Riptide (aka Bluffing Mr. Churchill) (32 page)

Nailer chipped in again. ‘Ballistics isn’t everything.’

Troy looked at Onions. He could have sworn the man blushed, ever so slightly, at the way Nailer betrayed their ages in the word-for-word repetition of what he had said himself. ‘I was on
Murder for two years myself under Mr Onions’ predecessor. In my day if you caught a bloke with a gun in his hand at the scene of a murder you didn’t need to ask for the man in the white
coat, you knew. Walter Stilton was shot just above one ear’ole. I should think you’d’ve noticed that for yourself. And I should think that when you’ve been in the job more
than eighteen months, when you’ve done a bit more than spit and cough, when you’re not still wet behind the ears, you’ll know. When a small-bore bullet passes through that amount
of bone it’ll bend – of course it’ll bend. A fat lot of use a bent bullet is. Where are you then, with the men in their white coats?’

Troy had always admired punctuality. It was a mark of civilisation – even in one so thinly civilised as the Polish Beast. Madge stuck her head round the door and said, ‘Professor
Kolankiewicz is here, Mr Onions.’

‘Kolankiewicz? I didn’t send for him,’ Stan said blankly.

‘I did,’ said Troy.

‘You little shite!’ Nailer exploded. ‘You’ve fitted me up!’

‘Perhaps if you weren’t so keen to fit up the American, I wouldn’t have had to.’

Nailer got out of his chair, his right arm raised as though he’d thump Troy if there weren’t a superintendent and a desk between them. Crawley calmly pushed him back into it.

‘Mr Troy, I’ll thank you to treat my officers with more respect,’ he said without raising his voice. ‘Chief Inspector Nailer has served over twenty years in this force
and deserves better.’

He turned his attention to Onions.

‘I deplore such tactics, Stanley. However, now that Professor Kolankiewicz is here we may as well see him.’

‘I agree,’ said Stan. ‘And Freddie, keep yer gob shut.’

Kolankiewicz bundled in, homburg pushed way back on his head, pockets bulging, a copy of the
News Chronicle
under one arm. He was not a serving police officer. Rank held no terror for him. He pulled up a chair, plonked it down next to Crawley and said ‘Which one you coppers got the gun?’

Troy could have sworn he heard a soft ‘Oh Jesus’ escape Onions’ lips. Crawley simply twitched again and jerked his head towards the box file on Onions’ desk.

‘It’s there. Sealed in cellophane. The suspect’s fingerprints are all over it.’

Kolankiewicz tore off the wrapper like a small boy attacking a Mars bar. He sniffed the barrel.

‘Smith and Wesson. Been fired.’

Nailer sighed at the obvious. Kolankiewicz ignored him and stripped the wrapper off the holster. A small black triangle of tough leather, a stainless steel clip on the flat side. Kolankiewicz
sniffed that too.

‘It’s a closed holster,’ he said. ‘Unusual. It would complicate things.’

‘How?’ said Onions.

‘Bloke shoots some other bloke. Unless he stands around like Wild Bill Hickock blowing smoke off the barrel and boasting to every bugger that he’s Deadeye Dick, he puts it back in
the holster straight away. In an open holster the barrel would protrude, the gases would be allowed to disperse at what I would term a normal rate. In a holster like this . . . well, you might as
well put a cork up the barrel. Gases are trapped. Makes it difficult to say when the gun was fired. All you can say is that it was fired.’

Onions fixed his gaze on Crawley.

‘Does this help, Dennis?’ he asked without a trace of sarcasm.

Crawley gave a far straighter answer than Troy knew Nailer would attempt. The man might be a colossal prig, but he was
honest.

‘It . . . er . . . it complicates matters. Cormack has admitted that he fired the gun five or six days ago . . . of course it would help if he told us at whom . . . but he’s claiming
some sort of diplomatic immunity on that one.’

‘You want my professional opinion?’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘That’s why you got me here, is it not? My opinion is that if you had sent me the gun the night Stilton died we
might be in a better position to judge, but as things stand I will say now that I cannot say with any reliability when this gun was fired. It is perfectly possible that this Cormack is telling the
truth. But there is yet more.’

He tore the wrapper off the bullets and set one of them upright on the desk. He tugged at the bulge in his coat pocket and pulled out a large wad of cotton wool. A few seconds probing with his
fingers and he set a second bullet, distorted and shapeless, next to the first. Every copper in the room looked at it. Nailer could not restrain a grin, the small man’s smirk of petty
triumph.

‘As you boys can see, is bent to buggery. However . . .’

Kolankiewicz picked up the unspent bullet, whipped out his spectacles, and eyed it closely.

‘. . . It is the same calibre. Point 32, with full metal jacket made for a .35. The spent bullet I have shows a right hand twist, which is what it’d have if it too had come from a
Smith and Wesson. There are not many .35 handguns. In fact Smith and Wesson are one of the few firms ever to make them. A small gun, 22 ounces, more powerful than their .32 – that’s
what I’d call a handbag gun – not as powerful as the Colt .38or the Browning 9mm, but still some stopping power. I shall have to compare the bullet that killed old Stinker with a test
shot. It’s all in the rifling – the twist.’

‘But,’ said Nailer, ‘it’s bent to buggery! You said so yourself.’

‘Trust me. I’m a smartyarse.’

It occurred to Troy that working for the Branch did not often bring Crawley into contact with the old immovable object that was Kolankiewicz. He spoke to him as though he’d been accosted
by a particularly rude fishmonger who’d had the sheer neck to ring at the front door clutching six months of unpaid accounts. It came effortlessly, unconsciously perhaps, to men like Crawley
to use a tone of voice that directed you to the tradesman’s entrance.

‘Let me understand you. You’re saying you
can
run tests on this?’

‘Yes. Difficult, but not impossible, so yes.’

Troy heard Stan draw in breath as though about to speak. But Nailer spoke first, reddening once more with anger and exasperation.

‘’Scuse me sir, but this is bollocks. We shouldn’t be playing around with useless blobs of lead with what we’ve got. He was there, he had a gun, and he’s no
explanation that adds up to piss in a tea-strainer as to why he was there or why he was with Walter at all. This immunity he seems to claim, this mission he says he’s on – it’s
all bollocks. He did it. I know he did it. The Yanks know he did it. He’s a villain and they’ve disowned him. I say forget the damn tests and charge him now.’

It was a speech that left every man in the room, save Kolankiewicz who did not appear to be listening, slightly stunned.

Crawley jerked his chin off his chest, slowly turned to face his Chief Inspector and said, ‘Enoch, are you quite serious?’ in the same tone in which he might have said ‘Are you
quite mad?’

‘Charge the bugger, charge him now!’

Onions turned to Troy – the injunction of silence lifted.

‘Mr Nailer,’ Troy began. ‘Does the phrase “diplomatic incident” mean anything to you?’

Nailer did not answer. He glared at Troy.

‘Has it occurred to you that far from being disowned Cormack might merely have fallen foul of the internal politics in what is known to be a very factional embassy, and that when they
finally work out the mess he’s in they’ll want him back in one piece? You’ve held him for a couple of days. It’s his rotten luck that of all the English people he’s
named I’m the only one available to speak for him, so you’ve had a romp watching his alibis topple like ninepins. But tomorrow or the day after the Americans will tire of playing games
and they’ll ask for him back.’

Nailer glared still, and it seemed to Troy that he’d not understood one word of what he’d just said.

Crawley stood, stiff-necked, adam’s apple bobbing in his collar – head of house and captain of the first eleven rolled into one.

‘I’m fed up with this. I’m putting an end to it now. Mr Kolankiewicz, do your tests and send me the report.’

Publish and be damned. Nailer said nothing. Troy said nothing. Onions muttered the platitudes of rank. Chairs scraped back. Legs stretched. Kolankiewicz was out of the door in a flash, closely
followed by Troy and Nailer.

Past Madge’s office, at the head of the stairs, Nailer tapped Troy on the shoulder. He was not about to let him go easily. The finger that tapped the shoulder now prodded him in the
sternum.

‘You cheeky young bugger! I’ve been a copper since you were in nappies. I’ve been a copper more’n twenty years –’

‘Then,’ Troy cut him off, ‘it’s a pity that in twenty years you’ve learnt fuck all.’

An inarticulate noise burst forth from Nailer – nothing clearer than ‘Wuuurgh!’ He lunged at Troy, fist clenched, missed and fell against the wall – purple in the face, a
blood vessel in his forehead throbbing furiously. Troy ran down the stairs, chasing after Kolankiewicz.

He caught him on the ground floor, short, fat legs hurrying against the grain of his character.

‘You’re off to Hendon? I’m coming with you.’

‘You are welcome, my boy – but it is not to Hendon I go.’

‘Where then?’

‘You want your proof, don’t you? The death of a fellow flatfoot bothers you as much as it bothers Crawley’s creeps, does it not? Then we should go to the top. You may believe
in the necessity of good forensics, but Nailer is typical not only of many of your colleagues but also of the Metropolitan Police bureaucracy. You know how I got my first comparison microscope? I
built it myself. In 1934. I’m still using it – and in all the equipment with which the misers at the Yard have supplied me, there is nothing that I would grace with the words
“state of the art”.’

‘So?’

‘So we go to the top man. Tell me – have you ever met Mr Churchill?’

Troy had never met Mr Churchill, but he had long wanted to. It was an irresistible invitation. He followed Kolankiewicz at a cracking pace. It seemed the little lunatic really
had the bit between his teeth. Out of the Yard, across Whitehall, and down Downing Street.

At the end of Downing Street he turned right across Horse Guard’s Parade, over the Mall, up Carlton House Steps into Lower Regent Street, across the Haymarket, right into Orange Street,
and at the junction with St Martin’s Street he stopped outside a small shop. If Troy’s knowledge of geography served him aright, they were at the back of the National Gallery, and if
his knowledge of the underworld served him aright, pretty well opposite one of the most notorious brothels in London.

‘You understand, I hope,’ Kolankiewicz was saying, ‘that we’re going private. You’d better have your chequebook on you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Troy. ‘It’ll be worth a few quid to wrap this one.’

Kolankiewicz yanked on the bell. A black-coated gentleman’s gentleman opened the door to them, a figure from another era, perhaps Dickensian – he put Troy in mind of Wemmick, this
was how he’d always seen Wemmick – and if not Dickensian, then certainly of the other century.

‘Mr Chewter,’ Kolankiewicz said.

The man’s Victorian face cracked into a smile. ‘Professor Kolankiewicz. My, but it’s been a while. Is the Guv’nor expecting?’

‘No. But if he is free I would be grateful for an hour of his valuable time.’

Chewter cranked the handle on the side of the phone and announced them.

‘Professor Kolankiewicz, Guv’nor and –’ He turned to Troy.

‘Sergeant Troy,’ said Troy, and then added, ‘of the Yard,’ as though explanation were needed.

‘Quite all right. Would you gentlemen care to go up?’

Chewter opened the cage door on an impossibly small lift. Troy found himself all but belly to belly with Kolankiewicz whilst
staring down at the top of his head. The lift stopped at the second floor, and there stood another short, stout man, wiping his hands on an oily rag to extend one dry if grubby hand to shake
Kolankiewicz’s. He looked every inch a Churchill – the girth, the thinning hair, the jowls – but with a moustache, and the best part of ten years younger. Even Lord Haw-Haw had
been known to confuse them.

‘You’ve brought me a new copper, then, Ladislaw.’

Nobody called Kolankiewicz Ladislaw. There were people at the Yard who’d known him since he first landed in England who probably did not know his Christian name.

‘My old friend Sergeant Frederick Troy, my even older friend Bob Churchill.’

They shook on the dubious connection of lasting friendship with the Beast of Lodz.

‘Troy,’ Churchill said. ‘One of the Devon Troys?’

‘No,’ said Troy. ‘Hertfordshire.’

‘Oh, I see. One of the Alex Troys. I knew your father once upon atime.’

Troy loved the expression, as though the two had met in some distant fairy tale – the constant tin soldier and the ugly duckling. It often seemed to Troy that his father had stepped out of
something no more nor less credible than a fairy tale of his own weaving.

‘I’m a Dorset man meself. That lot over at Blenheim are a junior branch of the family. Now – what can I do for you?’

Kolankiewicz held up Cormack’s gun. Churchill took it from him.

‘Good Lord, a Smith and Wesson .35. Haven’t been made for about twenty years, been a while since I saw one. Small, dark and brutish,’ he said, and led the way through to the
front room.

Troy had never seen anything like it. Every surface, every wall, held guns, guns by the dozen – guns in racks, guns in bits, and guns not yet built – walnut stocks, gunmetal barrels,
leather cases. Down the length of the room ran a large table covered in red baize and littered with some of the most beautiful shotguns Troy had seen. The workmanship was exquisite. But all in all,
it was pretty much what he might have expected to find on the premises of the finest gunsmith and ballistics expert alive. On a bench behind the table was a large, ugly, black, greasy machine gun
as testament to the times in which they lived. They had clearly interrupted Churchill in the business of stripping down his Bren gun.