James Benn - Rag and Bone

“Excuse me,” I said, interrupting a detective who was perched on a desk, talking to an older man. The old fellow didn’t look like a suspect, more like a victim. His white hair was tousled, his cheek bruised, and dark brown stains on the front of his shirt marked where he’d bled. “Sorry, but I’m looking for Inspector Scutt?”

“Well, you’ve found him, lad. Now what do you want with him?” the older man asked.

“You’re Horace Scutt?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. He looked ancient. Pure white hair and mustache, dark bags under his eyes, and the evidence of a beating added up to something other than a Scotland Yard detective. “Inspector Scutt?”

“Some days I wonder that myself. What’s your business here?”

The younger detective flashed a grin, but it wasn’t the friendly type. More like the kind you wear watching someone slip on a banana peel.

“Lieutenant Billy Boyle, Inspector. I was told to see you about the murder of Gennady Egorov, a Soviet Air Force captain.”

“Yes, we had a chap from the Home Office come by and instruct us to cooperate with you. So we must. Have a seat, Lieutenant, and we’ll go over the file with you.” Scutt nodded to the other detective, who went to gather the files.

“You have a rough night, Inspector?”

“Not as rough as it could have been. Half a dozen young ruffians escaped from the remand home at Wallington, then broke into the Home Guard armory at Upper Norwood. Got away with a couple of Sten guns and more ammunition than any sane man would want to carry around. Lucky for us, they fell out over who should have the guns and who were to be the ammo carriers.”

“Looks like they didn’t go down easy.”

“The young ones never do, Lieutenant, not if they’ve had a taste of incarceration.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, Inspector, aren’t you a bit too senior to be running around after armed kids?”

“I do mind, Lieutenant. Cosgrove told us we must cooperate with you, but that doesn’t mean I need to take any guff, now does it?”

“No, sir. Sorry, no offense intended,” I said. Scutt looked ready to jump out of his chair and go a couple of rounds. “Did you say Cosgrove? Big guy, big mustache? Stuffed shirt?”

“I’d say that fits the man,” Scutt said.

“He’s a major. MI5.” Military Intelligence, Section 5, was the British Secret Service, responsible for counterintelligence and security.

“I said he was no civil servant, guv,” the other detective said. “Didn’t I?”

“So you did, lad. Now, Lieutenant, what is your involvement with MI5?”

“As little as possible, sir. I had no idea Major Cosgrove would be in touch with you. I’m on General Eisenhower’s staff, and he asked me to look into this for him.”

“Not the worst answer you could’ve given. Go on.”

“I was a detective myself, Inspector. In Boston, before the war.”

“A bit on the young side for a detective, I’d say.”

“I made the grade just before Pearl Harbor. I’d been on the force for a while, but I didn’t spend much time celebrating my promotion. Next thing I knew, I was working for General Eisenhower.”

“Well, Lieutenant Boyle, we won’t hold Cosgrove against you, unless you give us reason to.”

“All I need to do is review the case, and let the general know if there’s any possibility of trouble with the Russians. I won’t get in your way, I promise.”

“Possibility of trouble with the Russians? Did you hear that, Flack?”

“Quite the joker he is, guv.”

“I guess there’s trouble with the Russians,” I said, wishing I hadn’t sounded like a naive colonial.

“You’ll find out, soon enough. DS Flack will go over the details of the case with you. I’m going to get some fresh clothes and a few hours’ sleep. No rest for the wicked or the young, Flack.” Scutt rose with an agility that surprised me, given his age if not his injuries.

“Roy Flack,” the younger detective said, extending his hand. “Detective Sergeant.”

“Glad to meet you, Roy. As I said, I don’t want to be a pain. I know what we’d think in Boston if the FBI told us to cooperate with a stranger.”

“You’d think he was a troublemaker, looking either to claim the glory for himself if things go well or to find a scapegoat if they don’t.”

“You’ve given this some thought.”

“We’ve been handed a hot one, all right, and I don’t much like the idea of some Yank second-guessing our every move.” Flack leaned forward in his seat, his eyes narrowing as he studied me. All I could see were dark brown pupils, two little pebbles of suspicion. “So tell me the truth. Why are you here?”

“Is this why Scutt left? So you could give me the third degree?”

“Detective Inspector Scutt left because we’ve been chasing those buggers for thirty-six hours straight. I can hardly keep up with the man myself, so I have no patience left, especially for an American spy.”

“General Eisenhower recently sent an American officer home because he called another officer on the staff a British son of a bitch. If he’d called him a plain SOB, he’d still be working for Ike. Instead, he’s on a slow boat home in disgrace.”

“All right, Lieutenant Boyle, I will rephrase. I don’t want any son of a bitch second-guessing or spying on us. Is that clear?”

“I’m not a spy. I don’t even think I’m a son of a bitch.” We stared at each other, the usual territorial cop’s pissing contest in full swing.

“Maybe not,” Flack said, leaning back in his chair, releasing some of the tension from his furrowed brow. “Why does General Eisenhower care about a dead Russian in London? Last the newspapers said, Eisenhower was still in Italy.”

“Who am I to argue with the press?” I raised an eyebrow, trying to signal knowledge that wasn’t yet public. Plenty of military types knew about Uncle Ike’s promotion, but the official announcement was being handled at levels even higher than his.

“Oh. For the big show? Really?” Flack pursed his lips, giving the idea a try.

“Really,” I said. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“All right then,” Flack said. “For the sake of Allied unity, here goes. First, meet Captain Gennady Egorov of the Soviet Air Force.” Flack tossed four photographs onto the desk. The first was a picture of a man lying facedown, his hands tied behind his back. It looked like the kind of string you use to wrap parcels, but lots of it. He was dressed in a military-style overcoat, and there was dark splotch on the back of his head. The second was a close-up of the head. The entrance wound from a bullet was clearly visible, a hole dead center at the back of his skull. The third picture had been taken from several steps away. It showed the body lying between two stacks of bricks, like the ones I’d seen at cleared bomb sites. The final photograph was of his face, contorted by the effect of the bullet, but not so much as to disguise his features. Blond hair, a faint mustache, thin lips, and prominent cheekbones. Maybe a good-looking guy, or maybe short of that. His eyes were open, dull with death.

“Where was he found?”

“In Shoreditch. Near Spitalfields Market. In a tunnel of bricks. Do you know London?”

“I was stationed here a while ago. That’s over by St. Paul’s?”

“Close by, but east of there. Directly north from the Tower, if you’ve time to play the tourist. Kids found him in the morning, when they came out of the Underground shelter.”

“You mean the subway-the Tube? People still sleep down there?”

“Not in the numbers they used to. Back in the Blitz, we had nearly two hundred thousand people sleeping in the Underground stations. Nowhere near that now, of course, but I’d say there’s two or three thousand every night.”