Authors: Barbara Cleverly
He wouldn’t keep his men hanging about. He hurried back inside and herded Lydia and Jack into the car, murmuring goodbyes to his landlord and a casual, “Well, there we are at last. Thanks for your help, Alfred. All arrangements in place, I think.”
“H
e’s fallen asleep, Joe,” Lydia reported as they chugged their way through the last of the London suburbs. “Thought he might. He went to bed very late last night and was up and about early, and then there was all the excitement of playing railways.”
“To say nothing of the snug little nest you made up for him in the back there.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what this is all about?”
“If I knew myself I certainly would.”
“Do you mean to tell me you gleaned nothing from your hastily arranged meeting at the Yard? I don’t believe you. Who did you manage to drum up to see you? Anyone available, or did you have to consult the tea-lady?”
“Oh, there were people there. An Education minister, two private secretaries, Miss Peto, the Commissioner himself.… Will that do to be going on with?”
“Big guns! But what was Miss Peto doing there?”
“There’s a child involved. Waifs, strays, children and tarts—they all trigger a female presence. I was offered the flower of the Force to escort young Jackie back into the lions’ den. I turned down the offer for the time being since I have you on hand, Lyd. I’d rather handle this school with discretion and walking in
escorted by a female policeman in full kit would not be the way to do it. A concerned family member—that’s fine. But all these characters played walk-on roles—the star of the show was the Secretary of State for Reform.”
“James Truelove?”
“That’s the man.”
“But what could he possibly have to say to
you
, Joe? Do you need reforming? Why is he meddling in police business?”
“Well, of course, he oughtn’t to be. And, as far as I can see to it, he won’t. The police force isn’t at the beck and call of the government. We need to remind them occasionally that it’s the
country
we serve, not ministers. This new office of state someone’s thought fit to endow him with worries me. It’s a bit nebulous, a bit embryonic. I mean—name
anything
that couldn’t do with a bit of reforming! Where do you start?”
“You could start with the Met, if you think about it.”
Joe snorted with laughter. “We may well be on his list! But after a punishing war and a financial collapse, the whole country’s in desperate need of rebuilding … a change of direction, heaven knows! But, all the same, I’m wary of such unspecific, all-encompassing titles. He seems to have been given a roving brief to stick his aristocratic nose into anything that he considers smells less than rosy. And with a background of scientific knowledge—his degree’s in Natural Sciences I think—and all that philanthropic family tradition behind him.… Well, it’s very compelling.”
“Know what you mean,” Lydia said thoughtfully. “We do like our heroes! The Darwins, the Huxleys, the Galtons and the Trueloves—they’re all bound up with our national identity. And they have the advantage of having no whiff of militarism about them.”
“People hear the name, listen, believe and obey.”
“Ah—is that what you’re seeing? The messianic type? That wouldn’t appeal to you! Not sure it appeals to Marcus either. I’ve
never met him so I can’t really give an opinion but … but … the man is not unknown in our house.” Lydia seemed about to add more and Joe waited to hear it. Finally: “I think Marcus knew his late father, Sir Sidney, rather better. He talks of James as a man who’s being groomed for performance at the highest level in government.”
“Sounds likely. He’s learning his political trade, Lydia. In a position powerful enough to bring him into contact with the nation’s most influential men.”
“So what’s he doing spending the morning with you?”
“It’s that school, Lyd, that’s sparked his interest. He said he was acting in response to the concerns of parents but … oh, I don’t know … he appears to have turned his reforming zeal on a very large target. Nothing less than the education system itself. Unchanged from Victorian days, he maintains. The public schools are backwards, reclusive, badly managed. And who will disagree with him on that point? He’s proposing a scheme to introduce compulsory inspection and reform. And the state-run establishments don’t escape his attention either. Academic achievement must rise, bodily fitness must be improved. Every school to have its football pitch, gymnasium and swimming pool. Lyd, he’d got with him a secretary holding a sheaf of statistics that (amongst other things) show just how miserable and unfit for anything the average recruit was at the time of the war. And he says, more than a decade on, things haven’t improved—they’re getting worse. Oh, yes, he’s putting the boot in with the Department of Health too.
Mens sana in corpore sano
would seem to be his motto.”
“
In patria sana
, could you add?” Lydia gave a comic shudder. “The man’s not newly returned from Germany with a few ideas, is he? You know what they’re like over there for building bodies and improving minds.”
Joe was silent for a moment. “I’ll check,” he said. “I’ll put Special Branch up that drainpipe. I wouldn’t think ‘National
Socialism’ would be Truelove’s cup of tea but they’ll know. He
is
very patriotic. Not a sin, so am I. So are you. But he dares to voice harsh criticism bluntly. The country’s suffering, he declares, from the existence of what he calls a ‘social problem group,’ a section of society which is threatening to drag us all into the mire.”
“All very laudable. I had wondered myself. But I still don’t see what Truelove’s search for Utopia has to do with you.”
“This so-called group … no,
legion
of sickly degenerates he’s got in his sights is responsible for much turpitude, including the increase in the crime figures, according to Sir James. We’re all about to sink under a tide of lawlessness and public disorder, did you know?”
Lydia gave a gurgle of laughter. “So—he’s taking a poke at Health, Education and The Law all at once? I’d like to meet this modern-day Don Quixote! He sounds just my type. I can’t imagine he went down well with old Trenchard though.”
Joe gave an exaggerated shudder at the memory. “He didn’t! Truelove delivered his awful warning—nothing less than a finger-wagging rebuke—to the Commissioner’s face! What a nerve! I mean, you don’t talk to the ex-Marshal of the Royal Air Force and a war hero like that. It all seemed a bit ill-judged even for someone bent on establishing a reputation for innovation.”
“Ouch! Did Trenchard defend himself?”
Joe grinned. “Didn’t need to! Howgrave-Graham and I, with one mind, decided to preserve our boss’s dignity. We came galloping up, sabres drawn and attacked from two sides. First, we unseated his Sancho Panza and then disarmed the minister. We made a good double act. You’d have thought we’d rehearsed it! We took it in turns to bludgeon them with statistics. ‘Only twenty-nine murders in the Metropolis last year, burglary down eleven percent, grievous bodily harm down thirteen.…’ I pelted them with figures. ‘Recruitment to the Force up thirty percent.… Levels of fitness for entry raised,’ Howgrave-Graham assured
them. Neither of us needed to refer to notes. I invented some of the figures, and we both managed to keep a straight face. Sir James had the grace to back down and come off it, and then he started to tell us what I’d really come to hear.”
Lydia put a warning finger over her lips. She reached over into the back seat, pulling a rug up to the boy’s chin and gently stroking his hair.
“It’s all right. He’s gone out like a light.”
“That school. He wasn’t forthcoming about his information sources but he seems to have concluded that there’s something not quite right with it. Fact is, Lydia—boys have been disappearing from it over the years. Complaints have been made ‘to the highest authorities,’ he told us mysteriously. No action by the local Sussex police and, of course, under the present system, no one’s responsible for checking it over. Truelove wants to make his mark with a root and branch reform of the English public school, I’m told.”
“And how is he going to use you in his schemes? I expect that this is what it’s coming to.”
“Operation Trojan Horse. I’m being sent in to sleuth about, looking every inch the concerned uncle, and deliver whatever mud I can stir up into his hands.”
“I suppose there’s something wrong with all this because you sound so cross, but can that be bad, Joe?—finding out what’s really been going on? Who are these parents who’ve raised storm warnings? And if Jackie’s in a dangerous place, we want to know about it, don’t we? Is the child in danger?”
“I think he is. I think he’s being pursued. The man Alfred trapped in the lift had come to do him harm in some way, though I don’t know why. We must think there’s a connection with the school and the murder of Mr. Rapson. Now, this Rapson may well have been all kinds of a villain—though we only have Jackie’s evidence for this—but the sudden appearance in our midst of
what could be a hit-man tells us he wasn’t a
single
villain. He wasn’t working alone. And a network—that’s always more disturbing. But you’d already got that far, I shouldn’t wonder?”
“Oh, further. I haven’t had chance to tell you in all the stirabout.…”
“Tell me now.”
“I think that man
could
have come to do Jackie harm … kidnap, kill him.… Certainly capable of roguery of that nature, don’t you think? Did you notice his eyes?” Lydia shuddered. “More menacing than a cobra’s. But, no, I think he was after something else.”
“Go on.”
“When I was packing Jackie’s bag for him—that red and blue patterned Afghan thing he calls his ‘escape bag,’ I shoveled in his
Treasure Island
, his map, his humbugs and all the rest of it. Amongst his stuff was something that clearly didn’t belong to him. Something that wouldn’t belong to any small boy. A black leather-backed moleskine book—you know—the deluxe sort gentlemen travelers spend an awful lot of money on when they’ve decided to go to Greece and they feel the urge to note down and keep for posterity their timeless impressions of foreign parts.”
“Filled several of those myself,” Joe admitted. “But I agree—unless you’re Edward Lear, the receptacle always outshines the contents. Get on, Lyd.”
“Not the sort of thing that would appeal to a boy, I thought. Too grand. Too sober. You couldn’t possibly do noughts and crosses or a game of battleships on those pages. And then I remembered Jackie saying last night that he’d spilled the contents of his bag all over Rappo’s desk, scooped them back in a hurry and made off.”
“Yes, he did say that. So the book came from Rappo’s desk. What was in it?”
“You assume I’d look inside, Joe? Me? I couldn’t make much
of it. Letters and numbers is all I could see. In rows. Possibly code. I wouldn’t know. Then I noticed there were some photos stuffed into that useful pocket arrangement those books have inside the back cover.”
“Photos? Of whom?”
“Look, I only had a few seconds to rootle about in there before I heard the commotion down below. I think that chap in the lift had come to retrieve the book. I think he’d been sent to snatch Jackie’s
bag
, not necessarily Jackie.” She snorted. “Huh! If you and Alfred hadn’t decided to behave like Bulldog Drummond and Algy, pulling fuses and poking sticks through bars, I could have just handed the bag over and let the villain trot off with it. Or turned a blind eye while he pinched it. That way he’d never have known we’d guessed what he was up to. And he’d have been very disappointed! Nothing more sensational in there than a limp copy of last month’s
Boy’s Own Paper
. I’d already put the Rapson book away in my handbag. I’ve got it right here on my knee.”
Joe controlled the skid the sharp movement his foot had produced. “Well what are you waiting for? Rootle some more! Find out what is of such urgency it can bring out a hit squad in hours on a snowy winter’s day.”
Lydia produced the black book and began to turn the pages in total absorption.
“We’re in no position to start wrestling with code, driving a few feet behind a gritting lorry,” Joe said. “Just go to the back and take another look at those loose sheets.”
He waited as she leafed silently through snippets of paper and photographs.
“Well, come on! What have we got? Coordinates for the last resting place of the Grail? Photos of The Fatman in flagrante?”
“Why do you assume it’s something reprehensible? Even toads like Rapson have a private life. Aren’t we more likely to find a photo of his spaniel or his mother or a love letter from Matron?”
Lydia sighed and silently shuffled through the contents of Rapson’s back flap.
“No, Joe,” she said eventually, “I concede that your suspicions were well founded.” Her voice lost its touch of gaiety and took on icy deliberation as she added: “Look, you must tell me if I’m making too much of this.… All those hours I’ve spent succouring the disadvantaged, listening to rather hellish stories, may well have made me a party to information on the world other women just do not have. Once you know what men are capable of, you see evidence of their depravities everywhere.”
“You’re a saint—as all agree, Lyd—but a
knowing
one. Which in my book makes your opinions twice as valuable as those of any other charitable lady. Get on, will you. But just wait until I’ve got past this lorry.”
Her silence was more unsettling than the voluble comments he’d been expecting. Finally, she gathered all the loose bits together, tucked them back into the pocket of the book and closed it firmly.
“It may be worse than we thought, Joe. And, if I’m right, I shudder to think that little Jackie was anywhere near this man. Or under the influence of an establishment that must be either criminally careless or carelessly criminal. Joe! You have to get hold of this Farman and fillet him! When you’ve had a chance to kick a confession out of him, of course.”
Joe’s voice was bleak. “Confession to what exactly, Lyd?”
“A
lmost there! Look, I think we won’t refer to this business in front of the family. Anyone who wants to know can hear that Jackie’s been spending some time up in London with me and I’m delivering him back—a bit late—to his school. Better tell me who you’ve got in the house at the moment.”