Rag and Bone (26 page)

“I have a warrant card here,” my guy said. “Police.” I glanced at the other guy, who stood silently with his hands open. They were calm, almost serene. I wondered why. I wondered how I’d react if two British soldiers pulled weapons on me in Boston. Nothing like these guys, and British cops didn’t carry guns, usually.

“Who sent you?”

“We’ve been looking for Miss Carlson there. Have a few questions for her.” His hand was still in his pocket, holding a warrant card, or a gun?

“I didn’t ask whom you’ve been looking for. Who sent you?”

“I don’t like being asked with that weapon in my face. You’re in enough trouble already, Lieutenant, drawing your weapon on members of the Metropolitan Police.”

“It’s not in your face. It’s pointed at your chest. High, close to the heart. If it misses the heart, it’ll shatter your spinal cord. Or hit one of the big veins in your neck. That’s what I like about a high chest shot. So many things can put you down. Last time, who sent you?”

“Lieutenant Boyle—” I stepped to one side to get a clear shot at the Morris. I pulled the trigger and shot out a tire, the retort echoing harshly against the buildings. The only sound after that was the air hissing out of the flat.

“Billy?” Big Mike said.

“They’re not cops,” I said. “No one knew we were coming here. So how could they know my name?”

“Wilson,” the guy facing Big Mike said. “Sit in the car, please.” Wilson did, a look of shock still on his face. “Now, perhaps we can step inside and have a word.”

“No dice,” I said, moving next to Big Mike. I holstered my piece, and Big Mike put his away as well. “We talk out here, in the open. Who are you?”

“We have a mutual acquaintance. Major Cosgrove.”

“Does MI5 carry identification?”

“Yes, but you’ve seen through us, so it really doesn’t matter what’s written on our warrant cards. We came here to speak to Miss Carlson, and thought it best to wait and see who came out with her.”

“You didn’t follow us here?”

“No, not at all. We have some questions for Miss Carlson, that’s all. We are aware of your involvement, but this has nothing to do with you, Lieutenant Boyle, I assure you.”

“Is it about Eddie?” Sheila asked, peeking from behind Big Mike’s left arm.

“No, Miss Carlson. A tragedy, to be sure, but Scotland Yard has that investigation well in hand. I understand you, as well as
Edward Miller, often worked on the Polish floor, as it was called, at the hotel.”

“Yes, I did,” Sheila said, stepping out from Big Mike’s shadow. I could see her figuring the angles, calculating what there was for her in this, wondering if she could take over as a secret agent or whatever other role Eddie had sold her on. “Did you work with Eddie, if you know what I mean?”

“Not our department, Miss Carlson. But I wonder if you might know where Captain Valerian Radecki is at the moment. You and Mr. Miller were acquainted with him?”

“He and Eddie would chat now and then,” Sheila said. “But I can’t say he’d even know my name.”

“You’ve no idea where he may be then?”

“None at all. Is there a way I can get in touch with you if I find something out, Mister—?”

“Brown. No need, Miss Carlson. Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch if we need you.” He touched the brim of his hat and headed for the Morris. Big Mike took Sheila to the jeep and I followed Mr. Brown.

“Sorry about the tire,” I said. “I didn’t know who you guys really were.”

“Hopefully it can be patched; there’s a terrible shortage of tires, you know.”

“Didn’t you ask Major Horak where Radecki is?”

“Yes, but the problem is, he hasn’t shown up there. Something about Station Number Eight, whatever that is. Horak wouldn’t say any more, except that Radecki was overdue.”

“Why do you want Radecki?”

“Routine, that’s all. You know how paperwork is with government security agencies. Never ending. Some form Captain Radecki has to complete. Well, good to meet you, Lieutenant Boyle. I hadn’t believed all of Cosgrove’s stories about you, to tell you the truth, but now I do. Good day.”

“Good day to you, Mr. Brown. And Mr. Wilson.”

CHAPTER
•
EIGHTEEN

“B
ROWN AND
W
ILSON?”
Big Mike said after we’d dropped Sheila off at Victoria Station and drove slowly down Victoria Street. “What’s that, the English version of Smith and Jones?”

“Yeah, and about as subtle as a couple of G-men. You sure we don’t have another tail?”

“Absolutely. Them two knuckleheads are probably still changing that tire, and no one else followed us. As long as Sheila gets on a train, she should be all right. Hey, Billy, how about lunch? I’m starved.”

“Sure, if we can find a place to park,” I said. We were only a block from the station, and the streets were clogged with parked cars, taxicabs, and trucks. I pointed to a J. Lyons tea shop on the corner, and Big Mike pulled over, right next to a no-parking sign. A constable walked toward us, shaking his head. Big Mike was out in a flash, his Detroit gold policeman’s shield held in his hand. The bobby studied it for a second before laughing at something Big Mike said. They shook hands, Big Mike crooked his thumb in my direction, and they laughed again.

“All set, Billy,” he said as we entered the restaurant.

“Should I ask what you said about me?”

“No. There’s nothing like a pain-in-the-ass officer to make one flatfoot sympathetic to another. He’s watching the jeep for me.”

“Great,” I said. No matter the color of the uniform Big Mike was still a cop at heart. He ordered a tongue sandwich and lemon barley water, cold. Apparently there was a choice. I went with a ham sandwich and tea.

“What do you think Brown and Wilson were after, Billy?”

“I’d say they were genuinely surprised to see us, so I think they were looking for Radecki, following a lead.”

“Maybe he’s got a girlfriend somewhere.”

“Maybe so, but why is MI5 looking for him? If it was about the murder, they’d let Scutt handle it, and keep themselves out of the picture.” I lowered my voice, glancing around at the nearby diners. An RAF pilot stared at me from a poster, looking daring in his flight jacket, the caption warning that Careless Talk May Cost His Life. The tables were close together, and the waitresses, all dressed in black uniforms with red buttons and white collars, moved swiftly between them, tending to their customers and pouring steaming cups of tea. Too swiftly to pay much attention, I decided.

“You have any ideas?”

“Not really, but there was something that Sheila said that struck me. Radecki is taking laudanum for pain. He broke his leg on the way to England, and it wasn’t set right.”

“Is that what Eddie got for him on Horseferry Street?”

“Has to be. That’s where his doctor is. I saw the name and address on one of his empty bottles.” The food was delivered, and I winced as I always did when I saw someone take a bite out of a tongue sandwich.

“Why the hell would those clowns care if Radecki was dealing drugs on the side? That’s not their turf,” Big Mike said, smacking his lips after drinking down half his lemon barley water.

“They wouldn’t,” I said. “It’s got to be something else.”

“What else could it be? Maybe Eddie Miller swiped some of the stuff and double-crossed Radecki,” Big Mike said, his mouth poised to take another bite.

“No, it has to be something that would get MI5 riled up,” I said, looking down at my plate. “Cosgrove is involved in the investigation of Egorov’s murder, so there has to be a connection there.”

“How’s that going, anyway?” Big Mike said out of the side of his mouth, the rest of it working on finishing what was left of the sandwich.

“I’ve got to get down to Dover and catch up with the Russians. I didn’t expect to run into another corpse so soon.” What
would
get MI5 all riled up, I wondered? Not drugs. Cosgrove had given no indication he had men investigating Egorov’s murder either. So what were those two jokers after, and what did they have to do with Radecki? I sipped my tea, thinking back to my first meeting with him at the Rubens. What had that memo said, the one from the British Foreign Office?

His Majesty’s Government have used their best efforts not to allow these German maneuvers to have even the semblance of success
.

“What?” Big Mike said. I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud.

“Even the semblance of success,” I said, taking in the full meaning of those words. What agency would be charged with insuring that the truth wouldn’t come out, that it would not have even the semblance of success at being believed?

“There’s only one reason MI5 would be looking for Radecki,” I said.

“He killed Egorov?” Big Mike said.

“No, it’s got nothing to do with Egorov. Radecki killed Eddie, and he’s going to kill someone else, to prevent even the semblance of success.”

“T
ADEUSZ
T
UCHOLSKI,”
I said as Big Mike drove as fast as he could in the central London traffic, passing taxicabs and lorries along Edgeware Road, heading north. “The kid I told you about, who witnessed the Katyn Forest Massacre.”

“You said he was a head case, and they had to send him to the loony bin.”

“He’s shell-shocked, that’s for sure. But he’s an eyewitness, and he’s worth anything alive to the Poles, and worth as much dead to the Russians. I was too busy trying to link Egorov somehow; I didn’t see the obvious connection. Horak even
showed me a memo they’d intercepted from the British Foreign Office, saying they would never allow these claims to be successful.”

“So the Foreign Office and MI5 take the side of the Russians,” Big Mike said.

“They’d probably say it was all for the war effort, to defeat our common enemy, and they’d mean it, too.”

“That’s the problem with Poland,” Big Mike said. “We’ve got one too many enemies, and not enough friends to go around.”

“Some of those friends are questionable,” I said. “My guess is that MI5 got to Radecki, and bribed or blackmailed him into keeping Tadeusz quiet. Horak told me that at first Radecki was too hard on Tadeusz, which made him retreat into his shell. That was Radecki’s way of keeping him quiet, but he probably knew it wouldn’t last, not with Kaz helping the kid day and night.”

“So he started doping him.”

“Yeah,” I said, gripping the door as Big Mike veered out into traffic, laying on the horn, to pass a slow-moving staff car. “Horak mentioned that Radecki and Tad started getting along better a few weeks ago. I’d bet that was when Radecki began giving him the laudanum.”

“You think the bad leg is phony?”

“No, probably not. But he said he reinjured it, falling on the stairs. That could have been his excuse to get the drugs. And knowing the condition Tad was in, Radecki would’ve become his best friend real fast. There’s nothing like laudanum to help you forget, or at least not care if you remember. He must have told Tad to keep it a secret, or he wouldn’t give him any more. The state Tad was in, he’d be sure to comply at first, and then be unable to stop later.”

“You think Radecki was trying to kill him, or to keep him quiet?”

“Radecki must have been increasing the dose he gave him. Kaz told me that after Tad spoke to me, he never said another
word. Maybe Radecki was caught off guard, and decided to hurry things up once I’d heard Tad’s story.”

“But it backfired on him,” Big Mike said, hitting the accelerator as we cleared the most congested part of the road. “They sent the kid off to a hospital, where he couldn’t get at him.”

“Right. So he goes off to this Station Number Eight, but I’d bet anything he’s making a side visit to St. Albans first.”

“To give Tadeusz a fatal fix. Eddie must’ve stumbled onto all this, and he was blackmailing Radecki.”

“Could be. Or maybe he was in on it with him. Picking up the drugs, watching Tad when Radecki wasn’t there. Maybe the money was his MI5 pay, not blackmail money.”

“War work,” Big Mike said, shaking his head in disgust. “With Tadeusz gone, Radecki didn’t need him anymore.”

“A loose end. Radecki had it all planned, having lunch with Kaz, making sure Kaz’s fingerprints ended up on his bayonet. He eliminates the one person who knows what’s going on, pins it on Kaz, and then takes care of Tad.”

“There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense, Billy,” Big Mike said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. I could see his forehead crease as he worked at adding things up. “Why were Brown and Wilson looking for him, if he was doing what they wanted?”

“Good question. Maybe Cosgrove or one of his bosses has a conscience.”

“They cover up a massacre of thousands, and you think maybe one of them has a crisis of conscience at the last minute?”

“This may be different for them. Eddie’s blood is on their hands. Tadeusz’s may be also, and this is happening here, in London, not in some distant, dark wood.”

“Maybe they prefer Polish blood on Russian hands,” Big Mike said. His finger tapping stopped, and his knuckles showed white as he gripped the wheel. We were in the country now, winter fields bordered by small trees and shrubs spread out over the gently sloping landscape. White, fluffy clouds decorated the
horizon, and the sun shone brightly over our shoulders. It was beautiful, and I tried to imagine thousands of Englishmen from these villages and farms, gathered up, bound, and shot in the head, then buried in mass graves in the forests at the edge of the farmland. Or Americans, from the city of Boston or the dairy farms of western Massachusetts. How expedient would it be then, to sacrifice justice for the sake of the war effort? How simple to forgo revenge when the rotting corpses were your brothers, husbands, fathers, and friends? Or if their names were Robert, James, Peter, John, or Daniel, instead of Jerzy, Czeslaw, Stanislaw, Zygmunt, or Wincenty?

“Big Mike, how do you say Michael in Polish?”

“Mieczyslaw. Why?”

“Just curious,” I said as a sign for Bricket Wood came up. “We’re getting closer. Take this right.”

“OK, Boleslaw,” Big Mike said, giving me a quick glance as he downshifted and took the narrow road. “Don’t ask me why, but that’s Polish for William.”