A Royal Pain (35 page)

“There’s already a Labor Party, in case you haven’t noticed,” a heckler called from the back.

“Labor Party?” Bill Strutt laughed. “And what do they care about the workers? No more than the Tories, do they? Have they stopped the layoffs or supported the strikes and hunger marches? No, they bloody well haven’t. It’s time for a change, comrade. It’s time for true socialism. It’s time for us to take over what is rightfully ours.”

“And what makes you think we’d be better off?” another heckling voice demanded. “Look at Russia. Are they better off under Joe Stalin? They’re starving, mate. One wrong move and they’re sent to Siberia, so I’ve heard.”

“Ah, but Russia’s different,” Strutt said. “The Russian peasants—well, they were almost like serfs, weren’t they? Not educated like our British workers. Not used to having a say in the running of things like our British workers. So Russia’s still got a long way to go, but as for us—we’re ready to take over, comrades. . . .”

There were halfhearted cheers and stamping of feet. I began to feel it was all rather silly. I looked around me. Many of the faces were focused on the speaker, enraptured. Then I froze. The lighting in the hall was poor but in a far corner I thought I had spotted a face I knew. It looked remarkably like Edward Fotheringay.

Chapter 35

I pulled my cloche hat more firmly down over one eye so that Edward couldn’t spot me and waited for the speech to end. It did, amid heckles and hurled insults. It seemed an element of the crowd had been planted merely to stir things up. Finally Bill Strutt had had enough.

“Comrades, I see we have some present who don’t want to listen or learn. In every society there are closed minds that we will never reach, and so I’ll call it a day right here, before things turn violent. I ask you to remain calm and controlled as you leave here. Let’s show that we are the better people, that we don’t need violence to promote our cause. Hang on to the vision, comrades. To a better future for us all—a communist future!”

There was loud applause, and a few boos, as he stepped down from the stage. The crowd was on its feet, making for the front doors. I glanced over at Edward and saw that he was inching forward through the crowd, like a salmon swimming upstream, rather than joining the exodus. I too was being swept toward the exits. I dodged and moved aside, gradually working my way to the side aisle where I was out of the stream. The men who had been on the stage had now disappeared through the small door to which Edward was also heading. I moved forward painfully slowly, jostled by burly laborers and dockworkers.

“Exit’s this way, love,” one of them said. “Come on, I’ll buy you half a pint.” He attempted to put an arm around me.

“No, thanks. I’m waiting for someone,” I said, dodging out of reach. I looked around but Edward too had now disappeared. There was a door to one side marked
Lavatory.
I went inside and locked the door behind me. Finally the clatter of feet subsided. I came out to find the hall in darkness. There was still a modicum of daylight coming in through high windows, enough for me to see the layout of the hall and the fact that the big doors at the end were now shut. Everyone had gone home, except for those who had disappeared through the little door beside the stage. I made my way there, stumbling over a chair that had been left in a side aisle and then holding my breath in case anyone had heard. But nothing moved as I reached that doorway. I opened the door and went through.

Inside the narrow passage was complete darkness. I looked around for a light switch, then thought better of it. I shouldn’t draw attention to my presence. I didn’t know how safe I was—Edward, after all, had been the one who mixed the cocktails that evening. He had been the one with that strange, exhilarated look on his face as he drove very fast through the rain storm. There was definitely something about him that was not to be trusted.

I crept down the narrow passageway, inching along by feel. When I came to a half-open door on my right, I checked it out, only to find it was a broom cupboard. I counted paces from it, realizing that it would be a place to hide should the men return this way unexpectedly. The passage ended suddenly in what seemed to be a wall. My fingerssearched over it but found no door or knob. Where could they have gone? And why hadn’t I been sensible enough to carry a torch, as any good detective should?

At last my fingers located a crack in the wall, what felt like the side of a door, but I could still feel no knob, nor the top of the door. I put my ear to it and could hear faint voices beyond it.

“That girl was here this afternoon,” I heard a man’s voice say clearly. “She was planning to attend the meeting tonight.”

“Yes, I thought I saw her in the hall.” Was that Edward’s voice? It was too muffled for me to be sure.

“Do you think she suspects anything?” The third voice appeared to be female, but deep and guttural, with a pronounced foreign accent.

“What does it matter? She’ll be too late, won’t she?” Edward’s voice again?

“You still mean to go through with it, then?”

“I know what happened to Roberts—stupid little prig with his lower-class morals. If I were planning to back out, I’d be on my way to Australia as fast as my legs could carry me.”

“I am still disturbed about Roberts. Was it really necessary to kill him?”

“He would have betrayed us.” This was the foreign woman’s guttural voice.

“And you still think this is a wise course of action? Given the situation?”

“What option do we have? The first attempts failed and time is definitely running out.”

“It was stupid to kill the baroness.”

“No choice, old boy. She was going to telephone the princess’s father, and that would never have done, would it?”

So it seemed there were three speakers, two males, one female, all speaking softly as though they didn’t want to be overheard.

“So everything’s in place, then? Anything you need us to do?”

“Have the escape route ready, if either of us manages to get away.”

“It’s not the ideal situation. I’ve said that all along.”

“It will have to do. Now or never, don’t you agree?”

“I suppose I have to agree. I never thought this was a good idea in the beginning. What’s it going to achieve, apart from turning half the population against us?”

“You’re not going soft on us, are you, Solomon?”

“You know my views on violence. Only when absolutely necessary.”

“Quite right. When absolutely necessary.”

The voices were moving off. Something else was said but I couldn’t catch it. I thought I heard some kind of thud. I felt my way back down the hall and into that broom cupboard in case they reappeared suddenly. But they didn’t. I waited and waited until my legs were stiff and cramped from standing bent over among the mops and buckets. Finally I came out and listened. Nothing. There must have been another way out from the room in which they had been speaking.

I worked my way back to the main hall. It was dark outside by now with a street lamp twinkling in through one of the windows. The hall had become a place of danger—with flickering shadows and strange shapes. A raucous burst of singing from a pub made me fully aware that I was in an area where there was not likely to be safety. Slowly and carefully I made my way down the aisle, until I had reached the front doors. I pushed hard, but they refused to give. I searched for a handle. There was none. From what I could tell, they were padlocked from the outside. I was trapped in here.

There had to be another way out. Those speakers had gone through what appeared to be a solid wall and had not returned. I made my way back again, conscious now of every small sound, the echo of my feet on a stone floor and mysterious rustles and creaks which were probably no more than an old building settling in the night air but which sounded horribly ominous to me. I couldn’t make myself believe that I was completely alone. I saw moving shadows in every corner and jumped at a passing motorcar’s horn.

“Buck up, Georgie, this isn’t like you.” I gave myself a stiff talking-to. I, who had dared to stay up on the ramparts to spot my grandfather’s ghost; I, who had been lowered down the castle well by my brother and his friends—now I was scared to be alone in the dark? Well, this was a little different. I had just heard several people confessing to killing the baroness and Sidney Roberts, from what I could gather. That meant my life wasn’t worth much if they discovered me here.

I made my way slowly back down that narrow passage and found the crack in the wall again. I felt around but couldn’t come up with a corresponding crack for the other side of a door, nor could I find any kind of handle. I pushed. I poked. Then in frustration I kicked at the floorboard. I felt something give and part of the wall swung silently inward. I hesitated only a second before stepping through. I knew where I was instantly, of course. That characteristic smell of old books and pipe tobacco. I was back in the bookshop. So there had been another way out that the police hadn’t discovered. Not very bright of them.

I wondered which floor I was on. There was almost no light. I wondered if I could find a light switch and if I dared to turn it on. I stood silently listening, just in case the speakers had not left but only moved to another part of the shop. I certainly didn’t want to bump into anyone in the dark. To reassure myself, I reached back to touch the doorway through which I had come, and couldn’t find it. I backed up, my heart beating faster now, and touched bookshelveson three sides of me. If it had been a secret entrance, it had swung back into place. I was now trapped in the bookshop.

After waiting what seemed like an eternity, listening for any sound or movement, I left the shelter of my side aisle, feeling my way along the bookshelf. Ahead of me I could see a faint glimmer of light, barely enough to outline the rows of bookshelves. Slowly I made my way forward, toward that light, until my foot stubbed against something soft. I bent down, then recoiled in horror. A person was lying there. Cautiously I reached out and touched, feeling down a sleeve until I located a hand. It was still warm. I held the wrist for a pulse, but I couldn’t detect one. The faint glimmer of light outlined the glasses on a skeletal face. It had to be Mr. Solomon.

I should go for help. Maybe there was still a chance to save him. I inched around him and felt my way forward. The glimmer of light grew until I could see it was a street lamp, shining in through the dusty panes of the front windows. I let out a huge sigh of relief. I’d be able to find the nearest policeman and tell him everything I knew. Whatever these people had planned, I’d be able to stop them. I grabbed the front door handle. It moved but the door wouldn’t open. I shook it, jiggled, pushed with all my might, but apart from making the bell jangle peevishly, nothing happened. They had locked the door behind them. I was trapped in here with Mr. Solomon’s body.

I looked at the windows and wondered if I could find anything strong enough to break them with, but the panes were so small that I’d never be able to get out that way.

I sank to the floor beside the window and rested my arms on the wide window ledge. At this moment I didn’t want to be grown up and independent and on my own in a big city. I wanted more than anything to be home. I wanted to be with Nanny, and Binky, and even Fig at this moment, in a safe place far from here. And I wanted someone to rescue me: I peered out of the window, hoping that my grandfather would come and break down the door and take me away. But I had told him I was going out with friends and he had no idea who my friends were or how to contact them. And Darcy was far away in the country, taking moonlight strolls with Hanni—since Edward had left the field entirely open for him.

I’d just have to sit here until morning, when people came to work and I could break a window and shout for help. And then . . . then the police would come and I’d have to explain how I was trapped alone with Mr. Solomon’s body. And they’d only have my word that I wasn’t one of those who killed him. I could picture Harry Sugg’s annoying grin. “Oh yes?” he’d say. “Got locked in by mistake, did you? And this man just happened to die by mistake, did he? Well, I don’t see anyone else inside this locked building, so do you mind telling me who killed him if you didn’t?”

Thoughts buzzed angrily around inside my head. These communists were planning something awful, something that Sidney had refused to take part in and Mr. Solomon had objected to: a violent demonstration of some kind—taking over the Houses of Parliament or even killing the prime minister maybe. And if one of them came back to the shop in the morning, perhaps with a van to take away the body, they would find me and I’d be disposed of too. I sat there in the lamplight as it shone on the books piled on the floor around me. Really this was the untidiest shop I’d ever seen. Close to me was a stack of children’s books. I started looking through them, hoping to find a familiar and comforting friend from my nursery days. But they turned out to be foreign, with illustrations of evil witches and savage ogres. Not at all comforting. At the bottom of the pile there was one called
Let’s Learn Russian.
The cover had a picture of two happy, smiling communist children, carrying a hammer and sickle. How appropriate, I thought. Perhaps they handed out a copy to everyone who attended those stupid meetings. I flicked it open.