Copyright & Information
The Queen Against Karl Mullen
First published in 1992
© Estate of Michael Gilbert; House of Stratus 1992-2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
0755105370 9780755105373 Print
0755132025 9780755132027 Kindle
0755132394 9780755132393 Epub
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.
After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.
HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.
Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.
Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.
Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.
Dedication
Dr. J. L. Jenman, MRCS, LRCP
Peter Clarke, Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn
1
It was half past five on an evening in early autumn and the City was disgorging its workers.
From the doorway of No. 10 Axe Lane, which is on the western fringe of the City, came two girls. Kathleen, large, fair and placid, and Rosemary, a small and lively brunette. There was nothing remarkable about them. Thousands like them were hurrying away, at that hour, from a day of office work to an evening of freedom.
There was nothing remarkable about the doorway either, except that, unlike its neighbours, it carried no plate to identify it. Only the handsome bronze springbok, on a pedestal in the front hall beside the porter’s desk, suggested a South African connection. It was the Security Section of the South African Embassy. Its head was Fischer Yule, after the Ambassador and the Consul-General their most important functionary in England.
The two girls turned left outside the office. When they reached Cheapside they checked for a moment.
Kathleen said, “Off to school, is it?”
“That’s right,” said Rosemary. She was known by the other girls in the office to be attending a course of lectures at the City Northern Institute.
“So what are you on now?”
“Mediaeval hagiography.”
“Rather you than me.”
“And what are your plans for this evening? Jimmy, I suppose.”
“You suppose right. He’s not a ball of fire, but he’s more fun, I’d say, than mediaeval what’s-it.” It had sometimes occurred to her to wonder why an attractive girl like Rosemary should bother about what had happened five hundred years ago, when the present held so much interest and excitement. But she had not wondered about it for long. It was none of her business. She turned right towards St. Paul’s. Rosemary headed down Cheapside towards the Bank underground station.
When she reached the platform her experience stood her in good stead. She knew exactly where to stand so as to be opposite one of the train doors and as soon as the door opened she could judge whether it was possible to insert herself into the crowded opening without suffering actual damage. On this occasion she was lucky. There was no question of getting a seat, but she was wedged, not uncomfortably, between an Indian student and a uniformed commissionaire.
By the time the train reached the Angel, Islington, the crowd had eased a little and she had no difficulty in getting off. All the same it was lucky, she thought, that she didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. On one occasion the train had been held up for ten minutes and a woman standing near her had started screaming.
She showed her pass to the ticket collector, fielded the smile which ticket collectors usually gave her, and stepped out onto the pavement. Here she stopped to buy an evening paper from the old man who had his pitch at the station entrance.
Anyone watching her might have noticed that, whilst she was opening her bag and fumbling in it for the necessary coins, she had stationed herself so that she could look up and down the road. There were people on both pavements, but they were hurrying along, not loitering. She turned to the right down Goswell Road and followed two men who were arguing about football.
After about a hundred yards she swung off to the right. This was Winstanley Street, which led to the area known as New River Head. It was one of the curious backwaters of London. When the Metropolitan Water Board had constructed their tank farm they had acquired more land than they needed and since they had no plans for building on it, the land on either side of their tanks had long lain derelict, covered with a fine growth of weeds, head high to the brick walls around it. A few boys penetrated this jungle, but only by day. By night even the most daring kept clear of it. A woman’s bod
y without head or arms had been found there. That was fifty years ago, but the mythology, once established, had lingered.
None of these associations troubled Rosemary. From her point of view the road had two advantages. It was long and straight and it was almost always empty. By the time she reached the far end she was confident that no one was following her.
A further right turn took her back into civilisation. It was typical of the illogicality of all great cities that areas of prosperity and of desolation should exist side by side. Mornington Square, which she was now approaching from the south, was a quadrilateral of nineteenth-century houses which had risen in the world; slowly at first, but very sharply in the last twenty years as people had found it quiet and convenient for getting to work in the City. Houses which, just after the war, could have been snapped up for a few thousand pounds were now changing hands at fifty or even a hundred times that figure. Most of them were divided into tiny flats.
The house on the north side of the square which Rosemary was making for was one of the exceptions. It seemed, from the plate on the door, to be in the sole occupation of an organisation called the Orange Consortium. Londoners are incurious about their neighbours. Anyone who did think twice about it supposed either that it was concerned with the import and sale of oranges or it had some connection, possibly political, with the Orange Free State. Both these theories gained support from the fact that five of the seven occupants of the house were black South Africans.
Rosemary let herself in and climbed the central staircase to the top floor. This was the flat which belonged to the head of the Consortium. His name was Trevor Hartshorn. He was Rosemary’s father and, in his own way, a remarkable man.
Joining the army in the ranks he had risen in twelve years from private to Regimental Sergeant-Major. Six years later he was Captain and quartermaster — and a widower, his wife having died of leukaemia. He had thereupon abandoned the army and taken a job in the City as office manager to one of its largest firms of solicitors.
Four years later a difference of opinion with the senior partner had led him to abandon a job which he had carried out with striking efficiency and – still under forty – he had been snapped up by Andrew Mkeba to run the Orange Consortium.
It was an intelligent move. When he had joined it he had found it to be a group of friends prepared to talk, but unable to do anything effective.
He had changed it from a debating society into an action group.
His first step had been to put the finances onto a proper footing. There was plenty of money available from sympathisers and his time in the City had taught him how to approach the major fund-raisers. Once assured of the money he had reduced the number of the full-time members to four; all well paid professionals and all occupying self-contained flats in the Mornington Square headquarters. The remaining space, on the ground floor, was a communications room and office.
In charge of broadcasting and maintaining links with the African National Congress in Lusaka was Govan Kabaka, who had been called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, but had never practised. He also supplied a budget of carefully slanted material to the Radio Freedom Station in Addis Ababa. Raymond Masangi produced the movement’s own monthly sheet, Black Voices, and arranged for its infiltration into South Africa via Mozambique and its distribution by COSATU, the Trades Union Congress, and Black Sash, the anti-apartheid women’s group. ‘Boyo’ Sesolo, ex-athlete and world class weight-lifter, organised the boycott of individual athletes and sportsmen with South African connections. He ran the action section, the storm-troopers of the movement. Most of these were students or ex-students. Not from Oxford and Cambridge (‘upper-class talking shops,’ said Boyo) but from the robust and down-to-earth universities and polytechnics of London, Reading and Bristol. They acted as stewards for their own meetings and disrupters of their opponents’ meetings, a function which they carried out with enthusiasm. A speaker from Andries Treurnich’s Conservative Party, who had been billed to address the London School of Economics, had been lucky to escape serious injury. Certainly nothing had been heard of his speech after his opening words.
Last, and by no means least, was Hartshorn’s second-in-command, Andrew Mkeba. A thirty-year-old Xhosa from Johannesburg, he had been one of the leaders of the 1976 students’ revolt in Soweto. He had been betrayed for his part in it and sent to the Robben Island Prison. He was one of the very few people who had succeeded in escaping from that establishment and, subsequently, from the country. He carried with him the stigmata of his preliminary examination: a fractured cheekbone, a damaged right eye and a broken and imperfectly reset jaw. The ruin of his face was compensated for by a smile which his crooked chin made uncommonly attractive.
Rosemary knew, of course, about all this activity. Her own hatred of the South African regime, though second-hand and founded on written reports in newspapers and books, was fervent and selfless. At that moment one idea was mastering all others. She was extremely hungry. Fortunately her father’s thoughts seemed to be moving in the same direction. He said, “I thought we might eat out tonight. I’ve booked a table at the Chinese restaurant in Crawford Street. Are you ready?”
“Am I just. There’s something I was going to tell you, but we can talk as we go.”
“If it’s something to do with your work, better not talk about it outside.”
Rosemary sighed and reseated herself. She sometimes thought that her father’s notions of security were unnecessarily rigorous. “It’s just that we had a visitor this afternoon. Someone I hadn’t seen before and obviously important.”
“How was that obvious? You mean Yule deferred to him?”
This made Rosemary laugh. “Yule’s an arrogant pig and he never defers to anyone. It was just that he gave him a ticket.”
“Explain.”
“There are these two passages opposite our front door. Harnham Court and Deanery Passage. They’re both dead ends. They just run up to the back entrance of two large office blocks. Yule has made some arrangement with them. Their commissionaires allow a few of our people – they’re all named and identified – to go through the building and out by the front door into Amchurch Lane. It’s called being on the ticket.”
Hartshorn, who had been following this on a street map said, “So then they can go either into St. Martin’s-le-Grand or Newgate Street.”
“That’s right. It’s meant to be a terrific privilege. I could never see the point of it myself.”
“Can’t you? Well, I think perhaps I can.”
“Anyway, this new man was taken straightaway and introduced to the two commissionaires. Therefore we all assumed he was a big wheel.”
Hartshorn thought about this. He had considerable confidence in his daughter. If he had not had this confidence he would not have taken the risk – a risk not only for her, but for his own organisation – of inserting her into the centre of his opponent’s machine. He said, “We’d better bring Andrew in on this.” Noticing the look on her face he added, “After we’ve eaten.”
It was nearly ten o’clock and Rosemary was feeling a lot happier and rather sleepy, when they knocked at the door of Andrew Mkeba’s apartment, which was on the floor immediately below theirs. The room was more office than sitting-room and Andrew was at his desk, writing.
“Didn’t want to interrupt you,” said Hartshorn, “but I thought you ought to know about this at once.”
Rosemary repeated her story. There was no need to explain about the ‘ticket’ system. Mkeba knew about this, as he knew every detail of the arrangement of Yule’s office and its occupants.
He said, “Could you describe this man?”
“I’m not very good at describing people. He was about forty-five I’d guess. A powerful-looking brute, with one of those silly little beards under his lower lip.”
“Would you recognise him if you saw him again?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Let’s try.” He went to one of the row of filing cabinets which lined two walls a
nd took out an album of photographs. “See if you can find him here.”
This was quickly done. There were a number of photographs which had been cut from newspapers. The clearest was a group at the opening of the new Pretoria race-track. There was also a candid-camera shot which had been enlarged.
“You’re sure?”
“Certain, yes. When I saw him the second time, in Yule’s office, he had put on a pair of glasses, which made him look a bit different, but yes – I’m quite sure.”
“Well, well, well,” said Mkeba softly, “we are honoured.”
“You know him?”
“Very well. Karl Mullen. The pencil man himself. A colonel from the military police headquarters at Daniel Malan Barracks in Pretoria. What can have brought him to England?”
“That is exactly what you must find out.”
“Not easy,” said Rosemary. “Mostly they speak in Afrikaans. From what you have taught me” – this was to Mkeba, who smiled encouragingly – “I can catch a few words. Fortunately, Yule sometimes likes to air his English. He is really very fluent. When his legal man’s there he always speaks in English.”
Her father said, “From the anteroom where you sit, how much can you actually hear?”
“If the door is open, everything. If it is shut, very little.”
“And if anything of importance is being discussed,” said Mkeba, “then, of course, the door will be shut. These are not the sort of people who shout their secrets from the housetops.”
The two men looked at each other. It was clear that they had some project in mind, something they had discussed before, something which they were hesitating to put into words. To encourage them Rosemary said, “I suppose it might be possible to use some sort of device—”
Mkeba opened one of the desk drawers and got out a small box, about the size of a pack of playing cards. He said, “This is one of the latest transmitters. It is very sensitive. It operates to this pick-up.” He laid on the desk beside it a tiny golden plug. “You wear it in your ear, like a deaf-aid. It will be quite invisible, particularly if you comb your hair forward a little. Would you like to try it?”
The Queen v. Karl Mullen Page 1