David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

‘So you think they were decoys, despatched to put you off the scent?’

‘Absolutely correct, Lord Powerscourt.’ Knox went over to his window and pulled it firmly shut. ‘You remember Wellington before Waterloo, wondering which direction Napoleon’s armies were going to come from? He thought the Corsican would go round his flank to try to cut him off from the sea. But he didn’t, he drove straight between Wellington and Blucher’s armies. When he found out the truth at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball in Brussels, that Napoleon hadn’t taken the expected direction, Wellington said, “Napoleon has humbugged me.” I too feel as if I’ve been humbugged. Humbugged by Michael Byrne.’

‘Wellington won in the end, though, didn’t he,’ said Powerscourt, smiling. He looked at a large print on the wall of Queen Victoria’s previous Jubilee ten years before. Loyal crowds filled the streets. Garlands and banners hung above the route, festooned across lampposts or strung between the buildings. In a carriage a small figure rode in glory through her streets. Powerscourt stared at the windows overlooking the route. Was one of them going to contain an assassin, lurking behind the curtains until it was time to strike and a German rifle, the most deadly, the most accurate in the world, rang out to shatter the climax of an Empress’s reign?

‘The rifles,’ he said suddenly. ‘Did they take the rifles and leave the coffin in the grave, or did they move the coffin with the rifles inside?’

‘They moved the whole bloody coffin,’ Knox replied, ‘there are only two coffins there now. Do you think that is important, my lord?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Powerscourt. His mind was racing. ‘I have always wondered why they put the rifles in those coffins, you know. At first sight, it looks as though it was a convenient way of hiding them. They could be buried in innocent Irish graves in the middle of the night, disturbing the dead, no doubt, but an excellent hiding place. But suppose that wasn’t the only reason. Suppose there was another reason.’

Powerscourt paused. Dominic Knox said nothing. The silence lasted for twenty seconds or more, faint sounds of merriment forcing their way in through the window from the park outside. Another fly had begun a long march across Knox’s papers.

‘Suppose the real reason for the coffins was this,’ Powerscourt went on. ‘You want to send some guns from Ireland to England. You know the police and security people are watching everything and searching people and premises they suspect. Think how different it is with a coffin. Here we have an English visitor to Ireland, maybe an Irishman who had come to work in London and goes back to see his family. Let’s call him Seamus Docherty. The unfortunate man falls ill in Ireland. He cannot be saved. He passes away. But it is the dearest wish of the Docherty family back in London that father Seamus, husband Seamus, be buried by their local priest in their local church and buried in their local cemetery where they can lay flowers on his grave after Mass on Sundays. So the body of the dead Docherty is put in its coffin and sent over to London. It must happen all the time. Except there isn’t a Seamus Docherty, apart from on the name plate of the coffin. It contains four high quality Mausers, capable of killing man or woman at five hundred yards distance. The weight is presumably made up with bits of lead or some other heavy material so nobody would suspect there wasn’t a body inside.

‘What do you think of that, Mr Knox?’

‘I think it is very plausible, my lord.’ Knox did not look greatly encouraged by the news.

‘Think of it, man,’ said Powerscourt. ‘It may take a lot of manpower to find the answer. But there must be records of the transhipment of a dead body in a coffin. There may be records in Dublin of such a passage. If Seamus Docherty comes into London by train there will be records, manifests or something like that at Euston station, which will show where its final destination was. Once we find out that Father O’Flaherty of the Church of the Holy Cross performed the burial, we will know where the coffin is. If it came by sea, which I doubt, there must be records at the Port of London authority.’

Powerscourt paused. There was something Johnny Fitzgerald had said when he came home from Berlin, something that didn’t seem to make very much sense at the time. Hotels, something to do with hotels.

‘I believe,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that a hotel room was booked for the Jubilee by their German confederates a long time ago. Maybe eight months or more. That must be where the gunman is going to make his attempt, from the hotel. A room, or a suite of rooms overlooking the route of the procession reserved last year. Surely we can find that out. Even if time is very short, we still have several days left.’

Knox looked up and shook his head.

‘I said when you arrived, Lord Powerscourt, that there were two problems. One was the rifles. The other is politics.’

‘Politics?’ said Powerscourt. ‘For God’s sake, man, this is a Diamond Jubilee, not a general election!’

‘Let me explain myself better,’ said Knox. He went to stare out of his window. ‘I work for the Irish Office. Security for the parade is in the hands of a very stupid general called Arbuthnot. When I told him about the missing rifles, he went apoplectic, my lord. He turned into a sort of human earthquake, face a vivid red, eruptions of bad language, hot molten streams of invective pouring forth about my incompetence. He, in his turn, told the Home Secretary who has overall responsibility for security in the capital. There can be few things, Lord Powerscourt, more guaranteed to bring a promising political career to an ignominious and inglorious end, than somebody taking a shot, maybe even killing the Head of State at a Diamond Jubilee.’

‘Losing a war, perhaps, caught embezzling Treasury Funds,’ said Powerscourt flippantly.

Knox smiled ruefully. ‘The upshot of all this is that I have not been relieved from my post. But I have been relieved of my men. I had sixty operatives, many brought over from Dublin to work with me on this problem. They have all been taken away from me.’

‘Where have they gone?’ said Powerscourt.

‘The Home Secretary and General Arbuthnot have decided that my methods are not to be trusted. No doubt even now I am being trussed like some dead animal in their minds to be turned into the sacrifice or scapegoat if things go wrong. They have decided that the only way to meet this threat is to have policemen or security operatives watching every entrance that leads into the route of the parade. Where the bus leaves to go to Temple Bar, there you will find my men, or at the entrances of every station in London, waiting to apprehend any person carrying a large package.’

‘But what about the Prime Minister? What about Schomberg McDonnell?’ said Powerscourt.

‘The Prime Minister,’ said Dominic Knox, ‘has disappeared. He cannot be found. McDonnell has vanished with him. Perhaps they would feel it would be more politic if they were not in London at this time. But he placed great faith in you, my lord, the Prime Minister. He seemed to think you were some sort of miracle worker.’

Powerscourt contemplated walking on the water or raising the dead from their tombs. Not appropriate, that, just now, he said to himself. Maybe turning water into wine would gain him the eternal gratitude of Johnny Fitzgerald.

‘All right, Mr Knox,’ he said ‘tell me the worst. How many people have we got to make these inquiries?’

‘Five. Just five,’ Dominic Knox replied. ‘Myself, yourself, and three of my men I’ve managed to keep out of the clutches of that dreadful general.’

‘Six,’ said Powerscourt, thinking of the miracle at the wedding feast. ‘There’s Johnny Fitzgerald. I’m going to find him. He’s worth a regiment all on his own, two after a couple of glasses. We’re not beaten yet, Mr Knox, not by a long way.’