displayed.’
‘It is only the Faberge replicas that have ever been allowed to leave the country on exhibition,’ Navetsky reminded him stiffly. He’d refuse a second drink, he decided.
‘Surely you don’t imagine my country would expose such works of art to any risk?’ said the ambassador.
‘Of course not,’ Navetsky assured him.
In London, a report on the exhibition of the Russian royal jewellery was despatched, as a matter of routine, from the Foreign Office to Wilberforce. It was to be several days before he read it.
The protection would never be necessary, Johnny Packer knew. But like Herbie Pie had said, he was a craftsman. And craftsmen always did things properly. So at the back of the shed, where the more volatile explosives were stored, Johnny had constructed a double-thickness brick wall, to cushion any accidental blast. Each was housed in its carefully partitioned section, with metal sheets forming an inner lining. The P-4 plastic, the easiest and least dangerous to use, was most readily to hand. Then the cordite, which he disliked because of the difficulty of control in certain circumstances. And in front of it all, the sacks of sodium chlorate, to be mixed with the sugar in the kitchen if the sudden need arose. Which he hoped it wouldn’t. Sodium chlorate and sugar was all right for the killers of Belfast, but Johnny Packer was a craftsman.
Away from the explosive material but still within the reinforced area the fuses and detonators were packed carefully into their boxes and in a third case were the clocks and pressure mechanisms.
He locked the shed and began walking round to the house. With equipment like that, there wasn’t an explosive device he couldn’t construct, decided Johnny. But when? Six weeks and there’d been nothing. It was a test, Johnny knew. The trade … the real, no-fucking-about trade … had to be sure he’d learned his lesson. Trouble was, the only way to prove that was to do a job. And without help, how the hell was he going to do that?
EIGHT
Charlie had allowed himself three days before the London meeting. The first two had been taken up travelling to England by as confused a route as possible, going by train from Zurich to Lyons, from there to Paris, backtracking to Auxerre and then returning to Paris to catch the night sleeper to Victoria.
The remaining day had been devoted entirely to watching Rupert Willoughby, following him from his house off Sloane Street to his City office, occupying the secluded table at Sweetings during the man’s business lunch, checking his firm to uncover any possible links to dummy or cover companies the names and addresses of which he might have recognised and then, finally, trailing him in his trendy, smoked-glass mini back from the City to Knightsbridge in the evening. Just like old times, reflected Charlie, welcoming the activity.
It would have needed a team of men to have established absolutely that the man was not under deep surveillance, Charlie accepted. And as Edith had warned, now he was completely on his own.
And so he would always be now, he reflected, content with the protection of the rush-hour crowd in the middle of which he spilled from the Bank underground station on the morning of the appointment.
‘So far, so good,’ he assured himself.
‘Yes,’ agreed a commuter beside him. ‘Much better this morning, wasn’t it? Extra trains at London Bridge, you know.’
‘About time,’ answered Charlie. He’d have to control the habit, he decided. It was embarrassing.
The office of the Lloyd’s underwriters of which, from enquiries he’d already made through the Company Register, Charlie knew Willoughby to be the senior partner, was off Leadenhall Street, high in a converted block with a view of the Bank of England.
Willoughby was already standing when Charlie entered the spacious, oak-panelled office. Immediately he came forward, hands held out like that Sunday in the churchyard. Remarkably like his father, decided Charlie. Even more so than he had realised from their initial encounter.
‘At last,’ greeted the underwriter, leading Charlie to a leather, button-backed chair immediately alongside the desk.
‘At last?’
Willoughby smiled at the quickness of the question, looking down at the man. Thinning, strawish hair, perhaps a hint of blood pressure or even alcohol from the slight purpling around the face and nose and a hunched, maybe apprehensive way of sitting. A very ordinary sort of man; the 8 a.m. traveller on every bus and train. Which proved, decided Willoughby, how deceptive appearances could be.
‘I always hoped you would make contact,’ he said. ‘If you could, that was. My father did, too.’
Very direct, assessed Charlie. Almost as if the man had some knowledge of what had happened.
‘I’ve cancelled everything for today,’ said Willoughby. ‘There’ll be no interruptions.’
Charlie remained silent, sitting forward in the chair. How could Willoughby know? It was impossible. Unless he were involved in the pursuit. And if he were involved, then he wouldn’t be so direct, arousing suspicion. It was a circle of doubt, Charlie recognised, without a beginning or an end.
‘So we finally meet,’ said Willoughby again, as if he couldn’t believe it.
‘There was a previous occasion,’ Charlie reminded him. Willoughby had been at Cambridge, Charlie recalled. Sir Archibald had brought him into the Whitehall office on his way for his first visit to the House of Commons. The boy had acne and seemed disappointed nobody carried a gun.
‘I’m sorry,’ apologised Willoughby. ‘I don’t remember meeting you with my father. But he didn’t take me into the office very often.’
‘No,’ agreed Charlie.
‘Do you know,’ continued Willoughby, leaning back in his chair and looking away from Charlie, ‘in the end those bastards Cuthbertson and Wilberforce actually tried to use something as ridiculous as that against him.’
‘What?’ demanded Charlie, very attentive. The continued openness was disconcerting; almost the professional use of honesty that he had employed to gain a person’s confidence.
‘His taking me into the office,’ explained the underwriter. ‘Claimed it was a breach of security.’
Charlie felt the tension recede. It would be wrong to formulate impressions too soon. But perhaps it hadn’t been a mistake to come, after all.
‘It’s the sort of thing they would have done,’ accepted Charlie. And been right, he thought honestly. But Sir Archibald had always made his own rules; that was one of the reasons why he and Charlie had established such a rapport. And why, in the end, Cuthbertson and Wilberforce had manoeuvred his replacement.
‘You realise he committed suicide, don’t you?’ said Willoughby.
Charlie shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t. I was away when he died. It was never directly mentioned, but I inferred it was natural causes …’
Charlie paused.
‘Well …’ he started again, but Willoughby talked over him.
‘Cirrhosis of the liver?’ anticipated the man. ‘Yes, that too. They made him into an alcoholic by the way they treated him. And when he realised what had happened to him, he hoarded some barbiturates and took the whole lot with a bottle of whisky.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie began, then stopped, irritated by the emptiness of the expression. But he was sorry, he thought. There were few people to whom he had ever been close. And Sir Archibald had been one of them.
‘There was a note,’ continued Willoughby, appearing unaware of Charlie’s attempt at sympathy. ‘Several, in fact. The one he left for the police put the fear of Christ up everyone. Spelled everything out … not just what shits Cuthbert son and Wilberforce were in the way they got him fired, but the mistakes they had made as well. He did it quite deliberately because he believed that if they weren’t moved, they’d make a major, serious blunder.’
His feelings, remembered Charlie.
‘The department took the whole thing over,’ continued Willoughby. ‘They have the power, apparently, under the Official Secrets Act. Allows them to do practically anything, to protect the national interest. Squashed the inquest, everything. That’s how the natural causes account got spread about.’
Sir Archibald’s death could only have been a matter of weeks before he had exposed their stupidity and got them captured in Vienna by the Russian commandos, Charlie calculated. What, he wondered, had happened to Cuthbertson? Back where he belonged, probably, fighting long forgotten battles over the brandy and cigars at
