“How long do you suppose it takes?” Joe asked vaguely.

Armitage shrugged. “No idea. Not something I was ever involved with, thank God. Personally or professionally. I never volunteered for Vice.”

“Four days is the usual.” The information came, surprisingly, from the driver. “It’s a German what runs that place. Bleedin’ Boche! They’re up to all them tricks! Poor young lady! On top of her other problems … It’d break your heart if it didn’t make you so mad.” Into their astonished silence he added, lugubriously: “It can take anything between one night and a week. If they come out at all.”

CHAPTER 10

After a re-invigorating cold shower, Joe put on evening clothes and made his way in dinner-jacketed elegance down to the bar. The atmosphere there was a rich blend of laughter, chatter in a variety of languages and the distant notes of a string orchestra filtering through from the dining room. Through a haze of cigar smoke he spotted Kingstone and Armitage already settled at a table with the ever-jovial Chief Superintendent Cottingham. Joe joined them, whisky sour in hand.

Armitage was doing a skilful job of talking entertainingly of his experiences in his new country, largely to cover for his boss, who appeared abstracted and subdued. Joe remembered with a rush of good feeling that, in the front lines, Sergeant Armitage had always had the ability to charm the ear of an exhausted and fearful company with his irreverent wit. Kingstone, his glass of scotch remaining full and unnoticed on the table in front of him, seemed glad enough to let the sergeant make the running. Finally, at 7:30, he declared his intention of going up to his room to work on his conference notes, have a bite to eat from a tray, and stand ready to take a call from the President.

The startled silence that followed this announcement was savoured for a moment by Kingstone and then he leaned forward and in a wryly confidential tone told them, “He’s just checking up on me. I know what he’s going to ask! Have I done as he told me and visited the Bird Room at the Natural History Museum? It’s his favourite place in London.”

“Mr. Roosevelt knows London well?” Joe asked politely.

“I’ll say so! He’s been crossing the Atlantic since he was two years old. In his young years he spent several months of every year in Europe. Two or more summers were spent at school in Germany. We have the only American president ever to be arrested four times in one day by the German police!”

“Arrested?” Joe was alarmed and curious in equal measure.

“Say rather—caught and warned. For picking cherries, running over a goose and two cycling offences. Par for the course for a fifteen-year-old let loose on a bicycle in a foreign country.”

“Ah! That other carefree world before the war,” said Cottingham, shaking his moustache in a rush of Edwardian nostalgia.

“He’s been back since. Constantly. His wife, Eleanor, was the first woman to be allowed a formal visit to the Front after the Armistice to witness the devastation.”

“Ouch!” Cottingham made his disapproval clear. “And a harrowing time was had by all? No place for a woman!”

“She’s a very special lady,” Kingstone said with a grin. “Now—if she’d been there at the Front two years earlier—and in an executive position—there might have been a better outcome. Her husband is no isolationist as far as his personal choices go. With communications at the level we see them these days—he’s practically sitting at this table with us, gentlemen.”

Not sure whether they’d just heard a lightening of mood or a tightening of screws, they wished him a good evening, all guessing that he was secretly retiring to wait for Natalia to return. Cottingham got to his feet and left the bar a minute ahead of his charge in a well-practised routine.

“Does that bloke ever get any relief?” Armitage asked. “The Super, I mean.”

“He’ll go home when he’s checked the night shift unit’s in place upstairs. We’re the round-the-clock mugs who’ll be red-eyed by midnight.”

“You’re expecting her to come back, aren’t you?”

“Natalia, do you mean?” Joe asked innocently. He was quick enough to catch the swiftly suppressed grimace of annoyance. “Or were you thinking of Julia?” He glanced unemphatically at his wristwatch. “Oh, yes, Julia is on her way back right now.” He’d identified the anxiety that prompted the question and thought he understood the reason for it. “There was no sign she was expecting to stay away. Quite the reverse. She was carrying only the smallest of handbags, did you notice? A black leather clutch purse hardly big enough to accommodate a toothbrush. And she took rather elaborate steps to establish an alibi for her absence tonight. The early evening showing of King Kong at the Leicester Square Empire, where I think she’ll say she’s been, runs from five to seven on a Friday, according to our obliging receptionist. So, allowing for the usual Friday night traffic, we might expect her to be back in time for supper any minute, no doubt shaking with horror at the death and destruction she’s just seen on screen! Shall I ask for a table for three?”

Armitage nodded without much enthusiasm.

“We’ll seduce her with Dover Sole, sozzle her with Sancerre and then put her to the question. We’ll find out what she was up to in Marylebone and when very precisely she last set eyes on Miss Kirilovna. Look, Bill, I’m going to take a back seat and let you speak to her. I appear not to impress the lady but I think she’s fallen for your rugged Yankie charm. But let me pop an ace up your sleeve. You ought to hear that she slipped out last night and went to see that very film. We had her followed. It should be still fresh in her mind when she speaks of it on her return and she’ll use it to set up an alibi for tonight’s excursion. The girl’s clearly an amateur. Though I do wonder what made her think she could lead the combined forces of the CID and the FBI down the garden path! You could trip her up with one well-placed question, Bill. Well, play it how you think best. Shall we go and prop up the bar and have a cocktail while we’re waiting? We’ll be more visible there to anyone who wants to greet us. I’m having another of these, how about you? A martini? Of course.”

She joined them boldly at the bar, pushing between them, only moments later. Her face was flushed, her eyes gleaming with excitement. Her hair smelled of cheap cigarettes, as though it had caught and filtered the thick atmosphere of a picture house. Or the upper deck of a London bus, Joe thought, cynically.

“I’ll have a ‘gin and it,’ if anyone’s offering,” she said. “Blimey! You need something to steady the nerves after all that screaming.”

“Screaming?” Joe asked. “My dear! What on earth have you been up to?”

“There were two of ’em at it. One was Fay Wray. And the other voice I heard was mine! I had to dab my eyes with my hanky at the end where that poor old ape gets shot to bits and drops dead off the skyscraper.” She pushed a quizzical face up close to Joe’s. “Have I made my mascara run?”

“Yes, you have. But don’t worry about it—it gives you the huge-eyed, innocent look of my spaniel. Flossie always gets away with whatever it is she’s done. Hold still a minute.” He held her steady by the shoulder with one hand, licked his thumb and smoothed away with a sculptor’s gesture a black smear under her eye. He would play her flirtatious game a little longer. “I guess you’re talking about King Kong?”

“Have you seen it? It’s on at the Empire.”

Joe admitted that he had.

“I saw it in New York before we sailed,” said Armitage. “Come and tell me what you thought of it.” He tucked her arm under his and led her away to a table while Joe summoned up fresh drinks and wasted time at the bar observing the two of them. They were talking a lot and smiling freely. Joe guessed that Armitage was leading her on, waiting for the right moment to trip her up. In her guilt and confusion she might let slip something useful. Too easy. Joe expected that the sergeant would wait until Joe was in earshot before he made his move.