Flight From Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  “The piece of paper stuck on the knife?” Ranklin suggested.

  “Anybody can scrawl such a thing. It certainly doesn’t prove Serbian involvement in one Italian stabbing another.”

  “But Falcone is an Italian senator, granted an interview by the Foreign Office—”

  “And apparently up to something that interests your Bureau? However, you aren’t inviting me to interfere in that, I presume. If the Italian embassy kicks up a fuss, I may get dragged in. But if we start digging up the Senator’s private life, we could turn up all sorts of things that might embarrass his family – even his government. With the stabber dead, the embassy may not want to investigate his motive.”

  “So,” Ranklin said, “a quiet vote of thanks to Gorman for saving everyone embarrasment and let him face a murder charge on his own.”

  Kell smiled blandly. “That’s up to you. You might even feel that, given his past connections, this is a good opportunity to be rid of him.”

  They were walking past Gray’s Inn gardens, Dagner peering through the railings at the wide and empty stretch of turf. “You think so? But with his own freedom – even his neck – at stake, lsn’t he likely to mention the Bureau in open court?”

  “If you chose the counsel to defend him – I don’t imagine he can afford much for himself – then with you footing the bill, I think you’d find something could be worked out.”

  Dagner looked at Ranklin, who shook his head slowly and said: “If it’s our counsel. But a few months ago, Gorman got slung in jail in Kiel. We happened to be there with Mrs Finn. The daughter of Reynard Sherring, if you know the name,” he explained to Kell. “And before I could lift a finger, she’d hired the best advocate in town and a few minutes later, Gorman was back on the street. That was just suspicion of clouting a local policeman. She has a rather American view of personal rights.”

  There was a long silence. Then Kell said: “Is she likely to hear of this matter?”

  “She reads newspapers.”

  Dagner had been staring around as if in a strange city. Now he started walking back towards the police station. When he spoke, it was as if he were dictating notes. “I’ve met Mrs Finn, Major; I don’t think you have. And if she’s paying for the defence, I doubt we’ll have much influence on what gets said. Which leaves us relying on Gorman’s loyalty and discretion. Do you agree, Captain R?”

  Ranklin knew what Dagner felt about O’Gilroy’s loyalty, so tried a different tack: “Skipping any loyalty we owe him, what defence can he put up that doesn’t involve the Bureau? He only knew Falcone because of the Bureau, he felt responsible for him because of the Bureau’s interest, and he used my pistol – what’s my connection with him except through the Bureau?”

  The lamplight showed Kell’s knowing smile. He had, after all, had nearly four years of dealing with English police and justice, and these two were not just newcomers but, really, outsiders. “If one knows the ropes, there are ways that things can be arranged. Say, a plea of guilty to manslaughter, the police not challenging his version of events—”

  “That may satisfy Sir Basil, but what about Mrs Finn?” Dagner asked. “And I’m not sure that any version of events is going to satisfy me.” He shook his head. “I don’t like the Bureau’s integrity depending on so many ifs and maybes . . . Can you see any alternative, Captain?”

  “We could,” Ranklin said as casually as possible, “always kill Gorman. It would need some arranging, but perhaps in the street as he arrives for the police court hearing . . . And the Italian community would probably get the blame.”

  Kell had stopped dead on the pavement, leaving the other two peering back at him in the lamplight. Pop-eyed by nature, he now looked as if he were about to fire both eyeballs across the street. “Do what?”

  Dagner said mildly: “You must admit it would solve the problem of Gorman talking in open court. However—”

  Kell stiffened where he stood. “I’m not being a party to anything like this! If you’re seriously thinking of . . . then I don’t want to hear any more.”

  But he hesitated. Dagner said: “I’m only thinking of the national interest, which the Bureau represents in a peculiarly pure form.”

  “Pure? You call that pure?”

  Dagner affected a look of surprise. “Indeed. We certainly aren’t concerned with concepts of Truth or Justice, just with what’s best for the country and Empire. But if you don’t want to hear . . .” Kell strode away.

  Dagner smiled. “Perhaps it’s as well. Just as a matter of interest, how serious were you being, Captain?”

  Ranklin didn’t want to answer that, especially to himself. In battle, you sent men into danger, but only that. Or so you told yourself. But the murky half-lit world of spying had some sudden harsh lights . . .

  Dagner didn’t press for an answer; his zigzag mind seemed to have found a new topic. “When we talked about acting alone, I never thought of our whole service having to do so. We seem to be quite friendless. First the Foreign Office, now the police, even Major Kell and his people . . . But so be it.” He didn’t sound overly worried. “We were considering alternatives . . .”

  Ranklin already was. If, next morning, they all turned up at the police court in uniform and claimed O’Gilroy was a deserter and multiple military criminal, might the police . . .? It seemed doubtful, but surely something along those lines . . .

  But Dagner was looking up and down the street. “Really quite quiet, even this early. So in a few hours . . . You’ve got all their addresses at the office? We’d better get started.”

  Ranklin goggled. He hadn’t been considering that.

  20

  The middle-aged constable had just stepped outside “to make sure things were quiet”, which the desk sergeant understood meant having a quick smoke. London was never truly silent; if it did nothing else, it breathed, and stirred in its sleep. But a quarter to four was around the quietest time. The moon was down, leaving the Gray’s Inn Road a broad corridor of darkness, patched with yellow-green light from the street lamps that were already fuzzed by the pre-dawn mist. And empty, save for one stocky figure in a long overcoat humming and mumbling towards him. As he shuffled into the light from the lamp over the station door, the shadow of his hat hid his downturned face, but not the broad red beard. Now that was peculiar: the beard looked false—

  —but not the heavy pistol that suddenly poked into his face.

  “Be brave,” a stage-lrish accent whispered. “I love Englishmen bein’ brave. Ut gives me a chanst to see de colour av deir brains. Now: how many more av ye’s awake inside dere?”

  “Th-th-three more.” The constable was dimly aware of two other figures slipping past him into the station, but most of his attention was on the red-bearded man, who called softly: “Tree more av ’em. An’ r’mimber more asleep upstairs.

  “Now be turnin’ around gentle and walkin’ inside.” The pistol vanished but the feel of it rammed into his spine. At the second try, his feet recalled how to climb the steps.

  Inside, the desk was empty. He was hustled through the door beside it and almost stumbled over the sergeant, flat on the floor. For a moment he thought . . . then the sergeant snarled at his boots.

  “Lie down yeself.” And that wasn’t difficult at all. He heard a gabble of awakened voices from the cells below, abruptly hushed. Then silence, and the constable found time to collect his thoughts. I am a London policeman with nearly ten years’ service, he told himself. And no rotten Irish brigand can outwit—

  “Be brave,” the same voice whispered hungrily. “Ah, it’s longin’ I am for wan av yez to be brave and the blood spoutin’ out an’ drippin’ av the walls . . . English blood.”

  But on the other hand, thought the constable . . .

  Then more feet tramped through his line of sight and another voice commanded: “On yer feet. Up! Begorrah,” it added. “And back inside.” Along with the desk sergeant he was pushed along the corridor and downstairs into a dark cell. The door was closed gen
tly – when he himself shut it on a prisoner, he liked to make a point with a chilling slam, but the quiet snap of the lock was convincing enough. Silence again.

  Then the desk sergeant said: “We’d best call and try to wake the lads upstairs.”

  “Yes, Sarge,” the constable agreed. There was more silence.

  “So,” the sergeant said eventually, “both together, right?” He coughed. “When I’ve cleared me throat.”

  Outside, another and younger constable returning westward along Clerkenwell Road noticed the big motor-car parked beyond the junction, beside the railed garden of Gray’s Inn. It was a funny place to park, not outside any house, but its tail-light glowed, its engine rumbled faintly in the stillness, and a man was leaning against the hood, so perhaps it had some minor breakdown. The constable knew almost nothing about motor-cars but was ready to show willing on a quiet night, so marched forward. He made almost no noise, having slipped rings cut from motor tyres around his boots, a trick learnt from the older men.

  He had almost reached the junction when two men came out of the police station and turned towards the car, not hurrying, but moving with purpose. A bit odd. The constable paused at the kerb. Two more men came from the station and walked quickly after the others. Definitely odd. And had that been a gleam of metal in one man’s hand?

  The constable stepped forward and called: “Wait a minute.” The men started running, and so did he. By the time he had crossed the road he was going flat out but the men were scrambling into the car. Except for the one who had been leaning on the hood. He had straightened up to the rigid stance of a pistol duellist, arm and glinting metal pointing towards . . . There was a flash, smoke, and what the constable afterwards remembered as a “boom” rather than “bang”. He was so surprised he forgot to stop running. The man stayed quite still, there was another flash and boom and the constable’s head was jerked back as his helmet tried to leap from his head. He stopped then, eyes watering from the jerk of the chin-strap. When he had blinked them clear again, the car was far down Theobald’s Road.

  Dagner had the car stopped in Horse Guards to let him and Ranklin walk the last two hundred yards while it delivered O’Gilroy back to Whitehall Court. A few lights burned in the War Office, but the wide streets were empty. This had become so much a self-sufficient government enclave that the police virtually ignored it at night. After a few slow paces, Dagner said: “I want O’Gilroy got back to Brooklands now, tonight. Use P’s motor-car, don’t go near railway stations. And tomorrow, abroad: make sure he takes enough kit with him now.”

  “You don’t think our Irish act worked, then?”

  “Of course not. Sir Basil may pretend to believe it, if he wants to concede the game to us and needs someone to blame, but if he decides to come after us . . . then God knows. But we’ll find out soon enough.” He paused, then went on in the same conversational tone: “I’m afraid I blame you for most of this evening’s problem. You weren’t alone – but you were in command.”

  Quite properly, he wasn’t going to roast an officer in front of juniors. But also, Ranklin realised, he was making O’Gilroy Ranklin’s subordinate rather than a member of the Bureau in his own right. But this was one of those never-explain-never-complain situations.

  Dagner went on: “If you must behave as if you’re abroad on a mission, and I’d far prefer that you didn’t, then don’t do things by halves. If you ever again decide to charge into some house ready to shoot somebody, then bloody well get on with it – and then be off like a scalded rabbit. Don’t go near the police at all. As it is, you seem to have gone one way and let O’Gilroy go another – and all the rest followed from that. So now the shooting of one tu’penny Italian bandit threatens the secrecy, even the future, of our Bureau. And I will not have that. Do you follow me?”

  “Yes, sir.” The ‘sir’ was pure instinct.

  “And do you agree?”

  “Yes, sir.” And I do, Ranklin thought miserably. I tried to be half secret agent, half solid citizen, and the two halves don’t add up.

  “On the other hand,” Dagner said, “I think Certain Quarters may have got the message that the Secret Service Bureau, while perhaps not as legendary as legend has it, is still not to be trifled with.”

  But they’d only been rescuing O’Gilroy, hadn’t they? Ranklin was about to say this, then didn’t. It was his fault that any rescue had been needed.

  21

  “It isn’t in the papers, and may never be,” Major Kell said pointedly, “but did you hear that a group of Irish desperadoes stormed the Gray’s Inn Road police station early this morning and freed one of their number who was being held on a murder charge? A man called Gorman.”

  Dagner pretended pretend interest. “Really? Should I have heard of him?”

  “I just thought you’d be interested. Sir Basil Thomson certainly is. Indeed, I’d go as far as to say that he’s in a mood to spit blood and would like it to be yours.”

  “Yes?” Dagner said, as if inviting him to get to the point.

  “One of his policemen was shot.” Kell paused to see if that brought any reaction. When it didn’t, he continued: “Through the helmet. Sir Basil was talking of raiding this office and demanding that every one of you come up with an alibi for between three and four this morning.”

  “Most extraordinary.” But Dagner still seemed only mildly interested. “However, I’m sure cooler counsels will prevail. I, for my part, would not permit him to know who is on the staff of this Bureau, let alone demand alibis of them. And I hope he bears in mind that any such raid will be upon a non-existent Bureau answerable only to the First Lord of the Admiralty.”

  Kell looked at him thoughtfully. “However, I think he might be assuaged if you just handed Gorman back.”

  Dagner seemed to consider this, but as if it were a strange and fanciful idea. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Kell took a deep breath. “Major Dagner, do you really consider your service to be so far above the law that—”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” Dagner leant back in his chair. “Because if it isn’t there, it’s nowhere. So there is no question of my handing over one of our agents for judgment by that law – and that’s quite apart from any questions of loyalty and morale. But I don’t think it should harm your relationship with Scotland Yard if they realise you have no control over this service. Unless, of course, you’d led them to believe you had.”

  Kell clenched his face but said nothing. He took a paper from an inside pocket, and unfolded it on Dagner’s table. It was a police ‘wanted’ poster for Thomas Gorman. There was no photograph, but the description was good – as it should have been, given that they’d had him in custody for several hours. Dagner read it with apparently mild interest.

  “Those,” Kell said, “will be distributed throughout the Home Counties unless I return either with your man or your promise to surrender him.”

  He had the feeling that Dagner was staring straight through him at some distant memory. “Most interesting – but it doesn’t alter my position. May I keep this?”

  * * *

  Rich and lordly as the Naval Intelligence Division seemed from Whitehall Court, inside the Admiralty it ranked – to judge from its offices – on a par with bilge-scraping. Even the civilian stores clerk, to whom Ranklin’s NID friend introduced him, lived in grander style. The Nelson touch, perhaps: Trafalgar had been won with stores, not spies.

  The introduction was terse: “Here’s the chap I was telling you about, the one asking about the missing pistol. He’s Army, so fob him off with any old stuff.”

  The clerk greeted Ranklin with wary courtesy. “Are you really from the Secret Service?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Gosh.”

  Ranklin added quickly: “But just the paper-shuffling side, not one of the stealing-the-Kaiser’s-code boys.”

  “Ah.” The clerk looked disappointed, then realised that a real spy obviously wouldn’t admit it, so went back to
wariness.

  “Could we . . . ?” Ranklin suggested, gesturing at the nearest stack of paperwork.

  “Of course.” He shuffled through a pile of papers. “You were asking about a certain Webley pistol, serial number so-and-so . . . Here we are: a court of inquiry established that it was lost overboard from HMS Gloucester during a storm in the Adriatic last April. No disciplinary action, but the loss has been paid for. And everybody’s living happily ever after.” He looked up with a bright smile.

  “I rather thought it would be something like that. However, for a heavy pistol, it seems to have floated remarkably well, and due to some oddity of tide and current which perhaps you’d understand better than I, it was washed up in Clerkenwell yesterday.”

  “Oh dear.” A slow grin spread across the clerk’s face and he consulted the report again before saying cheerfully: “Well, the paperwork’s all in order. So if you want to take it any further, you’ll have to talk to somebody in the Naval Branch—”

  “No, no, I don’t want to stir things up and get anyone into trouble,” Ranklin assured him. “I’m not interested in the ‘how’ of it, just some idea of where it really went missing.”

  “Are you quite sure of that serial number?” Then the clerk reconsidered. “Sorry, that was rather a silly question: you’ve found a pistol and we’ve lost one . . .” He went back to the report. “How about the last port of call before the ‘washing overboard’?”

  “Where was that?”

  “Trieste.”

  The atmosphere in the agents’ office was like the last day of term. Lieutenant H waved the ‘wanted’ poster at Ranklin, grinning as if it were a report of how the school had just beaten Greyfriar’s 60-nil. “Have you seen this?”

  Ranklin said: “Oh Christ,” and went straight to Dagner’s door, leaving H standing bewildered.

  “Exactly,” Dagner said, seeing the poster in Ranklin’s hand. “We have to get him abroad. Where the devil have you been? You’d better get down to Brooklands.”