‘If we can curtail our speculation about the itinerary of our Russian friends for just a minute, might I remind everyone our task is to resolve a missing person situation,’ urged Coates. ‘Potential kidnapping, a woman’s life possibly at stake.’
He looked at Finch.
‘I don’t know what the bloody hell you’re playing at, Finch. But when we’re done, you’d better start talking.’
Twenty minutes later – after a detour through Pimlico, Chelsea and round the back of Kensington Palace – they emerged onto Bayswater Road, turning off and cutting up towards Chepstow Place. It was quiet, as before, the gardens on the left, the first row of houses on the right.
‘Well, here we are,’ said the driver.
Coates tapped him on the shoulder and they pulled over. The vehicle behind, which had lost them briefly, had since caught up. It followed suit.
Coates told the driver to stay put. He called for Webb and Sissons to join him. On the yell of ‘Babbage’, a beefy-looking constable from the other car hopped out. Finch was hauled onto the pavement. They stood looking at the row of houses.
‘I give you Chepstow Place, Dr Finch,’ said Coates. ‘The first block.’
‘And I give you Chilcot’s house,’ said Finch raising his cuffed hands to the end of the terrace.
‘Number 11?’ asked Coates.
Finch nodded. But something wasn’t right. He could sense it.
‘Look again,’ the detective instructed.
Finch wasn’t sure what he was getting at. And then he realised… The house numbers! The building bore not an eleven, but a black, hand-painted number ten on its Doric column.
‘A quirk of the neighbourhood, Dr Finch. When the gardens behind us were added, in the 1860s, some older houses on the west side of the street were pulled down. We’ve checked with the council planning department. When these houses opposite were done up – quite extensively – the Royal Borough of Kensington reassigned the street numbers. But did so somewhat idiosyncratically…’
It was plain to see.
‘One to ten,’ sighed Finch. ‘The block goes one to ten… only up to ten.’
‘That’s right. The numbers run sequentially, in a row. But, the other side, north of the crossroads, where the houses resume on both sides of the street…’
He pointed further up, where Chepstow Place continued.
‘…they carry on from number 12 upwards, odds one side, evens the other…’
He watched the realisation dawn on Finch’s face.
‘You mean…’
‘There is no number 11. If you want to get specific, there’s no number 13 either. Left it out because of the bad luck. Happens sometimes.’
‘But it was here,’ protested Finch. ‘This end one.’
‘You mean number 10?’
‘No, it was eleven!’
The tub of azaleas had gone. Things had been rearranged.
But it had to be!
Coates pulled out an Enfield revolver. It looked strange in his bank-clerk hand. He motioned to his men and they moved in close to hug the railings. A woman walked past pushing a pram. She didn’t like the look of things and scuttled away. Across the road, amid the greenery, nannies tended to their infants, oblivious.
The detective led the way, the other three close behind, gently prodding Finch on.
‘Right, just in case there’s any funny business, we’re to stay close in. No talking. Clear?’
They nodded, Finch included. Coates addressed him directly.
‘And you? You’d better not be pulling a fast one.’
He turned to his men.
‘Webb… Babbage… The front door…’
* * *
Chilcot set the dog down and it scarpered off into the corner to gnaw on its meaty treat. The fear, the shock, constricted Annie’s throat. Her voice came out hoarse.
‘Where am I? WHERE AM I?’
She forced herself to sit up and swung her legs to the floor.
‘Where are you?’ said Chilcot. ‘My dear Mrs Pointer, we’ve already told you – somewhere perfectly safe.’
‘I demand to know… I demand to know specifically where I am… and what you want with me!’
Chilcot and the lavender man exchanged a glance. Chilcot gave the nod, the go-ahead.
‘Very well,’ said the lavender man, ‘if you must…’
She waited for him to explain. But there was a noise. Something downstairs? Something in the street? He stood up from his crouch – his knees clicked as he did so – and darted to the window. He turned back and threw Chilcot a look.
‘He’s here…’
* * *
Finch watched while the officers rang the bell. With no response, they pounded on the door with their fists. Coates looked back over the street to the second vehicle. He held up two fingers and beckoned. Two more officers ran towards them, leaving just the drivers in the cars. The detective signalled for them to go around the side of the building, presumably to climb over the wall and try the back door.
Suddenly the front door cracked open. It was an elderly lady standing there. She wore a long grey dress, her white hair tied back. Her face was heavily lined, her eyes glassy, and she carried herself with a stoop. Her long, bony hands were heavily liver-spotted and rested on a walking stick.
‘Yes?’
She seemed to have just a solitary tooth in her mouth.
Coates went up the steps. He tucked his gun away.
‘Excuse me, madam,’ he said. ‘Sorry to trouble you…’
He went through his little polite routine about showing his badge.
‘We are looking for a man named Chilcot.’
The woman produced a wooden ear trumpet.
‘Chilcot,’ Coates repeated, slowly and loudly.
‘Or something… a company maybe… named Freeland,’ Finch called up, with the same unsubtle tone.
Coates turned back and gave Finch a look, suggesting he’d overstepped the mark.
‘This is Mr Chilcot’s house?’ continued the detective.
The woman’s face was one of utter confusion.
‘This is my house… I’ve lived here all my life.’
‘There were reportedly some men here. Monday morning.’
‘What men?’
‘Does anybody else live here, Mrs…?’
She may have been elderly but she could do indignation with the best of them.
‘You’ve got a cheek,’ she growled. ‘Rogers, Mrs Clementine Rogers. Just me. Sometimes my housekeeper stays.’
‘Has anybody approached you, asked to use your premises?’
‘The police, you say? You should be out catching criminals.’
‘Sorry to trouble you, madam…’
‘My father fought at Waterloo, you know. Whole country’s gone to the dogs. Why, if he were alive today, he’d—’
‘Have a good day.’
The detective tipped his hat. The woman slammed the door.
‘Wait, look…!’ called Finch.
Coates saw it too.
There, on the column, was a fresh patch of white paint upon which, in black, someone had painted over a ‘one’, restoring a ‘zero’ rather artfully.
‘This is the house,’ Finch whispered. ‘See?’
And then he got it. He’d seen no one actually exit the house at all, not through the door. Vax, Smert… they’d merely walked down the steps… some sort of charade.
Coates nodded. Finch detected a flicker, a shifting of sympathies.
It was such a simple trick… a simple con. The number ‘11’ he had been staking out, had stood next door to a number 9 – the normal numerical sequence for the odd side of the street – and Finch had rightly thought nothing of it.
* * *
Annie stared at Chilcot good and hard.
‘You ask where you are, then very well,’ he said. ‘You are in Russia.’
‘Russia?!’
‘Technically,’ chipped in the lavender man. ‘I mea
n legally this house isn’t standing on British soil. It’s sovereign Russian territory.’
‘You are in the Russian embassy, Mrs Pointer,’ explained Chilcot. ‘Where no one – if you’ll excuse the expression…’
The dog yapped, gnawing on the human digit.
‘…can lay a finger on you. Not that they can try, even if they wanted to. It’s effectively a sanctuary. Let’s just say that your absence will focus your friends’ minds, diverting attention from other matters.’
Next to the fireplace, flush with the oak panelling, was another door. She hadn’t noticed it. Slowly it opened.
‘No,’ screamed Annie. ‘NO…!’
Into the room stepped the man mountain – with his flat face and his dumb expression and the thickest neck she’d ever seen.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Coates ushered his men back to the vehicles. As he did so he took hold of Finch’s arm.
‘Dr Finch?’
‘Yes.’
He waited till his men were out of earshot. The man looked uncertain for once, thought Finch, as bumbling and as insecure as his appearance was meant to suggest.
‘What’s really going on here?’ Coates asked.
‘I was hoping you could tell me.’
The detective rubbed the back of his neck.
‘I don’t know… It’s just that some of this…’
‘What?’
In the park, children squealed as they played.
‘I mean… it just doesn’t add up… Not just this house… the address… It’s… I don’t know… Take your lawyer friend…’
‘Jilkes?’
‘Back at the Yard. He was on the scene way too… quickly. Believe me, I’ve known some briefs, they have wings on their heels, they can process a huge amount of information very swiftly, but he… Jilkes… It was almost as if he came pre-prepared, as if he’d been…’
‘Set up in advance… Tipped off?’
He nodded.
‘It was evident you two weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye on the matter,’ said Coates.
‘What makes it worse, is that he is – was – an old friend. But I know, in his defence, he’s been under a lot of pressure. Personal pressure. He’s been leaned on. Heavily.’
‘I see.’
‘Unfortunately, what started out as him just wanting to steer me away from the Pickersgill affair has seemingly transformed into him actively conspiring to put me away behind bars.’
PC Webb leaned out of the car.
‘Sir, the traffic round Westminster. Unless we go now…’
‘Just a minute.’
Coates looked Finch in the eye. He kept his voice down.
‘Dr Finch… I have to ask you… What do you know about something called “Ursa”?’
Finch said nothing.
‘I’ll say it again: Ursa,’ said the detective.
‘Ursa?’
‘Like the Latin… Bear.’
Coates sensed Finch’s reluctance.
‘I’m going to be honest with you here, Dr Finch. I do know about your war record. I’ve read the file back to front: what happened to you in South Africa, your brush with the darker elements of military intelligence, the transcript of every hearing. Mrs Pointer too. I also know far more about what you’ve been up to these past few days than you probably think.’
‘How…?’
‘Let’s just say I have friends… certain well-placed friends.’
‘Oh.’
‘My point, Dr Finch, is that I know that the name Ursa is something that has already cropped up on your travels – a name Pickersgill had left for you. So you can drop the pretence.’
‘Like I’ve said before, Detective, I don’t know if I can trust you… Nothing personal, but trusting people has got me into hot water.’
‘I assure you that you can confide in me.’
Finch blew out a sigh. In the background a nanny admonished a crying child.
‘No disrespect, Detective, but given that you’ve just spent the afternoon trying to pin a kidnapping and about fifteen murders on me, you’ll forgive me if I need a little more… persuasion.’
‘For God’s sake, Finch. I wasn’t born yesterday,’ Coates harrumphed. ‘I know you didn’t abduct Mrs Pointer… Annie… any more than I believe you killed any of those people. Been enough years on the force to be able to tell when a man is telling the truth or not.’
Finch felt his blood rise.
‘Then what the hell…?’
There was an urgency now.
‘Finch, listen to me. Annie has been taken, yes, but my sources… if you’ll forgive me for being cryptic… inform me that she is perfectly safe and in a secure location.’
‘What?’
‘That said, I’m not really supposed to know all this. Just between you and me. Meanwhile, it would seem, I’m to persist with this official charade of keeping you under arrest until this whole thing… Ursa… is over…’
He paused to let it sink in.
‘…You repeat to the authorities what I’ve told you, by the way, and I’ll be up on a charge, drummed out of the Met. I think as a quid pro quo, that’s a pretty big one. So… now do you trust me?’
PC Webb leaned out of the car, anxious again. Coates raised his palm to stay him.
‘Very well,’ Finch began. ‘Ursa. It’s a code word. I don’t know for what exactly. But it was serious enough for Pickersgill to think it worth getting himself killed over. He was obviously under extreme duress, probably just about to meet his maker, when he left it for me as a clue… No, not a clue, a plea.’
There was safety in offering that, Finch thought. The detective would surely know it already. He watched for his reaction. He gave nothing away.
‘…The same reason, if I might be so bold, that assorted people, these past few days, have either being trying to kill me, or at the very least have me put away.’
They could sense the policemen in the cars growing curious as to their private conversation.
‘Please, you need to keep going, Dr Finch… and quickly…’
He gave a discreet nod towards his men.
‘I’m not sure who I trust either. And you’re not really telling me anything here.’
‘I’m sorry, Detective, it’s just…’
‘Okay, Dr Finch. What if I tell you this?… What if I tell you that, last week, there was a secret briefing… Certain heads of department at Scotland Yard… Various Whitehall types… high-ups from the War Office… Foreign Office… a grand powwow of the “Secret Service” for want of a better word…’
‘How do you know all this?’
He gave an ironic smile.
‘I’m a detective. I make it my business to know.’
‘I see.’
‘Anyway, together they’ve been running counter-intelligence, feeding it to Special Branch, much of it for use against the usual suspects – Fenians, anarchists and the like. Have foiled a few bombings and things over the years, as I’m sure you know – the Walsall Plot of ’92… the attempt on the Kaiser at Queen Victoria’s funeral…’
‘I’m aware of them, yes. The last I read, the chap who thwarted those plots, your Special Branch boss, had been hanging around with Harry Houdini.’
‘Mr Melville. He does admire a bit of lock-picking, yes. A party trick…’
Finch could now sense Coates’ hesitancy.
‘…But anyway, this counter-intelligence discussed at the meeting the other day, I wasn’t supposed to know about it. Way above my level. But I got fed some information… you know, from my source… That word, Ursa, it was cropping up again… No mystery in the use of a code word in itself, the Secret Service love using them. They have code words, these days, for making a cup of tea. But it was the way this code word was used.’
‘How so?’
‘It was there on the orders for your detention – Hertfordshire… Norfolk… and now in London. It’s like Ursa, whatever it is, is a third-party operation, something that incl
udes provision for your removal from the equation as part of the bargain… All part of some preordained plan. Some big plot that’s going on.’
‘Are you saying that the Secret Service are in on the plot?’
‘No… I’m not… But they are aware of it, whatever it may be, and are quite possibly helping to manipulate it, if you get my drift.’
Finch looked up at the sky. The blue was now fighting a rearguard against ominous grey.
‘With what I’m about to tell you, Detective Coates, I could be signing my own death warrant.’
‘Likewise, Finch. I assure you, very much likewise.’
‘Okay then… Russia… the Dogger Bank incident… the night of October 21st… It was a set-up. The Russian navy was provoked into firing on the Hull fishing trawlers. Someone was out there at sea transmitting false radio chatter… masquerading as Japanese… The Russian sailors, daresay inexperienced and ill-educated, got trigger-happy… started blasting away, just as someone hoped they would.’
‘Who?… Who was behind the transmission?’
‘Therein lies the question… anarchists… Germans… Irish Republicans… pissed-off Afrikaners… who knows…? Anyone who wants to make mischief by pitting Britain and Russia against each other… Any interested party with something to gain from such a situation… Maybe even the Japanese themselves – war on two fronts and all that. We have a treaty with them too now.’
‘Don’t think they need much help at the moment. Looks like they can handle themselves.’
Webb leaned out of the car again, frowning.
‘Be right there, Constable,’ assured Coates.
He looked at Finch.
‘And so, what… Pickersgill? Out there in his mission boat? He’s witness to all this?’
‘It was his mission boat they used.’
‘I see. And, what, he came to you for help…?’
Finch nodded.
‘…Having some inkling that you’d been mixed up with military intelligence?’
‘In a roundabout way. He was a military policemen, I found out. Had taken part in my torture in Cape Town. Was a religious man and felt guilty, apparently. I suppose it was reasonable enough for him to assume that I didn’t swim in conventional channels. Wanted someone in whom he could entrust his Big Secret… and who would act upon it.’
The Cold North Sea Page 30