Think of England (22 page)

“No.”

Damn. “Then stay away from the windows. Is the door barred?”

“Yes.”

At least he knew when to be brief. Curtis gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he pulled on his boots.

The mezzanine floor covered perhaps half of the interior, with a walkway running round the entire interior circumference of the absurd tower except where the stairs broke into it, allowing visitors to look out all around. Curtis, keeping low, manoeuvred himself to the front of the building. Daniel slithered round to the other side of the walkway, so he was a few feet away.

“Curtis!” It was a shout from outside. He recognised the voice and shot a look back at Daniel, who grimaced. “Curtis!”

He made a long arm, unlatched the closest window and pushed it open. “Sir Hubert,” he called. “Good morning.”

“Come out of there at once,” shouted his host testily. “I don’t know what you’re playing at.”

“No?” Curtis positioned himself to squat on his heels, back to the wall. “I dare say you’ll find out if you wait long enough.”

“Why don’t you come down and discuss this like a sensible man?”

There was a soft rattle from the ground, someone trying the door.

“I think I can have a sensible conversation from here,” Curtis said. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Where’s Holt?” That was James Armstrong interrupting, sounding wild. “What have you done with Holt?”

Curtis glanced at Daniel, who shook his head.

“I’ve no idea where Holt is. Why would I?”

“You know where he is! You’ve got that bloody sneaking Yid in there, you filthy bugger!”

Curtis didn’t give a damn for James Armstrong, except that he had every intention of beating him to a pulp before this was done. Still, the words were a drenching shock. He looked at Daniel again, and saw him mouth a sardonic, “Oooh,” that steadied him as nothing else could have done.

“If you mean da Silva, yes, he’s here. So?”

“So I’ll kill him if you don’t tell me where Holt is!”

Curtis grinned mirthlessly. “You’ll have to get him first, you fucking shithouse cricket.”

“Mind your language!” Sir Hubert sounded outraged.

Daniel craned his neck to glance out the window. “Oh, what the—Lady Armstrong’s down there.”

“Christ, really? Who else?”

“March. The other servant, Preston. They’ve all got those big guns, except her.”

“Look out the other side,” Curtis directed in a low voice.

Sir Hubert was calling up again. “There’s no point in this. There’s no way for this to end except in your disgrace.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Curtis raised his brows at Daniel, who had been peering out of the windows. He shook his head, indicating no other arrivals.

Sir Hubert, James, March and Preston. Four guns to his one. But the folly was stone, the door thick new oak, the bar strong, his vantage point commanding. They could hold out here till the reinforcements arrived.

Sir Hubert made a pitying sort of noise. “I suppose you’re thinking about the Foreign Office men you summoned.”

“I expect he thinks they’re coming to help him.” Lady Armstrong’s voice rippled with laughter.

“Help us, more like,” James put in with a heavy sneer.

Curtis glanced over and saw Daniel’s grim expression. The dark man’s jaw was set.

“What are you talking about?” Curtis called out.

“Sir Maurice Vaizey’s men,” Sir Hubert said. “The ones you called when you telephoned your uncle with your tissue of lies. They’ll be here by nine, I’m told.”

Daniel muttered an obscenity. “They’ve a man on the inside, in the Bureau. Someone warned them.”

“Hell,” said Curtis quietly, then raised his voice. “Good. I’m looking forward to their arrival.”

“I doubt that.” Sir Hubert’s voice was gloating. “You see, by the time they’re here, there will be nothing for them to find. No documents, no photographs, no cameras. No evidence.”

“Well, there is
one
set of photographs left,” Lady Armstrong added, sugar sweet.

Sir Hubert laughed triumphantly. Curtis felt sweat spring in anticipation at the sound. “Quite right, my love. One set of photographs that will send the pair of you to gaol. Two years’ hard labour for gross indecency. Let me see. We’ve made a set for Vaizey, of course, so he can see what his agent and his nephew get up to, and another for Henry. Poor chap, he
will
be disappointed in you. Another set for the police. A fourth for the papers, in case you think your money can keep this quiet. And a last set for us. Let’s call it insurance. All of them sent to—a certain address, with instructions to forward them on unless I order otherwise by this afternoon.”

“You’ll be ruined,” James said, voice thick with vindictive triumph.

Curtis shut his eyes. He didn’t want to look at Daniel. He didn’t want to look at anyone, ever again.

Sir Hubert was still talking. “Everything else has been burned by now. The cameras have been dismantled. There’s no proof to be found at all.”

“That’s not quite right, is it?” Daniel called. “How exactly will you explain your possession of those photographs? If you use them, you prove our case.”

“And there’s my word and da Silva’s,” Curtis managed. His voice was treacherously hoarse. “How much investigation do you think you’ll bear?”

“There won’t be an investigation.” Sir Hubert spoke with certainty. “Because you’re going to deny everything. You’ll tell Vaizey that it’s all lies, a foolish game, some grudge of da Silva’s. Whatever you have to in order to clear my name. Because if anyone should look into my affairs—well, the first thing they’ll see is your affair. If you attack me, I’ll ruin you. Do you understand?”

Curtis understood very well. His shoulders were heaving with the effort to breathe.

“I don’t give a damn,” he managed. “Go to the devil, you swine. I’ll tell them everything and watch you swing from the gaolyard if I have to.”

“For what?” Sir Hubert laughed, a fat, rich sort of noise that made Curtis’s fists clench. “Jacobsdal? You can’t prove a thing, any more than Lafayette could.”

“Holt admitted it. He admitted it all.”

“And will he admit that in front of a court?”

“He’s in no position to,” Daniel called out.

Curtis looked at him in shock. James Armstrong swore. “Where is he?” he roared. “What did you do with him?”

“He’s with those men of Lafayette’s. Where else?”

James bellowed an oath, and then Daniel and Curtis both hit the floor, covering their faces, as a window between them exploded in a shower of glass. The echoes of the shot rang in Curtis’s ears, along with Sir Hubert’s furious rebuke.

“Tetchy,” called Daniel.

“What are you doing?” Curtis hissed. Daniel waved a hand, urging silence.

“You killed Holt,” Sir Hubert said. “Was that you, Curtis? A fellow Blue?”

“A prick,” said Daniel.

“He made you scream, you bloody dago,” James roared.

Daniel grinned like a fox. “Pricks often do.”

This time it was a fusillade, as James emptied his repeating rifle into the windows of the folly, yelling inarticulate rage. Curtis, flat on the floor, wrapped his arms over his head and screwed up his eyes to keep flying glass from his face, hoping Daniel was doing the same.

The echoes of gunfire died away, along with the tinkle of broken glass from shattered windows. Once the ringing in Curtis’s ears had subsided, he could hear a low-voiced, angry exchange outside.

“What are you doing?” he demanded of Daniel, who was uncurling from a defensive ball on the floor. “What now? We can’t let them get away with this. What the hell do we
do
?”

“How good a shot are you?” demanded Daniel, nodding at his hand.

“Good.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“What—?”

Daniel sat up, back to the wall, and shouted, “Hoi!” The voices outside fell silent.

“What d’you want?” called Sir Hubert.

“A sensible conversation. This interlude has been delightful and we’ve all enjoyed it, but we have some two hours at most before my colleagues arrive in force, and maybe less.” That caused a murmur. Sir Hubert began to respond and Daniel interrupted impatiently, “I’m not bluffing, you fat fool. I’ve nothing to bluff with. I don’t want to go to prison. I don’t want Curtis to go to prison. So we need to establish— Oh, the devil with this. I’m coming out.”

“What?” said almost everyone present.

“
I
am coming
out
, of the
door
, in about thirty seconds. Use that time to reflect on what will happen if Vaizey arrives to discover my bullet-riddled corpse. If you kill me, you will swing for murder, no matter what else you have or haven’t done. Got it?”

“Holt—” James began angrily.

“Holt’s dead. You aren’t. If we speak like sensible men, we may all come out of this with whole skins.”

“
Daniel
,” hissed Curtis as the other man began to pick his way over the shattered glass to the stairs. “What are you doing?”

Daniel paused and looked round at him. “I need you to trust me. In the name of—last night, my dear Viking. If you could dissuade anyone who tries to kill me, that would be marvellous too. But, Archie, I beg you, trust me now. And if this doesn’t work—” He gave a quick, twisted smile, and Curtis saw the fear that it concealed. “It’s been a pleasure.”

“No. Stop.” Curtis reached out, but there was no way he could scramble forward over the broken glass fast enough to reach him. Daniel shook his head and hurried down the stairs. “Daniel!”

“Get to the window,” snapped Daniel from below.

“Shit!” Curtis swung back to the window, taking up a stance that let him see the action on the ground. His Webley was no substitute for a sniper’s rifle, but the enemy on the ground was close enough that he felt confident he could drop whoever he aimed at.

Daniel was going a lot closer to them than that.

He felt a strange, fatalistic calm close over him as he heard Daniel lift the bar. The group below were frozen, staring. James Armstrong had appropriated Preston’s shotgun, discarding his own emptied rifle. He and March had their guns trained on the doorway as Daniel emerged. Sir Hubert held his rifle over his arm, like a gentleman out for a morning stroll picking off pheasants.

Three, Curtis thought. He could shoot three.

Daniel stepped forward, into Curtis’s range of vision. James moved forward, red-faced and buoyed by rage, swinging the butt of his gun violently. Daniel jumped back, and Curtis put a bullet into the earth by James’s foot.

“Christ!” yelled James, leaping away.

“More where that came from,” Curtis called down.

“Quite,” said Daniel. “Curtis is a damned good shot, and an angry man. Don’t provoke him. And don’t forget, if you shoot me, you will swing for murder. Vaizey doesn’t tolerate dead agents.”

Sir Hubert was looking at him without liking. “Well? What do you want?”

“Cards on the table,” said Daniel. “You’ve destroyed the evidence, you have photographs that will ruin Curtis. But if you use them, you prove our case. I call that a stalemate. Neither of us can accuse the other without accusing ourselves. Right?”

Sir Hubert gave a stiff nod.

“But it’s a little late for that,” Daniel went on. “Vaizey is coming up here expecting to find evidence of blackmail. He’s not going to believe that Curtis was playing some schoolboy joke.”

“That’s your problem,” James put in angrily.

“Quite,” snapped Sir Hubert.

“So tell me what you want.” Daniel was speaking to Sir Hubert only, ignoring the rest. “I’m in Vaizey’s confidence. I can make this plausible. I know what the Bureau knows, I can pin it all on a scapegoat, and you’ll get away scot-free. With everything. Vaizey has no idea about Lafayette or Jacobsdal yet. We can keep that quiet, if we work together.”

Curtis could feel the sweat cold on his back. His left hand held the Webley rock steady, but he could feel the tremor building in his right, a slow swell of rage.

Archie, trust me now.

“
You’ll betray your office, will you?” Sir Hubert demanded.

“Of course he will,” said James. “It’s just as Holt said. You can’t trust his sort.”

“To hell with my office.” Daniel’s voice was low and vicious. “I don’t give a damn for Jacobsdal, or King, or country. Why would I? This country doesn’t give a damn for me. I do this job for money, that’s all. I don’t want to go to prison, nor do you. I can make sure we all get out of this. But we have to do this together.”

“What about Curtis?”

Daniel laughed, an unpleasant sound. “Lovely bloke, hung like a prize bull, but
not
a bright man. I can lead him around by his cock, don’t worry.”

James squawked with fury, sounding like he was being throttled by his own outrage. Daniel laughed again and put on an exaggerated version of his drawing-room manner. “Forgive my vulgarity. I thought we weren’t playing games any more. Curtis will do as he’s told.”

Curtis breathed evenly, in and out. His right hand was shaking. He could move the Webley’s muzzle just a fraction, aim it at Daniel’s skull. Pull the trigger.