Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Yes, Wolff knew what to do. Christ, he hoped he wouldn’t have to do it.

Groups of longshoremen were drifting towards the quay, their work over for the night. Two men stopped to speak to McKee, glancing at Wolff, at his shirt cuffs, at his suit trousers, at the sack.

‘They’re still in the forward hold,’ McKee reported, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, his hand at his lip. The engine screeched a warning that made them flinch, and with an impatient whoosh of steam, began to trundle along the pier. McKee touched Wolff’s arm. ‘Will one hold be enough for yer?’

‘I can’t tell.’

He cleared his throat nervously. ‘All right, let’s get it over with now.’

The guards at the foot of the gangway were armed with rifles but dressed like storekeepers in cheap cloth coats and caps, gold badges pinned to their chests. Private security, Wolff guessed, perhaps something to do with Koenig or his contact in the café, the man with the old Empire moustache.

McKee sidled up to the one without a rifle. ‘Brendan? McKee. The fella from Clan na Gael.’

‘You’re late,’ the guard called Brendan grumbled. He was another Irishman. His eyes met Wolff’s for a moment, his face florid, with the small broken veins of a drinker, a nasty scar splitting his top lip. ‘For God’s sake, couldn’t you find this fella a coat that fits,’ he complained. ‘Look, put these on,’ and he dipped into his pocket for three of the shiny badges. ‘Anyone ask, you work for Green’s. Green’s Detective Agency. All right? And whatever you’re doing, make it quick.’

One of Brendan’s men escorted them up the gangway and they were met at the top by another. A junior officer was on watch beside him at the rail. He glanced complacently at their badges and away, flicking his cigarette end over the side in a shower of hot ash. Under the upper-deck arc lamps, sailors were stowing the ship’s loading booms. Hatch number one over the for’ard cargo hold was sealed, hatch two still gaping.

‘Hey, what yer doing?’ They’d caught the eye of a mate.

‘Green’s,’ McKee shouted back, pointing to his badge. ‘Inspection.’

‘Says who, Paddy?’ the mate asked, stalking towards them, his shoulders rocking belligerently.

‘Says me,’ replied Wolff, in a military voice that startled them all. ‘Says His Majesty’s Government. This is a security inspection, a random inspection.’

The mate looked nonplussed. ‘No one said…’

‘It wouldn’t be a random inspection if they had, would it, man?’

‘You are, sir…?’ enquired the mate tentatively.

‘Didn’t I just say? I work for His Majesty’s Government.’ Wolff spoke with the cut-glass confidence of one who presumes to be recognised as an English gentleman even in a stevedore’s cap. ‘The hold next, I think. Number two.’ His authority was vested in his broad A and his precise aitch : the sort of commanding performance possible only with subjects of the Empire.

The mate stared at him sullenly for a few seconds, then nodded obediently because he was from somewhere like Birkenhead and lived in a two-up two-down with a family to feed on eight pounds, three and six.

Just what the hell am I doing? Wolff wondered as they escorted him to the lower deck. He hadn’t the time to think it through; it was the smell of the thing now. He’d come too far for excuses.

‘Stay here,’ he demanded, releasing the dogs on the hold door, but he wasn’t surprised that McKee ignored him: Hinsch must have instructed him to stay close. Inside it was damp and smelt of rotting vegetables, perhaps the ship’s last cargo. The shells were stacked in two blocks, a gap the width of a man’s shoulders between them, five hundred identical crates, a thousand, maybe more. If he didn’t plant the detonators carefully, he would have the devil’s own job retrieving them. Six crates from the left of the door and six crates up from the deck. ‘Help me with this one, will you?’

They lifted it down and McKee produced a jemmy, forcing it with a splintering crack. ‘Jesus.’

‘Hey, what’s going on?’ It was the voice of the mate. Walsh was blocking the door. ‘Just a little accident,’ they heard him say.

The dim light kicked off the burnished steel of six high-explosive shells.

‘This will do,’ muttered Wolff. ‘Here,’ and he tossed one to McKee. ‘A souvenir.’

‘What the devil…’

Wolff looked at him scornfully. ‘Pull yourself together, man, it isn’t that sensitive.’ In the space left, he placed two cigar detonators side by side.

‘All right. Help me put it together.’

‘What do I do with this?’ McKee lifted the shell.

‘Put it in the sack, of course.’

They slid the crate back into place and were looking for another when they heard raised voices in the passageway. The mate was plainly in no mood to accept the brush-off a second time. McKee looked rattled.

‘I’ll deal with it,’ Wolff assured him.

Jaw set, feet apart, seamen at his back, the mate meant business.

‘The captain, where is he?’ Wolff commanded before he could speak.

His mouth opened then snapped shut like a fish expiring in a net.

‘Well, man? Where is he?’ Wolff removed his cap and slapped it against his leg, stroking his hair back in exasperation. ‘You know you failed, don’t you? You,’ he said, directing a finger at the mate’s chest, ‘you failed.’

Why? Because the mate had allowed three strangers into a hold full of TNT. The badge? Anyone might wear a badge. Saboteurs might wear a badge.

The Dark Invader approved. Wasn’t de Witt’s performance proof of his own fine judgement? He heard the story from Hinsch, who’d listened to McKee’s breathless account with something like grudging admiration.

‘You enjoyed your adventure, Mr de Witt?’ Rintelen enquired with boyish enthusiasm.

‘Not especially,’ replied Wolff tersely; he’d hated every bloody minute.

‘So, you earned your money.’

They were sitting side by side on Martha Held’s couch, his arm draped round Wolff’s shoulder — like a couple of Schwule .

‘We will wait for the dust to settle,’ he said, leaning forward to pour the wine. ‘Next week, perhaps.’

Wolff’s glass chinked against the neck of the bottle. ‘Next week?’

‘Another ship, Mr de Witt.’

‘I thought you wanted me to instruct your men?’

‘Correct. You will. But it would be a shame to waste your talent.’

Wolff sipped his wine.

‘More? Naturally, I will pay you for this too.’ He shifted to the edge of the couch so his little brown eyes could dance about Wolff’s face. ‘Are you unhappy with this arrangement?’

‘Not if the price is…’ Wolff smiled wryly ‘… correct. ’

‘Then that is agreed. Good. Now you must excuse me.’ He got to his feet, smoothing the same imaginary creases from his perfectly pressed trousers. ‘I have something I must attend to. No, stay,’ his small hand hovering above Wolff. ‘Please, there is one thing more…’

‘It’s after midnight,’ Wolff complained. He’d been wound so tightly all evening. ‘Can’t it wait? I’m tired.’

‘I am afraid, no, it cannot.’ Rintelen smiled shiftily. ‘I will be back. Soon.’

But he didn’t come back. Half buried in the couch, eyes closed between sips of wine, the time ticked into the early hours. Clara, the girl he’d paid for nothing, found him again. Why wouldn’t she? It was the easiest money she’d earned in a long time. She sat with her head on his shoulder, sharing his glass of wine, and he was too tired and bored to care; too tired to get up and leave; too tired to resist when with a fragile smile she led him by the hand to her room. And although his mind was befuddled, he recognised he’d been played like a fool. The ship, the instruction to sink more ships, Martha Held’s at midnight — why hadn’t he rung Gaunt? — he’d been played the whole damn evening. And now the girl. I should be more afraid of Rintelen, he thought.