Riptide (aka Bluffing Mr. Churchill) (44 page)

‘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-working, 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.

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.

He hadn’t. It was Cormack. Somehow Troy had got it into his head that he’d seen the last of Cormack.

‘Do you have the time? I need to talk.’

‘Of course,’ said Troy.

He glanced around the sitting room looking for evidence of Kitty’s presence and while Cormack had his back turned to close the door, he quietly booted her crash-helmet under the sofa and
hoped she’d stay in bed.

Cormack slumped on the sofa. Troy could see the helmet framed between his ankles as menacing as a land-mine. He looked unhappy. He looked troubled.

‘I’m being sent home,’ he said. ‘I’m the man who knew too much.’

‘Is that really a hardship?’

‘I guess not. It’s not as though I were being deported. But . . . I had unfinished business here.’

‘Stahl?’

‘No – Stahl is finished business. Stahl is dead.’

Troy was shocked. He’d examined the man’s wound himself. It wasn’t serious.

‘Stahl killed himself. Jumped from a hospital window. I reckon your people have had the most hellish time covering up. But if you haven’t heard, then I guess they succeeded. Before
he died he told me everything.’

Cormack ground to a halt, a tearful sadness in his eyes, his head shaking gently from side to side as though denying what he knew.

‘Which part of it was too much?’ Troy prompted.

‘All of it, I guess. Tell me . . . would you feel compromised if I told you? I have to tell somebody. I’d feel better telling you than Kitty. I don’t think she’d
understand somehow.’

‘Fire away,’ said Troy, and he did.

Afterwards, Cormack seemed sadder than ever, as though a burden shared was a burden doubled. Little of it surprised Troy. Of course the Germans were going to invade. His dad had been telling him
that for years. The bit about the slave state was new to him – but if you thought about it, it was merely an extension, the putting into practice, of everything they’d ever preached
about the ‘inferior peoples’, the logical explosion of what they’d begun in Poland. The Jews and the Slavs were always going to catch it sooner or later. It was not surprising. It
was shocking.

‘It leaves a bad taste in the mouth,’ Cormack said at last. ‘It leaves me wondering, guessing. Suppose it wasn’t Russia? I mean, supposing it was my country that was
going to be attacked? Supposing Churchill and Roosevelt knew of an imminent attack on the States? Would they not tell us? Would they find it expedient to let it happen?’

Troy tried reassurance, the flat plains of uninspired logic. ‘I don’t think there’s a German bomber made that can reach America.’

‘You know what I mean. It’s the principle. I find it hard to have faith in a benign conspiracy.’

‘When will you be off?’

‘Two or three days, maybe four at the most. They’re sending me back on the clipper from Lisbon. In the meantime I’m hardly a prisoner. They’ve set no restrictions on my
movements . . . and that kind of brings me to the other reason I called on you. I’ve been trying to find Kitty. I know the police let her go. And I phoned her sister Vera, but Vera
doesn’t know where she is or else she won’t tell me. Never did figure out how to read Vera. I wondered – Kitty has a room in Covent Garden, near the police station, she said. But
I never went there. I never knew the address. I wondered if you knew.’