“ Brown and Wilson? ” Big Mike said after we’d dropped Sheila off at Victoria Station and drove slowly down Victoria Street. “What’s that, the English version of Smith and Jones?”
“Yeah, and about as subtle as a couple of G-men. You sure we don’t have another tail?”
“Absolutely. Them two knuckleheads are probably still changing that tire, and no one else followed us. As long as Sheila gets on a train, she should be all right. Hey, Billy, how about lunch? I’m starved.”
“Sure, if we can find a place to park,” I said. We were only a block from the station, and the streets were clogged with parked cars, taxicabs, and trucks. I pointed to a J. Lyons tea shop on the corner, and Big Mike pulled over, right next to a no-parking sign. A constable walked toward us, shaking his head. Big Mike was out in a flash, his Detroit gold policeman’s shield held in his hand. The bobby studied it for a second before laughing at something Big Mike said. They shook hands, Big Mike crooked his thumb in my direction, and they laughed again.
“All set, Billy,” he said as we entered the restaurant.
“Should I ask what you said about me?”
“No. There’s nothing like a pain-in-the-ass officer to make one flatfoot sympathetic to another. He’s watching the jeep for me.”
“Great,” I said. No matter the color of the uniform Big Mike was still a cop at heart. He ordered a tongue sandwich and lemon barley water, cold. Apparently there was a choice. I went with a ham sandwich and tea.
“What do you think Brown and Wilson were after, Billy?”
“I’d say they were genuinely surprised to see us, so I think they were looking for Radecki, following a lead.”
“Maybe he’s got a girlfriend somewhere.”
“Maybe so, but why is MI5 looking for him? If it was about the murder, they’d let Scutt handle it, and keep themselves out of the picture.” I lowered my voice, glancing around at the nearby diners. An RAF pilot stared at me from a poster, looking daring in his flight jacket, the caption warning that Careless Talk May Cost His Life. The tables were close together, and the waitresses, all dressed in black uniforms with red buttons and white collars, moved swiftly between them, tending to their customers and pouring steaming cups of tea. Too swiftly to pay much attention, I decided.
“You have any ideas?”
“Not really, but there was something that Sheila said that struck me. Radecki is taking laudanum for pain. He broke his leg on the way to England, and it wasn’t set right.”
“Is that what Eddie got for him on Horseferry Street?”
“Has to be. That’s where his doctor is. I saw the name and address on one of his empty bottles.” The food was delivered, and I winced as I always did when I saw someone take a bite out of a tongue sandwich.
“Why the hell would those clowns care if Radecki was dealing drugs on the side? That’s not their turf,” Big Mike said, smacking his lips after drinking down half his lemon barley water.
“They wouldn’t,” I said. “It’s got to be something else.”
“What else could it be? Maybe Eddie Miller swiped some of the stuff and double-crossed Radecki,” Big Mike said, his mouth poised to take another bite.
“No, it has to be something that would get MI5 riled up,” I said, looking down at my plate. “Cosgrove is involved in the investigation of Egorov’s murder, so there has to be a connection there.”
“How’s that going, anyway?” Big Mike said out of the side of his mouth, the rest of it working on finishing what was left of the sandwich.
“I’ve got to get down to Dover and catch up with the Russians. I didn’t expect to run into another corpse so soon.” What would get MI5 all riled up, I wondered? Not drugs. Cosgrove had given no indication he had men investigating Egorov’s murder either. So what were those two jokers after, and what did they have to do with Radecki? I sipped my tea, thinking back to my first meeting with him at the Rubens. What had that memo said, the one from the British Foreign Office?
His Majesty’s Government have used their best efforts not to allow these German maneuvers to have even the semblance of success.
“What?” Big Mike said. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud.
“Even the semblance of success,” I said, taking in the full meaning of those words. What agency would be charged with insuring that the truth wouldn’t come out, that it would not have even the semblance of success at being believed?
“There’s only one reason MI5 would be looking for Radecki,” I said.
“He killed Egorov?” Big Mike said.
“No, it’s got nothing to do with Egorov. Radecki killed Eddie, and he’s going to kill someone else, to prevent even the semblance of success.”
“ Tadeusz Tucholski,” I said as Big Mike drove as fast as he could in the central London traffic, passing taxicabs and lorries along Edgeware Road, heading north. “The kid I told you about, who witnessed the Katyn Forest Massacre.”
“You said he was a head case, and they had to send him to the loony bin.”
“He’s shell-shocked, that’s for sure. But he’s an eyewitness, and he’s worth anything alive to the Poles, and worth as much dead to the Russians. I was too busy trying to link Egorov somehow; I didn’t see the obvious connection. Horak even showed me a memo they’d intercepted from the British Foreign Office, saying they would never allow these claims to be successful.”
“So the Foreign Office and MI5 take the side of the Russians,” Big Mike said.
“They’d probably say it was all for the war effort, to defeat our common enemy, and they’d mean it, too.”
“That’s the problem with Poland,” Big Mike said. “We’ve got one too many enemies, and not enough friends to go around.”
“Some of those friends are questionable,” I said. “My guess is that MI5 got to Radecki, and bribed or blackmailed him into keeping Tadeusz quiet. Horak told me that at first Radecki was too hard on Tadeusz, which made him retreat into his shell. That was Radecki’s way of keeping him quiet, but he probably knew it wouldn’t last, not with Kaz helping the kid day and night.”
“So he started doping him.”
“Yeah,” I said, gripping the door as Big Mike veered out into traffic, laying on the horn, to pass a slow-moving staff car. “Horak mentioned that Radecki and Tad started getting along better a few weeks ago. I’d bet that was when Radecki began giving him the laudanum.”
“You think the bad leg is phony?”
“No, probably not. But he said he reinjured it, falling on the stairs. That could have been his excuse to get the drugs. And knowing the condition Tad was in, Radecki would’ve become his best friend real fast. There’s nothing like laudanum to help you forget, or at least not care if you remember. He must have told Tad to keep it a secret, or he wouldn’t give him any more. The state Tad was in, he’d be sure to comply at first, and then be unable to stop later.”
“You think Radecki was trying to kill him, or to keep him quiet?”
“Radecki must have been increasing the dose he gave him. Kaz told me that after Tad spoke to me, he never said another word. Maybe Radecki was caught off guard, and decided to hurry things up once I’d heard Tad’s story.”
“But it backfired on him,” Big Mike said, hitting the accelerator as we cleared the most congested part of the road. “They sent the kid off to a hospital, where he couldn’t get at him.”
“Right. So he goes off to this Station Number Eight, but I’d bet anything he’s making a side visit to St. Albans first.”
“To give Tadeusz a fatal fix. Eddie must’ve stumbled onto all this, and he was blackmailing Radecki.”
“Could be. Or maybe he was in on it with him. Picking up the drugs, watching Tad when Radecki wasn’t there. Maybe the money was his MI5 pay, not blackmail money.”
“War work,” Big Mike said, shaking his head in disgust. “With Tadeusz gone, Radecki didn’t need him anymore.”
“A loose end. Radecki had it all planned, having lunch with Kaz, making sure Kaz’s fingerprints ended up on his bayonet. He eliminates the one person who knows what’s going on, pins it on Kaz, and then takes care of Tad.”
“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense, Billy,” Big Mike said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I could see his forehead crease as he worked at adding things up. “Why were Brown and Wilson looking for him, if he was doing what they wanted?”
“Good question. Maybe Cosgrove or one of his bosses has a conscience.”
“They cover up a massacre of thousands, and you think maybe one of them has a crisis of conscience at the last minute?”
“This may be different for them. Eddie’s blood is on their hands. Tadeusz’s may be also, and this is happening here, in London, not in some distant, dark wood.”
“Maybe they prefer Polish blood on Russian hands,” Big Mike said. His finger tapping stopped, and his knuckles showed white as he gripped the wheel. We were in the country now, winter fields bordered by small trees and shrubs spread out over the gently sloping landscape. White, fluffy clouds decorated the horizon, and the sun shone brightly over our shoulders. It was beautiful, and I tried to imagine thousands of Englishmen from these villages and farms, gathered up, bound, and shot in the head, then buried in mass graves in the forests at the edge of the farmland. Or Americans, from the city of Boston or the dairy farms of western Massachusetts. How expedient would it be then, to sacrifice justice for the sake of the war effort? How simple to forgo revenge when the rotting corpses were your brothers, husbands, fathers, and friends? Or if their names were Robert, James, Peter, John, or Daniel, instead of Jerzy, Czeslaw, Stanislaw, Zygmunt, or Wincenty?
“Big Mike, how do you say Michael in Polish?”
“Mieczyslaw. Why?”
“Just curious,” I said as a sign for Bricket Wood came up. “We’re getting closer. Take this right.”
“OK, Boleslaw,” Big Mike said, giving me a quick glance as he downshifted and took the narrow road. “Don’t ask me why, but that’s Polish for William.”