Riptide

by John Lawton

  Troy looked at Stan, knowing what was coming, with as much indifference as he could muster. Stan took two sheets of stapled paper from his inside pocket. This was untypical. Troy had hardly ever seen Stan flip open a notebook or refer to paper in his life. It was all in his head, every last damn detail. This was a theatrical prop.

  ‘PC Arthur Pettigrew, aged sixty-six, constable 872…’

  ‘He should be retired,’ said Troy.

  ‘He was. In fact he retired from your old nick at Leman Street two years before you got there. They brought him out in ‘40 when the young coppers started enlisting. Anyway, that night he was pounding your old beat on Westferry Road, and he says-‘ Stan consulted his pieces of paper ‘-that at 11.57 p.m. he was approaching the junction of Tallow Dock Lane and Westferry Road when he saw a car in trouble. Says the bonnet was up and a man appeared to be fiddling with the engine. Then the car came to life, and the man leapt in and drove off as fast as he could. Arthur got a look, reckons it was a Bullnose Morris. Thinks the number plate was either NEB or NED, 50 or 80.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Troy. ‘Does he describe the man?’

  ‘No-he couldn’t rise to that it seems. Just the car. A Bullnose Morris. You drive a Bullnose Morris. NED 50 as I recall.’

  ‘What’s your point, Stan?’

  ‘I was coming to that. Captain Cormack’s been hauled off by the spooks. I reckon his own people will have summat to say to him. Stands to reason they wanted that bloke alive. Kitty’s been suspended. She’ll face disciplinary action. She’ll be up in front of the Commissioner later today, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Busted back to constable?’

  ‘There was talk of that for a while-but it’d be very unpopular. She’s Walter’s daughter, she caught Walter’s murderer. As far as the Branch are concerned-guns or no guns-she’s a hero. And then there’s the loss of face. She’s the only woman Station Sergeant in the entire Metropolitan Police Force. The Commissioner wouldn’t be happy about busting her. Promoting a woman in wartime was a pet scheme of his. Freed up a bloke for summat more important. He’d’ve taken it away from her on the first day after an armistice, but… to bust her now’d be like admitting he was wrong. No, he’s going to stand by her. A formal reprimand you understand, but no more suspension and no loss of rank.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But-there’s one thing bothers me. Kitty’s just an ordinary copper-a good one mind, but that’s about as far as it goes. Cormack-I reckon he’s lost in London. Like a fish out o’ water. Pulling a stunt like this took brains and it took local knowledge. Between the two of’em they had neither the nous nor the brains to think this one up.’

  Troy said nothing.

  ‘But you’ve been off sick…’

  Troy said nothing.

  ‘And if I were to ask you’d like as not tell me that Bullnose Morris o’ yours has been stuck round the corner every night for weeks.’

  Troy said nothing. Stan said, ‘I think I’m ready for that cup o’ char now.’

  Troy got up. Stan held out the pages of PC Pettigrew’s report.

  ‘Bin these while you’re at it.’

  Troy boiled a kettle and tore Pettigrew’s words to shreds. When he came back from the kitchen, Stan had his jacket off and was loosening his tie to pop a collar stud. Typical Stan-he’d still be popping studs on loose collars in 1970, when every other man in London had switched to sewn collars and buttons. He’d still be wearing boots, too.

  ‘Ahh,’ he said. ‘Just what I needed.’

  He took a pocket watch from his jacket and looked at it.

  ‘Do you know-I’ve been off duty for three minutes?’

  He slurped at his tea and aahed again.

  ‘Off and duty. Put ‘em together you get one of the sweetest words in the language. Off duty. Now-now we’re both off duty, why don’t you tell me what really happened?’

  Later, Onions, standing in the doorway, pulling on his jacket, muttering ‘Jesus wept’, looking over his shoulder at Troy said, ‘How long? How long d’ye reckon you’ll be off?’

  Reluctant as he’d been to be signed off sick, Troy was in no hurry to get back. A bit of space between him and Stan would do no harm.

  ‘Two or three days,’ he said.

  ‘Do you recall badgering me about needing more back-up last Christmas? Well. I’ve got you a new jack. Can’t be more than ‘twenty-three or thereabouts. Fresh out of uniform. Niagara behind the ears. One of those graduated coppers you’ll have heard about. Recruited from Oxbridge, rushed through Hendon, a year on the beat and straight into CID. I was wondering, have you anything he could be getting on with?’

  ‘Just tell him not to touch anything,’ said Troy.

  § 95

  Late in the evening Troy sat up in bed and read. He had finished The Professor. It had not been a cheery read. He had picked up another of Rod’s books at bedtime-No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and SJ. Simon. Troy had no idea how two people could ever write a book together, but Rod had insisted it was a hoot. He was right, it was.

  ‘Wot’s so bleedin’ funny?’

  He looked up from the book. He had not heard Kitty come in. She seemed always to steal in, to turn the key without noise and to tiptoe upstairs. She was framed in the doorway, hands deep in her pockets, looking tired and miserable. She didn’t wait for an answer.

  ‘I hope you had a better day than I did. I’ve had a rotten day. The Commissioner had me in, hauled me over the coals.’

  ‘And?’

  Kitty kicked off her shoes, started tugging at hooks and eyes and press studs.

  ‘Suspended till Monday at least.’

  She ducked out of the door. Troy heard the bath begin to fill, then she reappeared, stripped down to her underwear.

  ‘And on Monday he’ll deliver his verdict. That’s what he called it. Pompous old arse. If I’m booted off the force, why can’t he just tell me?’

  Troy said nothing. Watched Kitty strip to naked for the umpteenth time that summer, stretch her cat stretch, arms up, long legs longer as she stood on her toes.

  ‘I’m going to have a bath. When I get back you’re going to put that book down and lick me dry. Capiche?’

  He read on-the adventure of a ‘born leader of men’ and a performing bear. Then Kitty flopped onto the bed next to him, damp and scented.

  ‘Start on me backbone, work north and don’t stop till I tell yer.’

  Around the back of her neck, Troy lifted her hair clear, ran his tongue around the rim of one ear and whispered, ‘Stan came to see me today.’

  Her face, half-buried in the pillow. ‘That’s a passion-killer if ever I heard one.’

  ‘He told me the verdict.’

  Kitty shot up, grabbed the pillow and whacked him with it.

  ‘You bugger, you bugger. You could have told me that quarter of an hour ago!’

  She pinned him flat, straddled him, and grabbed him by both ears.

  ‘Tell me, tell me!’

  ‘A reprimand.’

  Kitty let go. ‘Wot? Is that all? A bloody reprimand? After what we did?’

  ‘They don’t know the half of it. They don’t know you shot Reininger.’

  ‘I’d rather not have known his name.’

  ‘They don’t know, and Stan doesn’t know.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And Calvin?’

  ‘I haven’t told him. Have you?’

  ‘He wouldn’t understand.’

  She fell off him, lay on her side.

  ‘We’ve got away with it haven’t we?’ she said.

  ‘Looks like it. But then I find if you keep your mouth shut and stick to your story, you usually do.’

  She was softening, almost smiling, the day left behind.

  ‘So no more suspension, and I keep me rank and me station?’

  ‘Kitty, how much reassurance do you need?’

  ‘Lots.’

  She pointed at her sternum, a silky sheen of sk
in between her small breasts.

  ‘Start again. Reassure me some more.’

  Troy woke around dawn to find Kitty awake too. He got up, slipped on his dressing gown and made tea. Her mood had swung back. She was miles away, sad and dreamy.

  ‘Kitty?’

  ‘Wot?’

  ‘Penny for them.’

  ‘If you must know-I was thinking about my other lover.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Will I ever see him again? Do I want to see him again?’

  ‘I’d say it was up to you.’

  ‘But it isn’t, is it? He got hauled off!’

  ‘The Americans won’t be hard on him. He did a good job for them-it just didn’t work out perfectly.’

  ‘Wasn’t the Americans hauled him off. It was our lot. Some spook from MI something or other. I saw the two of them outside the Yard. I could hear the bloke blathering on. Posh voice. Bit like yours.’

  She sipped at her tea. Troy thought at first she was choking, then she ran to the lavatory and threw up. He followed after a decent interval, found her pale of face, one arm resting on the pan, breathing heavily.

  ‘You make awful tea,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be daft. It wasn’t the tea.’

  ‘Nah. I ate fish last night. Must have been off.’

  Back in bed, Troy thought they might both sleep now. He was tired, Kitty must be exhausted. But she wanted to fuck, and in the morning the only thing that woke him was the sound of someone hammering on his door. Kitty slept through it. He looked at the alarm clock. It was gone ten. He threw on his dressing gown. It couldn’t be the Yard, could it? They’d phone, wouldn’t they? Descending the stairs he remembered there was a new boy at the Yard. He hoped he hadn’t chosen this moment to introduce himself.

  He hadn’t. It was Cormack. Somehow Troy had got it into his head that he’d seen the last of Cormack.

  ‘Do you have the time? I need to talk.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Troy.

  He glanced around the sitting room looking for evidence of Kitty’s presence and while Cormack had his back turned to close the door, he quietly booted her crash-helmet under the sofa and hoped she’d stay in bed.

  Cormack slumped on the sofa. Troy could see the helmet framed between his ankles as menacing as a land-mine. He looked unhappy. He looked troubled.

  ‘I’m being sent home,’ he said. ‘I’m the man who knew too much.’

  ‘Is that really a hardship?’

  ‘I guess not. It’s not as though I were being deported. But… I had unfinished business here.’

  ‘Stahl?’

  ‘No-Stahl is finished business. Stahl is dead.’

  Troy was shocked. He’d examined the man’s wound himself. It wasn’t serious.

  ‘Stahl killed himself. Jumped from a hospital window. I reckon your people have had the most hellish time covering up. But if you haven’t heard, then I guess they succeeded. Before he died he told me everything.’

  Cormack ground to a halt, a tearful sadness in his eyes, his head shaking gently from side to side as though denying what he knew.

  ‘Which part of it was too much?’ Troy prompted.

  ‘All of it, I guess. Tell me… would you feel compromised if I told you? I have to tell somebody. I’d feel better telling you than Kitty. I don’t think she’d understand somehow.’

  ‘Fire away,’ said Troy, and he did.

  Afterwards, Cormack seemed sadder than ever, as though a burden shared was a burden doubled. Little of it surprised Troy. Of course the Germans were going to invade. His dad had been telling him that for years. The bit about the slave state was new to him-but if you thought about it, it was merely an extension, the putting into practice, of everything they’d ever preached about the ‘inferior peoples’, the logical explosion of what they’d begun in Poland. The Jews and the Slavs were always going to catch it sooner or later. It was not surprising. It was shocking.

  ‘It leaves a bad taste in the mouth,’ Cormack said at last. ‘It leaves me wondering, guessing. Suppose it wasn’t Russia? I mean, supposing it was my country that was going to be attacked? Supposing Churchill and Roosevelt knew of an imminent attack on the States? Would they not tell us? Would they find it expedient to let it happen?’

  Troy tried reassurance, the flat plains of uninspired logic. ‘I don’t think there’s a German bomber made that can reach America.’

  ‘You know what I mean. It’s the principle. I find it hard to have faith in a benign conspiracy.’

  ‘When will you be off?’

  ‘Two or three days, maybe four at the most. They’re sending me back on the clipper from Lisbon. In the meantime I’m hardly a prisoner. They’ve set no restrictions on my movements… and that kind of brings me to the other reason I called on you. I’ve been trying to find Kitty. I know the police let her go. And I phoned her sister Vera, but Vera doesn’t know where she is or else she won’t tell me. Never did figure out how to read Vera. I wondered-Kitty has

  a room in Covent Garden, near the police station, she said. But I never went there. I never knew the address. I wondered if you knew.’

  ‘Fraid not. I never went there either. I think it’s Kitty’s little secret. But if I see her I’ll tell her.’

  ‘Could you tell her it’s urgent? I know everything is in a country that’s at war, but I mean it. It’s about as urgent as things can get.’

  ‘A matter of life and death, eh?’ said Troy.

  ‘Well… life, for sure.’

  Troy watched him go down the yard towards St Martin’s Lane. Then he listened. He’d not heard a sound from Kitty while Cormack had told his tale, but he could hear her now.

  Upstairs Kitty was in the bog, throwing up again. When she’d stopped, washed-out and drooling, Troy said, ‘Whose baby is it?’

  ‘What do you think, clever dick? Cal’s a good soldier. Uncle Sam gives him a gross of frenchies to see he don’t catch the clap, and he uses them. Wellie on, glasses off. Always in that order. And every single one stamped “Made in the USA”. You, you can never be arsed, can you?’

  § 96

  It was a going to be a red day. His red woolly dressing gown with the black piping. The last, late crimson wallflowers nestling in the cracks between the paving stones just beyond his window. A ruby red broom by the flint wall at the back of the terrace. Delicate, beautiful crimson bergamot like burst pincushions in the herb bed. A streak of pink in the sky, and a startling magenta legal pad to replace the blue one he had used up in the effort to finish his Russian leader.

  Alex was searching for a red poem in an anthology of First War poets-Owen, Graves, Sassoon-weren’t half the poems of 1914-18 called Flanders Poppies?-when he noticed his younger son leaning in the doorway of his study.

  ‘Still on Russia?’

  ‘Need you ask?’

  ‘Wells still helping?’

  ‘Bert and I no longer see eye to eye on the matter. I shall write my piece, and Bert will surely write his.’

  ‘I thought I might give you a hand.’

  ‘Freddie-if your contribution is to be as helpful as your last, I may do better without it.’

  Troy pulled out a chair and sat opposite his father.

  ‘I have news of the invasion.’

  Alex scarcely looked at him, nicked through the index of first lines, still looking for a red poem.

  ‘Unless you have a date for it I doubt it will help. The world and his wife know it will come. When is what matters.’

  ‘June 22nd. About dawn.’

  He had his father’s attention now. Alex let the book fall closed and reached for a pencil.

  About an hour later Alex had scribbled furiously over half a dozen of the magenta sheets. Troy said, ‘Are we ready for this?’

  ‘No,’ said his father. ‘We are not ready. Stalin has had most of the cream of the Red Army shot. We were better equipped in 1935 than we are now. But it will be the Germans’ greatest folly nonetheless…’

  Re
alising he had unleashed a lecture where he had wanted merely an answer, Troy ducked out when the telephone rang. His father picked up the receiver and waved to him.

  ‘Alex?’

  Beaverbrook. Again.

  ‘I thought I’d plan ahead a little this time. Winston wants to see the editors.’

  This was wishful. Most of the newspapers would send deputies and flunkies to any briefing.

  ‘I was wondering-let me add your name to the list.’

  ‘When?’ said Alex.

  ‘Tomorrow at ten. In the bunker.’

  ‘The bunker?’

  ‘Cabinet War Rooms under Storey’s Gate-you know, round the back by Horse Guard’s Parade. Now-can I add your name to the list?’

  ‘What is it the Prime Minister has to say to us?’

  ‘You won’t know that unless you turn up. What do you say?’

  ‘I’ll be there. But Max-a favour. Just put “representative of Troy

  papers”. Don’t put my name.’

  ‘Of course-it’s Winston’s show-he’d hate to be upstaged.’ Beaverbrook laughed at his own joke and hung up. Alex leafed through the pages of notes he had taken as his son talked. June 22nd. He reached for his diary, wondering what day of the week that was. A Sunday-or, as Hitler most certainly saw it, very late Saturday night. Hitler pulled all his strokes on Saturdays. He had butchered Roehm and the SA on a Saturday, he had reintroduced conscription on a Saturday, he had retaken the Rhineland on a Saturday. Perhaps he thought to catch Russia napping or ‘gone fishin’?

  § 97

  In the morning Alex shaved and dressed in a black suit with waistcoat. It must be his age. At seventy-nine, even in summer a trip out seemed to require more layers than it had a year ago. He rang for Polly the housemaid. She came, still wearing her firewatcher’s outfit from the night before.

  ‘I ‘ope this is nothing urgent. A night on the roof is about as knackering as a night on the tiles.’

  ‘No matter, child. It is my wife I seek. Would you find her and ask her to have the Crossley brought round to the front. I am going into town. And do not say “blimey”, “stroll on” or any other of your cockneyisms. I am not housebound.’