Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

The Palace. The damned Palace.

Ranklin shook his head slowly. “Not our doing, I’m afraid. We simply don’t have that sort of influence.”

Quinton eyed him closely. “I’m certainly glad to hear that – and on balance, I’m inclined to believe you. I suppose,” he mused, “you’d have to tell someone closer to the King that . . . yes, I think I see what would have happened. But Captain, I believe I am doing a good job of representing my client, and have a reasonable chance of getting the case against him dismissed on grounds that even the French authorities will accept. I can manage very well without string-pulling in high places, and especially the implication that I need that. Perhaps you can find a way of passing that on.”

“If the opportunity arises, yes.”

“And in regard to what I learnt from my client, I can assure you that I am not breaking any confidences.” Quinton seemed anxious to prove his own legal virginity. “He spoke out because he’s concerned that nothing seemed to be happening in that area. I said that I was sure steps were being taken.”

“Did he have a view about Guillet’s death?”

“Oh yes. He believes that was punishment for Guillet failing to tell his lies properly. And that the capitalist sheepdogs at the Prefecture must be rehearsing a new witness to take his place.

“Single-minded little bugger, isn’t he?” But Ranklin’s vehemence was aimed at more than just Langhorn.

Quinton smiled coldly. “You might tell your Commander Smith that I’ll be in my chambers the rest of the day, if he wishes to speak to me.” He got into his limousine.

Ranklin watched it go, saying several un-bright-spring-day things under his breath. Trying to stifle this scandal was like trying to stop ripples on water . . . And they couldn’t even be sure whether it was true, dammit.

He was about to nod O’Gilroy off duty when Corinna’s Daimler rushed back down the street, stopped with a jerk, and she jumped out long before the chauffeur could get round to the door.

“That bloody little tramp! She’s shut herself in a room there and won’t come back with me! Can I let the police have her back? Never mind the bail, I just want shot of her.”

Ranklin made soothing noises whilst thinking quickly. There wasn’t time to check with the Commander, he had to act himself.

He pointed up the street, as if giving her directions, and muttered: “This isn’t for your benefit, I’m trying to instruct O’Gilroy. Ah, he’s got it.”

The shabby figure was moving away at a slouching amble.

“Right, get the motor-car turned round, we’ll pick him up further along.”

In the dingier and less public surroundings of Endell Street, Ranklin swung the door open, O’Gilroy stepped in, and they zoomed off. Well, not zoomed, in a Daimler, but definitely hurried – through the wide tangle of traffic near the top of Shaftesbury Avenue, across New Oxford Street and up Bloomsbury Street. By then O’Gilroy knew as much or as little as there was to tell.

“What’s the address of this place?” Ranklin asked.

“14 Bloomsbury Gardens.” He knew that address, and checked with a card in his wallet: it was the one Gorkin had given him.

He hadn’t time to work out what that meant. “Are you armed?” he asked O’Gilroy and got a nod. That meant a .38 semi-automatic Browning: O’Gilroy was a modernist in these matters.

“Good, but keep it out of sight until I say so.”

It was a middle-middle class area which the young of the upper class regarded as daringly slummy. Most of it was squares like this: rows of tall, narrow terraced houses that had been built of yellow brick now black with London’s soot (like the rest of London), around a private but communal garden across the road. There were no front gardens, just a handful of steps leading up from the pavement to the front door, which had a fanlight above to align it with the tall windows.

Ranklin pressed the bell. After a while the door was opened by a tall young woman. It took a moment for Ranklin to decide that anarchists wouldn’t have maidservants, so she couldn’t be one. She had long, very definite pre-Raphaelite features and gingery hair drawn back into a bun. She wore a pale violet garment like a smock that went straight from ankle to throat without being visibly distracted.

She looked past Ranklin at the Daimler. “And who would you be?” Her voice was light, pleasant, educated.

“We’ve come to collect Ma’mselle Collomb.”

“She doesn’t want to go.”

Ranklin nodded. “The problem is, the police released her from custody to Mrs Finn. They think they’ve got first call on her. So, if Mrs Finn doesn’t get her, the police will.”

“That will be an example of police oppression.”

“Did you want an example?”

That hadn’t been the expected answer. She frowned.

Ranklin went on: “You do know that it’s a death they’re questioning her about?”

A slight, cool smile. “I’m afraid you’re wrong. They have no evidence-”

“They seem to have now; I’ve just come from the court. It’s murder, now. And a rather embarrassing one, a French witness. So the police feel a bit on their mettle. They’d rather like a Frenchwoman to have done it – keeps the British out of it, one might say. And an unworldly little girl from La Villette . . . by the time they’ve finished, she’ll have confessed to everything and the Jack the Ripper murders as well.”

She frowned again. “Do you really believe that?”

“Don’t you?”

She licked her thin lip s. “You’re just saying that.”

“I asked you if you believed it.”

“Well, yes. I certainly believe the police are . . .” She wasn’t quite sure what.

“Capitalist sheepdogs?” Ranklin suggested cheerfully. “I think they’re actually more complicated than that, but it still leaves the question of how you’re going to protect Ma’mselle Collomb from them.”

“They’d never dare come tromping in here.”

“Ah, that’s what you really believe, isn’t it? That they’re nice friendly men in uniform who tell you the way when you’re lost, just like nanny said. Well, probably they are to people who live in houses this size, but not to Berenice Collomb. And I think it would be rather sad for you to learn that by putting her on the gallows. Still, it’ll be a good chapter for your memoirs, so maybe you think it’s cheap at the price.”

She jerked the front door wide. “You’d better come in.”

A few steps down the narrow hallway was Gorkin, who had obviously been hearing every word.

“Hello, Dr Gorkin,” Ranklin called. “Sorry I haven’t had time for you to convert me, but been rather busy. Still am, as a matter of fact.”

“You have come to return Berenice to the rich Mrs Finn?”

“I have. Mrs Finn doesn’t like it either, but seems ready to go along with it on behalf of a fellow human being.” He turned back to the woman. “Can you fetch Ma’mselle Collomb?”

“You’d better come up and talk to her yourself.”

They went up to the second floor. The house was sparsely furnished, mostly with rather rigid, elongated Art Nouveau pieces, oriental pottery and a lot of paintings in bold primary colours. And William Morris wallpaper, of course: the silly bastard had once proclaimed himself an anarchist, hadn’t he?

The woman rapped on a door and said: “Berenice?”

“ Ils sont retourner?”

“Oui,” Ranklin called. “ Avec moi -James Spencer. Vous avez un choix: venir avec moi et Madame Finn, ou avec les flics.”

She told him, in colloquial French, to go and fuck himself. Ranklin grinned at the woman. “You’d better talk to her. I’ll let Dr Gorkin show me the error of my ways.” He wanted to get Gorkin out of the conversation to come. He had nothing against the man except for his tendency to be present, watching and listening. For example, he had followed them up the stairs.