by H. B. Lyle
He got up and inched out onto the stone paving under the canopy. The ale repeated on him. He knew he shouldn’t have had another. Still. He wiped his mouth, then crouched down and loped along the walkway, keeping one eye on the back door and one on the windows above. Suddenly, the bright button of a flaring cigarette appeared by the doorway, and he dodged behind a bush. “What the fuck am I doing?” he said under his breath.
“Zackly,” someone said behind him.
Wiggins turned, only to be met by a fist, full in the face.
3
MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE IN COSTA RICA—NO BRITONS DEAD.
Kell threw down the newspaper for the third time that morning. Other than the earthquake, the King’s bad health filled the news. There was a piece hinting at industrial unrest in the northern factories, and a dry article about the rising cost of bread, as if he cared about another halfpenny on a loaf. He sat at the breakfast table, waiting for his wife to join him. She had already been asleep when he arrived home the night before, and she’d risen before he’d had a chance to confront her.
He practiced what he would say. “Constance, dear, why are you wanted by Special Branch?” was the straightforward approach, but he balked at that. Or, “The advances in photography these days are quite remarkable. Only the other day I was . . .”
It was exceedingly awkward to have a suffragist as a wife. They had argued about the cause often, an argument that he somehow never managed to win. It had come to such a pass that they barely talked about anything else—which meant they barely talked about anything. The government was staunchly against the right of women to vote. Even as they pretended to offer one sop or another, Prime Minister Asquith and his key men were all implacably opposed. So Kell had kept Constance’s political leanings to himself.
The photograph, however, represented an escalation. He’d always assumed Constance’s involvement had been of the genteel variety, with the other Hampstead ladies. Attracting the interest of Special Branch was most troubling—for her, for him, for his career.
That wasn’t the only thing that troubled him about his meetings of the day before. Sir Patrick Quinn was more hostile than usual, certainly, and something wasn’t quite right about Soapy. Kell had the vague feeling he was being set up for something, but he wasn’t sure what. The secret task Soapy had given him smacked of the near impossible, almost as if he wanted him to fail. And if he failed, who better to step into the breach than Sir Patrick Quinn?
Upstairs, he heard Constance upbraid the children, then issue a stream of commands to the staff. His wife was not a quiet woman. Energy swirled around her like a wind-whipped dust devil. Finally, she clattered down the stairs. She did not come into the room, however, and he heard her rummage in the coat stand.
He moved toward the doorway. “Where are you going?”
“Why do you ask?” She carried on fussing, pulling on an overcoat, checking her umbrella.
“I just . . .”
“Vernon, what is it? Is there something you want me to do?”
Kell couldn’t hold his wife’s gimlet eye. Instead, he saw the photograph in Quinn’s office, the big question mark beside her face, the peacock feather in her hat.
“Do you have more work for me?” she said as she pulled her gloves on. She’d proved an adept assistant the year before, in a trap he’d set with Wiggins. Razor-witted, hyper-observant, unwavering—in another life she could have been one of the finest agents of the Service, though he did not tell her this.
All he said was: “No, it’s not that. It’s—”
The telephone burst into life, right by his ear. “Only, I—”
The bell insisted.
“I have a meeting. Of the Hampstead committee,” she said, gesturing to the door. “It’s very important.”
“About that, I was—”
“Are you going to answer that, or shall I?”
Kell hesitated. Constance looked at him oddly, then swiped the instrument into her hand. “Hampstead 202,” she said, her foot tapping the floor in irritation. “Oh, hello, Soapy.”
Constance listened carefully, stood straighter. “I see. Yes, of course.” She put the horn down carefully and turned to Kell. “You’re to go to the Cabinet Office at once. His illness is over. The King is dead.”
Wiggins opened his eyes. A band of light ran at a diagonal across his vision. Other than that, the room was musty, cold, and dark. He felt his right eye, tender, painful. A shiner for sure. He sat up and checked his pockets—watch, change, all still there. Dust caught in his throat and his head pounded. He raised his hand into the darkness and felt first one sharp corner, then a second and a third. He was in a cupboard under the stairs.
The last thing he could remember was a full, fat fist in his face, and the black eye wasn’t going to let him forget it in a hurry. He got to his knees and found the door handle. The band of light was the crack of the door. He hesitated, wary, but what was the point? Whoever knocked him out knew he was there—either the door would be locked, or it wouldn’t. He pushed it open.
Stepping into a servants’ hallway, Wiggins’s first thought was escape—through the back door off to his right. But his head turned to the strange noises coming from the kitchen: women talking, laughing, shrieking, punctuated once or twice by a deep bass voice—a voice that had a hitch in it, a vague tickling of familiarity. Wiggins paused. Was it the voice of the man who had punched him? There was something else about that voice, something older chiming in his mind.
“’Ere, he’s awake!” A small boy dashed past Wiggins and into the kitchen.
A second later, the boy stood in the doorway and looked at Wiggins with pity. “In ’ere, mister. You deaf?”
Wiggins nodded and followed him.
He was greeted by the strangest kitchen he’d ever seen. He’d expected it to be filled with maids, cooks, valets—the usual attendants of a grand house. But this kitchen was full of women, and not one of them dressed like a servant. Many of them weren’t even dressed at all, bar their underthings. The others had bright, frilly dresses, elaborately curled hair, and thigh-high boots. They all wore long gloves, though, and most had long red ribbons tied either to their dresses or around their necks. Wiggins counted fifteen. There was chatter, great steaming cups of tea, and the smell of frying bacon.
The small boy looked up at Wiggins expectantly, but none of the women paid him much heed, except one. Dressed a little more soberly than the rest, and a little older—about his own age he guessed, thirty or so. She cast an amused eye over him while sipping her tea. Black curly hair fell over her shoulders and her dark skin glowed. She smiled at him. The dust of last night’s makeup cracked.
“What kind of embassy is this?” Wiggins asked her, incredulous.
“A place of sanctuary, communion, safety.” She took a sip of tea. “A place for people to speak frankly, to reach out in friendship and fellow feeling. My name’s Martha and this is the Embassy of Olifa.”
“You’re Big T’s mate, ain’t ya?” The little boy tugged at Wiggins’s arm.
He looked down at the boy, then up again to Martha. “Academy, more like.”
She laughed. “That’s old-fashioned slang. This is a high-class establishment, not a street brothel.”
The kitchen door swung open and a huge figure, a man, appeared. He coughed like a foghorn, then stuffed a bacon sandwich into his mouth.
“Tommy?” Wiggins said, amazed.
The big man swallowed. “Big T to you.”
The bubble of conversation and giggles had stilled on Tommy’s entrance, Wiggins noted. Two women shuffled aside to let him sit, not scared exactly but hardly at ease either. Martha glanced back at Wiggins as Tommy sat.
“You’re bigger than I remember,” Wiggins said.
“Stronger too.” He took another gargantuan bite out of his doorstep. Someone placed a mug of tea by his right hand. “Wouldn’t smack me in the face now, would ya?”
“Only ever had a good reason, Tommy.”
; Tommy grunted. His huge shoulders rippled underneath his shirt, open at the collar. “Doing your tricks, are ya?”
Wiggins had been looking at Tommy’s calloused knuckles, noted the flecks of gray in his close-cut hair, the shaving nick on his chin, the double crease in the nose, his cuffs.
He left off at Tommy’s words and said, “You’ve been inside. Twice. Here and up north. Took up boxing proper, and worse. Hard times. But you’re doing all right now, I see. Off the booze, clean living.”
Tommy held Wiggins’s eye. “Still sucking God’s cock, are ya?”
GOD—that’s what they sometimes used to call Sherlock Holmes, their old boss. The Grand Old Detective. Wiggins grinned. “He’s long retired.”
Tommy stared at him, then hawked up a globule of spit and pinged it into his empty mug.
“Right, girls.” Martha clapped her hands, sensing the mood. “Bedtime. Delphy’s due any minute, and we wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”
“Sorry, ladies,” Wiggins said, catching Martha’s eye. “Me and Tommy—”
“Big T.”
Wiggins smiled. “Me and Big T go way back. And it ain’t always sunny.”
Tommy ate the rest of his bacon sandwich with slow, destructive force. The women bustled past him to the door. One of them, young, not more than twenty, twisted her head around for an instant as she left, locking eyes with Wiggins, then away at the floor.
“Come on, Poppy,” someone called. She flicked her hair and was gone. Ghost-pale, thin, she had the drowsy look of someone about to go to bed—unsurprising, given that it was gone eight in the morning and none of them seemed to have slept. All the same, Wiggins remembered her face, remembered the gesture.
“Boy!” Martha chided the small child, who hadn’t strayed far from Wiggins all the while. “Up the stairs.”
“But Martha, can’t I—”
“Up.” She snapped her fingers. The boy’s head drooped and he shuffled to the door, casting a doleful glance at Wiggins.
“What’s your name, nips?” Wiggins asked.
“Boy, course,” he said. His freckled face suddenly split into the widest of grins. “Ain’t no one asked before.”
“Out of the way.” A deep, female voice barreled into the room, followed by its owner. A woman of fifty, she was smartly dressed with an air of matron about her—as if she was used to doling out medicine to small boys but this was her day off, her Sunday best. “To bed, Boy.” She bared a set of crooked, yellowed teeth for an instant and the child ran off.
“Morning, Delphy,” Martha said, dipping her head ever so slightly.
“Martha, Tom, we must prepare.” She didn’t give Wiggins a second glance. “The King is dead.”
“Shit,” Tommy said.
Martha sighed. Wiggins looked at the pair of them. It wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. Indifference, maybe—he certainly didn’t care one way or the other—or else mock solemnity. He felt sure Kell would don black underwear and not say a word for a week. People were funny about the royals. But this? They looked resigned, inconvenienced, put out.
“You know what to do—clear?” Delphy went on.
“Yes, Delphy,” Martha said.
Tommy inclined his head.
Delphy waved her hand in Wiggins’s direction. “And he must go, now.”
Wiggins shot to his feet, but in the hurry he caught his knee on the table leg. He sprawled onto the floor, breaking a cup and saucer.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said.
“Fack sake,” Tommy muttered.
Martha stooped to help Wiggins pick up the shards. She smiled and mouthed “Don’t worry.” Her skin crinkled once more. Wiggins almost reached out to touch the tight curls of her hair falling between them. He straightened up and looked at Delphy.
“Sorry, ma’am.” He replaced his cap and tipped it theatrically.
Delphy gave him such a severe glare, Wiggins wondered if she was going to take a belt to him. Instead, she flicked a hand at Tommy in a shooing gesture. “Him, out. You, and Martha, in my study. Quick smart, lickety-split.” She turned on her heel and left.
“Out the back,” Tommy said. He wiped the crumbs from his mouth with a hand as big as a rib-eye steak and twice as thick.
Wiggins nodded once more, trying to catch Martha’s eye, but her head was turned. He hesitated, then followed Tommy to the back door.
Once outside, Wiggins fell in step beside him. “You the bounce, then?”
“Keep walking.”
“A knocking shop, Tommy?”
“Ain’t Tommy no more. And it ain’t no knocking shop either. It’s proper.”
“Right.”
“Quality. This is you,” he said, rapping the garden door with his enormous fist.
“Listen, Tom—T.” Wiggins shifted on his feet, looking back at the large house behind them. “I know we didn’t always get on . . .”
“We didn’t ever.”
Wiggins nodded. “But all I need . . . I’m ’ere for a friend.”
“Two, three months ago. Walked out this door. Never came back.”
“That all? You can’t have forgotten everything. You was one of our best.”
“I weren’t never yours,” Tommy snapped. “Look, it happens. People come and go in this business. Can’t blame ’em. I’ve gotta go. And so have you.”
Wiggins took his hand out of his pocket and offered it to Tommy. “Good to see an old face. Not many left, I reckon.”
Tommy looked down at Wiggins’s hand and hesitated. Then he engulfed it in his great paw. “Only the lucky ones.”
“I’ll buy you a pint,” Wiggins said. “For putting me up.” He touched his tender eye.
Tommy hesitated. “You were right about the boxing.”
“You don’t say?”
“At the Bloodied Ax, Wednesdays.” He unlocked the door and swung it open. Wiggins ducked through, but twisted around to face him again. “What’s all this about the King caulking it?”
Tommy grunted. “What do I know? He’s dead.”
“Nah, I meant, why you so bothered?”
“Business’ll go through the roof.”
Wiggins looked askance. “Cos the King’s died?”
“You used to be smart,” Tommy said. “The funeral. Half of Europe’s toffs’ll be here, and the rest. It’ll be packed. Now fack off.”
“Ta for the shiner.”
Wiggins stepped away from the wall, into the early-morning sunshine. He looked back at the big house, the shuttered windows hiding all those women with their long gloves, their red ribbons and pale faces. Their drowsy, pinked eyes. Then he looked into the palm of his hand, where he held a small, beaded rosary—left on the kitchen floor for him by the pale girl who’d given him the look; retrieved when he’d pretended to fall. There was more to the Embassy of Olifa than met the eye.
“What on earth happened to your eye?”
“It’s in mourning.”
Kell glared at him. Wiggins shifted uncomfortably on his feet and turned his face from the window in Kell’s office. “I bumped into an old friend, is all,” he muttered.
“Come with me, I need to buy a gun.”
They left the office in Victoria Street and cut through to St. James’s Park. As they passed the Underground station, a news van trundled by. A great bundle of papers landed at the newsagent’s door, all black borders and KING DIES across the front. An aproned shopkeeper began pasting up replacement news-sheets. Only one story that day.
“I take it you know the King is dead,” Kell said over his shoulder.
Wiggins walked a foot or so behind Kell when they were in public, as if he were his servant. “I know, Chief,” Wiggins said, nodding at a newsboy running by. “It’s in the final editions.”
“Don’t call me ‘chief.’” Kell kept up a fearful pace as they cut through a squadron of pigeons taking off. “God knows how they got the news so soon. Can’t keep anything a secret these days.”
Wiggins looked at the back of his bos
s’s head. Sweat prickled his neck above the collar, his top hat set slightly aslant. His step was jerky, too fast, agitated.
“We must plan for the funeral,” Kell said.
“I’ll pick up the flowers.”
Kell rounded on him suddenly. “Have some respect!” He leaned in, speaking under his breath. “Do not speak ill of the monarchy in my presence. Ever.”
Wiggins blinked. He’d touched a nerve. Kell straightened his shoulders and they carried on, over the Mall and up toward Soho.
“We have to be ready. Every monarch in Europe will come to the funeral.”
“A small family do, is it?”
Kell stiffened, but continued. “Which means every spy will no doubt also be in London.”
“You sending me to the Abbey?”
“No, I am not! I will go to the funeral. You will meet me at Paddington when the procession ends, in case there are any leads to follow up. This way.” Kell pointed across Piccadilly Circus toward the small alleyways around Rupert Street. “A shortcut.”
“You sure?” Wiggins said, uncertain. He knew these alleyways. Kell did not. But his boss pressed on.
Kell glanced back. “As I mentioned yesterday, you must reconnoiter the procession route.” He then proceeded to mutter the details of the route—already planned in advance, but still most secret—as they swerved off the main street and into Soho. “Got it?”
Wiggins nodded as they made their way across the edge of a crowd outside an Italian restaurant, Le Solferino. A band of minstrels, in top hats and boaters, capered and cavorted as they played banjo music. Onlookers grinned and giggled, having a grand time. “Oi, Sambo,” someone in the audience shouted. “Show us your cock.”
Kell pulled up, surprised, and turned to him. “This is a public place, man, control yourself.”
A couple of toughs swiveled to look at Kell. “Hark at him. Fuck off, toffee.” The larger of the two stepped forward, his right arm raised. A flash of metal across his knuckles caught the light.
Wiggins drove his fist into the man’s solar plexus, then swept his ankles from under him with a well-aimed boot. “Go,” he snapped at Kell, then pointed at the man’s mate. “Not now,” he hissed.