John Lawton - Riptide

‘When d’ye say this was?’

‘The day Walter and I met. The Thursday or Friday after the big raid.’

It was night-at least it felt like night, every cell in his body told him it was night, but the light was on continuously and there was no window to show the true state of light or darkness in the world outside his cell-when Nailer sought him out again. Cal swung his feet off the cot and set them on the floor. Nailer had come in and the duty cop had locked the door behind him. Cal wanted to stretch, but he felt safer sitting. Nailer was clutching a plywood chair, which he plonked down a few feet away from Cal. He sat down and leaned back. Lit up a cigarette and did not offer one to Cal.

‘It’s not your day,’ he said cryptically. ‘Not been your couple of days, I’d say.’

‘Just tell me what you mean, Chief Inspector.’

‘Troy. Set off for Cheltenham early last night. Called out on a murder enquiry. Hadn’t arrived when I phoned through. And I’ve heard nothing back. Looks as though our Sergeant Troy no more wants to know you than your own people do.’

‘I see,’ said Cal, aiming for a neutrality of tone he did not feel.

‘Son-why don’t you stop wasting my time? Every alibi you offer is a total red herring. Your gun had been fired. One bullet. That’s all it took to kill Walter Stilton. You even admit it’s your gun. Your prints are all over it. Your thumbprint’s there in Walter’s blood on that map of London. You’re the only person seen going up the alley at the time of the murder. Why don’t you just come clean?’

‘I didn’t do it. Even you don’t think I did it. Why would I kill Walter? The man was kindness itself. I knew him for-what? Ten days? Ten days, and I’d reckon him one of my closest friends and one of the most decent, generous-spirited men I’ve ever met. Dammit, Walter treated me better than three-quarters of my own family do. I had no reason to wish him any harm.’

Nailer exhaled a cloud of smoke over Cal and let it disperse as though he cherished the symbol.

‘Captain Cormack-when I catch a man at the scene of a murder with a smoking gun in his hand, I don’t ask about motives, I ask about facts. And where facts are concerned you’re remarkably short of answers.’

‘The gun was not smoking. And it was not in my hand, it was in its holster. If I killed Walter why did I then call the cops, cover the man’s body and wait for you to arrive?’

‘Why? Because you’re clever. The music hall was just emptying, people milling around everywhere-you stood no chance of getting out unseen, so you tried a bluff. Pretended you’d found the body. It was a nice try, I’ll give you that. Not many blokes have the nerve to sit with the corpse of a man they’ve just killed, but I’ve known one or two ruthless bastards try it. Who knows-other coppers might have bought it. Mebbe Sergeant Troy might have been daft enough to swallow that one, I’m not.’

‘That’s… that’s preposterous… that’s the biggest load of horseshit I ever heard.’

Nailer dropped the butt of his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his heel.

‘Horseshit it may be…’ (Good God, the man was actually smiling)’…but it’s enough to hang you.’

Cal looked at Nailer. Tried to read the expression in his eyes.

‘Chief Inspector, you don’t think I killed Walter. You know I didn’t kill Walter. So what’s all this about?’

The smile wiped itself away.

‘What’s it all about? I’ve a dead copper on me hands. That’s what it’s all about. One of our best men knocked off on the streets of London. Do you think I’m going to make a daily report to the Met Commissioner and tell him I’ve no suspects? That I’ve no-one in the frame? Do you think I’m going to have half the villains in London laughing up their sleeves saying we can’t look after our own? No, Captain Cormack. Not bloody likely!’

‘So I’m in the frame?’

‘Right now-you’re all I’ve got. You were there. Armed to the teeth, covered in Walter’s blood-and nobody’s vouching for you. Right now, Captain Cormack, you’re it.’

Cal moved a little closer. He could smell the beer on Nailer’s breath-mixed with the familiar halitosis of a country that seemed yet to invent dentistry.

‘You call that justice?’

‘No-I call it more than justice. I call it the honour of the Met.’

Nailer moved close to Cal, their faces only inches apart, and dropped his voice to a whisper of discretion.

‘Don’t get me wrong, young man-if I have to stitch you up to save that honour I’ll do it, and there’s not a court in the land would prove me wrong.’

‘You know,’ Cal whispered back, ‘when you’re through with the Met, I think there could well be a vacancy for you in Chicago.’

Nailer doubled him neatly with a belly blow, and when he fell off the cot booted him in the balls. Cal heard the door slam as though it had closed inside his skull. He rolled over, threw up, and wished he’d never spoken.

Troy got back to the Yard tired and bored. Cheltenham had been a complete waste of time. An accidental death of some interest to a provincial coroner, but none at all to Scotland Yard. It had been a rough night-a room in a pub full of drunken squaddies on embarkation leave. Let us piss away this night for in the morn we piss away lives in blood and sand in North Africa. He planned to make a quick verbal report to Onions, a mad dash through the paperwork piling up on his desk, and then have an early night.

‘Did Enoch Nailer get hold of you?’ Stan asked as Troy was trying to slip out of the door.

‘Nailer? What would he want with me?’

‘It was something to do with Stilton’s death.’

‘He’s got my report. I typed it up before I logged off, the night Walter was killed.’

‘Well, he was looking for you this morning. I thought he’d rung Cheltenham and left a message for you.’

Onions roared for Madge, his secretary. A sour-faced woman in her mid-thirties stuck her head round the door.

‘D’ye still have a note of what Chief Inspector Nailer was wanting?’

Thirty seconds later she put a memo sheet on his desk and left without a word to either of them.

‘Ah… I remember now. He’s holding some bloke for the murder of poor old Walter. Bloke says you can vouch for him.’

Troy was baffled.

‘What bloke?’

‘An American, name of Cormack.’

‘Stan, Cormack found the body. He was the one dialled 999. He was sitting with Walter when I got there.’

‘Mebbe,’ a typical Onions word. ‘But for the last thirty-six hours he’s been sitting in a cell downstairs. Turns out he had a gun on him. You didn’t search him, did you?’

‘No,’ said Troy. ‘No, I didn’t. I had the publican call the Branch straight away-and they sent Nailer. I just sat with Cormack until Nailer got there. Cormack didn’t kill Walter. He was in shock. He was in tears.’

‘And that’s his alibi? It seems he’s telling Enoch that you knew he was working with Walter all along. Not that Enoch’s ready to believe him-he isn’t.’

‘I saw them together a couple of weeks ago-you sent me to a body in Hoxton Lane. Walter unceremoniously turfed me off the case. The American was with him.’

‘That’s all? Did you talk to him?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘OK, I’ll tell Enoch. Mind-it doesn’t prove much, does it?’

Troy had never done anything like this before. He had earned the enmity of one or two of his superiors by being right once or twice when they were so clearly wrong-but he’d never deliberately set out to interfere in a case being conducted by a senior officer, to whom he was not assigned, and who was, moreover, a leading light of the Special Branch, who as far as Troy could see were special merely in that they were the only bunch of plodding thugs allowed through the doors of Scotland Yard without being clapped in irons. It would require careful handling.