggins, Kell had turned to Constance. ‘Do you know the Tinsleys, my dear? The Honourable Charles.’

  ‘Eunice attends a meeting every now and then,’ Constance replied, dabbing marmalade clear of her top lip. ‘Which doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you know, her husband. He’s not very … attentive.’

  Kell cleaned the butter from his knife by inserting it into the side of a slice of toast. ‘Attentive how?’ he asked.

  Constance looked at him askance. ‘You know.’ She waited. ‘Oh, for God’s sake – he’s of the Grecian persuasion? A follower of Socrates? No, not philosophically, Vernon, really. I hope they don’t have you decoding ciphers – it would take years. No, put as simply as I know how, Charles Tinsley prefers men to women in the, er, bedroom.’

  ‘Oh.’ Kell felt his skin prickle hot and his collar pinch. He thought of the Marshall Street Baths, Tinsley’s steadying hand on his.

  ‘Why are you so interested, anyway?’ Constance asked, the corners of her mouth peaking.

  ‘What? Yes, well. That’s classified.’

  Constance’s peals of laughter rattled the cups.

  The cab turned back north over the river at Waterloo. Flowers of train smoke decorated the skyline to their left, out at Charing Cross. ‘He’s in the clear, I’m sure,’ Kell responded gruffly.

  ‘Thought so,’ Wiggins replied. ‘But you’ve got to check, given he’s blackmailable.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘What with him being all Oscar and Wilde.’

  First Constance and now Wiggins. How did people know these things? Kell shifted uncomfortably on the seat and shook his head. ‘Look, we don’t have much time. The Ministry’s not made of money. You have a lead?’

  ‘I know how the dirt gets out of Woolwich. But where it goes to, that’s the key.’

  ‘A name?’

  Wiggins ignored the interruption. ‘Hold up. We need to find the organ-grinder, not the monkey.

  ‘The monkey would be a start.’

  ‘I can find the grinder too. What we need is fake documents. Something that looks like a secret, a trap.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Kell asked. ‘How about a suite at the Savoy thrown in or an elephant howdah? Or the Koh-i-noor?’

  Kell breathed in heavily as the cab swung through Covent Garden and back down to Whitehall. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I will do as you ask,’ he said at last. ‘But only in return for a name – be it the monkey or the grinder, I don’t care.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You have a week. But only if you give me a name.’

  Bela picked at the deep folds of her dress. ‘What do the three balls mean?’ she said.

  ‘Uncle, ain’t it,’ Wiggins replied.

  The room he’d taken was above a pawnbroker and the three golden globes of the sign dangled within view. ‘Pawn.’

  She pulled her hair free in a great tug and shook out her mane. ‘I know this. You think we don’t know about pawnshop. I mean, why three balls?’

  Wiggins looked at her as she undressed, captivated by her small, measured movements, her peachy skin and the amused smile as he struggled for an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.

  ‘Chudo,’ she said. ‘It’s miracle. You admit there’s something you don’t know.’

  ‘Steady on.’

  ‘I have decided. You know nothing. And you have too many clothes on.’

  The first time they’d made love she’d led the way, gentle, then hungry, grasping, offering herself to him completely and without restraint. Afterwards, she had cried inconsolable tears. Wiggins had lain next to her, mute with incomprehension. They weren’t tears of joy or physical pain, he knew, but what caused them he did not, nor how to stop them. All he could do was hold her hand while she wept.

  She made no mention of the tears and they never reappeared. Instead, she would ask him questions about himself, about the ‘Anglish’, about his factory job and about London. Then they would make love and she would continue to question him, and stroke his hair, his smooth chin. It delighted him to talk about London, Sal and the gang, his one and only memory of his mother. He’d never talked as much in his life.

  He even told her about his time with Leach and Son, the odious bailiffs. She wanted to know everything and he tried to be as truthful as possible. He remained quiet only about Kell and Holmes. To reveal one would somehow mean revealing the other and he didn’t want to go down that road just yet. Though he wanted to unburden himself, his work for Kell was a burden that had to be carried. Something stopped him mentioning Bill by name too, a natural caution or the rawness of the wound he wasn’t sure. It was as if Bill had yet to truly die, or rather, that fact was something Wiggins couldn’t accept until he’d got to the bottom of his murder. It was a chapter yet to close. But the past, he revelled in.

  That day, after she’d teased him about his failed knowledge of the three balls, after they’d made love again, lazily, slowly, as if Wiggins’s battered watch had indeed stopped for good, she stroked her unmarked cheek against his chest and asked her questions. ‘Tell me about your work,’ she said.

  So he told her again, the hellish Woolwich factory floor, Rayner’s bitching, the lonely night-time drudge.

  ‘It makes guns?’

  ‘Big ones. And shells.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask me questions?’

  Wiggins hesitated. He knew she’d been married, that she worked in the laundry, that she’d been badly beaten repeatedly in the past – but she hadn’t told him any of these things herself. Deep scars on her back and arms told of the beatings, her shoes of the laundry and the pale puckering on her ring finger bore witness to the past betrothal. But dare he ask anything more? Was Elsie the barmaid right, no woman wants you to know what she’s thinking?

  ‘I’ve asked you about your country, ain’t I?’ he said at last.

  ‘And what do you know about it?’

  ‘The Tsar’s a total bollocks.’

  She laughed and swung her legs out of the bed. ‘Tell me more about Russia,’ he said, stroking her naked back.

  ‘Latvia. It’s cold. I come here for the weather. You Anglish, you always complain about the weather – but go there and maybe you don’t complain.’

  ‘It can’t be all bad, it’s home at least.’

  Bela glanced back at him. ‘Home. This is a nice word, for you. Not for me.’ She fell silent for a moment and then exhaled. ‘I must go.’

  Wiggins examined her as she dressed. She’d refused to tell him where she lived, out of embarrassment or independence he didn’t know. It meant he had no control, she could walk out of the door at any moment and never come back. He didn’t want to give her any reason to leave but his curiosity burnt still.

  He gulped down his concern and risked a question. ‘Do you know what an eight-pointed red star means? That drinker, the day we met, they had it on the wall. I’m curious like.’

  She had her back to him. ‘Help me. Tie.’

  He strung together the back of her dress. ‘Maybe it is like your balls?’

  ‘What?’ Wiggins said. ‘What’s wrong with my balls?’

  She turned, a smile spread across her two-tone face. ‘The three balls. Maybe it’s a pawn sign. I don’t know what the star means. I am sorry. There is nothing wrong with you,’ she added as she smoothed her hand against his che
st.

  ‘By the way, have you …’ He faltered.

  Someone had been in the room while he was out. Small signs: the candle up-ended, the dust rings around the bed legs, a finger smudge on the sill. No one knew he lived there, other than Bela. He hadn’t even told Kell his address. The same sense of unease that had prickled him when they’d walked from Jubilee Street came over him again.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  ‘You can come here whenever you like. Even when I’m not here. This place is yours.’

  ‘Why would I come, if you are not here?’

  They looked at each other in silence. Elsie’s warning came back to him again, clouding his thoughts. Did he really want to know what Bela was thinking? Did he want to risk asking? No, he didn’t want to ask her anything more, not about Russia, her past or her friends. He simply wanted to stare at her for ever, and the deep dark world outside could whistle.

  What price Kell, the country, the Empire, when he had this, her?

  He pulled her into a kiss. ‘Tomorrow night?’

  Bela licked her lips. ‘You never take me out.’

  ‘I thought you liked it here?’

  She smiled. ‘What do Anglish man and woman do? Where do they go?’

  ‘I could take you to the flicks? We could go down Victoria Park, or see Lord Elgin’s marbles in Great Russell Street. Anything you fancy.’

  Bela angled her birthmark away from him as she gathered up her canvas bag. ‘Something special. British, how you say, the Empire?’

  Wiggins cast around the room for inspiration, charmed by her insistence. ‘Here you are, how about the Imperial Exhibition?’ He held up a newspaper. ‘Down Wood Lane, near the Bush. It’s got the Flip-Flap, a Wibbly-Wobbly and everything.’

  ‘Vibbly-Vobbly?’

  ‘Wibbly-Wobbly – it’s a ride. You love a good ride, you. It’ll be jam. We’ll go on your half-day.’

  He watched from the window as she crossed the street and walked up to Essex Road. Then he proceeded to get dressed. It was only when he reached for his strides that he noticed she’d folded up his discarded clothes. A simple gesture, the sight of his trousers and shirt in a small neat pile touched him to the quick.

  * * *

  Kerensky was the word on everyone’s lips. Whispered, mouthed. Rumours from St Petersburg rippled through Dvinsk. Lenin. The Bundists. Menshevik, Bolshevik. Every morning, the Marinsky shop hummed with the latest sensation, often unuttered. But Bela could tell in the glances, the murmurs, the fearful eyes. Something was going to happen. Russia was on the verge of an explosion. Of course, Vincas was too drunk to notice. Whenever politics came up, he’d shout down whoever spoke. Like all the truly ignorant, he did not even know the emptiness of his own brain. Old man Marinsky never mentioned politics either, but he at least had a cannier mind than his son. He affected not to be concerned about the ructions in the country, but Bela knew he was seriously worried when he brought home a box of gold coins from the bank.

  What she didn’t know was where he hid the gold. But it was the break she needed, all the same, for it must be in the house somewhere. The shop had been awash with rumours for days, and there was even talk of a mutiny in the town barracks. The time had come.

  Mrs Kalina came in every morning, grumbling about one government injustice or another. Her piggy eyes flitted between the customers. ‘They are losing control,’ she scowled to no one in particular. She said things like this often, dangerous things.

  Not dangerous for her, though. Mrs Kalina, as Bela and most of the customers well knew, was an Okhrana informant. She would trawl Dvinsk, hoping to catch someone out in a stray word or thought, desperate to earn some extra kopeks from her masters. No one rose to the bait. ‘Maybe the Tsar is too old, or too weak,’ she said. Flour dust swirled in the silence.

  Three days later, Bela was ready. A young woman she knew, buying for her family, approached the till. Bela ducked her head and spoke in a careful undertone, clear and just loud enough for Mrs Kalina, further down the line, to hear. ‘Vincas has such views – I don’t know where he gets them from. I fear if there’s a mutiny, he’ll join the revolutionaries and leave me all alone.’

  Her young friend opened her eyes wide, surprised at such a public admission, afraid. Bela turned away blithe.

  That night the Okhrana officers came, stinking of stale sweat and cheap tobacco. They pushed through the shop, upturning a sack of flour for effect. Bela, old man Marinsky and Vincas were in the back room at dinner when three officers barrelled through the door, their tunics dashed with white.

  Marinsky tensed, his hands flat on the table. But his eyes flicked repeatedly at the fireplace.

  ‘Vincas Marinsky?’ the leader asked. He took off his cap and smoothed down the small island of black hair he had left.

  ‘That’s me,’ Vincas muttered. He tried to sound casual, bullish, but Bela sensed his fear.

  ‘We have reason to believe you are harbouring anti-tsarist views.’

  ‘I am loyal,’ he replied. ‘What do I care for revolution?’

  ‘That is what we are here to find out.’ The officer jerked his head and his two underlings barged up the stairs.

  ‘My son is a hard worker,’ Marinsky offered. Bela said nothing.

  The officer held his cap in his hands but did not sit. He examined each of them in turn, unabashed, confident in his untouchability. Bela kept her head down but felt the officer’s gaze. Above them, the heavy boots of the Okhrana clumped and rattled as they ripped the rooms apart.

  ‘You will find nothing,’ Vincas said at last.

  Bela glanced up to see him looking straight at her.

  Before the officer could answer a great cry came from above, then the boots cascaded down the stairs. ‘Sir.’ The young deputy strode in. He waved the pamphlet like a handkerchief on a railway station platform. ‘We found this.’ In his other hand he held Vincas’s rough jacket.

  The officer grasped young Plov’s stolen pamphlet.

  ‘Is this yours?’ He glared at Vincas. ‘You need to come with us.’

  ‘I know nothing about this,’ Vincas cried. ‘It is her, that bitch. She cleans the clothes.’

  Bela gasped, confused. ‘What does it say? I cannot read.’

  The two junior men took Vincas by the shoulders. They dragged him to the door, fear and confusion writ across his face. For he knew she could not read, yet how else could the pamphlet have got there?

  The officer put on his cap and turned to Marinsky. ‘This is a serious matter. Common Cause is a banned publication. It is highly seditious. Anyone in possession of such material needs to be interrogated. Do not leave Dvinsk.’

  Marinsky called after him. ‘Leave Dvinsk? Where would I go?’

  Long after she’d gone to bed, Bela heard Marinsky mutter and stomp. For all his meanness and sneering, he seemed genuinely distraught. Finally, in the hour just before dawn, she got up to join him in the downstairs room.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t understand. What they say about Vincas, it cannot be true.’

  ‘Go to him. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows you, Dvinsk knows you. You can save Vincas.’

  ‘Save him? Why, bitch? I know you hate him.’

  ‘He is my husband.’ Bela busied herself at the stove. ‘I don’t want to be the wife of a traitor. It will stain us all. No one will shop here today.’

  Marinsky grunted but didn’t disagree. They waited while Bela made the tea. Grey light stripped the edges of the outside door. Marinsky clapped his hands together and flung it open onto the misty morning. ‘What should I do?’ he said at last.

  ‘Go to the prison. Speak to people. You are an important man,’ Bela soothed, careful. ‘Isn’t it the traders’ meeting tonight?’

  Marinsky scoffed. ‘What good will that pack of popinjays be?’

  ‘It is influence,’ Bela said. ‘Sway. None of those men want to lose their sons to the Okhrana. It is all you have.’

&nbs
p; The old man blew on his tea a moment. ‘You sound like a Bolshevik.’ He spoke with no malice, however, and soon got up from the table. ‘Get me my overcoat.’ He gestured upstairs with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I need to help my son.’

  Bela remembered Marinsky’s actions of the night before. Throughout the Okhrana’s interrogation, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the kitchen hearth. Once Marinsky left to go after his son, Bela knelt down to check. As she suspected, new brick dust sprinkled the floor on the right-hand side. She teased free one, two and three of the small bricks. Behind them, Marinsky’s gold coins. He had taken some with him earlier, hence the new dust. After counting the money, enough to get her to the coast and onto a boat, she put it back and replaced each brick with care.

  Marinsky returned that night, empty-handed. He muttered and cursed as he ate.

  ‘What news?’ Bela asked at last.

  ‘This soup is disgusting.’ Marinsky pushed away his bowl. ‘No wonder my son beats you.’ He licked his lips. ‘I am going to bed.’

  Hours later, when Bela had checked and double-checked the old man’s snores, she padded down the stairs to the kitchen. She’d wrapped a headscarf tightly around her face and mouth and wore her best and warmest clothes. The Plovs’ driver had agreed to take her as far as Dunava, for a fee, and she would take a boat upriver to Riga. She felt her way through the kitchen, a space so familiar she needed no light. Once she was by the hearth, however, she had to see to pick the bricks away. She knelt down and scratched at the floor with a match.

  The bright bloom flickered and suddenly went out, extinguished by a draught. Someone had opened the front door.

  12

  Sherlock Holmes had a sliver of ice in his heart. He called it reason but a good detective’s blood ran colder than that of any killer. It took days like today to remember this.

  A fine rain misted Wiggins’s view of the Woolwich factory as the gates swung open and the tide of workers swept through. Wiggins saw Royston Basil straight away. His tinted circular spectacles, stiff homburg and canary umbrella stood out in the sea of grey and brown.