Riptide

§ 94

Troy was having a lazy day. There was a brilliant June sun in the sky, after yesterday’s unseasonal cold. He had been up to the urban ‘farm’ at Seven Dials, where a bloke he knew kept goats and hens not spitting distance from Shaftesbury Avenue’s theatres, and had haggled for half a dozen eggs. He offered to tip the nod to the local beat bobby to keep a close eye on the ‘farm’ at night and came away with four hen and two goose. Enough to let him indulge in a three-egg scramble for late breakfast, or was it early lunch? It was corruption, of course, but after what he’d been through lately it troubled that near-dormant organ, his conscience, not one whit. Besides, he’d paid more than twice the pre-war price.

The first egg fell into the pan and rose up proud as an orange jelly, a thick mass of albumen orbiting it as precisely as the rings of Saturn. He’d not seen an egg this fresh for the best part of a year. It seemed almost a shame to scramble it but scramble it he did-on toast with the meagre scraping of his butter ration.

Then he put a dining chair out in the courtyard, aimed it at the sun, and read in the western light of a London summer’s afternoon.

The Times ran an obituary for the late Kaiser. Troy glanced at it with a ‘so what?’ running through his mind. He was not, he realised, much in the mood for news, even the last word on a man not much heard of these twenty years. He was in the mood for fiction. He tried Ulysses by James Joyce, loved the opening bit about the fat bloke shaving-he always did-but then he sort of got lost-he always did. Then he picked up The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West and had read twenty pages before he realised he had read it before. At last he settled upon The Professor by Rex Warner-a book Rod had given him about the time of the Munich crisis. Dirty deeds in one of those Continental republics cobbled together at the Treaty of Versailles. Rod was forever giving him books. Rod read new books. Rod read topical books. Rod loved the idea of authors-he was forever saying he’d met ‘so and so’ at a ‘do’. This appeared to be the tale of one Professor A. Oh no, thought Troy, not initials, not like that bugger Kafka with his K bloke? He wasn’t sure about this, but he read on and was still happily engrossed an hour later when he heard Onions, police boots sparking on the cobbles, lumbering down the yard from St Martin’s Lane.

‘Starting a library, are we?’ Stan said, eyeing the pile of half a dozen books next to the chair. Stan read little, if at all. Half a dozen probably was a library to him.

‘Just passing the time,’ Troy replied.

‘Wound giving you gyp?’

‘A bit,’ said Troy.

‘You’ve not been out much then?’

Troy saw the trap for what it was and decided not to answer. He got up, stuck The Professor on his chair and said ‘I’ll stick the kettle on.’

Stan followed him inside.

‘Don’t bother for me. I don’t want to use up your ration.’

‘Well-perhaps a belt of something a bit stronger then?’

The sofa groaned as Onions lowered his bulk onto it. He was sweating. Suit, tie, as well as the regulation-issue boots.

‘Not for me. Still on duty.’

Troy sat opposite Stan and said nothing, waiting for Stan to speak his piece. What could bring Stan round in duty hours in the middle of the week? As if he couldn’t guess.

‘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.