“I said no thanks.”
There was steel in Caprisi’s voice and Field sat back down. On the other side of the room, Granger was building a pyramid on the table with full tankards. “You don’t drink.”
“No.”
“There’s no prohibition here, Caprisi.”
“Back off, Field.”
Field paused. “You are a man of mystery . . .”
“Mysteries are not always interesting.”
“To the curious, they are.” Field smiled. “I’m still not sure I understand.”
“All you need to understand here is who your friends are, Dickie.” He glanced across at Granger’s group. “Macleod thinks you have an honest face. He doesn’t want you to join the cabal and neither do I. Unless it’s already too late, of course.”
Before Field could answer, Caprisi got up and walked swiftly away.
Twenty
Later that evening Field moved very slowly into the darkened Special Branch office, trying to determine whether there was any bit of him that wasn’t in pain.
He flicked on the light in his booth and sat down. He stretched his legs, straightened his back, and put his hands behind his head, then slumped forward and fiddled with the light switch.
The buff-colored fingerprint file lay in his in-tray and he flicked the corner of it, ignoring the pile of publications to be censored that had been placed in the middle of his desk. He decided to splash a basinful of cold water over his face before giving the file a closer look.
On the way back from the washroom, Field poured himself a drink, then returned to his desk.
For a moment the significance of the empty tray did not register. The folder had been taken, no note left in its place.
Field stood and took the stairs to the fingerprint bureau two at a time, forgetting his bruises.
Ellis wasn’t there. An elderly Sikh frowned at Field’s inquiry. “No, sahib,” he said. “They have not come back here.”
“Check the originals, will you?”
The man walked over to a row of cabinets. “What’s the name again?”
“Orlov, Lena.”
Field waited, drumming his fingers. Eventually, the man turned. “No,” he said bluntly. “There’s no record of prints for a case under that name.”
“Where is Ellis?”
“Ellis is on leave.”
“On leave?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I believe he has gone to San Francisco. He will be back in three to four months.”
Field took the stairs down to Crime, but the office was as dark and deserted as his own, thin shards of light from the street cutting across the empty desks. He walked to Macleod’s office and back, but there was no one there.
He returned to his own office and stood in the middle of the room, his hands in his pockets.
After a few minutes he headed down the stairs to the ground floor. In front of the reception desk, he waited for Albert, the doorman, to finish his telephone call. Albert was in his seventies and had been wounded in the Boer War.
“Albert, who has been in tonight?”
The old man’s brow creased in concentration.
“It’s quiet up there. Has anyone from my department, or from Crime, been in? I mean in the last few hours, since the match.”
“Mr. Granger made an appearance.”
“Granger?”
“Yes.”
“How long ago?”
Albert shrugged. “Twenty minutes.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
Albert nodded. “And Macleod.”
