by John Lawton
§148
As soon as Troy had opened the door, Milos Danko punched him in the belly so hard he doubled up and passed out. Hitting the floor brought him round sharply to find Jan and Jiri yanking him to his feet.
They sat him on the piano stool. One of them ripped off his overcoat and jacket, the other his shoes. Danko was looking down at him. Troy was wondering why they wanted his shoes. When Danko stamped on his feet he found out why. It was all he could manage not to scream.
As Troy fought for breath, Danko stripped off his own jacket and handed it to Jan or Jiri, then the shoulder holster and the Tokarev TT-33 followed. Then he rolled up his sleeves, the barrel chest and knotted biceps bulging beneath the shirt.
Danko turned and snapped out something incomprehensible to his men. They sat in armchairs by the gramophone. One of them screwed a silencer into the barrel of Danko’s Tokarev, the other rummaged almost idly among a pile of magazines, pulled out a Picture Post and began to thumb through it. The relaxed nature of it all struck Troy as ominous—a matter so routine, and their routine was violence and murder. He remembered what MI5 had told him—Danko had been SS Einsatzgruppen. A Jew killer. Before the Germans had gas chambers they had men like Danko.
“So, funny man . . . round two, eh?”
Troy said nothing.
Danko said, “Who killed André Skolnik?”
“I don’t know,” Troy lied.
“Wrong answer, Troy.”
He stamped on Troy’s toes again. Watched the pain write itself across his face.
“Every lie will hurt you more.”
Danko stretched out his right hand and snapped his fingers. The one not engrossed in Picture Post slapped a folded document into his hand. Danko unfolded it so Troy could see. It was Kolankiewicz’s report on the death of André Skolnik.
“You been playing clever dick, Troy. You see this?”
Troy thought it wise to nod.
“This says Skolnik was killed with a .15 gun.”
“That’s right,” Troy said. “He was.”
Danko shot out his left hand, almost without looking, and picked up the Fabergé pistol off the top of the piano. Troy had almost forgotten about the Fabergé pistol. He’d dumped it in the glove drawer of the hat stand by his front door the day he got it back from Churchill and had not looked at it since.
“And in your glove box, what do I find? A .15 automatic.”
“I picked it up not six feet from where Skolnik was killed.”
The next blow took him right off the piano stool and over the back. A punch to the sternum Troy felt sure had stopped his heart, but the pain and the nausea as Danko’s boot rammed into his belly proved to him that he was very much alive.
He vomited.
Danko hauled him back up again.
When his head cleared he looked up. Danko was waving away the smell with the palm of his hand. Through the puke, Troy tasted blood, felt it dripping from his mouth and onto his shirt.
“Every time you lie to me, I hit you? Capisce?”
Troy nodded.
“Now, funny man . . . if you found this gun—”
Danko held it up to him as though demonstrating something to a particularly dim child.
“. . . On the Underground . . . why is it not mentioned in this?”
He waved Kolankiewicz’s report under Troy’s nose, slammed the pistol down on the top of the piano.
“I took it to forensics. The day after. They measured the calibre of the bullet that killed Skolnik. Said they could do nothing with a gun that size. There were no tests they could perform. So I took the gun to a specialist. Because they had not logged the gun, because they made no tests, they kept no record.”
This time Danko held Troy by the shoulder while he hit him, and saved himself the trouble of picking him up off the floor.
“You know, funny man, I am . . . how you say . . . a perfectioner . . . I hate loose ends. Now . . . I know you killed Skolnik. You were just too dumb to get rid of the gun. And I think you killed Rosen. Only this time you had to make it look like suicide, so you left the gun by the body. But . . . like I say . . . I am a perfectioner . . . I don’t like to think, I like to know. And before you die, you will tell me what I need to hear. Believe me, Troy, you will tell me.”
“Why,” said Troy, “would I kill Skolnik?”
“You killed Skolnik because MI5 ask you to.”
“Why wouldn’t they do it themselves?”
“It’s well known . . . you policemen are the foot soldiers of MI5 in England.”
“And why would they want Skolnik killed?”
“Let’s not be stupid.”
The hand gripped his shoulder once more and Troy braced himself for the blow, then felt the life sucked out of him.
A few moments of Czech babble, then Troy managed to say, “I know this may sound just as stupid, but I do have an alibi for the time Skolnik was killed.”
“Sure,” said Danko. “Let’s hear it.”
“I was meeting my accountant.”
Danko hooted with laughter. This set the other two off and neither of them had a clue what Troy had said.
“Meeting your accountant? Troy, you been a cop far too long.”
Another snap of the fingers and Jan or Jiri slapped the silenced Tokarev into Danko’s hand and the other one stopped looking at the pictures in Picture Post and fitted a silencer to his own gun.
“The truth will set you free,” Danko said.
For some reason, the cliché made Troy smile, and Troy smiling made Danko mad. He hit Troy with his free hand and as his other hand held the Tokarev, Troy was knocked right off the piano stool and came to rest doubled up, one arm twisted behind his back and the other stretched out under the piano, his face towards the window.
A shadow passed across the glass.
Troy remembered the exchange of looks between Jan and Jiri the day they had bagged him in St James’ Park, the way their eyes seemed to be focused on something behind him—and he realized what he had only half registered . . . that there had been a fourth man in the park. And he was outside now, on lookout, pacing the alley from one end to the other.
The pain in his neck was bad. He twisted it, looked up. The third man was now fitting a silencer. Good God, how many outsized thugs did it take to kill one small Englishman?
He looked away. Rolled onto his right side. Danko was jabbering at the other two and made no move to pick him up. Troy found himself staring into the accumulated dust and fluff of negligent housework beneath the piano. Up against the wall was something metallic. The Fabergé-style corkscrew that his Dad had given him. He’d not seen it since the night Voytek had come to dinner. He’d been looking for it, but not under the piano. It must have fallen off the top, slipped down between the wall and the piano, and come to rest here. If he lived through this he’d really have to be more houseproud or get a cleaner. The corkscrew was in two pieces—a short, sturdy metal bar, and a spiral thread ending in a large loop that took the metal bar. Troy slipped the largest finger of his right hand into the loop, rather like putting on a wedding ring, and closed his fist. It left something resembling a narwhal’s tusk sticking out. Spirally and pointy and sharp. Troy could see only one disadvantage in the present opportunity. He was left-handed. If he meant to kill this bugger, he’d have to do it with his right.
Danko hauled him to his feet again.
The Tokarev hung loosely at his side in his right hand.
Troy kept his right just out of sight behind his backside.
Danko had him by the shirtfront with his left hand and drew him closer. Troy was at eye level with the face full of scars.
“I’m going to kill you, Troy. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll shoot you quick and clean. If you don’t, I can make this last all night. Now, why not spare yourself the pain and die with a clear conscience?”
So saying, he let go of Troy, gave him a little push that seemed to Troy to be just the elbow room he needed.
&nb
sp; “I ask you one more time . . .”
Troy punched him in the left eye with the corkscrew, felt the bone at the back of the eye socket shatter.
Jan and Jiri jerked as though he’d stung them and reached for their guns, but Troy had wrapped his left hand around Danko’s right, turned the Tokarev horizontal and squeezed the trigger. Two apiece—back and forth in a split second—one to the heart—one to the head.
Danko sank to his knees. His face was twitching and his hands had gone limp. Troy pulled the gun free and aimed across the room—but they were dead, sprawled in their chairs, pooled in blood, still clutching their guns, a mess of bone and brain on the wall behind them.
Danko moaned, Danko twitched.
Troy pulled back but could not work the corkscrew free from Danko, nor could he work his hand free from the corkscrew.
He put the tip of the silencer to Danko’s eye, the barrel parallel to the corkscrew, tilted his own head back as far as he could, and fired. The back of Danko’s skull flew apart and the corkscrew came away. Troy shook the bloody, grey mess off the end and worked his finger out.
He looked for the shadow on the window.
None passed.
He opened the door.
It was in the nature of the gas lamps lighting Goodwin’s Court that only half of them could be guaranteed to work at any given time. Tonight the one outside his door was out, as was the one at the western end of the court—the one outside Giovanni’s restaurant cast its halo in the yellow smog, and the one beyond the eastern archway, atop its post in Bedfordbury, was no more than a distant glow.
At the western end there were noises.
He put the gun in his right hand to feel his way along the wall with his left. Shoeless and silent, damp seeping into his socks.
At the kink in the alley, where it bent to exit into St. Martin’s Lane, a hunched figure seemed to have his back to him.
The man would speak no English, and the gun would speak more clearly than Esperanto. Troy put the muzzle of the gun to the back of his neck.
“What the fuck? Who the bleedin’ hell . . .”
He turned around, saw the gun. Ruby unwrapped her legs from around his waist and opened her mouth to scream. Troy clapped his free hand across her mouth and the man legged it, cock out, flies flapping.
Troy eased his hand down.
She was whispering now. Her eyes looking straight into his.
“I was givin’ him a knee-trembler. You just cost me a fare, you stupid . . .”
Troy put his hand across her mouth again, his mouth to her ear.
“There’s a bloke patrolling the alley. Where is he?”
He took his hand away. She whispered in his ear.
“He’s up the other end, in Bedfordbury. Troy, what the hell is going on?”
He shut her up again. Whispered, “Don’t move,” and flipped the magazine out of the Tokarev. One shot left. He should have picked up one of the other guns. Now he couldn’t afford to miss.
He reached a point between the two lamps without seeing anything. With the lamp at Giovanni’s behind him, the best he could be to the other bloke was an outline. He stopped at the archway, praying for the swirls of smog to open up and give him a pocket of light.
A cigarette lighter flashed in the street. The smog parted a second later, opening up like the iris on a camera, and the head of a man lighting up appeared disembodied. He drew on the fag, exhaled once, and turned. The pocket of light grew, the smog in the archway snaked away as though blown by the gods, and before the Czech could take in the shoeless, bloody man pointing the gun, Troy had shot him through the forehead.
He was as big as Danko and a dead weight. Pulling on one leg hardly moved him.
Troy heard breathing behind him.
Ruby stood, a torrent of tears streaming down her face, her fingers stuffed into her mouth to stifle her sobs.
“Don’t just stand there. Give me a hand.”
Together they dragged the body as far as Troy’s house, across the threshold, and into the sitting room.
As Ruby stood, Troy got between her and the bodies.
She muttered “Jesus Christ,” and slumped against him, her head buried in his shirt.
“Don’t look.”
“I wasn’t gonna.”
She sobbed for what seemed to Troy like minutes, then she pulled herself up, kept her eyes on his, and said, “I suppose you’re going to tell me this is your job, right?”
“Ruby, they came here to kill me.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
Troy fished in his trouser pocket, found a couple of pound notes, stuck them in her hand, wrapped her fingers around them into a fist.
“Find a cab. Go home. Tell no one.”
And for once she did as she was told.
§149
Everything cost him. Getting upstairs winded him. Getting out of his bloody clothes drained him to the point where he had to lie on the floor for five minutes and get his strength back. Pissing felt as though it should only be done under anaesthetic.
Washing revived him. He dressed with his breathing and pulse hammering down towards normal. He looked in the mirror. He’d a sizeable bruise coming up on one cheek. They’d none of them hit him in the face. Perhaps it was impossible to own up with a broken jaw? He must have hit the floor harder than he thought.
He phoned Jordan at home.
“Do you remember during the war you chaps had what Walter Stilton used to call the bin men?”
“You mean cleaners? We still have them.”
“Get a team over to my house as soon as you can. I’ve a bit of a mess needs cleaning up.”
“A bit of a mess?”
“Well . . . a hell of a mess really.”
“I don’t suppose you could . . .”
“The Czechs bounced.”
“Oh, bugger. Troy, give me half an hour. Okay? Half an hour. Now, how many Czechs bounced.”
“Four.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Twenty-five minutes later, the telephone rang and Troy picked it up and said simply, “Jordan?”
“No. Is Voytek. Is you Troy?”
Troy fumbled, could think of nothing to say even as obvious as “yes.”
“Troy. Help me. I cannot go home. I have walked streets for hours . . . I . . .”
Suddenly, Troy knew why she had walked the streets. Four of the reasons lay splattered across his sitting room floor. They’d called on her first.
“Méret, where are you?”
“Phone box. Sloane Square. Outside Royal Court Theatre.”
“Then just walk up Sloane Street to the Cadogan Hotel. It’s on your left. You can’t miss it.”
“I not check into hotel. Cannot leave trail.”
“Then don’t. Just order a drink and sit tight until I get there.”
“Okay. When?”
“Half an hour. Three quarters at the most.”
Jordan arrived with two young men in brown warehouse coats. He turned on his heel and breathed deep as soon as he saw why they were there.
Then he said, “It’s okay. Really. We can handle this. These chaps are trained for it. They get rid of everything.”
Not quite everything. Troy had put the Fabergé gun and Kolankiewicz’s report back in the hall stand, and the gun that killed Danko was inside his overcoat, tucked into Danko’s shoulder holster.
“Jordan. I have to go out now.”
“That’s okay. I understand. Check into a hotel. Just let me know where.”
“Could I borrow your hat?”
“Eh?”
Troy pointed to the swelling on his cheek.
“Oh, I see.”
And Jordan took off his black trilby, put it on Troy’s head, and tilted the brim to obscure the bruise.
“Call me. Right? As soon as you check in.”
§150
Getting to the Cadogan took far too long. Piccadilly was fine, it was merely a matter of going with the flow, and only a fool co
uld get lost going down Grosvenor Place—but the cabbie acted like a fool and decided there were shortcuts across Belgravia that would, “bring us out bang on the nail guv’nor, Sloane Street,” but didn’t. The cabbie swore. Troy wondered why they didn’t just stick to main roads, keep their gobs shut, and charge twice the fare for their trouble—call it a smog rate.
It was gone eleven by the time he walked into the bar at the Cadogan, to find a barman anxious to close and Voytek sitting in black winter traveling clothes—very like her funeral outfit, a pillbox hat and a half-veil over her eyes—in front of an untouched martini.
“I thought perhaps you not come. We have so little time.”
“We do?”
Then he noticed the carpet bag and the music case.
“Where are we going?”
“Boat train. Victoria Station at midnight.”
Troy looked at his watch. “That’s okay. We’ll make it. If need be we could walk there but the Underground’s still running and it is just the one stop. But let’s not dawdle.”
Oscar Wilde had dawdled and dithered in this very hotel some fifty years ago, torn between catching the boat train and waiting to meet his fate at the hands of a bunch of London coppers. The price of his indecision had been four years hard labour. Voytek showed no indecision. She picked up the music case. Troy hefted the carpet bag with one hand, downed the martini with the other. It was just what he needed to wash away the taste of blood and ease the ache in his guts.
He saw himself turning up the collar on his overcoat and pulling the hat brim down as low as it would go, making himself into the caricature of a spy, but inside Victoria Station the smog was, if anything, worse than it was outside, thickened and curdled by an evening of steam trains belching in and out under the glass roof. When he leant down to the slit in the small glass window of the ticket office to ask for two, first-class, on the Black Arrow, the woman on the other side could have been his sister. She would not have known him nor him her.
They found an empty compartment. Troy turned the heat up and the lights down. The inspector clipped their tickets. And as the train pulled out across the Thames, the violence and the martini and the nursery rhythm of steel wheels on steel rails lulled him into a delicious and unwelcome sleep.