James Benn - Rag and Bone

“I know one person on your payroll is a murderer, Mr. Brown. Edward Miller, late of the Rubens Hotel, was killed by Sheila Carlson. Nice combination of poison and bayonet.”

“Gruesome,” Philby said. “The other chap, the one with the Polish name, he’s alive?”

“Alive and back in London, ready to speak his mind.” I watched the three of them. Brown and Cosgrove exchanged glances, while Philby wrapped a smile around his pipe stem.

“It sounds like a domestic issue,” Brown said. “More suited to Scotland Yard than MI5. Have you talked to them, Lieutenant Boyle?”

“Yes. They’re on their way to pick up Miss Carlson right now. I imagine she’ll sing quite a tune in exchange for escaping the gallows.” It was a bluff, but you never know. I waited for a reaction, but got nothing. Cosgrove was quiet, and looked away from me, more interested in the carpet than the conversation. Strange, because he and I never got along, neither of us passing up the opportunity to show disdain for the other. He should have been lambasting me for what I was accusing him of. Instead, nothing. It had to be Brown. He was probably higher up than Cosgrove. I’d figured him for a heavy, but he was more than he appeared. Maybe he and Cosgrove didn’t see eye to eye.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Brown said. He spoke with a certainty that couldn’t be faked. It was the finality of the grave. “About her singing a tune, that is. But you’re right about the gallows, she won’t come to that end.”

“She’s dead?”

“Unfortunate,” Brown said. “She got off the train at Slough. Last night, unfamiliar with the town, and with the blackout in effect, she walked in front of a truck.”

“And how do you know all this? Last I saw you and your pal Wilson, you had a flat to fix.”

“It’s our business to know things, Lieutenant Boyle. We had people watching the trains, of course.”

I began to see how everything fit. “You got what you were after on Penford Street when you asked Sheila if she knew where Radecki was, because you both knew he was going to visit Tadeusz. You just didn’t know where he was.”

“Really?”

“And when she told you she didn’t know, her usefulness was at an end, and she’d become a liability. There was nothing she could do except implicate you. So you had people out looking for her, in case you missed her at Eddie’s place.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Lieutenant,” Brown said. “And I should have you brought up on charges for shooting up my vehicle.”

“You shot at his car?” Philby said, more shocked at that than double-crossing murderers.

“One tire, that’s all.”

“Imagination and initiative,” Philby said. “We could use you over at MI6. Perhaps an American with the Special Operations Executive would stir things up a bit.”

“You run the SOE?” I asked, wondering what their meeting here was all about.

“Part of it, you might say. Never mind about that, Boyle, just idle conjecture. Probably best for you if you leave now,” Philby said, blowing a stream of smoke as he spoke.

“Why?”

“Because I need to talk to these gentlemen about the Germans. Our actual enemies, you may recall. And I need to convince your Mr. Brown, as you know him, not to have you walk in front of a truck tonight. Best be careful, Boyle. Things are not always as they seem.”

“As the head of Section Five well knows,” said Brown, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on Cosgrove, daring him to speak. “Right, Charles?”

“Sometimes, they are worse than they seem,” Cosgrove said, bringing his gaze up from the carpet. “Worse than one can imagine.”

I left. I walked down the staircase, wondering what other strange conversations were taking place in the rooms I passed by, what death sentences were being handed out, what rationalizations were being made, and what burdens had suddenly become too much to bear. Outside, a fog had descended, the sky a solid, low gray, with swirls of yellowish brown hanging like a filthy veil from the barely visible rooftops. I crossed Piccadilly with care, the heavy traffic moving slowly but steadily, headlamps on, casting their gloomy, lost light into the fog. A real accident would be likely enough, never mind a surreptitious push into a crowded street. Had Sheila known she was being hunted, or had she still trusted her paymaster? Did she know her assailant, perhaps relaxing as he put his arm protectively around her waist as they waited at the side of the road? One good push, low in the back, is all it would take. If anyone saw it, he’d be gone in seconds, a nondescript man in a plain coat, a hat pulled down low over his face, making his way through the gathering crowd. Our “actual enemies” is what Philby had called the Germans, but at times I had to wonder. Even the worst of them wore a uniform that told you who they were.

Then I remembered. The Scotland Yard tail. I looked around for the sedan and the two fedoras, but in the narrow street, choked with fog, all I could see was the next lamppost. The gabfest with Cosgrove and his pals and this pea-souper had disoriented me. But the fog hadn’t helped the guys following me either, since they were nowhere in sight. Maybe they’d decided it wasn’t worth it and given up. Or maybe they were on foot, invisible a few yards behind me.

I turned a corner, hoping it was Albemarle Street, since that route would take me into Berkeley Square. I stopped and leaned against the brickwork, listening for signs of anyone following. A truck rumbled by slowly, the driver sounding his horn to warn those lost in the fog. Footsteps sounded, the slap slap of leather soles running on pavement echoing off the buildings. A woman carrying a shopping bag walked by me, visible only for a second before disappearing into the mist. A sharp, short whistle sounded, but I couldn’t tell where it came from. I started walking toward the square, the cold and damp seeping into my bones as the sounds of running feet seemed to surround me. I heard them behind me, fading away in the opposite direction. Ahead of me, they drew nearer and slowed to a steady pace and stopped, as I tried to make out the vague outline of a figure in the fog. I stopped, and so did all the other sounds. I hoped I was only feeling jumpy, but I had the feeling there were more than two Scotland Yard plainclothesmen out there. I stepped into a doorway, trying to melt into the fog and vanish.

I heard the throaty grumble of a motorcycle as it downshifted and came my way. The fog had kept most traffic off the roads, and the sound took on the sinister quality of a hunter seeking prey. The footsteps started up again, drawing closer from both directions. The same woman with the shopping bag walked by, this time halting and giving out the same sharp whistle that I’d heard before. She was definitely not wearing a fedora. Two men came up to me, one from each side. Stanley and Clive, Topper’s henchmen.

“Boss wants a chat,” Clive said. “Come on.”

“I’m busy,” I said, trying to make out if there were others hiding in the gloom.

“That’s nice. Now hand over your pistol to Stanley and follow me. We’re close to the Green Park Tube, we’ll take that. Better underground than feeling our way through this mush.”

“OK,” I said, not seeing an alternative. I handed my piece over and asked Stanley how he was doing.

“Can’t complain,” he said. Since I’d just given him a weapon, I refrained from pointing out how I’d been right to slam his face when we’d first met, after he’d been so nasty to me. I’d told him then that if I hadn’t, he’d have just kept being rotten. Now here he was, with me outnumbered and defenseless, and he was nice as pie. It felt good to be right about that, since I’d been so wrong about everything else.