The Blood Royal Read online

  ‘You have a good view of the platform here, Stan?’

  ‘I keep an eye open. I watch for kids getting off the train without an adult. They’re always easy to spot. They don’t know which way to turn. Up from the country – most of them can’t read so the signs mean nothing to them. If it looks like there’s going to be real trouble I scoop ’em up and take ’em along to the stationmaster’s office. Good bloke! Family man himself. He calls in Dr Barnardo’s or the NSPCC or the Sisters of the Night. I was a runaway myself, miss,’ he confided. ‘From the north. Years ago. I know the signs. And I can spot the vultures gathering … Like now …’ Stan’s voice rasped with dread. ‘Here they come.’

  The words struck chill. Wentworth waited anxiously to hear more. But Stan just nodded, absorbed by the crowd beginning to gather to greet the train. Most of them were clutching a platform ticket in their hands.

  ‘What do you make of that lot, then?’ he asked.

  Unresentful at being challenged by the old soldier, she murmured her way through the individuals and groups. ‘Reading from the left … if they’ll just keep still a minute and let me clock them … Two girls. Under twenty. Maids’ day out clothes. Excited. They’re so alike they must be sisters. Probably here to welcome a third and younger sister up from the country to take up her position as between-stairs maid … Of course, they could be alumnae of the local house of ill repute on a recruitment drive. Aphrodite’s on Park Lane? No, I don’t think so.

  ‘Moving along we have two ladies. Uniformed nanny and her well-dressed employer. Judging by the small bicycle that the nanny’s holding – a shining brand new one – I’d say they’re waiting for the lady’s seven-year-old son who’s taking a break from his prep school … Sick leave? But a bicycle like that – it’s bait that could lure any child into trouble. In the hands of the wrong adult. How am I getting on, Stan?’

  He smiled and nodded his approval of her reasoning.

  ‘Next along. Young man. Smartly turned out. Straw boater. And spats. Spats in summer? Trying too hard, would you say? He must be waiting for his lady-friend. Yes, look – he’s clutching a bunch of florist-bought flowers in one hand. Hothouse roses. Expensive. And in the other he’s got what would seem to be a grotesquely coiffed poodle on a lead. He’s brought the dog along to meet its mistress. It clearly doesn’t belong to the young gent. It rather hates him, do you see?

  ‘And then, just arrived, a very well-groomed middle-aged man. Sleek dark hair. What do you bet he smells of Trumper’s best hair oil? Foreign-looking. I think we have a valet waiting for his gentleman. Possibly lives in Mayfair and he’s strolled on to the station at the last moment, every hair in place, to take charge of the hand luggage.

  ‘And at the end there’s a young man with a clipboard. Military bearing. Bored. Commissionaire’s uniform is that? A flunky of some sort, anyway. He’s been sent out by a London club – the Army and Navy? – to scoop up some doddery old duffer and steer him safely to St James’s.’

  And, after a moment: ‘They all seem to have come to collect someone in particular. I can’t say any one of them strikes me as a vulture, Stan.’

  ‘Not vulture. No, I got that wrong. Those birds hang about in noisy mobs, don’t they? What we’ve got circling today is one silent professional. A sparrowhawk.’ Stan shuddered and glowered at the crowd. ‘That’s what they call them. Miss, you ought to watch out for the—’

  His words were cut off by the screech of the approaching train’s whistle, the swoosh of steam and the protest of huge wheels grinding to a halt. Doors slammed, greetings were called out, passengers jumped down from the train. The platform ticket holders surged forward hallooing with varying degrees of eagerness, claiming their people.

  Lily ticked them off in her head as they made contact. ‘Well, I got three out of five right, Stan,’ she muttered.

  The two maids were suddenly three – peas in a pod, twittering with excitement.

  A podgy seven-year-old squealed in delight at the sight of his bicycle and shook off the attentions of his mother and his nanny.

  A heavily moustached survivor of some ancient war was helped out of a first-class compartment by two porters. He placed himself with a harrumph of greeting into the hands of the flunky with the clipboard.

  But she’d been wrong about the dark-haired ‘valet’. To Lily’s surprise, an elegant young lady teetered up on high heels and flung herself into his arms, instantly elevating him from a role of subservience into a matinee idol. Lily watched their embrace for a moment, enthralled, with a mixture of wonder and envy.

  The young man in spats, scanning the platform anxiously, had yet to make contact.

  It was Stan who spotted them first.

  He pointed and mimed a message above the din. Two children were getting hesitantly out of a third-class carriage. The older one, a girl of about eleven with badly plaited pigtails hanging down her back, turned and helped her brother to jump down on to the platform. Lily noticed, with a stab of pity, that the girl was smiling, trying to make a game of it for the little boy. The pair stood for a moment, reeling back from the assault of the noise, sniffing the warm sooty air like wild creatures. They were poorly dressed: the girl was wearing a grey cardigan with holes in the elbows over a drooping cotton frock, while the boy’s clothes were a size too big for him. Their shoes were fastened with baler twine and worn down to nothing at the heels. They were both very skinny. They were also by themselves.

  Lily watched as they tried with a pathetic sense of duty to slam shut the heavy door behind them and failed to move it. They gave up, looked about them to see if their shortcoming had been noted and braced themselves to face a new and probably hostile world. Hand in hand, they stood, each clutching a small parcel done up with string.

  They began to shuffle forward with the crowd and the girl suddenly pointed, seeing the sign for the exit and mouthing the word. They moved towards it.

  The Sparrowhawk was watching them as closely as Lily. He let them take a dozen paces from the train, checking that no adult was following on behind.

  Satisfied that they were alone, he made his move.

  He strolled over and spoke to them, doffed his boater to the little girl and bent down to their level, his face wreathed in pleasant smiles. The poodle, trained in its responses, Lily was quite certain, licked the children’s hands and fussed about, wagging its stumpy tail.

  Their new friend was in no hurry. He talked, he listened and he did a lot of laughing. He didn’t make the mistake of alarming them by offering to take their precious parcels from them. Finally, he handed the dog’s lead to the little girl and himself took the boy by one hand, his flowers still clutched in the other. A charming group, they set off for the exit.

  Clumsy with excitement and dread, Stan grabbed his crutch and came round from behind his stall, growling a warning. ‘There they go. Never seen that one before but he’s a wrong ’un if ever I saw one. A real professional. Are you going to do something? Where’s that useless nincompoop of a police constable?’

  He started to hobble forward himself but Lily grabbed his arm and held him back. ‘No! Wait! We have to let them get as far as the barrier. Otherwise, he’ll get off with some excuse about escorting them to the lavatory or the refreshment room. Rules, Stan! Stay back!’

  She padded quietly after the little group, allowing them to move along four paces ahead of her. They passed the lavatory. They passed the refreshment room. In his total confidence the Hawk didn’t bother to look back. With a display of a jolly young uncle’s concern, he checked that the children had their tickets in hand to present at the barrier.

  When he was a few yards from the exit and clearly committed to leaving, Lily launched her attack. She dashed forward, scattering the children and the dog, and hurled herself at the man’s knees from behind, turning her head to avoid his thrashing heels. He crashed on to his front, flowers flying everywhere, banging his chin on the paved floor.

  ‘What the hell!’ he roared.

 
; ‘Police! You’re under arrest!’ Lily shouted, and before he could struggle free she threw herself down firmly, bottom first, on the man’s neck. She took her police whistle from her tunic and gave three blasts. Where was PC Halliday? With no powers of arrest herself, she could do little without Halliday’s authority. His curses smothered by voluminous layers of Harrod’s tailoring, her prisoner was writhing like a spade-sliced worm. His body bucked strongly, all his senses alert now, muscles working to shift the incapacitating weight without breaking his own neck.

  ‘Halliday!’ More blasts of the whistle sent the crowd hurrying off in all directions in their eagerness not to become involved in police business.

  She heard Stan scream a warning as he lurched forward: ‘Watch it! Knife!’

  There was a gleam of metal as the man reached behind and pulled a flick knife from his back pocket. His right thumb worked the switch and an evil length of steel shot out, with the swift flicker of a snake’s tongue.

  The sudden descent of a polished half-brogue Oxford on to the man’s knife hand produced a muffled scream. A second application of a leather heel with thirteen stone of well-muscled Englishman behind it elicited more yells and oaths. The crushed fingers spread, their grasp on the knife broken.

  Lily’s eyes followed the immaculate shoe upwards along an elegantly trousered leg to a dark tweed Norfolk jacket. A hand reached down holding a handkerchief and the knife was taken up delicately by the tip of the blade.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to preserve the prints in evidence, officer,’ suggested a voice whose assurance echoed the quality of the tailoring. ‘This weapon may well have been used in previous crimes.’ The stranger laid the knife at her feet and straightened. Lily noticed that he kept his brogue firmly on the Sparrowhawk’s hand.

  She was aware of a hatless head of well-barbered black hair, a brown face, clean shaven and confident to the point of unconcern. With an outpouring of relief she began to gabble her thanks. ‘Oh, well done, sir! Lucky for us you were passing. Always a member of the public ready to come up in support, thank God,’ she heard herself say. ‘The Commissioner should hear of this.’

  ‘I’m sure he will, Miss … er, Officer 1555. One way or another.’ He seemed amused. ‘Ah! And here, a little late, and buttoning up his unmentionables, comes your valiant escort. Let’s hope he has at least remembered his handcuffs.’

  The stranger’s voice took on a military tone as Halliday panted up. ‘Constable! Glad you could join us. You nearly missed the party. Arrest this recumbent person on a charge of attempted kidnap of minors, intent to wound a female officer of the law, uttering obscenities in a public place and littering the environs of the station. And anything else that occurs to you.’

  He stepped aside and retrieved an untrampled white rose stem from the floor, broke off the bloom and stuck it with a flourish into the band of Lily’s hat, which had remained firmly in place throughout the proceedings. ‘Oh, and let’s be sure not to forget proxenetism,’ he added. ‘I’m sure a little research will confirm: proxenetism. Cuff the villain and take him to the local nick. You may give my name as a witness of events.’

  ‘Sir! Yes, sir!’ Halliday grunted, hauling the prisoner’s arms behind his back and clicking on the cuffs. ‘At once, sir!’

  ‘Dash it. I may have missed my train,’ grumbled the military man and, snapping off a gracious salute to Lily, he picked up his overcoat and briefcase and marched off at the double. Lily watched him go, mortified that she hadn’t thought to return his salute. Still, with her right hand firmly entangled in the Hawk’s greasy hair in the prescribed controlling hold, the other clutching her whistle, perhaps the gentleman wouldn’t have expected it.

  Halliday turned his attention to Lily. ‘Proxy what was that?’ he said. ‘What was he on about?’

  ‘He meant procuring. Getting hold of young children and exploiting them for felonious purposes. It’s from the Latin word for pimping. We’ve collared ourselves a predator, Halliday. A sparrowhawk. But that chap – the country gent with the nifty footwork and the nice smile – what did he say? Use his name? I didn’t hear him give one. Should we—’

  ‘He doesn’t need to give it. Everybody knows him! Commander Have-a-go-Joe Sandilands,’ Halliday groaned. ‘That’s who you were showing off for. Interfering sod! Nice smile? Huh! And you’re trying to tell me you didn’t know him? Pull the other one!’

  ‘No, honest, Halliday, I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, you can get up now, 1555 – the prisoner can’t breathe. And your audience has slung its hook. Take that silly bloody flower out of your hat! What do you think you look like? Gawd! I was only in the gents for a minute,’ he protested. ‘He got my number. I saw him looking. That’s my police career over.’ He glowered at Lily. ‘But I’ll tell you something, Miss Showoff, if I go down, I’ll take you with me. There’s things they ought to know about you.’

  Lily wasn’t going to allow his threats to dampen her triumph. ‘He got my number too,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that was a man who misses much. But first things first – never mind this villain …’ She gave one last triumphant bounce on the Hawk’s head before she struggled to her feet. ‘And never mind the commander. Where are those children?’

  ‘It’s all right, I’ve got ’em safe,’ said Stan, appearing with a child firmly in each hand. ‘While the PC’s organizing that piece of filth’s accommodation I’ll just give these two nippers a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich. They look as though they haven’t eaten for a week.’ And, turning to the wide-eyed pair: ‘Welcome to London, kids. I think that’s enough excitement for one day. Come along o’ me and this lady policeman. Naw – don’t you fret about the dog. We’ll see he’s all right. You’re all going to be all right.’

  Chapter Four

  September 1922

  In the warm intimacy of the rear seat of a London cab, Admiral Lord Dedham stretched out his long legs and adjusted the scabbard of his dress sword so as to be sure not to snag the trailing chiffon gown of the woman by his side. It had been a long, hot evening filled with far too many blood-stirring speeches – the most incendiary of them coming from his own lips, he readily admitted. He’d received a standing ovation and that sort of thing always went to the head however tight one’s grip on reality; he’d taken on board too much adulation and too many drinks for comfort. He was longing for the moment, soon approaching, when he could relieve his chest of its cargo of medals and slip out of his much-bedecked dress uniform.

  But until that blissful moment arrived, he was more than content with the present one. Even at his time of life – which he thought of as ‘vigorous middle age’ – the admiral still found that the capsule of darkness to be found in the back of a taxi, lightly scented with gardenia, good cigars and leather, sliding secretly through the roistering crowds of central London, had its enlivening effect. It had been even more invigorating in the swaying hansom cabs of his youth but his ageing bones could never regret all that bouncing about over cobbles. He reached out and seized the white-gloved hand left invitingly close to his on the banquette and lifted it to his lips with practised gallantry, a wary eye on the driver.

  The observant cabby’s eyes gleamed in the rear-viewing mirror, his shoulders shook perceptibly and he launched into a cheery offering from Chu Chin Chow.

  Lord Dedham had seen the musical extravaganza three times. It was his favourite musical comedy. He recognized the sumptuously romantic duet ‘Any Time’s Kissing Time’.

  Cheeky blighter, Dedham thought, with an indulgent grin. Typical London cabby. Ought to be keeping his eyes on the road, not spying on his passengers. He wondered if his companion would take offence. Many women would.

  His companion responded to the effrontery by leaning mischievously towards the admiral and biting his ear, her aim, in the dark, surprisingly sure. Then she joined in with the song, timing her entrance perfectly, weaving her clear soprano voice into the chorus to sing along with the cabby.

  ‘Nearly there, my love,’ growled D
edham. ‘Did you ask Peterson to wait up?’

  ‘As though he’d agree to do otherwise, Oliver! He’ll be there waiting with your eggnog at the ready. But I dismissed your valet. I’ll help you out of that clanking regalia myself.’ And, as though the promise of eggnog and wifely ministrations was not enough to stiffen the sinews, she squeezed his arm as they turned from the hurly-burly of Buckingham Palace Road into the quiet opulence of the streets approaching Melton Square. ‘Oh, it’s so good to have you home again, darling, and I shall go on saying that until you beg me to stop. And when we arrive, you will remember to do as Joe told you, won’t you?’

  ‘Dash it all, Cassandra, we’re in Belgravia not Belfast!’ he objected.

  Lady Dedham quelled her husband’s predictable splutterings by her usual method of putting a finger firmly over his mouth. ‘And thank God for that! But your young friend at the Yard is worth hearing. It’s a very simple arrangement. It makes complete sense. We must prepare ourselves to observe this routine until all the unpleasantness blows over or you and that fire-eater Churchill stop making sabre-rattling speeches, darling, whichever is the sooner. Yo u it was who insisted on dismissing the police protection squad Joe kindly set up for you, and now you must perform your part of the bargain.’

  ‘Protection squad!’ The admiral spat out his derision.

  ‘He didn’t have to do that, you know – over and above his duty. You’re an ungrateful piggy-wig, Oliver. You listen to no one. I can’t think why you objected. Those Branch men he sent round were terribly discreet … really, you’d no idea they were there. And the young one was incredibly handsome! I was so enjoying having him about the place. He cheered us all up.’ She weathered his splutter of outrage and sailed on. ‘But you agreed to the commander’s alternative proposals and I for one shall hold you to your promise. I have a part too, you know, and I fully intend to play it. I expect nothing less from you. Now – tell the driver what you want him to do. And don’t cut it short – I shall be listening!’