Betrayal at Lisson Grove (7 page)

Croxdale was looking at him intensely, his expression unreadable.

‘We had no uprising,’ Narraway went on, his voice dropping a level, but the heat of feeling still there. ‘No deaths, no grand speeches, just quiet progress, a step at a time. Boring, perhaps unheroic, but also bloodless, and more to the point, sustainable. We aren’t back under the old tyrannies. As governments go, ours is not bad.’

‘Thank you,’ Croxdale said drily.

Narraway gave one of his rare, beautiful smiles. ‘My pleasure, sir.’

Croxdale sighed. ‘I wish it were so simple. I’m sorry, Narraway, but you will solve this miserable business of the money that should have gone to Mulhare immediately. Austwick will take over the socialist affair until you have it dealt with, which includes unarguable proof that someone else placed it in your account, and you were unaware of it until Austwick told you. It will also include the name of whoever is responsible for this, because they have jeopardised the effectiveness of one of the best heads of Special Branch that we have had in the last quarter-century, and that is treason against the country, and against the Queen.’

For a moment Narraway did not grasp what Croxdale was saying. He sat motionless in the chair, his hands cold, gripping the arms as if to keep his balance. He drew in his breath to protest, and saw in Croxdale’s face that it would be pointless. The decision was made, and final. The trap had him, like an iron gin on an animal’s leg, and he had not even seen himself step into it.

‘I’m sorry, Narraway,’ Croxdale said quietly. ‘You no longer have the confidence of Her Majesty’s government, or of Her Majesty herself. I have no alternative but to remove you from office, until such time as you can prove your innocence. I appreciate that that will be more difficult for you without access to your office or the papers that are in it, but you will appreciate the irony of my position. If you have access to the papers, you also have the power to alter them, destroy them, or add to them.’

Narraway was stunned. It was as if he had been dealt a physical blow. Suddenly he could barely breathe. It was preposterous. He was head of Special Branch, and here was this government minister telling him he was dismissed, with no warning, no preparation: just his decision, a word, and it was all over.

‘I’m sorry,’ Croxdale repeated. ‘This is a somewhat unfortunate way of having to deal with it, but it can’t be helped. You will not go back to Lisson Grove, of course.’

‘What?’ The word slipped out, leaving Narraway more vulnerable than he had intended, and he was furious with himself, but it was too late. There was not even any way to conceal it without making it worse.

‘You cannot go back to your office,’ Croxdale said patiently. ‘Don’t oblige me to make an issue of it.’

Narraway rose to his feet, horrified to find that he was a trifle unsteady, as if he had been drinking. He wanted to think of something dignified to say, and above all to make absolutely certain that his voice was level, completely without emotion. He drew in his breath and let it out slowly.

‘I will find out who betrayed Mulhare,’ he said a little hoarsely. ‘And also who betrayed me.’ He thought of adding something about keeping this as a Special Branch fit to come back to, but it sounded so pettish he let it go. ‘Good day.’

Outside in the street everything looked just as it had when he went in: a hansom cab drawn up at the kerb, half a dozen men here and there dressed in striped trousers.

He started to walk without any very clear idea of where he intended to go. His lack of direction was immediate, but he thought with a sense of utter emptiness that perhaps it was eternal as well. He was fifty-eight. Half an hour ago he had been one of the most powerful men in Britain, even though very few people knew it. He was trusted absolutely; he held other men’s lives in his hands, he knew the nation’s secrets; the safety of ordinary men and women depended on his skill, his judgement.

Now he was a man without a purpose, without an income – although that was not an immediate concern. The land inherited from his father supported him, not perhaps in luxury, but at least adequately. He had no family alive now, and he realised with a gathering sense of isolation that he had acquaintances, but no close friends. His profession had made it impossible during the years of his increasing power. Too many secrets, too much need for caution.

It would be pathetic and pointless to indulge in self-pity. If he sank to that, what better would he deserve? He must fight back. Someone had done this to him. It made sense only if it were deliberate and, regrettably, he could think of a score of people who might be responsible, and a score of reasons. The only person he would have trusted to help was Pitt, and Pitt was in France chasing socialist reformers with violence in their dreams.

He was walking quickly up Whitehall, looking neither right nor left, probably passing people he knew, and ignoring them. No one would care. In time to come, when it was known he was no longer in power, they would probably be relieved. He was not a comfortable man to be with. Even the most innocent tended to attribute ulterior motives to him, imagine secrets that did not exist.

Whitehall became Parliament Street, then he turned left and continued walking until he was on Westminster Bridge, staring eastward across the wind-ruffled water.

He could not even return to his office to look through the piles of papers he had and begin to search for anomalies, figures that did not add up, anything that would tell him where to look for the enemy who, for reasons of greed, hatred, or divided loyalties, had betrayed Mulhare, and in doing that betrayed Narraway also.

Then another thought that was far uglier occurred to him. Was Mulhare the one who was incidental damage, and Narraway himself the target of the treachery?

As that thought took sharper focus in his mind he wondered bitterly if he really wanted to know the answer. Who was it that he had trusted, and been so horribly mistaken in?

He was letting himself hate, and there was no time for such self-indulgence. Anger – a small amount of it – was good. It fired the energy to fight back, to deny discouragement, weariness, even the awful void of being alone.

He turned and walked on over the bridge to the far side, and took a hansom, giving the driver his home address.

When he reached his house he poured himself a quick shot of single malt whisky, his favourite, Macallans. Then he went to the safe and took out the few papers he had kept here referring to the Mulhare case. He read them from beginning to end, and learned nothing he did not already know, except that the money for Mulhare had been returned to the account within two weeks. He had not known because he had assumed the account dormant. There was no notification from the bank.

It was close to midnight, and he was still sitting staring at the far wall without seeing it when there was a sharp, double tap on the window of the french doors opening onto the garden. It was a rhythm that only a person’s knuckles could make. It startled him out of his reverie and he froze for an instant, then got to his feet. The speed with which he did it, moving away from the glass and the light, made him realise how tense he was.

The tap came again, and he looked at the shadow outside. He could just see the features of a man’s face beyond, unmoving, as if he wished to be recognised. Narraway thought for a moment of Pitt, but he knew it was not he. He was in France, and this man was not as tall.

He must concentrate – think! He had allowed this blow to stun him. In a single act they had removed from him almost all that mattered to him, his purpose, his value in other people’s eyes, and perhaps in his own as well, and also a great deal of his pleasure.

The man at the window was Stoker. He should have known that straight away. It was ridiculous to be standing here in the shadows as if he were afraid. He went forward and unlocked the french doors and opened them wide.

Stoker came in, holding a bundle of papers in a large envelope, half hidden under his jacket. His hair was damp from the slight drizzle outside, as if he had walked some distance. Narraway hoped he had, and taken more than one cab, to make following or tracing him difficult.

‘What are you doing here, Stoker?’ he said quietly, for the first time this evening drawing the curtains closed. It had not mattered before, and he liked the presence of the garden at twilight, the birds, the fading of the sky, the occasional movement of leaves.

‘Brought some papers that might be useful, sir,’ Stoker replied. His voice and his eyes were perfectly steady, but there was a tension in his body, in the way he held his hands, that betrayed to Narraway that he knew perfectly well the risk he was taking.

Narraway took the papers from him and glanced down at them, riffling through the pages swiftly to see what they were. Then he felt the breath tighten in his chest, and his own fingers clumsy. They referred to an old case in Ireland, twenty years ago. The memory of it was powerful, for many reasons, and he was surprised how very sharply it returned.

It was as if he had last seen the people only a few days ago. He could remember the smell of the peat fire in the room where he and Kate had talked long into the night about the planned uprising. He could almost bring back the words he had used to persuade her it could only fail, and bring more death and more bitterness with it.

He could bring back with exactness that still hurt the look in her eyes, the lamplight on her skin, the sound of her voice when she spoke his name – and the guilt.

Even with his eyes open, in his mind he could see Cormac O’Neil’s fury, and then his grief. He understood it. They all had reason to hate Narraway. But for all its vividness, it had been twenty years ago.

He looked up at Stoker. ‘Why these?’ he asked. ‘This case is old, it’s finished.’

‘The Irish troubles are never finished,’ Stoker said simply.

‘Our more urgent problem is here now,’ Narraway replied. ‘And possibly in Europe.’

‘Socialists?’ Stoker said drily. ‘They’re always grumbling on.’

‘It’s a lot more than that,’ Narraway told him. ‘They’re fanatic. It’s the new religion, with all the fire and evangelism of a holy cause. And just like Christianity in its infancy, it has its apostles and its dogma – and its splinter groups, quarrels over what is the true faith.’

Stoker looked puzzled, as if this were all true but irrelevant.

‘The point is . . .’ Narraway said sharply, ‘. . . they each consider the others to be heretics. They fight each other as much as they fight anyone else.’

‘Thank God,’ Stoker said with feeling.

‘So when we see disciples of different factions meeting each other in secret, working together, then we know that it is something damned big that has healed the rifts, temporarily.’ Narraway heard the edge in his own voice, and saw the sudden understanding in Stoker’s eyes.

Stoker let out his breath slowly.

‘How close are we to knowing what they’re planning, sir?’

‘I don’t know,’ Narraway admitted. ‘It all rests on Pitt now.’

‘And you,’ Stoker said softly. ‘We’ve got to sort this money thing out, sir, and get you back.’

Narraway drew in his breath to answer, and felt a sudden wave of conviction so profound – a helplessness, a loss, an awareness of fear – that no words were adequate.

Stoker held out the papers he had brought. ‘We can’t afford to wait,’ he said urgently. ‘I looked through everything I could that had to do with informants, money and Ireland, trying to work out who’s behind this. This case seemed the most likely. Also I’m pretty sure someone else has had this out lately.’

‘Why?’

‘Just the way it was put back,’ Stoker answered.

‘Untidy?’

‘No, the opposite. Very neat indeed.’

Now Narraway was afraid for Stoker. He would lose his job for this; in fact, if he were caught, he could even be charged with treason himself. All sorts of possibilities raced through his head, including that of a deliberate trap. Even if it were, he wanted to read the pages, but not with Stoker present. If this were the act of personal loyalty it seemed, or even loyalty to the truth, he did not want Stoker to take such a risk. It would be better for both of them for him not to be caught.

‘Where did you get them?’ he asked.

Stoker looked at him with a very slight smile. ‘Better you don’t know, sir.’

Narraway smiled back. ‘Then I can’t tell,’ he agreed wryly.

Stoker nodded. ‘That too, sir,’

There was something about Stoker calling him ‘sir’ that was stupidly pleasing, as if he were still who he had been this morning. Did he value the respect so much? How pathetic!

He swallowed hard and drew in his breath. ‘Leave them with me. Go home, where everyone expects you to be. Come back for them when it’s safe.’

‘Sorry, sir, but they have to be back by dawn,’ Stoker replied. ‘In fact, the sooner the better.’

‘It will take me all night to read these and make my own notes,’ Narraway argued, but he knew as he said it that Stoker was right. To have them absent from Lisson Grove even for one day was too dangerous. Then they could never be returned. Anyone with two wits to rub together would look to Narraway for them, and then to whoever had brought them to him. He had no right to jeopardise Stoker’s life with such stupidity. It was poor thanks for his loyalty, if that was what it was. Perhaps it wasn’t – he might have his own entirely different reasons – but Narraway clung to the thought that it was loyalty. He needed it to be that, and a belief in the truth.

‘I’ll have them read before dawn,’ he promised. ‘Three o’clock. You can return then and I’ll give them to you. You can be at the Grove before light, and away again. Or you can go and sleep in my spare room, if you prefer. It would be wiser. No chance then of being caught in the street.’

Stoker did not move.

‘I’ll stay here, sir. I’m pretty good at not being seen, but no risk at all is better. Wouldn’t do if I couldn’t get back.’