A Matter of Loyalty

by Anselm Audley

  Freya could smell it now, too. She hammered on the panel, increasingly desperate. She wasn’t strong enough. ‘Hugo,’ she called, ‘we could do with a blunt instrument up here.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,’ Polly said. ‘Priest-hunters were violent types, always hammering and smashing. What if it’s just pressing gently on the corners or something?’

  ‘You try. I’ll go back down for that poker of yours.’

  Hugo had emerged back out into the fireplace. He heard footsteps walking along the Long Gallery, and froze.

  They weren’t the footsteps of someone in a hurry, Leo or Árpád or Emerson come in search of them. No, they were the footsteps of someone with deadly purpose and fell intent. Slow and deliberate, tap-tap-tap along the floor of the Long Gallery.

  Scene 12

  A memory flashed into his mind of a dark rainswept alley in Berlin, rubble all around, a lone dull streetlight. Footsteps behind him. He’d taken them for an ordinary pedestrian at first – he’d seen one or two go past when he’d scouted the street in daylight. He was waiting in the side entrance to a small apartment block. There was an East German upstairs, a man who wanted to defect. A man with every reason to defect.

  It was the rhythm of the footsteps which alerted him. A woman’s footsteps, with low heels. A woman who, in a dangerous city, saw a man waiting in a dark and poorly lit alley, but who didn’t turn around, didn’t so much as falter.

  It was a trap. A voice sounded on the intercom. He ignored it, walked away from the door and down the street, his back itching. A voice behind him, a man’s. The door opening, a swear word.

  His car was waiting just around the corner, Roland Chamberlain at the wheel. A good man in a tight corner, possessed of a sixth sense. He’d been wary about the whole thing, even with the weeks of research they’d done.

  Hugo ran. Shouts, a volley of shots. The screech of tires in front of him. Roland, suicidally bold, had reversed out of the space, driving backwards into the traffic. Horns sounded, irate and impatient. A sudden hideous pain in Hugo’s leg, almost sending him headlong. Somehow, he managed to drag himself those last two paces. The shots stopped, running feet. He pulled himself into the car, Roland stepping on the accelerator before the door was even shut, weaving away into the traffic.

  There had been blood on the floor when they came to the checkpoint, it was sheer luck that the Russian on duty was a bored, jaded Red Army sergeant coming to the end of his shift, not some keen-eyed MGB man eager for promotion. Hugo had passed out before they reached the hospital.

  He remembered the footsteps, though.

  Scene 13

  Freya appeared at the foot of the stairs. Hugo motioned her to silence.

  She, too, had heard footsteps behind her in the mist, on the Embankment in London, when she’d been delving too deeply into Lord Selchester’s past.

  Hugo closed his fist around Polly’s poker. The footsteps came closer and closer, brisker now. There was some commotion elsewhere in the house.

  Hugo struck out with the poker, hit someone, hard. A snap like breaking bone. Something metallic clattered away across the floor. A gun, another Luger. Before Hugo could strike a second blow the owner darted to pick it up, one-handed, breathing heavily.

  Miranda Pearson turned, the gun levelled in her left hand. He’d broken her right arm.

  ‘Back,’ she said, nudging the gun at them. ‘Into the priest hole.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Hugo. ‘If they find bullets in us, your plan won’t work. Too many questions.’

  Polly’s voice from above, excited. ‘I’m through! Georgia!’

  There was smoke swirling in the Gallery. Miranda’s face, mocking at their last meeting, was set and savage, devoid of all remorse.

  ‘I don’t care how you die,’ she said, her accent suddenly a great deal stronger than it had been. Austrian. Árpád had been spot on. ‘I missed you last time, I shall finish the job.’

  She cocked the gun. ‘Into the priest hole.’

  Footsteps at the other end of the Gallery. ‘No, Miriam,’ said Jeremy’s voice. ‘I don’t think so. Not any more.’

  ‘Keep out of this!’ she snapped. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  Two shots rang out, shockingly loud in the panelled space of the Long Gallery. Miranda jerked backwards. The Luger hit the floor with a thud. Dark blood spread across her chest, Jeremy’s aim had been perfect. She slumped back, her expression in the final seconds almost outraged. A shower of stone fragments clattered down on to the floor. Her bullet had struck a carving on the chimney breast.

  ‘What’s going on down there?’ Polly shouted.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ Freya called.

  Hugo stepped out into the Gallery, just in time to see Leo and Plinth run up the stairs, Plinth brandishing a halberd. Jeremy Pearson stood in front of them, lowering his gun to the floor. He caught Hugo’s eye.

  ‘Enough is enough,’ he said. ‘I shall turn myself over to the police, but for now, let me help.’

  Scene 14

  ‘Her name was Miriam Rubinstein,’ said Jeremy.

  He, Hugo, Leo and MacLeod were in Gus’s study, tucked away on the far side of Lady Matilda’s wing, two constables guarding the door. Jarrett had been summoned, but thankfully had yet to arrive.

  The Castle fire was under control, thanks to Gus’s bucket chain and some ingenious use of the attic water tanks by Ben and John Brodrick. Miranda – Miriam – had started it in one of the old servants’ bedrooms at the top of the Elizabethan wing, just below the priest hole. It seemed she’d been aiming to create smoke more than fire, since she’d wedged the chimney full of heavy wool blankets from a cupboard.

  Two of the servants’ bedrooms and an attic had been gutted, along with the roof above them. So had the priest hole, keeping its secrets to the end. The civilians had all been evacuated to the ballroom, and the firemen were in charge now, hunting for stray smoke.

  Hugo knew that once Jeremy started talking it could be a torrent, unguarded and incoherent. A confession, in fact: an anguished conscience unburdening itself in the heat of the moment.

  ‘The Service knew about her,’ Hugo said, keen to keep him talking. He’d seen her file, what there was of it, but there’d been no picture. ‘She was a Viennese Communist. An English fellow traveller married her in 1937, to spirit her out of the country. As far as we know, the marriage was never dissolved. Once she came to England she slipped between the cracks. We had nothing more on her, not even a photo, which in retrospect is very odd.’

  ‘That was the late Lord Selchester’s doing,’ said Jeremy. ‘He thought she could be useful to him, used his considerable influence in your outfit and elsewhere to erase her old identity. Men like him think they’re above the law. As for her first husband, they never bothered to divorce. Marriage was bourgeois nonsense, she always claimed. She only married me because she wanted an official record. All that time, she was married to him, too. I didn’t find out until he died.’

  ‘Is your real name Jeremy Pearson, sir?’ MacLeod asked. He wasn’t in formal mode. No point starting that before Jarrett arrived.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ he said. He looked ten years older and twenty years younger, all at once, as if a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘She was Austrian. I’m as English as Mr Hawksworth here.’

  ‘Did she recruit you?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘After a fashion. I was a lecturer, at the University of Reading. I suppose you might have called me a Fabian socialist back then. The Nazis were doing terrible things in Germany, I wanted to do something to oppose them. She took some of my courses. I thought she was a student, but she wasn’t. She was young and angry and full of passion. I fell for her. Her, and her cause.’

  ‘Did you become a member of the Communist Party?’ MacLeod asked.

  ‘For a while. Then she said it was better we left, that was when Molotov and Ribbentrop signed their pact. I thought
we were done, but no, she just wanted to be less visible. The war was a good time. I was on the same side as her, and as England. Then the peace came, and we started getting instructions from Moscow. Little things at first, then bigger and bigger. Mostly she was the one who did them. I provided the cover. They thought our being folklorists was inspired. Believe it or not, I actually thought that was important, work worth doing.’

  Hugo nodded.

  ‘It didn’t matter to her. All she ever cared about was the cause. She went off to East Germany several times. Training, I think, though there may have been more. I only went with her the once. She didn’t talk about it much. Then we came here. She had work to do with someone at Foxley, and she knew the area from her connection with Lord Selchester.’

  ‘His lordship,’ said Hugo, ‘wasn’t all he seemed.’

  Jeremy’s face was bitter. ‘I’d gathered that. He was everything I’d thought the aristocracy were: double-dealing and deceitful, saying one thing and feathering their own nest. But by then I couldn’t care less, it was all just words. I saw what was happening in Eastern Europe, Uncle Joe acting just the way Hitler had done.’

  ‘She didn’t waver?’

  ‘Never. Not once. She’d have done anything for the cause.’

  ‘Kill children?’ MacLeod asked.

  Jeremy nodded. ‘That was the last straw. She killed Dr Rothesay when he twigged to what was going on. I knew she’d blackmailed Dr Oldcastle into feeding information to her, they used to meet on Pagan Hill. She wanted to protect him as a source. I didn’t know she was going to kidnap Miss Hawksworth until she came home last night, told me what she’d done. I was in it with her, she said.’

  ‘When did you realise what she planned?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Only at the last minute,’ Jeremy said, ‘when I saw the smoke. You’d realised where Miss Hawksworth was, I think she’d cottoned on. She assumed you’d found the priest hole. Then I saw she hadn’t come back, the smoke . . . I came as quickly as I could. I knew I couldn’t let her do it.’

  ‘Had you killed anyone before?’ MacLeod said.

  ‘Never. Never once! I’m a pacifist, Superintendent, or I was until today, when I realised that my conscience wasn’t worth four lives. When the East Germans trained us, they taught us how to shoot. That’s how I could hit her. They said we might need it.’

  A rap on the door, one of the constables put his head round.

  ‘Inspector Jarrett’s car outside, sir, I thought you’d like to know.’

  MacLeod got to his feet. ‘I’d better fill him in, save us going over the same ground.’ He reached for the door handle, and paused. ‘I didn’t say this, Mr Pearson, but don’t let Inspector Jarrett bully you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jeremy.

  MacLeod went out, closing the study door behind him.

  ‘What will happen?’ Jeremy asked.

  ‘You’ll be hauled over the coals by Special Branch,’ said Hugo. ‘I imagine one of us will be involved, too. It’ll probably be me. Don’t give Jarrett anything you don’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t want to hide any more. Perhaps that sounds strange. I shall probably regret it in a few days, but I’d like to make amends.’

  ‘That’s commendable, but you’ll find him a vengeful man. He’ll demand the harshest possible sentence. However, if you agree to cooperate in return for a shorter term, the Service will greatly appreciate it. We’d like to know what she got up to. She was clearly involved with Soviet activities directed at our agents, which puts her in our purview, not that of Special Branch. We’d particularly like to hear anything you know about Jenkins, too, and we’ll be in a position to make sure you get something in return.’

  Jeremy nodded. ‘I see. I must say, I didn’t expect sympathy.’

  ‘You saved my niece’s life,’ said Leo. ‘Twice, in a manner of speaking. I saw you going upstairs, thought you were going to help your wife.’

  ‘You knew who she was?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Leo. ‘I only realised at the last moment. Plinth had seen her at the Castle before the war, which made me very suspicious. You fitted the final piece of the puzzle into place for us, and then you acted with courage and resolution. If the measure of a man is how he handles himself in a supreme crisis, you did all the right things.’

  ‘She was always telling me I was in too deep to change my mind,’ Jeremy said, staring out of the window at the bare trees. ‘That I’d committed myself, I’d made my choice and there was no turning back.’

  ‘She was wrong,’ said Leo. ‘There’s always a choice. We might not like it, but it’s there.’

  Heavy footsteps in the corridor, then there was Jarrett coming down like a wolf on the fold. Leo rose. ‘I imagine the Inspector will consider me surplus to requirements, so I shall take myself off. If you need to reach me, Mr Pearson, I shall be here for another couple of days after all of this, as I believe my niece will need me. I normally live at St Giles College, Oxford.’

  Scene 15

  It was MacLeod who finally put an end to the interrogation, quietly but firmly. ‘It’s a Sunday afternoon, Inspector. Mr Pearson and Mr Hawksworth have been through a great deal today. Mr Hawksworth’s sister will need him a great deal more than you need to ask questions now rather than tomorrow. Constable!’

  Jarrett gave MacLeod a glance which was almost admiration. ‘A word with you before you go, Hawksworth.’

  ‘I shall see Mr Pearson to the police station,’ said MacLeod, pulling his coat on.

  ‘Has Mr Ingham been released?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘That’s been done, he’ll be back at his cottage now. I’ve advised the solicitors to get all of the locks changed. Rather too many people seem to have had the keys to that place.’

  He ushered Jeremy Pearson out.

  ‘I wasn’t at all happy about the way you handled Oldcastle,’ said Jarrett. ‘Quite clearly tipped his hand. If you’d come to me first, we might have avoided all this business. Kidnapping, murder, two Soviet spies turning on one another – the press will have a field day.’

  Hugo was in no mood for this. ‘If I’d come to you with my suspicions at that stage, you’d have dismissed them out of hand. The case against Mr Ingham was well crafted. Even my uncle believed him guilty until we received the note.’

  ‘This note which you didn’t trouble to inform the police about.’

  ‘With good reason, Inspector. We’ve seen very clearly what Miranda Pearson was really capable of. You wouldn’t have been willing to provide my sister with the permanent protection she’d have needed, and I wouldn’t have been willing for her to live in constant fear.’

  ‘You’d sooner have betrayed your country? You’re in very murky waters, Hawksworth. This will be in my report. I doubt the Service will see this in a good light, and I can’t say I’m happy with official secrets resting in the hands of a man who made the decision you did.’

  ‘You may write what you please, Mr Jarrett, and I shall do the same. You might care to ask yourself one question, though.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘How you came to draw exactly the conclusions a Soviet spy wanted. Good day, Inspector.’

  Scene 16

  Georgia had been put to bed in Polly’s room, so as not to be alone. She was running a chill – from the cold night and the shock, the doctor had said.

  ‘Nothing to worry about. A couple of days off school, rest and friendly faces, and she’ll be right as rain. Dare say she won’t mind missing school. They never do, however much we should like them to.’

  Hugo came in after supper to find her propped up on a pile of pillows, deep in an Asimov. Magnus was stretched out beside her, deep in slumber and taking up a good half of the bed. Hugo pulled up a chair.

  ‘Mrs Partridge said you finished your supper. That’s a good sign.’

  ‘Of course I finished it, she made apple crumble.’

  ‘How are you?’

  She considered for a moment, letting her book flop down
. ‘I wish I didn’t have a cold. No one ever gets colds in films, not even when they’ve been rescued from sinking ships or chased over moors in the middle of the night.’

  ‘That’s because the people who write the films have never done anything of the kind.’

  She gave him a sly look. ‘And you have, of course. All those dangerous statistics.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s really any use pretending, but one must keep up appearances.’

  Her smile faded. ‘I heard people saying you’d been offered a job in London, something really with statistics this time. Are you going to take it?’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what you’d like to do.’

  ‘You’re asking me? Really?’

  Hugo nodded. ‘You said you didn’t feel safe in London, but now with this, and that man on Monday . . .’ Both the police and the Service would be looking more closely at Jenkins after this. At the very least, he’d have to tread extremely carefully from now on.

  She shook her head violently. ‘I still feel safe here. When I go missing, half the town turns out to look for me, even though they’ll all mention it and I shall never live it down. Then there’s you on my trail, and Leo, and Freya, and Polly, and even stuffy old MacLeod. When that man came up, Mr Dillon was there straight away. In London, you’ll have a flat somewhere, and you’ll never meet your neighbours, and I should have to go off to boarding school.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ said Hugo. ‘I know you don’t like that idea.’

  ‘Some frightfully posh day school, then. Polly said Valerie was telling her about some of them, I think she was trying to make it sound better.’ She paused. ‘Do you want to go to London? It sounded frightfully important. I suppose I could get to like it, although I’d miss Freya and Mrs Partridge and Magnus. Even Polly, though you mustn’t tell her so.’

  ‘My lips are sealed. I’m good at secrets, remember?’

  She gave him a keen look, tipping her head to one side. ‘Not as good as all that. I think you’ve already made your mind up, you’re going to stay here.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’