Gavin Lyall - Honourable Intentions

“The police are-”

“Possibly. But if they’re what you believe, do you think you can undergo hour after hour of questions without them tricking you into a confession?” Now Quinton was involved, that was pretty unlikely, but let her think of that for herself.

“I did not kill him!”

“I don’t think you did. But the police believe you went to try and see Guillet again at the Dieudonne that night. Did you?”

A nod.

“What time?”

A shrug and gesture: obviously, she had no watch.

Ranklin shook his head in patient refusal. “If you have no watch, you must be used to looking for clocks and London’s full of them. So, what time?”

“I quit the hotel at half-past nine.”

“And how long had you been there?”

A shrug, then reluctantly: “About an hour.”

“Did they let you sit in the hotel all that time?”

“They didn’t let me sit in the hotel a fucking minute. I waited outside.”

A girl just standing around in the street after dark . . . “Didn’t men-?”

“Naturally they did. I’m used to it.”

Ranklin sat back to think. Guillet’s bed hadn’t been slept i n. “Somebody could have been killing him while you were waiting.”

Despite herself, a shaft of interest lit her face. “Not at that time. The streets were too busy. And I have seen the river, there is too much light there.”

“The river moves. He didn’t have to be pushed in where he was pulled out. He could have gone in higher up. In fact, it’s more likely.” Mind, the Thames at London was tidal: the natural flow might even reverse with a flooding tide. A body could be pushed back and forth, banging into moored barges . . . well, that had certainly happened.

But on balance, it should have travelled downstream – perhaps from the quieter, less lit areas of Chelsea or across the river in Battersea. “A long way to walk first,” he said to himself, then translated for her.

“An auto,” she said.

“He wouldn’t have got into an auto except with someone he knew.”

“And the only person he knew in London is Inspecteur Lacoste.” There was a little triumphant smile on her shabby face: ergo, Lacoste had killed him. Hadn’t she said it was the flics all along?

Ranklin thought that unlikely. Whatever one’s view of the Prefecture, being let down by a witness must happen fairly often to a detective, and he couldn’t kill them all; it might cause comment. But he didn’t fancy trying to argue that to Berenice.

So he said: “Did you know Guillet in La Villette?”

“I saw him a couple of times, when he came into the Deux Chevaliers. He did not belong there, he was not an anarchist. But he had some business with the patron.”

“The patron?”

She regretted having mentioned him, but it could hardly be a secret. “M’sieu Kaminsky.”

Ranklin would have liked to learn more about the man running the Cafe des Deux Chevaliers, but he didn’t see how it was relevant to the shenanigans in London. He swung the conversation back towards home. “The lady in Bloomsbury – Venetia Sackfield – she agrees that you came home at about ten o’clock. Were there others there?”

Shrug. “Some women, men – they’re just a bunch of children. But also Dr Gorkin.”

Tempting her, Ranklin was dismissive. “Oh, him.”

It was too easy. “He is a great man! A true champion of the workers, a real thinker. Did you read what he wrote about the Dreyfus case? No, of course you didn’t. And he is also a healer, not a fashionable two-hundred-franc doctor but a man who cares. He treats the poor who have the pox, when the nuns would just say it was the wrath of God for their wickedness!”

Corinna couldn’t help butting i n. “But does he know anything about medicine?”

“Of course he does. He studied for years, but he also worked for the Cause and the Russians drove him out.”

“Fine, fine. I just asked.”

Berenice stood up. “I am going back to the workers.”

“She means -” Corinna reverted to English as the door banged “- the kitchen and the absinthe. Have you met this great thinker and healer?”

“Had a drink with him, the first day at Bow Street. We talked about anarchism – he’s quite a good debater.”

She considered, then smiled. “You really couldn’t be further apart. In the red corner, the prophet of anarchism, in the blue corner the devoted officer battling to save the King from his youthful Dark Secret. I’m sorry: alleged Dark Secret.”

Ranklin scowled. But it always amused her, seeing his face attempt that expression.

She went on: “But you must admit a few minutes of royal romping more than twenty years ago is causing you and a lot of people a whole heap of trouble today, however honourable your intentions are.” She began moving about the room, tidying in a purposeless way.

Ranklin said: “You’d better not meet Dr Gorkin: it sounds as if you’re ripe for the plucking.”

“I doubt it, and I’ve had young Berenice softening me up all morning. But anarchism, communism, socialism, they all seem much the same as Christianity: fair shares, feeding the poor, loving your neighbours -”

“It also seems to be about upping the pace on such matters.”

“- but without Christianity’s saving grace, which is seeing that mankind is fallible. Very practical, that. I hate as much as anybody listening to a preacher telling me we’re all poor sinners – what does that bastard know? But in the end he’s right. We aren’t trustworthy, we do need laws and leaders – preferably elected leaders, so we can throw them out when they get too fallible. You try telling that to an anarchist: they don’t even believe in democracy, just agreement. They say you’ve got no faith in your fellow men, you’ve been corrupted. They’ve done away with God and they’re stuck with believing mankind’s perfectable – practically perfect already. All it needs is a revolution and you and me under the guillotine.”

“Well, you, anyway. I’m not rich.”

“See what I mean about the fallibility of man?” She stood above him, running a finger through his silky fair hair. “Are you let off the hook this evening?”

“With Berenice around?”

“She isn’t sharing my room. And it would be rather nice to have a man around. Then if someone rings up in the middle of the night with some smart-ass scheme, you can handle it.”

But then the telephone rang. Corinna answered it, smiled, and said: “Hello, Conall. You want the great man himself. He’s here.”

She tactfully faded away as Ranklin took the earpiece. O’Gilroy said: “Ye’d best be getting back. Things has happened in Paris. And did ye see a dark red Simplex landau parked outside there?”

“No.”

“Ye should’ve done. Coupla fellers in it. Anyways, I’m sending young P over to take yer place. He’ll keep the cab.”

Ranklin hung up and Corinna came across, her expression querying his worried look. This time, she had a right to know. “O’Gilroy says there’s a couple of men watching from a motorcar outside.”

She took it well – if a resigned sigh is well. “He’s usually right about these things.”

Ranklin peered through the lace curtains without disturbing them. He thought he could identify the car, but it was just a closed car like several others in the street. “Anyway, he’s sending over Lieutenant P – youngish chap, you haven’t met him – to stand guard. I’ve got to get back. Oh, and P doesn’t know about all this – yet – so I’d be grateful if you didn’t-”