Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

The point, Lieutenant M bubbled on, was that the Japs wanted to keep the Russians busy in the West while they machinated in the East. Surely the Cabinet should know about this immediately. Others could supply instances and names.

“The point,” Ranklin corrected gently, “is that those others are us. The Government can usually come by its own rumours. When it does, it should turn to us to verify or deny them by supplying the details. So can you go back to this chap and see if he knows any hard facts?”

“He’s rather a tetchy old boy.” Lieutenant M looked dubious. “I don’t how he’ll like some whipper-snapper like me cross-examining him . . .”

“But isn’t that our job?” Ranklin smiled sweetly. “We’re sp . . . secret agents, remember? We use tact, flattery, bare-faced lies – whatever’s appropriate – and we come back with the details, don’t we?”

Sometimes, Ranklin told himself when Lieutenant M had gone, I seem quite good at this job. Now: Personal weapons-

So then it was O’Gilroy with an aeronautical magazine and eager to explain the arguments for and against the Dunne ‘inherently stable’ biplane. Ranklin, who privately felt that anyone who got into an aeroplane was inherently unstable to start with, sent him out with any recruits he could find to practise shadowing again.

Personal weap- and now Dagner again, leaving the office in Ranklin’s charge while he went off first to meet Senator Falcone at the Ritz, then change into mess kit for a dinner at the officers’ mess in the Tower of London. Ranklin politely wished him joy of it and turned back to his notepad.

He hadn’t even got his mind into gear when the senior secretary came in, looking for Dagner and waving an official buff envelope that had just been forwarded from the War Office. The handwritten addressee was The Officer Commanding the unit to which Lieut. P -(their own Lieutenant P, in fact) is currently attached . And marked both Urgent and Private and Confidential.

Ranklin made chewing expressions as he looked at it. The secretary said: “Shall I keep it for Major Dagner in the morning, sir?”

Ranklin certainly wasn’t P’s CO, but strictly speaking, neither was Dagner. And he was getting bored with Personal weapons. He stuck a finger under the gummed flap and raised his arm at the secretary. “Jog my elbow, will you?”

She smiled frostily and gave him a nudge that wouldn’t have shifted a fly. He tore the envelope open. “Oops, look what I’ve done now. Oh well, I suppose I may as well see what it’s all about . . .”

But if the secretary thought she had earned a look, too, she was disappointed, and hobbled away with a distinct sniff.

What the letter and its enclosures boiled down to was that when Lieutenant P had left his last posting he had also left (a) an unpaid mess bill and (b) a young lady who claimed he had promised marriage, but taken (c) a motor-car of which he was only part-owner. Ranklin sat still until he had worn through surprise, indignation, amusement and arrived at exasperation, then went to look for P.

He had just got in, having failed to shadow O’Gilroy through the Piccadilly traffic. “Simply not your day, is it?” Ranklin said, handing him the letters. P skimmed them, smiled ruefully, and began: “About the motor-”

“Don’t tell me,” Ranklin said. “Just sort it out. You can’t marry without your colonel’s permission, and with any luck he’ll refuse it if you pay your mess bill, promptly. If that doesn’t work, write to the girl’s father asking will he lend you a thousand quid to pay your gaming debts. Now about the motor-car: where is it?”

“Here in London.”

“And who else part-owns it?”

“Two chaps from my battalion who-”

“Fine. It’s about time the Bureau had the use of a car. Tell them it’s being repaired in Scotland. Any questions?”

A bit dazed, P asked: “Are you going to show these letters to Major Dagner, sir?”

“What letters? I haven’t seen any letters. But . . . you won’t be much use to us until you learn not to get into trouble that’s going to catch up with you.”

In other words, solve life’s greatest problem by teatime tomorrow. Oh well . . . he had a feeling that Dagner might take the whole thing too seriously. And the Commander? He just couldn’t tell.

But it all added up to a long day and when he finally got down to the flat, he ignored the sherry and poured himself a serious whisky. He hadn’t even finished Personal weapons. But that was something he should consult O’Gilroy about, anyway.

O’Gilroy hadn’t meant to lose his followers. Not quite – just make it difficult for them. But they had obeyed only half his order to “stay back and think ahead” and missed the gap in the Piccadilly traffic that let him cross safely and unsuspiciously. So now . . . But it wasn’t, he told himself, something he could be absolutely sure about. Maybe they had suddenly got the hang of it, become invisible and were still shadowing him. So he had to play the game out. He kept going, but headed north from Piccadilly Circus to explore some Soho streets he didn’t know himself.

He was used to cities and their abrupt boundaries that let you go from high fashion to crumbling poverty in the length of a breath. The few steps that took him into Soho were like that, but different. Entering Soho, he seemed to have gone from England to Europe: here he was being jostled by French-speakers, Germans, Italians and politely avoided by Chinese. But no student spies. Past episodes of being a wanted man had given O’Gilroy an acute sense of when he was being followed, and there was no sign of . . .

But there was somebody.

A slightly shorter man in a wide cloth cap, hands thrust deep into the pockets of a donkey jacket. Turning a corner confirmed that he was following, and glancing both ways before crossing the street gave a glimpse of his face. O’Gilroy knew him: Patrick, Patrick something, from down Broad Lane way in Cork. And definitely one of the ‘boyos’ whom Ranklin had feared. Moreover, making no attempt at subtlety, but grimly plodding along behind.

O’Gilroy still had choices: he could run. Or just just hurry back to Piccadilly and hail a taxi. But perhaps it was best to try and bluff it out, settle the matter with a lie, and if that didn’t work, well, it was just one man and smaller than himself. But one choice he didn’t have was killing Patrick. He couldn’t have explained why, but would have thought anyone who asked for an explanation very odd indeed.

A few yards further was a narrow alleyway leading to a courtyard behind the buildings. O’Gilroy turned in, and waited in the deepest shadow, so Patrick would be outlined against the bright street behind.

Patrick stumped around the corner, stopped and said: “Good day to ye, Conall O’Gilroy – or did ye change yer name along wid the colour av yer soul?”

This, O’Gilroy realised, is going to need one hell of a lie. “Have ye got a message for me?” he demanded.

He couldn’t see if Patrick was surprised, since his face was shadowed, but he paused. Then he said: “We have that,” and glanced back as another, larger, figure turned into the alley behind him. “Me and Eamon. Right here in our pockets.”

How in hell did I miss the second one? But he knew just how: over-confident once he’d spotted Patrick’s open following, he hadn’t thought of Eamon moving less conspicuously, well back and on the other side of the street. Yet it was a trick he’d been teaching the two recruits half an hour ago. Now he longed for a miracle in which they found him again in the nick of time – but an angel swooping down to carry him off was more likely. Far more likely, if you believed the priests.