Riptide

by Lawton, John

  ‘You mean you want another Lusitania?’

  Gelbroaster shrugged. ‘Something quicker, I’d hope. Took two years to get us into the war after the Lusitania. Something less drastic would do. We may not get that lucky of course.’

  ‘You know,’ said Cal, ‘I was getting ready to write to my father and tell him he’s nuts.’

  ‘ You’ll be able to tell him in person. We can’t use this information publicly, you understand – but privately . . . well, your father’s career is over. If he so much as mutters that he’s thinking of running for any other office but the one he’s got, then someone will show him an FBI file and he’ll be quietly told to stand down. He’s an ambitious man, but any dreams he might have had of running for president in five or ten years . . .’

  Gelbroaster didn’t bother to end the sentence. They both knew how it ended.

  ‘Why not?’ said Cal. ‘Why not reveal the names, just publish and be damned?’

  ‘Son, I was with Joe Kennedy when he picked up a paper knife and broke the lock on the Red Book – now do you know what that is?’

  ‘No – I don’t.’

  ‘It’s the membership list of the British Right Club. Bunch of Jew-baiting Anglo-Nazis. We got hold of it last year. The Right Club gave it to Tyler Kent, thinking diplomatic immunity was eternal. When MI5 blew the whistle on Kent we busted him and Joe busted thebook.Itreadlikea Who’s Who – members of parliament, dukes and earls – would you believe the Marquis of Graham, Lord Redesdale, the Duke of goddam Wellington? Publish and be damned is just about right. The effects would have been crushing on British morale if we’d let any of that out. Even Kennedy could see that. He threw Kent to the wolves and high-tailed it out of here before the next bomb could fall. The same’s true back home. We have our own morale to sustain. We’re going to war – it might last another two years or another ten. The press would be deadly – better by far to know who’s rotten in the barrel and let ’em know you know.’

  ‘And the British still want me to go back to Washington? To the same city my father lives in? And they still expect me to tell no-one?’

  ‘I expect you to tell no-one. And I didn’t say it was logical. That’s too much to ask of the British at the best of times, and this is one of the worst. Besides, we have our secrets too. The British will never know how far the Bund penetrated into the Army or the Capitol.’

  ‘It’s still crazy. I’m a safer bet right here. In London.’

  ‘But you’re going home, all the same. First flight we can get you on.’

  Cal knew he had lost. They lapsed into silence. Gelbroaster retrieved his cigar and lit up. For a minute or more all Cal could hear was the puffing and lip-smacking of the smoker’s ritual.

  ‘How long do I have? I mean, there are one or two things I have to do. Things I have to sort out.’

  ‘Three or four days. There’s a log jam of people trying to get out to Lisbon, but we’ll bump you up the list.’

  Gelbroaster got up to leave. Dirty work done.

  ‘I want you to know that I personally could not be more grateful to you.’

  He was heading for the door now, the last remark all but thrown over his shoulder. Too casual to be literal. ‘If there’s anything you need, anything at all . . .’

  ‘There is one thing,’ said Cal, being as literal as he could.

  Gelbroaster turned back to him. Clearly he’d not expected Cal to want anything quite so soon.

  § 94

  Troy was having a lazy day. There was a brilliant June sun in the sky, after yesterday’s unseasonal cold. He had been up to the urban ‘farm’ at Seven Dials, where a bloke he knew kept goats and hens not spitting distance from Shaftesbury Avenue’s theatres, and had haggled for half a dozen eggs. He offered to tip the nod to the local beat bobby to keep a close eye on the ‘farm’ at night and came away with four hen and two goose. Enough to let him indulge in a three-egg scramble for late breakfast, or was it early lunch? It was corruption, of course, but after what he’d been through lately it troubled that near-dormant organ, his conscience, not one whit. Besides, he’d paid more than twice the pre-war price.

  The first egg fell into the pan and rose up proud as an orange jelly, a thick mass of albumen orbiting it as precisely as the rings of Saturn. He’d not seen an egg this fresh for the best part of a year. It seemed almost a shame to scramble it but scramble it he did – on toast with the meagre scraping of his butter ration.

  Then he put a dining chair out in the courtyard, aimed it at the sun, and read in the western light of a London summer’s afternoon.

  The Times ran an obituary for the late Kaiser. Troy glanced at it with a ‘so what?’ running through his mind. He was not, he realised, much in the mood for news, even the last word on a man not much heard of these twenty years. He was in the mood for fiction. He tried Ulysses by James Joyce, loved the opening bit about the fat bloke shaving – he always did – but then he sort of got lost – he always did. Then he picked up The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West and had read twenty pages before he realised he had read it before. At last he settled upon The Professor by Rex Warner – a book Rod had given him about the time of the Munich crisis. Dirty deeds in one of those Continental republics cobbled together at the Treaty of Versailles. Rod was forever giving him books. Rod read new books. Rod read topical books. Rod loved the idea of authors – he was forever saying he’d met ‘so and so’ at a ‘do’. This appeared to be the tale of one Professor A. Oh no, thought Troy, not initials, not like that bugger Kafka with his K bloke? He wasn’t sure about this, but he read on and was still happily engrossed an hour later when he heard Onions, police boots sparking on the cobbles, lumbering down the yard from St Martin’s Lane.

  ‘Starting a library, are we?’ Stan said, eyeing the pile of half a dozen books next to the chair. Stan read little, if at all. Half a dozen probably was a library to him.

  ‘Just passing the time,’ Troy replied.

  ‘Wound giving you gyp?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Troy.

  ‘You’ve not been out much then?’

  Troy saw the trap for what it was and decided not to answer. He got up, stuck The Professor on his chair and said ‘I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  Stan followed him inside.

  ‘Don’t bother for me. I don’t want to use up your ration.’

  ‘Well – perhaps a belt of something a bit stronger then?’

  The sofa groaned as Onions lowered his bulk onto it. He was sweating. Suit, tie, as well as the regulation-issue boots.

  ‘Not for me. Still on duty.’

  Troy sat opposite Stan and said nothing, waiting for Stan to speak his piece. What could bring Stan round in duty hours in the middle of the week? As if he couldn’t guess.

  ‘You’ll have heard by now, I suppose. We caught the bloke as killed old Stinker Stilton.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Troy.

  ‘Someone been round, have they?’

  ‘Kolankiewicz. He mentioned that you’d caught someone. Didn’t seem to know much more.’

  ‘I see. I thought ’appen it was George Bonham. All took place on his patch, ye see. I wonder about you and that mad Pole sometimes. I suppose it’s summat to do with coming from abroad.’

  Troy ignored this.

  ‘On George’s patch, you said?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Down by Tallow Dock. It turned out to be an American from their embassy. Would you believe, young Kitty and Captain Cormack cornered the bugger and some German old Walter had been chasing, and the German shot him dead. Quite a mess by all accounts. Like something out of Dodge City. Enough guns to kit out the Seventh Cavalry.’

  ‘Well,’ said Troy. ‘Tallow Dock’s a quiet place for a shoot-out.’

  ‘Not quiet enough. Someone heard the shots and dialled 999.A squad car answered the call. When they saw the mess they called Murder, and Tom took the case.’

  Tom Henrey was Troy’s immediate superior, an inspector, between him and Stan in the pecking order. A hard-wor
king, unimaginative copper.

  ‘Of course as soon as word got round, the Branch steamed in and took over.’

  ‘Not Nailer again?’ said Troy.

  ‘No – Dennis Crawley took this one in person. But once Tom had set the routine wheels in motion, they sort of trundled on without him, and twenty-four hours later the reports from the local beat bobbies on the night’s activities landed on his desk. I took a gander.’

  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’sbooksat bedtime – No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms and S.J. 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 skin 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.