Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

A few days later Wiseman arranged for a guard in the corridor outside Wolff’s room. ‘You’re not that popular,’ Thwaites explained. ‘The Germans will probably leave you alone but Sir William’s concerned about the Irish.’

The doctors tried to refuse Wolff newspapers but he insisted that boredom would set back his recovery. They all carried Casement’s appearance in a London court and the prosecution’s case that he was a traitor. ‘Not to the Irish people,’ his sister, Mrs Agnes Newman, told the New York Times. ‘He is an Irishman captured in a fair attempt to achieve his country’s freedom.’

Only at the end of May was Wolff permitted to leave the hospital. Wiseman rented a handsome weatherboard beach house on Long Island. An attentive young lieutenant from the embassy called Keane travelled with him in the motor car.

‘Can’t we go to New York?’ Wolff asked, a little pathetically.

But he loved the house. Perched alone at the top of a dune, with picture windows and a veranda looking out to the Atlantic, he was content sitting for hours watching the tide roll in up the beach and out again. Sometimes he could see only the dark shadows on the sea’s surface, but they passed, and at night its shushing helped him sleep. Most days were bright with a stiff onshore breeze whipping fine salt spray in his face. It was on just such a day in June that Wiseman and Thwaites came bumping up the track.

‘We’re celebrating,’ Thwaites shouted, lifting a hamper from the motor car. ‘The Royal Navy has engaged the enemy at Jutland — a complete victory — at least that’s what our people are saying. Apparently the Germans are saying the same.’

‘Another stalemate then,’ Wolff remarked.

‘Make up your own mind, old boy.’ Wiseman thrust a bundle of newspapers at him. ‘On such a lovely day even a draw is worth celebrating.’

They spread a blanket on the beach in front of the house. The food was from the Waldorf, ‘because even if we’re pretending, we should do it properly,’ Wiseman said. Cold fried chicken, salmon and mayonnaise, veal, tongue, cheeses, pickles, jellies, cakes: a great deal more than they could manage. ‘Emergency rations in case we stay the night.’

As they ate and drank, Thwaites entertained them with the story of the visit he’d made to the home of a millionaire socialite. ‘Showed me an album of photographs — honestly, I almost fell off my chair. There was old Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, cavorting with a couple of young things, neither of them his wife — who isn’t that young. I said to myself, “Norman, that picture is priceless” — so I stole it. That’s the sort of education you get working for newspapers. And, well, stop the presses — there will be red faces in the German Embassy tomorrow.’

After lunch Wiseman lay snoozing in the afternoon sunshine, his moustache twitching beneath his boater like a fat mouse.

‘Don’t you want to know what’s happening to Hinsch and the others?’ Thwaites asked as they ambled along the shore. ‘Don’t you care? They almost killed you.’

‘I honestly don’t. Glad to be given another chance, that’s all.’

‘Hinsch is in hiding somewhere. Hilken’s still at his desk. We’ve thrown a lot of mud but not enough of it has stuck.’

‘So there’s nothing to stop them trying again?’

Thwaites stopped to gaze at the sea. ‘It’s beautiful here.’

‘Very.’

‘There’s something you should know.’ His gaze was fixed on the horizon. ‘The New York police, actually Captain Tunney of the Bomb Squad, is taking an interest in de Witt.’

‘Because of the man in the derby hat?’

Thwaites looked blank. ‘I don’t…’

‘The police informer I…’

‘Yes,’ he said quickly, ‘the police informer.’ He glanced at Wolff, then down, drawing the point of his stick over the wet sand. ‘I’ve tried to convince Tunney it’s nothing to do with you.’

‘But he doesn’t believe you.’

‘No.’ The pattern he was drawing with his stick resembled the criss-cross grille over the window of a prison cell. ‘But you don’t need to worry,’ he said. ‘Sir William is sorting it out.’

‘Oh?’

‘I think I’ll let him say.’

Wolff smiled weakly. ‘As you wish.’

A short time later, Thwaites announced that he was driving back to New York. A meeting with a newspaper reporter, he said. It was the sort of smooth polite lie they told each other all the time. Wolff said he was sorry, and Wiseman pretended to be surprised but joked that there wasn’t enough food left for him anyway.

And when he’d gone they retreated from the advancing tide to the veranda to gaze at the rippling gold and grey of the evening.

‘You heard about the New York police?’ Wiseman enquired eventually. He leant close to fill Wolff’s glass. ‘The President’s people are going to hold them off. Don’t want a scandal.’ He lifted his champagne to the dying light. ‘This isn’t bad. Actually, it’s bloody good — 1911. What do you think?’

‘Yes, it’s good. Thank you.’

‘Yes, it is.’ He lifted the glass to his lips then lowered it again without drinking. ‘Unfortunately there is a price for fending off our friends in the police. Thing is, President Wilson has promised the people he won’t allow foreign spies to flout the law, and it’s an election year, so it’s a promise he wants to keep.’ He offered an ironic smile. ‘What’s more, we’re supposed to be the good boys. The President’s on our side, well, his advisers are…’

Wolff interrupted: ‘So you want me out of the way?’

‘They do, old boy, they do. Persona non grata, I’m afraid.’

For a while they didn’t speak, their silence filled with the sea’s sad cadence.

‘Perhaps it’s for the best — it isn’t safe for you here,’ Wiseman said at last. ‘When America comes into the war this nonsense will be…’

‘You think she will enter the war?’

‘I do. One last heave, I say.’

‘But it isn’t nonsense, is it? The death of the informer.’ Wolff swept his hand across his eyes. ‘I did kill him.’

‘Yes, you had to.’ Wiseman shifted his chair a little to look Wolff in the eye. ‘And you were extraordinarily brave. HMG owes you a great debt of gratitude. It owes me the price of the best champagne I could buy to thank you properly on its behalf,’ and he raised his glass in salute.

‘I thought we were toasting the victory at Jutland?’

‘Course not. Another costly stalemate. It would be a waste of good champagne.’

Wolff smiled weakly. ‘You know, I’ve done nothing of real worth.’

‘Now you’re fishing for compliments, old boy.’

‘They’ll culture more poison. Probably send another von Rintelen.’

‘Of course they will,’ he huffed, ‘it’s a war — goodness, a bloody brutal one. A war of attrition. We’ve enjoyed a few victories, that’s all, we haven’t won it. But when they come back it will be harder. The President has told his advisers America must start protecting its interests more vigorously — happily, those interests correspond with our own.’

He paused to sip his champagne, his lips smacking a little. ‘It’s one of those little ironies thrown up by war that the more trouble the enemy causes us here in America, the better we like it, because our hosts are losing patience.’

The tide had crept up the beach and would soon be at the full, the sea quite calm, a feathery trail of mist lifting from its face but a shining firmament above.

‘When do I leave?’ Wolff asked, offering his cigarette case.

‘No, thank you. My pipe,’ Wiseman said, tapping his blazer pocket. ‘Soon, I think — a fortnight? Is that all right? White will accompany you.’