Small Change 03: Half A Crown

by Jo Walton

  The Queen looked off past me, thinking her own thoughts. “I’ve been suspecting something like this for a long time, and waiting for more evidence, and to know what my people wanted. I needed to be sure before I made any move. Why did you come to me, Elvira? What did you hope I could do?”

  “I wanted to warn you to watch out for the Duke of Windsor, and—well, like my mother said, they’re your government, aren’t they.”

  She was quiet, still staring over my head. “There’s so little I am constitutionally able to do,” she said at last. “I need more than this to act directly against the Prime Minister. The Duke of Windsor is under arrest, you need have no fears about him. I appreciate your warning; it has made me think more seriously about everything else you have said. I can at least give you a Royal Warrant, which does not mean you are above the law but that if you are arrested I will be informed at once. That should slow them down. And I shall ask that the Bermans be released.”

  “Could you do a warrant for my uncle?”

  “I’ll have to inquire more deeply,” she said. “I will not let this go. Thank you for coming to me with it, Elvira.” She waved her fingers, and the equerry came up. “Make me out a Royal Warrant for Miss Royston,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Ma’am, Sir Guy wants to speak to you very urgently.”

  “I’ll speak to him next,” she said, and gave me her hand. I didn’t know whether to bow over it or kiss it or what, but I just shook it and backed away. As I did, I saw Sir Guy bowing as he came up to her, an old notebook in his hand. “Your Majesty, forgive me for interrupting you, but I think you will want to see this,” he said, as I left. I wondered what it was. The Queen looked at it very intently. I sat down again, but kept my eyes on her as she read and questioned Sir Guy. I felt wrung out. I was waiting for my warrant. As soon as I had it I would go back to Betsy. We’d go back to her parents’ house and I’d telephone my mother and Raymond to let them know what had happened. I was presented, I was a lady, and soon I would be going to Oxford, and one day when everything was all right I’d have the chance to write about all this and get it all clear for myself and for posterity. I sat hugging that thought to myself as I waited.

  30

  Two of them grabbed hold of his shoulders from behind. At least he could die as Jack had died, he thought, loosening the tooth. Carmichael wasn’t sure what he thought about death. He’d given up the angels on clouds idea as a boy. Death had always represented a huge question mark for him, one usually clearly marked with questions about motive and means and opportunity. There’d be no doubt about the means in his case, he thought, just as a third Watchman grabbed his lower jaw and forced it open. He struggled, but they gagged him efficiently, meaning he could not reach the tooth. Then they cuffed his hands behind his back and searched him, taking the pistol, all his money, and identity cards. He wished he’d left the money with Breda, who could have used it. They thrust him into the back of a car. He struggled to sit up, which they did not prevent, piling in one on each side of him on the backseat.

  Cut off, at least for the time being, from his means of escape, Carmichael paid attention to the car’s direction. He wanted to know where they were going, the Yard or the Watchtower. He wasn’t surprised when it was the Watchtower. The hotel would have routinely handed over the forms in the morning, and only Jacobson could have identified his aliases. Walter Sprange wouldn’t have rung any bells with the Yard. Jacobson must have betrayed him after all, but why? It didn’t make any sense.

  The policemen on either side of him held on to his arms as they drove along. Sooner or later they would have to loosen his gag, and as soon as they did he would use the tooth. He would betray nothing and nobody, never again. “In the end, I sold my soul,” he had said, and Abby had replied, “That wasn’t the end.” This, when they took out the gag to question him, would be the end that would make up for all the earlier betrayals that started with the Kahns and went on with all the other innocents he had not been able to save, the ones who were names on lists and statistics he had handed over to Normanby. They had nothing to threaten him with or promise him now. Elvira would have to look after herself, but she could manage that. Everyone sells out in the end, but he would leave before that end came. Perhaps he had failed another of Abby’s tests when he had thought he would sacrifice Elvira for Jack, but there were no more tests, nothing else that could be taken from him. He didn’t know where Elvira was and Jack was dead.

  At the Watchtower he was taken in through one of the entrances that led down to the interrogation rooms, as he had expected. He was strapped into a chair, which one of the technicians angled back. He called another to hold Carmichael’s jaw while he began to loosen the gag. When Carmichael realized he meant to remove the tooth, he began to struggle. In the end they had to use all the straps and his mouth was bloody, but the tooth was out. They left him there for a moment. His tongue, uselessly free now, probed the tender place where the tooth had been. He waited. He was hoping for Jacobson, but not altogether surprised to see Ogilvie. Ogilvie looked shocked, for the first time in Carmichael’s experience.

  “Sir,” Ogilvie said. “I mean—I mean what’s going on? Is Jacobson telling the truth? He knew what name you’d be using, and I thought I’d better find you before the Yard did.”

  “Good work, Ogilvie,” Carmichael said, wondering if he could possibly persuade Ogilvie it was all some undercover work and that Jacobson was trying to blame him for his own underground organization. No, too many people knew too much, and sooner or later Ogilvie would talk to Bannister or Penn-Barkis.

  “He said you were working with some Quaker from Portsmouth to get the Jews away,” Ogilvie said. “He said you tried to recruit him!”

  That’s right, Ogilvie, tell me all about it, Carmichael thought. Jacobson had betrayed him, and Abby, to save the Inner Watch. Well, that made sense at least. Or had Elvira betrayed Abby? That could have been what she knew. Carmichael found himself laughing.

  “What’s funny?” Ogilvie asked, looking completely perplexed.

  “That I keep on putting things together even in this situation,” Carmichael said. “I really was born to be a detective.”

  “But what’s going on?” Ogilvie said, looking down at him, bewildered.

  “The Yard picked Elvira up at the riot, and let her go into Sergeant Evans’s custody. Then they picked her up again and tried to get her to tell them I was a traitor. I rescued her, and tucked her away somewhere safe. In retaliation, Normanby killed my man, Jack, who had been with me for years. I went underground.”

  There it was, simplified, and leaving out the Inner Watch entirely, and it might buy him enough time to let him talk to Jacobson, so they could both get their stories straight. After that, Jacobson could certainly be persuaded to help him die, before he betrayed him in his turn.

  “That’s more or less what Jacobson said,” Ogilvie said, looking pained. “Penn-Barkis is asking for you, but I’m going to keep you here tonight.”

  “You’ll be made Chief,” Carmichael predicted. “There’s nobody else. They couldn’t have Jacobson for Commander, he’s a Jew.”

  “Did you really just go down there with guns out and grab Elvira?” Ogilvie asked.

  “Isn’t there anyone you’d do that for?”

  Ogilvie’s flat face went blank. “Will you fight if I let you up to walk to the cell?” he asked.

  “No, I won’t fight, there’s no point anymore,” he said.

  Ogilvie and a Watchman loosened the straps and let Carmichael up. He walked quietly between them down the corridor. “The cell’s just down here, sir. I mean, the cell’s just down here,” Ogilvie said. “I have some things to sort out. I’ll come back and talk to you in the morning.”

  “Is Jacobson here?” Carmichael asked, as if casually.

  “He’s still off for Passover,” Ogilvie said, caroling the last word mockingly. “See you in the morning.”

  “I certainly won’t be going anywhere,” Carmic
hael said, as they opened the cell door and he stepped inside.

  One wall was barred and open to the corridor and there was a little toilet cubicle, with a sink but without a door. There was a bed, which was considerably more comfortable than the bed in the hotel in Pimlico. Carmichael lay on it and thought, staring up at the blank gray ceiling. Jacobson would probably help him die, if he could get away with it without incriminating himself. All that was lost of the Inner Watch was the London safe houses, and maybe not all of them. He had to stay at the Watchtower and avoid being sent to Penn-Barkis for as long as possible. Ogilvie would make a wonderfully unimaginative Watch Commander; as long as Jacobson kept his temper he’d be able to run rings around him.

  He slept, dreamed of Jack, and woke with tears streaming down his face. He got up and washed his face quickly before anyone saw.

  They brought him breakfast after a while; a cheese roll from the canteen and a paper cup of tea. The guard who brought it didn’t speak, and didn’t answer questions. Carmichael lay on his side and stared at the bars. He was expecting Jacobson, or a summons to the Yard. If it was the latter, he’d just have to hold out as long as he could, stick to his story, or rather Jacobson’s story, buy time for Jacobson to cover up, so that when he did incriminate him it wouldn’t be believed. Jacobson must have felt very vulnerable, a Jew, and involved in the Inner Watch, with Carmichael taking risks. He would have expected to have felt furious, but he couldn’t rise above resignation. Everyone has something they care about more.

  A while later, more than an hour, he guessed, the taciturn guard brought him more tea, on a tray. It was his own tea, in his own Orange Tree teapot and cup and saucer, with a plate of chocolate digestives, and a lace-edged cloth on the tray. Miss Duthie, Carmichael thought, you’ve let me know very clearly that you know I’m here, but don’t go and get yourself into trouble! He was deeply touched. He drank the tea and ate all the biscuits, every crumb. He stroked the side of the teapot. Jack had chosen the pattern. He counted the oranges, and admired the elegance of the black lines. He imagined walking with Jack down an avenue of orange trees, in Greece, to see some Byzantine ruin.

  By lunchtime (more cheese sandwiches, and the removal of the Orange Tree tray) Carmichael had worked out why nobody was taking any notice of him, and how Miss Duthie had managed to get away with the gesture with the tea and biscuits. Today was the procession, and they were all too busy with that to have time for him. He wondered about Loy, with his out-of-date watchword and his rifle. Had he got Normanby? Would that chaos bleed into the procession chaos and leave him bored in his cell for even longer? He’d never approved of assassination. He wasn’t sure it would do any good even now. He hoped the Duke of Windsor wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the chaos to seize power. No, he was probably in the Tower by now. If he’d still had the tooth, Carmichael would have used it out of sheer boredom.

  After lunch, two Watchmen took him down the corridor to an interrogation cell. There was a television high on the wall, two chairs, and a table. He was strapped to a chair facing the blank screen and left alone. After a moment, Jacobson came. “It’s all right, I understand,” Carmichael said quickly, as he let himself into the cell.

  “Why do you have to be such a bloody coward?” Jacobson asked. “You endanger everything and then you don’t even have the decency to kill yourself when you had every opportunity.”

  Carmichael gasped. “I do see that you must have felt vulnerable,” he began.

  “You don’t give a damn about me, you never did,” Jacobson said.

  “I’m prepared to back up your story, if—”

  Before Carmichael could finish asking for what he wanted, Jacobson advanced towards him, and he saw with a strange kind of relief that there was a knife in his hand. “I can’t risk that,” Jacobson said.

  The door clanged open, and Ogilvie rushed in and grappled with Jacobson. Carmichael almost wanted to laugh, watching them. They were quite evenly matched. Ogilvie realized this too. “Sergeant!” he called, and two Watchmen rushed to his assistance.

  “Take Mr. Jacobson to a cell,” Ogilvie said, once they had subdued him. He looked at Carmichael in confusion as Jacobson was led away. “I’m—There’s someone here to talk to you. But he wants you to watch the news first.”

  “The news?” Carmichael asked, in astonishment.

  Ogilvie shrugged and turned on the television, then left while the set was still warming up.

  “The body of the man who fired the shot that narrowly missed Herr Hitler this morning has been identified as Gunther Wald, a salesman from Germany,” the announcer said.

  Ah, Loy. Not such a good shot after all. He was getting old. And why had he gone for Hitler rather than Normanby? Carmichael felt a pang of regret for his death.

  “The peace conference, opened by Her Majesty the Queen,” the announcer was saying as Carmichael started to pay attention again. “And now we take you live to her televised address to the British People.”

  There was a moment of static, and then the camera steadied on the Queen, holding a sheaf of notes, sitting down.

  She set down her papers and looked directly at the camera, at Carmichael. “Today I have opened a great peace conference, at which delegates from all over the world will meet together to determine the fate of the world, this new world in which we have so much to fear, and so much to hope for. Now I want to address you, the people of Britain, as your Queen and tell you that it is my constitutional duty to call an immediate General Election. There have been coups and attempted coups. My uncle, the Duke of Windsor, is under arrest under accusations of treason. Also under arrest this afternoon is Mark Normanby, the former Prime Minister. He is accused, on the highest evidence, of the murder of Sir James Thirkie, at Farthing House, in 1949, and of the dowager Lady Thirkie in Campion House in the same year, and using these to engineer his own attempt at power ten years ago. The whole climate of fear we have all lived in for the last ten years was, if not imaginary, at least exaggerated.”

  Carmichael thought he must still be dreaming. Her voice went on evenly.

  “Mr. Normanby is under arrest, as are Lord and Lady Eversley, for complicity in this crime. There will be a General Election on May second, and for the time being the temporary Prime Minister will be the Foreign Secretary, Sir Guy Braithwaite.”

  “Good God!” Carmichael said. Guy must have used his notebook, he must have—it was almost beyond belief.

  “I am Head of State, not Head of Government, and it is no part of my duties to approve or disapprove the government, nor even the form of government; my country chooses for itself. But it seems to me that this government was not chosen freely, or in full knowledge of the facts. They have arrested those accused of no specific crime and held them in detention for long periods without bringing them to trial, they have created a climate of fear, they have shipped off suspects to foreign prisons where they knew they could expect bad treatment. This is not in the tradition of which we, as Britons, can be rightly proud. There have been spontaneous demonstrations this week against this behavior, and I feel in speaking out on this subject I am speaking the will of my people. With the agreement of Sir Guy, all the so-called Hyde Park martyrs will be released. All Jews and others presently detained under the Defence of the Realm Act will be released. All future arrests will be subject to Home Office oversight.”

  Carmichael wiped away tears from his cheeks. And to think he had almost killed himself and missed this!

  “When you go to the polls, I ask you to vote responsibly, with forethought, for those you feel will do their best to govern, those who will be the servants of the people and not their masters,” she said.

  “Good God,” Carmichael said again.

  The door opened behind him. He turned from the screen, which had cut to a view of cheering crowds. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see Sir Guy in the doorway.

  “I’ve come to say you can go,” Sir Guy said. “I wanted you to see that.”

  “I saw it,” C
armichael said. “It was astonishing. Did you write that speech?”

  “She wrote it herself,” Sir Guy said. “Her Majesty had a long talk with your little girl last night, before I took her the notebook.”

  “Elvira?” Carmichael said.

  “She went to be presented, right on time. And she made Her Majesty much firmer than I’d have dared to be. I’d never have suggested letting all the Jews go.”

  On the television screen, the crowds were still cheering.

  “Nobody seems to mind,” Carmichael said.

  “No, not as far as I can see. I was too timid,” he said, undoing the buckles of the straps that held Carmichael to the chair. “I wish I could offer you your old job back, but it wouldn’t do. Too many people know what you did. Penn-Barkis is also in a cell, you’ll be glad to know, and I won’t be going by this afternoon to let him out.”

  “What about Jacobson? Will you let him go too?”

  “He went for you with a knife!” Sir Guy said.

  “He did it with the best of motives,” Carmichael said gravely. “You should let him go. He and Ogilvie can manage the Watch. I never liked it anyway. It was never my idea of a good job.”

  “What will you do?” Sir Guy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Carmichael said. “I need to talk to Elvira. I do wish Jack could have seen this.”

  “I’m very sorry it came too late for him,” Sir Guy said. “Come on, walk out with me.”

  They walked together through the corridors of the Watchtower, past cells and cubicles and offices. “Maybe I’ll go into business for myself,” Carmichael said. “A private detective, something like that.”

  “That’s very traditional,” Sir Guy said. “Well, good luck to you, Carmichael, whatever you do. Keep in touch.”

  “Keep the country on an even keel,” Carmichael said.

  “Oh, I’ll have to, or Her Majesty will turf me out too,” he said.