Princes Gate
Authors: Mark Ellis
PRINCES
GATE
A FRANK MERLIN NOVEL
MARK ELLIS
Copyright © 2011 Mark Ellis
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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To Mair Ellis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I would particularly like to thank Jon Thurley and Patricia Preece for their extensive advice on this book. My mother and my good friends Keith Ross, David Deane and Ian James read early drafts of the manuscript and gave me useful comments and encouragement, while John Collis helpfully cast his professional eye over my work. Kate Ellis helped with the choice of cover and, together with Victoria, Claudia and my family and many friends, provided strong support. Audrey Manning coped heroically with the typing of the manuscript’s many drafts. I thank them all. Finally, I am grateful to all at Troubador Publishing Ltd. who have helped with the production of this book
London – January 1940
It was lunchtime and the Lyons Tea House was doing a lively trade as usual. A pungent fug of cigarette smoke, stewing vegetables and body odour hung above the crowded, clattering tables of a restaurant whose drab decor accorded well with the general dowdiness of its customers. Just after one o’clock, on what was a particularly chilly winter’s day, a sudden burst of colour enlivened the scene as a pretty young woman, her flowing, golden hair capped by a bright red beret, hurried through the entrance and looked into the room, big blue eyes darting around anxiously.
“Is there an upstairs here? I’m meeting someone, you see, and I can’t see him.”
The busty, peroxide blonde waitress nodded brusquely towards the back of the room.
“The way up’s over there, love.”
Muttering her thanks, the young woman began to make her way through the press of tables. She ignored a leering young soldier who pursed his lips theatrically into a kiss, to the amusement of his colleagues, and reached the foot of the stairs. Then she saw her luncheon companion leaning back casually at a small, out-of-the-way table reading a newspaper. Her heart sank. He had caught her unawares that morning when he had bounced up from nowhere, flashing his perfect teeth as she sat miserably at her desk, and she’d said yes without thinking. Now there he was, his paper set aside, grinning and waving to her. She put her head down and pushed her way past the tables with their prattling customers and headed, with dread, to join him.
When he had calmed down, after paying the bill, he suggested a walk in the park and she told him to go to hell.
“Suit yourself, then.”
An icy gust cut into her face and she shuddered as she watched him stride jauntily away. He had had the gall to suggest a re-run. When she’d refused he had lost his temper and made threats. The meat pie, which he’d ordered for her, churned in her stomach. Tears, which had been building below the surface throughout the meal, began to trickle down her cheeks.
A grizzled old man, rolling himself a cigarette at his pitch outside the tube station, paused to watch her as she turned and ran down the street. He took a couple of puffs and resumed his patter. “Mr Chamberlain’s speech to the House. New rationing regulations. More German atrocities in Poland. Read all about it!”
The blackout was particularly dense and all-enveloping that night. The man hunched his shoulders as he leaned into the biting wind whistling down the invisible Mall. He wore a mackintosh which hung to within an inch of the ground and a homburg hat one size too small. In his right hand he carried a heavy, old black briefcase. In his left, where his arthritis was playing him up tonight, he carried an umbrella. He turned a corner and made his way slowly across Horse Guards Parade. A distant searchlight provided the faintest glimmer of background light. No matter. For once he had remembered his torch, which he held in the same hand as his briefcase. The beam led him over the road into the park, then on into Birdcage Walk. Cars drove past sporadically, groping their way through the treacly darkness with blinkered headlights. His teeth were chattering, but soon he would reach the station. It was a straightforward journey from there.
The annoying meeting he had just concluded at the Ministry replayed in his mind. Why wouldn’t they listen to him, those pinstriped idiots. Ach! Why did he bother? He could feel his blood pressure rising. “Count to twenty. Be calm. Count to twenty.” That’s what his friend Spinoza had always said to him when he could see the temper flaring. He was too old to have such a short temper. He started counting. He had reached the end of his second twenty when he stumbled on a crooked flagstone and the torch and the briefcase fell to the ground. The torch rolled to the edge of the pavement and its light dimmed as it settled against the briefcase. As he bent down he heard an engine revving in the distance. He grasped the torch and stood up, feeling his knees creak, then bent again for the briefcase. The engine sound grew louder and louder, before all at once there was a high-pitched screech of brakes and he felt a massive thump on his shoulder. A searing pain scorched his spine and he fell forward into the gutter. Briefly he heard doors bang and the sound of footsteps. Then nothing.
The pigeons squawked and fluttered their wings in irritation as the two men hurried across Trafalgar Square before crossing over to the Strand. They turned right past the station and headed towards the Embankment. The drunks and tramps sleeping under the arches made little complaint as the men nimbly picked their way through them. The Wiseman brothers, still known to many down the Commercial Road as “The Knockout Twins” in memory of their youthful prowess in the ring, had found some easy pickings down here before Christmas. It was dangerous, of course, with Scotland Yard so close at hand and the roaming river defence searchlights to watch out for, but they had been working Kensington and Mayfair for the past couple of weeks with surprisingly little success and had agreed easily on a change of scene.
They were both over six feet but Stan was the burlier of the two. He led Sid across the road and leaned over the river wall. The searchlight beams were concentrating on the City and the east, and their chosen patch was dark enough.
“Hush. There’s someone.”
The sound of steps and muffled laughter came to them from fifty, perhaps a hundred, yards away. A man and a woman. Stan squeezed his brother’s arm. “Let’s do it.”
Keeping their heads down they slipped silently along the pavement. A half-moon dipped in and out of the clouds above. A few yards ahead a match was struck. They could see the glow of cigarettes. The couple had stopped under a tree and were looking out over the river.