Riptide

by Lawton, John

  At the top he thought he could hear a faint moaning. Nothing else but the elements. The glare of overhead light bursting from the office into the black pit of the stairwell. He looked into the first room. The naked lightbulb swinging gently at the end of its cord like a hanged man twisting on the gibbet – a black-coated man was slumped against the far wall with blood congealing on his head. A revolver on the floor in front of him. One huge hand spread across the cracked linoleum as though performing a five-finger exercise. Troy bent down and lifted the man’s head. The wound was just above the left ear. It looked like a gunshot, but it was superficial – the bullet had simply stripped the skin, scraped the bone and glanced off. Troy touched the face, smeared away the blood gathering in the left eyebrow with the ball of his thumb, felt and saw the scar above the eye. He looked like Wolfgang Stahl. The pianist’s hands, the duellist’s scar. Was he Wolfgang Stahl? He ought to be Wolfgang Stahl. It had better be Wolfgang Stahl – it would be so handy if he were. But what was he doing here? And who had shot him? More importantly, who was moaning if Stahl was not? And he heard the door swing to on unoiled hinges and turned to see another man, clutching a bloody wound to his stomach, easing himself off the wall behind the door.

  Troy did what he thought any intelligent person should do when confronted by a man pointing a gun at him – he raised his hands. The man was struggling to find words. He’d lost a lot of blood – it ran between his fingers, soaked into his overcoat and dripped to the floor. He could scarcely point the gun steadily. A small .35 automatic wavered between Troy’s chest and the wall. He ran through his list of handy mnemonics, watching the face dip in and out of light and shadow as the light bulb swung back and forth, wondering which one was this, which of all those bewildering American faces Cal had pointed out to him was this. Raymond Massey, it was Raymond Massey.

  ‘Put down the gun, Colonel Reininger,’ Troy said, putting his faith in the clichés of the job. ‘It’s all over.’

  It was. Reininger coughed blood and collapsed. A bloody, silent mess in the corner. Troy slowly lowered his hands, wondering all the time if the gun were not suddenly going to jerk upwards in his hand and fire off one last shot. He took a few steps forward, kicked the gun from Reininger’s hand and breathed again. But he could still hear the moaning. He pushed at the door to the inner office. Cormack sat roped to a metal chair, black canvas gaffer tape across his mouth. And he was not moaning – he was grunting with all the force he could muster until his eyes almost popped.

  Troy tore off the gaffer tape, started on the ropes, and Cormack began to gabble.

  ‘Troy – where the fuck have you been?’

  And gabble.

  ‘Half an hour? Jesus Christ!’

  And gabble.

  ‘Reininger was waiting for me when I got here. Stuck a gun in my ribs and then sapped me with the butt. I must have been out for a minute or two. When I came round he already had me trussed up like a turkey. He stood behind the door and waited, then I saw the door open and expected to see you walk in and get shot. It was Stahl! Jesus Christ it was Stahl! He didn’t even have to look. He shot Frank through the door at point-blank range, but when he stepped past it there was more firing – then the draughts caught this door and I couldn’t see any more. Tell me, for Chrissake tell me. Stahl’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘No – he’s out cold, but it’s just a graze. Reininger’s in a bad way, though.’

  Troy undid the last knot. Cormack leapt to his feet and said again, ‘Troy – where the fuck have you been?’

  Troy watched his eyes roll up in his skull, his legs buckle and his head hit the floor. He knelt down. The draught caught the door again and banged it shut. Troy let Cormack’s head loll against his hand – two bumps now instead of one – reassuringly warm, a pulse beating steadily, solidly in the neck. He’d fainted. The eyelids flickered, his lips opened, the merest of moans. Then the blast of a gun set the door shaking, swinging inward on its creaking hinges. Kitty stood framed in the doorway, head down, arm outstretched, a smoking revolver aimed steadily at the corner.

  Troy crossed the room hoping she wasn’t completely mad, that she knew who he was and would not simply turn the gun on him. She kept her gaze and her aim fixed. He looked at Reininger, lifeless in the corner, blood pouring down his face from the hole in his head. He looked at Kitty, blank and glassy-eyed.

  ‘Kitty,’ Troy said softly. ‘Give me the gun.’

  Kitty seemed not to hear him.

  ‘Just give me the gun, Kitty.’

  It was as though a light had gone on behind her eyes. A flash of attention. Suddenly she was looking at Troy, hearing him, the crazy stare gone from her face. She lowered the gun to her side.

  ‘Nah. I don’t think I’d better. You’re not wearing gloves.’

  In the distance, faint as a whisper, Troy could hear the bells of a police squad car.

  ‘Give me the gun Kitty. We haven’t got a lot of time. We’ll need it to think up a story.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You go.’

  ‘Go?’

  ‘There’ll be shit for this. You mark my words, Fred. They’ll want someone. Heads’ll have to roll for a cock-up like this. They’ll suspend us, bust us back to constables. Might as well be me. I’ll never be more than a sergeant. Never thought I would. You – you’re a hot tip to be Met Commissioner one day. There’s blokes at Bow Street running a book on you. Don’t disappoint ’em. Nip down the alley while you can.’

  She bent down. Pressed the gun into Stahl’s hand. It all looked so neat, so plausible. The grieving daughter on the trail of her father’s killer, arrives a moment too late to see rough justice done.

  ‘Cal’s all right, isn’t he? I mean he’s alive, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s in the next room. A nasty lump on his head, but, yes, he’ll live.’

  ‘Then you’d better scarper.’

  The bells of the police car rang louder now – at the most they could be only two or three streets away. The nearest nick was Millwall – if they came from the south they’d miss his car completely. If he stuck to the alleyways, they’d miss him too. Troy threw open the window to the fire escape, took a last look at Kitty, Kitty smiling faintly at him, Kitty among the carnage of a bloody night, and vanished into the dark and pouring rain.

  § 83

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to lock you up.’ Cal relished the contrast. The first bobbies on the scene had burst in, truncheons up, yelling ‘Nobody move!’

  Kitty was binding up the wound on Stahl’s head with strips she’d torn from her petticoat, like the solitary female in a John Ford western when the wagons have circled. She’d already licked her handkerchief and washed his face like a mother cat. Cal had never felt his wagons more circled.

  ‘Nobody is moving, you berk,’ she’d said. ‘Get on yer wireless and call an ambulance.’

  Then they’d noticed the bloody heap that had been Reininger.

  One dashed back to the squad car. The other stood and said ‘Jesus Christ’ over and over again, until Kitty said, ‘You don’t know what to do, do you?’

  The ambulance arrived only minutes before a second squad car. They were loading Stahl onto a stretcher when two more cops walked in, a man in his late thirties and a younger one, younger even than Troy, who ran to the stairs and vomited at the sight of Reininger. Over the sound of his retching, the older man said, ‘Miss Stilton, isn’t it? Inspector Henrey, Murder Squad’ – and turning to Cal – ‘And you are?’

  Cal told him, made the briefest of explanations, then Henrey said, ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to lock you up.’

  § 84

  Cal told him a version of everything – everything except Troy’s part in it all. They sat in an office at Scotland Yard until it was nearly light. When Henrey asked him how ‘Miss Stilton’, as he insisted on calling Kitty, came to be at ‘the scene of the crime’, he was able to give his first wholly honest answer, ‘I don’t kno
w.’ Eventually Henrey said ‘Is there anyone at the embassy I should contact in connection with this?’ Cal said ‘I don’t know’ again, and then Henrey really did lock him up and he crashed like a felled redwood.

  It was a different regime. In the morning they brought him a bowl of warm water, a razor and a cup of tea, then they brought him breakfast of toast with butter and that shredded orange jelly the English were so fond of and then, when he asked for coffee, they brought him coffee. Afterwards he lay on the cot all morning reading The Times and the Manchester Guardian – Scotland Yard could not runtoacopyof the Herald-Tribune. The Luftwaffe had bombed Dublin last night. The first raid in weeks and they’d missed by miles. He was beginning to think he could spend the rest of his life in jail and let the war go to hell above his head, they could let him out in six or seven years – in the meantime he could finish Moby Dick – never had managed that feat as a teenager – when the door opened and another, completely different cop strode in, shook his hand, introduced himself as Major Something-or-other ‘of the Branch’, and said, ‘I contacted your man as soon as I heard.’

  ‘My man?’ said Cal. ‘Who the heck is my man?’

  ‘I am, old boy!’

  And Reggie Ruthven-Greene stuck his head round the door.

  § 85

  On the way out Cal caught sight of Kitty. He wanted to stop and talk to her. He wanted to stop and put his arms around her, but she was being escorted – steered – across the courtyard by two policemen.

  Out on the Embankment Reggie had his hand up for a cab.

  ‘Where are we going, Reggie?’

  A cab pulled up.

  ‘I rather thought after a night in jail that you’d fancy a spot of lunch.’ Then he opened the door for Cal, leaned down to the cabman and said ‘Dorchester’.

  After a sodden night the day had cleared beautifully, the sun shone. It was, Cal realised, the 1st of June and the prospect of summer preoccupied Reggie’s chat inanely all the way to Park Lane. There were questions Cal would have put to Reggie, but he knew he’d never answer them in the back of a cab.

  ‘My treat,’ Reggie said, as they were seated at the Dorchester. ‘Do you know, one can still get Krug ’20 here. Amazing, isn’t it?’

  Cal’s heart sank. He’d known as soon as he heard the word Dorchester that Reggie meant to splash out – but champagne? It was dry sherry and smoked salmon among the ruins all over again.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Reggie asked over the top of the menu.

  ‘Don’t wait for me,’ Cal said.

  Reggie rattled off his order. ‘I think . . . yes . . . the foie gras, the Dover sole, the roast pigeon and a nice garlicky salad . . . and a bottle of Krug ’20.’

  He looked at Cal. Cal looked at the waiter.

  ‘Do you have any Brown Windsor soup?’

  The waiter looked nonplussed. ‘Brown Windsor, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Brown Windsor. This is England. We are in a restaurant. We are in a restaurant in England. You must have Brown Windsor.’

  ‘Would you give us a minute,’ Reggie said to the waiter. To Cal, he said, ‘There’s something wrong?’

  ‘There’s everything wrong. There’s a fucking war on.’

  Reggie looked quickly around. ‘If we’re going to have a swearing contest, could you keep your voice down?’

  ‘Reggie, if you don’t stop talking about the weather, and ordering vintage champagne and goose liver and pretending there isn’t a fucking war on, I’ll run the entire gamut of obscenity. Tell me what the fuck is going on. So far, all you’ve done since I got to England is string me out with more tall tales and half-truths than Fibber McGee.’

  Reggie did not look crestfallen or apologetic. He looked cornered. The waiter chose this moment to return.

  ‘We’ve changed our minds,’ Cal said to him. ‘Brown Windsor for two, and we’ll save the champagne for another time.’ And to Reggie, ‘Do I have your attention now?’

  ‘It was meant as a treat for you. An apology, if you like.’

  ‘An apology for dumping me?’

  Reggie nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Reggie, you can’t apologise enough for that. While you were gone four men died. Reggie, you can’t buy me off by spending a week’s wages for the average Londoner on an off-theration meal that makes me feel I’m cheating the English – that makes me feel any Englishman with money cheats his fellow English. For fuck’s sake, Reggie, looking around this room, would you even know there’s a war on? Do you think these people know what’s in a Woolton pie? Have you ever had to eat Woolton pie?’

  ‘Like humble pie, is it?’

  ‘Yes – that’s exactly what it’s like. The self-imposed humility of the English as they tighten their belts and pull together. Now – why don’t you tighten your conscience and tell me the truth? And the truth is that you dumped me on Walter Stilton when you got a crack at Hess. It was Hess, wasn’t it? Don’t answer. I know. Hess was a bigger fish than Stahl. Hess knows almost as much as Hitler. So you grilled Hess and got what you wanted and now you don’t need Stahl. So here I am, four dead men later, being kissed off in a classy restaurant with a bottle of Krug ’20. Reggie – fuck you.’

  ‘No,’ said Reggie.

  ‘No? No what?’

  ‘No, I didn’t get what I wanted out of Hess. In fact, as you might put it, I got fuck all. That’s why I’m back. We need Stahl. We really do need Stahl.’

  The waiter brought two bowls of Brown Windsor. Cal was not partial to it, but he was damn certain Reggie hated it, and if the only way to ensure Reggie ate it was to eat it himself – and if they were going to work together again, destroying his taste buds was about the least penance Reggie could do – then so be it. He picked up his napkin and said, ‘Tuck in, you sonovabitch.’

  Reggie pulled a face as though he were sucking on a ripe lemon. When they’d both finished the course in silence, Cal summoned the waiter and told him his friend would have seconds. Cal let him get halfway through it and said, ‘Stahl.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Reggie. ‘Stahl.’

  ‘Where’ve you got him?’

  ‘Got him’ isn’t quite the phrase. He’s not a POW. He’s in a private room at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital on Millbank. In fact, he’s got rather a nice view of the river.’

  ‘A fine bullshit, Reggie. You mean you don’t have half a dozen of your guys guarding the door?’

  ‘Well, of course he’s guarded – a couple of London bobbies, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘And how is Stahl?’

  ‘Came round late last night. He was in the London Hospital in the East End then. I had him moved this morning, just before I came to see you. I haven’t seen him, but I gather he’s going to be fine. Nothing more than mild concussion. A couple of stitches to the scalp and an aspirin.’

  ‘Asking for me?’

  Reggie sucked on the lemon.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Will you come, or do I have to suffer three helpings of this Cherry Blossom boot polish gruel?’

  § 86

  Stahl rubbed the side of his head. He could feel the ridge of torn, stitched flesh beneath the dressing. It was his own fault. Whoever the man behind the door was, he should have kept firing bullets into him till he heard the body fall. He must have been tall – Stahl had been aiming for his heart, and his last memory was of seeing a blurred figure clutching his belly with one hand and a gun with the other. Then the night went green, and green became black. The black became light and light was day and nurses with incomprehensible London accents were chattering at him. And a young British bobby, so cleanly shaven his skin shone pink as a washed baby, called him sir and asked if he felt ‘OK’. An hour or so later a doctor had examined him – speaking to him all the time in fluent if accented German – and had pronounced him fit to travel. Then they’d bundled him into an ambulance, driven him, he thought, three or four miles across London and put him here – in his own room, in a hospital that must be the preserve of some sort of ruling class. It remin
ded him of those he had had access to in Berlin, where party members could be pampered back to good health.

  A new doctor examined his wound, then said, ‘I never thought I’d see the day I’d be treating a German here.’

  ‘Austrian,’ said Stahl, the first word he had spoken.

  ‘Difference is there?’

  ‘What do you think the Anschluss was? A day trip?’

  This had shut the man up – and Stahl had not privileged him with the truth, that he had been in the Führer’s entourage as they swept into Austria and that his people – Stahl’s as well as Hitler’s – had lined the streets and cheered and cheered at their own conquest. Days later, in Vienna, when the new regime had begun to make its mark, he found Storm Troopers standing over a group of Jews in the street. They were scrubbing the paving stones with brushes. Other Austrians stood around and watched. Stahl had looked for faces he knew among the crowd and found none. Then one of the Jews had looked up from the gutter and he and Stahl had recognised one another.

  Now, Stahl looked up and recognised Captain Cormack.

  ‘I must be slipping. I didn’t hear you come in.’