found its target. Seven of the attacking vessel’s crewmen were killed in the initial explosion, two drowned, and one died from severe burns some hours later in a Cannes hospital. The ship burned for twenty minutes before she rolled and went to the bottom.
If you even glanced at the papers next morning, although it hardly seemed possible given the events of the first few years of the twenty-first century, the world seemed to have slipped its moorings yet again.
Somehow, a French vessel had been sunk off Cannes. Hawke would later learn she was L’Audacieuse, No. 491, a type P40 attack cutter on patrol for the French navy. L’Audacieuse, it was claimed in an appearance by the French Foreign Trade minister, Luca Bonaparte, was on routine patrol off the port of Cannes, when, without provocation, she was deliberately and viciously fired upon and sunk with all hands by a British vessel believed to be in private hands.
If you paid much attention to the screaming headlines in French newspapers or the endless state-run France Inter Radio or France 2 television reports, you would believe that France and England were on the brink of war over the incident.
At the center of this new international storm, a certain captain of British industry named Alexander Hawke.
Chapter Ten
London
AMBROSE STOOD IN THE COLD RAIN ON THE GLISTENING pavement. Traffic on Lambeth Palace Road, just outside the south entrance to St. Thomas’s Hospital, was heavy. He was waiting for Inspector Ross Sutherland to appear. The man was a good ten minutes late and Congreve, who had spent the last four hours sitting by the comatose Mrs. Purvis’s bedside in a dreary wing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, was not in the sunniest of moods. He was about to step from the curb and hail a taxicab when the dark-green Mini Cooper appeared, careening around the corner at a high rate of speed and skidding to a stop one foot from the curb.
Sutherland club-raced the thing weekends out at Goodwood and Aintree and the car still had a large number 8 stuck to the side of the door. Ambrose had never in his life imagined owning a car, but he thought of buying one at that very moment. A dark blue Bentley Saloon, prewar, with walnut picnic trays that folded down in the rear. Yes. It would look lovely parked in the gravel drive at Heart’s Ease. He could motor out to Sunningdale for his Saturday foursome or to Henley on Sundays, pack a basket, a chilled bottle of good—
The numbered passenger door flew open and Congreve bent himself down and over, contorting his comfortably large corpus so that it miraculously folded inside the rolling deathtrap. His umbrella was another matter. It refused to collapse without a Herculean effort and snapped shut only after a pinched thumb and a few well-chosen words from its owner. Only then did Ambrose pull the door shut, find what comfort he could by adjusting the rake of the barebones racing seat, and acknowledge Ross Sutherland’s presence behind the wheel.
“He stoops to conquer,” Ambrose said with a wry smile, strapping himself in. He’d learned long ago that complaining to Sutherland about his beloved Mini was air he could save for more fruitful use elsewhere. Ross murmured something vaguely apologetic, noisily engaged first gear, and accelerated at an astounding rate of speed until he was able to insert the damnable machine into an invisible hole in the stream of traffic humming along Lambeth Road. Congreve ran his fingers through his damp thatch of chestnut hair, heaved a sigh of relief at getting out of the rain, and pulled his briar pipe from an inside pocket of his sodden tweeds.
“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Sutherland said, eyeing his superior out of the corner of his eye. “A holy fuss at the Yard and I couldn’t duck out until quarter past.”
“Late? Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Congreve was packing his bowl with Peterson’s Irish. His voice was flat. “I assumed I was early.”
“Well,” Sutherland said, shifting
If you even glanced at the papers next morning, although it hardly seemed possible given the events of the first few years of the twenty-first century, the world seemed to have slipped its moorings yet again.
Somehow, a French vessel had been sunk off Cannes. Hawke would later learn she was L’Audacieuse, No. 491, a type P40 attack cutter on patrol for the French navy. L’Audacieuse, it was claimed in an appearance by the French Foreign Trade minister, Luca Bonaparte, was on routine patrol off the port of Cannes, when, without provocation, she was deliberately and viciously fired upon and sunk with all hands by a British vessel believed to be in private hands.
If you paid much attention to the screaming headlines in French newspapers or the endless state-run France Inter Radio or France 2 television reports, you would believe that France and England were on the brink of war over the incident.
At the center of this new international storm, a certain captain of British industry named Alexander Hawke.
Chapter Ten
London
AMBROSE STOOD IN THE COLD RAIN ON THE GLISTENING pavement. Traffic on Lambeth Palace Road, just outside the south entrance to St. Thomas’s Hospital, was heavy. He was waiting for Inspector Ross Sutherland to appear. The man was a good ten minutes late and Congreve, who had spent the last four hours sitting by the comatose Mrs. Purvis’s bedside in a dreary wing of St. Thomas’s Hospital, was not in the sunniest of moods. He was about to step from the curb and hail a taxicab when the dark-green Mini Cooper appeared, careening around the corner at a high rate of speed and skidding to a stop one foot from the curb.
Sutherland club-raced the thing weekends out at Goodwood and Aintree and the car still had a large number 8 stuck to the side of the door. Ambrose had never in his life imagined owning a car, but he thought of buying one at that very moment. A dark blue Bentley Saloon, prewar, with walnut picnic trays that folded down in the rear. Yes. It would look lovely parked in the gravel drive at Heart’s Ease. He could motor out to Sunningdale for his Saturday foursome or to Henley on Sundays, pack a basket, a chilled bottle of good—
The numbered passenger door flew open and Congreve bent himself down and over, contorting his comfortably large corpus so that it miraculously folded inside the rolling deathtrap. His umbrella was another matter. It refused to collapse without a Herculean effort and snapped shut only after a pinched thumb and a few well-chosen words from its owner. Only then did Ambrose pull the door shut, find what comfort he could by adjusting the rake of the barebones racing seat, and acknowledge Ross Sutherland’s presence behind the wheel.
“He stoops to conquer,” Ambrose said with a wry smile, strapping himself in. He’d learned long ago that complaining to Sutherland about his beloved Mini was air he could save for more fruitful use elsewhere. Ross murmured something vaguely apologetic, noisily engaged first gear, and accelerated at an astounding rate of speed until he was able to insert the damnable machine into an invisible hole in the stream of traffic humming along Lambeth Road. Congreve ran his fingers through his damp thatch of chestnut hair, heaved a sigh of relief at getting out of the rain, and pulled his briar pipe from an inside pocket of his sodden tweeds.
“Sorry I’m late, sir,” Sutherland said, eyeing his superior out of the corner of his eye. “A holy fuss at the Yard and I couldn’t duck out until quarter past.”
“Late? Really? I hadn’t noticed.” Congreve was packing his bowl with Peterson’s Irish. His voice was flat. “I assumed I was early.”
“Well,” Sutherland said, shifting
Similar Books
