by Lawton, John
99
Clark showed Troy to a booth in the mess at Gatow. The mess was three-quarters empty, but the dozen or more men at the bar seemed hell bent on making up for it by celebrating Christmas as loudly and as drunkenly as they could. It seemed a bleak variety of joy.
‘Just the single men who weren’t allowed full passes, sir. The married men are off the base and anyone who got a pass has somewhere better to go. You’ll be fine here.’
He looked out of the first-floor window at the snowstorm swirling past the window and down to the ground, where snowploughs battled to keep the runways clear.
‘I wouldn’t bet on anything running to order, if I were you.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Troy. ‘You get off. I’ll be fine.’
‘I’m sorry it’s all been a waste of time, sir.’
Troy looked at Clark. It wasn’t mere pleasantry. The man meant what he said.
‘It hasn’t. I paid von Asche at lunchtime.’
Clark looked surprised, then a smile broke the front of deceptive misery.
‘Have you told Inspector Franck, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘No. I think he’d rather not know, don’t you?’
Clark shook Troy’s hand, a little awkwardly.
‘Been a pleasure, sir.’
‘No, Mr Clark, it’s been an education.’
Clark set off down the room. He’d just reached the door when Tosca backed in, wearing her Master Sergeant’s uniform, shaking the snow from her coat. She almost collided with Clark, threw him a friendly grin, said a quick ‘Hi, Swifty’, and rushed up to Troy breathless and beaming.
‘Gee, get a load of this weather.’
She flung herself down in the booth, opposite Troy. It was the same uniform, the same face, only the haircut was different. He could hardly believe it.
‘I thought I’d never make it.’
‘“Hi, Swifty”?’ Troy said. ‘Hi, Swifty! You know Clark?’
‘Sure. And he knows me. Where the heck d’you think I got the coffee you had at breakfast? I told you, I’m known in these parts. I come here quite often. Though every time I have to put on this damn uniform it gets tighter. I’m surprised it fits at all after all these years.’
She breathed in and patted her stomach.
‘Is there anyone you don’t know?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? As if I can’t guess.’
‘How long have you known Wolinski?’
‘Nowhere near as long as you think I have.’
‘But he was a Russian agent in London, wasn’t he?’
‘He wasn’t there to sell chopped liver.’
‘But you didn’t know him?’
‘Will you drop this. Jesus. I told him it was a dumb idea to show up now. It would only set you thinking. No. I didn’t know him. Now can we talk about something else!’
‘When you left London. When you faked your death. What was I supposed to believe?’
‘That I was dead. I had to do that. I really had to.’
‘You left everything behind?’
‘Of course – I had to throw you off the scent. I knew you’d come looking – if you lived that is – and I knew that if you thought I was alive you’d never give up. There was a real danger that you’d blow my cover. My job was over – I wasn’t there to watch Jimmy, I’d no idea what he was up to till you came along – and I wasn’t there to control Wolinski – I mean, I never even met the guy till 1946 – I was there to see that nothing about the opening of the second front was held back. With D-Day the job was done. I guess they wouldn’t have pulled me so quickly, but once you had your shoot-out with Jimmy I could see all hell breaking loose. Zelly turned purple – maybe permanently – and Jimmy found himself shipped out to France on day two.’
‘They told the Yard it was day one.’
‘Well – they would, wouldn’t they? Day two was bad enough. They sure as hell weren’t going to let Jimmy risk his neck on day one. I mean, even Churchill wasn’t allowed over on day one!’
‘So you gave up everything?’
‘Sure – it would have been a convincing murder if I’d packed first! I lost some good stuff. I had this cute little silk dress . . . and I could have used my jewellery.’
Troy needed no reminding of her jewellery.
‘I have something of yours,’ he said gently.
‘You kept a souvenir?’
“Yes. I have your copy of Huckleberry Finn:’
‘That’s OK you can keep it.’
‘And I have a pair of silver-mounted pearl ear-rings.’
She looked at him quizzically, smiling sweetly, as though foxed by the choice he had made from all she had left behind, but in seconds the realisation hit her. She buried her face in her hands, bent her head – spoke through the fingers.
‘Oh God. Where did you find it?’
‘In Wolinski’s flat. Not the first time I went there, not the second. The third. You dropped it in that middle room of his. I suppose it was some time in May. You went there after you and I met, after you and I had discussed the case – of which you now tell me you knew nothing.’
‘I did know nothing. Do you really think I’d’ve let you get mixed up with Jimmy without telling you everything?’
‘I don’t know what to think. I’m inclined to think you fed it to me bit by bit – you strung me out – you used me.’
‘No I didn’t! I never knew Wolinski. I was never part of anything he did in the East End. His path crossing Jimmy’s was a bad coincidence. Every one of us had an emergency number to call – after Brand was killed – and believe me I didn’t know that was the trigger – Wolinski called me. He needed to get out straight away. I plugged him into the network, got him the money he needed to disappear. I never met him. I dropped the money in a dead-letter box. Then you come along. There’s no reason to think I need have anything more to do with it all. Then he calls me from Scotland. He’s left his code-book in the flat – some goddam mathematics textbook. I tell him to forget it. No one will spot it, and we’ll never use those codes again. He won’t hear of it. Dumb bastard says he’ll come back and get it. So I do it. It took for ever to search it out. I must have been there more than ten minutes. I guess I lost the ear-ring scrambling up his goddamn bookcases. The only thing I kept from you was the fact that Wolinski was still alive. But there was no way I could tell you that. Dammit, Troy, if you think I used you try asking yourself about the other women in your life. Did I use you like my private warrior ’cos I couldn’t fight a man’s battle myself – ’cos that’s what Muriel Edge used you for. Did I string you out by the dick until it was time to blow you away – ’cos that’s what that mad—’
‘Don’t say it!!!’
‘Sorry,’ she said for the first time in all the time he had known her.
‘Why does everyone call her “that mad bitch”?’
‘Maybe because she was?’ Tosca ventured carefully.
There was a brittle silence, offset by the roar of the drunks and the roar of propellers.
‘Should I post the ear-rings to you?’
‘Nah. I’ll pick ’em up the next time I’m in England.’
‘The next time you’re in England?’
‘Sure.’
‘If you come to England I shall be duty bound to arrest you as an enemy of the crown.’
‘Boy – you should hear yourself. “Enemy of the crown”!’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Awww. You won’t arrest meee!!!’
‘Why wouldn’t I arrest you?’
‘Because, silly, if you arrest me you don’t get to sleep with me.’
‘If little else,’ Troy said, ‘at least your vocabulary is improving.’
100
Heathrow was referred to as an air port. Troy presumed that this fiction was in some way meant to distinguish it from such places as Croydon which had always been called an aerodrome or Brize Norton which remained an air field. It was a linguistic elevation, a slei
ght of tongue. What it amounted to on the physical plane was a shanty town of shacks and bulldozers, mountains of frozen mud, on the very fringe of London – so far out as to seem like another country. In this weather, Troy thought, it might as well be the North Pole.
The wind caught at the powder-fine snow, whipping it into small white eddies around the legs of the first passengers as they came down the steps on to the freshly brushed tarmac, thanking God loudly that they had touched down safely and asking each other what the problem could possibly have been. Troy stood between the crowd and the warm reassurance of the building, and they parted around him like a river to a rock, foaming busily to either side, seeming oblivious to him. Baumgarner was nowhere to be seen. Over their heads Troy thought he caught sight of an exceptionally tall man at the back. He drew his revolver and stood with it in his left hand, hanging at his side. Suddenly he was visible. Someone screamed and pointed and the crowd spread out to either side of him in a rush of fear. No one stood between him and the man now standing at the foot of the aircraft steps.
Baumgarner had an unlit cigarette between his lips and was patting down his pockets looking for matches. His right hand went into his overcoat pocket. Troy levelled the gun at his head. As though he had heard the silent gesture Baumgarner looked up and noticed Troy for the first time. He drew out his hand, tore a light off a book of matches and put it to his cigarette, cupping both hands against the wind. He inhaled deeply, blew a single smoke ring to the sky and returned Troy’s gaze. The moist, laconic blue eyes, the provocative pout of the upper lip – he smiled faintly. The right hand returned the matches to his coat pocket and stayed there, wrapped into a fist. He took the cigarette from his lips and spoke in the long, careless, Western drawl that had rung in Troy’s ears for so long.
‘Curious isn’t it, Troy? You only have to kill just once to get a taste for it.’
Just for the pleasure of the sound Troy thumbed back the hammer on the revolver.
