Lydia was not to be diverted. ‘These men aren’t going to be the slightest bit interested in your table manners and your small talk. In fact, I do rather wonder what exactly they might be wanting from a minnow like you.’
She squashed the suggestions he was about to make. ‘Well, you’re getting a reputation for defusing a crisis, Marcus says. “Defusing” – in my dictionary that spells danger. Don’t let these grandees use you for a cat’s paw while they skulk in safety behind the barricades, Joe. You know what you’re like for leading the charge.’
Sensing a sisterly assessment of his character about to be fired in his direction, Joe employed a diversionary tactic. ‘Lyd, why don’t you open up one of those boxes – you know you’re dying to. Pop on one of your new hats and I’ll take you out to dinner.’
Chapter Two
Scotland Yard
In his office on the third floor, Joe was putting the finishing touches to a frantic hour of desk work before leaving to catch his train to the west country. He picked up a fountain pen and signed the six letters remaining on his desk. The signature was in black ink, and unaccompanied by any flourish. He gathered the typed pages together into a neat pile, replaced them in a folder and ran a satisfied eye over the shining and – at last – clear surface of his desk.
He rang for his secretary.
‘Ah, Miss Jameson. All done. It just remains for me to apologize for the last-minute bustle, thank you for your stalwart assistance and say – I’ll see you again on Tuesday.’
‘Not quite all done, sir. You’d forgotten this. The latest assassination attempt.’
With an arch smile, she placed a file in front of him. ‘They’ve just sent it up. It’s the one you requested from Special Branch. I had to ask for it three times … they would keep trying to tell me it wasn’t for our eyes.’ Miss Jameson raised elegant brows to convey her disbelief at such lack of respect. ‘I have to say, Commander, I don’t much care to do business with those gentlemen.’ Her voice frosted the word lightly with distaste. ‘They are not the most congenial of people to deal with.’
‘I rather think that’s the whole point of them,’ Sandilands said drily. ‘Thugs – I quite agree. Upper-class thugs, but thugs all the same. And a law unto themselves, they’d like us to believe. So very well done to have wrung it out of them.’ He opened the file and began to flip through the pages, frowning, instantly absorbed by what he read.
‘I had to threaten to go down there and fetch it myself,’ she persisted.
Joe sensed that he hadn’t sufficiently acknowledged her tenacity. He looked up and gave her a questioning smile. ‘Down there, Miss Jameson? Bold of you to plan a frontal assault! You’re not meant to know the location of their HQ.’
‘Oh, sir! Everyone knows they’re holed up in that little wooden hut on the island in St James’s Park. Duck Island, I believe they call it. It’s just beyond Horse Guards – a minute or two away. I’d have gained access if I’d had to swim across their moat!’
He believed her.
For a moment he savoured the vision of Miss Jameson arising from the water, clad in white samite, mystic, wonderful – and crowned in duck weed – ready to challenge the doughty lads of the anti-terrorist squad and he smiled. He glanced across at the confident woman who thought nothing of taking on, single-handed, the Special Irish Branch. Should he tell her that her target had relocated some years ago? That ‘the Branch’ had moved into Whitehall and were even now beavering away not so very far from where she sat at her typewriter? No. She was happy with the folk story. And the élite squad were fanatical about preserving their anonymity. An anonymity that, in his recently acquired covert role at the Met, the commander was honour-bound to respect.
‘Just keep an eye on them for us, will you, Sandilands?’ He’d been briefed almost as an afterthought by a superior. And he’d realized, with a sinking heart, that he’d been handed a poisoned chalice. In addition to the CID role that went with his job, he’d been landed, since his return, with an ill-defined responsibility for this other clandestine and self-reliant branch of the British police force. Deliberately ill defined? Joe suspected as much.
‘They won’t give you the runaround, young man! Still full of beans and raring to go, I observe.’ This compliment, from a survivor of the Boer War with yellowing moustache and matching teeth, was never likely to turn Joe’s head. ‘Try to understand them,’ the advice flowed on, ‘with your background of skulduggery that shouldn’t be too hard. Takes one to handle one, eh, what? Make it your business to find out what these boys are up to. They’re on our side, of course – and we thank God for that mercy! – but an occasional reminder that they report ultimately to the Police Commissioner at the Yard mightn’t come amiss. They will try to ignore that.’