The Age of Exodus Read online

  “Not really. I just got the impression that Crowley has a rival, and that the rival has some source of power Crowley is afraid of, or sceptical about, or both.”

  “This seal of Templar’s?”

  “No, not that – I asked them about that and they seemed genuinely mystified. Something else, something more… sinister.”

  “Oh, God, I’ve had enough of sinister. Let’s talk about Sir Jack.”

  “Casement?”

  “You may have kept the gentlemen of the press away from him for a bit,” said Bell, “but they’ll be on to his connection with Templar’s wife by tomorrow’s first editions, so we’ve got to take him seriously.”

  “I could hardly avoid seeing that he has a temper,” said Forrester, “but there’s an element of sheer madness about what happened to Templar, and Jack Casement didn’t strike me as a lunatic.”

  “Oh, he’s not a lunatic,” said Bell. “If he had been we might have lost the war. The problem is he’s not always entirely in control of himself.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Forrester.

  “He was amazingly lucky during the first war, and got out without a scratch. But afterwards, during his barnstorming days, he flew a plane into the entrance of a railway tunnel in Kent and bashed his head in. He appeared to make a full recovery, but every now and then he’ll be gripped by such terrible rages people around him fear for their lives. It’s all been kept very quiet, partly because he was so vital to the war effort, but the fact is the Yard have had to cover up several nasty incidents. I tell you this in the strictest confidence, Forrester: if you come across him again, watch yourself.”

  “What sort of things did he get up to?” said Forrester.

  “Unprovoked assaults,” said Bell. “One on a complete stranger, one on an employee and another on a woman he was involved with. But he apologised, paid all their medical expenses, gave them compensation out of his own pocket and persuaded them not to press charges.” Forrester said nothing. “I think if you hadn’t steered him away from Angela Shearer’s flat today there might have been another nasty incident, this time with the famous Mr. Koestler, who certainly wouldn’t have agreed to keep quiet. So you did him a favour there. And you were probably damn lucky yourself.”

  “So it seems,” said Forrester, and thought for a moment. “But Casement had no reason to hate Charles Templar; surely it would have been the other way round, if anything. After all, Templar was the cuckolded husband, Casement the victorious interloper.”

  “I agree,” said Bell. “On the other hand, might he have wanted to get Templar out of the way so he could make the beautiful Miss Shearer his own? The problem is, all this sort of elaborate persecution, the ancient curses and so on and murder in the British Museum, hardly seems his style.”

  “Unless…” said Forrester.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless he was using somebody whose style it was.”

  Bell looked at him sharply. “Someone acting on his behalf?” he said.

  Forrester leaned forward. “Do we know who’s been bankrolling Aleister Crowley and his Temple of Thelema recently?”

  Bell made another note. “No,” he said, “but it’s an idea. We’ll look into it.”

  “What about Templar’s colleagues at the FO? People like Crispin Priestley and Richard Thornham, who knew all about what was going on. I suppose you’ve talked to them.”

  “I have,” said Bell, “and a very smooth pair of operatives they are.”

  “Enough to make you suspicious?”

  “I’m suspicious of anybody who had anything to do with this until I can eliminate them. But no, I don’t have any particular reason to suspect them: I just react a bit against all that upper-crust blarney. One of them even asked if I was related to the great Gertrude Bell.”

  “Are you?”

  “I’ve no idea who Gertrude Bell is,” said the detective, “so how would I know if I’m related? The point I’m making is they were bloody condescending snobs.”

  Forrester laughed. “Well that should get them put away for a good long stretch,” he said. “Along with the rest of the British establishment.”

  Bell smiled wryly. “I mustn’t be prejudiced,” he said, “but since we threw the Tories out I’d begun to think of this as the age of the common man. Half an hour with those blokes in the Foreign Office and I knew I’d been led on.”

  “Even though a former mineral-water delivery boy is now the Foreign Secretary?” said Forrester.

  “Even though,” said Bell. “Which brings me to the reason I’m quite pleased you’ve actually turned up. He wants to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “The Foreign Secretary. Tout de suite apparently.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Search me,” said Bell, “but I have a sneaking suspicion it may be something to do with the fact that somebody tried to kill him this morning.”

  * * *

  It was only a few minutes’ walk from Scotland Yard to the Foreign Office in King Charles Street, yet it seemed as though it was another world. As Forrester stepped inside he was reminded yet again that though Britain was, after the titanic struggle to defeat Hitler, a wounded lion, it was still a lion, with an empire of seven hundred million people.

  On the other side of the great Foreign Office doors, immense white columns soared to a gold-leafed ceiling domed like a Byzantine cathedral, each hemisphere thick with richly coloured images of tutelary deities. The whole roof dripped with vast exuberant chandeliers illuminating a magnificent staircase, down which flowed a river of regally purple carpet.

  As he went up the stairs, Forrester glanced down into the interior courtyard, virtually an atrium palace of its own, surrounded by the offices from which India was still ruled, however close independence was. No Roman emperor could have asked for a more magnificent seat of government. Indeed, no Roman emperor, even at Rome’s apogee, had ever governed so vast a populace.

  Nor was the Foreign Secretary’s office, when he finally reached it, any disappointment. It was a huge room, full of red leather sofas and highly polished tables, its tall windows looking out over St James’s Park and Horse Guards Parade. As Forrester entered he saw the squat, square figure of Ernest Bevin observing this view, his back to him.

  “This where Edward Grey was stood in 1914 when ’e said, ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe,’” said Bevin. “I sometimes think they’re still out.”

  “I think you’re already lighting them, Mr. Bevin,” said Forrester. The Foreign Secretary turned, the light flashing off his thick glasses.

  “Do you now? Why’s that?”

  “You’re not trying to grind Germany into the ground like they did last time, you’re standing up to the Russians, and you’ve helped set up the United Nations to prevent war breaking out in the future. I think that’s a good start.”

  Bevin nodded. “Well, it’s nice to talk to somebody who doesn’t think we’re getting it all wrong. Most of the time I just get brickbats. And, this morning, bullets. You’ve ’eard about that?”

  “I have. Do you know who it was?”

  “My security people tell me it was either Irgun or the Stern Gang. You know much about them?”

  Forrester did. Zionist terrorists, sworn to force British troops out of Palestine, had kidnapped and murdered many British soldiers, blown up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing nearly a hundred people, and assassinated Churchill’s friend Lord Moyne, the British Resident Minister for the Middle East.

  “To my regret I helped train some of them,” said Forrester. Bevin sat down at his desk and pushed his glasses down his nose.

  “I know,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

  “It was 1941,” said Forrester. “Rommel was headed straight for Cairo and it looked as if the Germans were going to push us out of Egypt and take Palestine as well, which would have meant the extermination of every Jew there. Winston decided the SOE should teach the Jewish settlers to wage guerilla warfare
, and for a while I did some of the teaching. We were only supposed to be working with Haganah – the Zionist defence force – but I’m pretty damned sure some Stern and Irgun people slipped in as well. They certainly seem to be using SOE methods now.”

  Britain had controlled Palestine ever since General Allenby’s armies, with the aid of Lawrence of Arabia, had taken it from the Turks in 1917. The British government had promised, in the Balfour Declaration, to make it a homeland for the Jews, but a reluctance to offend the Arabs had delayed fulfilment of that promise. For the last seven years both the international Zionist movement and the Jewish settlers in Palestine, known as the Yishuv, had become increasingly impatient. Now, in the wake of Hitler’s extermination of six million Jews, the pressure for Britain to act was becoming intense, and groups like the Stern Gang and the Irgun were increasingly turning to violence.

  “’Ere’s our problem,” said Bevin. “We’ve got to come up with a solution that’s fair to the Arabs as well as the Jews. After all, the Arabs ’ave lived in Palestine for as long as the Jews ’ave, and they’ve ’ad it to themselves for two thousand years. We can’t just say, ‘Get out, we’re giving it to somebody else,’ can we?”

  “Unfortunately, of course, that’s approximately what we’ve promised to do,” said Forrester.

  “Well, I never promised it,” said Bevin. “That commitment was made thirty years ago by another government. Not that I’m reneging on it, but I’m not going to negotiate under threat of violence. Do you think that’s reasonable?”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Bevin. I was in Palestine for about eight weeks, I went straight from there back to the Balkans and I haven’t given much thought to the Middle East since. But I’ve got the strongest objections to anybody trying to force our hand by trying to kill you.”

  “Well, so ’ave I,” said the Foreign Secretary, “and that’s why I’ve asked to see you. I ’ad a chat with your new Master while I was in Oxford, and ’e spoke very ’ighly of you, and mentioned you’d worked with some of these people, like you said. Now, I’m going to New York next week for a meeting of this United Nations organisation you’re so keen on, and I don’t need to tell you New York has more Zionists than Palestine, most of whom seem to ’ate my guts. I’ll ’ave all my security people, and all the American security people, looking out for me, but I’d like to ’ave you there as well, because you might recognise somebody that my folk ’aven’t ’ad any dealings with. What do you say?”

  His eyes met Forrester’s as he made the request, and beneath his bluff, no-nonsense manner, Forrester could see the genuine plea in his eyes.

  “Yes, of course I’ll do it, Mr. Bevin. I’ll clear it with the college today.”

  “Already done. Andrew’s fine with it. In fact ’e said it’ll kill two birds with one stone, because there’s some sort of archaeological conference you want to go to over there and couldn’t get the foreign exchange for. Correct?”

  “I’d forgotten about that,” said Forrester, suddenly suffused by delight, not particularly about the conference but at the prospect of visiting a land which had been part of his mental landscape since he was a boy. There was an absurd explosion of images in his head: of a stagecoach racing across Monument Valley, of Edward G. Robinson staggering, fatally wounded, whispering, “Is this the end of Rico?” and 42nd Street full of dancers.

  “Well, that conference’ll be your official reason for going there,” said Bevin. “I don’t want to ruffle feathers by giving you some sort of official position, but you’ll be on the boat because you’re on the way to this archaeology thing, and I’ll get you visitor passes for Flushing Meadows itself. That’s where the United Nations is meeting. Toby Lanchester’ll give you my itinerary for the rest of the time.”

  “Toby Lanchester?”

  “My security chief – ’e’s expecting you in ’is office on the floor above. Don’t be surprised if you think it’s James Mason.”

  Before Forrester could respond the door opened and a pretty young woman looked in.

  “Mr. Atlee’s on the phone, sir.”

  “Put ’im through,” said Bevin, and then stood up and shook hands with Forrester.

  “Thanks for stepping in,” he said. “I’m sorry to spring it on you, but I don’t mind admitting I’m a bit shook up by what ’appened this morning, and I want somebody with a fresh mind. Just watch my back while I’m over in America, and let Lanchester know straight away if you spot anybody you recognise.”

  He picked up the phone.

  “’Ullo, Clem,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  * * *

  Forrester had to suppress a grin as he entered Toby Lanchester’s office: he did indeed have the dark, brooding good looks of the man who was at that moment, after box office successes like The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady, Britain’s favourite film star. But Lanchester was not brooding now; indeed he lay back behind his desk as if he was on a deckchair on a sunlit lawn, wondering whether he could be bothered to ring the bell to ask for more tea.

  “My master is very much a believer in belt and braces, isn’t he?” he said, looking at Forrester from beneath half-closed lids. “I leave it to you to decide for yourself which of those you are.”

  Forrester smiled. “Neither, really,” he said. “I’m not trained to be part of a security detail and I know there’s a risk of me sticking out like a sore thumb. But when Ernest Bevin asks for help immediately after somebody’s tried to kill him – well, I could hardly turn him down, could I?”

  “No, of course not,” said Lanchester. “And I must apologise; I was being rather rude. It’s just that I’ve got rather a lot to think about and your presence will be a complication.”

  “I understand,” said Forrester. “I’ll try not to get in your way.” Lanchester began to raise his hands in a resigned gesture, and then apparently decided it was too much effort. Forrester began to understand why Bevin might have wanted an addition to his security team.

  “I’m sure you’ll be awfully tactful,” said Lanchester.

  “I’ll do my best,” said Forrester.

  “I gather you’re from Hull.”

  “True, though having tact and coming from Hull aren’t necessarily incompatible.”

  “Good Lord,” he said apologetically. “I didn’t mean to imply that growing up beside the Humber prevented one acquiring la politesse. Please forgive me.”

  “As I understand it,” said Forrester, deciding not to be drawn into a discussion of the manners of the inhabitants of the East Riding, “my job is just to keep my eyes open for anybody I know from my time in Palestine, and to pass the information on to you. Is that right?”

  Lanchester smiled. “Absolutely right, old chap. The Queen Mary leaves Southampton next Monday and I’ll have the tickets sent to your college, together with some money for your expenses. As far as anyone else from the Foreign Office is concerned it’s just a coincidence you’re on the same boat as Mr. Bevin, and the only reason you’re going to New York is because of this archaeological conference. The same thing will apply to the American security services: the only two people who will know what you’re really doing there are Mr. Bevin and myself. I’ve arranged for you to stay at the same hotel by the way, the Waldorf Astoria. Will that suit you?”

  “It sounds like unaccustomed luxury. I’d been invited to speak at the conference at Columbia and had said no, but perhaps now I can let them know I will be available?”

  “By all means. The perfect cover. I’ll see you at Southampton.”

  But Forrester was not quite ready to be dismissed.

  “Just before I go, I want to make sure you’re aware that your late colleague Charles Templar came to me for advice before he was murdered.”

  “No, I didn’t know that. What on earth for?”

  “He wanted to talk to me about that cylinder seal someone was demanding he gave back.”

  “Is ancient Mesopotamia your field?”

  “Not particularly. My main area is e
arly Mediterranean civilisation, particularly Minoan. But a friend of Templar’s thought I might be able to help him.”

  Lanchester looked sympathetic. “What a shame you weren’t able to. Well, in the sense of saving his life, I mean. What did you tell the poor fellow?”

  “What I knew about ancient Mesopotamian mythology. And what practical steps he should take – including talking to someone like you, which he said he’d already done.”

  “Indeed he did,” said Lanchester. “But sadly all my efforts to help him were as unavailing as yours. Nevertheless, I appreciate you letting me know you’d been involved in the affair.”

  He turned back to the file, but Forrester persisted.

  “So my question is,” he said, “is it pure coincidence that Charles Templar was murdered within twenty-four hours of somebody trying to kill Ernest Bevin?”

  Lanchester put the file down courteously enough, though his expression was the kind one adopts when speaking to an overenthusiastic child.

  “Have you any reason to think they’re connected?”

  “Not at this stage,” said Forrester.

  “Still, let’s consider it,” said Lanchester politely. “Just in case.” He steepled his fingers and stared through his window at the rooftops of Whitehall. There was a long pause, and finally Lanchester said, “My initial thoughts are these: almost certainly the people who tried to murder the Foreign Secretary were Jewish terrorists – Irgun or the Stern Gang, probably operating from their Paris base. MI6 has given us plenty of indication this is the kind of thing they’re planning and the French Sûreté is notoriously lax about cracking down on them, doubtless because of their guilt in helping the Germans ship so many of them to the gas chambers during the war. Now as you can imagine, their tendency – the Jews, that is, not the French – is to concentrate on one operation at a time; their resources are, after all, limited. This alone, I would say, makes the possibility of a link with Templar’s death unlikely. On top of which one has to ask what reason would Jewish terrorists have to kill Charles Templar? His job in the Foreign Office had nothing to do with Middle Eastern affairs, let alone Palestine. And clearly whoever did kill him had some sort of occult agenda; all those threats in ancient Sumerian or whatever it was. I don’t think the Jews go in for that sort of thing, however misguided they are. Do you see any Jewish motif in the manner of his death?”