Prologue

London, 1920

‘Are you sure this is the place, cabby? It looks rather grand …’

‘St Katharine’s Square, number one, guv’nor, just like you said. They’re all grand in this neck of the woods. This is a Royal Borough, sir. But if you don’t fancy it, we can always move on.’

‘No. Wait here. I’m in no hurry.’

The passenger in naval uniform peered again through the gloom of an October evening, taking in the magnificence of the four-storey mansion.

‘Well I may be in a hurry,’ the cab driver objected. ‘Fog’s coming up.’

‘A pea-souper, eh? I’ve been away for years. I’ve forgotten what they look like.’

‘Pea-souper nothing! This one’s going to be a brown Windsor, judging by the smell of it. Straight up off the river. It’s to be hoped they’ve got the acetylene flares alight round Trafalgar Square or I’ll never get you back to the station, guv.’

The Navy man was barely listening, all his attention on the stuccoed, balconied façade. Electric lights penetrated the growing darkness, offering a welcoming orange glow behind drawn curtains. In the upper floors, lamps or candles were moving between rooms as staff came off or went on duty.

‘Well at least there’s someone at home,’ he said, awkwardly throwing a conversational pebble into the silence ponding between him and the young woman by his side.

She made no reply.

He took her hand and gave it a brief encouraging squeeze. ‘Nearly there, Miss Petrovna. Three thousand miles and three years — but you’ve made it!’ He spoke with a cheerfulness he couldn’t feel.

Sensitive as he’d become to his companion’s moods, the captain interpreted the barely audible response as a mew of distress and his resolve began to crack. He had avoided saying farewell — he was embarrassed by emotional leave-takings, especially those made in public — and there was nothing more to add.

Even so, he launched into one last speech. ‘Look, Miss … um, Anna … there’s still time to change your mind. You don’t have to do this yet. Come home with me.’ After the slightest pause, he resumed: ‘My wife would make you very welcome. Joan is a fine woman — she’d care for you. Get you properly on your feet. Our family doctor is no slouch and he’d rally round, I know. It needn’t be for long. Just as long as you choose.’

She turned reproachful eyes on him and shook her head in regret.

The captain realized with a shock that he’d experienced the same devastating rejection years before. How many? Well over twenty … He’d been no more than a boy in short trousers. He’d been tramping the moors with his father when they’d come across an injured otter. A very young female. His indulgent old pa had allowed him to carry the animal home in his jacket. He’d cared for her, fed her, watched her grow strong and mischievous. And always closing his ears to the concerned parental advice: ‘Wild creatures, otters. Never think you can house-train ’em. Taking little things, of course, but you shouldn’t get fond of ’em.’

The day came when she escaped from her pen and wrecked his mother’s kitchen.

He hadn’t waited for his parents to tell him his duty. It was clear. He’d taken her back into the wild himself, choosing a spot where he knew the fishing was good and there was a thriving otter colony. On the river bank he whispered goodbye, never really thinking she would leave him.

Pain had gathered and lodged in his young throat like a ball of india-rubber, threatening to suffocate him, as he watched her leap with delight into the water, dive, surface, dive again, swimming away from him. He’d turned, swiping at the tears in his eyes with the sleeve of his rough sweater, and begun to blunder back home across the meadow.

A piercing chirp had made him stop and turn and there she was behind him, on the bank again, wet fur comically spiked, staring at him with intelligent black eyes. Black eyes he could have sworn were asking where on earth he thought he was sloping off to. The moment he started back towards her, calling her name, she turned, yipped in satisfaction and dived into the water.

He never saw her again.

In a busy and danger-filled life, he’d scarcely thought about her until this moment of parting raised the same choking pain.

‘Very well. Message received, cabby! Look, wait here with the young lady, will you, while I go and announce us. I’ll be a few minutes.’

The door was opened by a butler as he approached.

‘Captain Swinburne? Good evening, sir. Her Highness is expecting you. Will you come up to the drawing room?’

He followed the butler down the spacious hallway and up the stairs. They made towards an open door through which filtered smoky, autumnal music — a Chopin nocturne, he thought. When they entered, the pianist abandoned her piece and came smiling to greet him. A striking-looking Russian woman in her fifties, dark hair streaked with grey, she made a reassuring impression on him: friendly and … yes, he would have said — motherly. Somehow, he hadn’t expected motherly. Or small.

Sherry was offered and politely refused. He declined to take a seat by the fire. Facing him across the rug in front of the fireplace, the princess came straight to the point. ‘You have her, Captain? Our Anna?’

‘Miss Petrovna is waiting in the taxi, Your Highness, and eager to see you. I wanted to have a word with you in private before I leave her in your hands.’

She listened intently as he moved through his account. He confirmed that the girl had been found close to death on the doorstep of the British consul in Murmansk in northern Russia. On recovering sufficiently, she had begged to be given a passage to Britain where she knew members of her family were living. The consul had wired Swinburne aboard his ship, which was patrolling the Arctic waters, and he’d agreed to take her on board and bring her back to Portsmouth where he was due to call in for a refit in the autumn.

He was quite certain that none of this was fresh news to the Russian lady but she listened intently to every word, seeming to value his first-hand report.

He told her how pleased the ship’s doctor had been with the patient’s progress. The best food the galley could provide, fresh air, exercise and the stimulation of a late summer’s cruise along the coast of Norway had almost restored her to full physical health. The captain was careful to explain that the ship had been conveying back home a consular family who had gladly lent one of their maids as nurse cum chaperone so all the proprieties had been observed.

The Russian acknowledged this with a tilt of the head and an understanding smile.

But it was the girl’s mental state that he needed to lay out for her future guardian. ‘She has suffered unbelievable hardship … torture would not be too strong a word … and three years of unremitting squalor. Anyone less strong and tenacious of life would not have survived. But it will be some time before she’s fully recovered. It’s possible that the services of an alienist might be called upon with advantage.’ A radical suggestion, but the princess seemed not to be offended. She even nodded in acceptance and Swinburne felt emboldened to press his point. ‘There are physicians in London with certain skills acquired in the war … Anna’s condition is in some ways similar to what I have witnessed in men experiencing the prolonged terrors of the battlefield. And, survivor that she is, she deserves the appropriate treatment. I would like you to be aware of this. I will not leave her in any situation that I do not judge to be capable of responding to her condition.’

He knew he was going too far. His stewardship was officially at an end; he had to recognize the superior authority of the noble lady to whom he was daring to dish out advice and demands. But Captain Swinburne was not a man to retreat from a position he’d taken up, whether his feet were on the deck of a gunboat or on a silken rug in a douce London drawing room.

She looked up at him sharply, scanning his weatherbeaten features and standing firm before the challenge in his very English blue eyes. He steeled himself to receive the set-down he’d merited.

But the princess’s response when it came was thoughtful. ‘Captain, it occurs to me that losing your support could constitute yet another blow to Anna’s well-being.’

‘I did what I could. Believe me, ma’am, it was her choice to break the bond we have established.’ The words stretched between them, vibrating with a resentment he had not intended. He hurried to add: ‘But an encouraging sign, I’m sure you’ll agree. She’s ready to move forward. She recognizes now that she has a future and I do believe she is making plans for it.’ He broke off, unwilling to say more, and indicated that he was ready to bring her in.

As he turned to leave the room, Swinburne’s attention was caught by a photograph, the one at the forefront of a cluster of silver-framed portraits arranged on the grand piano. He exclaimed and went to examine more closely a group of five or six earnest-looking young women dressed in nurse’s uniform, a flutter of angels gathered in a semiformal pose around a bed in a hospital ward. The wounded soldier at the centre of their attention looked suitably overawed.

‘There she is! That’s Anna! Good Lord. She actually was a nurse. So much she didn’t tell me …’ Responding to the invitation in the Russian’s expression, he smiled, his eyes returning to the photograph. ‘One of my crew was careless enough to cut his leg to the bone on a day when our doctor was ashore in Trondheim. They brought him to me, dripping blood and swooning, and Anna, who was with me on deck, snapped out of her torpid state and had the chap sedated, stitched up and bandaged with all the skill of a medic in no time. Saved the leg, I reckon.’

The princess chuckled. ‘She was always a fine needlewoman. But none of these girls was truly a nurse, you know. Amateurs all, some more capable than others. Some with decorative merit only. You’re looking, Captain, at the contents of the topmost drawer of the Russian aristocracy doing their bit in wartime for their country. The Empress Alexandra herself led by example and floated through the wards in cape and wimple dispensing comfort. Though I ought not to disparage their efforts — they meant well, and, in Anna’s case, acquired a genuine skill, they say. But, Captain … you do well to pick her out amongst so many beauties, all wearing an unflattering starched headdress …?’

The question was lightly put but Swinburne picked up an underlying tension. Was he being quizzed in some way? Had the photograph, prominently placed as it was, been set there deliberately as some kind of test? The captain was a straightforward man, who couldn’t be doing with traps and subtleties. His reply came at once.

‘Be assured ma’am, I’d know her face anywhere. It’s the line of the nose, like a Greek statue, and the dark eyebrows — they have the sweep of a gull’s wing. She’s the one on the far left. I’d no idea this was her world.’

The princess, who had been tugging at the pearls at her throat in some suspense, sighed with relief at his identification and stopped her fidgeting. She came to stand at his side, looking at the photograph with him, relaxed now and companionable. Whatever test she’d just administered, he seemed to have passed it. ‘Yes, Captain, that is indeed our Anna. My poor cousin Peter’s daughter. I held her in my arms the day she was born.’

He was pleased to note in her voice the tremble of an emotion she could no longer hold back, the tears gathering in her eyes, the furtive hunting in her sleeve for a handkerchief. She accepted the crisp square of linen he offered and put it to use with grace and murmured thanks. After a moment, she spoke again more brightly. ‘As a child, Anna spent many summers with us in the Crimea … she will feel at home here with me now. But I share your dismay at a world so abruptly and tragically torn from us. Anna would have made a good marriage. She could have had her pick of the finest young men of Europe. Probably not royalty but a count at the very least … a duke perhaps? Sadly now all dead or dispersed and she herself ruined beyond any hope of-’

She suppressed the alarming thought and her tone became crisp. ‘But that is all past, and we must look, as you say, to her future. You may leave her with us in total confidence. I have heard your words and understood the deeper concerns on which you are tactfully silent. I say again — I will provide the care she needs.’

Swinburne had heard the same tone from admirals and generals. There was only one acceptable answer: ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’ This tiny, decisive woman he had no knowledge of and no reason to trust had, unaccountably, got under his defences. He nodded his superfluous agreement. ‘Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am,’ he said, and he smiled as he spoke.

Swinburne bowed and made to leave.

‘Wait, Captain!’ She hesitated for a moment, then picked up the photograph and handed it to him. ‘If you will keep it for your eyes alone you may have this — some slight reward for your care. But be discreet. We aristocrats all have a price on our heads still and are pursued. London is full of ruthless men, not a few of them our enemies.’

As he took it from her, murmuring his thanks, he caught a flash of indulgence and pity in her eyes. She’d guessed his secret in minutes. Time he was gone.

The two women ran into each other’s arms, exclaiming softly in delighted recognition. Swinburne skirted silently round them in the hallway, glad enough to hear:

‘Aunt Tizzi!’

‘Anna, my dear girl! At last! We have you safe.’

In the outburst of tears and sobs that followed, they didn’t hear him leaving.

He was blameless. As innocent as the obliging bird that gobbles down the inky, sweet berry of the deadly nightshade and then flies off unwittingly to disperse the seed, Captain Swinburne had just dropped off a deadly cargo in a fertile corner of London.

He prepared to move on.

‘We’re finished here, cabby. Back to Piccadilly while you can still see the road.’

He shouldn’t have looked back.

A last glance through the window showed him Anna. She’d come outside again and was standing motionless, neither waving away nor beckoning back, watching him leave. The fog was coming down and he couldn’t make out her face but, in his imagination, he saw her dark otter’s eyes following him as the taxi drew away.

Chapter One

Cheyne Walk, London, August 1922

Joe Sandilands had grown out of the habit of packing. In India, his many journeys had been eased by the silent and efficient attentions of a bearer. And now, six weeks after his return, he was ashamed to find he’d almost lost the knack.

In irritation, he left his suitcase in the middle of the living-room floor, gaping open in readiness for the inevitable afterthoughts. These swiftly followed as he cruised about his room, his eye lighting on things without which he couldn’t possibly survive a long weekend in the country. As he passed his bookshelves he tweaked from the ranks the Wodehouse he hadn’t had time to read since his return. He threw it in. A packet of Fribourg amp; Treyer cigarettes followed. There would be boxes full of Turkish or Virginian available to guests on every gleaming table at the great house he was about to visit but he never liked to be seen helping himself. He paused and considered. Could it be interpreted as an insult to one’s host — taking one’s own supplies?

The ludicrous question betrayed the level of his anxiety concerning this jaunt. He defiantly chucked in another packet. He followed it with a bag of mint humbugs.

Glad to be distracted by a peremptory hoot from the river, he went to stand at the window, looking down on the restless surface of the Thames and listened while the bells of Chelsea Old Church struck the hour. Six o’clock. Cocktail time. His sister Lydia, a stickler for punctuality, would be getting back from her shopping expedition at any moment. Time to go down and help her with her bags. There would be bags! And the hand-operated mechanism of the lift he knew terrified her, though, independent girl that she was, she would never summon help. Joe started guiltily as he heard her upstairs already and letting herself into the flat.

She called out a greeting and dropped a cascade of packages and hat boxes on to the sofa. Responding to Joe’s raised eyebrows, she said, ‘Just a few things. The rest are being delivered to Surrey.’ She kicked off her shoes and, cursing gently about the traffic in Sloane Street, came to join him at the window. Joe poured out a gin and tonic and handed it to her. They listened for a moment in companionable silence to the swash and rustle of a tugboat towing a flotilla of barges upstream into the glare of the westering sun.

‘I love this time of day,’ Joe said, sipping his dry sherry.

His sister looked at him in disbelief. ‘Isn’t it time you found somewhere better than this? Tiny rooms you can only get up to in a dangerous, wheezing old lift? An attack of vertigo every time you look through the window? Lots Road power station on one side, smoky tugs going up and down the river all day — and night too, as far as I can see … Joe, you’re living in a coal hole!’

‘It suits me,’ Joe said defensively. ‘I like the river from this distance. Nobody knows where I am. I can get a bit of peace and quiet. And anyway, this place seems to suit you well enough too — handy for Harrods and always a spare room to be had when the sales are on. What more could a girl want?’

‘A little less of the bachelor austerity, is what.’ Lydia put down her glass and moved around the room switching on lamps and plumping up cushions. ‘Your Mrs Jago only cleans this place for you — you can’t expect her to add any decorative touches. Why don’t you let me … Ah! Getting ahead with your packing, I see?’ She made for the open suitcase. ‘I’ll help you.’

Always a mistake to let an older sister help you with your packing.

Joe reckoned that the damage had been done, the precedent set, when he was a boy and going off to school for the first time. At that moment of uncertainty he’d been grateful for a bossy girl counting handkerchiefs, refolding his shirts and confiscating his cache of marbles. Today the twenty-nine-year-old, six-foot commander at Scotland Yard that he had become resented the attention. He decided to do a bit of commanding.

‘Do leave off, Lydia. I’m only going away for a weekend in the country.’

Lydia wasn’t listening. Up to the elbows stirring about amongst his things, she’d pounced on an alien element. ‘A Cerebos Salt tin? What’s this doing hiding amongst your dress shirts, Joe?’ She held it away from her and shook it. It rattled. Lydia stared at the familiar blue and white container with distaste. ‘What have you got in this rusty old thing? Not still smuggling marbles, are you? Or is this your stash of spare bullets for your big bad Browning?’

Joe snatched it from her and twisted off the lid, revealing the innocent contents. ‘Toothbrush, paste, shaving things. Happy with that?’

‘No. Not a bit. Think, Joe! You’re off to stay at the country seat of an earl, trying to make a good impression on your elders and betters … what’s his lordship going to think? More to the point, what’s his footman going to think when he unpacks for you? You’ll be a laughing stock below stairs. I’ll pop out to Bond Street tomorrow, first thing, and get you a decent wash bag.’

‘You’ll do no such thing! I’ve always used a Cerebos Salt tin and I see no reason to stop.’

‘But it’s disgusting — it’s rusting away.’

‘What do you expect? It’s travelled across oceans and halfway round India. It made an appearance at a far grander establishment than Gratton Court.’

‘India? Oh, no! You’re telling me you took this insanitary object with you when you stayed with the Maharajah What’s his name?’

‘I did. A humble salt tin stood on a marble bathroom shelf in the Palace of Ranipur, batting for England amongst the crystal, the jade and the gold accessories, placed there — without comment — by the bearer who unpacked my things.’

‘I’m surprised someone didn’t remove it.’

‘Someone did. When I unpacked on my return to Simla I noted that my faithful old receptacle had been taken away and replaced … with a brand new Cerebos Salt tin! This very one.’

Lydia chuckled. ‘Now that’s style.’

‘That’s Indian good manners — and humour,’ Joe agreed quietly. ‘Can’t tell you how glad I am to be home, but … I miss the laughter, Lyd. And the colour. In sober old London.’ He saw dismay dawning in her eyes and hurried to add: ‘But I’ve done with serious travelling for now. Got a career to relaunch!’

A sudden understanding of the tin’s significance silenced her. Schoolboys, soldiers and now, apparently, strapping great police commanders — they all needed a reminder of home in strange or threatening situations. Lydia put it back in the suitcase. ‘You can always claim then that it was a gift from a maharajah — should anyone ask,’ she said comfortably. ‘But I suppose they must be used to eccentricities at Gratton Court — the old Prince of Wales was a constant guest there in the good old days.’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Now I shouldn’t have liked to view the contents of his salt tin!’

Joe responded to his sister’s unexpressed anxiety. ‘I’ll be fine, Lyd. Don’t worry about me. Big boy these days. And it’s not as though it’s an interview I’ve been called up for. There’s nothing much riding on this, you know. I’ve already got the job — had it for two years now. They just want to check I can drink my soup without slurping and get through dinner with a selection of rabid old fire-eaters without poking one in the eye with a fish knife. I shall keep smiling, tell a few tall stories, sing baritone in the after-dinner choruses round the grand piano and shoot a commendable but not showy number of birds.’

‘What are you using for guns?’

‘Pa’s old pair. I’ve sent them ahead. Respectable but nothing flashy. Now if we were going for real game, I could have impressed them with the Holland amp; Holland Royal I used in India. Sir George insisted on giving it to me. Not many charging buffalo offering themselves as targets on Exmoor, though.’

‘You used it in India? Joe, you don’t like shooting animals.’

‘True. But the animals in question were tiger. Man-eaters both. With hundreds of deaths on their rap sheets!’

‘Both?’

‘I shot two of them, in as many minutes. One male, one female. They were hunting as a pair.’

Lydia laughed. ‘You’re having me on. Sounds like the beginning of a good yarn, though, for when the port starts to circulate.’

‘Oh, if I were vandal enough, I could carve two grooves on the glossy French walnut stock of the Royal. It saved my life. But I prefer to carry my grooves concealed.’ With a sister-baiting grin of mischief, Joe pushed up his right sleeve to show her two raking claw marks, well healed by now. He enjoyed her squeal of horror. ‘I had the luck to be treated by an English doctor who’d studied ancient Indian medicine. Lord only knows what he poured into the wound but it worked a treat. Wounds can go rotten faster in India than they did in Flanders.’

Lydia shuddered. ‘Well, watch your back, little brother. I’ve sneaked a look at the guest list you’ve popped behind the clock on the mantelpiece. Impressive and surprising. Something’s brewing. And I think I can guess what — I read the papers! And I get Marcus to repeat the political gossip he comes by at his club. He can’t always make sense of it but he’s worth hearing. England’s not been standing still while you’ve been living it up in India, you know — it’s started rolling downhill. Joe, the men you’re meeting are not only running the country — they’re a ruthless, manipulative bunch.’

‘Oo, er … I shall think of them as the Gratton Gang.’

Lydia was not to be diverted. ‘These men aren’t going to be the slightest bit interested in your table manners and your small talk. In fact, I do rather wonder what exactly they might be wanting from a minnow like you.’

She squashed the suggestions he was about to make. ‘Well, you’re getting a reputation for defusing a crisis, Marcus says. “Defusing” — in my dictionary that spells danger. Don’t let these grandees use you for a cat’s paw while they skulk in safety behind the barricades, Joe. You know what you’re like for leading the charge.’

Sensing a sisterly assessment of his character about to be fired in his direction, Joe employed a diversionary tactic. ‘Lyd, why don’t you open up one of those boxes — you know you’re dying to. Pop on one of your new hats and I’ll take you out to dinner.’

Chapter Two

Scotland Yard

In his office on the third floor, Joe was putting the finishing touches to a frantic hour of desk work before leaving to catch his train to the west country. He picked up a fountain pen and signed the six letters remaining on his desk. The signature was in black ink, and unaccompanied by any flourish. He gathered the typed pages together into a neat pile, replaced them in a folder and ran a satisfied eye over the shining and — at last — clear surface of his desk.

He rang for his secretary.

‘Ah, Miss Jameson. All done. It just remains for me to apologize for the last-minute bustle, thank you for your stalwart assistance and say — I’ll see you again on Tuesday.’

‘Not quite all done, sir. You’d forgotten this. The latest assassination attempt.’

With an arch smile, she placed a file in front of him. ‘They’ve just sent it up. It’s the one you requested from Special Branch. I had to ask for it three times … they would keep trying to tell me it wasn’t for our eyes.’ Miss Jameson raised elegant brows to convey her disbelief at such lack of respect. ‘I have to say, Commander, I don’t much care to do business with those gentlemen. ’ Her voice frosted the word lightly with distaste. ‘They are not the most congenial of people to deal with.’

‘I rather think that’s the whole point of them,’ Sandilands said drily. ‘Thugs — I quite agree. Upper-class thugs, but thugs all the same. And a law unto themselves, they’d like us to believe. So very well done to have wrung it out of them.’ He opened the file and began to flip through the pages, frowning, instantly absorbed by what he read.

‘I had to threaten to go down there and fetch it myself,’ she persisted.

Joe sensed that he hadn’t sufficiently acknowledged her tenacity. He looked up and gave her a questioning smile. ‘Down there, Miss Jameson? Bold of you to plan a frontal assault! You’re not meant to know the location of their HQ.’

‘Oh, sir! Everyone knows they’re holed up in that little wooden hut on the island in St James’s Park. Duck Island, I believe they call it. It’s just beyond Horse Guards — a minute or two away. I’d have gained access if I’d had to swim across their moat!’

He believed her.

For a moment he savoured the vision of Miss Jameson arising from the water, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful — and crowned in duck weed — ready to challenge the doughty lads of the anti-terrorist squad and he smiled. He glanced across at the confident woman who thought nothing of taking on, single-handed, the Special Irish Branch. Should he tell her that her target had relocated some years ago? That ‘the Branch’ had moved into Whitehall and were even now beavering away not so very far from where she sat at her typewriter? No. She was happy with the folk story. And the élite squad were fanatical about preserving their anonymity. An anonymity that, in his recently acquired covert role at the Met, the commander was honour-bound to respect.

‘Just keep an eye on them for us, will you, Sandilands?’ He’d been briefed almost as an afterthought by a superior. And he’d realized, with a sinking heart, that he’d been handed a poisoned chalice. In addition to the CID role that went with his job, he’d been landed, since his return, with an ill-defined responsibility for this other clandestine and self-reliant branch of the British police force. Deliberately ill defined? Joe suspected as much.

‘They won’t give you the runaround, young man! Still full of beans and raring to go, I observe.’ This compliment, from a survivor of the Boer War with yellowing moustache and matching teeth, was never likely to turn Joe’s head. ‘Try to understand them,’ the advice flowed on, ‘with your background of skulduggery that shouldn’t be too hard. Takes one to handle one, eh, what? Make it your business to find out what these boys are up to. They’re on our side, of course — and we thank God for that mercy! — but an occasional reminder that they report ultimately to the Police Commissioner at the Yard mightn’t come amiss. They will try to ignore that.’

Sandilands had shrugged and smiled his acquiescence. His sister was right — he was never able to turn down a challenge. With the reins of the CID in one hand and the Branch in the other, however, he’d found himself in charge of a spirited and ill-matched pair. Steady hands, though. So far he’d avoided landing arsy-tarsy in the ditch. But his secretary would have been disturbed to know of the chain of command that ran from the political branch down below right up to his own desk. Chain? Thread would be more accurate, Sandilands thought. A fragile thread he’d already had to put a knot in twice since his appointment.

He rewarded his secretary with the response she best appreciated: a grin and ‘Attaboy, Jameson!’

A mistake.

Under cover of his approval, she was encouraged to slide in a supplementary question or two. ‘The latest attack in the West End, I take it? That’s what this is all about?’ She pointed to the file. ‘The shooting? Poor General Lansing. He’s a very old friend of Daddy’s. I do hope he wasn’t badly hurt?’

‘Lansing? No. Hide as tough as a cavalryman’s derrière. Er … bullets bounce off him, I should say.’

Four years of war, followed by three of intensive training for the Metropolitan Police and a further year on secondment to the Calcutta Police, had left Joe accustomed to an exclusively male working environment. He didn’t always manage to tailor his language for a female audience. Amalthea Jameson graciously affected not to notice his lapses.

The announcement that he was to be granted, on taking up his post again after his return from India, the services of a full-time personal secretary had been surprising. The two other officers of his rank, uniformed and in the later years of their service, were accorded no such privilege. Even more surprising was the failure of these fellow officers to take offence at the blatant preferment of the young upstart. A knowing smirk and a pitying shake of the head spoke volumes to Joe. They didn’t envy him.

‘I visited the general yesterday in St George’s. He’s doing well,’ he offered in reassurance.

‘I’m glad to hear it. I’ve been following events in the press. With no file available in our office, one gets one’s information where one may …’ She gave an apologetic smile, but her eyes accused him of secrecy.

‘Depressing stuff, Jameson, in the papers, and usually exaggerated. Believe them and you’d be running into a Russian Bolshevik or a Latvian anarchist round every corner. You’d never venture out,’ he reassured her lightly.

‘But that’s three attempted murders now in as many days, I gather. Three attacks on three military gentlemen,’ she persisted. ‘And each with — I wonder if it had occurred to you, sir? — a different modus operandi. Puzzling, that. Don’t you agree? The first, I understand, was no more than an assault with a blunt instrument — a cosh? — the second with a knife and this last with a pistol. And all unsuccessful!’ She gave a scoffing laugh. ‘How much practice can a self-respecting perpetrator need? What a bungler is at work, one might conclude.’

‘Not, perhaps, if a fourth attempt were to come off tomorrow, Miss Jameson. Even I can detect a certain escalation in the level of violence used. And the one vital feature the victims have in common. But thank you for your observation.’

His reprimands usually bounced off the shield of her smiling compliance but on this occasion she did not hurry to agree with him. In a tone which signalled sorrow rather than anger she said simply: ‘They’re here, aren’t they? Here with their bombs and their bullets. Spreading terror among us.’

‘There were over one hundred reported violent incidents in the Metropolitan area over the last week, Miss Jameson. Three of the victims happen to be known to you personally and you draw a dramatic conclusion from this slight evidence.’ He paused for a second before admitting: ‘But I have to say, I happen to agree with you. The editors of our daily newspapers don’t share your social connections and inside knowledge and they haven’t yet put two and two together. I’d … we’d … prefer that they didn’t. Keep it under your hat, will you? With the present undermanning in the force, I doubt we could contain the effects of an anti-Irish backlash tearing through London. Open warfare on the streets? It’s not inconceivable.’

She nodded. ‘Understood, sir. I’ll put this into your in-tray to await your return.’ She made to scoop the file on his desk.

‘No, I’ll keep it. I note they’ve only entrusted us with the flimsies.’

‘Third copies I’d say, sir. A calculated insult. But I can make them out. Would you like me to …?’

‘Thank you, Jameson, I’ll manage.’ He peered at the faint blue letters. ‘There’s nothing here I can’t take away to work on. I’ll slip it into my briefcase to read on the train. I like to have something to set the pulses racing when I’m travelling.’

‘Not taking your diary along for the journey, then, sir?’

It was a moment before he realized his secretary had attempted a joke.

‘I’m no Oscar Wilde, Miss Jameson,’ he said repressively. ‘However, if I were compelled to review the passage of my life between here and Devon, I would agree with Oscar that “each day is like a year. A year whose days are long”.’

He hoped he’d not been too squashing.

‘And the nights? Each one an eternity …’ She lowered her gaze to her immaculate calfskin shoes, sighed, and shook her head gently, hinting at some deep sorrow.

‘Ah! Insomniac are you? It’s these hot nights … we all suffer. I may have the answer for your condition. Wincarnis, Jameson! The Mysterious Restorative. I recommend a slug before retiring. Ten thousand doctors and my mother swear by it, and my mother’s never wrong.’ He glanced at his wristwatch and, alarmed by what he saw, shot to his feet.

‘The Cornish Riviera Express leaves at ten thirty. Do be sure to take one of the slip carriages for Taunton, won’t you? No need to worry — you have a good forty minutes, sir.’ The voice, quite unabashed, dripped honeyed reassurance. It had the irrational effect of irritating the commander beyond reason. ‘I hope you don’t mind, sir, but anticipating that you’d be running late I took the liberty of ordering up a squad car and driver for you. You’ll find it sitting panting down below on the Embankment.’

Joe did mind. He toyed with the notion of making use of the dreaded word ‘austerity’ and wagging a reproving finger at her, but he hadn’t the time. He let the moment pass and here she was, smoothing down the already smooth chignon at the nape of her neck and dimpling.

‘Ten minutes to Paddington as long as you’re not held up in Park Lane … you’ll have time for a cup of tea. You have your ticket, sir? Clean handkerchief?’

Joe suppressed a schoolboy urge to present his freshly washed hands, front and back, and bare his faultless teeth in a ritual snarl for Matron’s nightly inspection. A spurt of mischief pushed him to pat his inside wallet pocket in a theatrical manner. Impervious to teasing, she tilted her head in acknowledgement of his gesture and nodded her approval. The woman was turning herself into his nanny.

If your taste inclined to the statuesque — and Joe’s did — Amalthea Jameson was undeniably attractive. She was a tall, well-shaped blonde from a good military family, a product of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and Oxford. She had had her training with a recently retired deputy commissioner and was eagerly sought after by his colleagues. Sandilands had to agree with them that he was an ungrateful bastard who didn’t deserve her. Sly approaches suggesting her transfer to the department of a more appreciative boss had been made to him. Quite out of order, he thought. Miss Jameson was not a commodity to be traded, and as she seemed happy — suspiciously happy — to serve the office of commander in spite of the apparent demotion, there was little he could do but grind his teeth and try to appreciate her undoubted qualities.

Ah, well … perhaps she would find some poor soul, marry him and leave? And then he could put in for a male secretary who wouldn’t sigh in his ear and concern himself with the state of his handkerchief. Trivialities! Joe reproved himself for being distracted by them. Time he followed his guns to the country.

He was under no illusion as to the style of entertainment on offer: an all-male gathering, the other guests being stars from the government and the military. A general flown in from Ireland, an admiral snatched from his battlecruiser, the flamboyant head of the Secret Service lured from the Savoy Grill and a press baron: all these featured on the list Commissioner Horwood had himself written out for him in pencil. It had concluded with the name of the head of the diplomatic service. And perhaps this outspoken mob would be needing the active services of a diplomatist before the weekend was out. The presence of Max Beaverbrook, leader of what he himself called ‘the Press Gang’, promised to be somewhat inflammatory when another name on the list was that of Winston Churchill, the man he had seriously annoyed with his articles in the Daily Express.

Joe expected a clash of antlers at worst, point-scoring at best. They’d been promised a soothing after-dinner performance from the exiled Russian bass, Chaliapin, accompanied by Rubinstein on the piano and, according to the pencilled note, a soprano called Olga?/Vera? would be released from Covent Garden to put in an appearance on the second night. Nothing but the best on offer for the Gratton Gang, evidently. But his sharp sister had it right, Joe reckoned. ‘Minnow’ had been a little derogatory, perhaps, but all the same … he did wonder what on earth a not-very-exalted policeman could be expected to contribute to the occasion.

He would have been glad of the reassuring presence of his mentor and friend, Sir George Jardine, at his side. It had been some time, in the turbulence of Calcutta, before Joe realized that the deceptively suave governor of Bengal was the eyes and ears of his Britannic majesty in India, the éminence grise behind the viceroy. The man who oiled the wheels of empire. But he was by no means a sinister presence in company. Whenever the affable and approachable Sir George entered a room, the mood lightened, the chatter speeded up and laughter broke out. And George had been quick to see, in the new Scotland Yard detective seconded to his police force, a sociable and clever young aide. Together, the two of them, with mutual understanding, made up a tongue-in-cheek charm department that eased the social levers. Joe sighed and comforted himself with the thought that at least the Commissioner, as his present boss, might possibly be in his corner.

A working weekend and Sandilands, if anyone noticed him, would be on trial of some sort. The Commissioner had said as much in his forthright, old soldier’s way: ‘Don’t be shy, Sandilands. Sing for your supper. I’m sorry I can’t promise any young ladies for you to fascinate but at least you’ll be able to concentrate on the matters in hand.’ The ironic gleam in the brigadier’s eye told Joe that unofficial reports of his encounters in India had followed him home. ‘We’ll see what your year’s apprenticeship with George Jardine has done for you,’ the brigadier chuntered on. ‘I hear very good things from my old friend. He rather curses me for enticing you back to London. He had expectations that you might be persuaded to stay on in India and train up in the dark arts of … er … dynamic diplomacy. Would that adequately convey the flavour of the strong-arm shenanigans and double-dealing you and George go in for? Help him keep the Raj on the rails is what he meant.’

Joe had politely disclaimed any talent for diplomacy, dynamic or otherwise.

‘Well, you turned down what could have been a spectacular career, young man. I’m sure you had your reasons.’

By his silence and downcast eyes, Joe indicated that he was unwilling to share them and the brigadier hurried on: ‘Still — you survived a year with George. Takes some doing! It must have left you supremely placed to undertake the very particular demands we’re about to make on you. You thought India was a serpents’ nest of intrigue and violence? Just wait until you get your briefing on the capital. Some silly oafs tried to bomb Westminster while you were away pig-sticking and sinking the chota-pegs. And they were a whisker away from blowing up Scotland Yard. And now we’re getting these attacks on military gents. In broad daylight and on the street! Work to be done, my boy! And not much time.’

Joe was uncomfortably aware that he could be absenting himself from London at an inconvenient moment. He’d calculated that on these last long days of a long hot summer the regular villains would be cooling their toes in the sea at Southend, but the tug of war between his impatience to be off and his feelings of guilt at a fancied dereliction of duty was making him uneasy. No one would blame him. The Special Branch wouldn’t even notice his absence. And the CID superintendents he’d be leaving in charge would heave a sigh of relief. The granite features of that Yorkshireman he was beginning to trust … Superintendent Hopkirk … loomed into his mind. Yes — Joe was both annoyed and reassured by the thought — Hopkirk and his team of inspectors would be glad to be getting him off their backs for a bit.

On a whim, against all protocol, he’d nipped into the inspectors’ room without being announced the other day. Just to keep them on the hop and remind them of who he was. He’d remembered and put a name to most of the faces through the thick fug of cigarette smoke, faces that glowered back at him with suspicion. The resentment hadn’t lasted longer than the few seconds it had taken him to dive with his usual military authority straight into a discussion.

The moment had been a good one — the men appeared to have been sunk, not in the usual seditious talk, but in a serious discussion of police business when he burst in, and they hadn’t felt caught on the back foot. The impromptu meeting ended with good-humoured quips on both sides. He’d felt easy enough in their company to announce that he might be off the scene for a few days and to demand reassurances that they wouldn’t go about the place getting into trouble while he was away. He’d been pleased to provoke the traditional response delivered with ponderous irony: ‘Won’t do anything you wouldn’t do, sir — you can bet on that much!’

Predictable but, at least — less stiff … more accepting.

And yet the relief at his news, though silent, was perceptible. He harried the troops. He knew that. He had no intention of letting up.

And now — decision time: to go or to make his apologies? He toyed for a moment with the notion that he had a choice in the matter and tried out one or two of the dozen convincing excuses available to him. He selected one. Correctly reading his uncertainty, Miss Jameson sighed in understanding.

It was the sigh that triggered his decision. The undemanding open moorland beckoned. And, after all, he wasn’t going quite to the ends of the earth. Hopkirk could always send a telegram to summon him back if anything blew up. Oh, Lord! There was a thought that could have been better expressed. He grimaced.

The company gathering for the weekend party promised to be intimidating but they might well be congenial — if the birds were flying well and the right mood was struck. Joe enjoyed shooting and lively conversation. And the food at the grand house would be good; he thought he could count on that. There would be wine — perhaps with a bit of luck tankards of foaming Exmoor ale would accompany Cook’s game pie?

Joe grabbed the old army trenchcoat he kept by him winter and summer from the branched hatstand by the door and threw it over his arm; he tweaked his bowler hat from the topmost twig. The daily reminder of his slavery to the city, the hat was a hated object and, in a gesture of defiance, decision and mischief, he lobbed it across the room at Miss Jameson.

She caught it in flight with the swift reaction of a lacrosse player and clutched it dramatically to her bosom: a lady accepting her knight’s gage of honour. The size seven and a half bowler was barely equal to the task of encircling her left breast, he noted, and looked away, disturbed by the image. It was his guess that she would take the opportunity of having the wretched headgear cleaned and re-blocked during his absence. Well, let her get on with it. He’d decided to replace it with a soft stalker’s hat from the gents’ outfitters in Taunton High Street.

It usually poured with rain when he was in Devon but the promise of being back in the country, at peace under a dripping tweed brim, the scent of wet earth and heather filling his nostrils, made him quiver with anticipation. He was eager for the undemanding company of two or three tail-wagging, slobbering spaniels at his heels. In imagination he scratched their throats, turning his head this way and that to avoid their blasts of pungent breath. With a jaunty wave he dashed off to clatter down the stairs and out to the waiting motor car.

A day or two of freedom and comradeship on the moors stretched before him, walking, riding and tracking wild creatures instead of predatory humans. And no Miss Jameson! Bliss!

Chapter Three

Paddington Station

‘Cupper tea, constable? You’ve got ten minutes before the Bristol Flyer gets in. Naw! Go on! Put your tuppence back in your pocket, love — it’s on the house. Drop of milk, one sugar was that?’

‘Thank you, Stan. I’d love one. But I’m paying all the same. Rules are rules.’ The insistence could have sounded prim but Woman Police Constable Lilian Wentworth softened her words with a broad smile. In any case, Stan the tea man was not about to take offence. Not from Miss Wentworth. From his stall on the platform he saw everything that happened on the station and he was always ready to oblige the boys — and the women — in blue with his impeccable information and advice. Especially the honest ones who did a good job.

He nodded his approval, accepted her pennies and handed over a mug of tarry tea. ‘Some of your blokes aren’t so particular!’ he commented. ‘In fact where’s that PC who’s supposed to be escorting you today? Useless great lummox. He’ll be in the back of the refreshment room, I expect, refreshing himself.’

He didn’t add ‘with a pint of brown ale’. Police Constable Halliday, six foot burly beat bobby, married, five children, a betting man, was always on the scrounge.

‘You’ve got that wrong, Stan. I’m escorting him. I’m responsible for my partner, they tell me. I may have to carry him home at the end of the day.’

Stan grinned at the thought. Lily Wentworth’s height was at the lower limit for acceptance on the force, he would have guessed. And, as far as anyone could judge, under all those layers of blue serge uniform, she was as slender as a whippet.

‘On Waifs and Strays patrol all week, then, miss? Looking out for runaways?’

‘That’s right. Makes a nice change from last week’s duty — Hyde Park! Six days on the trot from four in the afternoon till eleven in the evening.’ Lily Wentworth rolled her eyes to convey the horror. ‘On Public Order and Lewd Behaviour Prevention patrol.’

Stan grimaced in sympathy. ‘They give you women all the worst jobs. Did you catch anyone in … flag … in flag-’ Stan cut short his unthinking burst of curiosity.

‘ Flagrante delicto? With his trousers down, you mean? I’ll say! I’ve seen more male posteriors in action than an army doctor. All shapes and sizes.’

Stan’s face creased with embarrassment at the answer he’d provoked. The women police were noted for their frank way of speaking. He’d never allow a daughter of his to join their ranks. Even if they’d take her. Mixing with rough, foul-mouthed coppers every day — that was no occupation for a girl. Some of the language they used flummoxed him, army veteran though he was. They didn’t swear — oh, no, far too ladylike for that. But they knew all the right words for all the wrong things. Things that, as unmarried ladies, they didn’t oughter know. And they didn’t scruple to use them. Sometimes they even expressed the inexpressible in Latin. Educated girls, the lot of them. Had to be. They stood up in open court, bold as brass, and delivered evidence that made the magistrates’ hair curl. The beaks sometimes had to clear the general public out of the courtroom before a woman policeman was allowed to open her mouth and give testimony.

‘We got a good bag. We netted a member of parliament, a duke’s valet and a lawyer — a King’s Counsel, no less! — and several professional gentlemen. They spent the rest of the night closeted together in a cell in the Vine Street nick!’ Lily’s laugh was suggestive of mischievous thoughts. ‘Can you imagine, Stan, how the conversation went?’ She put on a pompous Music Hall voice: ‘“I say, you chaps — regular customers at this establishment, are you? Well, I’m in a position to offer you sinners a little useful advice …” I blame the spring weather, Stan. It brings out the worst in men. Seasonal urges? If I were Commissioner, come March the twenty-first, I’d double the park patrols.’

Stan liked to listen to this girl. She didn’t have the pursed lips and strained vowels of other ladies he’d heard talking — the ones who sounded as though they were sucking on an ice cube. Her voice rushed along, reminding the Yorkshireman of one of his native moorland becks, going somewhere and carrying you along with it, frothing with good humour. He asked her a question to prolong the conversation. ‘Did they get away with it?’

‘Course they did. A clear case of collusion whilst in custody. The accused all denied the charges of lewd conduct. They claimed to be members of the Hyde Park Ornithological Society.’

‘Bird fanciers?’ Stan wheezed with the effort of suppressing a laugh. ‘That’s a new one!’

‘They told the magistrate how they were skulking in the shrubbery by the Serpentine — as you do when you’re innocently studying the antics of the golden-crested wren. Or was it the great crested grebe? One or two were a little under-rehearsed. Though one of them — impressively — managed to come up with Podiceps cristatus which earned him an approving nod from the magistrate. Abruptly, their peaceful activities were curtailed by the arrival of a pair of over-officious officers of the law (that’s me and Halliday). “Aha!” says his honour knowingly, “ Custos officiosus! Dark blue plumage? Yes … Thick as sparrows on the ground, these days.” They all fell about laughing at his little joke and were out on the street again by noon. Not even a five quid fine. Waste of police time.’

The constable sighed and then added, her tone brightening: ‘But better than the arrests, we made at least ten interventions. Always better to prevent an attack than arrest someone for it afterwards, don’t you think, Stan? If there’s anything more satisfying than catching and thumping a rapist, it’s decking one before he’s had a chance to hoist his mainsail.’

Stan pretended not to hear. Chattering … pent-up … mind elsewhere, he decided indulgently. Expecting trouble. He’d noticed that while she sipped her tea, smiled and talked, her eyes never stopped moving, surveying the crowd gathering along the platform on to which the incoming train would spill its west-country passengers. And she’d positioned herself behind the tea urn out of sight of anyone coming on to the platform from outside. She was using him as cover. He didn’t mind.

The young woman seemed to have her own unorthodox tactics for crime-fighting. The male constables spent their time swaggering up and down on the platform. At the sight of the uniform, the pickpockets, con-artists and pimps melted away into the shadows, only to drift back unscathed the moment the tall helmet disappeared from view. WPC 1555 wasn’t walking about, flushing out her prey and sending it scattering before her. She was lying in wait. In her calculating watchfulness Stan saw something that reminded him of native hunters he’d seen in India in his army days. The village tiger trackers could sit for hours, days even, up a tree watching over the lure of a tied-up, bleating goat. When the moment came they would be instantly alert and firing. Stan’s tea urn was her tree and he was pretty sure he knew where she’d find her goat.

Smart girl, this one. And careful.

Stan looked surreptitiously at the slight form swamped by the heavy uniform and wondered how she managed with her unimpressive height and weight to convey such determination. The military cut of the jacket with its official Metropolitan Women Police Patrol badge was intimidating but it did not allow of easy movement. The high collar, Stan noted with a stab of sympathy, was, on this warm day, chafing her slender neck and raising a nasty red mark. The hat, which was held in place by a chin-strap, was a wide-brimmed dome like a riding helmet. It sat heavily on her head almost snuffing out the pretty face below.

Stan sensed that it was a pretty face. He was not at all certain that he’d be able to identify number 1555 if he ever saw her out of her uniform. Grey eyes? Green? He’d have guessed grey eyes but — her hair? No idea. He lowered his gaze, embarrassed to be caught staring, and turned his eyes to her boots. They couldn’t be comfortable. Knee-high, laced and made of a heavy leather, they could have been designed for Charlie Chaplin. And yet he’d seen these women take off and fly in them in pursuit of a villain. They’d trip up, kick out, stamp and do their ju-jitsu — anything to get a man down and incapacitated.

‘You have a good view of the platform here, Stan?’

‘I keep an eye open. I watch for kids getting off the train without an adult. They’re always easy to spot. They don’t know which way to turn. Up from the country — most of them can’t read so the signs mean nothing to them. If it looks like there’s going to be real trouble I scoop ’em up and take ’em along to the stationmaster’s office. Good bloke! Family man himself. He calls in Dr Barnardo’s or the NSPCC or the Sisters of the Night. I was a runaway myself, miss,’ he confided. ‘From the north. Years ago. I know the signs. And I can spot the vultures gathering … Like now …’ Stan’s voice rasped with dread. ‘Here they come.’

The words struck chill. Wentworth waited anxiously to hear more. But Stan just nodded, absorbed by the crowd beginning to gather to greet the train. Most of them were clutching a platform ticket in their hands.

‘What do you make of that lot, then?’ he asked.

Unresentful at being challenged by the old soldier, she murmured her way through the individuals and groups. ‘Reading from the left … if they’ll just keep still a minute and let me clock them … Two girls. Under twenty. Maids’ day out clothes. Excited. They’re so alike they must be sisters. Probably here to welcome a third and younger sister up from the country to take up her position as between-stairs maid … Of course, they could be alumnae of the local house of ill repute on a recruitment drive. Aphrodite’s on Park Lane? No, I don’t think so.

‘Moving along we have two ladies. Uniformed nanny and her well-dressed employer. Judging by the small bicycle that the nanny’s holding — a shining brand new one — I’d say they’re waiting for the lady’s seven-year-old son who’s taking a break from his prep school … Sick leave? But a bicycle like that — it’s bait that could lure any child into trouble. In the hands of the wrong adult. How am I getting on, Stan?’

He smiled and nodded his approval of her reasoning.

‘Next along. Young man. Smartly turned out. Straw boater. And spats. Spats in summer? Trying too hard, would you say? He must be waiting for his lady-friend. Yes, look — he’s clutching a bunch of florist-bought flowers in one hand. Hothouse roses. Expensive. And in the other he’s got what would seem to be a grotesquely coiffed poodle on a lead. He’s brought the dog along to meet its mistress. It clearly doesn’t belong to the young gent. It rather hates him, do you see?

‘And then, just arrived, a very well-groomed middle-aged man. Sleek dark hair. What do you bet he smells of Trumper’s best hair oil? Foreign-looking. I think we have a valet waiting for his gentleman. Possibly lives in Mayfair and he’s strolled on to the station at the last moment, every hair in place, to take charge of the hand luggage.

‘And at the end there’s a young man with a clipboard. Military bearing. Bored. Commissionaire’s uniform is that? A flunky of some sort, anyway. He’s been sent out by a London club — the Army and Navy? — to scoop up some doddery old duffer and steer him safely to St James’s.’

And, after a moment: ‘They all seem to have come to collect someone in particular. I can’t say any one of them strikes me as a vulture, Stan.’

‘Not vulture. No, I got that wrong. Those birds hang about in noisy mobs, don’t they? What we’ve got circling today is one silent professional. A sparrowhawk.’ Stan shuddered and glowered at the crowd. ‘That’s what they call them. Miss, you ought to watch out for the-’

His words were cut off by the screech of the approaching train’s whistle, the swoosh of steam and the protest of huge wheels grinding to a halt. Doors slammed, greetings were called out, passengers jumped down from the train. The platform ticket holders surged forward hallooing with varying degrees of eagerness, claiming their people.

Lily ticked them off in her head as they made contact. ‘Well, I got three out of five right, Stan,’ she muttered.

The two maids were suddenly three — peas in a pod, twittering with excitement.

A podgy seven-year-old squealed in delight at the sight of his bicycle and shook off the attentions of his mother and his nanny.

A heavily moustached survivor of some ancient war was helped out of a first-class compartment by two porters. He placed himself with a harrumph of greeting into the hands of the flunky with the clipboard.

But she’d been wrong about the dark-haired ‘valet’. To Lily’s surprise, an elegant young lady teetered up on high heels and flung herself into his arms, instantly elevating him from a role of subservience into a matinee idol. Lily watched their embrace for a moment, enthralled, with a mixture of wonder and envy.

The young man in spats, scanning the platform anxiously, had yet to make contact.

It was Stan who spotted them first.

He pointed and mimed a message above the din. Two children were getting hesitantly out of a third-class carriage. The older one, a girl of about eleven with badly plaited pigtails hanging down her back, turned and helped her brother to jump down on to the platform. Lily noticed, with a stab of pity, that the girl was smiling, trying to make a game of it for the little boy. The pair stood for a moment, reeling back from the assault of the noise, sniffing the warm sooty air like wild creatures. They were poorly dressed: the girl was wearing a grey cardigan with holes in the elbows over a drooping cotton frock, while the boy’s clothes were a size too big for him. Their shoes were fastened with baler twine and worn down to nothing at the heels. They were both very skinny. They were also by themselves.

Lily watched as they tried with a pathetic sense of duty to slam shut the heavy door behind them and failed to move it. They gave up, looked about them to see if their shortcoming had been noted and braced themselves to face a new and probably hostile world. Hand in hand, they stood, each clutching a small parcel done up with string.

They began to shuffle forward with the crowd and the girl suddenly pointed, seeing the sign for the exit and mouthing the word. They moved towards it.

The Sparrowhawk was watching them as closely as Lily. He let them take a dozen paces from the train, checking that no adult was following on behind.

Satisfied that they were alone, he made his move.

He strolled over and spoke to them, doffed his boater to the little girl and bent down to their level, his face wreathed in pleasant smiles. The poodle, trained in its responses, Lily was quite certain, licked the children’s hands and fussed about, wagging its stumpy tail.

Their new friend was in no hurry. He talked, he listened and he did a lot of laughing. He didn’t make the mistake of alarming them by offering to take their precious parcels from them. Finally, he handed the dog’s lead to the little girl and himself took the boy by one hand, his flowers still clutched in the other. A charming group, they set off for the exit.

Clumsy with excitement and dread, Stan grabbed his crutch and came round from behind his stall, growling a warning. ‘There they go. Never seen that one before but he’s a wrong ’un if ever I saw one. A real professional. Are you going to do something? Where’s that useless nincompoop of a police constable?’

He started to hobble forward himself but Lily grabbed his arm and held him back. ‘No! Wait! We have to let them get as far as the barrier. Otherwise, he’ll get off with some excuse about escorting them to the lavatory or the refreshment room. Rules, Stan! Stay back!’

She padded quietly after the little group, allowing them to move along four paces ahead of her. They passed the lavatory. They passed the refreshment room. In his total confidence the Hawk didn’t bother to look back. With a display of a jolly young uncle’s concern, he checked that the children had their tickets in hand to present at the barrier.

When he was a few yards from the exit and clearly committed to leaving, Lily launched her attack. She dashed forward, scattering the children and the dog, and hurled herself at the man’s knees from behind, turning her head to avoid his thrashing heels. He crashed on to his front, flowers flying everywhere, banging his chin on the paved floor.

‘What the hell!’ he roared.

‘Police! You’re under arrest!’ Lily shouted, and before he could struggle free she threw herself down firmly, bottom first, on the man’s neck. She took her police whistle from her tunic and gave three blasts. Where was PC Halliday? With no powers of arrest herself, she could do little without Halliday’s authority. His curses smothered by voluminous layers of Harrod’s tailoring, her prisoner was writhing like a spade-sliced worm. His body bucked strongly, all his senses alert now, muscles working to shift the incapacitating weight without breaking his own neck.

‘Halliday!’ More blasts of the whistle sent the crowd hurrying off in all directions in their eagerness not to become involved in police business.

She heard Stan scream a warning as he lurched forward: ‘Watch it! Knife!’

There was a gleam of metal as the man reached behind and pulled a flick knife from his back pocket. His right thumb worked the switch and an evil length of steel shot out, with the swift flicker of a snake’s tongue.

The sudden descent of a polished half-brogue Oxford on to the man’s knife hand produced a muffled scream. A second application of a leather heel with thirteen stone of well-muscled Englishman behind it elicited more yells and oaths. The crushed fingers spread, their grasp on the knife broken.

Lily’s eyes followed the immaculate shoe upwards along an elegantly trousered leg to a dark tweed Norfolk jacket. A hand reached down holding a handkerchief and the knife was taken up delicately by the tip of the blade.

‘You’ll be wanting to preserve the prints in evidence, officer,’ suggested a voice whose assurance echoed the quality of the tailoring. ‘This weapon may well have been used in previous crimes.’ The stranger laid the knife at her feet and straightened. Lily noticed that he kept his brogue firmly on the Sparrowhawk’s hand.

She was aware of a hatless head of well-barbered black hair, a brown face, clean shaven and confident to the point of unconcern. With an outpouring of relief she began to gabble her thanks. ‘Oh, well done, sir! Lucky for us you were passing. Always a member of the public ready to come up in support, thank God,’ she heard herself say. ‘The Commissioner should hear of this.’

‘I’m sure he will, Miss … er, Officer 1555. One way or another.’ He seemed amused. ‘Ah! And here, a little late, and buttoning up his unmentionables, comes your valiant escort. Let’s hope he has at least remembered his handcuffs.’

The stranger’s voice took on a military tone as Halliday panted up. ‘Constable! Glad you could join us. You nearly missed the party. Arrest this recumbent person on a charge of attempted kidnap of minors, intent to wound a female officer of the law, uttering obscenities in a public place and littering the environs of the station. And anything else that occurs to you.’

He stepped aside and retrieved an untrampled white rose stem from the floor, broke off the bloom and stuck it with a flourish into the band of Lily’s hat, which had remained firmly in place throughout the proceedings. ‘Oh, and let’s be sure not to forget proxenetism,’ he added. ‘I’m sure a little research will confirm: proxenetism. Cuff the villain and take him to the local nick. You may give my name as a witness of events.’

‘Sir! Yes, sir!’ Halliday grunted, hauling the prisoner’s arms behind his back and clicking on the cuffs. ‘At once, sir!’

‘Dash it. I may have missed my train,’ grumbled the military man and, snapping off a gracious salute to Lily, he picked up his overcoat and briefcase and marched off at the double. Lily watched him go, mortified that she hadn’t thought to return his salute. Still, with her right hand firmly entangled in the Hawk’s greasy hair in the prescribed controlling hold, the other clutching her whistle, perhaps the gentleman wouldn’t have expected it.

Halliday turned his attention to Lily. ‘Proxy what was that?’ he said. ‘What was he on about?’

‘He meant procuring. Getting hold of young children and exploiting them for felonious purposes. It’s from the Latin word for pimping. We’ve collared ourselves a predator, Halliday. A sparrowhawk. But that chap — the country gent with the nifty footwork and the nice smile — what did he say? Use his name? I didn’t hear him give one. Should we-’

‘He doesn’t need to give it. Everybody knows him! Commander Have-a-go-Joe Sandilands,’ Halliday groaned. ‘That’s who you were showing off for. Interfering sod! Nice smile? Huh! And you’re trying to tell me you didn’t know him? Pull the other one!’

‘No, honest, Halliday, I didn’t.’

‘Well, you can get up now, 1555 — the prisoner can’t breathe. And your audience has slung its hook. Take that silly bloody flower out of your hat! What do you think you look like? Gawd! I was only in the gents for a minute,’ he protested. ‘He got my number. I saw him looking. That’s my police career over.’ He glowered at Lily. ‘But I’ll tell you something, Miss Showoff, if I go down, I’ll take you with me. There’s things they ought to know about you.’

Lily wasn’t going to allow his threats to dampen her triumph. ‘He got my number too,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that was a man who misses much. But first things first — never mind this villain …’ She gave one last triumphant bounce on the Hawk’s head before she struggled to her feet. ‘And never mind the commander. Where are those children?’

‘It’s all right, I’ve got ’em safe,’ said Stan, appearing with a child firmly in each hand. ‘While the PC’s organizing that piece of filth’s accommodation I’ll just give these two nippers a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich. They look as though they haven’t eaten for a week.’ And, turning to the wide-eyed pair: ‘Welcome to London, kids. I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Come along o’ me and this lady policeman. Naw — don’t you fret about the dog. We’ll see he’s all right. You’re all going to be all right.’

Chapter Four

September 1922

In the warm intimacy of the rear seat of a London cab, Admiral Lord Dedham stretched out his long legs and adjusted the scabbard of his dress sword so as to be sure not to snag the trailing chiffon gown of the woman by his side. It had been a long, hot evening filled with far too many blood-stirring speeches — the most incendiary of them coming from his own lips, he readily admitted. He’d received a standing ovation and that sort of thing always went to the head however tight one’s grip on reality; he’d taken on board too much adulation and too many drinks for comfort. He was longing for the moment, soon approaching, when he could relieve his chest of its cargo of medals and slip out of his much-bedecked dress uniform.

But until that blissful moment arrived, he was more than content with the present one. Even at his time of life — which he thought of as ‘vigorous middle age’ — the admiral still found that the capsule of darkness to be found in the back of a taxi, lightly scented with gardenia, good cigars and leather, sliding secretly through the roistering crowds of central London, had its enlivening effect. It had been even more invigorating in the swaying hansom cabs of his youth but his ageing bones could never regret all that bouncing about over cobbles. He reached out and seized the white-gloved hand left invitingly close to his on the banquette and lifted it to his lips with practised gallantry, a wary eye on the driver.

The observant cabby’s eyes gleamed in the rear-viewing mirror, his shoulders shook perceptibly and he launched into a cheery offering from Chu Chin Chow.

Lord Dedham had seen the musical extravaganza three times. It was his favourite musical comedy. He recognized the sumptuously romantic duet ‘Any Time’s Kissing Time’.

Cheeky blighter, Dedham thought, with an indulgent grin. Typical London cabby. Ought to be keeping his eyes on the road, not spying on his passengers. He wondered if his companion would take offence. Many women would.

His companion responded to the effrontery by leaning mischievously towards the admiral and biting his ear, her aim, in the dark, surprisingly sure. Then she joined in with the song, timing her entrance perfectly, weaving her clear soprano voice into the chorus to sing along with the cabby.

‘Nearly there, my love,’ growled Dedham. ‘Did you ask Peterson to wait up?’

‘As though he’d agree to do otherwise, Oliver! He’ll be there waiting with your eggnog at the ready. But I dismissed your valet. I’ll help you out of that clanking regalia myself.’ And, as though the promise of eggnog and wifely ministrations was not enough to stiffen the sinews, she squeezed his arm as they turned from the hurly-burly of Buckingham Palace Road into the quiet opulence of the streets approaching Melton Square. ‘Oh, it’s so good to have you home again, darling, and I shall go on saying that until you beg me to stop. And when we arrive, you will remember to do as Joe told you, won’t you?’

‘Dash it all, Cassandra, we’re in Belgravia not Belfast!’ he objected.

Lady Dedham quelled her husband’s predictable splutterings by her usual method of putting a finger firmly over his mouth. ‘And thank God for that! But your young friend at the Yard is worth hearing. It’s a very simple arrangement. It makes complete sense. We must prepare ourselves to observe this routine until all the unpleasantness blows over or you and that fire-eater Churchill stop making sabre-rattling speeches, darling, whichever is the sooner. Yo u it was who insisted on dismissing the police protection squad Joe kindly set up for you, and now you must perform your part of the bargain.’

‘Protection squad!’ The admiral spat out his derision.

‘He didn’t have to do that, you know — over and above his duty. You’re an ungrateful piggy-wig, Oliver. You listen to no one. I can’t think why you objected. Those Branch men he sent round were terribly discreet … really, you’d no idea they were there. And the young one was incredibly handsome! I was so enjoying having him about the place. He cheered us all up.’ She weathered his splutter of outrage and sailed on. ‘But you agreed to the commander’s alternative proposals and I for one shall hold you to your promise. I have a part too, you know, and I fully intend to play it. I expect nothing less from you. Now — tell the driver what you want him to do. And don’t cut it short — I shall be listening!’

The taxi pulled up in front of a late Georgian house on the northern side of the park-like boulevard that was Melton Square. Heavily porticoed balconies and densely planted patches of garden gave these houses an air of discreet dignity. Dedham looked about him with satisfaction at the solid grandeur, the sedate Englishness, the well-lit pavements, of what he considered to be the heart of London. Nothing truly stirring had happened, in public at least, here in the Five Fields since the Earl of Harrington’s cook had been set upon and beaten to death by highwaymen a century before. Since the arrival of the gas-lamps, the only crimes hereabouts were committed behind closed doors by the inhabitants themselves and went unrecorded unless, chiming with the spirit of the times, they gave rise to an ennoblement of some sort for the perpetrator. There were more rich, influential villains per square yard here in this genteel quarter than in Westminster, the admiral always reckoned.

He frowned to see one of these approaching. A gent in evening dress, opera cape about his shoulders, top hat at a louche angle over his forehead, was weaving his way uncertainly along the pavement.

‘I say, Cassie.’ He drew his wife’s attention to the staggering figure. ‘Who’s this? Do we know him? He looks familiar.’

‘He is familiar! Look away at once, Oliver!’ Cassandra put up a hand, seized his chin and turned his head from the window. ‘I forget you scarcely know your own neighbours. But that’s ghastly old Chepstow. Drunk as a lord again!’

‘If that’s Chepstow he is a lord,’ objected Dedham, trying to turn for a better view. ‘He’s entitled, you might say.’

‘It’s no joke, Oliver! Stay still and give him time to move off. He’ll recognize you. And you’re the one man in London everyone — drunk or sober — wants to talk to and shake hands with. You really have no idea, have you? You’re twice a hero now, you know. He’d expect to be invited in for a nightcap. Darling, you’ve been away from me for six months! I’ve no intention of sharing you with any old toper.’ She pulled his head down into an enthusiastic kiss. ‘Ah … there he goes … Now, Oliver — the cabby’s waiting. Get on with the briefing.’

The driver had been grinning in understanding throughout the conversation. He seemed to have a sense of humour and Dedham prepared himself for a sarcastic response to the guff he was about to spout. However, the man accepted his fare and the generous tip he usually enjoyed from the denizens of these fifteen square acres and listened, head tilted in an attitude of exaggerated attention, to the request that came with it. He nodded when the briefing was over and returned a simple ‘Understood, sir’ in response to the crisp naval tones.

As instructed, he hooted twice and waited for thirty seconds before winking his headlights three times. He even managed to keep a straight face throughout the proceedings. ‘There we are, sir. Signal acknowledged. Light’s come on in the vestibule,’ he said, enjoying the game. ‘And the front door’s opening. Here we go! Time for the lady to make her sortie.’

With a snort of amusement Lord Dedham understood that the man had been listening as his wife rehearsed him in his exit tactics.

‘Road’s clear and well lit, sir, no suspicious persons or obstacles in sight, but I’ll get out, take a quick recce and then launch the lady.’ The driver had suddenly about him the briskness and wariness of an old soldier. ‘Just in case. You never know who’s lurking in the shrubbery these days.’

He got out and walked up the path, peering into the bushes. He kicked out at an innocent laurel or two before returning to the rear of his motor to open up for Lady Dedham.

‘Fire Torpedo One!’ she said with a grin for the cabby and, clutching her evening bag tightly in her right hand, she walked off quickly towards the front door the butler was holding wide in welcome. She turned on the doorstep and gave a merry wave.

Before the driver could fire his second charge, a slight form dashed across the street and accosted him. ‘A taxi! What luck. In fact, the first stroke of luck I’ve had tonight. Park Lane please, cabby. Pink’s Hotel — do you know it? And fast if you wouldn’t mind.’ The stranger fiddled around, tugging open with nervous fingers the velvet evening bag she carried dangling from one wrist. She exclaimed with frustration as a handful of coins fell clinking to the ground, and her thanks to the cabby, who scrambled on his knees to retrieve them in the dark, were embarrassed and voluble. Her discomfort increased when she caught sight of Lord Dedham’s legs reaching for the pavement. ‘Oh, frightfully sorry! Cabby — you already have a fare?’

‘Don’t worry, miss!’ Dedham’s reassuring voice boomed out. ‘Leaving, not entering. It takes a while to get my two old legs working in concert. You may drive straight on, cabby. As soon as I’ve disembarked my old carcass.’

‘But you told me just now to wait until-’

Lord Dedham cut him off. ‘Nonsense! The lady’s in a hurry. Take her where she wants to go.’

He accepted an arm in support from the grateful young girl and struggled out, shaking down his uniform and straightening his sword. Very pretty, he thought, with a sideways glance at the slender figure under its satin evening coat and the pure profile set off by the head-hugging feathered hat. He wondered with amused speculation from which of his well-to-do neighbours she could be running away. Not a difficult question: it must be that bounder Ingleby Mountfitchet at number 39. She’d appeared from that direction and was casting anxious glances back towards his house. Dedham followed her gaze with chivalrous challenge. It wouldn’t be the first time a girl had fled screeching in the night from that cad’s clutches. If rumour was right he’d been kicked out of his regiment. And it would seem that in civvie street his conduct continued to be unbecoming of a gentleman. High time someone took him by the scruff of his scrawny neck and told him that sort of behaviour would not be tolerated in this part of town. Dedham resolved that neighbourly questions would be asked. By him. In the morning.

He walked the few yards to his door, smiling, eager to share his piece of salty gossip with his wife.

He reached the doorstep and greeted his butler with an affectionate bellow. ‘There you are, Peterson. All’s well with us, you see. We’ve survived the evening. Though it was touch and go at one point — her ladyship nearly died of boredom. During one of my own speeches!’ The expected joking sally was the last intelligible pronouncement the admiral uttered.

Two dark-clad figures crept from the laurel bushes. One called out the admiral’s name. When he spun round, identifying himself, they took up position with professional stealth, a man on each side of the doorstep. Both men fired at the same time.

‘Service Webleys,’ the admiral had time to note before, caught in the cross-fire, he was struck by two bullets in the chest.

An onlooker would have concluded, from the victim’s reaction, that the shots had missed their target. Oblivious of his wounds, he strode back outside with a roar of outrage and drew his sword from its scabbard.

The man who had commanded the fire-power of a dozen twelve-inch guns and a crew of seven hundred aboard a battlecruiser in the North Sea now found himself fighting for his life with a dress sword, alone on his own doorstep, but he laid about him with no less relish, attacking by instinct first the larger, more menacing of the pair. He caught him a slicing blow to the cheek. A combat sword in fine fettle would have split the man’s face in two, but, despite the blunt edge, the admiral was encouraged to see he’d drawn blood. Delighted by the howl of pain he’d provoked, he went for the smaller man, chopping at his gun hand.

A third bullet hit Dedham in the heart.

His sword clattered to the paving and he folded at the knees, collapsing sideways into the arms of his wife. Unconcerned for her own safety, Cassandra had run back to her husband and knelt by his side, supporting him with her left arm. He opened his lips to whisper ‘Kiss me, Cassie’ as he’d often joked that he would in a playful tribute to his hero, Lord Nelson, should he be laid low and preparing for death. But no words would come. He couldn’t seem to draw breath. And Cassandra’s attention was elsewhere. With a croak of astonishment, the admiral blinked to see his wife freeing her right hand from her bag. Unaccountably, the hand he’d so recently fondled in the taxi now held a small pistol which she fired off, shot after purposeful shot, at the fleeing pair. Her scream of encouragement to the butler rang in his ears: ‘After them! Stop the ruffian scum, Peterson!’

Lord Dedham smiled admiringly up at her and his eyes closed on the sight of his wife taking careful aim down the barrel of her Beretta.

The two gunmen raced to the taxi, firing backwards over their shoulders at Peterson who chased after them armed with nothing but fury and his bare hands. They bundled themselves into the back seat next to the shrieking woman in the feathered hat. Unsurprisingly, she rapidly made space for them and their guns on the back seat.

Hit in the shoulder and leg and bleeding on to the pavement, the butler raised his head and watched as the motor erupted into a three-point turn. In his agitation, the driver seemed to clash his gears and the car ground to a juddering halt, its rear licence plate clearly in view in the light of the lamp. Peterson focused, stared and repeated the number to himself.

In the distance a police whistle sounded and the boots of the beat bobby pounded along the pavement. Peterson called out faintly.

At last, the taxi screeched off with a great deal of revving but little forward momentum.

The turbulence in the back seat threw up a stink of sweat, the iron odour of blood and a reek of cordite. This noxious cocktail was accompanied by a gabbling argument in a language the driver could not understand. But rage soon expressed itself in plain English. ‘Stop farting about, you bastard! Drive!’ the larger of the two men snarled. ‘To Paddington station. Fast. Miss one more gear and you get it in the neck yourself. Like this.’ He pulled back his gun to point it ahead through the open window at the beat bobby who had placed himself squarely in the road in front of the taxi, one hand holding a whistle to his mouth, the other raised in the traffic-stopping gesture. This calm Colossus held his position as the taxi came on, impregnable in his authority.

Two shots sent the imposing figure crashing on to the road.

The cabby swerved violently and deftly mounted the pavement to avoid running over the body.

‘Leave it to me, sir,’ he said, apparently unperturbed by the hot gun-barrel now boring into his flesh. ‘I know these streets like the back of my hand. We’ll go the quickest way.’ And, light but reassuring: ‘Don’t you worry, sir — I’ll get you to the station all right.’

Chapter Five

Joe looked up from his notes and ran a hand over his bristly chin. He blinked and focused wearily on his secretary across the desk. ‘Who did you say, Jameson? Constable Wentworth? Oh, Lord! My nine o’clock interview. Didn’t I say she was to be intercepted and her appointment deferred?’

‘Well, she’s sitting out there now in the corridor, sir, large as life. I’ve no idea how she managed to sneak past them at Reception. I did tell them.’ Miss Jameson dabbed at her eyes with a damp handkerchief. ‘Today of all days!’ She gulped and sniffed in distress. ‘We’ve got quite enough on our plate. She’s only been summoned to hear her dismissal. I’ll tell her to go away and come back later. A week here or there can’t signify.’

‘No. Wait a moment.’ He pulled towards him a file bearing the constable’s name and number. It also sported an ominous red tag.

Discharge.

Notice of termination of employment with His Majesty’s Metropolitan Police. Announcing that an officer was surplus to requirements was always a difficult duty when not deserved and, as far as Joe was aware, none of the women did deserve dismissal. Mostly, they left with relief to get married or because their ankles swelled. When the austerity cuts demanded it, he had chosen to break the news to the men himself, rather than expose them to the abrupt, acerbic style of the Assistant Commissioner whose job it normally was, but had left the women to be dealt with by a high-ranking female officer like his cousin Margery Stewart, better acquainted with the subject and better equipped by nature with a comforting shoulder to cry on.

The young woman waiting outside was a special case, however. And time was running short.

The decisions arrived at in last month’s Gratton Court conference Joe now saw had been right and timely. With a grim irony, it had been Admiral Dedham himself who had argued against them and, outvoted at the time, had immediately set about dismantling the sensible schemes. After last night’s tragedy, it fell now to Joe to reinvigorate the plans without delay, before worse occurred. Before much worse occurred. His deadline was a week on Saturday. Not long enough.

‘Bring her in, Miss Jameson. I do need to see her. Might as well get it over and done with.’

While Miss Jameson’s back was turned, he slipped the red marker off the file, considered throwing it away in the bin, then put it in his pocket. The outcome of this interview was by no means certain. And, whatever the result, he had an unpleasant task ahead of him, a task imposed upon him by a pincer movement from above. At Gratton he’d found the courage to make his views clear and they’d heard him out but in the end, as the youngest and least experienced of the assembled strategists, he’d been overruled. Politely, he’d been made aware that his role was one of … what had Churchill said? … implementation, not grand design.

‘Cat’s paw.’ Lydia had it right, as ever. If all went well, they would take the credit. If disaster followed, Sandilands would carry the can.

Joe screwed his eyes closed and conjured up without too much difficulty the face that went with the number on the file. It had made quite an impression on him. The station platform. Smoke and noise. And in the middle of the mêlée, a pretty girl grinning in triumph. Under her bottom one of the West End’s nastiest specimens and in her hat a jaunty rose. Joe smiled as he remembered the scene. He recalled watching the tiger-like silence of the stalk, the swift pounce, the fearless attack. He hadn’t forgotten the eager rush of gratitude for his intervention, delivered in an attractive, low voice. The constable could well be the best England had to offer in the way of womanhood, he thought with a rush of sentimental pride.