Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Perfectly, Hilken assured him, and was on the point of closing the door when he checked, his forefinger across his lip. ‘The victualling of the Breslau — I almost forgot — it needs a signature.’ He turned back to his desk for a pen. ‘Tell my driver I’ll be down in ten minutes.’ He bent over the document the clerk presented to him and wrote his name. Wolff realised it had been a mistake to let him even as the door was closing.

‘Your offer,’ Hilken said quickly. ‘I might be able to collect this information — it will take a little time, just a few hours. Of course, I’d want Dr Albert’s accounts in return.’

‘Has Dilger gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the anthrax — you still have some?’

Hilken examined his nails. ‘A little.’

‘Where?’

‘That’s Hinsch’s concern,’ he replied evasively.

‘And you’re going to culture more?’ Wolff asked, walking to one of the windows overlooking the street.

Another long pause. ‘We haven’t talked about it.’

Wolff knew he was lying. ‘And Dilger — are you expecting him back or is his brother going to culture it?’

A streetcar, perhaps the last of the night, pulled up to the stop outside the building and a drunken sailor stumbled up its steps, tripping and almost falling at the top.

‘No, Dr Dilger’s gone and won’t come back,’ Hilken said in a neutral monotone.

Hilken’s Packard was parked at the kerb, the driver’s back against the bonnet, a cigarette burning between his fingers. A noise seemed to startle him; he turned sharply to look down the street but at what, Wolff couldn’t tell.

‘You know, Hilken, I could knock you down.’ He stepped away from the window and closer to the desk. ‘I could shoot you. Or you could give me the names I want — the sailors and their ships. They’re here, aren’t they?’

‘No. I don’t…’ he hesitated, taking a step sideways behind the desk. ‘I’ll shout for help. My clerk, and there are thirty…’

‘You can try,’ Wolff levelled the gun at him. ‘It might be the last thing you do. You’re wondering if I’m bluffing…’ He was bluffing, but it was invested with fifteen years of quiet menace.

‘I haven’t got the names.’ Hilken’s voice shook. ‘I haven’t. Not here.’ He was lying.

Wolff was upon him before he had time to raise a word, striking him hard on the left cheekbone with the grip of the gun, then a punch to his right side. As he fell, Hilken struck his head on the edge of the desk. Dazed, whimpering, he sprawled on the floor beneath it, Wolff on one knee beside him, breathing hard, the revolver raised to strike again. ‘Tell me,’ Wolff gasped; ‘tell me.’ The words came to him like an echo from his Turkish prison cell, and in that instant he was gazing up at a sunburnt face with a full moustache, dark smiling eyes. Hilken tried to curl into a ball. ‘Please. I don’t… just, just… please don’t…’ he mumbled between fingers. And this time the echo was Wolff’s own voice. Christ .

‘The drawer,’ Hilken said. ‘The drawer.’

‘Which one?’

‘Right — top right.’

‘Stay there,’ Wolff commanded.

A black file, papers in date order, and glancing through, a sheet with a list of eight ships.

‘The Richmond , the Lagan , Oberon… ?’ He pushed Hilken with his shoe.

‘Yes.’

‘And the sailors’ names?’

‘Devoy has those. Only Devoy — that’s the deal.’

It made sense and it sounded true. He had the ships at least, that was a start. ‘All right. I’ll contact you tomorrow. Time for you to collect the names of the people you are using in the port, and an opportunity to think about how much you enjoy being a pillar of society. What a hard thing it would be to give up.’

‘But what if I…’ Hilken was struggling too obviously for something to say, his thoughts at the end of the corridor or in the hall or in the shadows of the street.

‘Just give me the key to your room.’

The clerk had gone, his desktop empty but for a rectangle of writing paper and four sharp pencils in perfect parallel lines. Wolff locked Hilken in his office with a fleeting prayer: Please God, the oily bastard’s in there a long time . It was galling to acknowledge but he knew his clumsy attempt at blackmail was going to fail. I’ve shot Wiseman’s bolt and hit very little, he thought, as he walked quickly along the corridor to the stairs. Large payments from a foreign diplomat to a businessman’s private accounts were proof of nothing but profiteering, and wasn’t that just the sort of enterprise to make America richer still? Perhaps he should have tried harder. It was the recollection of Turkey, his own torturer — well, he couldn’t — just the thought made him sick. The ships, he had the names of the ships.

The singing had stopped and someone was trying to stroke the old piano through the Moonlight Sonata. The party in the club below was over and a commanding voice and the clatter of furniture suggested the stewards were clearing the tables. If Hilken’s clerk was organising a reception committee, it wouldn’t be here, he thought . At the bottom of the stairs the doors of the club swung open and a sober-looking merchant officer stalked out with his hat under his arm. Wolff followed him from the building but waited in its shadow and watched him climb into a horse cab. Parked a few feet from the entrance was Hilken’s Packard — the driver had retreated behind the wheel — and striding along the sidewalk opposite, two smartly dressed men, heads bent in conversation. Midnight on a chilly downtown street in March, well lit, almost empty, nothing out of the ordinary or so it seemed, but his heart was pounding. Where the hell was Masek? He could feel the danger creeping over his skin.

Sidewalk to sidewalk on the brightest streets, bending his mind to movement, faces, footsteps, a reflection shifting in a shop window; a route through downtown Baltimore; and if I’m lucky I’ll find a cab. Cursing Masek as he walked, because at such times it was important to blame someone. On Baltimore Street he was startled by a drunk who lurched out of an office doorway to ask for money.

‘Get lost,’ he muttered angrily. Half a block further on he was sorry he hadn’t found a nickel or dime. Baltimore was so empty, so still, the sound of his own footsteps was unnerving. It reminded him for just a moment of Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt ; the gas cloud that wipes people from the world, leaving its streets to machines.

Beyond the Custom House he began to breathe more easily. A few blocks to the harbour basin, on into President Street and he would be there. What happened to you, Masek? Ahead of him now, the chimney of the new pumping station; on his right the lights of the city dock. Damn stupid to check in to the hotel under the same cover name; what was he thinking? Careless, as if it was over, when it was never over. He tightened his grip on the revolver .

Two sailors staggered from an alleyway with their arms draped around each other and began to weave along the sidewalk away from him. He slowed a little, seeking some assurance that they were the harmless drunks they appeared to be. They were disconcertingly well-built men, the sort he used to baulk at tackling on the naval college rugby field. Drawing closer, his pulse began to quicken again. There was something wrong. What? He was close enough now to hear their shuffling footsteps. Footsteps, footsteps. They were rolling home in silence. I’m a fool. It was a performance. He’d known a lot of drunken sailors, he’d often been drunk himself and he could remember quiet moments, but not at turning-out time, not in a street, not with an arm round a buddy.