“He’s still lying low under there.” Joe turned to see Kingstone on his knees, peering under the furniture. “Do you think I could tempt him out with …?”

“Oh, go ahead!” Joe sighed. “He’ll happily drink milk at this time of day. It’s a bit early for his beer.”

He settled down opposite Kingstone, stern-faced, unable to put off the moment any longer. “Now, Senator. Guildford jail. I’ve charged the men with an impressive list of offences. But the one that really got them going was the threat of a charge of murder. I implied I was ready to add Miss Kirilovna’s death to their account.”

“Good thought! How did that go down?”

“It was received with granite-jawed indifference by Onslow but Cummings showed some emotion. He was startled and dismayed, I’d say. Last thing he’d expected to hear. I left Onslow to stew in his cell. With much banging of cell doors and merry calls down the corridor for pale ale and sandwiches for two to be brought in, I gave Onslow reason to suspect his mate was having a cosy chat with his new police confessor. In fact, I didn’t get much although he was ready enough to oblige in his eagerness to avoid the noose. He claimed that Natalia was alive and well when they left her. He held his hands up for everything else.”

“Did he say what she was doing there with them in the first place? It’s all right, Joe. I’ve figured it out. I just want to be sure there are no more surprises.”

Joe stirred his tea, reluctant to encounter Kingstone’s sorrow-filled eyes which held, in spite of everything, the desperate hope of a last-minute surprise. “She was there to supervise your killing. The agreed plan was to trick you into going out to meet her in the car, which would have taken off the minute you settled.”

“We’d call it being taken for a ride. Thought as much.”

“By staging our shooting party, we changed the points and diverted Onslow onto another line. Our chosen line. That Cummings glows with all the energy of a forty-watt electric bulb—he wasn’t able to shine much light into the shadowy area beyond Miss Kirilovna. She was the sole authority he had knowledge of above Onslow. He was there to look tough, growl and cover you while Onslow drove to a suitably quiet spot. Beyond that we can only speculate.”

“Execution. She was working with them all along. I wonder if she’d have pulled the trigger.”

“Possibly three times,” Joe suggested.

“Right.” Kingstone’s thoughts had kept pace with his own. “The Surrey police might well have stumbled on the scene of an American-style shoot-out?”

“Brave senator dies defending himself, taking his killers with him?”

“Huh! They’d have it on celluloid in no time. Another role for Paul Muni?”

With that reef safely cleared, Joe decided to change tack.

“Kingstone, this Nine Men’s Society … my sister suggests that you were—would a good term be ‘shanghaied?’—into membership of it.”

“That lady’s not often wrong, I’d guess. But try—press-ganged. Like your British Navy used to do with our American sailors on the high seas back in wilder times. That would be nearer the mark. If you want to man your ships with fellas who already have the skills and strength you need, you don’t go trawling for them on the city streets. You pick ’em straight off another ship. They liked my background, my circumstances and my contacts. I found myself black-jacked and hauled aboard. I had no idea they existed before they approached me.”

“The other Pilgrims—are they aware …?”

“I can’t speak for them. Societies of any kind are not something I would ever be interested in. I’ve lately joined a few clubs because that’s where I can get to meet the men whose ears I want to bend, whose arms I want to twist … but, no. I’ve never yet heard from any bona fide members that they suspect anything odd is happening right under their noses. No one’s ever quite certain who is a member of the Pilgrim Society and who is not, after all. Names are listed in the papers of course, but they vary according to where the meetings are being held. That’s all over the globe. Hard to keep track. Certain names are well know and constant—the ruling body is composed of men whose office demands it—ambassadors, your prime minister, a member of your royal family, our president—whichever man is holding the post.”

“I’d have thought Roosevelt would qualify as a pilgrim regardless of political eminence?”

“He surely would. On both sides of his family, he’s descended from very early pilgrims. Mayflower blue blood in all his veins.”

“And you, Cornelius? You had spoken dismissively of your ancestry.”

“A late ocean crosser! Only three generations ago. But that was enough for them. A technicality. They didn’t press-gang me for my bloodline. Or my money.”

“What then did they see in you that they wanted?” Joe asked, thinking he probably knew.

“My military record and reputation,” Kingstone replied, surprising him.

“Which I know to be excellent,” Joe murmured, calling to mind the medals and citations listed in the senator’s Military Intelligence notes. His stories of stopped watches, fraternisation in machine-gun nests and illicit frankfurters were entertaining but came nowhere near conveying the truth of the man’s achievements. “You’re a national hero. Or would be if you didn’t actively avoid the spotlight. But your closeness—some would say influence—with the new president … must have been of some account?”

“Less important. They never asked me to sweet-talk him. Or spy on him. I told you, Joe, that I was being coerced into making a speech before them that would swing the economic situation, which is balanced on a knife edge at the moment. I led you to believe that the motivation behind this plot—conspiracy would not be an exaggeration—was an economic one. It is not. I handed you—not a lie, I wouldn’t do that—but a half truth which you were ready, even primed, to believe. The situation is, indeed, a dire one and much depends on the outcome. Can the United States be swayed into coming back onto the gold standard, which we abandoned in April, or do we stay off it and risk ruining the economies of most other nations in the world? What terms will we make on war repayments by our European debtors? How will the president fund the launch of the New Deal he is about to unveil on the fifteenth—three days after the start of the conference? I have considerable personal interest in that because one of the clauses concerns the setting up of the Tennessee Valley scheme.”

“Three vital questions,” Joe agreed, wondering where he was going with this.

“But not ones that are exercising the Nine Men. With them, political concerns trump economic ones. They are not the same, though they’re intertwined. I can’t tell you more than I have and that’s already too much, Joe. I won’t tell you what their plan was—maybe still is—for me. It’s too burdensome for any pair of ears, even yours.”

Joe sensed from the firm way Kingstone closed his jaw and looked into the distance that he was not prepared to reveal more and Joe was not prepared to ask him. Once again, Joe feared for him. The man, it seemed, still had an image of himself as a victim. Joe had caught that same blend of defiance and despair on the faces of martyrs in lugubrious dark oil paintings as the masked executioner approached, lighted torch in hand. And here was the British bobby standing by, as impotent as the inevitable priest performing his incantations at a safe distance in the background. Joe longed to snatch the mask from the tormentor’s face and look into the features below. He was in the mask-snatching business. He knew well that it was in the black concealing silk that the horror lay. The man beneath, ugly enough no doubt, could well be known to the victim and despised by him.

“What influence are they using? What threats or incentives are they holding over your head? Can you tell me that much? It might help. I am still, after all, tasked with your protection for this next bit.”