by John Lawton
They stood in a living room less than ten feet square. A cliché of working-class life before the Second World War. A worn but sturdy three-piece suite in black and green leatherette – so big it made any movement across the room into an obstacle course. A beige-tile fireplace with a scorched white gas-fire in its hearth and two glazed spaniel dogs on its mantel. A brush, a poker and a shovel disguised by the figure of a brass knight-in-armour. Three plaster ducks flying up the wall. And not a speck of dust to be seen. It was a house to turn out of and turn into. A house rendered spotless by the daily cleaning woman. It was almost clinical.
‘No dirt,’ Troy said. ‘No vice. Where there’s dirt there’s vice. Everyone has some vice.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t believe they live here.’
But they did. In the first bedroom there was a built-in wardrobe full of bespoke suits and hand-made shoes. The second was different only in that a paperback copy of Peyton Place lay splayed upon the bedside table atop a copy of Parade, a risque magazine that printed photographs of women without blouses or bras.
‘There’s your vice, Freddie. Ordinary as it comes. The most ordinary sin in the universe.’
Troy pulled open a drawer in the tallboy. Cotton underpants that had been ironed. Socks in neat little balls – socks that had been darned.
‘Savile Row suits. Lobb shoes . . . and darned socks.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t get it. They pull jobs, they terrorise the East End, they rub shoulders with toffs and politicians. They dress from Savile Row. And . . . they kill people. And at the end of the day they come back here. To this. Why?’
‘The womb?’ said Troy. ‘Wouldn’t you relish someone who darned your socks? My brother’s wife darns his socks. We could buy an empire of socks, but still he wants the reassurance of a woman’s touch with the darning-needle. It’s a womb. You go out in your tailor-mades and you come back to darned socks.’
‘Spare me the Freudian stuff, Freddie. If it’s their womb then it’s one they’re prepared to put under the wrecking ball if the price is right.’
‘Just an idea,’ said Troy. ‘I’ve been trying to see them as the two boys Robertson tells me I once met. I don’t seem to be able to manage it.’
‘I don’t have to. I encountered them as they are. What they might have been means nothing. Now, are we through?’
‘Not quite.’
Mary McDiarmuid drove them to the Ryan twins’ garage under the arches of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in Cable Street.
‘More nostalgia?’
‘Eh?’
‘Don’t you recognise it, Freddie? It’s the same arch we were in in ’44 – the one Sidney Edelmann had as a bomb-shelter.’ So it was. Troy looked around. The huge steel H-beams reinforcing the roof, the three-quarter-inch armour-plating Edelmann had pinched from the docks to guarantee the safety of his small branch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Edelmann had died the same night Troy had killed Diana Brack. It was a coincidence that the Ryans should be running their business out of this particular arch – they could have been in any one of thirty or more – but Troy was in a mood to respond to coincidence.
He could hear Edelmann in his mind’s ear – ‘As I live and breathe it’s Mr Troy. Lads, lads, it’s my old friend Constable Troy’ – almost see Edelmann, hamming it up like a cross between Quasimodo and a Shakespearean clown. He’d not been here in years. He and Jack had been ‘granted an interview’ with Edelmann not long before his death – and a few weeks before that he’d encountered the Ryans for the first time. He could see Edelmann, he could hear Edelmann, he could smell Diana Brack – the drenching scent of Je Reviens. Reach out a hand and he could touch her. But he couldn’t see the Ryans. Couldn’t see the little boys the Ryans had once been.
‘Well?’ said Jack. ‘Nothing,’ said Troy. Nothing and everything.
§ 103
It was the most frustrating time of Troy’s life. The Indian Summer caught like brushfire. A new wave of heat seared London. Jack traded him in for a detective constable, for a man with nothing to say and an obligation to listen. ‘I’ve heard all I want to hear of Freud.’
Troy went out on calls with Godbehere.
Godbehere said, ‘I’ve never gone out armed before.’ And looked at the gun as though he’d no idea what it was or how it worked.
Troy shoved his into a jacket pocket, felt the weight pull his suit out of shape. He had forgotten to ask Eddie for holsters. Godbehere stuck his in the waistband of his trousers and looked like a man about to stick up a bank. ‘It all feels wrong,’ he said. ‘Like we’re playing at it.’
‘We’re not,’ said Troy.
It was the most frustrating time of Troy’s life. They trailed across London from St Katherine’s Dock to Silver Town, from Wapping Wall to the Balls Pond Road, and saw not a glimpse of anything Troy would grace with the word ‘clue’. All of London was willing to turn in the Ryans, half of London seemed to phone up to say they’d seen them, but Troy found himself in empty rooms and crowded streets, looking at the space where they might once have been, listening to the chattering voices build their narrative from men to myth – ‘They was in a Mark 7 Jag, honest, it was parked right there, couldn’t have been less than twenty minutes ago’; ‘They walked into the Dog and Parrot, bold as brass and ordered two halves of shandy’ – and feeling the gun in his pocket tug at him like a chain and anchor.
Almost a day and a half had passed like this. Jack was sprawled across a chair in Godbehere’s office. Godbehere seemed to be sleeping bolt upright – snoring gently. Eddie was off somewhere trying to rustle up coffee. Mary McDiarmuid slept on the floor behind the desk, her head pillowed on Troy’s rolled-up jacket.
‘Freddie, it’s nearly two in the morning. We’ve most of us been on since the day before yesterday. Ray’s been up nigh on forty-eight hours. The only one who’s had any sleep is that poor sod you’ve got camped out on Mazzer’s doorstep. You’ve got to call it a night.’
‘Not while they’re out there.’
‘I’m not saying call it off. I’m saying change shifts. Let us go home for a few hours and come back fresh. You’re the one who’s so damn keen on psychology. Look at it this way. We’ve answered every call, chased every lead, searched more than twenty houses, taken a hundred statements and got nowhere. It’s demoralising, and it’s doubly demoralising without sleep.’
Behind him Mary McDiarmuid stirred.
‘Mr Wildeve’s right, boss. We’ve given it our best shot. Let’s go home. If only for a few hours.’
Troy gave in. Jack would have nagged him until daybreak if he hadn’t. Mary McDiarmuid said she’d drive him home, Eddie volunteered to stay in the office, and Godbehere and Jack would drive to Southwark together.
‘Eight,’ said Troy. ‘No later than eight. Everyone back here at eight.’
§ 104
Troy sat next to Mary McDiarmuid in the passenger seat of the Bentley. She turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened.
Troy yawned. ‘It does that from time to time. For some reason, it helps to put the lights on first. God knows why.’
Mary flicked on the lights, picking out Godbehere’s Wolseley, forty-odd feet in front of them.
‘Now try ag—’
Troy caught sight of a black wire trailing from the petrol cap of the Wolseley. Saw Ray hunching down to turn on.
Mary McDiarmuid turned the key again. The windscreen cracked from side to side.
Troy had not seen the explosion that killed John Brocklehurst. He wasn’t even sure he’d heard it. The memory of that triple bang was now no more than something from a dream. One, two, three, boom, you’re dead. Godbehere’s Wolseley left the ground in a ball of orange flame. The Bentley shot backwards, Troy and Mary McDiarmuid bouncing off the seats to bang against the windscreen. The windscreen cracked from side to side. The Wolseley came to earth, crashing down on to the pavement, wheels splayed as though the car had been
flattened by a giant hand, swatted like a bug.
Troy found Jack in the doorway of the police station. He’d had enough warning and enough reflexes to shield his face, but the blast had flung him into the door. He was bleeding badly from the head. His shirt was sliced to ribbons.
Troy dragged him inside, sat with his head in his lap, tearing strips from the remains of the shirt to staunch the head wound.
‘Ambulance, Mary. Ambulance.’
But Eddie was already on the phone.
Troy looked up at Mary, pale and wide-eyed, a trickle of blood seeping gently from a cut on her forehead. ‘Ray?’ he said.
Mary McDiarmuid shook her head.
Boom, you’re dead.
§ 105
Eddie slapped a length of cable and a spark plug on the desk in front of Troy.
‘Why aren’t we dead?’ said Troy.
‘You had a full tank. Mary filled up last night. There was so much petrol in the tank of your car that there wasn’t enough space or fumes to ignite when the spark plug was charged. You were lucky. It was rigged properly. A couple of pints less petrol and you’d both be dead.’
§ 106
Troy watched Jack carried into the ambulance. Saw his eyes flicker open. Wondered whether the look was recognition or bewilderment. Felt Mary McDiarmuid tugging at his sleeve. ‘They found Mazzer.’
‘Where?’
‘Turned up at his flat. Said he’d been at his sister’s in Hornchurch, sleeping off a double shift.’
Troy called Kolankiewicz at home.
Still wide awake at two in the morning. Soft and clear. ‘Who else would it be but you at this time of the night?’
‘Do you have anything in your bag of tricks like scopolamine?’
‘How very Boy’s Own of you, my boy. No, I don’t. But doubtless I could come up with a cocktail of my own that would have much the same effect.’
‘There’s a squad car on its way from Hendon. Lights flashing. No speed limit. Come via my house. There’s a bottle of Talisker under the sink. I may have need of it. Get here as quickly as you can.’
Kolankiewicz was there in less than an hour, coat pulled on over his pyjamas, Homburg on head, Gladstone bag in hand. The Webleys were scattered across Godbehere’s desk. Someone had dutifully put them under lock and key when Troy had called an end to the shift. He’d got them out again.
‘I heard,’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘Armageddon.’ He opened his bag and put the bottle of Talisker and a .357 Magnum on the desk.
Troy did not think he had seen a Magnum since Bob Churchill had taught him how to use one nearly fifteen years ago. ‘Why did you bring that?’
‘I fear you may need it.’
To Troy it was as though Churchill had spoken to him from the grave. He steered a mental path round the voice, said, ‘Do you not think that if the Yard had wanted me to have a gun like that they would have issued me with a gun like that?’
‘Call it parity. If they came at me with one of those, I would want to have as much firepower as they do.’
‘Tricky,’ said Troy. Much as Churchill might have done.
Kolankiewicz spoke with a shrug in his voice, the devil’s easy way with words. ‘You’ve issued a chit for it,’ he said. Then he reached over to the pile of guns and slipped one of the Webleys into his battered old Gladstone bag. ‘Six chits, six guns. It’ll all be above board.’
‘No,’ Troy said softly. ‘It will simply appear to be above board.’
‘Whatever,’ said Kolankiewicz. ‘Let us concentrate on the drug, shall we? There’s no way we can ever give that the gloss of legitimacy.’
He reached into his bag again and pulled out a hypodermic syringe and a small bottle of colourless fluid. ‘Now, which pig do you want me to stick?’
‘Time for Mr Mazzer,’ Troy said to Mary McDiarmuid.
‘Fine, boss. But you should put your jacket on. You’re covered in Mr Wildeve’s blood.’
Troy looked down at himself. She was right. His shirt was turning brown with drying blood. Mary McDiarmuid picked up Troy’s jacket off the floor, still bundled up as a pillow, shook it and handed it to him. By the time she wheeled in Mazzer, Troy still looked scarcely half respectable. The crumpled suit, the two-day growth of beard. Put together, he and Kolankiewicz looked like the two tramps waiting for Godot. Mazzer looked baffled, clean-shaven, brushed and combed, washed and neat – but baffled.
Troy held out his right hand for him to shake. ‘Al.’
‘Mr Troy.’
Mazzer took the hand, the beginning of a smile creeping across his face. Troy pulled on the hand, hit Mazzer as hard as he could with his left and dragged him face down on to the desk. Kolankiewicz stepped out from behind the door and whacked the syringe into Mazzer’s backside. It seemed to Troy that Mazzer was about to speak, that the first shock of momentary unconsciousness from the blow to his head had passed, but the drug hit him like a soporific breaking wave and the eyelids fluttered shut.
Kolankiewicz pushed him back into a chair. ‘No more than five minutes, then he should come round. At which point he’ll be very cooperative. You’ll have about ten minutes’ clarity before he slips back, and then he’ll be out for a couple of hours and wake up with a terrible thirst. But I have to ask – what makes you think he wouldn’t tell you what you want to know in the first place?’
‘I don’t have the time,’ said Troy. ‘What I have is Jack in hospital and what’s left of Ray Godbehere on the slab.’
Mazzer’s eyes opened. He had the look of a man happily drunk. ‘You hit me,’ he said simply.
‘Yes. I hit you. Now I want you to answer a few questions.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are Patrick and Lorcan Ryan hiding?’
Mazzer inhaled deeply, held on to it as though staving off vomit. Then he said, ‘Yes. Warehouse.’
‘What warehouse? We searched their warehouses. We searched everything on the manor.’
‘Stick to straight questions,’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘Less for him to understand.’
Mazzer stared, Troy saw his eyes turning glassy and vacant. Mary McDiarmuid turned the desk lamp around and shone it right in Mazzer’s eyes. ‘I saw it in a film,’ she said. ‘It might work.’
It did. Mazzer jerked suddenly and slurred out the words, ‘Wrong manor. Yes.’
‘Then which manor?’
‘South of the river. Yes. Rotherhithe. Mandarin Wharf. Yes.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Yes. By the Hanover Stairs. Right on top of the Thames tunnel.’
Mary McDiarmuid was scanning the list of the Ryans’ assets. ‘It’s not here. There’s nothing south of the river.’
‘There wouldn’t be,’ said Troy. Mazzer lolled sideways. Troy pushed him back the other way. ‘What are they waiting for?’
‘Boat. Boat up the river. Yes. Take them to Hamburg. Yes.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Troy. ‘It’s Dickensian. It’s like something out of Dickens.’
‘You aim too high,’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘It’s more like Edgar Wallace.’
‘Yes. Edgar. Yes . . .Edgar Wallace. Yes.’
‘He’s burning out,’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘He’ll be senseless in less than a minute.’
‘Can I?’ asked Mary McDiarmuid.
‘Be my guest,’ Troy replied, turning his attention to the streetmap.
‘Who are they after?’ she said.
‘After?’
‘Who’s the final target? It surely wasn’t Mr Godbehere? Who were they trying to kill tonight?’
Mazzer let out a drunken giggle. ‘Yes. Sergeant Troy.’
‘Sergeant Troy?’
‘Sergeant Troy, Sergeant Troy, Bigfoot Bonham’s little boy.’
Troy looked up from the map. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Sergeant Troy, Sergeant Troy, Bigfoot Bonham’s little boy.’ It had the repetitive taunt of Georgie Porgie, he who had made the little girls cry, and once uttered, the rapid spiral of narcotic dementia turned it into a
mantra. Mazzer could not stop saying it.
Over and over again, ‘Sergeant Troy, Sergeant Troy, Bigfoot Bonham’s little boy.’ He was still reciting it when they lugged him to the cells. But when Troy slipped back to leave the bottle of Talisker by the bunk, he was snoring like a dog.
§ 107
A portly sergeant from Rotherhithe met them at Mandarin Wharf. A portly sergeant and two constables.
‘Is this all you could muster?’ Troy said.
‘The whole nick’s gone down with food poisoning, sir. I’m the desk sergeant – Tom Kinney. I’ve had to shut the nick just to get the three of us here.’
Troy had only Mary McDiarmuid and Robertson. To have recalled the day shift would have taken too long. The thought of Swift Eddie with a gun was unthinkable. It was almost light. It seemed to Troy that they were all too old, too young or the wrong gender.
‘Are the Ryans in there?’ he asked.
‘Somebody’s in there. One o’ my lads saw a light on the first floor. And I could swear there’s a smell of fried bacon hanging around.’
Kinney pulled a large-scale map from his tunic and spread it out on the bonnet of Troy’s Bentley.
‘It’s what used to be Gilligan and Campbell’s Yarn Warehouse. They went bust during Suez, shut up shop two or three years back. The place has been up for sale ever since. Truth to tell, if it’s changed hands, I didn’t know about it. The blokes on the beat check it out from time to time. But it’s pretty secure. We’ve had no reports of dossers or break-ins. After all, there’s nothing in there to steal. Now, there’s lots o’ ways in and out. But we went right round the outside while we was waitin’. All but two are boarded up or padlocked on the outside. This one on Peck Street and this one, which opens straight on to the riverside yard and the jetty. There’s nothing moored at present.’