The Prime Minister's Secret Agent(37)

Mark was not deterred. “Then there’s the Windsor matter. You were distracted by your personal biases—spent valuable time going after the wrong suspect, leaving the actual kidnappers time to nearly carry out their plans.”

“Nearly,” Maggie retorted. “That’s the key word. Because the King was not killed and the Princess was not kidnapped.”

“But Hugh was shot.” Mark affected a girlish American voice. “ ‘Oh, come on, Hugh, as we say in the good ol’ U. S. of A.—let’s wing it!’ ” His voice deepened again. “You almost had him killed, you silly git.”

Maggie’s breath began to come faster. Who is he to judge me? He wasn’t there, he wasn’t at St. Paul’s, he wasn’t in Berlin … All he does is sit at a desk all day and look at photographs of suspects through a loupe … How easy it is to criticize the soldiers when you’re not actually in the trenches! What was it Teddy Roosevelt said? “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena …”

Maggie chose her words carefully. “The objective was never to put Hugh in harm’s way, but to rescue the Princess. If the tables had been turned, I would have understood—”

“And then you had him sacked.”

This, Maggie was not expecting. “I, responsible for Hugh’s being fired?” She shook her head. “No, I was out of the country at the time—and working for SOE, not MI-Five, if you recall. I had nothing to do with Hugh’s mission or with his being sacked.”

Mark stopped and cocked his head to one side, taking in her expression. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Maggie was mystified. “Know what?”

“He didn’t tell you? A gentleman to the end, poor blighter …”

“Tell me!”

“Later.” Mark eyed her. “Now, Miss Hope—let’s trot along.” He turned and strode into what looked like a soot-covered Victorian prison.





Chapter Nine


“I’m Mr. Standish and I’m here to speak with the procurator fiscal,” he said, flashing his MI-5 identity card.

The woman behind the desk was tiny with bright eyes, like a sparrow. “That’s Mr. Findlay,” she said, nodding. “Down that corridor and first office on the right.” She glanced at Maggie. “You’re not going, too, are you, dear?”

Mark appraised Maggie with something approaching amusement. “Yes, Miss Hope, will you be accompanying me? We’re going to talk to the procurator fiscal about Estelle Crawford’s death—and examine her corpse.” He said it as though it were a dare.

Maggie had never been to a morgue, and the smell of decay and disinfectant was already starting to turn her stomach. But she refused to give Mark the satisfaction of sitting it out.

She squared her shoulders. “Of course I’m coming, too,” she said.


In a small, windowless office, going through a stack of paperwork, Mr. Findlay was at his desk. The only relief on the white-painted cement walls was a loudly ticking clock and the framed flag of Scotland. He looked up with bleary brown eyes, not at all pleased to be disturbed. Maggie realized that while his haggard, sun-spotted face and full head of chestnut curls was average-sized, as were his hands, the rest of his body was disproportionately small. Dwarfism, she thought.

“I’m Mr. Standish, and this is Miss Hope. We’re here for the autopsy of Estelle Crawford.”

“Too late!” Findlay barked. “Can a body no get any peace aroun’ here? Only the dead, it seems …”

“Too late?” Mark echoed. “I’m with MI-Five. There’s been a murder. You were under explicit instructions to keep the body for autopsy.”

Findlay used a small stool to get down from his desk chair. Standing, he was no more than four feet tall. “I know none such thing,” he said, thumping papers into a file. “The autopsy’s already been done. The body’s been cremated. Nothin’ to see here.”

Mark was beginning to flush with annoyance. “What do you mean, the body’s been cremated? On whose authority?”

Mr. Findlay looked up and gave an owlish blink. “Don’t you know? Two men came last night. From the government.”

“MI-Five?” Mark asked.

Mr. Findlay gave a disgruntled sigh. “No, no, not MI-Five—although a’ you Londoners look alike to me,” he grumbled, going through another file until he found the paper he was looking for. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at Mark. “Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.”