by H. B. Lyle
Peter glanced quickly at Yakov. Then he slapped his hand on the table. ‘Ha ha ha! Yakov, you see, I told you.’ He followed this with a burst of Russian and more laughter. ‘Yakov, he is so suspicious. He went back. He waited by the police station and he sees you come out the front door, easy.’
This Wiggins knew. He’d come out of Curzon Street nick the morning Kell had him released. Yakov made the single biggest mistake when tailing someone – he moved too quickly. If he’d stayed still, Wiggins might never have seen him, even though he was looking out for someone. But Yakov had ducked away around a corner and it was the flash of sudden movement that caught Wiggins’s attention.
Running a tail was the most important job the Irregulars ever did. Wiggins and Sal trained the new recruits on the streets of Soho and Fitzrovia, before letting them loose on Victoria Station, the big one.
‘You’ll never catch me,’ Wiggins would taunt the new kids, goading them on.
‘Balls,’ Sal countered.
She coached the little ones. ‘Mind his shoes, trouser knees and his hat. Always keep eyes on the hat and the way he walks. He can change the hat, so keep looking, but he can’t change his gait for long.’
With the knowledge of how to tail someone comes the knowledge of how to avoid it too. When Wiggins came out of Curzon Street nick and saw Yakov in the shadows, he turned down Piccadilly then cut across to Jermyn Street. He doubled back into a gentlemen’s outfitters. The shop straddled the whole block and had an exit on both Jermyn and Piccadilly. Wiggins shifted through business, sailing and motoring wear, then stepped back onto Piccadilly just in time to mount one of the turning buses going west. He knew Yakov would have to pause in the shop – unsure whether Wiggins would have gone upstairs or not – and as the bus pulled away he saw Yakov finally emerge, head twisting from side to side, defeated. Street craft, the boys called it.
Peter crowed from across the table, pointing at Yakov. ‘This bad Russian man thinks you not come back. He thinks you yellow Englishman. But I think you are a soldier and you are with us.’
Yakov shrugged.
‘Admit it, you are wrong,’ Peter went on as he poured more drinks. He gestured Yakov over. The glowering wretch shuffled forward and drained the liquor in one gulp. He nodded at Wiggins.
‘You got a nod. For Yakov that is a big hug.’ Peter shook his head, amused. ‘He doesn’t treat his women this well.’
Yakov muttered in Russian and he and Peter exchanged a few more words. Wiggins heard mention once more of Arlekin.
Peter then fixed him with his interrogative stare.
‘Did you see newspapers, about Hyde Park – our riot?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Exactly. Your press is like puppy dog to government. They print nothing. They don’t even need to make laws, they wink and chuckle and people know nothing. So, Arlekin thinks we need to act bigger, so that no one can ignore. And you can help.’
‘Can I meet him?’
Peter shifted his focus. ‘You work at shell factory, yes? We need materials. You can get them for us. It is a plan.’
Wiggins tried to recall when he had told Peter about Woolwich – he wasn’t sure. That was the problem with getting drunk. Peter looked at him expectantly, but the thought still nagged. Did he mention it, the last time at Sambrook Street?
‘A bomb,’ Peter went on. ‘This they cannot ignore. Arlekin is counting on you. I am counting on you.’
Wiggins had known from the first time he met Peter that he was a man who carried a Mauser pistol. Yakov had pulled a knife on him. Fisticuffs was one thing, a bit of rough and tumble with the coppers. That was almost affectionate. A bomb was different. He stared at Peter and thought of Kell – maybe he should bring him in, get these bastards rounded up. But he couldn’t tell Kell, Holmes had said, and Kell himself had told him to steer clear. And even if he did go to the police, he wouldn’t get justice. Not the kind of justice he craved.
Peter glanced at Yakov and back to Wiggins, urging. ‘We need your commitment. Show it to me, to our cause.’
Wiggins thought of Bill, dead in the ground because of people like this. That was a cause to believe in.
‘I like to know who I’m working for. I’d need to meet Arlekin,’ he said at last.
‘Of course, this will happen. Get the materials and you can meet Arlekin. Let us drink to it.’
‘It ain’t that easy, getting in and out of Woolwich with a bag. And it’s the death penalty if I get caught.’
‘You will think of something,’ Peter intoned. ‘I saw you at Hyde Park. You are smart, you are quick, you are brave.’
Wiggins chewed at his mouth. ‘Have you got a gun?’
‘I don’t,’ Peter replied.
‘What are we meant to be blowing up?’ Wiggins pushed his cup forward.
‘Da!’ Peter clicked his fine fingers. ‘I knew it. But I do not know all plan. Only Arlekin knows everything. Now, Na Zdorovie.’
Wiggins waited outside Bela’s laundry, hoping she was about to finish the late shift. He’d made his excuses to Peter and gone to meet her, his mind awash with vodka and indecision. Could he filch the stuff from Woolwich? Six months previously, he’d been half-heartedly chasing debtors across town and now he was up to his neck in an East End criminal gang, while being paid the King’s shilling to tail a spy ring. He rubbed his hands together, breathed in the carbolic-rich steam of the laundry and thought of Milton’s gigantic killer, Rijkard; of the young girl Jax; and finally of Sal, his oldest friend.
‘What a turn-up,’ Sal had said that morning. ‘You’re wearing the age, I’ll say that, bar the shiner. Still got a lovely barnet, trimmed and all. Very ooh la la. Who’s the lucky lass?’
Wiggins helped Sal and Jax prepare breakfast for the cabbies. They served tea and rashers with doorsteps. Afterwards, Wiggins pulled Sally aside and gestured silently at Jax. ‘She’s in with a bad crowd, Sal.’
‘I knew she was running down Fleet Street. But she’s nearly fifteen, it ain’t my place no more. She’s got to make her own way.’
‘She can work for me.’
‘You?’ Sal cackled. ‘Make an honest woman of her, will you?’
‘It’s kosher.’
Sally blew on her tea. ‘Fifteen years and suddenly you turn up in my shop, Jax on your arm, without a by your leave. Where did you go?’
Wiggins hesitated, looked towards the young girl. ‘Army.’
‘I know that, you dafty, but why didn’t you come back, after?’
‘It wasn’t that I didn’t …’ He looked at his hands. Soot-black dirt filled his fingernails, grime from the Albany’s brickwork. ‘Mary-the-bones, remember?’
‘You never could say it right.’
‘You don’t look any different,’ he said. ‘Neither does Jax. She’s your spit. That’s how I knew.’
Sally raised her eyebrows then drained her tea in two great gulps. She pulled a sleeve across her mouth and grinned.
Wiggins gestured at Jax. ‘Any more?’
‘Nah, one’s enough.’
‘Father?’
‘Why, you interested in applying for the role? I’m kidding. He’s long gone. Swine. Now, I’ve got to get on.’ She stood up. ‘I can’t stop Jax working for you – it’s legal you say? Not that it ever stopped her. But make sure no harm comes to her, Wiggins. She’s my babe. And that salt cellar’s not worth ha’penny, so leave it where it is.’
‘I’m a changed man.’ Wiggins held up his hands, grinning.
He looked over at young Jax, red curls hanging loose. So like that little girl he used to know who broke him out of St Cyprian’s, who lived with him in the back ways of Paddington all those years ago.
‘Jax,’ he called over and pointed to the bench next to him. ‘You and me’s got to parlay. Matters of import.’
‘You!’ Bela pointed from the laundry doorway. ‘You never leave me alone.’
‘I was lonely,’ he said, pulling her into a kiss. ‘I could walk you home.’
‘You don’t know where I live.’
‘True. If you won’t tell me, it means you have to come home with me. Right now.’
Back in his Islington room, Wiggins gave her a bottle of perfume. A simple gesture, but he’d never got the hang of giving so much as taking. When you had nothing, it was the only way. But now, with her, he wanted to do things differently. He’d even paid for the bottle.
She smiled, dabbed it on her wrist and sniffed – then flicked some in his face. He grabbed her around the midriff and they ended up on the bed, the room pungent with rosewater and almonds, the vodka on his breath, the carbolic on her hands and the smell of freshly spent sweat. Later, as she lay sleeping, Wiggins traced the outline of her birthmark. Could they make a life together, away from laundries and factories and the East End; away from her unspoken past, her secret present; away from gangs and bomb plots and violent friends; could they speak only of now and what was to come, and not of the shadowed past? And could he tell her what he now did for money? Was it possible, he wondered, to live one life at home and another out on the streets, keeping secrets, risking lives, taking orders from on high?
16
Wiggins gunned the Enfield as they swung down Hampstead High Street, swerving in between the buses. ‘Are you political, Mr Wiggins?’
‘Pardon, ma’am?’ he shouted over his shoulder. He jiggled at the wheel impatiently. The car bounced and jerked down the hill towards Camden Town as Wiggins tugged at the control sticks.
‘You sure you’ve driven before?’ Kell asked from the back seat. ‘There’s no hurry.’
‘Oh, don’t be so rude, Vernon. Mr Wiggins and I are having a conversation. I asked him about politics.’ Constance waited for Wiggins to respond.
Wiggins swerved out of the way of a drunk. ‘Watch it, sozzle,’ he shouted. ‘Politics? It don’t make a difference. The world’s still the way it is, whatever the politicians say.’
‘But surely you can’t really believe that?’
‘I think he may have a point,’ Kell said, thinking of his work in Whitehall. Most of the politicians weren’t even interested in government at all. Parliament was just another one of their gentlemen’s clubs. These dilettantes were nevertheless preferable to those politicos who actually wanted to do some work. They were the ones who really caused the problems.
‘No, I can’t credit it,’ Constance went on. ‘There may be some very bad politicians, incompetent, lazy, self-serving. It doesn’t help that they all come from the same schools. But politics itself, that changes things.’
‘You Liberal or Tory, ma’am?’
‘Ha!’ Constance cried. ‘Neither of them, nor this new Labour Party either. Though I am very political. I belong to the NUWSS.’
‘Please, dear, I’m sure Wiggins has no interest in such things.’
Wiggins manoeuvred the car between the trams of Charing Cross Road. Hawkers called out the names of the music-hall shows and, off to their right, the ladies of the night paraded.
‘Nah, go on. What does that stand for?’ he called through the glass.
Constance lifted her chin in Kell’s direction. ‘National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. I’m a suffragist.’
The car swung into open road as they approached Trafalgar Square and Wiggins tested the acceleration. ‘I had you down for a suffragette, if you don’t mind me saying, ma’am. What with all those meetings you go to, and the placard-making.’
‘How did you know that?’
‘It’s a trick of his,’ Kell muttered.
‘Well, the WSPU are a little more active. But we are all campaigning for the same thing, for the right to vote, whatever you call us. What do you say to that?’
‘I suppose I’m for it,’ Wiggins said after a moment. ‘In my experience women know as much about what’s going on as men do.’
‘You see,’ Constance said to Kell. ‘A man of enlightenment.’
‘Not that it matters,’ Wiggins continued. ‘If voting changed anything, they’d abolish it.’
Kell laughed. Constance ignored him. ‘No, Mr Wiggins, you are wrong, quite wrong. Have a little faith,’ she said as they reached their destination.
Carlton Terrace rose resplendent above the Mall, and the German Embassy stood out, its windows ablaze in the warm summer evening ‘We’re here,’ Kell called.
‘Seconds out,’ Wiggins grunted in reply.
The vehicle-registration office had finally got back to Kell and confirmed that the green Daimler driven by Rijkard on the night of Milton’s murder was indeed registered to a René LeQuin, resident of the Albany. Kell had dug a little deeper and found out, from a friend on The Times, that LeQuin staged intimate private concerts. It was clear that Milton’s killer worked for LeQuin, but they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest the Frenchman.
Instead, in the few weeks since they’d broken into the Albany, Kell had obtained an invitation to a party where LeQuin was organising the music. Wiggins, as the Kells’ driver, was to dig around for information among the staff.
Torches fluttered either side of the embassy’s big double doors and guests bunched at the entrance. The men in top hat and tails or uniform, the women in corseted dresses and expensive jewellery.
‘Take it round the back,’ Kell said loftily as he helped Constance to the pavement. Wiggins grunted. ‘Wait.’ Kell stepped forward and whispered through the window. ‘Anything new at Woolwich?’
‘Nah, clean as. I told you it would be. Milton was the mole.’
‘You’ve been there long enough now since his death, I think. We’ll need you full-time on LeQuin and Rijkard.’
Wiggins paused. ‘I’ve got to give notice.’
Kell pulled on his gloves. ‘Well, as quick as you can.’
‘Why did you bring your wife? Tonight I mean.’
Kell mustered as much disdain as he could, raising his chin and giving Wiggins a damn-your-eyes glare.
‘Oh, I get it.’ Wiggins grinned. ‘She’s the one with the invitation. Nice.’ He released the brake and rolled away.
‘I do like him,’ Constance murmured as they waited to be announced.
Kell had eschewed uniform for tails. Constance refused to be seen in public with a soldier. He knew she was proud of him, she used to say so, but ever since she’d started marching to the suffragist drum, the epaulettes had been banned. Another war would change that, he mused. There’d be no embarrassment about soldiery then, and all this ‘Votes for Women’ nonsense would be scotched as soon as the war bells rang.
They were greeted by a lavish spread. Mountains of exotic fruits, pineapples and bananas; platters of meat and cheeses and great hunks of black bread; pastries and salads and shucked oysters on beds of crushed ice; lashings of champagne and hock, all toted around by grim-faced waiters.
An electric chandelier cast light on the main hall.
‘Show of strength,’ Kell said under his breath to Constance. ‘They are parading their power. It’s one great Teutonic pantomime, paid for by the Kaiser.’
‘Oh grow up, Vernon, it’s a party. I think I’m going to have one of those gorgeous-looking ginger biscuits.’
Kell swiped another glass as the tray passed and surveyed their fellow guests. For all the anti-German feeling abroad in the British press, the place crawled with recognisable faces from society. They didn’t seem to care who hosted the party, as long as the wine was good, the food fair and the ancestry of the other guests impeccable.
‘Captain Kell?’ a German voice sounded behind him. ‘Please let me introduce myself. I am Count Effenberg. Welcome to this humble corner of Germany.’
Effenberg smiled. He stood half a head taller than Kell, with straw hair and a chin that could split ice. One hundred per cent Prussian from his sapphire eyes to his heels that clicked right on cue.
‘A pleasure, Count. But please, Mr Kell will suffice – I am ex-army.’
‘Oh?’
‘The civil service is much removed from the military one.’ Kell forced
a smile.
Effenberg nodded. ‘It is true. I am the cultural attaché here, a very different role from the army.’
‘But you still wear the uniform.’ Kell gestured with his glass. ‘Ceremonial too, I see.’
‘It is a very important party for the embassy.’
‘Careful with the devilled eggs,’ Kell said. ‘They’ll make a mess of those whites.’
They stood in silence for a moment. ‘Did you see the terrible disturbances in the park the other day, Captain Kell? Most troubling.’
‘No, I don’t think I did.’
‘Terrible. A mass riot. I find it very worrying when disciplined countries like ours cannot control our subjects. Don’t mistake me. This is a challenge for us all. But when it happens on the streets of London …’
‘I thought you said it was the park.’
‘Correct.’ Effenberg clicked his heels again. ‘Still, one wonders about the strength of such a country.’ He smiled. ‘It might be thought of as weakness. Maybe the Tsar will cancel his official visit, in view of such a volatile situation.’
Effenberg broke off and inclined his head.
‘Who is this charming lady?’ he said.
Kell turned. ‘Count Effenberg, my wife, Mrs Kell. My dear, this is Count Effenberg, an attaché, I believe. Was it culture or military? I’ve forgotten.’
‘Kultur. Only culture. Enchanté, madame.’ Effenberg took Constance’s hand, bowed and clicked his heels.
‘That’s quite a uniform,’ Constance said.
‘Danke,’ Effenberg replied. ‘Mrs Kell, may I show you around the embassy? It is extremely well appointed. Captain, do you mind?’
‘Not at all,’ he said as Constance raised her eyebrows and took Effenberg’s arm. ‘Creep,’ he muttered to himself.
He took a turn around the party, keeping an eye out for anyone matching Wiggins’s description of LeQuin. Despite his enquiries at The Times and elsewhere, he still didn’t have a photograph of the man.
Earlier that week, Kell had been wheeled out again by his boss Ewart to talk to the Committee for Imperial Defence. Ewart beat a loud drum about the LeQuin business, and had even got Haldane, the War Secretary, to attend.