Riptide

by John Lawton

  The pool of blood was still spreading. Cal’s knees were wet with it. He got to his feet. Heard his heart roar in his ears, a pulse as loud as a jackhammer throbbing in his head. Above it all he heard the sound of a lavatory flush, saw a brief flash of light as a door opened up ahead of him, and a man emerge from the gents buttoning up his flies. Whoever he was he had not seen Cal-he pulled on the back door of the Green Man and vanished.

  Cal followed. In the light of the pub he looked down at himself, Blood on his trousers and on the hem of his jacket. All over his hands. He wiped them on his trousers. Surely everyone was looking at him? Surely everyone could see him, dressed like a scarecrow, drenched in blood? In the fug of tobacco smoke and the roar of people chattering, heads turned at the sight of a stranger, but none of them seemed to think him worth a second glance. One woman looked him up and down as though appraising him, and still didn’t see the blood.

  He made his way to the bar. The barman was busy. Cal tried to seize his attention, and found his voice had gone. He managed to say ‘Excuse me’ in a shrill, unnatural voice, and was told to ‘Hold yer ‘orses. Can’t you see I’m on me own?’

  It seemed like an age. The barman served two other men and leaned on one elbow in front of Cal.

  ‘Right, young man. What’s yer ‘urry?’

  ‘Phone,’ Cal squeaked. ‘I need a phone.’

  The barman reached under the pumps and stuck a bakelite telephone on the bar.

  ‘A drink while you’re ‘ere?’

  Cal asked for a brandy and dialled 999.

  ‘Police, Fire or Ambulance?’ said a young woman.

  ‘Police,’ Cal croaked.

  The barman was looking at him now; at the optics, his back to Cal, he turned at the word ‘police’.

  The police operator came on. Cal realised he had no idea what to say. He knew exactly what he meant but he could not think of the form of words.

  ‘Stilton,’ he said almost involuntarily.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir?’

  ‘Chief Inspector Stilton’s been…’

  The barman seemed to have frozen, his hand still holding Cal’s glass of brandy under the optic. The next word would surely galvanize him.

  ‘Murdered. He’s been murdered. Coburn Place. Islington. Behind the Green Man.’

  The barman dropped the glass. The roar of the night-time drinking crowd stopped as though it had been one voice. By the time the glass hit the floor, it tinkled into a cavernous silence.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your name, caller, your name.’

  But they were all staring at him now. A woman not six feet away was looking from his bloody trousers to his face and back again, mouth open, silent. She was not silent for long. She screamed. The roar of the crowd returned-the volume doubled. Cal slowly put the phone back on the cradle and headed for the door. The crowd parted in front of him. All except one big man, stood between him and the door, inspired by some civic sense or the pure, unsullied bravado of the drunk.

  ‘Gertcha.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ Cal said softy. ‘My friend just died.’

  ‘Gertcha,’ said the drunk, and Cal dropped him with a righthander to the belly and pushed him aside.

  He knelt by the body. A dozen heads crowded the doorway, a shaft of light cutting into the blackness of the alley. Walter had to be covered. As ever, he was wearing his brown mac regardless of the weather, but to prise it off him seemed so disrespectful. Cal took out the street map, unfolded it to its fullest and spread London, all the way from Brentford to Limehouse, from Highgate to Streatharn, over Walter’s head and back. It seemed fitting. A shroud for a London bobby.

  He ignored the gathering crowd at the back door of the pub, oblivious to its mounting murmurs and wept silently for the life of Walter Stilton. Late was never. He’d let the man down. He’d let somebody kill him. He sat motionless, his back against the wall, his forearms across his knees, eyes fixed on Stilton’s body, somewhere around Chelsea Bridge. Walter was dead. And dead was all. Dead was everything. Total. Cal had died with him. His death was all-embracing.

  An age passed. He found his tears dried. A torch flickered up the alley from the street end, feet neatly sidestepping the open cellar, and then the beam tilted down into his face. Then the man knelt down next to him.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not hurt?’

  Cal knew the voice, and as he leaned in knew the face. It was the same young copper he and Stilton had encountered in Hoxton Lane. Sergeant Troy.

  ‘No. No. It’s Walter. He’s dead.’

  Troy peeled back the map to look at the face and head.

  ‘Gunshot. Side of the head,’ he said too matter-of-factly, then added, ‘He’d’ve felt nothing, you know.’

  ‘Sure,’ Cal whispered pointlessly.

  Troy stood up. Held his warrant card in front of the torch. ‘Where’s the landlord?’ he cried to the crowd and the barman shuffled forward, pale of face, a glass cloth still in his hands.

  ‘That’ll be me,’ he said, as though he doubted it himself. ‘Atterbury. George Atterbury. Green Man.’

  Troy addressed him with a calm no-one else seemed to feel.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ he said. ‘And then call Scotland Yard. Whitehall 1212. Ask for Special Branch and report the death of Chief Inspector Stilton. Gottit?’

  But the man was staring at the body, at what little was visible of the big man, the legs and feet protruding from beneath the map-the fingertips of one hand pointing down the alley like a contrived clue.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Stilton. S-T-I-L-T-O-N!’

  The barman jerked into life.

  ‘O’ course,’ he said. ‘O’ course. The Yard, the Branch, Stilton.’ And ran back into the pub.

  Troy waved the crowd back indoors, searched with his torch for a few cobblestones free of Stilton’s blood and sat down next to Cal.

  ‘How long?’ he asked simply.

  Cal pulled at his sleeve, looked at his wristwatch. It was 10.55. It was fifteen minutes since he had groped his way up Coburn Place. It felt like hours.

  ‘I found him at… 10.40. I guess it was 10.40. I looked at my watch as I… as I got out of the cab. I was late. I was supposed to meet him here at 10.30.’

  Troy looked at his own watch.

  ‘You’re running slow. It’s eleven now. I’d say poor old Walter’s been dead less than half an hour.’

  Cal thought Troy meant something by this. He’d no idea what.

  ‘I… er…’

  ‘You just missed the killer, it seems.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Cal softly.

  ‘You saw no-one?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  Cal wondered why he had said ‘Of course not’. It just rattled around in his ears. It made no sense. But then, so little did. Why had Walter wanted to meet him here, in this black hole? Who had he met first?

  ‘Look. You’re absolutely covered in blood,’ said Troy. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the blood from Cal’s chin, from his cheeks, where his tears had mixed with Walter’s blood. It was oddly maternal. The human touch. Cal began to feel that he was alive, that the shock of death was somehow less than total. His mind locked onto the idea of Troy-clung to him as to a floating leaf.

  Troy asked him no more questions. Flashed his torch around occasionally, as though looking for something he couldn’t find. It seemed that he too was simply waiting. And a couple of minutes later the screech of brakes in the street confirmed the thought. Three big coppers, two in uniform, strode down the alley, torches swaying up and down the narrow space like searchlights.

  ‘Troy?’ said the plain-clothes copper.

  Troy got to his feet.

  ‘Chief Inspector Nailer. Special Branch. I’ll take over now.’

  Cal grabbed at Troy’s coat.

  ’I thought…’ he began, and Troy seemed to read his mind.

&nbs
p; ‘I can’t investigate. This is Branch business. I’m Murder.’

  ‘Somebody murdered Walter.’

  ‘Walter was Special Branch. They look after their own.’

  ‘When you’ve quite finished, thank you, Mr Troy!’ Nailer roared.

  ! Troy told Cal he was sorry and risked more wrath by saying goodbye and patting him on the shoulder. Nailer waited a few seconds, as Troy’s footsteps echoed down the alley, and then in a voice like brimstone said ‘Now who the fuck are you?’

  § 61

  It was past four in the morning at Scotland Yard before it dawned on Cal that he had been arrested.

  He had let himself be driven to the Yard, sitting silently between the two uniformed bobbies. He’d let himself be led compliantly into a brown and cream interview room of intimidating plainness. He’d answered all their questions. At least, all those to which he had answers. And, of course, he would not name Stahl as the axis on which the whole mess pivoted. Maybe there were too many ‘I don’t knows’? And he had turned out his pockets-a few pounds in sterling, a few scraps of paper-nothing that could identify him clearly-Troy’s blood-stained linen handkerchief-and his gun, wedged between his back and the waistband of his pants. Cal looked apologetic as he hefted it out and laid it quietly on the table.

  The first guy had been friendly. A young man. About his own age. A Detective Sergeant. Called him sir.

  ‘Do you have a licence for this, sir?’

  ‘I’m a serving army officer. It’s standard issue to have a sidearm.’

  The sergeant took out his handkerchief and flipped out the magazine. The bobby in uniform sitting by the door stared as though he’d never seen a Smith and Wesson before-maybe he never had. Then he sniffed the barrel.

  Everything Cal had was taken away, and then they said there’d be a wait.

  They took him to what he assumed was going to be another interview room, and only when he found himself face to face with a cot, palliasse and seatless lavatory did the reality hit home. He turned, the faintest words of protest on his lips, but the door had already closed and all he heard was the key turning in the lock. He gave up instantly and almost gratefully. Fell face down on the straw mattress and slept.

  They woke him at 8.30. A cup of gagging-sweet milky tea. Cal would have drunk pig’s piss if they stuck it in a tin cup and called it tea.

  He had begun to smell. Worse, so had the dried blood on his clothes. A crisp brown stain covering most of his pants, the hem of his jacket, and the pockets where he’d wiped his hands.

  ‘I need to wash,’ he told the constable. The man came back five minutes later with a jug of cold water which he tipped into the enamelled iron basin bolted into one corner of the room.

  ‘Any chance of getting my suit cleaned?’

  ‘Where do you think you are, Hopalong? The bleedin’ Ritz?’

  Cal drank the foul national drink and thought over the insult. Was that how they saw him? A national cliché?

  Twenty minutes later they escorted him back to the interview room, washed, but unshaven and feeling he must look like a tramp. Nailer took over. Nailer was not friendly. Nailer was downright hostile. Nailer had not slept, grey bags under his eyes, a fuzz of grey bristle to his chin. Cal had slept the sleep of the dead.

  ‘From the top, if you would,’ Nailer said plainly.

  From the top? Cal hesitated. He knew what he meant. He just could not quite believe they wanted him to say it all again. Nailer lit up a strong, untipped cigarette and blew smoke over Cal. He wasn’t Walter-not a man cut from the same cloth-a thin, angular man with bloodshot eyes and pinched nostrils. Not a mark of good humour or fellow-feeling upon him. A stringbean of a man, with lank, dirty grey hair and a lifetime of nicotine scorched into his fingertips.

  Cal told him everything. And there his troubles began.

  ‘You were working with Walter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since…’ He could not quite remember. ‘It was after the big raid. Maybe the Thursday or the Friday after. The raid was the tenth wasn’t it?’

  ‘Why doesn’t Walter mention this in his notes?’

  ‘What notes?’

  ‘The ones he types up from his police notebook.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I saw him scribble in his little black book from time to time. Surely…?’

  Nailer was shaking his head.

  ‘His notebook’s missing.’

  ‘Missing from where?’

  ‘From the person of Chief Inspector Stilton.’

  This baffled Cal.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His pocket, Mr Cormack. The folding notebook should have been in his pocket. We all carry them. At all times.’

  ‘Maybe the killer took it?’

  ‘We’re looking into that. In the meantime, who else could vouch for you? Who else knew about your work with Walter?’

  ‘Well… Walter’s man Dobbs, for a start.’

  Nailer and his constable looked at one another quizzically.

  ‘”Walter”…’ Nailer had a way of putting inverted commas found a word as he uttered it. ‘Walter didn’t tell you then?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Bernard Dobbs had a stroke day before yesterday. He’s unconscious in hospital.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘No. He didn’t tell me. But you’ll appreciate. An awful lot has happened lately. In fact… I don’t think I’ve seen Walter since the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Till last night, you mean. Who else knows you?’

  ‘My people at the embassy.’

  ‘Names.’

  ‘General Gelbroaster. He sent for me from Zurich. My immediate superior at the London Embassy-Major Shaeffer and his superior, Colonel Reininger.’

  Nailer left him alone with another silent uniformed bobby for company. Half an hour later he was back.

  ‘I got this Major Shaeffer on the blower.’

  ‘Good,’ said Cal.

  ‘Not good. He says you weren’t working for him and he’s never heard of Walter Stilton.’

  Cal recalled now what had not occurred to him once in the course of the night-‘You land in trouble and you’re on your own. Capiche?’ It had never crossed Cal’s mind that Shaeffer would go so far as to disown him. But he had.

  ‘Superintendent. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding here…’

  ‘No there hasn’t. He was clear as daylight. He doesn’t know why you’re in London. He knows nothing of any mission you say you’re on.’

  ‘Did you check with Gelbroaster?’

  ‘The General’s in Washington.’

  ‘Reininger?’ Surely Frank wouldn’t just dump him for the sake of diplomatic neatness?

  ‘On his way to Ireland.’

  ‘So nobody’s backing me up?’

  ‘Get smart, Captain Cormack-you’ve been thrown to the wolves. And I’m the one with the big teeth.’

  ‘There are other people who know I was working with Walter.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Edna Stilton. Her daughter Kitty. They both met me.’

  Cal had not thought this a provocative remark. When Nailer got up from his chair and grabbed him by his shirt front, he was genuinely surprised.

  ‘Shut your stinking gob-you toerag! Don’t ever mention the name of Edna Stilton to me again. That woman’s a saint! If you think I’m calling her or her family the day after their man got blown away by some cheap hoodlum with a shooter, you can bloody well think again! That woman’s in mourning. Her world just came to pieces. And you have the fucking nerve to suggest I call her? Get this through your Yankee skull-the embassy don’t know you-Walter makes no mention of you in his notes-you’re in the shit, and you’re going to have to come up with something better than that!’

  Nailer dropped him back in the chair, shirt-buttons popping off. Yankee? My how the world had moved on since then.

  ‘The letter,’ Cal said.

  ‘What letter?’


  ‘The one Walter sent me. Telling me to meet him in Islington.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Your… your man… Sergeant Dixon. He took all my papers.’

  Nailer sent for Dixon, and in front of Cal they sifted the papers from Cal’s pockets-everything he had turned out for Dixon last night and watched him slip into a cellophane bag. There was no letter.

  ‘Try again, Captain Cormack.’

  ‘I must have lost it. But he sent it to me. How else would I know to find the pub in Islington, either of those pubs?’

  ‘You tell me-but in the meantime, I’ll tell you that if this is the best you can do, you’re going to find yourself in hot water pretty damn quick.’

  ‘There is someone else who could alibi me.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Ruthven-Greene.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘MI6. He’s the man put me in touch with Walter. Reggie Ruthven-Greene.’

  Another wait. This time, most of the day. At noon he was taken back to his cell, and half an hour later a meal of cold, greasy meatloaf and mashed potatoes was served to him. It was five before Nailer sent for him again.

  Nailer’s face never seemed to give anything away-he had two expressions, surly and angry.

  ‘Well?’ said Cal.

  ‘There’s good news and bad news. This Ruthven-Greene bloke appears to exist. But he can’t be found. He’s incommunicado, as they say.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. I do not believe this. I’ve given you half a dozen names. Every one of these people knows me.’

  Nailer put him back in the cells. Another two hours passed in silence. Then he was taken back to the interview room again. Nailer stood on the far side of the room, saying nothing, watching Dixon. On a clean, clear table Dixon set out the objects in the case, one by one, with a care and precision in their placing that forced Cal to look for meaning where there could be none. It was like checkers for the advanced student-little cellophane bundles, each piece an utterly unknown quantity.