Authors: Merryn Allingham
Dear Gerald
I should have the papers you want by Saturday evening and will deliver them to the corner shop as soon after as I can. It will depend on the free time I’m given.
Daisy
Her most pressing problem now was how to deliver the letter. It was important Gerald knew as soon as possible that salvation was near, but she couldn’t take the message herself. As it was, she was in danger of being late for the rest of her shift. Fearing Sister’s ire, she hurried from the tea shop and straight away broke into a run, attracting little attention from passers-by on the Strand who assumed she must be responding to an emergency call. She’d reached the Aldwych and was about to cross Kingsway, her eyes fixed blindly ahead in the effort to reach Barts on time, when a car came from her left. It appeared out of nowhere and was being driven at high speed. She had taken several steps into the road and the car swerved to avoid her, then slalomed its way round one vehicle after another, tyres squealing and the smell of burnt rubber filling the air. She came to an abrupt halt, her heart pounding at the near miss.
In the distance, she saw the saloon pull out once more, this time to swerve around a black taxi, but then it came to a complete stop sideways on, blocking the entire left side of the road. The taxi was forced to slam on its brakes, and she saw the cabbie lean out of his vehicle and gesticulate at the other driver with an angry, raised fist. Something odd was happening and despite being late, she remained watching
from the pavement. The stand-off between taxi and saloon car seemed to go on for a considerable time, though in reality it must have lasted only seconds before a fire engine appeared from the opposite direction and began hooting at the car blocking its passage. The vehicle’s blaring horn mingled with the harsh clang of a warning bell. Then the wail of an advancing police car announced another player to the drama. The driver of the saloon, who had started out of his car, spun round at the sound and ducked back in, slamming the door shut with extraordinary violence. With more squealing of tyres, he backed the vehicle in a wide arc, mounting the kerb behind and ignoring any pedestrians unlucky enough to be passing. Then wrenching the wheel around, he put his foot down hard and roared along the opposite side of the road, back towards Daisy. In seconds, the car had vanished, but not before she caught sight of a pair of eyes as the car raced past. Those eyes seemed vaguely familiar. Which was absurd, wasn’t it?
Her mind continued to brood over the face she’d seen, until she became aware that she was still standing on the pavement. She shook herself awake and, now hopelessly late, broke into a run once more. By great good fortune, an ambulance, making its way up Kingsway, stopped to offer her a lift. With luck, she thought, she might just make it back to Barts in time. And, even better, the driver happened to live a few streets north of Gerald’s corner shop. He knew Rigby’s well, he said, and once he’d returned the ambulance to its home station, he would be going off duty.
He’d take her envelope with pleasure. He could see if the shop had any cigarettes while he was at it. He was getting a bit short.
Grayson returned to Baker Street feeling happier than he had for months. It was possible that Daisy was on her way back to him, though he wouldn’t allow himself to hope too strongly. At the moment, he was needed—he was crucial to her wretched husband’s safety—but once that was secured, she could disappear as quickly as she’d done before. One thing, though, had given him pause. He’d seen the way she looked at him: the night they’d walked back together through the dark streets and today, sitting side by side, in the tea shop. Her glance had lingered and there was a softness about her when her eyes rested on him. She wasn’t as indifferent as she liked to make out. And he hadn’t expected that. He’d tried to forget her, tried very hard. He’d gone out with several of the girls he’d met through work. The fling with Diana, for instance. But that could never be described as anything more than a fling and he’d been relieved when it was over. He’d decided then that for the duration of the war he would concentrate on the job and let women go hang. That was until he met Daisy again.
Bertie Sandford was watching for him. ‘How did the party go?’ he enquired lazily. His tone suggested something
akin to a bacchanalia, rather than the chaste setting of a Lyons tea shop.
‘Fine.’
‘Only fine?’
‘What do you want me to say? I had two cups of tea and a scone. And I passed on the message.’
At times, he had to try very hard not to get irritated with Bertie. Everything was a joke to the man and that could be intensely annoying. But Sandford was never cast into gloom by setbacks and there were certainly plenty of those. The unit needed people like him, particularly at a time when the country had lost so many good men at Dunkirk and Britain stood isolated, fighting for its very life.
Bertie leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. ‘I think it should be a little more dramatic than that, old chap. After all, you face dismissal if the truth ever comes out.’
‘I don’t think I need a reminder.’
In the end, it hadn’t been possible to keep negotiations secret from his immediate colleagues, but so far Bertie had remained uncharacteristically quiet. Michael Corrigan looked up from the document he was annotating and drummed his pencil on the desk, wondering, it seemed, whether or not to intervene.
‘But is she worth it, old sport?’ Bertie was not giving up. ‘Don’t like to rain on your parade and all that, but somehow I doubt it. No woman’s worth your job, even
the divine Daisy. And she must be divine or else why lay your future on the line?’
The man’s words were genial, but he knew there was more to them than their surface shine. Snobbery was rife in the unit, and for that matter just about everywhere in the Service, and Daisy’s background had long been a topic of wonder for his colleague, ever since Grayson had mentioned she’d been brought up in an orphanage and worked behind a shop counter. God knows what Sandford would say if he discovered she’d once worked as a housemaid. He had made it clear enough that he thought Grayson’s attachment to a working-class girl of uncertain origins an aberration. But Bertie was Bertie and couldn’t help himself, and though Grayson might hate the man’s attitude, he knew his best course was to ignore him. He was grateful, though, when John Carmichael strode into the office and put an end to the conversation.
‘While you’ve been out, Harte, there’s been a bit of a problem,’ Carmichael began. ‘Have your colleagues filled you in yet?’
‘No, sir. I’ve only just got back. There hasn’t been time.’
Carmichael nodded. ‘There’s been an attempted kidnap. In broad daylight and in the Strand.’
He was taken aback. He’d been in the district only minutes ago.
‘Have you any news on the victim, sir?’ Mike asked. ‘We’ve been given no positive ID yet. Is it anyone we should know?’
‘You could say that,’ his boss said drily. ‘The victim was Chandan Patel, on his way to the Foreign Office. A meeting with a junior minister.’
Bertie whistled through his teeth while the other two men looked at each other in astonishment.
‘He was travelling alone?’ Grayson found it almost incredible that such a high-profile visitor would be unchaperoned.
‘Completely alone and travelling in a London taxi,’ Carmichael said sharply, and Grayson heard a distinct click of his teeth. It had evidently been against Carmichael’s advice.
‘There must have been witnesses, sir.’ Corrigan began to tap his pencil once more.
Their boss raised a hand and ran it wearily through already thinning hair. ‘The police have interviewed Patel, but he was too shaken to have seen anything useful. They’ve got the cabbie at Bow Street right now, but I imagine he was busy controlling his vehicle and won’t be much help. Most people in the vicinity melted away and we can’t put out a call for witnesses without alerting the world—and by that I mean unfriendly powers—to the fact that Patel was worth kidnapping.’
‘So there’s nothing to suggest who was behind the attack?’ Grayson had the uneasiest of feelings, though he hardly knew why. It was an uneasiness that went beyond the concerns of his unit.
‘There was a bobby on duty. A pretty sharp young man,
by all accounts. Immediately after the incident and off his own bat, he called on nearby businesses and managed to find one person who’d seen the whole thing. The man has been carted off to Charing Cross police station but I doubt he’ll be able to add anything more to what he’s already said—that there were two men in the car and at least one of them looked oriental. He couldn’t say what kind of oriental. Could be Chinese, Japanese. Or even Indian. And if that’s so, I’m sure I don’t need to underline what that might mean for us.’
There was silence in the room. ‘Did this chap get a car number?’ Bertie asked, suddenly galvanised.
‘No, he didn’t. But in any case, they’ll have changed it by now. Or dumped the car. I’ll keep you posted when anything else turns up.’ Carmichael turned on his heels and walked out of the office.
‘Well …’ Mike let out a long breath. ‘Fancy a beer anyone? I think we need it after that. You must, Gray. All that tea! Too much of it addles the stomach.’
Grayson smiled. ‘The Barley Mow?’
‘You’re on. How about you, Bertie?’
‘Got some stuff to finish up, old boy. Might join you later.’
W
hen they were settled in a corner of the pub, Corrigan asked, ‘What do you make of it? The Patel thing.’
‘I’m not sure. It’s going to give us problems obviously but—’
‘But what?’
‘I think things may turn out to be a great deal worse than we think.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe a conversation I had with Daisy a few days ago. There are a couple of Indians living below the sainted Gerald and they might just be renegades.’
‘You didn’t mention it back there.’
‘It’s a wild card. And I can imagine what Sandford would make of Daisy’s story.’
‘You shouldn’t let him wind you up.’
‘I don’t. Well, only a little. But he’s getting a bore.’
‘Getting? Hasn’t he always been?’
‘I know he’s harmless,’ Grayson conceded. ‘I know it’s just Bertie talking, but I’m getting tired of his views on Daisy.’
‘You’re not the only one.’ Corrigan raised his glass. ‘Let’s drink. To Daisy!’
‘To Daisy,’ he echoed.
‘So how did it go—your meeting this afternoon?’
‘It went fine.’ He saw his friend’s amused expression. ‘More than fine actually. I’m not stupid, Mike. I know she’s come back into my life because she needs something from me, but when I’m with her it doesn’t feel that way.’
‘What does it feel like?’
‘I don’t know. Good, I suppose. Being with her feels good. It always has done. She’s like no other girl I’ve ever met. She’s got such spirit, she’s a grand fighter, but she’s caring too. And also very lovely.’
‘That helps.’ Mike smiled over his glass. ‘But also very married, my friend, or had you forgotten?’
‘How can I forget? It’s her miserable husband I’m laying my neck on the line for.’
‘So …’
‘So, with any luck, in a few weeks he’ll be in America.’
‘But she’ll still be married.’
‘Not forever. There’s such a thing called divorce. If he takes flight and leaves her behind, she can sue for desertion in a few years.’
‘And do you think she will?’
‘To be honest, I’ve no idea,’ he confessed. ‘Sometimes I feel she truly cares for me and, at others, I’m just as sure she gave her heart to that bloody man and will never give it again.’
The pub had grown steadily noisier as people left their work and decided on a few convivial pints before making the difficult journey home. You needed quite a few these days to set you up, Grayson reflected. With every month that passed, the alcohol level of the beer decreased.
‘You know, Bertie’s right about one thing,’ Mike said thoughtfully, as they were pushed further into the corner by a press of people.
‘Only one thing—surely not. Isn’t he right about everything?’
‘He’s right when he says you’ve put yourself in danger by hustling for those papers. If Carmichael finds out, you’re done for.’
‘I’m going to tell him.’
‘What!’
‘I’ve thought about it—a lot. I’ve decided it’s my only option. He’s a decent man, a generous man. He’ll hear me out.’
‘That’s as maybe but he’ll still skin you alive, if he doesn’t get you dismissed from the Service.’
‘It’s a chance I’ve got to take. There have been too many secrets and I can’t live with one as big as this. The reason I’m in such a mess, Daisy is in such a mess, is because of secrets. If one day we
are
to marry, I want a clean sheet. And that includes the work I love.’
Mike drained his glass and stood up. ‘If you’re absolutely determined, all I can say is the very best of luck.’ He didn’t sound too hopeful.
Rohan Sweetman was angry. The kidnapping had gone wrong and his partner had done nothing but whimper ever since. Why had he been landed with Hari Mishra? He was another pair of hands, and that was about all you could say for him. Physically he wasn’t that strong. The foot damaged by an explosion in the Pioneer Corps had seen to that. And psychologically he was weak, very weak. He was forever putting obstacles in their way and, after this latest setback, had been wringing his hands, often literally, at every opportunity. It was a mystery to Sweetman how the man had ever summoned sufficient nerve to work with high explosives.
‘It was a stupid idea,’ Hari was saying for the umpteenth time. ‘Stupid to think we could kidnap a high-ranking envoy in the middle of London and get away with it.’ He wiped his forehead with a none too clean handkerchief.
Sweetman would like to have hit him and hit him hard, but, with considerable effort, he managed to curb his rising temper. ‘There’s a war on, Mishra, and the city barely functions much of the time. All kinds of strange things happen every day and people have got used to it. Ordinarily, they wouldn’t have bothered even to look up.’