Blackest of Lies (15 page)

A grim Anne Banfield folded yet another towel from the mountain of fresh laundry and stacked it on the neat pile just under the counter.  She looked up at the clock.  It was nearly time to go home, thank God, and her feet were killing her.  Things were quiet – if it continued like this, perhaps she could just slope off ...  but the outer door slammed, causing her to sigh at the thought of yet another customer.

Looking at her dispassionately, the average observer would see that she was not what classicists would call
pretty
.  In fact, her face was perilously close to plain.  Nose a little on the generous side, her hair was often mutinous despite her infuriated efforts to the contrary.  Perhaps her bottom was even a touch too large.  But her smile!  When she smiled, her whole face seemed to glow from inside, as if someone had switched on an electric light.  That, and a no-nonsense attitude to life, was all that was needed to encourage the proprietor to hire the impertinent twenty-five-year-old. Two or three abortive sorties and several painful jabs later, he gave up all attempts at scaling the north face of Anne Banfield.  From there, her life had sagged into one of constant boredom, she thought, almost with regret.

Her new customer pushed open the inner swing doors and marched up to the counter. He scattered some coins down and demanded a towel. Anne noted that he kept his hat on and his eyes cast down, even after he’d stalked off into one of the cubicles a few doors away.  She stuck her tongue out at his back disappearing round the door – rude people really made her mad!  Exhausted, she turned to pick up another towel, fold it, put it on the pile, take another towel ...  The way he just rushed in and ... Thinking again of what she could see of his face, Anne realised that she might have seen him before.  But where?

Before she could bring him to mind, another man entered through the swing doors.  She knew that she had never seen
him
in her life.  But the other one?  Her mind elsewhere, she provided the requested towel and he made his way to a cubicle next to the first customer’s.

“
Casement
!”  Although she said it to herself in a whisper, she stopped her hand over her mouth and looked around to see if either of the two men had heard.  Nothing.  She sat back in her chair.  The first man was a known associate of Sir Roger Casement, who was taking a well-earned rest in the Tower for treason.  What was his pal up to here?  Within a few minutes, she heard the sound of a door open and one of them join the other.

Anne had arranged her own little cubby-hole so that the ventilators which serviced the cubicles opened out into her own.  All she had to do was to stand on a chair and listen in.  For a moment, she could hear only a low murmur and then a man, the second one she thought, whispered, “It seems that Mr Darlington’s coming back. That worries quite a few people over here.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“About Darlington coming back?  Absolutely.  And he knows far too much.  So much, that he’s likely to get off lightly in case he starts talking.”

Anne’s head was buzzing, trying to think of who ‘Mr Darlington’ might be.  One possibility was Trebitsch Lincoln, the renegade Member of Parliament who had been resident in the USA for the past few months, employing his time publishing scurrilous material about Britain and the War through the German Embassy in Washington.  Lincoln had been MP for the town of Darlington and it was a pseudonym he was known to use. The Government of Great Britain had been reduced to hiring Pinkerton’s to locate and return him to British soil.  He richly deserved to join Casement in the Tower for treason but it was a crime not covered by the US extradition treaty. The upshot was that he’d be tried for fraud, instead, or the Yanks would not have agreed to hand him over.  Her thoughts were dragged back to the present by the sound of the first man speaking again.

“Well, can we get in touch with him, then?”

“Not at the moment.  We’re all up to our armpits in crocodiles, right now.  In fact, I just have time to grab a quick shower and then I have to be off.  The important thing is to tell the boys not to be around when Darlington gets into Liverpool – he’s got a ‘very bad cold’, understand?  They might catch some of it.”

“Understood.”

“But even so, they mustn’t lose sight of the Big Fellow.  There’s to be a party at the beginning of next month and he’s to be the guest of honour.”

“A champagne party, then?”

“No.  Stronger stuff – vodka.”

“Where’s it to be held?”

“No idea, but we’ve just had word that they’ll probably start off at Florrie’s.”

“Right.  I suppose we can make it.”

“You’d better.”

Anne heard the door open and the man return to his own cubicle.  Puzzled by the laconic conversation, she ran over everything in her mind.  Who was to have met Lincoln and why was he being warned off?  Were the Security Services watching?  ‘Florrie’ or ‘Florence’ was a well-known enemy code-word for Scapa Flow.  Whatever the party was, it was a naval one.  ‘Champagne’ could be France and ‘vodka’, then, had to be Russia.  But who was the ‘Big Fellow’?  The Prime Minister?  Perhaps the King, himself?  She dismissed the latter out of hand.  No foreign power would wish to dispose of any member of the Royal Family.  The inevitable popular backlash would undermine any political benefit sought.

Casement … Casement.  She turned the name over in her head.  The Irish traitor involved with separatism.  It was the thought of Ireland that made the link in her mind – Kitchener was under threat from the IRB for nationalistic reasons and their recent activities at Easter placed them firmly in the forefront of her mind.  Kitchener, himself, was born in Ireland and she was aware, through her work as one of the few female agents in Special Branch, that he was the subject of hostile surveillance.  Was it possible that Kitchener was leaving for Russia, departing from the naval base at Scapa Flow some time within the next fortnight?  If so, he might be in for trouble.  The clock showing a little past five, she packed up her things and left for the Yard to see her commanding officer – Assistant Commissioner Sir Basil Thompson.

**********

In the cold waters of the North Sea, Beitzen stood perched on the conning tower of U-75.  In the rising swell, he wedged himself with his feet pushed against the safety rail, oblivious to the cold water running down his back from the superstructure.  Grassl had just handed him a decoded signal and disappeared back down below.  The paper fluttered like a trapped bird as he read the message – the battle had not gone as hoped.  Not exactly a defeat but not the victory that was expected.  Stalemate!  And what of his new mission!

RECENTLY INTERCEPTED BRITISH SIGNALS COMBINED WITH EVIDENCE FROM RUSSIA SUGGESTS KITCHENER WILL TRAVEL TO ST PETERSBURG FROM SCAPA ON 5 JUNE – STOP – MAKE FOR BIRSAY WITH ALL SPEED – STOP – LAY FULL COMPLETEMENT OF MINES IN SIX CHAINED GROUPS 3 METRES BELOW SURFACE - END

My God!  Kitchener!  He leaned back against the bulkhead and looked up at the deepening blue of the evening sky, now flecked mistily with mare’s tails. 

Bad weather coming.

Friday 2 June 1916 1930 hours – Sunday 4 June 1916 1300

Thompson sat still for a moment, his eyes screwed up, until Anne thought he was about to have a heart attack.  No such luck, she thought, as he exploded into a large handkerchief.  He looked at her with bleary eyes.  “I’m sorry – dreadful, never-ending cold.  Had it for weeks.”  He motioned towards a chair with his free hand.  “Sit down and carry on.”

Anne did as she was told, trembling inside.  “You may be aware, sir, that I was detailed to observe callers to the Turkish Baths establishment in the Strand?”

“I do.”  He laid a hand on the thick file in front of him – her personal file.

Anne swallowed hard.  “I overheard a conversation less than an hour ago.  The long and the short of it is … I believe that there might be a significant new threat to Lord Kitchener’s life.”

Thompson’s eyes narrowed.  He tucked his handkerchief into the breast pocket of his jacket with a single thrust.  “Go on,” he said, quietly.

“Well ... the conversation was somewhat coded but it was quite clear that the speakers were associates, or at least supporters, of both Casement and Lincoln.  Scapa Flow was mentioned, together with oblique references to a Russian trip.”

“What makes you sure that it’s Lord Kitchener?”

“They referred to their target as ‘The Big Fellow’.  I agree that this could mean just about anyone but it does fit with Casement’s background and the current Irish interest in Lord Kitchener.  Putting two and two together, I thought it might be wise to get together with the War Office to check if he is to visit Ru ...”

Thompson held up a hand.  “I’ll decide what is
wise
, Miss Banfield, if you don’t mind.”  He looked down at the cover of the file for a moment, gathering his thoughts.  “Tell me everything that was said.”

Anne paused for a moment to gather her thoughts and then recounted the conversation word for word, including her interpretations of the words “Florrie’s” and “Vodka Party”.

“This is something of a leap in the dark.” The sardonic note in his voice was unmistakeable.  “Am I to understand that you want me to alert the War Office on ‘evidence’ like this?  Can you imagine what Kitchener’s staff would say if I turned up and told them that we’d overheard a conversation in some Turkish Baths and that if he was planning to go to Russia in the future, he’d better call it off?” 

He quickly held up a hand again to stifle Anne’s retort.  “Look, I can see from your file you’ve been working long shifts with no back up.  I know you to be a conscientious officer but with that sort of workload I’m not surprised this bee has become fixed in your bonnet.  You’re tired.  It often happens.  You’ve been doing too much work and you’ve let your imagination run away with you.  That changes you from an asset to a damned liability!  I’ll see that you have a change of assignment in the near future – ‘good as a rest’, sort of thing.”

“But, sir, I really think that this is important.”

“You’re probably so tensed up that anything seems important, right now.  But I’m telling you that it isn’t.  Just forget it – and forget it immediately before your mind gets cluttered up even more.”

Anne was fast becoming furious.  She had been in this business for a few years now and had dealt with some difficult cases.  She was not prepared to accept this sort of treatment without a fight and got to her feet, fists clenched.  “Is there anything in my record that would give you the
smallest
basis for taking this line?”

“I’m not prepared to argue with you, Miss Banfield.”

“I refuse to be silenced like this.  I’m not some child you can rebuke without explanation.”

Thompson’s features slackened malevolently.  “Now, you listen to me, woman.  I know you of old – if you think you’re right, nothing in the world is going to shift you.  But if you can’t use the sense you were born with to keep silent about this, I’ll find the means to
make
you silent.  Do you understand me?”

Anne stood still, for a moment, her jaw trembling with indignation.  In the end, all she could find to say was “Good day!” before spinning on her heel, furious at not being able to think of anything more cutting.

**********

Fitz Duquesne sat back from his handiwork with a degree of care.  Using this type of container for the device was a lovely touch, he chuckled malevolently, and it held a hell of a lot of gelignite.  He
had
wanted to use dynamite but it sweated too easily and the weeping nitro-glycerine that resulted was a bitch to handle with any kind of safety – anyone might pick it up and cause it to explode just jiggling the damn thing.  No – gelignite might be more expensive and harder to get in these trying times but it was completely inert unless a detonator was in the equation.  Still, it still paid not to get too cocky with these things, he thought – thus, the exaggerated care.

He reached back in and shaped the charge a little more, feeling the slightly gritty texture of the putty-like explosive, until he was happy with the general arrangement.  Screwing his eyes up against the incipient headache he always developed when handling gelignite without rubber gloves, Duquesne tried to think happy thoughts of a Kitchener converted in the blink of an eye into
aarbeikonfyt
.  Some God-forsaken place was going to need a paint job.  He laughed soundlessly.

All that was needed to bring it all to life was to slide a small, hidden metal contact on the outside of the container, just below its handle.  The device would then explode when it was opened or when one of the two clocks inside reached its alarm setting.  Reaching over to the side table in his tawdry but anonymous ‘bijou’ Paddington flat, he picked up his whisky glass and drew a long pull.  He was finished.

**********

Back home in her flat, Anne had changed out of her work clothes and thrown something on the cooker – she had no idea what – with the vague intention of eating it in the immediate future.  She was
incandescent
, so angry she could hardly think straight.  Try as she might, she couldn’t stop mentally replaying her meeting with Thompson.  This was all
wrong
!  Something was definitely going on that would do Kitchener no good – well, maybe not Kitchener, but she was sure it involved Scapa Flow, Russia and
some
highly placed political figure – the ‘Big Fellow’.  Then again, why
shouldn’t
it be Kitchener?  It all fitted.  For God’s sake, Special Branch and the Irish coppers had been up to their necks over the past few weeks, arresting every known member of the IRB they could lay their hands on.  Kitchener’s life was
known
to be in danger from extremists, so why discount even the faintest possibility that she had uncovered a plot to assassinate him at Scapa Flow, or on the way there?  Could she be so far from the truth?

‘Mr Darlington’ was the key to it – she was sure of that.  Trebitsch Lincoln had offered his services as a spy a while back but His Majesty’s Government saw him as too much of a risk – and how right they were.  He went straight off to the Netherlands to be recruited by the Germans as a double.  Anne was part of the task force who went to arrest him when he returned, but he slipped the net and escaped to the United States where he made contact with Franz von Papen, the Military Attaché to the US.  But it seemed that the Germans, had had enough of him.  Now he was coming back to British soil and his ‘friends’ were planning to make some political capital out of it.

The smell of something burning brought her back to reality.  The ‘something’ was carbonised – a black, smoking mess at the bottom of the pot.  She stared at the ceiling, arms rigidly at her sides, and quietly growled.

**********

Beitzen was on his way to the north of Scotland, having told no-one the purpose of the mission, except Grassl.

“Kitchener!” Grassl exclaimed, when they were alone in Beitzen’s cabin.  “My God, there’s a target for you!  How the hell did we get wind of that?  Someone’s been careless!”  Grassl leaned back in the chair and gazed at the bulkhead, lost in thought.  “This would change a lot of things, Kurt.  The Tommies’ morale would go to rock bottom if we were able to take Kitchener out of the equation.  Everyone I talk to says that the Allies would make a complete hash of things in Flanders if it weren’t for his control and – let’s give the devil his due – the respect he commands.”

“I know, Willi, but where’s the
sense
in it?  How in the name of God will this do Germany any good?”

Grassl looked at the other man through narrowed eyes and lowered his voice to little more than a hoarse whisper.  Life in a submarine was like working inside a tin can – sound travelled.  “I don’t understand you, Kurt.  It’s not for you to question the whys and wherefores.  You simply have to carry out your orders.  If Kiel tells you to lay mines off Orkney, then that’s exactly what you should do.  Lay them and then get the hell out of there into open sea.”

Beitzen was troubled and couldn’t hide it.  “Willi, I’ve looked at this from all sides and I believe there is only one conclusion to make – we
can’t
win this war!  Not just us, you understand –
no-one
can
really
win it!  It’s a question of who dies first.”

“For Christ’s sake, Kurt, lower your voice!”

Beitzen looked straight into the other man’s eyes.  “Willi, we can’t win this war,” he said quietly.  “There are just too many forces ranged against us.  And when it’s all over, it’ll be men like Kitchener who will make a decent peace – an honourable peace which might leave us some shreds of dignity.  Something to build upon in peacetime.”

“Kapitän, I don’t want to hear any more of this.”  Grassl stood up to leave.

Reaching over, Beitzen grasped the other man’s sleeve.  “No, listen to me, Willi.  Just for a minute.  Sit back down and hear me out – I need your thoughts.”  Grassl lowered himself back onto the small wicker armchair.  “Let’s just suppose, then, that we send Kitchener to the bottom – congratulations all round.  How do you think the British Army will react to that?  How do you think Britain would take the news?”  He looked steadily at Grassl.  “I’ll tell you – at first, they’d be devastated but then they’d come on us with a savagery the likes of which you and I have never seen!”

“Kurt!” said Grassl. “I never thought you
afraid
!”

“I’m not,” he sighed, resting back against the ever-damp bulkhead.  “What I’m trying to say is that the War would only be lengthened – doesn’t matter who comes out top in the end.  You, yourself, agreed when we were talking about Scheer versus Jellicoe.  The British would
never
give up if we killed Kitchener.   We’d just slug it out, year after year, like two old heavyweights who don’t know when to throw in the towel.  We’d put on a great show for the world to watch – and then, when it was all over, the world would go home and leave us both to bleed to death, drop by drop, on the canvas.”  He looked at Grassl.  “We
need
men like Kitchener, not posturing politicians and warmongers.  We need men of honour who know what it’s like to fight for one’s country.”

“But Kurt, we
must
do as we are told!  If you disobey, what will happen?  You will be returned in disgrace, get yourself court-martialled and end up being shot, like as not.  And even then, another boat will just be dispatched to do the job, anyway.  It would all be for nothing. 
Nothing
, Kurt!  You
have
to do it.  Think of Magda, for God’s sake, if nothing else.”

“Willi, don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?  It’s Magda and Trudi I’m thinking of.  They’re
starving
!  The blockade is strangling our country.”  He turned, appalled, towards Grassl, “Do you know, Madga told me how she saw a group of people
butchering
a dead horse that had fallen in the very street – they were that hungry!  It
has
to come to an end.”

“You simply have no choice, Kurt.”  He tapped the flimsy in Beitzen’s hand.  “Your orders tell you clearly that you are to approach Orkney from the north-west just past Noup Head and mine the waters to the south – you
have
to lay those mines.  The alternative is unthinkable.”

Beitzen looked up at the dripping ceiling and sadly ran his finger along a weld line above his head.  “I know, Willi.  I’ll do what I’m told.  I’ll lay the mines as ordered but remember what I’ve said.  This will do Germany no favours – no favours at all.”

**********

Kell was less than pleased.  Despite Special Branch’s most strenuous efforts, backed up by the Royal Irish Constabulary, Gallagher and this phantom accomplice were still on the run.  He was disappointed.  And now this girl – he looked down at the open file lying untidily on the table – ‘Banfield’, was prowling around on the edges of the situation.  Casement and his crew were out of the picture.  Thompson had at least seen to that. There would be no further danger from them, especially now that they had Casement’s appalling diaries to leak to his bleeding heart supporters within the British ranks.  They made interesting reading, to say the least.  Of course, they’d inevitably be labelled ‘forgeries’ by those with an axe to grind but Thompson was totally convinced of their authenticity and over the moon when he learned the glad tidings that they had not been lost at sea, as publicly leaked.