Chapter Twenty-Four
‘This is rubbish! Dangerous rubbish! It’s never going to get an airing outside these walls but even if you could get anyone to listen to this blather, you’ve got absolutely nothing.’
Pleased to have rattled him, Joe pressed on. ‘Oh, but I have. I have evidence of the best sort. The sort that would convince any Old Bailey jury. A big bold thumbprint on the poker that killed her which corresponds with your right thumb, Bill. To say nothing of your right index finger on her throat. Not so clear, that one, but the thumb’s a cracker!’ He picked up his tea mug, saluted the sergeant and set it down again. ‘Fifteen matching details, they tell me. I’ve got whorls and loops enough to hang you with.’
Bill was silent, pale and staring. If Joe had read it right, not even name, rank and number would be forthcoming from the tight lips but he decided to go on needling the sergeant anyway.
‘Why the hell did you get involved with a bunch like this? You’re doing well in the force, aren’t you? What is it? Money? An urge to kill for which you’ve found a legitimate – or, at least, state-approved – outlet?’
He wasn’t seriously expecting a response. Men in this line of work were, according to police folklore (and this was the only source of information), granite-jawed thugs who would go to the grave in silence, taking their secrets with them.
The sergeant shrugged the pressure away. Slowly, the old Armitage smile appeared again and, to Joe’s surprise, he seemed not just prepared but even anxious to communicate something. He considered for a moment or two then began slowly. ‘I never stopped counting the minutes. You think, like most, that we’ve been through the war to end war. We’re rebuilding ourselves . . . jazzing our lives away . . . lighting up London, trying to forget, but some of us know it didn’t end there where we thought we’d buried it, there in the Flanders mud. We’re under attack still from more than one direction. I used my skills to knock minutes off that war and if I have to use the same skills to buy time from the next one, I will.’
Was there the faintest sneer as he went on? ‘Loving your country isn’t the prerogative of the upper classes, Captain, though I know they think they own the title deeds to the finer feelings. I’ve got less reason than most to feel gratitude to bloody old Britannia – the old bag’s never shown me any favours! But it’s my country and I’ll support it however I can. And that’s not an unthinking, visceral reaction. I question everything, including patriotism.’
‘And you think you’ve come up with the right answers?’ Joe hardly needed to offer encouragement. Armitage seemed eager to unburden himself. The life of a government-paid assassin, Joe reflected, must be a lonely one.
‘In fact, I’d say it’s the lack of patriotism of the flag-waving sort that’s the saving grace of this country. In my class, at least, we don’t much admire the jingle of spurs and the parade of power. Did you notice in this last lot – when we marched, it wasn’t the victories we sang about, it was more likely to be the disasters. It wasn’t our glorious leaders – it was the rotten old sergeant-major we immortalized in bawdy verse.’
‘So unmilitaristic are we, you’d wonder we ever managed to acquire an empire,’ Joe commented mildly.
Armitage glowered, angry to be misinterpreted. ‘Bloody old Kipling would have understood,’ he said. ‘You only have to look at those peaked Prussian helmets to see what I mean. Mad! Try issuing those to the British Army and you’d be greeted with outright guffaws through all ranks. You can’t get away with nonsense like that without breaking up on the British sense of humour.’
‘Good God, man!’ said Joe raising an eyebrow. ‘If you launch into a eulogy on jellied eels I’ll have you chucked into a cell to cool off.’
‘Of course you will!’ Armitage smiled. ‘See what I mean? It’s to keep blokes like you from having to get their hands bloodied again that blokes like me wield the occasional scalpel. You’re not all worth the effort but – where else in Europe would inordinate appreciation of jellied eels be a criminal charge? I’ve thought it through. I have my own philosophy.’
‘A killer with a conscience?’
‘That’s right. For your own good, Captain, we’ve never had this conversation. This goes so high it’d make your head spin. You risk annoying some forceful people. Can’t imagine what the going rate is for making a Commander of the CID disappear but there’s bound to be one.’