John Lawton - Riptide

Cal told him a version of everything-everything except Troy’s part in it all. They sat in an office at Scotland Yard until it was nearly light. When Henrey asked him how ‘Miss Stilton’, as he insisted on calling Kitty, came to be at ‘the scene of the crime’, he was able to give his first wholly honest answer, ‘I don’t know.’ Eventually Henrey said ‘Is there anyone at the embassy I should contact in connection with this?’ Cal said ‘I don’t know’ again, and then Henrey really did lock him up and he crashed like a felled redwood. It was a different regime. In the morning they brought him a bowl of warm water, a razor and a cup of tea, then they brought him breakfast of toast with butter and that shredded orange jelly the English were so fond of and then, when he asked for coffee, they brought him coffee. Afterwards he lay on the cot all morning reading

The Times and the Manchester Guardian-Scotland Yard could not run to a copy of the Herald-Tribune. The Luftwaffe had bombed Dublin last night. The first raid in weeks and they’d missed by miles. He was beginning to think he could spend the rest of his life in jail and let the war go to hell above his head, they could let him out in six or seven years-in the meantime he could finish Moby Dick -never had managed that feat as a teenager-when the door opened and another, completely different cop strode in, shook his hand, introduced himself as Major Something-or-other ‘of the Branch’, and said, ‘I contacted your man as soon as I heard.’

‘My man?’ said Cal. ‘Who the heck is my man?’

‘I am, old boy!’

And Reggie Ruthven-Greene stuck his head round the door.

On the way out Cal caught sight of Kitty. He wanted to stop and talk to her. He wanted to stop and put his arms around her, but she was being escorted-steered-across the courtyard by two policemen.

Out on the Embankment Reggie had his hand up for a cab.

‘Where are we going, Reggie?’

A cab pulled up.

‘I rather thought after a night in jail that you’d fancy a spot of lunch.’ Then he opened the door for Cal, leaned down to the cabman and said ‘Dorchester’.

After a sodden night the day had cleared beautifully, the sun shone. It was, Cal realised, the 1 stof June and the prospect of summer preoccupied Reggie’s chat inanely all the way to Park Lane. There were questions Cal would have put to Reggie, but he knew he’d never answer them in the back of a cab.

‘My treat,’ Reggie said, as they were seated at the Dorchester. ‘Do you know, one can still get Krug ‘20 here. Amazing, isn’t it?’

Cal’s heart sank. He’d known as soon as he heard the word Dorchester that Reggie meant to splash out-but champagne? It was dry sherry and smoked salmon among the ruins all over again.

‘Are you ready?’ Reggie asked over the top of the menu.

‘Don’t wait for me,’ Cal said.

Reggie rattled off his order. ‘I think… yes… the foie gras, the Dover sole, the roast pigeon and a nice garlicky salad… and a bottle of Krug ‘20.’

He looked at Cal. Cal looked at the waiter.

‘Do you have any Brown Windsor soup?’

The waiter looked nonplussed. ‘Brown Windsor, sir?’

‘Yes, Brown Windsor. This is England. We are in a restaurant. We are in a restaurant in England. You must have Brown Windsor.’

‘Would you give us a minute,’ Reggie said to the waiter. To Cal, he said, ‘There’s something wrong?’

‘There’s everything wrong. There’s a fucking war on.’

Reggie looked quickly around. ‘If we’re going to have a swearing contest, could you keep your voice down?’

‘Reggie, if you don’t stop talking about the weather, and ordering vintage champagne and goose liver and pretending there isn’t a fucking war on, I’ll run the entire gamut of obscenity. Tell me what the fuck is going on. So far, all you’ve done since I got to England is string me out with more tall tales and half-truths than Fibber McGee.’

Reggie did not look Crestfallen or apologetic. He looked cornered. The waiter chose this moment to return.

‘We’ve changed our minds,’ Cal said to him. ‘Brown Windsor for two, and we’ll save the champagne for another time.’ And to Reggie, ‘Do I have your attention now?’

‘It was meant as a treat for you. An apology, if you like.’

‘An apology for dumping me?’

Reggie nodded.

‘Jesus Christ, Reggie, you can’t apologise enough for that. While you were gone four men died. Reggie, you can’t buy me off by spending a week’s wages for the average Londoner on an off-the-ration meal that makes me feel I’m cheating the English-that makes me feel any Englishman with money cheats his fellow English. For fuck’s sake, Reggie, looking around this room, would you even know there’s a war on? Do you think these people know what’s in a Woolton pie? Have you ever had to eat Woolton pie?’

‘Like humble pie, is it?’

‘Yes-that’s exactly what it’s like. The self-imposed humility of the English as they tighten their belts and pull together. Now-why don’t you tighten your conscience and tell me the truth? And the truth is that you dumped me on Walter Stilton when you got a crack at Hess. It was Hess, wasn’t it? Don’t answer. I know. Hess was a bigger fish than Stahl. Hess knows almost as much as Hitler. So you grilled Hess and got what you wanted and now you don’t need Stahl. So here I am, four dead men later, being kissed off in a classy restaurant with a bottle of Krug ‘20. Reggie-fuck you.’

‘No,’ said Reggie.

‘No? No what?’

‘No, I didn’t get what I wanted out of Hess. In fact, as you might put it, I got fuck all. That’s why I’m back. We need Stahl. We really do need Stahl.’

The waiter brought two bowls of Brown Windsor. Cal was not partial to it, but he was damn certain Reggie hated it, and if the only way to ensure Reggie ate it was to eat it himself-and if they were going to work together again, destroying his taste buds was about the least penance Reggie could do-then so be it. He picked up his napkin and said, ‘Tuck in, you sonovabitch.’

Reggie pulled a face as though he were sucking on a ripe lemon. When they’d both finished the course in silence, Cal summoned the waiter and told him his friend would have seconds. Cal let him get halfway through it and said, ‘Stahl.’

‘Quite,’ said Reggie. ‘Stahl.’

‘Where’ve you got him?’

‘Got him’ isn’t quite the phrase. He’s not a POW. He’s in a private room at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital on Millbank. In fact, he’s got rather a nice view of the river.’

‘A fine bullshit, Reggie. You mean you don’t have half a dozen of your guys guarding the door?’

‘Well, of course he’s guarded-a couple of London bobbies, as a matter of fact.’

‘And how is Stahl?’

‘Came round late last night. He was in the London Hospital in the East End then. I had him moved this morning, just before I came to see you. I haven’t seen him, but I gather he’s going to be fine. Nothing more than mild concussion. A couple of stitches to the scalp and an aspirin.’

‘Asking for me?’

Reggie sucked on the lemon.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Will you come, or do I have to suffer three helpings of this Cherry Blossom boot polish gruel?’

Stahl rubbed the side of his head. He could feel the ridge of torn, stitched flesh beneath the dressing. It was his own fault. Whoever the man behind the door was, he should have kept firing bullets into him till he heard the body fall. He must have been tall-Stahl had been aiming for his heart, and his last memory was of seeing a blurred figure clutching his belly with one hand and a gun with the other. Then the night went green, and green became black. The black became light and light was day and nurses with incomprehensible London accents were chattering at him. And a young British bobby, so cleanly shaven his skin shone pink as a washed baby, called him sir and asked if he felt ‘OK’. An hour or so later a doctor had examined him-speaking to him all the time in fluent if accented German-and had pronounced him fit to travel. Then they’d bundled him into an ambulance, driven him, he thought, three or four miles across London and put him here-in his own room, in a hospital that must be the preserve of some sort of ruling class. It reminded him of those he had had access to in Berlin, where party members could be pampered back to good health.