Michael Byrne was a very superstitious man. He had never lost his faith in the Roman Catholic Church. Years of exposure to its teachings had left their mark. Nobody who had
attended the Christian Brothers’ school in Clontarf, the prayers and religious instruction reinforced with regular communion with the strap, could ever truly escape. So he had decided to send
his last messenger to London disguised as a nun. With wimple and crucifix, rosary and prayer book, he believed his envoy would surely avoid detection if the agents of the British Government were
watching the ports. The nun would always get through.
But the susceptibilities of Ireland were not shared by the policemen of Liverpool. Sister Francesca, like the two previous emissaries, was followed all the way to London.
Lord Francis Powerscourt was feeling cheerful as he walked back to Markham Square. The sun was still shining and the warm weather had brought the crowds out into Hyde Park and
Kensington Gardens, young lovers lying happily on the grass. It looked as though this difficult case was nearly over. Tonight, he decided, he would take Lady Lucy out to dinner. A new restaurant
had opened just off Sloane Square, specializing in fish. Lucy was very fond of fish. Then, when the Jubilee celebrations were complete, he would take her away, maybe to Naples and the ruins of
Pompeii.
The front door was open when he arrived. Powerscourt had a sudden premonition that something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. He called for Lady Lucy. There was no reply. He hurtled up
the stairs to check that the children were safe. Thomas and Olivia slept the deep sleep of the very young. Robert was nowhere to be seen. He looked in all the bedrooms for his wife. Perhaps she has
gone for a walk in the park, he said to himself. But he knew that was not very likely. Lucy had said to him before he left for his meeting with the Prime Minister that she would be waiting for his
return. She was anxious to hear the news.
Then he saw the letter. It was lying innocuously on the little table by the front door. ‘Lord Francis Powerscourt’, it said, in a handwriting that had not been learnt in an English
school. Powerscourt tore it open. He noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.
‘Dear Lord Powerscourt,’ it said, ‘We have your wife. If anything is done to save Harrison’s Bank between now and Monday, you will never see her again. If events are
allowed to run their course, she will be returned unharmed. But if Harrison’s are saved, she will be dead within the hour. And if we see you or any of your associates, or any policemen, in
uniform or not, we shall begin by cutting her face open.’
Lady Lucy had been kidnapped.
There was no signature. Powerscourt felt his head spinning. Christ in heaven, he said. Christ in heaven. He looked again at the envelope. He inspected the notepaper for any clues. Both were
perfectly normal and could have been purchased in any stationer’s shop in London. Or in Germany. He looked at them again. He wanted to scream. He began walking up and down the room, blinking
back the tears. Christ in heaven, he said again. The bastards. Strange memories of Lucy danced across his brain. He saw her as she had been in this very room in the early evening a couple of days
before. She was sitting in her favourite armchair by the window, reading. The late afternoon sun was pouring through the windows casting a glow, almost a halo over the blonde hair. One side of her
face was in deep shadow. As she read, little smiles or slight frowns would cross her face. When she realized he was looking at her, she had blushed a bright pink. ‘Francis,’ she had
said, ‘I didn’t know you were watching me like that. I’m not one of your suspects, am I?’ And then she laughed as she rose to embrace him.
Now she was gone. The bastards. Hold on Lucy, Powerscourt sent his prayer out into the pagan air of Chelsea, hold on. I’m coming, Lucy. I’m coming.
He had no idea how to find her. He knew he wasn’t thinking very clearly. He wrote a note to Johnny Fitzgerald and signed it Excalibur. Excalibur meant drop everything, whatever you are
doing, come as fast as you can. He had only used it once before. He started walking up and down the room again, his anger rising inside him in waves of fury he couldn’t control. Then the door
was flung open and an exhausted Robert collapsed on the sofa. His face was very red and he was panting heavily.
‘Francis,’ he gasped, ‘they’ve got Mama. The bad men.’
Powerscourt sat down beside him. ‘Let me get you a glass of water,’ he said, ‘you look as if you need it.’
Robert drained the glass in one long pull.
‘Tell me what happened,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Take your time. Take it slowly.’
‘It must have been about an hour ago.’ Robert’s voice was breaking as he spoke. ‘I heard this great row going on down below. I came out of my room and peeped round the
stairs. Two men were pulling Mama along the hall. They were shouting at her to be quiet. She was shouting back. I think she was saying, How dare you? Let go of me. Then she screamed. One of the men
put something over her face and she went quiet. They pulled her out of the front door. I think they had a cab waiting outside.’
The boy stopped. He took a couple of deep breaths. Powerscourt thought the tears weren’t very far away.
‘I came down the stairs as fast as I could,’ Robert went on. ‘And I saw the cab up at the corner of the street so I ran after it. I couldn’t think of anything else to
do.’
‘Did you see where it went, Robert?’
The boy nodded and pulled a rather dirty handkerchief from his pocket. Blowing his nose seemed to calm him.
‘You know how bad the traffic is at that time of the day,’ he said, looking to Powerscourt for confirmation. His stepfather nodded. ‘If I ran as fast as I could, I could just
about keep up with them. I kept some way behind them. I didn’t think you would want me to get too close in case they saw me.’
Powerscourt nodded. ‘You were right, Robert, absolutely right.’
‘They went up the King’s Road as far as Sloane Square,’ Robert went on. Powerscourt had a sudden vision of that new restaurant he had been going to take Lucy to, just off
Sloane Square, the white linen crisp and clean on the table, the candles glistening in the evening light, the wine sparkling in the glasses. He dug his nails very hard into his palms to stop the
tears.
Hold on Lucy, I’m coming, hold on.
‘Then they went down towards the river for a bit,’ said Robert. ‘Over into Pimlico Road – the traffic was quite light there, I had to run at full speed for about two
hundred yards, I was worried I was going to lose them – and then they got stuck turning into Buckingham Palace Road. They ended up at Victoria station.’
‘Did they get on a train?’ Powerscourt was really worried now. Victoria was where people went if they wanted to go to Dover and the Continent. If they have left England, he thought,
he might never find Lucy again.
‘I thought I’d lost them there, the crowds were so big,’ Robert continued. ‘Then I saw them. Mama looked as though she was drunk or drugged or something like that. The
two men were pulling her along. Nobody took any notice. I suppose they thought she was ill. They took a train to Brighton. I know it was Brighton because I asked the ticket man after it had left if
the train stopped at all. He said it didn’t, it went direct.’
Then Robert broke down completely. He cried for his lost mother, sitting on the sofa in her house in Markham Square, dusk slowly falling over the streets of London. Lady Lucy’s favourite
clock was ticking quietly in the corner.
‘Robert,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I am very very proud of you. You have done magnificently.’
It didn’t work. The tears flowed on. Powerscourt was close to tears himself as he looked at the boy, twelve years old and you could see his mother in his face, the same eyes, the same
nose, the same fair hair.
‘The thing is,’ Robert went on’ ‘I should have got on the train. I could have followed them to Brighton and seen where they went, then come back and told you.’
Robert shook his head. He reached for his handkerchief again and wiped his eyes. ‘But I didn’t have any money. I hadn’t any money at all. I did have the money Mama gave me but
I’d been to buy a new cricket bat. It’s upstairs in my room. I think I’m going to throw it away now. If only I’d waited until tomorrow.’
Robert wept, the tears falling onto the new cushions Lady Lucy had bought the week before. Powerscourt felt desolated.
‘You mustn’t throw your new bat away,’ he said very gently. ‘You must tap it in and then when your mother comes back we will come and watch you score a
hundred.’
‘Do you think she will come back?’ asked Robert through his tears.
‘I’m sure of it. Thanks to you, we know where she is. All we have to do now is to find her.’
‘Can I help? Can I help you find her?’
Powerscourt wondered what his mother would have thought about Robert missing school. He felt sure she wouldn’t approve. He had seen Robert packed off to his lessons with colds that would
have kept lesser men in bed for the day.
‘I don’t think your Mama would want you in any danger, Robert,’ Powerscourt said. ‘You’ve done most of the work already, now we know where she is.’ He sat
down beside Robert and held him very tight. ‘We’re going to find her,‘ he said. ‘We’re definitely going to find her.’
Hold on Lucy, I’m coming, hold on.
Lady Lucy didn’t know very much about what was happening to her. Those horrid men kept putting something over her face. Fragments of hymns and prayers from her childhood
floated through her mind. Defend us from all perils and dangers of this night. God be with us in our waking and in our sleeping. The day thou gavest Lord has ended, the darkness falls at thy
behest. One thought never left her. Francis will find me. Francis will find me. Then she would drift off to sleep.
Johnny Fitzgerald arrived shortly before nine o’clock, clutching a sinister-looking black bag. He took one look at Powerscourt’s face. The joke he had been about to
tell dried on his lips.
‘What’s happened, Francis? Christ, you look terrible!’
Powerscourt told him about the abduction of Lady Lucy, about Robert’s heroic pursuit of the villainous pair, of their departure with a drugged Lucy to Brighton. He handed Fitzgerald the
note they had left behind.
Johnny Fitzgerald read it quickly. Then he read it again. He looked at his friend, his features drawn now, lines of worry etched across his forehead.
‘Jesus Christ, Francis. The bastards. They’ll pay for this. They bloody well will.’
Fitzgerald helped himself to a monstrous glass of whisky from the sideboard.
‘We must make a plan, Johnny. We’ve never got anywhere without having some sort of idea of what we were trying to do.’
Powerscourt thought bitterly that he and Johnny had never had such a difficult task in all their years together.
‘I don’t think I can go to Brighton tonight, Johnny.’ Powerscourt sounded very sad. ‘I’ve got this meeting here tomorrow morning with the Prime Minister and a man
who may save Harrison’s Bank. If that fails, then Harrison’s Bank will fall in a few days time and the reputation of the City of London will be ruined for years to come. But if that
happens, Lucy should come back, if those fellows keep their word.’
‘Francis, Francis, do you know what you are saying?’ Fitzgerald was drinking his whisky very fast. ‘You sound as if you want that meeting to succeed. Surely you want it to
fail. Otherwise you may never see Lucy again. Can’t you persuade the Prime Minister to call the whole thing off, to let the bank fail and to hell with the consequences?’
‘I’ve thought of that, Johnny,’ said Powerscourt bitterly. ‘I seem to have a choice, don’t I? Professional success means personal failure. Professional failure
means personal success, don’t you see? Success in this case could mean death for Lucy. Failure could mean that Lucy lives. So it looks as though I have to choose between the failure of the
bank, the collapse of the Jubilee, and my precious Lucy, mother of my children. But I don’t think it works like that. I know which course I would pick, of course. But I also know which course
the Prime Minister would take. If he has to choose between one life and national humiliation, he will sacrifice a life. That’s the kind of choice Prime Ministers have to take. Think of the
number of lives they throw away when the nation goes to war. One life, just one, isn’t even going to keep him awake at night.’
‘So what do we do, Francis?’ Fitzgerald could see the torture in his friend’s eyes.
‘There’s only one thing we can do,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’ve got to find Lucy in the next four days, that’s all we’ve got before the final showdown at
that bloody bank. I think you should go down to Brighton this minute. There may be somebody left on duty at the station who may remember them, maybe even a cab driver who took them wherever they
were going.’
Fitzgerald was looking at a portrait of Lady Lucy, hanging by the fireplace. Whistler had painted her in a pale evening gown against a dark background. Her eyes looked as though she was teasing
the painter. Fitzgerald took another medicinal dose of his whisky.
‘I would think they must have gone to a hotel, Francis,’ he said. ‘Think about it. They can’t have known before they started that they were going to have to pull off a
stunt like this. They can’t have rented a house in Brighton or anything like that.
‘We do have a problem, Francis.’ Fitzgerald was still staring, as if hypnotized, at Whistler’s version of Lady Lucy’s face. ‘They will have a good idea of what we
look like, you and I. I may even have met one or two of our kidnapping friends in Berlin. We can’t use the police. If they see a policeman they may do something to Lady Lucy. Sorry, but
it’s true.’
Powerscourt started shaking as he thought about the razors. Another wave of uncontrollable anger was surging through him. He knew he would just have to wait till it passed.
‘And if we send in the policemen in plain clothes,’ Fitzgerald went on quickly, ‘they’ll be recognized. I don’t know what it is about policemen in plain clothes,
but they’re even more recognizable than if they had their bloody uniforms on.’