Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Wolff shrugged. ‘Have it your own way. I’ll contact the embassy — or Berlin.’ It sounded lame but it was all he could think of to say. He stared at Hinsch for a few seconds more, refusing to be intimidated by his enmity, then picked up his hat from the table and dusted a speck from its band. ‘I can find my own—’

‘There was a body.’

Wolff started, his right hand frozen over the hat. ‘What?’ he barked impatiently to disguise his confusion.

‘You know about this, I think?’ Hinsch asked, searching his face.

‘No — and perhaps I shouldn’t.’

‘The police are asking questions. It was one of their men.’

Another frisson of anxiety. ‘A dead policeman?’ Wolff heard himself say.

‘A nobody. An informer, but working for them,’ Hinsch squinted at him suspiciously. ‘They found his body in the bay, but he was killed at the terminal in Hoboken — stabbed, then thrown in the water,’ he paused, his eyes flitting away, ‘by someone else, I shouldn’t wonder. They’ll catch the killer, they say — won’t let it lie. They spoke to the crew of the Friedrich der Grosse ,’ he paused again, lifting the dividers to stare down the line of them at Wolff. ‘Perhaps they’ll want to talk to you. Best be prepared.’

‘Yes,’ said Wolff, ‘yes, I will be,’ and he tried to smile.

Slowly down the ship’s gangway, slowly along the quay, concentrate on walking slowly, head up right, eyes to the front, determined not to falter in view of the bridge. Hinsch suspected but didn’t know. The Germans must have disposed of the body. Did the police have a description of de Witt? He’d tried to bury the memory, but bastard Hinsch had spat on it and burnished it until it was bright again. He must warn Wiseman and Thwaites. He would have to tell them he’d failed to find a way back inside the operation too. Hinsch wasn’t going to contact him — not in a month of Sundays. Or was he looking for an excuse to give up?

Confused, disconsolate, he walked a little way from the dockyard gates to stand at the kerb for a taxicab. From a sailors’ bar close by, drunken voices, a snatch of Southern song, although it was only one o’clock in the afternoon. After only a few minutes he changed his mind and set off for the station, relieved to be on the move. It was simple enough to follow the curve of the street round the harbour, the downtown skyline always ahead of him. Half an hour at a brisk pace and he would take a horse-drawn cab from one of the piers on the waterfront for the final mile. The wind was freshening still, obliging him to keep a hand to his hat but lifting his spirits a little. In another place, in different shoes, he would have run, chasing away frustration and his sense of foreboding. He was a little breathless — he knew he was out of condition — the rhythmic click of smooth leather soles, fast enough for sideways glances from strangers, but not fast enough to free him from his own cutting thoughts. At the corner of Light Street and Lee, he broke his stride, shuffling round a carter who was scooping oats back into a sack he’d emptied on the sidewalk. ‘Watch your feet,’ he grumbled, but Wolff ignored him, brushing his bent shoulder as he stepped from the kerb, checking his stride again for an oncoming cab. In a moment it was upon him, clopping, squeaking, jangling, barely worthy of a second look except that it was him .

Christ . You again.

Behind the driver, the broad frame and large head of his passenger: Captain Friedrich Hinsch, like a stout German nemesis. His eyes found Wolff and lifted away before the cab flashed by.

Wolff watched the cab trotting along Lee Street and slow down to cross Charles. Then he began to follow, skipping, breaking into a run — he wasn’t sure why — instinct and experience and anger and something furtive in the man’s expression, something… Perhaps it was a waste of time, but what had he got to lose? Weaving along the sidewalk in the shadow of shopfronts lest Hinsch look over his shoulder, tripping and fighting for his feet, one block, the next, and pausing to search busy Sharp Street before racing on to turn right at a junction when he could go no further. By then he’d lost sight of the cab but on he pressed; to his left a high wall, ahead the Italianate tower of what might be a church. A tram rattled past, drawing to a halt twenty yards in front of him. Shouldering his way carelessly through the queue at the stop, he realised suddenly that he was chasing along a railroad wall and the tower was above the entrance to another of the city’s stations.

Parked beneath a canopy ahead of him, were three motorised cabs and the burgundy hack he’d been chasing. Hinsch had gone.

‘Your fare?’ he demanded, a greenback between his fingers. The driver nodded to the station entrance.

Inside its oak-panelled hall, Wolff pushed to the front of a line. ‘An emergency,’ he explained to an old lady with sharp elbows. ‘A friend, broad, blond hair, thick accent, heavy grey overcoat, critical I find him.’ No one asked why. The ticket seller complained but spoke to his associates at the other counters all the same. ‘To Washington, mister, the Royal Blue,’ he informed Wolff when he returned, then, casting heavy-lidded eyes to the hall clock, ‘She’s due about now.’

Wolff took the ticket but not his change and ran helter-skelter through the barrier and down two flights of stairs to the lower level, pausing only to confirm the platform number. The passengers were aboard the train, the railroad workers uncoupling the electric locomotive that had guided it through the city’s tunnel. Was Hinsch at a window? He had seven yards to cross from the shadows at the bottom of the stair to a carriage. The guard’s whistle reminded him they were at war — would it always? — and the heavy clunk of doors: Damn it, just get on, why don’t you?

There were only four carriages. Wolff walked quickly to the second. Was Hinsch even on this train? he wondered, as the engine took up the slack, and then: it’s the final nail if he sees me. But it didn’t matter really. Hadn’t he decided already there was nothing to lose? Then he remembered Laura.

THERE WAS NOTHING to do but wait — wasn’t that most of a spy’s life? Thankfully this was on a broad leather bench in the parlour carriage, comfortable in the best tradition of the Royal Blue Line. Wolff glanced at his wristwatch — a gift at Christmas from Wiseman. It was an hour and a half to Washington so he would be arriving after dusk. Until then he couldn’t even be sure he was travelling on the same train as Hinsch. Better to sit tight than risk giving himself away. He’d noticed on the station board there were stops — Relay, Annapolis Junction, Laurel — but he didn’t expect a saboteur to have any business in a small town. All the same, he kept a close eye on the platform at Relay. Beyond it the train rumbled pleasingly through flat grassland dotted with neat brick and white weatherboard farms, the low sun blinding in the glass. A conductor punched his ticket. Two suited men and a sailor left the train at the next junction. Then onwards, gathering speed, but only for a few minutes before slowing again. ‘Laurel. This is me,’ the middle-aged lady opposite said, encouraging him with a pointed look at her portmanteau. ‘I should have put the thing in the van but it’s such a short distance.’ Wolff was still hauling her bag to the carriage door when they chuffed into Laurel.

‘You’re so kind,’ she drawled in a Dixie voice. ‘My brother will be here to take it, I’m sure.’

Stooping to the window, he could see a file of people emerging from the little brick station, some with luggage, others to meet passengers, their faces lost in shadow. An old railroad worker was pulling a trolley along the boardwalk platform. Parked in the yard at the side of the station were a buggy, a wagon and two automobiles. With a hiss and hollow groan, the train came to a stop. Seconds later a barrage of opening and closing doors, and the Southern lady was urging Wolff to step down to the platform. He was turning to make an excuse when Hinsch swept past the window. Fortunately his gaze was fixed on those who’d already left the train.