Riptide

by John Lawton

  ‘Right,’ Nailer said at last. ‘You recognise this lot?’

  ‘What is this, a game?’

  ‘Right, it is-Kim’s game. Or don’t you Yankees read Kipling?’

  There it was, that word again. Red rag to a tired bull.

  ‘You know, Chief Inspector, I could get mightily pissed off with you.’

  The blow took Cal by surprise. The back of Nailer’s hand to the mouth-a split lip and the taste of blood.

  ‘Look!’

  Cal looked. A pile of paper, a few pounds in change and notes, about fifty or so dollars in his billfold, his key ring, his driver’s licence, the bloody handkerchief-from somewhere they’d retrieved the map of London he’d covered Walter with: one of his thumbprints stood out clearly, a blood stained spiral in New Cross, now ringed in blue pencil. And his gun, split into component parts, the holster, the clip and the bullets flipped out and set next to it.

  Nailer held one of the twenty-dollar bills up to the light. Cal felt like an idiot. He’d just pocketed them without thinking, that day in Silver Place.

  ‘The ink’s run on this,’ Nailer said. ‘Now, what would an honest American soldier want with a phony bank note?’

  Cal said nothing. He could think of nothing that would sound remotely plausible.

  Nailer picked up the gun with two fingers wrapped in a grubby handkerchief and held the barrel out to Cal at face height.

  ‘This gun’s been fired recently.’

  ‘Three or four days ago-if you want to call that recent?’

  ‘When exactly?’

  ‘The night before the Hood was sunk. I don’t remember the date. Twenty-third or twenty-fourth, I think.’

  ‘One bullet short in the magazine.’

  ‘I fired one round-yes.’

  ‘At whom?’

  Cal didn’t know. And if he did-how could he explain it to Nailer? That he’d shot a man on a rooftop in the middle of London, and left Walter and his ‘binmen’ to dispose of the body?

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Just like you can’t tell me who the Jerry was you claim you were following.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ Cal said.

  ‘And this is mine. Dixon, take Captain Cormack’s fingerprints.’

  Dixon set a blue inkpad next to the row of little cellophane bags and Cal let him roll his fingertips across it and then onto the numbered boxes of the print form. It was like being a child again. Literally in someone else’s hands. As the thumb of his left hand pressed into the pad, Cal found himself fixed on the corner of a handkerchief, visible through its transparent wrapping. An ‘F,’ neatly embroidered in scarlet thread. It must be Troy’s initial. Walter had called him Frank or Fred or something.

  ‘Wait a minute!’

  Nailer was at the door, his hand already grasping the handle.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Troy. Troy knows me. He saw me with Walter.’

  ‘Captain Cormack, I saw you with Walter. He was dead. He was dead when Troy saw you with him!’

  ‘No-I mean before that. The day Walter and I met. He was called out to a case in Hoxton. Troy was there too. Walter took over the case from him, just as you did last night. He asked me if I was working with Walter. I told him I was.’

  Cal could hear the desperation in his own voice. He was beginning to feel no-one in London would ever admit to knowing him. Nailer took out his notepad and jotted down a couple of words, then paused with his pencil on the pad.

  ‘When d’ye say this was?’

  ‘The day Walter and I met. The Thursday or Friday after the big raid.’

  § 62

  It was night-at least it felt like night, every cell in his body told him it was night, but the light was on continuously and there was no window to show the true state of light or darkness in the world outside his cell-when Nailer sought him out again. Cal swung his feet off the cot and set them on the floor. Nailer had come in and the duty cop had locked the door behind him. Cal wanted to stretch, but he felt safer sitting. Nailer was clutching a plywood chair, which he plonked down a few feet away from Cal. He sat down and leaned back. Lit up a cigarette and did not offer one to Cal.

  ‘It’s not your day,’ he said cryptically. ‘Not been your couple of days, I’d say.’

  ‘Just tell me what you mean, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Troy. Set off for Cheltenham early last night. Called out on a murder enquiry. Hadn’t arrived when I phoned through. And I’ve heard nothing back. Looks as though our Sergeant Troy no more wants to know you than your own people do.’

  ‘I see,’ said Cal, aiming for a neutrality of tone he did not feel.

  ‘Son-why don’t you stop wasting my time? Every alibi you offer is a total red herring. Your gun had been fired. One bullet. That’s all it took to kill Walter Stilton. You even admit it’s your gun. Your prints are all over it. Your thumbprint’s there in Walter’s blood on that map of London. You’re the only person seen going up the alley at the time of the murder. Why don’t you just come clean?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. Even you don’t think I did it. Why would I kill Walter? The man was kindness itself. I knew him for-what? Ten days? Ten days, and I’d reckon him one of my closest friends and one of the most decent, generous-spirited men I’ve ever met. Dammit, Walter treated me better than three-quarters of my own family do. I had no reason to wish him any harm.’

  Nailer exhaled a cloud of smoke over Cal and let it disperse as though he cherished the symbol.

  ‘Captain Cormack-when I catch a man at the scene of a murder with a smoking gun in his hand, I don’t ask about motives, I ask about facts. And where facts are concerned you’re remarkably short of answers.’

  ‘The gun was not smoking. And it was not in my hand, it was in its holster. If I killed Walter why did I then call the cops, cover the man’s body and wait for you to arrive?’

  ‘Why? Because you’re clever. The music hall was just emptying, people milling around everywhere-you stood no chance of getting out unseen, so you tried a bluff. Pretended you’d found the body. It was a nice try, I’ll give you that. Not many blokes have the nerve to sit with the corpse of a man they’ve just killed, but I’ve known one or two ruthless bastards try it. Who knows-other coppers might have bought it. Mebbe Sergeant Troy might have been daft enough to swallow that one, I’m not.’

  ‘That’s… that’s preposterous… that’s the biggest load of horseshit I ever heard.’

  Nailer dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his heel.

  ‘Horseshit it may be…’ (Good God, the man was actually smiling)’…but it’s enough to hang you.’

  Cal looked at Nailer. Tried to read the expression in his eyes.

  ‘Chief Inspector, you don’t think I killed Walter. You know I didn’t kill Walter. So what’s all this about?’

  The smile wiped itself away.

  ‘What’s it all about? I’ve a dead copper on me hands. That’s what it’s all about. One of our best men knocked off on the streets of London. Do you think I’m going to make a daily report to the Met Commissioner and tell him I’ve no suspects? That I’ve no-one in the frame? Do you think I’m going to have half the villains in London laughing up their sleeves saying we can’t look after our own? No, Captain Cormack. Not bloody likely!’

  ‘So I’m in the frame?’

  ‘Right now-you’re all I’ve got. You were there. Armed to the teeth, covered in Walter’s blood-and nobody’s vouching for you. Right now, Captain Cormack, you’re it.’

  Cal moved a little closer. He could smell the beer on Nailer’s breath-mixed with the familiar halitosis of a country that seemed yet to invent dentistry.

  ‘You call that justice?’

  ‘No-I call it more than justice. I call it the honour of the Met.’

  Nailer moved close to Cal, their faces only inches apart, and dropped his voice to a whisper of discretion.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, young man-if I have to stitch you up to
save that honour I’ll do it, and there’s not a court in the land would prove me wrong.’

  ‘You know,’ Cal whispered back, ‘when you’re through with the Met, I think there could well be a vacancy for you in Chicago.’

  Nailer doubled him neatly with a belly blow, and when he fell off the cot booted him in the balls. Cal heard the door slam as though it had closed inside his skull. He rolled over, threw up, and wished he’d never spoken.

  § 63

  Troy got back to the Yard tired and bored. Cheltenham had been a complete waste of time. An accidental death of some interest to a provincial coroner, but none at all to Scotland Yard. It had been a rough night-a room in a pub full of drunken squaddies on embarkation leave. Let us piss away this night for in the morn we piss away lives in blood and sand in North Africa. He planned to make a quick verbal report to Onions, a mad dash through the paperwork piling up on his desk, and then have an early night.

  ‘Did Enoch Nailer get hold of you?’ Stan asked as Troy was trying to slip out of the door.

  ‘Nailer? What would he want with me?’

  ‘It was something to do with Stilton’s death.’

  ‘He’s got my report. I typed it up before I logged off, the night Walter was killed.’

  ‘Well, he was looking for you this morning. I thought he’d rung Cheltenham and left a message for you.’

  Onions roared for Madge, his secretary. A sour-faced woman in her mid-thirties stuck her head round the door.

  ‘D’ye still have a note of what Chief Inspector Nailer was wanting?’

  Thirty seconds later she put a memo sheet on his desk and left without a word to either of them.

  ‘Ah… I remember now. He’s holding some bloke for the murder of poor old Walter. Bloke says you can vouch for him.’

  Troy was baffled.

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘An American, name of Cormack.’

  ‘Stan, Cormack found the body. He was the one dialled 999. He was sitting with Walter when I got there.’

  ‘Mebbe,’ a typical Onions word. ‘But for the last thirty-six hours he’s been sitting in a cell downstairs. Turns out he had a gun on him. You didn’t search him, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Troy. ‘No, I didn’t. I had the publican call the Branch straight away-and they sent Nailer. I just sat with Cormack until Nailer got there. Cormack didn’t kill Walter. He was in shock. He was in tears.’

  ‘And that’s his alibi? It seems he’s telling Enoch that you knew he was working with Walter all along. Not that Enoch’s ready to believe him-he isn’t.’

  ‘I saw them together a couple of weeks ago-you sent me to a body in Hoxton Lane. Walter unceremoniously turfed me off the case. The American was with him.’

  ‘That’s all? Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘OK, I’ll tell Enoch. Mind-it doesn’t prove much, does it?’

  § 64

  Troy had never done anything like this before. He had earned the enmity of one or two of his superiors by being right once or twice when they were so clearly wrong-but he’d never deliberately set out to interfere in a case being conducted by a senior officer, to whom he was not assigned, and who was, moreover, a leading light of the Special Branch, who as far as Troy could see were special merely in that they were the only bunch of plodding thugs allowed through the doors of Scotland Yard without being clapped in irons. It would require careful handling.

  He killed thirty minutes in the canteen in the hope of catching one of the few Branch coppers he knew personally-Sgt Peter Dixon, who’d started at the Yard the same day as Troy. He got lucky. Dixon came in, took his cup of oily tea and sat at another table, eyes closed, as though sleeping upright, without even noticing Troy. Troy took his tea over, and sat opposite Dixon. His eyes flickered open.

  ‘Freddie-long time no wotsit. How’s murder?’

  ‘You tell me, Peter. I hear you’ve got the case I was turfed off.’

  ‘Oh-the Yank, you mean. By God, it’s a rum one-running me ragged. Says he and poor old Stinker were on a secret mission together-would you believe he’s asked half the nobs in Britain to speak for him? Either they won’t or they can’t be found. Even asked for poor old Bernie Dobbs. I suppose you’ve heard he’s asked for you? Says you knew he was working with Walter.’

  ‘I know, I’ve just told Onions what I know. I saw Cormack and Walter together on the sixteenth. But as Onions said, I don’t know what it proves.’

  ‘Bugger all, as far as the Boss is concerned.’

  ‘You think he won’t let him go?’

  ‘No. It’s rum. I tell you, Fred, it’s rum. Nailer’s taking this one personally. It’s not as though he and old Stilton were mates. They weren’t. It’s more… there but for the grace of God… as though the Boss thinks it could have been him. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s worked himself up into a right tizzy.’

  ‘What does he think he’s got?’

  ‘Two eyewitnesses saw him go up the alley…’

  ‘Peter, that’s hardly surprising, as he was still there when I arrived. In fact it’s hardly evidence. There’s more than one way into that alley.’

  ‘Through the Green Man, you mean? A London local? On a Tuesday, just about the flattest night of the week? Just try walking through a local London boozer on a Tuesday and not being seen or remembered. If you wanted to commit murder that would be asking to get caught, wouldn’t it? You’d be setting foot in a nest of nosy-parkers just waiting for something or someone to break the monotony.’

  Troy silently disagreed with this. He’d learnt early on in his time as a copper just how unobservant people could be.

  ‘You questioned them?’

  ‘Freddie-you teach me how to suck eggs and I’ll clock yer!’

  ‘All right. So what did your eyewitnesses see?’

  ‘Hold your horses… thing is, they didn’t see anyone else. Boss attaches a lot of importance to that. The way he sees it, we’ve got a foreign soldier, out of uniform, none of his own people vouching for him-that’s just downright peculiar, but the Boss thinks it means something-and the gun. It’d been fired, y’see. That’s the clincher. Catch a bloke with a smoking gun in his hand and you’ve got him… well… red-handed, haven’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t smoking, Peter. I think I might have noticed that.’

  ‘Been fired recently, all the same.’

  Troy found an Onionsism useful. ‘Doesn’t prove much, though, does it?’

  Dixon shrugged and slurped noisily at his tea. Thought about it.

  ‘You seem pretty convinced of this bloke’s innocence, considering you met him only twice. Do you know something you’re not letting on, Fred?’

  The man was more awake than he seemed. It was not a question Troy wanted to answer, so he didn’t.

  ‘If the boot was on the other foot, Fred, and it was your case, would I be sitting here telling you that catching a bloke with a discharged gun concealed about his person doesn’t prove much?’

  ‘Concealed?’ said Troy. ‘Concealed where?’

  ‘Clip holster, back of his waistband. Just hooks onto the trousers. And there’s one other thing.’

  Dixon leant in close as though about to reveal the deepest secret. Troy followed, almost nose to nose.

  ‘Boss ever finds out you got any of this from me, you’ll be going to the next policeman’s ball with yer knob in a splint!’

  Back in his office Troy tackled that which might prove much. He called Kolankiewicz at the lab in Hendon.

  ‘Did you do the postmortem on Walter Stilton?’

  ‘No-Spilsbury was asked to do this one in person.’

  Troy supposed it was an honour accorded the fallen-to be cut open by the best pathologist in the land.

  ‘All I got was ballistics.’

  ‘You mean you’ve got the bullet?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘How does it compare?’
>
  ‘To what?-for Chrissake-they sent me nothing to compare it with yet!’

  Troy went back to Onions.

  ‘I need to talk to Nailer.’

  ‘You know where to find him then, don’t you?’

  ‘I mean… I need you to arrange a meeting with Nailer and Major Crawley.’

  Crawley was the Superintendent in charge of Nailer-Onions’ opposite number. A former regular soldier, he was always referred to by his military rank-except among the constables, to whom he was inevitably ‘Creepy’.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nailer’s sitting on evidence. He hasn’t asked for a ballistics test on the gun you said Cormack was found with.’

  ‘You can’t call that sitting on evidence. Ballistics isn’t everything.’

  There were ways in which Onions was an imaginative copper and ways in which he was thoroughly a man of his generation.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Troy insisted. ‘Set up a meeting and get Nailer to bring the gun.’

  Onions had been at best half attentive to the conversation. Now he pulled back. Put down his pen, ceased his jotting and looked squarely at Troy.

  ‘Oh God, Freddie. Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me tread all over Crawley’s toes.’

  ‘Stan-if I stick my nose into Nailer’s case without you standing behind my shoulder he’ll blast me into the middle of next week.’

  ‘Freddie-don’t make me do this.’

  § 65

  It was the middle of a hike-warm afternoon, May drifting towards June, by the time Onions assembled his cast.

  Troy sat to one side of Onions’ desk, watching the dramatis personae take the stage. Onions, big, broad, blunt and Lancashire-on his feet glad-handing Crawley-an austere, upper-crust copper with the throttled vowels of the Edwardian age, hair almost a coiffure, a pencil-line moustache written on his top lip-and Nailer, like every Special Branch copper Troy had ever met, unimaginatively neat, but unimaginatively plain. The sort of copper happiest in boots, bowler and macintosh. The sort of copper who was careful to tip the dust out of his turnups at least once a week. But he looked awful, as though he was strained to breaking by this case-his eyes limpid and bloodshot, the plain, good suit now creased and crumpled as though he had slept in it, at odds with the near-military precision of his character. Dixon was right, he had worked himself into a ‘tizzy’. He looked to Troy to be teetering on the edge. All he needed was a nudge.