Riptide

§ 56

They parked the car out of sight and hung around the street corner. They could not see the door, and no one using the door was likely to see them-but Stilton and Dobbs could see the window of Fish Wally’s living room on the ground floor of a sturdy, purpose-built block of turn-of-the-century flats, the like of which had been built the length and breadth of London fifty-odd years before for the benefit of working men and their families. Rabbit hutches, Stilton called them. Two poky rooms and take your baths in the kitchen. His old mate George Bonharn lived in one back in Stepney. He and his wife had raised three kids in one. Stilton wondered how they did it. On the other hand, they were bijou accommodation for the single villain.

Wally was not home. Stilton was waiting for the blackout to be drawn. Then they’d nick him. It was Stilton’s turn to watch. Dobbs leaned against the wing of the Riley, looking pale and sleepy. Stilton was angry enough without this provocation.

‘Bernard-you nod off now and I’ll roast you on me truncheon like one o’ them Ayrab shish kebabs.’

Dobbs did not seem to have heard him. Stilton stepped back a few paces and shook him.

‘Eh?’ said Dobbs.

‘Have you been at the beer again, laddie?’

‘What? What chance have I had, boss? We been stuck here since before opening time. I was just feeling a bit dicky, that’s all-I’ll be fine now.’

Stilton stepped back to the corner just in time to see the blackout being drawn over Wally’s window.

‘We’re on,’ he said softly.

Dobbs yanked the ignition keys from his trouser pocket and eased his backside off the car.

‘Not so fast,’ Stilton said. ‘I want him to get his coat off, I want him to get his slippers on-kettle on, knees under the table, rolling ciggy. I want him to feel safe in his little nest before I drag him out of it and throw him in a cell.’

‘He’s really got your goat, hasn’t he, boss?’

‘Understatement, Bernard, understatement.’

Stilton let ten minutes pass, looked at his wristwatch and said, ‘Bring the car right up to the porch and leave the nearside back door open.’

He strode off, mackintosh flapping, trilby pulled down firmly. Once inside he tapped gently at Wally’s door, the friendly-shy knock of a neighbour wanting to borrow a cupful of sugar.

Fish Wally came to the door, yawning and smoking simultaneously, a fag glued with spittle to his lower lip. Stilton knocked the cigarette away, seized him by the arm and bundled him inside. The kettle sang on the hob, his baccy pouch lay open on the oil cloth, the cat occupied pride of place in the armchair-and Wally wore his slippers.

‘Stilton! What you-?’

Stilton grabbed the other arm and, in a gesture born of years of practice, slapped the cuffs on his wrists and clicked them closed.

‘For God’s sake, Walter-what do you want?’

Stilton found Fish Wally’s shoes under the table and threw them at him without a word. Wally took the hint, wrapped his crab hands around them and slipped them on. Stilton turned off the gas, opened the wire-mesh cold-larder above the sink, found a few scraps of fatty meat wrapped in greaseproof paper and dumped them in the cat’s howl.

‘You going to tell me what this is about? Or do I have to guess?’

Stilton took his coat off the back of the door and threw that at him too. The door slammed behind them, Stilton dragging Fish Wally by the scruff of his neck, down to the car and bundled into the back seat. Only when Dobbs had slipped the car into gear and set off down Drury Lane did Stilton speak.

‘You are not obliged to say anything, but if you do…’

‘For Christ’s sake, Walter-do we not know each other better than this?’

Dobbs crunched the car through the gears at the junction with the Aldwych, the metallic scraping filling the silence. Then Stilton said, ‘I thought I knew you, Wally. Now I’m wondering just who the hell you are.’