John Lawton - Riptide

Onions fixed his gaze on Crawley.

‘Does this help, Dennis?’ he asked without a trace of sarcasm.

Crawley gave a far straighter answer than Troy knew Nailer would attempt. The man might be a colossal prig, but he was honest.

‘It… er… it complicates matters. Cormack has admitted that he fired the gun five or six days ago… of course it would help if he told us at whom… but he’s claiming some sort of diplomatic immunity on that one.’

‘You want my professional opinion?’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘That’s why you got me here, is it not? My opinion is that if you had sent me the gun the night Stilton died we might be in a better position to judge, but as things stand I will say now that I cannot say with any reliability when this gun was fired. It is perfectly possible that this Cormack is telling the truth. But there is yet more.’

He tore the wrapper off the bullets and set one of them upright on the desk. He tugged at the bulge in his coat pocket and pulled out a large wad of cotton wool. A few seconds probing with his fingers and he set a second bullet, distorted and shapeless, next to the first. Every copper in the room looked at it. Nailer could not restrain a grin, the small man’s smirk of petty triumph.

‘As you boys can see, is bent to buggery. However…’

Kolankiewicz picked up the unspent bullet, whipped out his spectacles, and eyed it closely.

‘…It is the same calibre. Point 32, with full metal jacket made for a.35. The spent bullet I have shows a right hand twist, which is what it’d have if it too had come from a Smith and Wesson. There are not many.35 handguns. In fact Smith and Wesson are one of the few firms ever to make them. A small gun, 22 ounces, more powerful than their.32-that’s what I’d call a handbag gun-not as powerful as the Colt.38 or the Browning 9mm, but still some stopping power. I shall have to compare the bullet that killed old Stinker with a test shot. It’s all in the rifling-the twist.’

‘But,’ said Nailer, ‘it’s bent to buggery! You said so yourself.’

‘Trust me. I’m a smartyarse.’

It occurred to Troy that working for the Branch did not often bring Crawley into contact with the old immovable object that was Kolankiewicz. He spoke to him as though he’d been accosted by a particularly rude fishmonger who’d had the sheer neck to ring at the front door clutching six months of unpaid accounts. It came effortlessly, unconsciously perhaps, to men like Crawley to use a tone of voice that directed you to the tradesman’s entrance.

‘Let me understand you. You’re saying you can run tests on this?’

‘Yes. Difficult, but not impossible, so yes.’

Troy heard Stan draw in breath as though about to speak. But Nailer spoke first, reddening once more with anger and exasperation.

‘Scuse me sir, but this is bollocks. We shouldn’t be playing around with useless blobs of lead with what we’ve got. He was there, he had a gun, and he’s no explanation that adds up to piss in a tea-strainer as to why he was there or why he was with Walter at all. This immunity he seems to claim, this mission he says he’s on-it’s all bollocks. He did it. I know he did it. The Yanks know he did it. He’s a villain and they’ve disowned him. I say forget the damn tests and charge him now.’

It was a speech that left every man in the room, save Kolankiewicz who did not appear to be listening, slightly stunned.

Crawley jerked his chin off his chest, slowly turned to face his Chief Inspector and said, ‘Enoch, are you quite serious?’ in the same tone in which he might have said ‘Are you quite mad?’

‘Charge the bugger, charge him now!’

Onions turned to Troy-the injunction of silence lifted.

‘Mr Nailer,’ Troy began. ‘Does the phrase “diplomatic incident” mean anything to you?’

Nailer did not answer. He glared at Troy.

‘Has it occurred to you that far from being disowned Cormack might merely have fallen foul of the internal politics in what is known to be a very factional embassy, and that when they finally work out the mess he’s in they’ll want him back in one piece? You’ve held him for a couple of days. It’s his rotten luck that of all the English people he’s named I’m the only one available to speak for him, so you’ve had a romp watching his alibis topple like ninepins. But tomorrow or the day after the Americans will tire of playing games and they’ll ask for him back.’

Nailer glared still, and it seemed to Troy that he’d not understood one word of what he’d just said.

Crawley stood, stiff-necked, adam’s apple bobbing in his collar-head of house and captain of the first eleven rolled into one.

‘I’m fed up with this. I’m putting an end to it now. Mr Kolankiewicz, do your tests and send me the report.’

Publish and be damned. Nailer said nothing. Troy said nothing. Onions muttered the platitudes of rank. Chairs scraped back. Legs stretched. Kolankiewicz was out of the door in a flash, closely followed by Troy and Nailer.

Past Madge’s office, at the head of the stairs, Nailer tapped Troy on the shoulder. He was not about to let him go easily. The finger that tapped the shoulder now prodded him in the sternum.

‘You cheeky young bugger! I’ve been a copper since you were in nappies. I’ve been a copper more’n twenty years-‘

‘Then,’ Troy cut him off, ‘it’s a pity that in twenty years you’ve learnt fuck all.’

An inarticulate noise burst forth from Nailer-nothing clearer than ‘Wuuurgh!’ He lunged at Troy, fist clenched, missed and fell against the wall-purple in the face, a blood vessel in his forehead throbbing furiously. Troy ran down the stairs, chasing after Kolankiewicz.

He caught him on the ground floor, short, fat legs hurrying against the grain of his character.

‘You’re off to Hendon? I’m coming with you.’

‘You are welcome, my boy-but it is not to Hendon I go.’

‘Where then?’

‘You want your proof, don’t you? The death of a fellow flatfoot bothers you as much as it bothers Crawley’s creeps, does it not? Then we should go to the top. You may believe in the necessity of good forensics, but Nailer is typical not only of many of your colleagues but also of the Metropolitan Police bureaucracy. You know how I got my first comparison microscope? I built it myself. In 1934. I’m still using it-and in all the equipment with which the misers at the Yard have supplied me, there is nothing that I would grace with the words “state of the art”.’

‘So?’

‘So we go to the top man. Tell me-have you ever met Mr Churchill?’

Troy had never met Mr Churchill, but he had long wanted to. It was an irresistible invitation. He followed Kolankiewicz at a cracking pace. It seemed the little lunatic really had the bit between his teeth. Out of the Yard, across Whitehall, and down Downing Street.

At the end of Downing Street he turned right across Horse Guard’s Parade, over the Mall, up Carlton House Steps into Lower Regent Street, across the Haymarket, right into Orange Street, and at the junction with St Martin’s Street he stopped outside a small shop. If Troy’s knowledge of geography served him aright, they were at the back of the National Gallery, and if his knowledge of the underworld served him aright, pretty well opposite one of the most notorious brothels in London.

‘You understand, I hope,’ Kolankiewicz was saying, ‘that we’re going private. You’d better have your chequebook on you.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Troy. ‘It’ll be worth a few quid to wrap this one.’

Kolankiewicz yanked on the bell. A black-coated gentleman’s gentleman opened the door to them, a figure from another era, perhaps Dickensian-he put Troy in mind of Wemmick, this was how he’d always seen Wemmick-and if not Dickensian, then certainly of the other century.