Diana's Altar

by Barbara Cleverly

  Pertinax went straight to Riga and signed on with the Latvian Rifles, an élite outfit. They were eventually to fight alongside the Russian 12th Army against the advance of the German 8th Army under Oskar von Hutier, the dashing Prussian general. Our subject was there in the battle on the Dvina River in September 1917 when the German storm troopers, far outnumbered but better equipped, blasted their way through the Russian and Latvian ranks. He survived the artillery, the flamethrowers and the clouds of poison gas and somehow avoided being taken prisoner. It might be interesting to ascertain how the man saved his skin. The Russian losses were twenty-five thousand to the Germans’ five thousand. Perhaps our man was even present when the German forces marched in triumph and immaculate order through the streets of Riga on the seventeenth of September?

  I see that the Pertinax coat of arms has as its base a black cross on a white ground. This is the emblem of the Teutonic Knights of Crusader days who in turn have it from St. George—the dragon-slaying hero. Interesting to see that the masters of the Livonian Order of Teutonic Knights all have German names: Gottfried, Otto, Heinrich, Willhelm. And their device is in German: Helfen. Wehren. Heilen. (Help. Defend. Heal.)

  Some confusion of loyalties here, I think? One of your Baltic specialists may be able to advise.

  Worth reflecting, I think, on the family shield. That usually announces to the world who you really are. When your enemy’s shield is surging towards you on horseback, with deadly intent only inches away on the other side of the jousting rails, you need to know if you’re facing an eagle, a lion or a boar. There’s always a message there. No animals for P. Just the stark St. George symbol. (Sketch below.)

  Joe considered it. He snorted in disbelief. It couldn’t have taken the College of Heralds more than five minutes to draw up the design. He found himself hoping Pertinax the Elder had negotiated a special rate from the Rouge Dragon Pursuivant. Was this an almost blank canvas waiting for embellishment? Not quartered by any female insignia on marriage, he noted. Didn’t Pertinaxes have wives? he wondered. Was this some Templar/Teutonic Knight tradition they were working to? Did they marry their serving wenches? Were they self-generating freaks?

  Aidan also appeared puzzled:

  Why St. George? I asked myself. What qualities of this saint fix the attention of Pertinax? When I investigated him, the saint proved to be astonishingly popular. Odd how we English assume he’s ours and ours alone. Good old St. George of Merrie England. Not a bit of it! He’s also claimed by the Russians, the French and the Germans. He must have had a perplexing time during the last lot with all the combatants seeking his saintly support. The number of causes and orders and societies who vie for his attention are astonishing in their number and variety. He was the patron saint of Boy Scouts, of cavalrymen, of Portuguese sailors, syphilis sufferers, even those afflicted by the toothache. And now, if I interpret the heraldry aright, we can add to his list: Pertinax and his self-propagating line. Complete with a suitably warlike motto: Militemus! We can’t say we haven’t been warned! Nutty as a fruitcake. And that’s the most dangerous kind.

  Additionally: Pertinax gained an upper second class degree. Respectable. Did well considering how very little work he put in, is the view amongst the old fellows at Trinity who remember him. They put it down to natural intelligence, not diligence. This achievement was accompanied by sporting honours. He’s a good marksman. Rowed a bit, mainly skulls. Not a team or a crew member, I note. Boxing blue.

  Your servant, sir. A.M.

  And, hurriedly at the end: Keep your guard up, Joe, and, if you have to—fight by Seven Dials Rules! If you need a second, you know where I am!

  Seven Dials! The roughest, most lawless part of London. In other words: “No rules.” No, Joe didn’t think the memory of the chivalrous Marquess of Queensberry would prevent Pertinax from delivering a low blow.

  But would the villain, could the villain, have engineered Aidan’s death? It might well have been his intention to kill him, but it was impossible that he had brought it about. Adelaide and Constable Risby had both heard Aidan’s confession.

  The dying man had claimed his sins had found him out or some such, but apparently, the sins, whatever they were, had not ambushed him until some hours after he’d written the letter in Joe’s hand. There was nothing of the penitent in this bouncy, insouciant prose. There were indications in Aidan’s account of a “Let you know . . . When I see Joe again . . .” nature that showed he was not at that point contemplating killing himself.

  Something had occurred between Aidan’s original attempt at sober reporting and the free-flowing account in tongue-in-cheek style for Joe’s eyes. His focus had changed. The spying world with its dark duties, its conventions and expectations had become suddenly tedious and risible. Something to be shrugged off, but lightly, because he remained aware that he was writing for his friend. In some unspoken way, Aidan’s life had changed. Joe had the distinct feeling that Aidan had reset his compass and was moving on.

  Joe put these perplexing thoughts to one side and read again the fountain of practical information on the man he was hunting. Bacchus was also in possession of the information and was even now looking through mugshots, contacting the Vice desk and planning a raid, perhaps. He would have plans of Madingley Court, estimates of strength of the defences and enemy man power. He would have a small, selected squad preparing for the assault. Joe thought he could see exactly how it might be accomplished. The only way to storm a fortress. He thought of Dorothy and smiled. A sally port and someone on the inside to open it. Never failed.

  It also helped to know the nature of the enemy. Who exactly was on Pertinax’s side, willing or unwilling conspirators? He settled in to make a few phone calls from his room, having decided that the young lady on reception was too busy to listen in at this moment of the day and that, on the whole, the line was probably more secure than the one at the police station. His first call was to his deputy, Superintendent Cottingham. Taking the small book containing the car registration numbers from his pocket, he explained his needs.

  Ralph Cottingham took the strange request in his stride. “Ouch! That’s a lot of numbers! Can you send us the book? . . . Back by Friday, eh? . . . Understood. So how can we do this most efficiently? Look, if you can bear it, why not just read the numbers out to me right now. That’s the easy bit. I’ll divide them up between four sergeants—one per season—and get them to come up with a complete list including the dates and times. Do you want them to trawl through for frequency and clustering? Right. I’ll ring you to say when I’m handing them over to the motorcyclist. They should be with you for breakfast. Well, the delivery arrangements seem to be working out all right. Straight from the officer’s hands into yours. Not left lying about in pigeonholes. Now, anything else while I’ve got my ear to the phone?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes—one or two items.” Joe began to reveal his shopping list.

  “Who’s on the Vice desk at the moment? . . . I have a question for him.

  “From the ridiculous to the sublime—what connections do we have with the Church? . . . Regarding the qualifications and past history of one of their vicars? You know a dean? That should do it . . . Right. I’ll dictate a question for him.

  “Lastly, for the moment: Pertinax, Sir Gregory. Can you track his club memberships and find out whether he was ever blackballed from one?

  “That’ll do for now, Ralph! Why don’t you pour yourself a whisky, sharpen a few pencils, lock your door and ring me back in five minutes for those numbers?”

  Know your enemy. Joe was building up a picture of Pertinax, but nothing was clear. He was struggling with a web of conflicting impressions. He’d learned from interrogations that it was sometimes a single throwaway remark that burst uncensored from a suspect, seemingly insignificant or unconnected, that gave him a clue to the man’s or woman’s character and motives.

  “Men have been drummed out of clubs for much
less . . .” Pertinax had grumbled with some bitterness.

  He’d been relaxed after lunch when he spoke, certainly less than sober as he’d plied Joe with wine and topped up his own glass, drinking along encouragingly. Not a wise stratagem when your companion is an astute, large-boned Scotsman. It had been a fleeting remark and Joe was probably making too much of it, but some resentments run deep and can affect a man’s outlook and behaviour.

  He next squeezed in a call to Easterby’s surgery. A short and unproductive call. Dr. Hartest was not available. She was out attending to a premature birth and naturally they were unable to say when she would return. Would he like to leave a message?

  Chapter 16

  Joe was leaving the dining room at seven-thirty the following morning when the call came through to reception.

  “I’ll take it here,” Joe said. “Ralph! Good morning! No, speak freely. Though, as I’m standing in reception, expect some deliberately wooden answers from this end.”

  “Got it. Parcel ready to leave the office. Rider reckons two hours at this time of day. It took longer than expected, Joe. We were at it most of the night. I kept the four sergeants in separate rooms and told them they were traffic violations we were dealing with. One of the lads was sharp though! ‘Cor, guv!’ he said. ‘Who took these numbers? Where was he standing with his notebook? Outside Buckingham Palace? On a Garden Party day?’ I’ve annotated them. Black underlining equals a single visit. Red: multiple visits. I’ve put the frequency in brackets after the names. One or two of the contenders appeared together more than once. Likewise marked. I ran them through the sporting and social calendar . . . racing at Newmarket, June Balls in Cambridge and so on. No strong connection observed.

  “Now, your list of questions from yesterday . . . but before I kick off I’ll give you the contents of a scrap of paper Bacchus pushed under my nose five minutes ago. The butler, he says, is ex-army and very recognisable from the description Aidan gave. Royal Engineer, a Sapper. Pre-war work digging on the London Underground led to his recruitment as a ‘clay-kicker.’ That’s a tunneller. Was wounded in action at Messines Ridge (in the hand) and sent back to Blighty. Spent some years in jail for various petty crimes until he entered into employment with P. His real name’s Herbert Jennings.

  “Next up, the vicar. My source was too careful to dish the dirt, but he did say in a meaningful way that the bloke has moved or been moved about a fair number of times in his career. Lucky old All Hallows is his present perch.

  “Now, the clubs. The editor of the Tatler owed me a favour and spoke freely and entertainingly about the blackballing. Was our boy ever blackballed! I’ll say! From several clubs but, Joe, this unpleasant tradition doesn’t necessarily relate to the kicking out of an existing unsatisfactory member. The term is more likely to apply to someone seeking membership. Which is the case with your chap. He never even had the chance to be sacked! He was ‘blackballed’ and his father and grandfather before him, when he put his name forward for membership. The Pertinax men joined a list at Whites, the Carlton, the Athenaeum . . . all the usual. These clubs do have long lists, but generally a man can be sure of getting in eventually because he’s recommended by one or two existing members who put pressure on the rest to accept their friend. No such accommodation for the Pertinaxes. Roundly rejected by all the top clubs. A social stigma that’s hard to live with and it’s been the ruin of many a good man. Now you or I would say: ‘Huh! Stuff you lot! Your loss!’ And forget it. Reminding ourselves that these members who do the voting have some quite extraordinary ways of arriving at decisions.”

  “But would they have the insolence to turn down a Knight of the Realm?”

  Ralph laughed. “Did you hear about the Garrick, Joe? The club for actors and the entertainment world? Their membership is so nutty they had the gall to blackball Henry Irving! The best actor of the day, the first one to be knighted for the glory he brought to the profession. Worse still—there’s the example of the Travellers’ Club! Their measure of suitability is that members should have travelled a minimum of a modest five hundred miles from London, and whom did they find lacking? None less than Cecil Rhodes, the explorer, discoverer of the Victoria Falls and most of central Africa!”

  “Mmm . . . I’d love to have a glimpse of their rejection letter! What did they come up with? ‘Cecil really must widen his horizons’? But what reason did—let’s say—White’s give for turning down our friend?”

  “Some starchy formula about the applicant’s incompatibility of background and character with the established ideals and values of existing club members. ‘Foreign,’ you see. And not even from a country anyone can point to on the map. India, Prussia, the United States as country of origin might be acceptable, but . . . ‘Latvia’? Isn’t that the same as Lapland? Frozen north? Pine forests full of reindeer and dangerously close to those tsar-killing Bolsheviks?’ Better take no risks and write, ‘I do not think so,’ against his name on the proposal form. Pop your black ball into the slot in the drawer on voting day and you’ve kept your club safe from bad influences.”

  “That would account for the explosion of displeasure I sensed. Any particular action taken?” Joe asked tersely.

  “There’s no record of White’s being firebombed, if that’s what you’re getting at! But we’re looking at a chap who doesn’t snort and stamp when thwarted—he takes revenge. He opened his own club! After he got back from the war he bought a dilapidated hotel in St. James’s, refurbished it, installed a French chef and kitchen staff and invited disgruntled gentlemen who’d been similarly rejected by other clubs to join ‘The Oddballs Club.’ At a time when many London clubs were having their kitchens exposed by the authorities as unhygienic, rat-infested death traps, Pertinax made something of a show of the superiority of his own culinary arrangements. Press cameras were invited in to record the gleaming fixtures and smiling foreign gents in chefs’ hats and chequered trousers. Probably calculated to distract attention away from the illicit gambling that goes on in the upper back rooms! Whatever he’s up to, they tell me it’s thriving and has the best cellar in London. A good number of the founding members, being swashbuckling adventurers by nature and genuinely deserving of a sound blackballing, had actually done well out of the war and were minded to invest their ill-gotten gains in a scheme that cocked a snook at the society that had rejected them. They became shareholders, Joe! It would be interesting to see a list of the members, but they’d never supply one.”

  “But—action in general?”

  “Ah. Against the establishment, you mean? Now here it all ceases to be mildly amusing. When you’ve had a look at his guest list you may conclude that he’s attacking English society at the roots. You sent us one year’s worth of social engagements, Joe. That’s bad enough, but we should ask the question: What has resulted from an accumulation of previous years of seduction, defilement and coercion? Are his victims all around us, exercising pressure, running departments? Young men who’ve climbed to positions of influence in their field and who owe their continued security to the whim or plan of Pertinax—are they, with a nervous smile, sanctioning decisions he’s made? With a coalition government presently in power and apparently practising self-destruction, crumbling before our eyes, one does rather wonder . . .

  “Um . . . it’s a ludicrous idea, Joe, but once it’s lodged in your head you begin to see perfidy everywhere. Irrational acts and statements that in the ordinary way you’d put down to no more than the usual carelessness and stupidity suddenly appear in a different light.” Ralph gave a snort of disgust. “Even to think like this can be seen in some quarters as a mental derangement . . . Are you signalling for the men in white coats yet, Joe?”

  “Ralph, the word you’re trying to avoid saying is ‘paranoia.’”

  “I try to avoid any word that might have been used by Freud. But I do ask myself: Do we risk becoming two of those jittery johnnies who see treachery behind every closed door, continual
ly startled by their own shadows?”

  “Two new recruits to the ranks of MI5, are you suggesting? Never! If I see something moving about surreptitiously in the shadows, I arrest it for lurking with intent. And I know—so do you, old friend.”

  “But, Joe, where do you start to unscramble all this?”

  Ralph had been putting Joe’s worst fears into words.

  “I know what you mean. It’s like being asked to unknot a skein of wool that’s been played with by a litter of cats.”

  “You’ve no doubt been given your orders, Joe. The way I see it, there’s only one way out of the problem. Remember that trigger-happy young lout, Alexander the so-called Great? I’m not an admirer but I do approve his short solution when faced with an outsized, knotty problem.”

  “So do I! ‘Pass me my sword, squire!’ I shall say and cleave through it. Thanks for the sinew-stiffening, Ralph!”

  With two hours to wait before Cottingham’s papers arrived, Joe was left agitated and wondering which of the threads to tug on next. He’d keep the sword solution as a last resort; slashing through a tangle of evidence and theory went against custom, character and Scotland Yard rules. As it was still very early, he’d have to leave face-to-face interviews for later and spend his time gathering information.

  He decided to see if his face would open gates at Aidan’s old college. He’d shown his warrant and made himself known to the chief porter the previous day but couldn’t guarantee that Coulson would be there in his lair. Some other under porter who wouldn’t know him from Adam might well deny him access.