Killigrew and the Sea Devil Read online

  Killigrew and the Sea Devil

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Commander Christopher I. Killigrew

  The Killigrew Novels

  Copyright

  Killigrew and the Sea Devil

  Jonathan Lunn

  For Sarah Keen

  Prologue

  Reindeer Games

  Kit Killigrew suddenly knew that he was tired. He always knew when his body or his mind had had enough, but in his line of work it was not always possible to act on the knowledge. He had the feeling that today was going to be just such an occasion.

  Shrugging off the urge to find a warm, quiet place where he could lie down and catch up on much-needed sleep, he pulled up the bottom of his sealskin jacket to get at the pockets of his trousers and took out his miniature telescope. He rubbed the palm of a gloved hand over the eyepiece and raised it to one eye, studying the village through the clouds of condensation that billowed from his mouth: the snow was piled thick on the roofs of the log cabins and barns, and here and there wood smoke twisted lazily from chimneys. The place was peaceful enough… if you went by appearances.

  He returned the telescope to his pocket, took the ski poles from where he had propped them up against the trunk of a pine tree, and pushed himself off over the snow. He had heard that in mountainous Norway, the folk often skied downhill at breakneck speeds, using the poles only to steady themselves and leaving the rest to gravity. It sounded exhilarating, and Killigrew promised himself that when the war with Russia was over he would find the time to travel to Norway and try it for himself.

  But this was the Duchy of Finland – if not as flat as Norfolk, then certainly closer to its topography than Norway – and he had to push the skis forward one after the other to cover the half-mile to the village. Tomorrow, he knew, his ankles would ache from the unusual movement; but tomorrow could look after itself.

  He halted at the back of the barn on the outskirts of the village and crouched to unbind the skis from his half-boots. Putting the skis and ski poles in the lee of a feed trough, he made his way around the side of the barn and strode briskly up the lane. There were not many folk in the streets – it was too cold to be out without good reason – but those farmers he did pass gave him sidelong glances of curiosity.

  Vice Admiral Napier had probably chosen this place because it was so far from the beaten track, and therefore discreet to his way of thinking. But Killigrew, who was no stranger to this kind of cloak-and-dagger work, would have preferred a larger town, or even a city like Åbo, where there were too many people for everyone to know everyone else’s affairs, and a stranger could pass unnoticed. At least the Finns believed in minding their own business, and were too polite to stare. Nevertheless, Killigrew could not shrug off the feeling that there were a hundred pairs of eyes watching him intently through the cracks in the shutters over the windows looking out over the lane. Finland was part of Russia, after all, and since Britain and its ally France were currently at war with Russia, and Commander Kit Killigrew was a British naval officer in civilian rig, if captured by the authorities he was eligible to be shot as a spy.

  Which, he thought ruefully, was effectively what he was.

  The inn stood towards the middle of the village and had probably done so since the Middle Ages. It was built around three sides of a courtyard, with the stables forming the fourth side of the square. Killigrew passed through the archway into the courtyard, looking around to get a sense of the layout of the place. Wooden steps led up to a gallery with rooms leading off on two sides, and tables and benches were set out to one side where the inn’s patrons could sit and eat in the summer, although now the area was covered in snow.

  The door to the main part of the inn was off to his left. He pushed it open and stepped into a low-beamed room with tables and chairs and a log fire roaring in the hearth, the only part of the inn built of stone. A Christmas tree decked with ribbons and baubles still stood in one corner. An attractive blonde woman sat on a stool behind the counter, reading a book, while a young man wearing an apron wiped down the tables.

  Killigrew pulled back the fur-lined hood of his jacket to reveal the face of a man in his early thirties, dark brown eyes set in an angular, lean-jawed face beneath thick, black hair. ‘Good morning,’ he said in Swedish. In this part of Finland, most people spoke Finnish, but Swedish – the language of the middle and upper classes, and of the south coast – was still understood, a hangover of the days when the duchy had been part of Sweden: that had been forty-five years ago, before the Swedes had been forced to cede the duchy to Russia.

  ‘Good morning,’ the woman returned. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Do you have any glögg?’ ‘Glögg’ was Swedish for ‘mulled wine’.

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘In Finland we call it glögi.’

  He gave the countersign: ‘“A rose by any other name…”’

  She nodded. ‘Come with me,’ she told him, coming from behind the counter and walking towards the door. ‘Look after the place,’ she told the youth in the apron. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’

  He nodded.

  Killigrew followed her out into the courtyard. On the far side, she opened the door to the stables. He followed her in.

  ‘Is this your first trip to Finland?’ she asked, striking a match to light an oil-lamp. The yellow flame revealed that the stables were roomy, with horses in some of the stalls, reindeer in a pen at one end, and a hayloft overhead.

  Killigrew closed the door behind him. ‘Right now, I’m more concerned that it may be my last.’

  She turned and found herself staring down the barrel of the revolver in his fist. ‘Mind if I search you?’ he asked.

  ‘Do I have any say in the matter?’

  He shook his head. ‘Hands against that wall and spread your legs.’ She complied, and he started to run his hands over her body, patting her down for concealed weapons.

  ‘This is rather intimate, considering we haven’t even been formally introduced,’ she remarked.

  ‘The name’s Killigrew,’ he told her. ‘Kit Killigrew, at your service.’ He straightened and pulled up the bottom of his jacket to tuck the revolver back inside the waistband of his trousers. ‘Now: where’s Jurgaitis?’

  ‘He’s not here yet.’

  ‘He was supposed to be waiting for me.’

  ‘I cannot help that. Did he have far to come?’

  ‘Far enough.’

  She shrugged. ‘Then we will have to wait.’

  ‘How do you pass a spare hour or two in Finland?’ he asked archly.

  Before she could reply, he heard footsteps outside. He glanced towards the door in time to see a shadow fall across the narrow gaps between the planks in the walls of the stables as someone approached. He pushed the woman away from him so that she sprawled across a bale of hay: if there was going to be any sh
ooting, he did not want her to get hit.

  By the time the door opened, he had already drawn his revolver once more and levelled it at the man who entered. Killigrew dropped into a crouching position, but he straightened as soon as the light of the oil-lamp fell across the man’s face. The newcomer was the same age as Killigrew, tall, blond and well built. He had several days’ growth of beard on his chin and from the look of his clothes he had been sleeping rough for the past few days.

  Killigrew tucked away the revolver again. ‘Nick…!’

  Nicholas Jurgaitis took two tottering steps forward and collapsed into Killigrew’s arms. ‘Hullo, Kit,’ he said weakly, as Killigrew lowered him gently to the floor. ‘Wondered who Napier would send. Should’ve guessed it would be you.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Jurgaitis gestured weakly at his stomach. ‘Knife wound. Couldn’t very well go to a surgeon. Fothered it as best I could, but I think it’s gone bad…’

  Killigrew tore open the front of Jurgaitis’ coat and the frock-coat underneath to reveal that the waistcoat below that was stiff with dried blood, and there was a rank smell that was more than just body odour, so bad that Killigrew struggled not to gag.

  He gripped Jurgaitis by the shoulder. ‘Hold on, Nick,’ he said desperately. ‘I’ve a boat waiting down by the coast. There’s a medicine chest on board. We’ll get you fixed up…’

  Jurgaitis shook his head. ‘I’m done for. It’s gangrene: you know it and I know it. Feel in my coat.’

  ‘In your coat?’

  ‘In the lining: secret plans.’

  ‘What plans?’ Had Jurgaitis somehow managed to steal the Russians’ war plans while he had been working at the Admiralty in St Petersburg? Somehow it seemed too good to be true.

  Killigrew fingered Jurgaitis’ coat until he felt what he was looking for. Taking out his penknife, he slashed at the lining and pulled out a large piece of paper, folded into eighths. A quick glance revealed technical drawings of some kind; Killigrew did not have time to study them more closely. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Get that drawing to Napier,’ gasped Jurgaitis. ‘He’ll know…’ He broke off as a fit of coughing racked his body. Blood bubbled between his lips.

  ‘I’ll take those, if you don’t mind,’ said the woman.

  Killigrew glanced up and saw her standing over him with a small pocket pistol in one hand, pointed at him.

  ‘Your revolver first: nice and slowly. Toss it over there.’ She jerked her head to indicate one corner.

  He obeyed. ‘Third Section?’ he asked her. Only the Third Section of the Tsar’s Chancery – the Russian secret police, known from Finland to Alaska as ‘the White Terror’ – could be so villainous as to employ a woman as a spy.

  She nodded and extended one hand. ‘The plans.’

  He held them out to her, putting them close to her hand but not actually in it. She groped for them, glanced down…

  He brought his left hand down on her right wrist, forcing the pistol aside. She squeezed the trigger instinctively. The shot went wide, startling the animals and filling the air with acrid smoke. Dropping the plans, he spun her round and twisted her arm up into the small of her back until the pistol fell from her fingers.

  ‘I’ve never killed a woman,’ he hissed angrily in her ear, ‘but there’s a first time for everything.’

  Hearing more footsteps behind him, Killigrew whirled, pulling her in front of him, one arm crooked around her neck, the palm of his other hand against the back of her head.

  Three men entered the stable, two of them carrying rifled muskets that they unslung and levelled at Killigrew: Finnish jägers, judging by their uniforms. The third – Killigrew recognised him as Lieutenant Kizheh – wore a greatcoat over the sky-blue uniform of an officer of the Third Section and limped badly, walking with the aid of a cane.

  ‘That’s no way to treat a lady,’ sneered Kizheh.

  ‘No lady would work as a spy for the Third Section,’ Killigrew countered.

  ‘Ditto a gentleman work as a spy for the British Royal Navy,’ Kizheh countered.

  ‘And how’s our mutual friend Colonel Nekrasoff these days? I’m surprised he didn’t make the effort to come and arrest me in person. I must have made him look damned foolish to his superiors after I spirited the Bullivants out from under his nose last year. Was he obliged to take up residence in Siberia?’

  Kizheh shook his head. ‘He’s well enough; I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you when I take you back to the Kochubey Mansion for… interrogation.’ The lieutenant smiled broadly. ‘Commander Christopher Killigrew! I had hoped to arrest one of Vice Admiral Napier’s spies in addition to this traitor here,’ taking out a revolver, he indicated Jurgaitis, ‘but I never hoped in my wildest dreams it would be you!’

  ‘Tell your men to drop their muskets, or I’ll snap her neck!’

  The lieutenant shook his head, and tutted. ‘An officer and a gentleman? Murder a woman in cold blood? I think not, Commander.’

  ‘Just now my blood’s anything but cold, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Unlike mine.’ Kizheh brought the revolver up sharply and squeezed off a shot. Killigrew felt hot blood splatter across the side of his face as the top of the woman’s skull exploded. Suddenly limp, she slipped from his arms to crumple on the floor, leaving him exposed. He raised his hands, fully expecting the lieutenant to shoot him where he stood, and glanced to where a hayfork was propped against the wall nearby.

  Kizheh saw it too. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned Killigrew pleasantly.

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ Butter would not have melted in the commander’s mouth.

  The lieutenant indicated Jurgaitis. ‘Check him,’ he told one of the jägers.

  The man slung his rifle across his back and crouched over Jurgaitis. ‘He’s still alive, but only just.’

  ‘How will we get him back to Helsingfors?’ asked the other jäger.

  Kizheh levelled his revolver at Jurgaitis’ forehead and pulled the trigger. Killigrew flinched as his friend’s body juddered and lay still.

  The lieutenant indicated the folded drawing at Killigrew’s feet. ‘Pick up that paper and bring it to me,’ he ordered the jäger.

  The man unslung his rifle once more, levelling it at Killigrew as he approached. With Kizheh keeping him covered, there was little Killigrew could do, but the jäger still kept his eyes on the commander as he groped for the plans, not taking them off him until the drawings were in his hand and he was well out of the commander’s reach. Over his shoulder, he handed them to the lieutenant, who tucked them in an inside pocket.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ Kizheh told Killigrew, and gestured at the door with his revolver. ‘After you.’

  The commander walked across towards the three Russians. As he drew level with Kizheh, he kicked the cane out from under him. The lieutenant fell and Killigrew snatched the cane from his hand, using it to bat the oil-lamp from the post on which it rested. It smashed against the wall, dousing the second jäger with burning oil. As the man screamed, the other jäger whirled. Killigrew brought the cane down sharply against his head, knocking him down. Kizheh struggled to rise with the revolver in his hand; Killigrew grabbed him from behind, crooking one arm around his neck and prising the gun from his fingers. Holding the muzzle to Kizheh’s forehead, he reached inside his coat to retrieve the plans, tucking them inside his jacket.

  ‘No: after you.’

  The two of them followed the screaming jäger from the blazing stables. The jäger threw himself down in the snow outside, rolling over and over to extinguish his burning clothes. The rest of the jägers were waiting in the courtyard outside, about a dozen of them. They unslung their rifles, but seeing Kizheh with a gun to his head they hesitated.

  ‘Tell your men to throw down their muskets,’ Killigrew snarled.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Kizheh sighed calmly. ‘You’re outnumbered, surrounded, and on enemy territory. Just how far do you expect to get?’

>   ‘Far enough.’

  One of the jägers cocked the hammer on his rifle. Killigrew levelled the revolver at him warningly, and Kizheh seized his chance. He rammed an elbow into Killigrew’s stomach and broke free. He screamed at his men as he hobbled away from the commander: ‘Shoot him!’

  Killigrew was the first to obey, shooting the man who had cocked his hammer. He kicked over one of the wooden tables and ducked behind it. The rest of the jägers discharged their rifles in a ragged volley, the bullets splintering through the wooden boards, one of them coming close enough to pluck at Killigrew’s sleeve. He stood up before they could reload, blazing away with the revolver and knocking two of them down before the hammer fell on a spent percussion cap. He threw the gun at a third, turned, and sped across the courtyard. Jumping on a table, he ran across it, his feet slipping awkwardly in the snow, and hurled himself from the far end.

  He caught hold of the gallery above and swung from it, hauling himself up on to the railing. Balancing on the rail, he straightened and reached up for the eaves above. His fingers scrabbled at the snow-covered shingles, legs kicking in the air below as he struggled to pull himself up. At last he managed to get a knee over the lip of the roof, then one foot followed by the other, and he stood up. The jägers had already reloaded their rifles and they started shooting. Bullets soughed past Killigrew’s head as he ran over the apex of the roof, dropping down out of sight on the other side. He slid down the roof, and launched himself from the eaves at the back of the inn to land on the balls of his feet on the ground below, rolling over in the snow.

  As he ran around the backs of the log cabins, he could hear booted feet clattering on the cobbles in the courtyard. ‘Split up and search the whole village until you find him!’ Kizheh was shouting. ‘Ten kopecks for the man who brings me his head!’

  Skinflint, Killigrew thought with a grin, making sure he had the plans securely tucked inside the guernsey beneath his jacket.

  He reached the barn where he had left his skis and crouched down to bind them on his feet, his fumbling fingers shaking with cold and excitement. He had finally secured the last binding when he heard a footfall, and looked up to see one of the jägers step into view from the side of the barn.