Riptide

by Lawton, John

  ‘My shirt’s ruined too!’

  ‘Couldn’t you go out in your uniform?’

  ‘No, Kitty, that’s the last thing I can do.’

  Kitty picked up the phone and asked for Stepney 315.

  ‘Vera. It’s me. I need you to do something. (pause) No – I’m at Claridge’s. (pause) No, I don’t see that that matters a toss. I’m not calling for an argy-bargy. I need something and I need it now. (pause) Of course I know you’re up to your . . . (pause) Yes, I’ll be back. (pause) Vera – for Christ’s sake, will you just bloody listen! Calvin has to see the police about Dad. He’s nothing to wear. (pause) No – don’t ask, it’d take too long. Just do it. Get that plain blue suit of Kev’s out of his wardrobe and bring it over. (pause) Well he’s not going to need it now is he? (pause) A clean white shirt an’ all. (pause) Then send Tel! I don’t care as long as somebody does it!’

  ‘I’ll swing for that silly tart one of these days. I swear I will.’

  She turned to him.

  ‘Tel’ll be over in about half an hour.’

  Tel arrived, a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip, a new swagger in his walk. The assumed posture of instant adulthood. The man of the family. He handed the suit to Cal, leant against the tallboy and flicked ash vaguely in the direction of an ashtray.

  ‘Wotcher sis.’

  ‘Wot do you think you’re playing at?’

  Cal left them to it. Ducked into the bathroom and slipped on the suit. It was a far, far better cut than his old one. It could have been made for him. It had been made for Kevin Stilton. The label over the inside pocket was that of a Savile Row bespoke tailor. Kev and Trev had, literally, spent like sailors. He sat on the edge of the bath, slipped on his shoes and surveyed himself in the looking glass. The suit was perfection. The shoes were clean and buffed – Kitty had had the foresight to stick them outside the door before they turned in for the night. They’d come back gleaming. Gleaming but regulation US Army brown, and about as fitting for this suit as his last. Blue and brown, it would have to do.

  When he emerged Tel was no longer smoking, and his left cheek bore the red imprint of Kitty’s hand. The veneer of manhood wiped from his face, a spotty, gawky seventeen-year-old once more.

  ‘You sure you know where you’re going?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Sure. Cab to that pub you and I met in, cross the road and down the alley.’

  ‘I could come with you.’

  ‘I’m better on my own.’

  She kissed him softly.

  ‘Good luck.’

  Did he need luck? The prospect, the necessity of luck had not occurred to him.

  The cab dropped him by the Salisbury in St Martin’s Lane. There were, he thought, no two things more guaranteed to make you glad to be alive than the proximity of sudden death and the dazzling light of a sunny afternoon. He found his way down Goodwin’s Court, an alleyway little wider than a path, to Troy’s front door. He hesitated a moment, wondering what his first words to Troy might be, and then reached for the knocker – rat-tat-tat.

  § 74

  Troy regretted that he had not accepted Kolankiewicz’s offer of a helping hand up to his bedroom on the first floor.

  ‘No thanks,’ he had said. ‘I think I’ll just lie here for a while. Things to think about.’

  Hours later he had awoken, stiff and sore, and mounted the stairs. Searing pain had shot through his side, he had sunk to his knees and felt one of Kolankiewicz’s carefully sewn sutures burst apart. In the morning he awoke to blood on the sheets again. It looked to be about a cupful. So what, he had thought, he lost that much shaving every week. By late afternoon he had changed his shirt twice, slapped on every inch of Elastoplast he could find and staunched the bleeding. All the same he felt weak, and dearly wished he’d put the American off for another day. He was just fiddling hopelessly with the cufflinks on his third shirt when the rat-tat-tat came at the door.

  ‘I guess it’s time we introduced ourselves,’ the American said. ‘Calvin Cormack, Captain, United States Army.’

  He stuck out his hand, a disarming smile upon his face that Troy could not but think was genuine. He did not know why it should surprise him – the openness, the friendliness of most Americans – but it always did.

  ‘Frederick Troy,’ said Troy. ‘Detective Sergeant, Scotland Yard.’

  His cuff flapped as he shook.

  ‘You having a problem with that?’

  Troy did not want to have to explain.

  ‘Arm’s a bit stiff,’ he said simply – and before he could stop him Cormack reached out and deftly threaded the cufflink, like a father teaching a twelve-year-old boy how to wear his first grown-up clothes.

  The yard was flooded in May’s sunshine. Troy beckoned him inside, propped the door open to let some of the light bounce off the wall and into the sitting room. Cormack looked around with what seemed to Troy to be a mixture of bafflement and curiosity – he looked too big for the room, as though his hair would dust the paint from the ceiling, his feet catch every obstacle and those long, long legs never prove capable of bending themselves to sit in any of the chairs. Along with their openness and friendliness went their inordinate size. Cormack plonked himself down in the chair Kitty had sat in only last night, contracted to a human size, pushed his glasses that bit further up his nose and smiled nervously. Human once more, almost Troy-sized.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ Troy asked inevitably.

  ‘Sure.’

  Troy stuck the kettle on. Its whistling would give him an excuse to get up and move when the talk lulled. He could not say why, but he had the feeling that this man and he would find little in common but their common cause and Kitty. And Kitty was you-know-what.

  ‘Cute,’ Cormack said as Troy sat down. ‘Always loved these little houses.’

  Troy found himself staring at Cormack, seeking the man Kitty had described to him: tall, six foot two or thereabouts, skinny, speccy, already losing his hair at the temples, full in the mouth, wide, fleshy lips – not the handsomest man alive . . . but comforting. An easy man to be with, a shy, gentle man, restrained, good-mannered and not particularly good between the sheets. An inexperienced lover.

  ‘And don’t you get so damn cocky. A bit of the other ain’t everything, you know.’

  Troy had said nothing. She said she felt safe with this man – enveloped, cared for, snuggled – all words she had used.

  ‘But do you love him, Kitty?’ he had asked.

  ‘Wot’s love got to do with it?’

  ‘So you don’t.’

  ‘Did I say that? God, you’re nosy when you want to be!’

  Troy had said nothing, assumed the conversation was over. Then she said, ‘But I could.’ Then, ‘Stop lookin’ at me!’ Then she threw something at him.

  ‘Kitty seems to think we have a lot in common.’

  Cormack was speaking to him. Troy was miles away. Recollecting in tranquillity.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I was saying, Kitty seems to think we have a lot in common.’

  Kitty had talked about him? To the American? Told him what? That they shared the you-know-what?

  ‘We do?’

  ‘Fathers,’ Cormack said simply, and Troy began to get the message.

  ‘Ah, I see. You’re the son of that chap who makes all the fuss about isolationism.’

  ‘And you’re the son of the guy who makes all the fuss, period.’

  Troy had to smile at this. It was undeniable. His dad had dedicated his life to stirring up trouble.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I am. But then, I am my father’s son in so many senses. In fact I get on rather well with my father.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Cormack said.

  ‘Figures,’ said Troy, and it was Cormack’s turn to smile. ‘Why don’t you just tell me what you know?’

  As Cormack told his tale, Troy found himself responding to it with a prism of feeling – to the end of the rainbow and all the way back again. He’d never understand the spooks if
he lived to be a thousand. It seemed to require a degree of patriotism he could not imagine, a faith in one nation that defied intelligence. At the same time it was the biggest lie of all – all spooks were playing parts, all spooks were liars. Who, Troy wondered, did they see when they looked in the mirror?

  Such dedication was a part of his father he did not understand. He would not level a simple charge of patriotism at his father – he would only reply with Johnson’s tart words if he did – but throughout his father’s long opposition to Stalinism he had seemed to retain an almost mystical faith – was that the word? – in the Russian people. Troy could not share that either. And as Cormack recounted the personal nature of the tragedy – the two Stilton boys blown to smithereens, old Walter himself cruelly murdered – it was impossible for his love of Kitty not to seep through. It popped every stitch and staple the man had put into controlling his feelings. Troy thought an age ago, before Christmas, so much younger then, that he too might have loved Kitty, but she had not given him the chance. Listening to the heartbreak in Cormack’s voice was like listening to a version of himself he’d sloughed off like a snake shedding skin.

  ‘What’s Stahl like?’ Troy asked.

  Cormack reached for his wallet. Pulled out a piece of shiny paper, folded in quarters, and passed it to Troy.

  ‘Walter had me do this. I talked, the artist drew. It’s not a bad likeness.’

  Troy found himself looking at the face of a mythical hero – the Wagnerian features that made up the elusive, nonsensical Aryan ideal.

  ‘I meant as a person.’

  Cormack seemed to have to mull this one over. Odd, thought Troy, it can hardly require a deal of thought.

  ‘You know,’ he said at last, ‘Walter never asked me that. I worked side by side with Walter for more than two weeks, and he never asked me that.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, would he? Walter was in the Branch. He dealt in certainties and he dealt in facts. I’m in Murder. Facts don’t kill people. People kill people.’

  ‘I met him only a few times – but I read endless letters from him. And I do mean letters, not just reports. You could say it’s a rash conclusion, reading too much between the lines, but whatever Wolfgang Stahl really was, he buried long ago. The man I knew was a man he invented. He chose the code name himself. Tin Man. Hollow. He wasn’t kidding. I think Wolf was probably a talented, considerate man. The Tin Man lacked heart. It was as though he’d taken a Bowie knife to the inside of his skull and scraped his emotions back to the bone.’

  Troy had not expected to hear his own words repeated back to him quite so soon, and quite so precisely, if at all. But this was his cue.

  ‘Let me recap. The Tin Man killed the Dutchman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You killed the German.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do you think there’s a third man at large? And that the Third Man killed Walter?’

  ‘I know what you’re saying. It doesn’t make sense. It’s . . . well, excessive. To mint a phrase, it’s overkill. But who else?’

  ‘Have you considered the possibility that the Tin Man killed Walter?’

  Clearly he hadn’t. The pain on his face was sharp as etching.

  ‘No. No. I hadn’t. Truth to tell, it doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s the saddest thought I ever had to think. Worlds have collapsed for less.’

  ‘Captain – I’m not telling you the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, I’m just reiterating what you told me. Stahl is trained in all this malarkey. As capable of breaking a man’s neck as of shooting him at close range and vice versa.’

  ‘I know. Believe me I know. It’s just that in this scenario I seem to have taken on the role of the Cowardly Lion. I guess I’m shocked. Stahl and I were on the same side. Walter and I were on the same side. Stahl was my working life. Almost my raison d’etre. And Walter Stilton was the kindest, sweetest man I ever met. Here . . .’

  Cormack dug into his inside pocket and pulled out an envelope.

  ‘See. Always the joker. Always a smile on his lips.’

  Troy took in the letter at a single glance. The note that had become Walter’s death warrant – and there at the end ‘Wot larx’.

  ‘He was always saying that. A grin as wide as the Chesapeake Bay when he said it. And I still don’t know what it means.’

  Troy did. It was the first thing that looked even remotely like a clue.

  They had talked away the day. Supped his week’s tea ration. It was still light, but it was close to nine in the evening. Troy was flagging badly. He dearly wanted an early night.

  ‘Forgive me if I don’t show you out – arm’s playing up a bit – but you’ll have no difficulty finding a cab in the Lane.’

  ‘I was thinking of taking the subway. I’ve never actually been on it.’

  ‘Underground,’ said Troy. ‘Tube at a pinch, not subway. Turn right at the end of the court and head up to Tottenham Court Road. Perfectly straightforward. Central Line. Two stops to Bond Street and you’re home. Be warned, it’ll be filling up already.’

  ‘Filling up?’

  ‘Shelterers. They tend to bag their places early. Nobody waits for it to get dark anymore.’

  ‘But there hasn’t been a raid in weeks. Not since early May.’

  ‘I doubt that Londoners think a few weeks’ respite means it’s over.’

  § 75

  Cal had always had a little difficulty with right and left. It seemed to go with eyeglasses and a generally poor co-ordination. The only two physical skills he had ever mastered were the bicycle and sexual intercourse, and he wasn’t too confident about either of those. Emerging from Goodwin’s Court, he turned left, and walked off in the direction of Trafalgar Square. Missing the subway sign he walked on – past Charing Cross railway station and down to within sight the river. He realised he was lost. Surely Troy would have mentioned crossing the river? But – there was another subway station. Its route map made no sense to him. Something from the Modernist school – a Mondrian or some such. A mass of coloured lines and precisely graded angles and countless interlocks, dozens of them, maybe even hundreds. He asked at the ticket booth.

  ‘Bond Street, guvner? You want the Bakerloo. Change at Oxford Circus.’

  Bakerloo. That was easy. It was what you got when you married Waterloo to Baker Street. But he could have sworn Troy said Central – and he certainly hadn’t mentioned any changes.

  The depth was startling. Washington had no subway. New York’s ran in trenches just below the surface, bolted to the Manhattan bedrock. This system required two escalators to take you down to an oppressively narrow tunnel, from which the train emerged as closely fitted as a cork in a bottle. He took a northbound train, sat in a completely empty car – he’d never seen a padded cell, but this could well resemble one – and stared at the map above the long row of seats. The train pulled into Trafalgar Square. He’d just about got the hang of it now. He’d found Bond Street on the map, though he still wasn’t wholly sure where he had gone wrong. A man got in – black hat, black suit – and sat opposite Cal, clutching a folded newspaper. Cal gave him the merest glance – the English were not inclined to impromptu chats with strangers – and went back to the map – still looking for the proof of his own error – how had he managed to miss a string of words as long as Tottenham, Court and Road?

  The man took off his hat, Cal’s eyes drawn back to him by the gesture. Bald at the forehead and crown. Black hair turning salt and pepper. A small black moustache, and pale, steely – he thought the cliché insisted – blue eyes. It was Stahl. Stahl with his hair carefully shaved and dyed. He would never have known him but for the intensity of the gaze. Aimed at him like gun barrels. He should have guessed. Of course he would have changed his appearance. The police sketch looked nothing like him – it looked like ‘Peter Robinson’.

  ‘Wolf?’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Calvin,’ said an accented Mitteleuropean voice.

  ‘I . . . I . . . don’t know what
to say.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should listen instead. There is, after all, so much at stake.’

  Cal started forward for no reason he could think of, got up from his seat half standing. Stahl waved him back down with the folded newspaper, like a gunsel sticking a gun out through the fabric of his coat pocket. At once both hammy and effective.

  ‘You’re not carrying a gun, are you, Calvin?’

  Cal sat back in the seat, felt his bottom bump against it sharply.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not. I’m kind of off guns at the moment. Do you really need a gun? You didn’t seem to need one when you killed Smulders.’

  ‘Was that his name? No – a gun would have brought heaven and hell down about my ears. However, as you will observe, we are a hundred feet under London and quite alone.’

  ‘You surely don’t think you have anything to fear from me?’

  ‘No. Of course not. Just your willingness to panic.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you just come in?’

  ‘Who was I to trust? I had been safe in Berlin until someone gave me away. Someone on our side. That’s a very limited number of people.’

  ‘You mean you thought it was me?’

  ‘I didn’t know who it was, hence I suspected everyone and trusted no one.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  ‘Stilton.’

  ‘Walter? You met Walter?’

  ‘Stilton was beyond suspicion. He knew so little, after all. An honest copper, as the English are so fond of deluding themselves. Stilton convinced me you were innocent. An innocent, to be precise. “The lad’s guileless, could no more fib than George Washington and the cherry tree.” Said you couldn’t even keep your affair with his daughter a secret. Lies showed in your face like etching in glass.’

  Cal felt he must be blushing deeper than bortsch. Was this what Walter really thought of him? Had Walter known everything?

  ‘Walter knew about me and Kitty?’

  ‘Calvin – I knew about you and Kitty. I watched her park her motorbike in Brook Street night after night. I should think the whole of Claridge’s staff knew about you and Kitty.’