Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

Sounding pained and almost offended, Ranklin said: “I am working for the government.”

“And I’m working for my client, Grover Langhorn.”

After that, Ranklin decided not to ask for a lift to Bow Street in Quinton’s motor-car.

When Ranklin arrived by taxi at Bow Street’s wide pavement, it looked like old home week. Quinton’s Lanchester was parked at the kerb again and he had presumably already gone in. Corinna’s father’s Daimler, similarly Pullman-bodied, was parked just behind and Corinna herself was chatting to Lieutenant Jay. In the background, wearing a shabby tweed suit and cap, O’Gilroy was leaning against a wall.

You had to admire how he did that. He wasn’t skulking or trying to look invisible. He just leant there, smoking an interminable stub of a hand-rolled cigarette, half-wrapped in his own concerns, half conscious of the world around, and wholly ready to tell it to bugger off and mind its own business.

It was a good day for leaning on walls: fine and bright and perhaps a shade warmer than the day before.

Jay asked: “D’you want me to go in or are you?”

“You go.” And Jay darted inside.

Corinna said: “Good morning,” in a tone that suggested Ranklin was to do the rest of the talking and had better make it good .

“I’m most frightfully sorry that you had to take over Berenice. I had no idea . . . But I’m very grateful. Er – where is she, by the way?”

Corinna jerked her head, almost dislodging her matador hat. “In there, watching the boy-friend come up – or go down – for the umpteenth time. Is anything going to happen?”

“Quinton doubts it. Umm . . . I imagine you had a rather busy night?”

“I imagine I had a totally loused-up night. Getting up and flogging down to Scotland Yard just to be ignored by pompous policemen and given cups of what they think is tea . . . I’ll say this for Noah Quinton, he knows how to handle those bastards. They don’t like him, but they run scared of him . . . And then having to speak French to that . . . that-God Almighty, the girl is a complete slut. And d’you think she has a word of thanks for it all? She despises me! Thinks I’m the ‘idle rich’ – idle! After a night of running around promising God-knows-what for her on top of a busy day . . .

“It’ll take more than Professor Higgins to make a duchess out of that squashed cabbage leaf.” Shaw’s Pygmalion had just opened at His Majesty’s and its characters had already passed into the language.

“Well,” Ranklin said, “I can’t say how grateful-”

“You can try!”

“Er – are you stuck with her indefinitely?”

“It seems like it – until your wonderful police say different. We’re going round to Bloomsbury when this is over to collect her things.”

Ranklin was a bit surprised to hear that Berenice actually had any “things”. But perhaps even the inhabitants of La Villette might own more than they could wear at one time.

“D’you want to take O’Gilroy with you?” he offered. “Just on general grounds.”

“No, Bloomsbury isn’t the East End. It sounds like a bunch of half-assed artists being anarchists on money from home.” It was the wrong morning for anyone to expect the benefit of the doubt from Corinna.

Then there was an eruption at the court door and several obvious journalists rushed off towards Fleet Street. It hadn’t taken long, but clearly something had happened. Ranklin had already guessed what when Jay came out to report: “Adjourned. The police say they’re treating the meat porter’s death as murder.”

Ranklin had instinctively stepped away from Corinna to listen to him; now, they both watched as Berenice Collomb shuffled up to Corinna. Her very pace was sullen, as if she were going from one funeral to another. Ranklin saw Corinna’s face set into a wide, false smile.

“So that’s Paris’s answer to Eliza Dolittle?” Jay observed. Trust him to have seen the latest play. “I saw her around yesterday.”

“You didn’t see-” Ranklin began, then saw him for himself. Gorkin, wearing the same check suit and foreign-looking hat, came out, smiled at Ranklin, then vanished round the corner into Broad Court. Ranklin thought about nodding O’Gilroy to follow, but that would just be make-work; he had Gorkin’s address anyway.

Corinna was ushering Berenice into the car, relaying instructions to the chauffeur, driving off.

“What d’you want me to do now?” Jay asked.

“Did the police say anything more about Guillet than just murder?”

“Pursuing various lines of enquiry, that’s all.”

“See what else you can dig up. Here or through the Yard. Try and be in the office around lunchtime.”

Jay, looking like a playboy who has unaccountably got up before noon, moved off to deploy his rakish charm. That left Ranklin, who wanted a word with Quinton, and the unacknowledged O’Gilroy. Since Ranklin hadn’t the Irishman’s talent for loitering, it was lucky that, after almost a week of sunshine, other Londoners had finally decided they could risk simply standing around in the open air.

It was twenty minutes before Quinton came out, and Ranklin intercepted him. The solicitor seemed quite ready to speak to him, smiling in a somewhat interrogatory way, and letting Ranklin lead off.

“I gather that the police now have Guillet chalked up as murder?”

“They must have got a new pathologist’s report.”

“Is that good or bad for Ma’mselle Collomb?”

Quinton shrugged. “I believe he was struck a quite heavy blow – for but an iron bar would do that by itself, you wouldn’t need much strength. If they knew this happened some distance from the river, that would imply a slip of a girl dragging a heavy manthat distance – which is unlikely. But if it happened at the top of some landing steps, all she’d need do is roll him down them.”

“D’you think they’ll ever find out where?”

“It seems highly unlikely now, after two days. Unless they find a witness, which would add a whole new dimension anyway.”

For a moment, Ranklin thought of producing such a witness, and wasn’t even shocked at himself. But that would call for very careful scripting – certainly better than Guillet himself had got. “And for how long does Mrs Finn have to nursemaid her?”

“Until the police have lost interest in her, I’m afraid. Or changed the terms of her bail.”

“Are they likely to call her in for more questioning?”

“Not until they’ve got far more to go on, now they know they’ve got me to deal with.” Which was perfectly reasonable, but could have been said more humbly.

Ranklin nodded vaguely. There didn’t seem much more to say.

But Quinton went on: “I had a little talk with my client.” He paused, smiling. “Aren’t you going to ask me what he said?”

Ranklin just nodded, but felt lead in his stomach.

“He told me about his putative father. I can now see, I confess, why your people have been acting as you have. But that does not, to my mind, excuse your interference in the legal process.”

Ranklin thought quickly back. As far as he could recall, the legal process was about the one thing they hadn’t interfered with. Yet. “Sorry, but I don’t follow.”

Quinton adopted a foursquare stance in front of him, a bit like an outraged bantam. Oddly, Ranklin only now noticed they were much the same height. Usually he was very conscious of men’s heights.

“Word has seeped out,” Quinton said, “that if this case goes to the King’s Bench on a writ of habeas corpus, it is to be heard by judges who are sympathetic to the boy’s plight – for or at least theKing’s.”