Copyright & Information

The Queen Against Karl Mullen

First published in 1992

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of Michael Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

EAN	ISBN	Edition
0755105370	9780755105373	Print
0755132025	9780755132027	Kindle
0755132394	9780755132393	Epub

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

Born in Lincolnshire, England, Michael Francis Gilbert graduated in law from the University of London in 1937, shortly after which he first spent some time teaching at a prep-school which was followed by six years serving with the Royal Horse Artillery. During World War II he was captured following service in North Africa and Italy, and his prisoner-of-war experiences later leading to the writing of the acclaimed novel ‘Death in Captivity’ in 1952.

After the war, Gilbert worked as a solicitor in London, but his writing continued throughout his legal career and in addition to novels he wrote stage plays and scripts for radio and television. He is, however, best remembered for his novels, which have been described as witty and meticulously-plotted espionage and police procedural thrillers, but which exemplify realism.

HRF Keating stated that ‘Smallbone Deceased’ was amongst the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published. "The plot," wrote Keating, "is in every way as good as those of Agatha Christie at her best: as neatly dovetailed, as inherently complex yet retaining a decent credibility, and as full of cunningly-suggested red herrings." It featured Chief Inspector Hazlerigg, who went on to appear in later novels and short stories, and another series was built around Patrick Petrella, a London based police constable (later promoted) who was fluent in four languages and had a love for both poetry and fine wine. Other memorable characters around which Gilbert built stories included Calder and Behrens. They are elderly but quite amiable agents, who are nonetheless ruthless and prepared to take on tasks too much at the dirty end of the business for their younger colleagues. They are brought out of retirement periodically upon receiving a bank statement containing a code.

Much of Michael Gilbert’s writing was done on the train as he travelled from home to his office in London: "I always take a latish train to work," he explained in 1980, "and, of course, I go first class. I have no trouble in writing because I prepare a thorough synopsis beforehand.". After retirement from the law, however, he nevertheless continued and also reviewed for ‘The Daily Telegraph’, as well as editing ‘The Oxford Book of Legal Anecdotes’.

Gilbert was appointed CBE in 1980. Generally regarded as ‘one of the elder statesmen of the British crime writing fraternity, he was a founder-member of the British Crime Writers’ Association and in 1988 he was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, before receiving the Lifetime ‘Anthony’ Achievement award at the 1990 Boucheron in London.

Michael Gilbert died in 2006, aged ninety three, and was survived by his wife and their two sons and five daughters.

Dedication

It was half past five on an evening in early autumn and the City was disgorging its workers.

From the doorway of No. 10 Axe Lane, which is on the western fringe of the City, came two girls. Kathleen, large, fair and placid, and Rosemary, a small and lively brunette. There was nothing remarkable about them. Thousands like them were hurrying away, at that hour, from a day of office work to an evening of freedom.

There was nothing remarkable about the doorway either, except that, unlike its neighbours, it carried no plate to identify it. Only the handsome bronze springbok, on a pedestal in the front hall beside the porter’s desk, suggested a South African connection. It was the Security Section of the South African Embassy. Its head was Fischer Yule, after the Ambassador and the Consul-General their most important functionary in England.

The two girls turned left outside the office. When they reached Cheapside they checked for a moment.

“That’s right,” said Rosemary. She was known by the other girls in the office to be attending a course of lectures at the City Northern Institute.

“You suppose right. He’s not a ball of fire, but he’s more fun, I’d say, than mediaeval what’s-it.” It had sometimes occurred to her to wonder why an attractive girl like Rosemary should bother about what had happened five hundred years ago, when the present held so much interest and excitement. But she had not wondered about it for long. It was none of her business. She turned right towards St. Paul’s. Rosemary headed down Cheapside towards the Bank underground station.

When she reached the platform her experience stood her in good stead. She knew exactly where to stand so as to be opposite one of the train doors and as soon as the door opened she could judge whether it was possible to insert herself into the crowded opening without suffering actual damage. On this occasion she was lucky. There was no question of getting a seat, but she was wedged, not uncomfortably, between an Indian student and a uniformed commissionaire.

By the time the train reached the Angel, Islington, the crowd had eased a little and she had no difficulty in getting off. All the same it was lucky, she thought, that she didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. On one occasion the train had been held up for ten minutes and a woman standing near her had started screaming.

She showed her pass to the ticket collector, fielded the smile which ticket collectors usually gave her, and stepped out onto the pavement. Here she stopped to buy an evening paper from the old man who had his pitch at the station entrance.

Anyone watching her might have noticed that, whilst she was opening her bag and fumbling in it for the necessary coins, she had stationed herself so that she could look up and down the road. There were people on both pavements, but they were hurrying along, not loitering. She turned to the right down Goswell Road and followed two men who were arguing about football.

After about a hundred yards she swung off to the right. This was Winstanley Street, which led to the area known as New River Head. It was one of the curious backwaters of London. When the Metropolitan Water Board had constructed their tank farm they had acquired more land than they needed and since they had no plans for building on it, the land on either side of their tanks had long lain derelict, covered with a fine growth of weeds, head high to the brick walls around it. A few boys penetrated this jungle, but only by day. By night even the most daring kept clear of it. A woman’s body without head or arms had been found there. That was fifty years ago, but the mythology, once established, had lingered.

None of these associations troubled Rosemary. From her point of view the road had two advantages. It was long and straight and it was almost always empty. By the time she reached the far end she was confident that no one was following her.

A further right turn took her back into civilisation. It was typical of the illogicality of all great cities that areas of prosperity and of desolation should exist side by side. Mornington Square, which she was now approaching from the south, was a quadrilateral of nineteenth-century houses which had risen in the world; slowly at first, but very sharply in the last twenty years as people had found it quiet and convenient for getting to work in the City. Houses which, just after the war, could have been snapped up for a few thousand pounds were now changing hands at fifty or even a hundred times that figure. Most of them were divided into tiny flats.

The house on the north side of the square which Rosemary was making for was one of the exceptions. It seemed, from the plate on the door, to be in the sole occupation of an organisation called the Orange Consortium. Londoners are incurious about their neighbours. Anyone who did think twice about it supposed either that it was concerned with the import and sale of oranges or it had some connection, possibly political, with the Orange Free State. Both these theories gained support from the fact that five of the seven occupants of the house were black South Africans.

Rosemary let herself in and climbed the central staircase to the top floor. This was the flat which belonged to the head of the Consortium. His name was Trevor Hartshorn. He was Rosemary’s father and, in his own way, a remarkable man.

Joining the army in the ranks he had risen in twelve years from private to Regimental Sergeant-Major. Six years later he was Captain and quartermaster — and a widower, his wife having died of leukaemia. He had thereupon abandoned the army and taken a job in the City as office manager to one of its largest firms of solicitors.

Four years later a difference of opinion with the senior partner had led him to abandon a job which he had carried out with striking efficiency and – still under forty – he had been snapped up by Andrew Mkeba to run the Orange Consortium.

It was an intelligent move. When he had joined it he had found it to be a group of friends prepared to talk, but unable to do anything effective.

His first step had been to put the finances onto a proper footing. There was plenty of money available from sympathisers and his time in the City had taught him how to approach the major fund-raisers. Once assured of the money he had reduced the number of the full-time members to four; all well paid professionals and all occupying self-contained flats in the Mornington Square headquarters. The remaining space, on the ground floor, was a communications room and office.

In charge of broadcasting and maintaining links with the African National Congress in Lusaka was Govan Kabaka, who had been called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, but had never practised. He also supplied a budget of carefully slanted material to the Radio Freedom Station in Addis Ababa. Raymond Masangi produced the movement’s own monthly sheet, Black Voices, and arranged for its infiltration into South Africa via Mozambique and its distribution by COSATU, the Trades Union Congress, and Black Sash, the anti-apartheid women’s group. ‘Boyo’ Sesolo, ex-athlete and world class weight-lifter, organised the boycott of individual athletes and sportsmen with South African connections. He ran the action section, the storm-troopers of the movement. Most of these were students or ex-students. Not from Oxford and Cambridge (‘upper-class talking shops,’ said Boyo) but from the robust and down-to-earth universities and polytechnics of London, Reading and Bristol. They acted as stewards for their own meetings and disrupters of their opponents’ meetings, a function which they carried out with enthusiasm. A speaker from Andries Treurnich’s Conservative Party, who had been billed to address the London School of Economics, had been lucky to escape serious injury. Certainly nothing had been heard of his speech after his opening words.

Last, and by no means least, was Hartshorn’s second-in-command, Andrew Mkeba. A thirty-year-old Xhosa from Johannesburg, he had been one of the leaders of the 1976 students’ revolt in Soweto. He had been betrayed for his part in it and sent to the Robben Island Prison. He was one of the very few people who had succeeded in escaping from that establishment and, subsequently, from the country. He carried with him the stigmata of his preliminary examination: a fractured cheekbone, a damaged right eye and a broken and imperfectly reset jaw. The ruin of his face was compensated for by a smile which his crooked chin made uncommonly attractive.

Rosemary knew, of course, about all this activity. Her own hatred of the South African regime, though second-hand and founded on written reports in newspapers and books, was fervent and selfless. At that moment one idea was mastering all others. She was extremely hungry. Fortunately her father’s thoughts seemed to be moving in the same direction. He said, “I thought we might eat out tonight. I’ve booked a table at the Chinese restaurant in Crawford Street. Are you ready?”

“Am I just. There’s something I was going to tell you, but we can talk as we go.”

“If it’s something to do with your work, better not talk about it outside.”

Rosemary sighed and reseated herself. She sometimes thought that her father’s notions of security were unnecessarily rigorous. “It’s just that we had a visitor this afternoon. Someone I hadn’t seen before and obviously important.”

This made Rosemary laugh. “Yule’s an arrogant pig and he never defers to anyone. It was just that he gave him a ticket.”

“There are these two passages opposite our front door. Harnham Court and Deanery Passage. They’re both dead ends. They just run up to the back entrance of two large office blocks. Yule has made some arrangement with them. Their commissionaires allow a few of our people – they’re all named and identified – to go through the building and out by the front door into Amchurch Lane. It’s called being on the ticket.”

Hartshorn, who had been following this on a street map said, “So then they can go either into St. Martin’s-le-Grand or Newgate Street.”

“That’s right. It’s meant to be a terrific privilege. I could never see the point of it myself.”

“Anyway, this new man was taken straightaway and introduced to the two commissionaires. Therefore we all assumed he was a big wheel.”

Hartshorn thought about this. He had considerable confidence in his daughter. If he had not had this confidence he would not have taken the risk – a risk not only for her, but for his own organisation – of inserting her into the centre of his opponent’s machine. He said, “We’d better bring Andrew in on this.” Noticing the look on her face he added, “After we’ve eaten.”

It was nearly ten o’clock and Rosemary was feeling a lot happier and rather sleepy, when they knocked at the door of Andrew Mkeba’s apartment, which was on the floor immediately below theirs. The room was more office than sitting-room and Andrew was at his desk, writing.

“Didn’t want to interrupt you,” said Hartshorn, “but I thought you ought to know about this at once.”

Rosemary repeated her story. There was no need to explain about the ‘ticket’ system. Mkeba knew about this, as he knew every detail of the arrangement of Yule’s office and its occupants.

“I’m not very good at describing people. He was about forty-five I’d guess. A powerful-looking brute, with one of those silly little beards under his lower lip.”

“Let’s try.” He went to one of the row of filing cabinets which lined two walls and took out an album of photographs. “See if you can find him here.”

This was quickly done. There were a number of photographs which had been cut from newspapers. The clearest was a group at the opening of the new Pretoria race-track. There was also a candid-camera shot which had been enlarged.

“Certain, yes. When I saw him the second time, in Yule’s office, he had put on a pair of glasses, which made him look a bit different, but yes – I’m quite sure.”

“Very well. Karl Mullen. The pencil man himself. A colonel from the military police headquarters at Daniel Malan Barracks in Pretoria. What can have brought him to England?”

“Not easy,” said Rosemary. “Mostly they speak in Afrikaans. From what you have taught me” – this was to Mkeba, who smiled encouragingly – “I can catch a few words. Fortunately, Yule sometimes likes to air his English. He is really very fluent. When his legal man’s there he always speaks in English.”

Her father said, “From the anteroom where you sit, how much can you actually hear?”

“And if anything of importance is being discussed,” said Mkeba, “then, of course, the door will be shut. These are not the sort of people who shout their secrets from the housetops.”

The two men looked at each other. It was clear that they had some project in mind, something they had discussed before, something which they were hesitating to put into words. To encourage them Rosemary said, “I suppose it might be possible to use some sort of device—”

Mkeba opened one of the desk drawers and got out a small box, about the size of a pack of playing cards. He said, “This is one of the latest transmitters. It is very sensitive. It operates to this pick-up.” He laid on the desk beside it a tiny golden plug. “You wear it in your ear, like a deaf-aid. It will be quite invisible, particularly if you comb your hair forward a little. Would you like to try it?”

Rosemary slipped it into her ear. It fitted very comfortably and was easy enough to put in and take out.

“Everyone who uses a deaf-aid finds that to start with. I am assured that it is something you soon get used to. Now, I suggest you go out into the passage and up the stairs.”

He opened the door for her, shut it behind her and listened to her footsteps as she climbed the stairs. When he judged that she was far enough away he returned to the box and placed it on top of one of the filing cabinets behind a pile of books.

Then he came back, sat down and said in conversational tones, “Three blind mice. See how they run.”

“They all ran after the farmer’s wife,” said Hartshorn. “She cut off their tails with a carving knife, or so I’ve been told.”

“Did ever you see such a thing in your life,” shouted Rosemary from the stairhead. She came clattering down, clearly intrigued and excited. “It was all beautifully clear. I could even hear you pushing those books aside on the cabinet.”

“If we’re going to use it,” said her father, who sounded less enthusiastic than Mkeba, “you’ll have to think of some place to put it.”

“That’s not too difficult. We all go in and out collecting papers and so on. Just a matter of waiting for the right moment.”

“Don’t fuss, Daddy. Suppose they did happen to find the box, how are they going to know who put it there? It might have been any of us three girls, or his secretary, Mrs. Portland, or one of the cleaning women, or the commissionaire, or the girl who comes to disinfect the telephones, or a man who turned up unexpectedly last week to clean the windows. He’d be a very likely candidate.”

“All right,” growled her father. “All I’m saying is, watch your step.”

When she had gone, the two men sat for some time without speaking. It was the Captain who broke the silence. He said, “I suppose it is all right, Andrew?”

“I don’t believe that eavesdropping is criminal,” said Mkeba. “Even if assisted by mechanical devices.”

“Possibly. But not something that would be likely to be taken to court, would you say?”

“I shouldn’t think so. And as she said, unless she’s caught actually planting the receiver, no one would know that it was her. She might be suspected, of course. But one has to set against that the fact that by using it she might be able to provide us with most important information.”

“There you speak like a professional, Trevor. You weigh up the pros and cons. You think matters out.”

“Certainly. And the results of your thinking – I say this unreservedly – have been excellent. You have taken hold of our organisation – or should I say, of our disorganisation – and you have turned it into an effective machine. One which becomes daily more and more effective. Nevertheless, to you it is partly a business and partly, perhaps, a game. Yes?”

“But to us, Trevor – I speak for all of us – it is neither a business nor a game. It is a religion. Not a contest against opponents, but a fight against evil. Against the devil. He is a very strong and crafty opponent. Therefore we have to use every weapon to our hands, legal or illegal. There are no rules in such a fight. No limits, no holding back. That is what our young warriors think when they fight the casspir armoured cars with pea-shooters and stones. When you are in the middle of it, when you can see what is happening, even death is immaterial.”

“And you’re implying,” said Hartshorn drily, “that since I’m not in the middle of it, since I can only read about it and see doctored television films, I can’t feel strongly about it.”

“Please don’t think that I’m criticising you. But was it not the same thing with some people in your country before the war? You know what our great satirist, Pieter Dirk Uys, called them – ‘Yes butters’. People who said, ‘I never knew it was so bad, but if I had—’ People who’d heard rumours of the sort of treatment the Nazis meted out to their opponents, but didn’t, or wouldn’t, believe it. It was only after the war, when they could see the dead and living skeletons, when they could smell the death camps for themselves, that they realised the truth.”

Hartshorn shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He was a post-war child, but he could still feel the sting of the years of appeasement.

“Can’t argue against that,” he said, “but I still think we’re on the right track here. Feeling our way forward, carefully.

Avoiding pointless publicity. We can leave that to the cordon in Trafalgar Square. And the way things are going now, I’ve a feeling that soon, if we play the cards which are given to us, we shall land an arrow plumb in the middle of the target.”

“Your metaphors are a little mixed, but I agree heartily with the sentiment.”

“Speaking of which, one step we must take. We must have this new man – Karl Mullen – discreetly followed.”

“City Detectives.” Mkeba made a note. “Their men are all ex-policemen. A bit expensive, but very reliable.”

“No shortage of cash,” said Hartshorn. “Particularly after that concert. By the way, why did you call him the pencil man?”

“Not very pleasant. Certainly not the sort of thing I could have discussed with your daughter here. The fact is that he was an expert interrogator. He liked to used methods that left no outward mark.”

“Sometimes. But electricity was not brutal enough to appeal to the animal in him. So he used this implement. It was something he had copied from the methods of one Gestapo chief in the South of France. It was made of polished wood and looked like a pencil, but thicker and much longer. It was sharpened at one end. His victim was stripped and fastened, face downwards, on a bench. The pencil was pushed into him, slowly and carefully, right up until the point was several inches into the intestine.”

“Painful, yes. But that was not the worst of it. I told you it was a long piece of wood. There would be six inches or more protruding. This could be hit with a heavy ruler. The first time he tried this torture he hit too hard. The shock was so severe that the man died. After that he was more discreet. A few gentle taps. No one could stand up to the excruciating pain. They would tell him anything he wanted to know. Sometimes making things up. Anything, anything, to prevent him hitting again.”

Mkeba had picked up a pencil from the desk while he was speaking. On the last word he snapped it between his strong fingers.

Early on the following afternoon Fischer Yule said to Karl Mullen, “I had to spend most of the morning at King Charles II Street, being talked to by Max Freustadt, our Consul General. You know him?”

“I met him ten years ago. He was an up-and-coming man in the Foreign Department in Pretoria. Might have gone up further, and come along quicker, if he hadn’t always seemed to be worrying.”

“That’s crazy. I know that our Foreign Department explained exactly what I was trying to do. And asked for full help and support.”

“Sometimes people travel faster than letters. As soon as the official communiqué does turn up he promises he’ll notify Whitehall that you’re attached to my section.”

“Presumably. But it needn’t stop you working.” There was a note in Yule’s voice which suggested that he was not entirely enamoured of Mullen. “I’m sure there’s a lot you can tell me. For a start, you might explain to me just exactly what you’re up to.”

“As I told you, I’m here to secure the extradition of one Jack Katanga to Mozambique.”

“Because he happens to be a citizen of that country by birth and residence. Once he is back in Mozambique I can assure you we shall have little difficulty in securing his transfer to Johannesburg, where he will stand trial for the murder of a member of the Transvaal security force.”

“The second step won’t be difficult,” agreed Yule. “But I don’t think the first one will be easy.”

“Not easy, no. But we have one strong card. It seems that he has had the impudence to admit the murder, in print. In the book the British public are so eagerly awaiting.”

“Death Underground? Yes. It’s had a lot of publicity. I understood that it was a slashing attack on the mine-owners in the Rand.”

“No. It has been kept very carefully under wraps. No advance copies. No serialisation in the newspapers. Designed to explode with maximum effect on publication day, tomorrow. But inevitably certain extracts have leaked out. And there seems to be no doubt that among them is an account of his escape from custody five years ago. An escape which resulted in the death of one of his escorts.”

Yule touched a bell on his desk and said to his secretary, the middle-aged, placid Mrs. Portland, “Would you ask Mr. Silverborn to join us.” And to Mullen, “I thought we ought to bring our legal department in on this.” As he spoke he was extracting a number of folders from the filing cabinet behind his desk. There was a bundle of three different-coloured folders, kept together by an elastic band; one buff, one red and one green. He slid out the buff folder and opened it. He said, “This is Katanga’s personal history so far as it’s known to us here. It starts five years ago when he got into the Vaal, through Swaziland, and helped to organise the big miners’ strike on the Rand. That, as you know, was when he was picked up – Oh, Lewis, this is Karl Mullen.”

Lewis Silverborn was tall and serious. His black hair was streaked with white. He nodded and lowered himself into a chair on the other side of the desk.

“I’ll ask him to tell you what he was going to tell me. About Jack Katanga—”

“About his book, yes. But I’d like him to let us have the earlier history. It may be relevant.”

“Extremely relevant,” agreed Silverborn. He had a notebook open on his knee.

“Our records,” said Mullen complacently, “seem to go back a lot further than yours.” He was on his own ground now and spoke with increased confidence. “To be precise they start in 1932. Katanga’s grandmother was a Kikuyu girl from south Kenya. She was about sixteen years old, working in a Mombasa restaurant, when she was seduced by a Swedish sailor, who brought her south and set up house with her in Inhambane. When she’d produced a son for him, he dumped her and pushed off, presumably back to Sweden.”

“It doesn’t reflect great credit on his grandfather. However, his grandmother was a woman of spirit. Lourenço Marques was a growing tourist centre and there was plenty of work in the restaurants and hotels. The son – let’s call him Old Jack – married a local girl and took up the traditional Kikuyu occupation of farming.”

“One of the traditional Kikuyu occupations,” said Yule. “The other being brigandage.”

Mullen did not like being interrupted, but had already sufficient respect for Yule not to demonstrate his feelings. He said, “At all events Old Jack became a farmer and a successful one. First with a plot he hired, then with a spread of his own, at Moamba. His son – Young Jack – seems to have been an exceptionally good-looking boy. His Swedish blood coming out perhaps. He caught the eye of a missionary, Simon Ramsay. His main mission was in Lourenço Marques, but he’d set up a number of local reading-rooms and libraries, one of them at Moamba. Young Jack, aged sixteen, became a protégé of his and was soon speaking excellent English and showing an interest in politics and economics – and in Ramsay’s daughter, Dorothy, two years younger than he was.”

“Apparently. But it was at this point that things took an unexpected turn. You remember that there was an agreement between Mozambique and South Africa for the annual recruiting of labourers for work in the Witwatersrand mines. I always thought it was a gross misuse of language to describe it as slave-labour. The pay was reasonable and the work no harder than the men were doing in their own country. The difficulty was that the government had to find a hundred thousand men every year and this involved a measure of conscription. Anyway. Old Jack was drafted. The term was three years. His wife was allowed to go with him. What happened next is a key to much that followed. Old Jack was badly crippled in a mine accident. He died soon afterwards, of his injuries. It was no one’s fault. An independent enquiry completely exonerated the mine-owners. The family got a pension and low-cost housing for his widow and his daughters. Since the farm had suffered a forced sale they had no inducement to go back to Moamba. Young Jack didn’t go with his sisters. He was taken in by Simon Ramsay. After a bit the inevitable happened.”

“Absence,” agreed Yule, “may make the heart grow fonder, but close proximity can be even more effective. What happened? Did Young Jack seduce the daughter of the house?”

“No. He proposed marriage. Father was horrified and made every effort to prevent such an unsuitable union. But Dorothy was firm. She maintained that she could help Jack in his work. To which her father is said to have replied, ‘What work? He’s simply a terrorist.’”

“Certainly. His ostensible job was as a reporter on the Lourenço Marques Gazette. In fact a lot of his time and most of his enthusiasm was devoted to promoting and, ultimately, leading, the Anti-Forced Labour Movement. As soon as Dorothy reached the age of eighteen and parental consent was no longer necessary, the marriage took place. Simon Ramsay officiated, with horrified reluctance, and totally washed his hands of the pair.”

“I believe so. He retired to England and when I last heard of him he had a living in Norfolk. Meanwhile Young Jack had moved on, from writing polemics, to actual intervention in the affairs of the Rand. The farm at Moamba had been sold, but he still had many friends there and it was, I imagine, a useful base of operations being on the southern border of Mozambique and a few miles from Swaziland. A no-go area for the police of both states.”

“You surprise me,” said Yule blandly. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but under a recent treaty – the Nkomati Award it was called, wasn’t it? – you know more about these things than I do – didn’t the Mozambique authorities undertake to suppress all guerrilla activity? And wasn’t there a similar agreement with the late King Subhuza of Swaziland?”

Mullen looked up sharply. He had more than a suspicion that his leg was being pulled, but Yule’s face gave nothing away. He said, “Those agreements existed, yes. But as Shakespeare says, they were more honoured in the breach than the observance. I am reporting matters as they were. Not as they should have been.”

“The first undercover trip that Katanga made to the Rand seems to have been exploratory. On the second trip, with the help of Cyril Ramaphosa and his mine-workers’ union, he succeeded in shutting down three of the largest mines on the Witwatersrand for a month. On his third and final expedition—”

“Right. That’s where our records start,” said Yule. “It seems to have been a startling success. I mean, of course, from Katanga’s point of view.” He was leafing through his file as he spoke. “The production of gold and diamonds was reduced to a trickle. Some of the smaller companies, that were facing bankruptcy, would have given in to the strikers, if they had been allowed to.”

“Possibly. But since the government were men and not old women they weren’t allowed to. Their backs were stiffened by a large reinforcement of police, backed by a few companies of special troops. The strikers were ordered to go back to work and many of them went. And Jack Katanga and others of the principal leaders were arrested. Unfortunately—”

“The two policemen who were taking him by truck to Jo’burg bungled the job. Probably they underestimated their prisoner. They had handcuffed him, but with his hands in front. Not, as they should have been, behind his back. We don’t know exactly what happened. Only the result. The driver of the truck heard a shot. By the time he’d slammed on the brakes and got round behind the truck, Young Jack was a hundred yards away, heading for open country.”

“Apparently. But the driver was too shaken by what he found in the back of the truck to do anything effective. One of the guards was unconscious, with blood pouring down his face. The other had been shot dead.”

“Yes,” said Yule. “I read the police report, which seemed a little evasive. And the report of the coroner’s inquest, which was even less precise. However, we shall know all about it when we read the book, shan’t we? What do you think, Lewis?”

“Think about what?” said Silverborn, surprised at being suddenly brought into the discussion.

“If we now get a detailed account, by the criminal, of his crime, won’t that support an application for extradition?”

“Not an easy question to answer. The normal rule is that a country will extradite a person to stand trial in another country if there is prima facie evidence that he has committed a serious criminal offence there. And provided, of course, that there is a mutual extradition treaty between the two countries.”

“No. Between Great Britain and Mozambique. I’ll find out about that. I rather think there is such a treaty.”

“And surely a written statement by someone that he committed a murder must amount to prima facie evidence.”

“I shall have to read the passage very carefully before arriving at any conclusion. And there is one thing that puzzles me. Why was an immediate application not made by the South African authorities to the Mozambique government to return Katanga to stand trial?”

“It was,” said Mullen grimly. “But before anything effective could be done, he had skipped to England.”

“More than once. And they flatly refused to extradite him, on the grounds that his offence had not been proved to their satisfaction. And that the motive for pursuing him was primarily political. It soon became clear that we were deadlocked.”

“You realise that it is going to involve an application to the High Court. An application which will certainly be resisted strenuously and will therefore be lengthy and expensive. The feeling of the Court will be against you and the attendant publicity will be hostile.”

“I can assure you,” said Mullen stiffly, “that we have counted the cost and are prepared to pay it, whether in hard cash or hard words.”

Mr. Silverborn started to get up, but Yule waved him back. “One minute,” he said. “I’d like to understand this. I have been out of the country for some years now and I can’t pretend to judge the situation as accurately as you. Do I gather, from what you say, that you regard Jack Katanga as a serious threat to the stability of our country? I don’t mean as an organiser of strikes on the Rand. I mean, in a wider sense.”

Mullen, who understood the importance of what he was being asked, took time to arrange his thoughts.

“At the moment,” he said, “the government has agreed to talk to the ANC. This gives it some sort of recognition. And great hopes are pinned on this. My own opinion is that these hopes may prove delusive. I do not think that they will lead to a grant of equal voting rights, one man one vote. Because that would be capitulation.”

“So long as the army and the police remain staunch, they cannot be forced to go anywhere they don’t wish. They will make concessions, no doubt. But I fear that disappointed hopes will lead to even greater trouble.”

“Possibly. There is a tremendous level of aggression. It is below the surface, but you can sense it, and feel it, and smell it. Not in the peaceful areas that visitors see; East Cape and the western seaboard. But among the homeland areas in Natal and in the industrial belt along the Vaal. It is like a fire smouldering underground, but liable to burst into flame at any moment.”

“He is young and vigorous. He writes articles and addresses meetings. And he is bolstered by his romantic background of adventure and escape. Like the young Winston Churchill, yes? But at the moment his name is not widely known. Not yet. However, the blatant and unchallenged publication of this book could be an important step upwards. At the very least it will be a resounding propaganda success.”

“Recent events,” said Mullen with a wintry smile, “have demonstrated that any such attempt is the most effective form of advertisement imaginable.”

“So. Being unable to suppress the book you are going to suppress its author.”

“With a measure of luck, and a certain amount of resolution—” Mullen shot a look at Mr. Silverborn—”that should not be beyond our powers.”

O eternal God, before whose face the generations rise and pass away, thyself unchanged abiding, we bless thy holy Name for all who have completed their earthly course in thy faith and fear and are now at rest.

Roger Sherman had come to the law later than most solicitors. After reading for a degree in history at Oxford he had spent some time wandering round the world before signing on for a short-term commission in the army. At the end of it, seeing few prospects in peacetime soldiering, he had entered into articles with Bantings, the well-known Lincoln’s Inn solicitors, and although he had been qualified for less than three years was already tipped for a partnership.

On this fine October afternoon he had given up the opportunity of seeing his son play rugby football for St. Paul’s, a treat for which he had been given leave of absence, and had come, instead, to the Temple church.

We remember before thee this day Marshall Fitzhugh, rendering thanks to thee for his life of devoted and fearless service. To him, with all the faithful departed, grant thy peace and work in them the good purpose of thy perfect will.

A great lawyer, thought Roger, and (which is not always the same thing) a great man; notable, among other virtues, for courage and integrity. He had defended the Chatham bombers, in the face of massive prejudice, securing a disagreement from two successive juries and the abandonment of the case against them. He had defied the wishes of the government when he signed the minority report on the sentencing of sexual offenders; and that at a time when his own elevation to the Bench was known to be under consideration.

When Roger was at law school he had heard Marshall Fitzhugh lecture – occasions when it was difficult to find a seat. He had seen him as combining in himself the finest ingredients of the English legal system; impartiality and humanity, lightened with a touch of humour. Now he had come to pay his last respects.

Bring us, O Lord, to enter into the house and gate of heaven, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence but one equal music; no fears nor hopes but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings but one equal eternity.

The Temple church was packed with people filling every seat and standing, two deep, against the south wall. Most of them were barristers and solicitors. Roger wondered whether it was possible, simply by looking at their faces, to make out which were which. A hundred years ago it would have been easy. The barristers superior in every way and conscious of it. Two world wars had changed that, as they had changed many things. And now that the solicitor was encroaching on the barrister’s preserves, denied only the privilege of pleading in the highest courts, such differences as remained were fast disappearing. He wondered how long it would take before they adopted the more logical American system. Twenty years? Perhaps thirty. Things moved slowly in the law.

After the blessing the ‘Trumpet Tune’ of John Stanley ushered them out into the October sunlight; some conscious that they had fulfilled a social obligation; a few, perhaps, wondering whether, if all barristers and judges were of the stature of the Right Honourable Sir Marshall Fitzhugh, the law might have less reason to be self-critical.

Roger recognised the boy who was sidling through the crowd towards him as their newest office boy. He said, “Hullo, Charlie. Were you looking for me?”

“You’re wrong about that. Bantings is a very old-fashioned firm. All our new office boys are called Charlie.”

The boy grinned and trotted ahead of him, past Dr. Johnson’s Buildings, across the Strand and up Chancery Lane into Lincoln’s Inn. The speed at which he went suggested that the summons from the senior partner was an urgent one. When he went into his office the man who was sitting in the client’s chair got up, with a half smile on his face which indicated that he expected Roger to recognise him; which he did, after a few seconds.

They had not been close friends at Oxford, but with rooms on the same staircase and attending some of the same lectures, they had necessarily seen quite a lot of each other.

“I was surprised when I happened to see your name in the Law List. I always thought you meant to go into the army.”

Mr. Banting smiled benevolently upon him. He did not regard Roger’s deferred entry into the law as a drawback. Far from it. As a member of the R.N.V.R., he had found himself in the navy in September 1939, quitting it, after a number of exciting but satisfactory episodes, at the end of 1945. Whereupon he had got down to work and had rebuilt the firm, which had been founded by his grandfather and was tottering into senility. By forty-five years of intelligent effort he had rescued it from obscurity and it was now one of the leading firms in Lincoln’s Inn.

He said, “It occurred to me, Roger, that since you knew each other, you’d be the appropriate person to look after Mr. Mullen. Take him along to your room and get him to tell you the story he was just starting to tell me. It sounds as though you’ll need help from our litigators. Keep Palmer in the picture.”

When they were seated in Roger’s office, a tiny apartment at the back of the rambling seventeenth-century building, he said, “Bring me up to date a little. You went straight back to South Africa when you left Oxford?”

“I became a policeman. Or perhaps half a policeman and half a soldier. In our security forces there’s very little difference between the two. My official rank is colonel. The nearest equivalent in your police would be chief superintendent.”

Roger was trying to sum up his visitor. He realised that it must be something fairly important to have brought him to seek outside aid. His consulate would have its own legal department able to advise him on routine matters. The passage of time had certainly changed the rather lumpy young man he had known at Oxford. For better or for worse? Difficult to say. A security job in South Africa would be an emphatic moulder of character, in one direction or another.

“And it’s some business connected with your job that has brought you over here?”

Mullen’s mouth hardened. More used to cross-examining than being cross-examined, thought Roger. After a fairly long pause he said, “Yes. And since what happened this morning was connected, in a way, with my current job, I’d better tell you about that first.”

When he had finished, omitting much but giving the essential points of his mission, Roger said, “It will be for better brains than mine to advise you about the extradition point. That’s for counsel, who will make your application to the High Court. I could find the best man for you. But I imagine it’s something else you want to consult us about just now.”

“Yes, it is. I was taken, this morning, to one of your police stations and charged with shop-lifting.”

Roger was experienced enough not to show either surprise or disbelief. He simply said, “Which shop?”

“They were making a great show of this book.” Mullen opened the bag he was carrying and pulled out a copy and pushed it across the desk. It had a striking wrapper depicting a vertical cross-section of a mine. In a gallery at the bottom a skeleton was lying, with its knees drawn up and its arms extended as though in agony. On the surface, above the mine, a stout civilian was shaking hands with a grim-faced policeman.

“Infantile propaganda. One of Lampards’ windows was stacked with copies and the front room was crowded with people. I was told that the author was in a side room, signing copies. I managed to get through the scrum to the cash desk and paid for the three copies I wanted.”

The hard lines of Mullen’s mouth relaxed, for a moment, into the ghost of a smile. He said, “I thought about it, but considered that it would have been inappropriate. I was given this plastic bag for the three books and a receipt, which our legal people had told me I must keep, and then – you say you know the place well?”