On the following afternoon Luke and Joe were in Mr Passmore’s bedroom, occupying a window seat each. They were equipped with binoculars and had a list of names which they referred to from time to time as they tried to fit them to the members of the little group outside the club door.
Luke read out, ‘Indruk Spiridov. Bulky. Bent nose. Ben Levin. Fat, Jewish cast of countenance, sometimes wears earrings. It’d be easier if they’d stand still. Alexei Krustov. Tall and thin, quite young.’
‘Yes, I think I’ve spotted Krustov,’ said Joe. ‘The one leaning against the door post. Must be all of six foot three. Could judge his height better if he’d stand up straight.’
‘Don Katakin. Red hair, worn in ringlets. Red sideburns. Bad teeth. Ivan Luwinski. Tubby and robust. Good pair of shoulders on him – might have been a professional wrestler.
‘David Heilmann. Straggling grey beard and moustache. Ears stick out. Prominent nose. It’d be easier to be sure if he’d be kind enough to turn round. Tallish.’
As though to oblige them the man did turn round. Certainly he had a beard and moustache. They were so luxuriant that it was difficult to be certain about the other points.
‘Stanislas Grax. Fair-haired. Young. There’s two or three match that description.’
‘Not much doubt about the head boy,’ said Joe.
Molacoff Weil had stationed himself in front of the door. No one could get in without coming directly under his scrutiny. ‘What a horrible man. Like a rhinoceros on springs.’
Luke noted that Wensley had been right. All tickets were being collected and put on one side. When the last man had gone in the reception committee followed and the doors were shut behind them.
That’s that,’ said Joe. ‘Time for a cigarette.’
Luke was busy with his weekly report, a serial document to which he added supplements as occasion offered. They had watched the platform trio go in. Julian Spencer-Wells demonstrating his bohemianism by the untidiness of his dress and the length of his hair; Michael Morrison wearing a red tie and a look of importance; and, between them, a tall, dark man who must have been Prince Igor.
‘Two characters we didn’t see,’ said Luke. ‘Treschau and Silistreau. Maybe they went in before we got here.’
‘Wrong,’ said Joe. ‘Here they come.’
The two Russians were strolling along the pavement towards the hall and had now reached the foot of the front steps. These ran up to the main entrance to the hall and were flanked by a deepish area on each side, guarded from pedestrians falling into it by an iron-spiked railing. Luke was wondering whether the two Russians were planning to go into the hall, when the front door opened and Molacoff Weil came out and bounced down the steps.
Joe was right, thought Luke. Heavy as a rhinoceros and active as a cat.
The three men stood for a moment at the foot of the steps, laughing at something the donnish-looking Treschau had said. At that moment they were spotted by a reporter. He had been barred from the hall, but saw a chance of an informal interview and came hurrying up. Before he had time to say anything, Weil had picked him up and tossed him clear over the iron railing. The Russians then turned about and walked back the way they had come, still laughing.
The reporter had started to scream. Luke wondered if they ought to go to his help, but there were other men already on the spot. They made their way down into the basement by a side gate and reappeared carrying the reporter carefully. One of his legs was dangling and was clearly broken.
‘You can put it in your report if you like,’ said Joe. ‘But the old man won’t do anything about it. He don’t love the Press.’
Wensley had recently been made the subject of a smear attack over his handling of the Clapham Common murder. Objections seemed to centre round the fact that he had taken four other police officers with him to arrest Steinie Morrison.
On the following Monday evening, Luke duly reported in at Leman Street. He and Joe had decided to deal with Superintendent Joscelyne’s tiresome instructions by putting in an appearance on alternate days. Luckily the Superintendent had not yet got round to organising anything, so Luke escaped. Next day Joe was not so lucky and had to spend Tuesday evening taking statements from a number of women who were possible witnesses in a case of intimidation and extortion.
‘They all told different stories,’ he said. ‘And were all lying their bloody heads off. If the case gets to court, the judge is in for a high old time.’
On the Wednesday, when Luke looked in, the desk sergeant handed him a letter addressed to him at Leman Street. It was postmarked Lavenham. Luke recognised Reverend Millbanke’s handwriting. The Rector wrote:
Your father asked me to let you know that Sir George Spencer- Wells died two days ago. He was not a national figure and his death may not have been reported in the London papers. I have been asked to write an obituary notice which will appear in the Ipswich Herald next week. The funeral will be at noon on Thursday in Bellingham Parish Church. It will no doubt be largely attended by Sir George’s family and friends. When he sees you, your father will explain why he thinks you should be there. I must add that I agree with him. If you show this letter to your superior officer I am sure he will not grudge you a couple of days’ leave.
The Superintendent’s reaction was predictable. He said, ‘You need not report back here until Friday evening. Tell Narrabone that he will have to stand in for you.’
‘Do your job and mine,’ said Joe. “And see to moving all our stuff down to Poplar. Roll on retirement.’
‘It must have been – let me see—’ Hezekiah counted off the days on his gnarled fingers. ‘Yes. All of two weeks ago. ‘Twas a stroke, so I heard. Seemed he was getting over it. Then, Monday just past, before he could get out of his bed in the morning, his heart gave way.’
Hezekiah said this without any particular feeling. Life and death meant little to the old man.
‘Maybe you can guess why I thought you should be here.’
‘Yes, I can guess,’ said Luke. ‘He paid for my Russian lessons, didn’t he? The part I couldn’t pay myself.’
‘He did so. More’n once, after you’d taken yourself off to London, he talked about you. He was sorry you weren’t to be a clergyman, but he weren’t sorry about you not being a schoolmaster. He thought that was no job for a man. No more did I.’
‘I’m glad you think that,’ said Luke, and yawned as he spoke. It had been a long day. He had caught the last evening train and his father had picked him up in his trap from Ipswich. It was now close to midnight.
‘Tomorrow morning you must have a word with Mrs Parham. Poor old soul. This will have upset her more than most. More than them uncles and aunts and cousins what’ve come flocking in, never having had a word to say to Sir George while he were alive.’
‘Yes. I’d planned to look in and see her,’ said Luke, and climbed up to his old bedroom, his mind afloat with memories.
After an early breakfast he made his way across the park to the back door of the hall. He smiled when he remembered that he had once been scared of the ghostly passage inside it. Since that time he had dealt with characters more dangerous than ghosts. Mrs Parham’s room was empty, but a maid was sent to fetch her. She came bustling in, kissed Luke warmly and said, ‘It was good of you to come, but oh dear, oh dear, I hardly know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels. Nine family and five guests, some of them I’d never heard of before. All expecting to be looked after and Parkes in bed with a bad stomach, trying to do too much, silly old man. And everyone coming to me for instructions. But thank the Lord for one thing. When Mr Oliver heard of his father’s first attack, he didn’t waste a minute. Came straight back from Cambridge without finishing his studies and he’s been here ever since, working like a Trojan. We couldn’t never have got through without him.’
‘And Julian?’
Mrs Parham produced a noise which, in a less dignified woman, might have been described as a snort.
‘Came down yesterday,’ she said. ‘Brought a friend with him. Some sort of furriner. As if we hadn’t enough people to look after.’
‘A foreigner,’ said Luke thoughtfully. ‘What was his name?’
‘I was sure I’d forget his name, so I wrote it down. And now, with all this bustle, I seem to have lost the paper. I was told as he was a poet.’
‘A well-known Russian poet,’ said Oliver, who had come in without knocking. ‘How are you, Luke?’
After a brief pause in which the two young men struggled to accommodate the changes of seven years, Oliver added, ‘Wasn’t it an extraordinary coincidence – but a very happy one – that when Lance Durrance made a fool of himself in London, the two policemen on hand should both have been from this village.’
As Mrs Parham started to say something, he added, ‘Sir Hector and his wife are both here. I’m sure he’d like to meet you and thank you. He’s really very grateful. Though I must admit that my first reaction was one of surprise.’
‘Oh, why?’
‘Numerous discourses which I have listened to, from my brother Julian, on the iniquity and unfairness of the possessing classes led me – perhaps wrongly – to think that you would hold similar opinions. Or have your experiences in the last few years changed your views?’
‘We don’t meet many of the possessing classes in Deptford. And, no. My views haven’t really changed.’
‘Then, if it’s not an impertinent question, why did you do it?’
‘The reason’s very simple. I’ve got excellent eyesight.’
‘Ah!’
‘I spotted you, as you and your friend ran off. Since I’d made up my mind to keep your name out of it, I could hardly see Lance Durrance put down.’
‘It crossed my mind that that might be the reason. So, it seems that I’m in your debt, too.’
‘Then forget it.’
‘No. I really am grateful. I’ll tell you why. It’s become obvious to me, during the last few days, that Julian is planning to slide out and I’m going to be the one who has to wear Father’s shoes. It would hardly have been a good start to my career as Squire of Bellingham if I’d been run in for brawling.’
Mrs Parham again tried to say something, but this time it was Luke who defeated her. He said, ‘Tell me, who is this Russian that Julian has brought down with him?’
‘He’s called Janis Silistreau and I’m told that he’s a well-known poet.’
‘In London he passes under the name of Ivan Morrowitz. He may have half a dozen other names as well. And he’s a very dangerous man.’
‘I see,’ said Oliver. ‘At least, I don’t see at all. But I imagine you know what you’re talking about. What do you want us to do about him?’
‘Nothing. But neither Silistreau nor anyone else must know that I’m here. I can answer for my father. And I’m sure that you’ll be discreet, Mrs P.’
Being introduced into the conversation, Mrs Parham was at last able to insert the question she had been trying to ask. She said, ‘You spoke about two policemen. Both from hereabouts. Who was the other one?’
‘Joe Narrabone.’
‘That it can’t be,’ said Mrs Parham. ‘He was a very bad boy. Why, if I ever heard of him again, I supposed it would be on a convict ship going to Australia.’
‘I think we’ve stopped sending bad boys to Australia,’ said Oliver gravely.
As he walked back to the cottage Luke was thinking how much he preferred the new Squire of Bellingham to the peevish boy he had known. He found that his father had already donned his Sunday suit, with a black band round one arm. He had a second band ready for his son.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Luke. ‘But something I’ve just heard means that I shan’t be able to attend the funeral service.’
With a wrinkling of his eyes which indicated that he was intrigued and pleased at the thought of secrecy, his father said, ‘What you heard must’ve bin uncommon serious if it’s to keep you out of church, after coming all this way along.’
Luke said, ‘Yes. It’s serious. Julian has brought down with him a man who mustn’t know that I’m here.’
‘He’d be a guest, like?’
‘Yes. He’s a guest.’
‘Then he’ll sit in the family pew. If you’re behind the crusader he’ll not see you.’
Luke knew the crusader well. As a boy he had passed the long hours of service speculating about the recumbent Lord Welles lying with his gauntleted hands clasped on his stomach and his ankles crossed. Certainly the monstrous edifice, out of all proportion to the little church, would hide him. It was tempting, but common sense prevailed. He said, ‘No. And I must get back to London before this man does. Could you find out if he’s going back today, and if so, what train he’s planning to catch?’
‘Whatever train it is, Jabez will be driving him. I’ll talk to him right away.’ The old man’s eyes were glinting at the thought of undercover enquiries for hidden ends. When he got back he said, ‘The trap’s booked for four o’clock, to catch the five o’clock train from Ipswich. If I run you to the station now I’ll be back in time for the service and you’ll be well ahead of this person. There’s a train at half past two. So you’ve time for a morsel of lunch before you go.’
The morsel proved to be the greater part of a cold pheasant, backed by potatoes baked in their skins and a pint mug of homebrewed ale. Luke fell asleep in the train, came briefly to life at Colchester and slept again until he reached King’s Cross. He got through to Wensley from the police call-box at the station, finding him, eventually, at his old office. It seemed that he was fluctuating between Poplar and Leman Street. He said, ‘Well done. I’ll send some men to cover the five o’clock train. We’d very much like to know where Silistreau’s holed up.’
The ground-floor flat in Gooseley Lane, which one of their compatriots had found for Treschau and Silistreau was convenient in a number of ways. It had a back garden which gave directly on to the East Ham recreation ground and this, in turn, on to the East Ham Level which, along with the Ripple Level and the Dagenham Marshes, bordered the north bank of the Thames. The fact of the river being within easy reach was a comfort to both of them. The night was cold and the fire which their new landlord had lit for them flamed cheerfully as Treschau inserted another lump of coal into the heart of the blaze.
‘I changed my mind at the last moment,’ said Silistreau. ‘Instead of taking the train from Ipswich, I asked my hosts if they would be good enough to drive me into Stowmarket. From there, with one change at Ely, I was able to catch an express on the Midland Line to St Pancras. I am afraid that the reception committee at King’s Cross had a long cold wait. They may be there still.’ He warmed his hands at the fire.
‘Rather a roundabout route,’ said Treschau. ‘I take it you had a reason.’
‘Of course.’
‘Which was?’
‘The reason was the presence in the village of a young man called Pagan. Luke Pagan. He is a policeman, stationed in this part of London, but he came originally from Bellingham.’
‘Then he had a reason for being there.’
‘Certainly. But no reason to take elaborate precautions to conceal his presence. He was lodged with his father, a close-mouthed Kulak, who was in church but said nothing about his son.’
‘You found that odd?’
‘Very odd. You would have imagined that the proud father would have had his son alongside, and talked about him to everyone who’d listen. But not so. And when I happened to mention the man to Sir George’s younger son he, too, affected to know nothing.’
‘If you didn’t see him and no one would talk about him, how did you know he was there?’
Silistreau smiled. It was a smile with a lot of ice in it. He said, ‘The young man made a mistake.’
‘Young men are apt to make mistakes,’ agreed Treschau. ‘What was this one?’
‘He spoke to one of the kitchen maids who recognised him and, naturally, mentioned it to everyone in the kitchen. What is news below stairs soon becomes news above stairs.’
‘I follow that,’ said Treschau. ‘What I cannot understand is why this young man should be so interested in you, and you in him.’
‘I am interested in him because he was in Newcastle when I arrived. He was hand in glove with the head of Port Security there. It is possible therefore – not certain, but quite possible – that he may have been shown the papers which were taken from me.’
‘Would he have understood them?’
‘Yes. He is a competent Russian speaker.’
There was a long pause, broken only when Treschau added a further piece of coal to the fire and the flames leaped up, glinting on his steel spectacles as he leaned forward.
He said, ‘Yes. That would be unfortunate.’
Although he had moved his base of operations to Poplar, Wensley had two reasons for maintaining contact with Leman Street. The first was that his laboriously compiled records, the fruit of his years of service in the East End, were filed there in heavy wooden cabinets, which would have been a labour to move and impossible to install in his new quarters at Poplar.
A second reason weighed with him even more heavily.
He had no desire to lose touch with Superintendent Joscelyne, who was his friend though his opposite in almost every respect. Wensley was a detective, who worked partly by instinct and rarely by the book. Joscelyne was a policeman, an excellent example of a regular officer, hidebound if you like, but totally dependable and uninfluenced by fear or favour. Working together they made a formidable pair.
When he arrived at Leman Street on the morning following a long, cold and fruitless wait at King’s Cross, Wensley was in no good temper. He found the Superintendent in a state of irritation bordering on outright fury.
‘We’ve got to do something about it,’ was his opening salvo. Wensley sat down without speaking and waited for the floodgates to open.
‘Last night,’ said Joscelyne, ‘or rather, in the early hours of this morning, a fire broke out in Osborne Street. You know it?’
‘Runs north from Whitechapel Road. Two of my men used to board there.’
‘Used to?’
‘I understand they were planning to get out some time this week. I advised them to come down to Poplar. I thought they’d be safer among a crowd of friendly sailors.’
‘And would the house they were using in Osborne Street have been, by any chance, number 15?’
‘I think it was. Yes. Why?’
‘Because that house was burned to the ground last night.’
‘Not accidentally, I assume.’
‘It could hardly have been more open and deliberate.’ The outrage in Joscelyne’s voice was clear. ‘When the brigade got there they found the owners of the house, a German Jew called Reuben and his wife, sitting on the pavement, unable to move, even though they were in some danger. They seemed to be paralysed, from fear or cold or both. In the end, when they had been lifted, almost bodily, and deposited in Whitechapel Hospital, they recovered enough to give some sort of account of what had happened. They occupy the ground floor, which is just a large kitchen, with a bedroom off it. The upper floors are usually let. At that moment, luckily, they were both empty. At about two in the morning they heard sounds of movement in the kitchen and came out to investigate. They found two men busy piling up tables and chairs against the door that led upstairs – which they’d bolted. The men were dressed in black, were masked and were completely terrifying. They gestured to the Reubens who cowered down on to a sofa and sat watching their household furniture being arranged as a bonfire. It seems that one of the most frightening things about the men was the unhurried and deliberate way they set about it all. Finally they soused the pile in some liquid they’d brought with them in a can – petrol, no doubt. When they were quite ready, they opened the street door, motioned to the Reubens to step outside, flung a lighted spill into the pile, closed the door and walked off up the street.’
Wensley listened impassively. Then he said, ‘So what do you make of it?’
‘Clearly they were after your two men. If they’d been upstairs asleep, they’d have been roasted.’
‘Yes. It’s lucky they’d moved.’
‘And I’ll tell you another piece of luck we had. Which was that none of our men were in or near Osborne Street at the time. As you know, they patrol in pairs. If they’d looked into the house whilst this was going on the likely result is that we should now have been two good men short.’
‘I thought that was what you meant,’ said Wensley.
In the silence that followed he and Joscelyne looked at each other. Neither of them seemed inclined to pursue a discussion that had proved sterile. Finally, as though he was answering the first comment that Joscelyne had made, he said, ‘There’s only one thing we can do. You know it and I know it – we’ve got to arm our men.’
‘And give them full permission to use those arms?’
‘Certainly. If they are faced by men who are themselves armed.’
‘Or men who they have a reasonable suspicion to think would be armed.’
Wensley thought about this and said, ‘It isn’t easy. But if I was giving them their instructions I’d keep it simple. I’d say, ‘If they shoot at you, you can shoot back.’
‘With a bullet already in you.’
‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate the difficulty,’ said Wensley. ‘In any event we’re talking about a situation that won’t arise whilst we’ve got our present Home Secretary.’
‘If someone would shoot at him, or blow his office up, he might be frightened into changing his mind.’
‘No,’ said Wensley. ‘Though he’s obstinate as a buffalo.’
‘And maddening,’ said Joscelyne, ‘as my grandmother who could never make her mind up whether she’d dropped a stitch in her knitting or not and used to unravel the whole piece to find out.’
Wensley grinned at this graphic description of the political mind at work. He said, ‘All right. Obstinate and maddening. I’ll grant you both of those. But there’s nothing in Winston’s early history to suggest he lacks courage. Rather the reverse. He seems to have invited danger, scampering around in the North-West Frontier, and insisting on joining in the fight against the dervishes when no one really wanted him. He seems to enjoy being anywhere where bullets are flying round.’
‘Which no doubt accounts,’ said Joscelyne gloomily, ‘for him turning up to get a front-seat view of the Sidney Street business. It attracted a lot of criticism in Parliament – which he seems to have minded as little as the bullets.’
‘Right,’ said Wensley. ‘That’s the Home Secretary we’ve got. And we can’t authorise the use of firearms without his consent. It’s a political decision. But – that doesn’t mean that the politicians have any say in the training of our men. You agree?’
‘Certainly not. Training’s our job.’
‘Very well. Is there any reason we shouldn’t pick the men we’d like to arm – say, two squads of twelve or fifteen men under a reliable sergeant – and put them through a course of weapon-training at Woolwich or the Tower?’
‘That’s certainly an idea,’ said Joscelyne.
‘The men will have to come from the uniform branch, you understand. We don’t want detectives going round with guns in their pockets. You’re not overstaffed. Are you going to be able to find that number of men?’
‘Not from “H” alone. But I’m sure “J” and “K” will co-operate when it’s put to them. And I’ll tell you something else. When I’m picking the squads I’ll choose as many men as I can get from the ones who were involved in the Sidney Street job.’
‘You mean they’d be happy to get their own back?’
‘No. For another reason altogether. I think that most of the men who were there would have liked to rush the house, regardless of the risk involved. They weren’t allowed to. Result, a lot of people, including those mean-minded characters who write to the papers, have started hinting that they were scared – and they can’t answer back. That’s not good for morale.’