Diana's Altar Page 31

  Hunnyton, on the other hand, was all sanity and purpose. In control of himself and controlling of those around him. A large, strong, bluff East Anglian in appearance, he still had the work-worn hands of the countryman. “Fists like hams,” one of his admirers had remarked to Joe. A concealed man, conflicted. A man Joe had never understood.

  Time to take off the gloves, Joe decided.

  “So, tell us, Hunnyton, whatever persuaded the powers that be to rescind the offer of knighthood to your superior, old Arnold Baxter, the chief constable of the county, and hand it to you?”

  Joe was satisfied to catch a flash of astonishment on Hunnyton’s impassive features.

  “Have you met Baxter?”

  “Yes. More importantly I’ve met Mrs. Baxter! I made it my business to visit the man who for so long had been making life easy for a politically disruptive force in the city, according to your account. Look-the-other-way Baxter. The old gent has trouble looking in any direction. He had a stroke a year ago and lost most of his faculties. His wife covered up for him as best she could, waiting for the moment when his knighthood should be conferred. The lady desperately wants to be a Lady, you see, with all the kudos the title will bring her in her tea group. His day-to-day organisation he left to you, his thoroughly competent superintendent. If any favouring of criminal activities or dodgy politicking has gone on in this fair city recently, I’m not blaming Baxter. I’m blaming you, Hunnyton.”

  The superintendent was unruffled. “There’s no need to be huffy, Joe. You’ll never have to call me ‘sir.’ I’ve turned it down. Grateful though I was to be offered it,” he said with an alarming and mocking half bow to Pertinax. “You see, I wish first to accept a seat in Parliament. The honours will come later, perhaps.”

  “Seat in Parliament? What’s all this?” Adelaide wanted to know. “There’s no election due for another four years. I know you’re a patient man but . . .”

  “There will be a by-election next year in the county. Early next year. The sitting MP will withdraw from government on the grounds of ill health, and I shall win the seat. A Tory in a sea of blue Tory voters. No problem. You’ve said yourself, Joe, the government is presently in a mess. Coalitions rarely work. There is no strong leader coming forward. They bicker and fail to take the vital decisions which could keep our country afloat. The British electorate will soon be crying out for strong leadership. I intend to respond to their cry. With the backing of key members of the government, elements of the armed forces and, vitally, the popular press, I’d say I had a pretty good chance of achieving my aims. Prime minister within two years, war leader in . . . who can say when Armageddon will break out? I shall be ready!”

  Looking at his fair, Saxon features, aware of his aura of strength and purpose, the man’s ability to trick and cajole and twist, Joe thought he probably had it right. Time to find out which of this pair of impressive men had the whip hand.

  “This valuable support, Hunnyton. All supplied by your creature here? Pertinax the insane? Pertinax the diseased defiler of women? Pimp, blackmailer and murderer extraordinaire?”

  With a cry that came from deep in his throat, grey eyes blazing, Pertinax clenched his fists and would have rushed on Joe, with or without battle axe in hand. One raised finger from Hunnyton was all it took to stop the man in his tracks. Joe had seen him perform similar tricks on horses weighing more than a ton, and he reminded himself that Hunnyton had shown himself perfectly able to control the assistant commissioner also.

  “Calm down, Gregory! He’s insulting you with a purpose. Do you see what he did? He’s just succeeded in establishing the pecking order between us. I would have preferred him to remain in suspense a little longer. I warned you not to under-ate him. Now, wrappers on, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll take our drinks out onto the balcony. I can promise you a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

  “Not going to chuck us all over, are you, Hunnyton? The last-of-a-lifetime experience?” Guy Despond asked. Standing protectively in front of his daughter, he glowered at Hunnyton with deep mistrust.

  “Quite the reverse, sir. A rebirth, like the phoenix rising from the flames. Be patient. You’ll see.”

  They lined up on the balcony, eyes stonily on the middle distance.

  “A moment!” Joe doubled back through the window into the salon. “Ah! There you are, Clive! Thought I heard someone creeping about. We have all we need, thank you. We’re waiting on ourselves. You may go back to your pantry.”

  “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  Joe waited until a door closed.

  “Sorry, Pertinax!” he said, returning. “I didn’t think you’d noticed him skulking about. Villains like him standing behind my shoulder blades make me a bit touchy. Right then, Hunnyton, what have you got for us?”

  Hunnyton pointed in the direction of Cambridge. “From up here we should have a clear view. Look between the two tall elms . . .”

  He consulted his watch again and gave a tight smile. Not entirely the confident showman, Joe thought.

  The obliging stable bell sounded the three quarter hour.

  It was Dorothy who spotted it first. “Look over there! Isn’t that smoke? Oh, my God! That’s Cambridge! Is the city on fire?”

  “That’s no fire!” Adelaide said. “It’s . . . it’s . . . a bomb! Like the ones they dropped from airships in the war. I saw a Zeppelin drop one on Lowestoft in 1915. It’s a single explosion. Powerful . . . see how high it’s rising and how fast . . . And how black! What have they hit? Joe!” She turned an anguished face to him in her agitation. “What are we looking at? Are there precious buildings burning? People?”

  Through tight lips Joe replied. “Hunnyton is about to tell us both. And, if I’m right, he and the toad Pertinax are about to boast that, between them and with equal guilt, they have just exploded a bomb in the centre of the Cavendish Laboratory. Their man, Herbert Jennings, former Royal Engineer, set the timing mechanism which produced what you are looking at. It was timed to go off in the faces of twenty of the world’s most talented physicists. But why, Hunnyton? Why, Pertinax? And why on earth put us up here to witness the devastation?”

  Everything depended on hearing the right answer from Hunnyton. If he chose to back away now, turn his face away from them and wander away as he did with a recalcitrant horse, all was lost.

  “Come, now, Joe! A serious step has been taken, I’ll allow. You’re angry that your attempts to defuse the coup have met with no success. When you understand the reasoning behind it, you will change your mind. Look on this as the first fusillade of the war. We both know the next war is fast becoming the present war. Sides are being chosen. War leaders of thuggish ability are rising to the surface. Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia. We were unprepared for the last one. We will not be caught out tripping over the starting line this time. It will be a conflict of weaponry. Of chemicals and engineering. The scientist who can devise the means of destroying the world will be God of War. The Germans have seen this already, and the Russians. The men who met their fate in that blast just now were well advanced in the planning of a device that will, in a short time, be powerful enough to blast the whole of London out of existence. Or Moscow. Or Berlin. That lot are, for the most part, Bolsheviks. They owe their allegiance to Mother Russia. When they’d sucked us dry of money, equipment and expertise, they planned to go to Moscow and deliver their lethal knowledge to Stalin’s doorstep. Even you suspected as much, Joe, so try not to look so innocently aggrieved!”

  “What? Are you telling me you’re an anti-war group?” Joe probed, needing a clear answer.

  “Hardly!” Hunnyton laughed. “Come on, Joe!”

  “Are we then to infer from this that you are going to attack Göttingen next?”

  “Of course not! By this stroke, we have strengthened their hand. A key selection of Cavendish men are already there. I don’t doubt that they will be easily persuaded to stay on. There are many spar
e places available as Herr Hitler’s purges have seen off the previous generation of elderly Jewish professors.”

  “You’re joining the Fascist cause? You swine!” Despond shouted.

  “Not at all. They will be joining me. My country will reassert its place as leader of this continent. In a year or so, Germany will have put its house in order, cleaned up its act. The German people will have come to their senses and seen through the mad oratory, the crazed ambition of that strutting little nobody they, for the present, revere. A new empire will be forged. Many on each side in the last lot could not see why we were at odds with each other. The two nations have much in common. The press made a good deal of the camaraderie of the trenches—the football games, the singing, the chivalry. Hoi polloi will not need much convincing when sympathetic editors have spread their propaganda. Many of our sitting MPs already favour the cause, many members of the aristocracy also. Our monarchy, indeed, has German roots. If they were to be offered a supportive, dashing young king, willing to take on the role of figurehead for a new combined nation . . .”

  “A man under duress . . . blackmail.” Joe was remembering the last motorcar registration number on the chauffeur’s son’s list.

  “Wrong, Sandilands! It won’t come to that,” Pertinax gave his opinion. “Tell the bastard why he’s here, Hunnyton, and get rid of him.”

  “Enough, Pertinax!”

  “No, go on! Do tell me! I’d sincerely like to understand why you assumed I would hesitate to clap you both in irons and haul you off to London on a charge of treason, arson, murder . . . everything in the book?

  A pitying smile, then, “Your last chance to save your skin. An offer. I’m building up a base, as you know. I already have people in important positions in government. I inherited a selection when I met Pertinax some years ago. The fool had tried to entrap me, thinking a presence on the local police authority would be useful for him in his endeavours.” His glance at Pertinax taunted and dismissed. “Instead I took him over and his little empire. Nothing more than a money-making enterprise in the beginning—the fool hadn’t even guessed at the potential. I broadened the power base, became more selective of targets. I have a civil servant or two from the highest level in my pocket. The Crown Prosecution Service is a useful tool, I find, and I’d like now to offer Scotland Yard a place at the top table. You, Sandilands. Commissioner in a very short time? We work well together. Your naiveté annoys me occasionally but that can be ironed out.”

  “What—no orgy on offer to persuade me?” Joe asked.

  “No. We offer recruits what they want. I think you would refuse the orgy. But every man wants power. I offer you power.”

  At this, Pertinax objected loudly. He had rightly interpreted Hunnyton’s proposition to Joe and saw in it his own end. He was being discarded in favour of the assistant commissioner. A fresh, young force, more congenial to Hunnyton was to replace him. His face grew red, his breathing shortened, his body seemed to be going into spasm. A stream of shocking abuse spurted from his lips. He had turned his anger from Joe to Hunnyton and was adopting a boxer’s aggressive stance. One temper-fuelled blow from those concrete fists would have sent Hunnyton flying over the balcony. Joe moved out of the way to allow him a clear run at his target.

  It was Adelaide who stepped into the bad situation. She picked up her medical case and waved it in Pertinax’s face.

  “Sir Gregory!” she snapped. “Time, I think, for your next injection. Will you go to your room and I’ll administer it? Come along now! We’ll soon have you on your feet again.”

  To Joe’s surprise, Pertinax growled quietly, turned and shambled out, followed by Adelaide.

  “Stay where you are, Sandilands!” was Hunnyton’s response to Joe’s instinctive attempt to follow. “She’ll be fine with the patient. At the moment she is the only person in the world who has what he wants. He won’t harm her. Yes, you’ve all guessed, the man is mentally deranged. He has suffered from syphilis for years now. He has his good weeks when he reverts to the perfectly normal for quite long periods and believes himself cured. And then he has his bad moments, dipping deeper into decay and malignity each time. He’s dying. He’s not long for this world, but as long as he’s in it, he’s a liability. Sandilands, you must take his place.”

  Joe had heard as much as he needed to hear. But now the most dangerous moment had arrived. The presence of Guy and Dorothy on the small balcony had not been in his calculations and was a hazard. They were staying calm and quiet and trying to attract no one’s attention, but Joe knew that Hunnyton would not hesitate to take one or both of them hostage. He had early established that the superintendent was carrying a gun in his usual favoured position, tucked into the back of his trousers. Joe was unarmed. Hunnyton was an inch or two taller than Joe and of heavier build. Speed and low cunning were Joe’s only advantages. Would Dorothy read his mind? How good was her memory? Worth a try.

  “You’ll have to wait a while for me to absorb all this, Adam,” he said finally. “I say—I don’t know about you fellows but I’m gasping for a drink. Where did I put my glass?” He picked it up and took a grateful swallow. He reckoned there was nothing more disarming than the sight of a possible adversary with a glass in his hand. “Dorothy! Join me, won’t you? This takes me back uncannily to our little scene at Melsett.”

  If she remembered she showed no sign of it. Sniffing and with tears running down her face, she threw him a look of utter disdain, reached theatrically for her glass and flourished it. Hunnyton smiled, waiting to hear the words of scorn pour from her.

  Her screech took him by surprise. The glass she hurled took him in the face.

  Joe leapt, one hand extended and smashed it down into a spot behind Hunnyton’s ear. It should have felled him at once but he shook his bull’s neck, recovered his balance, crouched and launched his weight at Joe. His longer reach landed two swift though weakened blows on Joe’s jaw. He followed up with a battery of hard-knuckled blows directed with furious hatred at Joe’s face. With no space to back away, Joe was being pushed ever closer to the waist-high balustrade. He felt the stone parapet behind his thighs and pushed back.

  To his horror he heard Hunnyton panting in his ear. “Knew it would come to this! Smart-arse! Over you go. Your choice. When I investigate your death, I’ll find no bullet holes, just a champagne-sodden, dizzy copper.”

  His hatred was his undoing. If he’d held his tongue and given one last heave Joe would have broken his bones on the stone slabs of the terrace below. In his overconfidence, Hunnyton had lost sight of Guy Despond. Elderly, round, and dapper, he had been no threat. Now the manicured white hands were gripping a glass jug full of alcohol, his expression of fierce determination a mask of Nemesis. The heavy jug crashed down on Hunnyton’s skull with a sickening explosion and the unconscious bulk of the man collapsed on top of Joe.

  As Joe scrambled to his feet, awash with alcohol, feeling sick and dripping blood from his nose, Despond stayed to check his victim. “He’s still breathing. Shall we push him over while we can? What do you say, Sandilands? A crack to the head amongst the other broken bones will never be noticed.”

  “I’d say, better leave it right there, sir, and let me deal with the gentleman.” Clive appeared at Despond’s side, service pistol in one hand, the other one elegantly extended to escort him off the balcony. “You’re quite all right now, sir. And the young lady. Will you go with these two officers from the Yard and they’ll take a statement?” He turned to the recumbent Hunnyton, drew a pair of handcuffs from his belt and slipped them on with practised movements, passing them through one of the balusters. “There. He’ll keep for now. Sorry, sir. That could have been nasty. I was distracted by the other young lady making off with Sir Gregory and splitting the party, so to speak. The right blokes were all in place. We got the confession. The rest of the household’s safely stashed away. Cooks in the kitchens, dogs in their cages, keepers locked in the cellar.�
�� There was a short, uncomfortable pause and he added, “That just leaves Doctor Hartest to worry about and Pertinax.”

  “Ouch! Adelaide! Come with me, Clive! Where the hell have they gone?”

  “It’s this way, sir.”

  Joe ran after the Special Branchman along corridors and up a flight of stairs until he paused at a closed door. “Wait here,” Joe said.

  He flung the door open and hurled himself into the silent, curtained room. Pertinax was lying sprawled on his bed, his limbs spread in the defenceless pose of a sleeping baby, his face in slumber relaxed and youthful. Adelaide sat watchfully on the bed at his side. Her bag was open on the floor at her feet. She turned to stare at Joe as he moved to her side and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Adelaide! My love! Are you all right?”

  “Not really. Probably never will be again. Devastated. But I’m as healthy in body as ever I was, if that’s what you mean. You, on the other hand, look as though you’ve been through a meat mincer. I’d better give you something for those eyes before you lose them.” She passed him a towel.

  “That was bold of you—to make off with him like that. You probably saved everyone’s life. I got here as soon as I could. There was some opposition, but all’s well and in the capable hands of Special Branch.”