Riptide

by Lawton, John

  ‘From the top, if you would,’ Nailer said plainly.

  From the top? Cal hesitated. He knew what he meant. He just could not quite believe they wanted him to say it all again. Nailer lit up a strong, untipped cigarette and blew smoke over Cal. He wasn’t Walter – not a man cut from the same cloth – a thin, angular man with bloodshot eyes and pinched nostrils. Not a mark of good humour or fellow-feeling upon him. A stringbean of a man, with lank, dirty grey hair and a lifetime of nicotine scorched into his fingertips.

  Cal told him everything. And there his troubles began.

  ‘You were working with Walter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since . . .’ He could not quite remember. ‘It was after the big raid. Maybe the Thursday or the Friday after. The raid was the tenth wasn’t it?’

  ‘Why doesn’t Walter mention this in his notes?’

  ‘What notes?’

  ‘The ones he types up from his police notebook.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I saw him scribble in his little black book from time to time. Surely . . . ?’

  Nailer was shaking his head.

  ‘His notebook’s missing.’

  ‘Missing from where?’

  ‘From the person of Chief Inspector Stilton.’

  This baffled Cal.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His pocket, Mr Cormack. The folding notebook should have been in his pocket. We all carry them. At all times.’

  ‘Maybe the killer took it?’

  ‘We’re looking into that. In the meantime, who else could vouch for you? Who else knew about your work with Walter?’

  ‘Well . . . Walter’s man Dobbs, for a start.’

  Nailer and his constable looked at one another quizzically.

  ‘“Walter” . . .’ Nailer had a way of putting inverted commas round a word as he uttered it. ‘Walter didn’t tell you then?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Bernard Dobbs had a stroke day before yesterday. He’s unconscious in hospital.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Cal. ‘No. He didn’t tell me. But you’ll appreciate. An awful lot has happened lately. In fact . . . I don’t think I’ve seen Walter since the day before yesterday.’

  ‘Till last night, you mean. Who else knows you?’

  ‘My people at the embassy.’

  ‘Names.’

  ‘General Gelbroaster. He sent for me from Zurich. My immediate superior at the London Embassy – Major Shaeffer and his superior, Colonel Reininger.’

  Nailer left him alone with another silent uniformed bobby for company. Half an hour later he was back.

  ‘I got this Major Shaeffer on the blower.’

  ‘Good,’ said Cal.

  ‘Not good. He says you weren’t working for him and he’s never heard of Walter Stilton.’

  Cal recalled now what had not occurred to him once in the course of the night – ‘You land in trouble and you’re on your own. Capiche?’ It had never crossed Cal’s mind that Shaeffer would go so far as to disown him. But he had.

  ‘Superintendent. I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding here . . .’

  ‘No there hasn’t. He was clear as daylight. He doesn’t know why you’re in London. He knows nothing of any mission you say you’re on.’

  ‘Did you check with Gelbroaster?’

  ‘The General’s in Washington.’

  ‘Reininger?’ Surely Frank wouldn’t just dump him for the sake of diplomatic neatness?

  ‘On his way to Ireland.’

  ‘So nobody’s backing me up?’

  ‘Get smart, Captain Cormack – you’ve been thrown to the wolves. And I’m the one with the big teeth.’

  ‘There are other people who know I was working with Walter.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Edna Stilton. Her daughter Kitty. They both met me.’

  Cal had not thought this a provocative remark. When Nailer got up from his chair and grabbed him by his shirt front, he was genuinely surprised.

  ‘Shut your stinking gob – you toerag! Don’t ever mention the name of Edna Stilton to me again. That woman’s a saint! If you think I’m calling her or her family the day after their man got blown away by some cheap hoodlum with a shooter, you can bloody well think again! That woman’s in mourning. Her world just came to pieces. And you have the fucking nerve to suggest I call her? Get this through your Yankee skull – the embassy don’t know you – Walter makes no mention of you in his notes – you’re in the shit, and you’re going to have to come up with something better than that!’

  Nailer dropped him back in the chair, shirt-buttons popping off. Yankee? My how the world had moved on since then.

  ‘The letter,’ Cal said.

  ‘What letter?’

  ‘The one Walter sent me. Telling me to meet him in Islington.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Your . . . your man . . . Sergeant Dixon. He took all my papers.’ Nailer sent for Dixon, and in front of Cal they sifted the papers from Cal’s pockets – everything he had turned out for Dixon last night and watched him slip into a cellophane bag. There was no letter.

  ‘Try again, Captain Cormack.’

  ‘I must have lost it. But he sent it to me. How else would I know to find the pub in Islington, either of those pubs?’

  ‘You tell me – but in the meantime, I’ll tell you that if this is the best you can do, you’re going to find yourself in hot water pretty damn quick.’

  ‘There is someone else who could alibi me.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Ruthven-Greene.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘MI6. He’s the man put me in touch with Walter. Reggie Ruthven-Greene.’

  Another wait. This time, most of the day. At noon he was taken back to his cell, and half an hour later a meal of cold, greasy meatloaf and mashed potatoes was served to him. It was five before Nailer sent for him again.

  Nailer’s face never seemed to give anything away – he had two expressions, surly and angry.

  ‘Well?’ said Cal.

  ‘There’s good news and bad news. This Ruthven-Greene bloke appears to exist. But he can’t be found. He’s incommunicado, as they say.’

  ‘I don’t believe this. I do not believe this. I’ve given you half a dozen names. Every one of these people knows me.’

  Nailer put him back in the cells. Another two hours passed in silence. Then he was taken back to the interview room again. Nailer stood on the far side of the room, saying nothing, watching Dixon. On a clean, clear table Dixon set out the objects in the case, one by one, with a care and precision in their placing that forced Cal to look for meaning where there could be none. It was like checkers for the advanced student – little cellophane bundles, each piece an utterly unknown quantity.

  ‘Right,’ Nailer said at last. ‘You recognise this lot?’

  ‘What is this, a game?’

  ‘Right, it is – Kim’s game. Or don’t you Yankees read Kipling?’ There it was, that word again. Red rag to a tired bull.

  ‘You know, Chief Inspector, I could get mightily pissed off with you.’

  The blow took Cal by surprise. The back of Nailer’s hand to the mouth – a split lip and the taste of blood.

  ‘Look!’

  Cal looked. A pile of paper, a few pounds in change and notes, about fifty or so dollars in his billfold, his key ring, his driver’s licence, the bloody handkerchief – from somewhere they’d retrieved the map of London he’d covered Walter with: one of his thumbprints stood out clearly, a blood stained spiral in New Cross, now ringed in blue pencil. And his gun, split into component parts, the holster, the clip and the bullets flipped out and set next to it.

  Nailer held one of the twenty-dollar bills up to the light. Cal felt like an idiot. He’d just pocketed them without thinking, that day in Silver Place.

  ‘The ink’s run on this,’ Nailer said. ‘Now, what would an honest American soldier want with a phony bank note?’


  Cal said nothing. He could think of nothing that would sound remotely plausible.

  Nailer picked up the gun with two fingers wrapped in a grubby handkerchief and held the barrel out to Cal at face height.

  ‘This gun’s been fired recently.’

  ‘Three or four days ago – if you want to call that recent?’

  ‘When exactly?’

  ‘The night before the Hood was sunk. I don’t remember the date. Twenty-third or twenty-fourth, I think.’

  ‘One bullet short in the magazine.’

  ‘I fired one round – yes.’

  ‘At whom?’

  Cal didn’t know. And if he did – how could he explain it to Nailer? That he’d shot a man on a rooftop in the middle of London, and left Walter and his ‘binmen’ to dispose of the body?

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Just like you can’t tell me who the Jerry was you claim you were following.’

  ‘It’s my job,’ Cal said.

  ‘And this is mine. Dixon, take Captain Cormack’s fingerprints.’

  Dixon set a blue inkpad next to the row of little cellophane bags and Cal let him roll his fingertips across it and then onto the numbered boxes of the print form. It was like being a child again. Literally in someone else’s hands. As the thumb of his left hand pressed into the pad, Cal found himself fixed on the corner of a handkerchief, visible through its transparent wrapping. An ‘F,’ neatly embroidered in scarlet thread. It must be Troy’s initial. Walter had called him Frank or Fred or something.

  ‘Wait a minute!’

  Nailer was at the door, his hand already grasping the handle.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Troy. Troy knows me. He saw me with Walter.’

  ‘Captain Cormack, I saw you with Walter. He was dead. He was dead when Troy saw you with him!’

  ‘No – I mean before that. The day Walter and I met. He was called out to a case in Hoxton. Troy was there too. Walter took over the case from him, just as you did last night. He asked me if I was working with Walter. I told him I was.’

  Cal could hear the desperation in his own voice. He was beginning to feel no-one in London would ever admit to knowing him. Nailer took out his notepad and jotted down a couple of words, then paused with his pencil on the pad.

  ‘When d’ye say this was?’

  ‘The day Walter and I met. The Thursday or Friday after the big raid.’

  § 62

  It was night – at least it felt like night, every cell in his body told him it was night, but the light was on continuously and there was no window to show the true state of light or darkness in the world outside his cell – when Nailer sought him out again. Cal swung his feet off the cot and set them on the floor. Nailer had come in and the duty cop had locked the door behind him. Cal wanted to stretch, but he felt safer sitting. Nailer was clutching a plywood chair, which he plonked down a few feet away from Cal. He sat down and leaned back. Lit up a cigarette and did not offer one to Cal.

  ‘It’s not your day,’ he said cryptically. ‘Not been your couple of days, I’d say.’

  ‘Just tell me what you mean, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Troy. Set off for Cheltenham early last night. Called out on a murder enquiry. Hadn’t arrived when I phoned through. And I’ve heard nothing back. Looks as though our Sergeant Troy no more wants to know you than your own people do.’

  ‘I see,’ said Cal, aiming for a neutrality of tone he did not feel.

  ‘Son – why don’t you stop wasting my time? Every alibi you offer is a total red herring. Your gun had been fired. One bullet. That’s all it took to kill Walter Stilton. You even admit it’s your gun. Your prints are all over it. Your thumbprint’s there in Walter’s blood on that map of London. You’re the only person seen going up the alley at the time of the murder. Why don’t you just come clean?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. Even you don’t think I did it. Why would I kill Walter? The man was kindness itself. I knew him for – what? Ten days? Ten days, and I’d reckon him one of my closest friends and one of the most decent, generous-spirited men I’ve ever met. Dammit, Walter treated me better than three-quarters of my own family do. I had no reason to wish him any harm.’

  Nailer exhaled a cloud of smoke over Cal and let it disperse as though he cherished the symbol.

  ‘Captain Cormack – when I catch a man at the scene of a murder with a smoking gun in his hand, I don’t ask about motives, I ask about facts. And where facts are concerned you’re remarkably short of answers.’

  ‘The gun was not smoking. And it was not in my hand, it was in its holster. If I killed Walter why did I then call the cops, cover the man’s body and wait for you to arrive?’

  ‘Why? Because you’re clever. The music hall was just emptying, people milling around everywhere – you stood no chance of getting out unseen, so you tried a bluff. Pretended you’d found the body. It was a nice try, I’ll give you that. Not many blokes have the nerve to sit with the corpse of a man they’ve just killed, but I’ve known one or two ruthless bastards try it. Who knows – other coppers might have bought it. Mebbe Sergeant Troy might have been daft enough to swallow that one. I’m not.’

  ‘That’s . . . that’s preposterous . . . that’s the biggest load of horseshit I ever heard.’

  Nailer dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his heel.

  ‘Horseshit it may be . . .’ (Good God, the man was actually smiling) ‘. . . but it’s enough to hang you.’

  Cal looked at Nailer. Tried to read the expression in his eyes.

  ‘Chief Inspector, you don’t think I killed Walter. You know I didn’t kill Walter. So what’s all this about?’

  The smile wiped itself away.

  ‘What’s it all about? I’ve a dead copper on me hands. That’s what it’s all about. One of our best men knocked off on the streets of London. Do you think I’m going to make a daily report to the Met Commissioner and tell him I’ve no suspects? That I’ve no-one in the frame? Do you think I’m going to have half the villains in London laughing up their sleeves saying we can’t look after our own? No, Captain Cormack. Not bloody likely!’

  ‘So I’m in the frame?’

  ‘Right now – you’re all I’ve got. You were there. Armed to the teeth, covered in Walter’s blood – and nobody’s vouching for you. Right now, Captain Cormack, you’re it.’

  Cal moved a little closer. He could smell the beer on Nailer’s breath – mixed with the familiar halitosis of a country that seemed yet to invent dentistry.

  ‘You call that justice?’

  ‘No – I call it more than justice. I call it the honour of the Met.’

  Nailer moved close to Cal, their faces only inches apart, and dropped his voice to a whisper of discretion.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, young man – if I have to stitch you up to save that honour I’ll do it, and there’s not a court in the land would prove me wrong.’

  ‘You know,’ Cal whispered back, ‘when you’re through with the Met, I think there could well be a vacancy for you in Chicago.’

  Nailer doubled him neatly with a belly blow, and when he fell off the cot booted him in the balls. Cal heard the door slam as though it had closed inside his skull. He rolled over, threw up, and wished he’d never spoken.

  § 63

  Troy got back to the Yard tired and bored. Cheltenham had been a complete waste of time. An accidental death of some interest to a provincial coroner, but none at all to Scotland Yard. It had been a rough night – a room in a pub full of drunken squaddies on embarkation leave. Let us piss away this night for in the morn we piss away lives in blood and sand in North Africa. He planned to make a quick verbal report to Onions, a mad dash through the paperwork piling up on his desk, and then have an early night.

  ‘Did Enoch Nailer get hold of you?’ Stan asked as Troy was trying to slip out of the door.

  ‘Nailer? What would he want with me?’

  ‘It was something to do wit
h Stilton’s death.’

  ‘He’s got my report. I typed it up before I logged off, the night Walter was killed.’

  ‘Well, he was looking for you this morning. I thought he’d rung Cheltenham and left a message for you.’

  Onions roared for Madge, his secretary. A sour-faced woman in her mid-thirties stuck her head round the door.

  ‘D’ye still have a note of what Chief Inspector Nailer was wanting?’

  Thirty seconds later she put a memo sheet on his desk and left without a word to either of them.

  ‘Ah . . . I remember now. He’s holding some bloke for the murder of poor old Walter. Bloke says you can vouch for him.’

  Troy was baffled.

  ‘What bloke?’

  ‘An American, name of Cormack.’

  ‘Stan, Cormack found the body. He was the one dialled 999. He was sitting with Walter when I got there.’

  ‘Mebbe,’ a typical Onions word. ‘But for the last thirty-six hours he’s been sitting in a cell downstairs. Turns out he had a gun on him. You didn’t search him, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Troy. ‘No, I didn’t. I had the publican call the Branch straight away – and they sent Nailer. I just sat with Cormack until Nailer got there. Cormack didn’t kill Walter. He was in shock. He was in tears.’

  ‘And that’s his alibi? It seems he’s telling Enoch that you knew he was working with Walter all along. Not that Enoch’s ready to believe him – he isn’t.’

  ‘I saw them together a couple of weeks ago – you sent me to a body in Hoxton Lane. Walter unceremoniously turfed me off the case. The American was with him.’

  ‘That’s all? Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘OK, I’ll tell Enoch. Mind – it doesn’t prove much, does it?’

  § 64

  Troy had never done anything like this before. He had earned the enmity of one or two of his superiors by being right once or twice when they were so clearly wrong – but he’d never deliberately set out to interfere in a case being conducted by a senior officer, to whom he was not assigned, and who was, moreover, a leading light of the Special Branch, who as far as Troy could see were special merely in that they were the only bunch of plodding thugs allowed through the doors of Scotland Yard without being clapped in irons. It would require careful handling.