Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Wolff left him to encipher his signal to London. Task complete, Wiseman may have gone back to his bed and was perhaps still sleeping the sleep of the righteous when, at daybreak, Wolff caught his train to Baltimore.

FROM THE SINGLE grimy window of Thwaites’ hotel room it was just possible to see the tips of the cranes on the south side of the harbour.

‘Better not to be too close, I hope you agree,’ he said, sweeping newspapers and an edition of Tacitus’ Histories from his bed. He had signed in as Schmidt and was dressed in a sack suit like a travelling salesman. His runners were staying at a flophouse on the south side, in spitting distance of Hinsch’s ship, the Neckar .

‘That Masek’s a taskmaster.’ The bed springs groaned as Thwaites perched at its edge. ‘His people hate the Germans, you know, which is all the better for us. Why don’t you settle in, then we can go over there.’

Wolff was on the same corridor. The room was damp and smelt of stale smoke and the window wouldn’t close. He inspected himself in the spotted mirror above the basin. His eyes were red rimmed so he bathed them in cold water. Then he changed into an old pea coat and boots. They left the hotel separately and took separate cabs to Locust Point. Masek met them in a dark little basement bar a few streets from the Norddeutscher Lloyd dock. The owner was also a Czech, he informed them, and for the right price could be trusted to hate Prussians too. Their host brought strong black tea and they sipped it and listened to Masek’s report of comings and goings to the ship.

‘No Hinsch, then?’ Thwaites enquired, blowing the steam from the top of his glass. Briefly, at the foot of the ship’s gangway, came the reply. He was seen with a large black man, a stevedore. They’d spoken for a minute, then Hinsch had given him a package.

‘The Negro isn’t Irish, is he?’ Thwaites remarked with an unpleasant little laugh. ‘So of no interest to us.’

Wolff wasn’t sure. ‘Hinsch may have found some of his own people.’

One of Masek’s runners was inside the yard, another at the gate, two more at the flophouse or in the bar, and there was nothing for Wolff to do but wait. Rather than contemplate the stains on the hotel wallpaper, he left Thwaites to his Tacitus and walked down to the waterfront. His route took him through a salty neighbourhood of brick terraces and cobblestone streets, taphouses, whorehouses, markets and missions, empty warehouses and decaying timber wharfs that brought to mind London’s docks and Portsmouth and a score of other ports over almost as many years. At a place called Fell’s Point he stopped to gaze at the last of the sun on the water. A stiff breeze was rocking the oyster boats and beating loose halyards against the masts. From the other side of the harbour the long, empty echo of a ship’s horn. Keep moving, keep busy, concentrate on the operation, he said to himself, but the ache in his chest was there — as if he’d been kicked by a horse. Closing his eyes, he could see Laura looking up at him expectantly, a small surrender that only served to sharpen his pain: and what was his pain? Love, loss, regret, guilt, anger, hopelessness — all those words and ones he didn’t remember or had never known.

Thwaites was waiting in the hotel lobby. ‘Where have you been?’ he hissed, pulling Wolff roughly aside. ‘You came here to do a job — Hinsch is at the Hansa Haus — the Negro too.’

They parked in front of a row of shops on the opposite side of the street, about fifty yards from the main entrance. Masek recognised their motor car and wandered over, stepping up to the back seat. ‘My man there,’ he said with Slavic disdain for prepositions. ‘Front automobile showroom. Hinsch inside with Hilken two hours, but that nothing strange — here always.’

Wolff looked at Thwaites sceptically. ‘So no need to get excited.’

‘We need to be with him all the time,’ he replied coolly. ‘If you haven’t the stomach for it…’

‘All right,’ Wolff held up his hand, ‘I know.’

Masek patted him on the shoulder. ‘Pretty girl — Brooklyn. I remember you. Followed you for Captain Gaunt.’ Sliding down the seat, he pulled his peaked cap over his eyes — ‘Masek have nap’ — and like a dog he was asleep and snoring gently in minutes. Wolff lit a cigarette and watched the lights go out in the large office building opposite. Clerks from the downtown business district were striding home along the Charles Street corridor or queuing for streetcars to the suburbs. The tinkling of a bell signalled the approach of another and the scramble for a seat. ‘You know it’s Valentine’s Day?’ Thwaites remarked. ‘Did you send your Irish lady a card?’

‘Chuck it, will you?’

‘Just killing time, old boy. But I say, you’re not…’

‘Shut up, for God’s sake.’ He nudged Thwaites with his elbow. ‘There’s our man,’ and turning to wake Masek, ‘Hey, you, any idea who the other two are?’

They were standing at the main door, the Norddeutscher house flag flapping above their head. ‘Hinsch — and that is Hilken in wool cap — the Negro do not know and…’ Masek pointed over Wolff’s shoulder, ‘Hilken’s driver.’ A large burgundy-and-orange Packard was drawing to the kerb a few yards from the group.

‘The Negro’s carrying something — looks like a present for his mother,’ Thwaites observed sardonically. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

With a curt nod to his companions, Hilken walked over to the motor car and stepped into the back. The driver was plainly expecting another passenger because he stood waiting at the open door.

‘We should follow the black man,’ Wolff declared.

‘Because of his parcel?’ Thwaites sounded sceptical.

‘Because Hilken and Hinsch won’t be doing their own dirty work. Hilken isn’t comfortable with — look, here we go…’ Hinsch had shaken hands with his companion and was lumbering towards the motor car.

‘Hurry up, you ox,’ Wolff said between gritted teeth. The black man had set off at a good pace, faltering only to wave at one of the city’s gaudy yellow cabs. ‘We can’t wait — you go after him, Masek — don’t lose him.’

Thwaites stepped out to start the motor car and was bending over the handle when the Packard pulled away. He limped back slowly, was caught at the first set of lights, then the second. ‘Come on, man, come on,’ Wolff grumbled. Masek flagged them down outside the bank at the corner of Baltimore and Charles Streets. ‘Where you been?’ he railed. ‘Go west — go straight.’ They caught up the stevedore’s cab at the City Hall and followed it without difficulty through cobblestone streets to the harbour. Beyond the old wharfs at Fell’s Point it turned south-west into new docklands, through a dark tunnel of warehouse walls broken only by glimpses of the navigation lights on the shore, emerging after a mile in a neighbourhood of workers’ rowhouses.

Morahan’s Bar was the last building in a parade of rundown shops, at the edge of a salt marsh; opposite, a dockyard gate and chain-link fence. Single storey, windows part boarded, it was a hard-drinking place for run-ashore sailors and stevedores with piecework wages to blow in an evening.

‘What do you think?’

Masek rubbed his little beard: ‘Think dangerous.’

‘Yes.’ Wolff took a deep breath. ‘I think so too. Have you got a gun?’

Thwaites patted his pocket.

‘Then give it to me.’

‘I’m coming,’ he protested.

‘Not with your leg — not in that suit,’ Wolff insisted. ‘Masek — you come.’

The Czech touched his cap facetiously. ‘Du bist der Chef.’