Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

But Dagner seemed to appreciate this already. “He’s just one man, rich but still not the Italian Government, and he thinks we could help in cutting red tape, speeding things up. And one thing he’s looking for is an aeroplane – to replace the one he thought he was going to buy in Brussels.”

Ranklin pushed back his plate, feeling that this was more his size. No longer heady talk of secret treaties and shipyard riots, just buying an aeroplane. “We need O’Gilroy. He was going to take the Senator to Brooklands this weekend.”

“I know. But since he’s there already, I wonder if you felt like escorting the Senator down there tomorrow?”

Ranklin thought for a moment, then asked: “Who am I?”

Dagner smiled. “Somebody from the War Office who’s just been posted to the Flying Corps staff and is trying to get his eye in – so you don’t have to know anything, just seem eager to learn.”

But even that, Ranklin reckoned, showed a remarkable trust in his acting skills. And it hadn’t been how he’d planned this Saturday, but -“Actually, Mrs Finn has a brother who’s involved in aeronautics there.

“By all means make it a day out. Other people are always the best disguise. And do light a cigarette, I’m not having any pudding.”

Dagner himself didn’t seem to have any habits: he didn’t smoke, didn’t fiddle with his knife and fork . . . Probably he saw such things as elements of disguise; Ranklin had no doubt he could appear a confirmed smoker or cutlery-fiddler at will, but kept his real self stripped of any compulsions. The Complete Professional. What was he like at home? – but then Ranklin remembered that with his wife dead, there was no home . . .

“Happy to go,” he mumbled, feeling guilty about even knowing that about Dagner. He lit his cigarette. “Then are we going ahead on this . . . this ‘deal’?”

“We can’t change the Admiralty’s – and presumably the Cabinet’s – mind about withdrawing protection from the India route. But that matters less if Austria’s new dreadnoughts are delayed.”

“Or if,” Ranklin said thoughtfully, “a shipyard riot gets out of hand, Austrian troops open fire on Italian workers . . .”

“And there’s bad blood between Italy and Austria. Yes, I’d rest easy with that – particularly since our own part is so much in the background that it won’t be suspected.”

“You don’t feel it comes a bit close to policy-making?”

Dagner began to look stern, then decided not to and spoke gently, almost as if explaining to a child. “But doesn’t the policy already exist? It was to set up our Bureau to further Britain’s interests by secret means. Sooner or later – clearly later, in Britain’s case – every government realises it needs such a service to do things it cannot be caught doing itself. Politicians want to be able to say truthfully ‘We didn’t know, we didn’t order this’ while being glad it’s been done. Whether that makes their business cleaner than ours, I won’t presume to judge. It certainly makes ours dirty, and we have to face up to that. But we have been given a mission, Captain, a mission, not a sinecure.”

Back upstairs, Ranklin tried to raise Corinna by telephone, first at her flat, then at Sherring’s City office. He caught her there, sounding brisk and business-like.

“About tomorrow,” he began hesitantly, “I’m afraid I’ve got to escort an Italian senator down to Brooklands. He’s hoping to find an aeroplane-”

“Introduce him to Andrew, then,” she said promptly.

“Thank you. Another thing, O’Gilroy’s also down there, to learn to fly-”

Her laughter nearly fused the instrument to his ear. “Conall? Learning to fly ? Has he gone crazy about airplanes, too?”

“You know him . . .”

“Who’s teaching him?”

“That’s my next question: can he ask Andrew who to go to?”

“Of course. I’m not having Conall’s neck broken by anyone but the best. I’ll telegraph Andrew right away.” There was a crackling silence, then: “Who’s this senator?”

“A Signor Falcone from Turin. Something big in textile machinery over there, big enough to be staying at the Ritz . . .” He held his breath, waiting to see if she’d take the bait.

“Is that so?” she said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing something about the Italian textile business . . . and seeing Conall again. Would I be welcome? I could bring the automobile and save you having to introduce yourself to Andrew as the man who’s wronging his sister.”

Ranklin stared at the earpiece as if it had become a snake. The line from here to the City was probably loaded with eavesdropping telephone girls; certainly one in his own outer office.

Mind, it was quite possible that that was why Corinna had said such a thing.

“Most welcome,” he said weakly. “Could we say ten o’clock at the Ritz?”

After he had hung up, he wondered if he shouldn’t have said something about the Senator being the target for some assassin. But that certainly wasn’t for the eavesdroppers. And the Senator was under Scotland Yard’s protection, wasn’t he?

Only, when he met Senator Falcone ten minutes before Corinna was due, it turned out that he wasn’t.

“In England,” the Senator said jovially, “I am sure there is no problem. After they were sure I get alive to the Foreign Office, they were not much interested, and though I am sure your policemen are as wonderful as everyone says, they are still policemen. It is being followed by a strange dog.”

Which told Ranklin little more than that Falcone’s English was at least adequate. That apart, he seemed a beefy, friendly man whose clothes were . . . well, a little natty. His suit was a shade too light, his necktie a bit too cheerful and the cloth cap didn’t belong until Ranklin realised the Senator was hoping to be offered a flight and would then wear the cap backwards, as aviators in photographs always seemed to. He was wearing a cap himself, but only because it went with his tweed suit and he reckoned that an aerodrome equated to a country race-course. He certainly didn’t plan to risk meeting his God with his headgear back to front.

Then Corinna appeared in the back of a chauffeur-driven Daimler. It was a sunny day, but the car had a very upright Pullman body and the most they could do was open all the windows. It was her father Reynard’s car, and he obviously didn’t think the English summer happened often enough to justify a folding hood. Ranklin sat on a pull-down seat opposite Corinna and Falcone, who was carrying a large sealed envelope he had picked up at the hotel desk but not bothered to open yet.

Corinna was talkative and smiley, as she instinctively was with strangers. “You know we’re going to the wrong place?” she said as they rolled down Park Lane. “They’re having a big aerial race up at Hendon so all the action’s going to be there.”

“That is why I wish to go to Brooklands, Falcone” answered, doing some toothy smiling of his own. “It will be more quiet there without all the peasants who wish only to see somebody killed. There is more time to talk with true aeronauts.”

“I’d guess most of them will be at Hendon, too, but at least you can meet my brother. I know he’ll be at Brooklands.”

“Yes, Captain Ranklin is telling me your brother – Andrew, I think? – is building his own aeroplane.”

“It’s finished and flying by now, but not built by himself. It was done by proper craftsmen, but to his own design. What else did Captain Ranklin tell you?”

The emphasis was to warn Ranklin that he’d forgotten to tell her what part he was playing that day, a basic mistake he should have grown out of.