In the early evening of the day that Pitt and Gower had followed Wrexham to Southampton, Victor Narraway was sitting in his office at Lisson Grove. There was a knock on his door, and, as soon as he answered, one of his more junior men came in.
‘Yes?’ Narraway said with a touch of impatience. He was waiting for Pitt to report on the information from West, and he was late. Narraway had no wish to speak to Stoker now.
Stoker closed the door behind him and came to stand in front of Narraway’s desk. His lean face, with its high-bridged nose, was unusually serious. ‘Sir, there was a murder in a brickyard off Cable Road in Shadwell in the middle of the day-’
‘Are you sure I care about this, Stoker?’ Narraway interrupted.
‘Yes, sir,’ Stoker said without hesitation. ‘The victim had his throat cut, and the man who did it was caught almost in the act, knife still in his hand. He was chased by two men who seem to have followed him to Limehouse, according to the investigation by the local police. Then-’
Narraway interrupted him again impatiently. ‘Stoker, I’m waiting for information about a major attack of some sort by socialist revolutionaries, possibly another spate of dynamitings.’ Then suddenly he was chilled to the bone. ‘Stoker. .’
‘West, sir,’ Stoker said immediately. ‘The man with his throat cut was West. It looks as if Pitt and Gower went after the man who did it, at least as far as Limehouse, probably across the river to the railway station. From there they could have gone anywhere in the country. There’s been no word. No telephone call.’
Narraway felt the sweat break out on his body. It was almost a relief to hear something. But where the hell was Pitt now? Why had he not at least placed a telephone call? The train could have gone anywhere. Even on an all-night train to Scotland he could have got off at one of the stations on the way and called.
Then another thought occurred to him: Dover — or any of the other seaports. Folkestone, Southampton. If he were on a ship, then calls would be impossible. That would explain the silence.
‘I see. Thank you,’ he said aloud.
‘Sir.’
‘Say nothing to anyone, for the time being.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Thank you. That’s all.’
After Stoker had gone Narraway sat still for several minutes. To have lost West, with whatever information he had, was serious. There had been increased activity lately, known troublemakers coming and going more often than usual, a charge of expectancy in the air. He knew all the signs, he just did not know what the target was this time. There were so many possibilities: specific assassination, such as a government minister, an industrialist; a foreign dignitary on British soil — that would be a serious embarrassment — or the dynamiting of a major landmark. He had relied on Pitt to find out. Perhaps he still might, but without West it would be more difficult.
And of course it was not the only issue at hand. There were always whispers, threats. The air breathed suspicion and betrayal all the time. It was the purpose of Special Branch to detect it before it happened, and prevent at least the worst of it.
But if Pitt had gone to some distant part of the country after the murderer of West, or worse still, across the Channel, and had had no time to tell Narraway, then certainly he would not have had time to tell his wife either. Charlotte would be at home in Keppel Street waiting for him, expecting him, and growing more and more afraid with each passing hour as the silence closed in on her.
Narraway glanced at the long-case clock standing against the wall of his office. Its ornate hands pointed at quarter to seven. On a usual day Pitt would have gone home already, but she might not begin to be anxious for another hour or two.
He thought of her in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal, probably alone. Her children would be occupied with studies for the following day’s school. He could picture her easily; in fact the picture was already there in his mind, unbidden. Beauty was very much a personal thing, a matter of taste, the ability to see beyond the obvious into some element of the passions or dreams where the essence of a person was hidden.
Some would not have found Charlotte beautiful. They might have preferred a face more traditional, daintier, less challenging. Narraway found such faces boring. There was a warmth in Charlotte, a laughter he could never quite forget — and he had tried. She was quick to anger at times, far too quick to react. Many of her judgements were flawed, in his opinion, but never her courage, never her will.
Someone must tell her that Pitt had gone in hot pursuit of West’s murderer — no, better leave out the fact that West had been murdered. Pitt had gone in hot pursuit of a man with vital information, possibly across the Channel, and been unable to telephone her to let her know. He could call Stoker back and send him, but she did not know him. She did not know anyone else at Lisson Grove headquarters. It would be the courteous thing to tell her himself. It would not be far out of his way. Well, yes it would, but it would still be the better thing to do.
Pitt, for all his initial ignorance of Special Branch ways, and his occasional political naivety, was one of the best men Narraway had ever known. There was an honesty in him that was exasperating at times, reflecting his origins as a gamekeeper’s son. He had been educated in the household of the manor, side by side with the master’s son, but never his social equal. It had produced a man by nature a gentleman, and yet with an anger and a compassion Narraway admired. He found himself puzzlingly protective of Pitt against the envy of those who had preceded him in Special Branch, but whom he had overtaken in skill.
Narroway tidied his desk, locked away anything that might be confidential, left his office, and caught a hansom within minutes. He gave the driver Pitt’s address in Keppel Street.
Narraway saw the fear in Charlotte’s eyes as soon as she opened the door to him. He would never have called merely socially, and she knew that. The strength of her emotion gave him a startling twinge of envy. It was a long time since there had been anyone who would have felt that terror for him.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said with rather stiff formality. ‘Events did not go according to plan today, and Pitt and his assistant were obliged to pursue a suspected conspirator without the opportunity to inform anyone of what was happening.’
The anxiety eased out of her eyes. Warmth coming back, flushing the soft honey colour of her skin. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.
He decided to sound more certain than he was. West’s murderer might have fled even as far as Scotland, but France was far more likely. ‘France,’ he replied. ‘Of course he could not telephone from the ferry, and he would not have dared leave in case the man got off as well, and he lost him. I’m sorry.’
She smiled. ‘It was very thoughtful of you to have come to tell me. I admit, I was beginning to be concerned.’
The April evening was cold, a sharp wind carrying the smell of rain. Narraway was standing on the doorstep, staring at the light beyond, feeling the warmth. He stepped back deliberately, his thoughts, the temptation, the quickening of his heart frightening him.
‘There is no need,’ he said hastily. ‘Gower is with him; an excellent man, intelligent and quite fluent in French. And I dare say it will be warmer there than it is here.’ He smiled. ‘And the food is excellent.’ She had been preparing dinner. That was clumsy. Thank goodness he was far enough into the darkness that she could not see the blush rise up his face. It would be absurd to try to repair his clumsiness. It would be better to ignore it. ‘I will let you know as soon as I hear from him. If this man they are following goes to Paris, it may not be easy for them to be in contact, but please don’t fear for him.’
‘Thank you. I won’t now.’
He knew that was a polite lie. Of course she would fear for Pitt, and miss him. Loving always included the possibility of loss. But the emptiness of not loving was even greater.
He nodded very slightly, just an inclination of his head, then wished her good night. He walked away, feeling as if he were leaving the light behind him.
It was the middle of the following morning when Narraway received the telegram from Pitt in St Malo. He immediately forwarded him sufficient money to last both himself and Gower for at least two weeks. He thought about it as soon as it had been sent, and knew he had been overgenerous. Perhaps that was an indication of the relief he felt to know Pitt was safe. He realised with surprise the effort it had cost him not to allow the fear into his mind. He would have to go back to Keppel Street to tell Charlotte that Pitt had been in touch.
He had returned to his desk after lunch when Charles Austwick came in and closed the door behind him. He was officially Narraway’s next-in-command, although in practical terms it had come to be Pitt. Austwick was in his late forties with fair hair, which was receding a little, and a good-looking but curiously unremarkable face. He was intelligent and efficient, and he seemed to be always in control of whatever feelings he might have. Now he looked very directly at Narraway, deliberately so, as if he were uncomfortable and attempting not to show it.
‘An ugly situation has arisen, sir,’ he said, sitting down before he was invited to. ‘I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to address it.’
‘Then do so!’ Narraway said a little hastily. ‘Don’t creep around it like a maiden aunt at a wedding. What is it?’
Austwick’s face tightened, his lips making a thin line.
‘This has to do with informers,’ Austwick said coldly. ‘Do you remember Mulhare?’
Narraway saw from the gleam of oblique satisfaction in Austwick’s pale eyes that it was something to do with Narraway himself, and in which he was vulnerable. He recognised the name with a rush of sadness. Mulhare had been an Irishman who risked his life to do what he thought was the right thing in giving information to the English. It was dangerous enough that he would have to leave Ireland, taking his family with him. Narraway had made sure there were funds provided for him.
‘Of course I do,’ he said quietly. ‘Have they found who killed him? Not that it’ll do much good now.’ He knew his voice sounded bitter. He had liked Mulhare, and had promised him that he’d be safe.
‘That is something of a difficult question,’ Austwick replied. ‘He never got the money, so he couldn’t leave Ireland.’
‘Yes, he did,’ Narraway contradicted him. ‘I dealt with it myself.’
‘That’s rather the point,’ Austwick said. He moved position slightly, scuffing the chair leg on the carpet.
Narraway resented being reminded of his failure. ‘If you don’t know who killed him, why are you spending time on that now, instead of current things?’ he asked abruptly. ‘If you have nothing to do, I can certainly find you something. Pitt and Gower are away for a while. Somebody’ll have to pick up Pitt’s case on the docks.’
‘Oh, really?’ Austwick barely masked his surprise. ‘I didn’t know. No one mentioned it!’
Narraway gave him a chill look and ignored the implied rebuke.
Austwick drew in his breath. ‘As I said,’ he resumed, ‘this is something that I regret we have to deal with. Mulhare was betrayed-’
‘We know that, for God’s sake!’ Narraway could hear his own voice thick with emotion. ‘His corpse was fished out of Dublin Bay.’
‘He never got the money,’ Austwick said again.
Narraway clenched his hands under the desk, out of Austwick’s sight. ‘I paid it myself.’ He had done, but indirectly, for good reasons, which he would not tell Austwick.
‘But Mulhare never received it,’ Austwick replied, his voice conflicted with a mixture of emotions. ‘We traced it.’
Narraway was startled. ‘To whom? Where is it?’
‘It is in one of your bank accounts here in London,’ Austwick answered.
Narraway froze. Suddenly, with appalling clarity, he knew what Austwick was doing here, and held at least a hazy idea of what had happened. Austwick suspected, or even believed, that Narraway had taken the money and intentionally left Mulhare to be caught and killed. Was that how little he knew him? Or was it more a measure of his long-simmering resentment, his ambition to take Narraway’s place and wield the razor-edged power that he now held?
‘Went in and out again,’ he said aloud to Austwick. ‘We had to move it around a little, or it would have been too easily traceable to Special Branch.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Austwick agreed bleakly. ‘Around to several places. But the trouble is that in the end it went back again.’
‘Back again? It went to Mulhare,’ Narraway corrected him.
‘No, sir, it did not go to Mulhare. It went back into one of your special accounts. One that we had believed closed,’ Austwick said. ‘It is there now. If Mulhare had received it, he would have left Dublin and he would still be alive. The money went around to several places, making it almost untraceable, as you say, but it ended up right back where it started, with you.’
Narraway drew in his breath to deny it, and saw in Austwick’s face that it would be pointless. Whoever had put it there, Austwick believed it was Narraway himself, or he chose to pretend he believed it.
‘I did not put it there,’ Narraway said, though he thought it would not change anything. The betrayal of Mulhare was repugnant to him, and ‘betrayal’ was not a word he used easily. ‘I paid it to Terence Kelly. He was supposed to have paid it to Mulhare. That was his job. For obvious reasons, I could not give it directly to Mulhare, or I might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on his heart.’
‘Can you prove that, sir?’ Austwick asked politely.
‘Of course I can’t!’ Narraway snapped. Was Austwick being deliberately obtuse? He knew as well as Narraway himself that one did not leave trails to prove such things. What he would be able to prove now, to justify himself, anyone else could have used to damn Mulhare.
‘You see it calls into question the whole subject of your judgement,’ Austwick said half apologetically, his bland face grave. ‘It would be highly advisable, sir, for you to find some proof of this, then the matter could be let go.’
Narraway’s mind raced. He knew what was in his bank accounts, both personal and for Special Branch use. Austwick had mentioned one that had been presumed closed. No money had passed through it for some time, but Narraway had deliberately left a few pounds in it, in case he ever wished to use it again. It was a convenience.
‘I’ll check the account,’ he said aloud, his voice cold.
‘That would be a good idea, sir,’ Austwick agreed. ‘Perhaps you will be able to find some proof as to why the money came back to you, and a reason poor Mulhare never received it.’
Narraway realised with the first chill of fear that this was not an invitation; it was a comparatively low-key warning to him, but it was in earnest. It was even possible that his position at Special Branch was in jeopardy. Certainly he had created enemies over the years, both in his rise to leadership, and even more so in the time since then. There were always hard decisions to make; whatever you did could not please everyone. There had to be sacrifices both of ideals and of people. They were dealing with lives, the movements and the tides of history, there was no room for sentimentality.
He had employed Pitt as a favour, when Pitt had challenged his own superiors and been thrown out of the Metropolitan Police. To begin with he had found Pitt unsatisfactory. He lacked the training or the inclination for Special Branch work, but he had learned quickly, and he was a remarkably good detective: persistent, imaginative and with a moral courage Narraway admired. And he liked the man, in spite of his own resolution not to allow personal feelings into anything professional.
He had protected Pitt from the envy and the criticism of others in the Branch. That was partly because Pitt was more than worthy of the place, but also to defend Narraway’s own judgement. But — he admitted it now-it was also for Charlotte’s sake. Without Pitt, he would have no excuse to see her again.
‘I’ll attend to it,’ he answered Austwick at last. ‘As soon as I have a few more answers on this present problem. One of our informants was murdered, which has made things more difficult.’
Austwick rose to his feet. ‘Yes, sir. That would be a good idea. I think the sooner you put people’s minds at rest on the issue, the better it will be. I suggest before the end of this week.’
‘When circumstances allow,’ Narraway replied coolly.
Circumstances did not allow. Early the following morning Narraway was sent for to report to the Home Office, directly to Sir Gerald Croxdale, his political superior, the one man to whom he was obliged to answer, without reservation.
Croxdale was in his early fifties, a quiet, persistent politician who had risen in the ranks of the government with remarkable swiftness, not having made great speeches or initiated new laws, nor apparently having used the benefit of patronage from any of the more noted ministers. Croxdale seemed to be his own man. Whatever debts he collected or favours he owed were too discreet for even Narraway to know of, let alone the general public. He had made no individual initiatives that were remarkable, but probably far more important, he had made no visible mistakes. Insiders spoke his name with respect.
Narraway had never seen in him the passion that marked an ambitious man, but he had noted the quick rise to greater power and it earned in him a deeper, if reluctant, respect.
‘Morning, Narraway,’ Croxdale said with an easy smile as he waved him to a brown leather armchair in his large office. Croxdale was a big man, tall and solid. His face was far from handsome in any traditional sense, but he was imposing. His voice was soft, his smile benign. Today he was wearing his usual well-cut but unostentatious suit, and perfectly polished black leather boots. He could have been the second son of any of the great families in the country.
Narraway returned the greeting, and sat down, not comfortably, but a little forward, listening.
‘Bad business about your informant West being killed,’ Croxdale began. ‘I presume he was going to tell you a great deal more about whatever it was that is building up among the militant socialists.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Narraway said bleakly. ‘Pitt and Gower were only seconds too late. They saw West but he was already terrified of something and took to his heels. They caught up with him in a brickyard in Shadwell, only moments after he was killed. The murderer was still bending over him.’ He could feel the heat of the blood in his cheeks as he said it. It was partly anger at having been so close, and yet infinitely far from preventing the death. One minute sooner and West would have been alive, and all his information would be theirs. It was also a sense of failure, as if losing him were an incompetence on the part of his men, and so of himself. Deliberately he met Croxdale’s eyes, refusing to look away. He never made excuses, explicit or implicit.
Croxdale smiled, leaning back and crossing his long legs. ‘Unfortunate, but luck cannot always be on our side. It is the measure of your men that they kept track of the assassin. What is the news now?’
‘I’ve had a couple of telegrams from Pitt in St Malo,’ Narraway answered. ‘Wrexham, the killer, seems to have more or less gone to ground in the house of a British expatriate there. The interesting thing is that he has seen other socialist activists of note.’
‘Who?’ Croxdale asked.
‘Pieter Linsky and Jacob Meister,’ Narraway replied.
Croxdale stiffened, straightening up a little, his face keen with interest. ‘Really? Then perhaps not all is lost.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me, Narraway, do you still believe there is some major action planned?’
‘Yes,’ Narraway said without hesitation. ‘I think West’s murder removes any doubt. He would have told us what it was, and probably who else was involved.’
‘Damn! Well, you must keep Pitt there, and the other chap, what’s his name?’
‘Gower.’
‘Yes, Gower too. Give them all the funds they need. I’ll see to it that that meets no opposition.’
‘Of course,’ Narraway said with some surprise. He had always had complete authority to disburse the funds in his care as he saw fit.
Croxdale pursed his lips and leaned further forward. ‘It is not quite so simple, Narraway,’ he said gravely. ‘We have been looking into the matter of past funds and their use, in connection with other cases, as I dare say you know.’ He interlaced his fingers and looked down at them a moment, then up again quickly. ‘Mulhare’s death has raised some ugly questions, which I’m afraid have to be answered.’
Narraway was surprised. He had not realised it had already gone as far as Croxdale, and before he had even had a chance to look into it more deeply, and prove his own innocence. Was that Austwick’s doing again? Damn the man.
‘They will be,’ he said now to Croxdale. ‘I kept certain movements of the funds secret to protect Mulhare. His enemies would have killed him instantly if they’d known he received English money.’
‘Isn’t that rather what happened?’ Croxdale asked ruefully.
Narraway thought for a moment of denying it. Special Branch knew who had killed Mulhare, but it was only proof they lacked; the deduction was certain in his own mind. But he did not need another moral evasion. His life was too full of shadows. He would not allow Croxdale to provoke him into another. ‘Yes.’
‘We failed him, Narraway,’ Croxdale said sadly.
‘Yes.’
‘How did that happen?’ Croxdale pressed.
‘He was betrayed.’
‘By whom?’
‘I don’t know. When this socialist threat is dealt with, I shall find out, if I can.’
‘If you can,’ Croxdale said gently. ‘Do you doubt it? You have no idea who it was here in London?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘But you used the word “betrayed”,’ Croxdale persisted. ‘I think advisedly so. Does that not concern you urgently, Narraway? Whom can you trust, in any Irish issue? Of which, God knows, there are more than enough.’
‘The European socialist revolutionaries are our most urgent concern now, sir.’ Narraway also leaned forward. ‘There is a high degree of violence threatened. Men like Linsky, Meister, la Pointe, Corazath, are all quick to use guns and dynamite. Their philosophy is that a few deaths are the price they have to pay for the greater freedom and equality of the people. As long, of course, as the deaths are not their own,’ he added drily.
‘Does that take precedence over treachery within your own people?’ Croxdale asked with quiet, tense amazement. He left it hanging in the air between them, a question that demanded answering.
Narraway had seen the death of Mulhare as tragic, but less urgent than the threat of revolution. He knew how he had guarded the provenance of the money, knowing those of whom Mulhare was afraid. He did not know how someone had made the funds return to Narraway’s own personal account. Above all, he did not know who was responsible, or whether it was incompetence or deliberately done in order to make him look a thief.
‘I’m not yet certain it was betrayal, sir. Perhaps I used the word hastily.’ He kept his voice as level as he could; still, he heard a certain roughness to it. He hoped Croxdale’s less sensitive ear did not catch it.
Croxdale was staring at him. ‘As opposed to what?’
‘Incompetence,’ Narraway replied. ‘We covered the tracks of the transfers very carefully, so no one in Ireland would be able to trace the money back to us. We made it seem like legitimate purchases all the way.’
‘Or at least you thought so,’ Croxdale amended. ‘But Mulhare was still killed. Where is the money now?’
Narraway had hoped to avoid telling him, but perhaps it had always been inevitable that Croxdale would have to know. Maybe he did, and this was a trap. ‘Austwick told me it was back in an account I have ceased using,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know who moved it, but I shall find out.’
Croxdale was silent for several moments. ‘Yes, please do, and with indisputable proof, of course. Quickly, Narraway. We need your skills on this wretched socialist business. It seems the threat is real.’
‘I’ll look into the money as soon as we have learned what West’s killers are planning, and prevented it,’ Narraway answered with a chill inside him. ‘With a little luck, we’ll even catch some of them and be able to put them away.’
Croxdale looked up, his eyes bright and sharp. Suddenly he was no longer an amiable, rather bear-like man but tigerish, the passion in him like a coiled spring, only masked by a superficial ease. ‘Do you imagine that the sacrifice of a few martyrs to the cause will stop anything, Narraway? If so, I’m disappointed in you. Idealists thrive on sacrifice, the more public and the more dramatic the better.’
‘I know that.’ Narraway was stung by the misjudgement. ‘I have no intention of giving them martyrs. Indeed, I have no intention of denying them social reform and a good deal of change, but in pace with the will of the majority of the people in the country, not ahead of it, and not forced on them by a few fanatics. We’ve always changed, but slowly. Look at the history of the revolutions of ’forty-eight. We were about the only major country in Europe who didn’t have an uprising. And by 1850 where were all the idealists from the barricades? Where were all the new freedoms so bloodily won? Every damn one of them gone, and all the old regimes back in power.’
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.’
Narraway nodded. So Stoker understood the risk he was taking. Perhaps it was as well. Never underestimate the enemy. He himself was only just beginning to taste the power of this one.
‘Up the stairs, across the landing to the left,’ he said aloud. ‘Help yourself to anything you need.’
Stoker thanked him and left, closing the door softly.
Narraway turned up the gas a little more brightly, then sat down in the big armchair by the fireplace and began to read.
The first few pages were about the Mulhare case: the fact that a large sum of money had been promised Mulhare if he co-operated. It was paid not as reward so much as a means for him to leave Ireland and go, not as might be expected, to America, but to Southern France, a less likely place for his enemies to seek him.
Mulhare had not received the money, according to Austwick. Instead he had remained in Ireland, and been killed. Narraway still did not know exactly what had gone wrong. He had paid the money out. At least he had completed all the paperwork to have it paid, and had checked that it had gone. Then, it now seemed, inexplicably, it had reappeared. Someone had evidently intervened so that the end result had been the exact opposite from what Narraway had instructed, and Mulhare had been murdered in the very way he’d feared.
The papers also referred to a twenty-year-old case that he would like to have forgotten. It was at a time when the passion and the violence were even higher than usual.
Charles Stewart Parnell had just been elected to Parliament. He was a man of fire and eloquence, a highly active member in the council of the Irish Home Rule League, and everything in his life was dedicated to that cause. There was a sudden resurgence of hope that Ireland might at last throw off the yoke of domination and govern itself again. The horrors of the great potato famine could be put behind them. Freedom beckoned.
Of course, 1875 was before Narraway had become head of Special Branch. He was simply an agent in the field at that time, in his mid-thirties; wiry, strong, quick-thinking and with a considerable charm. With his black hair and almost black eyes, his dry wit, he could easily have passed for an Irishman himself. When that assumption was made, as it was, he did not deny it.
One of the leaders of the Irish cause then had been a man called Cormac O’Neil. He had a dark, brooding nature, like an autumn landscape, full of sudden shadows, storms on the horizon. He loved history, especially that handed down by word of mouth, or immortalised in old songs. He knew half of it was probably invented, but he believed in the emotional truths, the remembered grief. He was a man built to yearn for what he could not have.
Narraway thought of that wryly, remembering still, with regret and guilt, Cormac’s brother, Sean, and more vividly, Kate. Beautiful Kate, so fiercely alive, so brave, so quick to see reason, so blind to the wounded and dangerous emotions of others.
In the silence of this comfortable London room, with its very English mementoes, Ireland seemed like the other side of the world. Kate was dead, so was Sean. Narraway had won and their planned uprising had failed without bloodshed on either side. There had been nothing spectacular, just a quiet fading, cold as a winter dusk. That was Narraway’s victory; nobody even knew it had happened.
Even Charles Stewart Parnell was dead now too, just three and a half years ago, October 1891, of a heart attack. But it was his wild, disastrous affair with Mrs O’Shea that had brought about his fall.
And Home Rule for Ireland was still only a dream, and the anger remained.
Narraway shivered here in his warm, familiar sitting room with the last of the embers still glowing, the pictures of trees on the wall, and the gaslamp shedding a golden light around him. The chill was inside, beyond the reach of any physical ease, perhaps of any words either, any thoughts or regrets now.
Was Cormac O’Neil still alive? There was no reason why he should not be. He would barely be sixty, perhaps less. If he were, he could be the one behind this. God knew, after the failed uprising, and Sean and Kate’s deaths, he had cause enough to hate Narraway, more than any other man on earth.
But why wait twenty years to do it? Narraway could have died of accident or natural causes any time between then and now, and robbed Cormac of his revenge.
Could something have prevented him in the meantime? A debilitating illness? Not twenty years long. Time in prison? Surely Narraway would have heard of anything serious enough for a term so long. And even from prison there was communication.
Perhaps this case had nothing to do with the past. Or could it be that Cormac really understood that Narraway was only fighting for his own country, his own beliefs, as they all were, and this vengeance was not personal so much as against England? Perhaps this was the time when Special Branch would be most vulnerable if Narraway were taken from it and his work discredited? The present stakes for Cormac might be incidental, only an exquisite touch that added to the flavour. Perhaps it had to do with the socialist revolution planned by the European anarchist reformers who would sweep away the old order, with its corruption and inequality, the only way they believed would work, with violence.
He closed the papers and put them back in the envelope Stoker had brought, then sat quietly in the dark and thought about it.
The old memories returned easily to his mind. He was walking again with Kate in the autumn stillness, fallen leaves, red and yellow, frozen and crunching under their feet. She had no gloves and he had lent her his. He could feel his hands ache with the cold at the memory. She had laughed at him for it, smiling, eyes bright, all the while making bitter jokes about warming the hands of Ireland with English wool.
When they had returned to the tavern Sean and Cormac had been there, and they had drunk rye whiskey by the fire. He could recall the smell of the peat, and Kate saying it was a good thing he didn’t want vodka because potatoes were too scarce to waste on making it. He had not replied. Even thirty years on, the ruin of the famine still scarred the land. Nothing he could say would heal it, or excuse it.
There were other memories as well, all sharp with emotion, torn loyalties, and regret. Wasn’t it Wellington who had said that there was nothing worse than a battle won — except a battle lost? Or something like that.
Was the record accurate, as far as he had told anyone? Sanitised, of course, robbed of its passion and its humanity, but the elements that mattered to Special Branch were correct and sufficient.
Then something occurred to him, maybe an anomaly. He stood up, turned the gaslight higher again, and took the papers back out of the envelope. He reread them from beginning to end, including the marginal notes from Buckleigh, his superior then. He had not studied them the first time he read it because he knew exactly what they said, and had no desire to be reminded. His own lies had been believed too easily, even if they were largely lies of omission. But then the operation had been on Buckleigh’s orders, so he had to accept it. Morally he was also to blame.
Narraway found what he feared. Something had been added. It was only a word or two, and to anyone who did not know Buckleigh’s turn of phrase, his pedantic grammar, it would be undetectable. The hand looked exactly the same. But the new words added altered the meaning, only slightly, but enough to cast doubt on Buckleigh’s acceptance of Narraway’s account. Once it was only the addition of a question mark that had not been there originally, another time it was a few words that were not grammatically exact, a phrase ending with a preposition; Buckleigh would have included it into the main sentence.
Who had done that, and when? The why was not obscure to him at all: it was to raise the question of his role in this again, to cause the old ghosts to be awakened. Perhaps this was the deciding factor that had forced Croxdale to remove him from office. Doubts were enough, if they were sufficiently serious. One did not wait for proof that might never come.
He read through the papers one more time, just to be certain, then replaced them in the envelope and went upstairs to waken Stoker so he could leave well before dawn.
Narraway knocked on the spare-room door and heard Stoker’s voice answer him. By the time he had opened the door Stoker was standing beside the bed. In the light from the landing it was clear that the quilt was barely ruffled. One swift movement of the hand and it was as if he had never been there.
Stoker looked at Narraway questioningly.
‘Thank you,’ Narraway said quietly, the emotion in his voice more naked than he had meant it to be.
‘It told you something,’ Stoker observed.
‘Several things,’ Narraway admitted. ‘Someone else has been judiciously editing the account since Buckleigh wrote his marginal notes, altering the meaning very slightly, but enough to make a difference.’
Stoker came out of the room and Narraway handed him the envelope. Stoker put it under his jacket where it could not be seen, but he did not fold it, or tuck it into his belt so the edges could be damaged. It was a reminder of the risk he was taking in having it at all. He looked very directly at Narraway.
‘Austwick has taken your place, sir.’
‘Already?’
‘Yes, sir. Mr Pitt’s over the Channel, you’ve no friends at Lisson Grove any more. At least not who’ll risk anything for you. It’s every man for himself,’ Stoker said grimly. ‘I’m afraid there’s no one for sure who’ll help Mr Pitt either, if he gets cut off, or in any kind of trouble.’
‘I know that,’ Narraway said with deep unhappiness over the fact that he could no longer protect Pitt also from the envy or distrust of those who were part of the Establishment before Narraway took him on.
Stoker hesitated as if he would say something else, then changed his mind. He nodded silently, and went down the stairs to the sitting room. He felt his way across the floor without lighting the gaslamps. He opened the french doors and slipped out into the wind and the darkness.
Narraway locked the door behind him and went back upstairs. He undressed and went to bed, but lay awake, staring up at the ceiling. He had left the curtains open and gradually the faintest softening of the spring night made a break in the shadows across the ceiling. The glimmer was almost invisible, just enough to tell him there was movement, light beyond.
Only a matter of hours had passed since Austwick had come into Narraway’s office. Narraway had thought little enough of it: a nuisance, no more. Then Croxdale had sent for him, and everything had changed. It was like going down a steep flight of stairs, and finding the last step was not there. You were plunged into a void, arms flailing, and there was nothing at all to catch on to.
He lay until daylight, realising with a pain that amazed him how much of himself he had lost. He was used to getting up whether he had slept or not. Duty was a relentless mistress, but suddenly he knew also that she was a constant companion, loyal, appreciative, above all never meaningless.
Without her he was naked, even to himself, let alone to others. He was accustomed to being not particularly liked. He had had too much power for that, and he knew too many secrets. But he had never before not been needed.