Black Out (Frederick Troy 1) Read online

  ‘My Lord,’ Sir Willoughby began, ‘I believe Sergeant Troy has other, pressing cases at Scotland Yard. The court can hardly expect—’

  ‘But the court does expect, Sir Willoughby,’ said the judge sharply. He looked at Troy and added, ‘You will remain, Mr Troy, and I need hardly remind you that you will still be under oath, and that you will not discuss this case with anyone.’

  Out in the waiting room Troy cursed aloud, and a small man in a grubby mackintosh and a Homburg looked up from behind a copy of the News Chronicle. It was Kolankiewicz. Troy looked around for the duty officer, who was peeking into the court through the gap in the doors and sat down on the bench, next but one to Kolankiewicz. It would not do to be caught talking to another witness if the duty officer turned out to be a stickler for protocol.

  ‘What are you doing here? I thought the forensic report was done by the local chap?’ he whispered.

  ‘Wrong side,’ said Kolankiewicz cryptically, not even looking in the direction of Troy.

  ‘What do you mean wrong side?’

  ‘Here for defence.’

  ‘What? You’re the Police Pathologist!’

  ‘I can take private cases just like Harley Street. Leahy didn’t do it. That hand of his been useless for years. He caught it in a machine of some sort ten years ago. He couldn’t have strangled anybody. And we should not be having this conversation as damn well you know.’

  Kolankiewicz made a show of putting up his newspaper and pretended to be reading as a duty officer passed by them. The doors to the main court opened and there was a rush of trilbied, spotty-faced young court reporters looking for telephones that still worked.

  ‘They’ve broken for lunch,’ Troy said. ‘Let’s find a place for a cup of tea and a chat.’

  Troy chose the third café they passed, far enough away from the court. Like everywhere else it was full of off-duty GIs, chainsmoking and flirting with the waitresses. Ahead of him in the queue, a blond, handsome infantryman was complaining pleasantly about the cold, learning the English habit of talking about the weather as a preface to anything – he had never seen his breath freeze in the air indoors before. His accent rolled along melodically, not quite a drawl.

  ‘Where you from, dearie?’ Troy heard the waitress ask, as he stood at the counter.

  ‘Guess,’ the soldier said.

  The girl fired blindly at a map, ‘Dodge City?’

  ‘Fort Smith, Arkansas, ma’am.’ And she was none the wiser.

  Troy found his way back to the table with two half-pint cups of weak tea.

  ‘I need to ask you something,’ Troy said, as Kolankiewicz tipped the spillage from the saucer back into his teacup and slurped loudly.

  ‘Most improper.’

  ‘Sod Leahy. It’s not him I’m talking about, and if you don’t believe he’s capable of strangling anyone you should have seen the bruises on my arms where the bugger grabbed hold of me when I was nicking him. I had the imprint of his hands on me like stigmata for days. He fought well enough for a man with a useless hand.’

  ‘You have the foresight to photograph these bruises?’

  ‘No – and Leahy’s not the point.’

  ‘So you keep saying, but we keep talking about him. A pervert’s conspiracy, isn’t it?’

  ‘What you mean is conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. And it’s that German I’m on about.’

  ‘Ah, the late Herr Cufflink.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Troy. ‘How did you know the cufflink was German?’

  ‘I told you. It had a Munich Guild mark on it,’ replied Kolankiewicz. ‘Miss,’ he waved at a passing waitress, ‘there would not be such a thing as a buttered scone?’

  The girl looked at him for a fraction of a second as she squeezed by, clutching a plate of buttered scones. ‘Quite right,’ she said, ‘there wouldn’t.’ And she plonked the whole plateful in front of half a dozen laughing, leering young Americans. Kolankiewicz gazed forlornly after his lost scone, and watched as the waitress lined up a multiple date for the evening. Troy tapped the table to seize his attention.

  ‘As a rule that kind of information would have taken you days to come up with. How did you happen to have it at your fingertips?’

  ‘Easy peasy. I still had all the reference books and records out that I used last year.’

  ‘Last year?’

  ‘That other German. The one they found on Tower beach with bullet-hole in his cheek. I got out all the stuff on fabrics, hallmarks and you know what then. I identified him as German from the clothes. Labels cut out, but the fabric was a giveaway. It just happens that I never bothered to send the stuff back. You know me. I work best in a little chaos.’

  ‘When last year?’

  ‘April. May. I don’t know.’

  ‘How is it that I haven’t heard of it? Where was I?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? It wasn’t in the Met area. City Police you know. I believe their man handled the case. Idiot name of Malnick.’

  ‘Oh God. Not Malnick.’

  Malnick had been a uniformed Inspector with the City of London Police in 1939 when Troy was in his first few days at the Yard. The City Superintendent had requested help from the Yard when the case of the drowned eight-year-old boy seemed to have ground to a halt. Inspector Malnick had had his nose put thoroughly out of joint when Onions sent a twenty-four-year-old Troy, still only a constable, as the specialist help he thought they needed. He had earned Malnick’s everlasting enmity by solving the case in forty-eight hours.

  ‘I was in Liverpool in April. Could it have been then?’

  ‘Possibly. But they didn’t send for the Yard. Their man insisted on tackling it personally. But, like I said, he was an idiot.’

  ‘Did they catch anyone?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. If the case ever came to trial they never sent for anything from Hendon. My file is still open.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this on Friday?’

  Kolankiewicz swigged his tea and played for time.

  ‘I forgot,’ he said with a shrug, ‘It was my assistant, Anna, who remembered.’

  ‘Was there any other similarity besides the clothing?’

  ‘That I’d have to look up. As you’re asking me to compare a whole body to an arm and a bag of bones, I should say not much.’

  ‘Shot in the face, you said?’

  ‘Oh, that I do remember. It seemed, as you English would say, caddish. Certainly less than sporting.’

  ‘A shot to the forehead badly aimed?’

  ‘Don’t ask me to guess. It’s like pissing into the wind.’

  ‘Any attempt at dismemberment?’

  ‘No. I had a whole cadaver. Troy, why don’t you talk to Anna? She can get out the file and tell you anything you want to know.’

  At the back of the café Troy got through to Hendon on the phone. But Anna could not find the file. She told him she’d ring back. Troy hogged the phone and stood by it to prevent anyone else making a call. He watched Kolankiewicz slyly swap his empty cup for Troy’s full one, and as the phone rang saw him snatch his coveted scone from a tray as the waitress had her head and her common sense turned by a provocative remark from one of the soldiers. He would hate to have to get between the cocksurety of any young soldier and the righteousness of Kolankiewicz.

  ‘It’s not there,’ said Anna. ‘I don’t know what he’s done with it. Even the cards are missing. I think that’s why he didn’t want to tell you, but I told him you’d ask.’

  ‘What cards?’

  ‘One of Spilsbury’s methods, that we copied – everything that would go into a file also goes on quick reference cards. I fill in Kolankiewicz’s. But they’ve walked or he’s had them out and not put them back.’

  ‘Do you remember anything about the case?’

  ‘Yes. Mainly what a buffoon Malnick was. Kolankiewicz got right up his nose as you can imagine. Apart from that, the body was a man of about forty I’d say. I usually go through clothing and articles myse
lf. Nothing of any help in the pockets, labels snipped out of his clothes with nail-scissors. The shot to the face killed him instantly. Bone fragment straight up into the brain, but that wasn’t all. There was an aggravated wound to the leg. Can’t recall which.’

  ‘Aggravated? In what way?’

  ‘As though he’d run, hobbled more like, for quite a way after he’d been shot. Bullet passed right through, so I’ve no idea whether he was shot twice with the same gun or what. But he’d increased tissue trauma consistent with using the leg muscles after the initial wound. Must’ve hurt like hell. Why isn’t Kolankiewicz telling you this? The bastard hasn’t sloped off has he?’

  ‘Far from it. He’s pretending he doesn’t know me.’

  Kolankiewicz had retreated behind his newspaper so as not to be seen eating the stolen scone. Troy saw the waitress turn round from the pleasures of the Americans and place a hand on her hip in a forthright manner. He knew what was coming. These days you could die for an onion, kill for a scone.

  ‘Must dash. I’ll call you when I can.’

  ‘’Ere,’ the waitress was saying, ‘you light-fingered so-and-so! Where is it?’

  She pulled down the newspaper. Kolankiewicz’s cheeks were stuffed like a hamster’s. Even in the teeth of the evidence, he munched on stolidly, returned her gaze with knobs on and shook the paper free of her hand. As Troy struggled past the rows of tables to get to Kolankiewicz, the young Arkansian had risen from his seat and was offering to assist.

  ‘He nicked it. So ’elp me the little bugger nicked it!’

  ‘Who you calling bugger?’ said Kolankiewicz, having swallowed the evidence, his accent thickening as he resorted to his Polish identity to feed his defiance. ‘Is it for scrubbers to insult customers in this way?’

  ‘Hey, now you hold on a minute there, buddy,’ said the American, ‘I don’t know what you said but it sure sounds like no way to talk to a lady!’

  ‘Scrubber,’ said Kolankiewicz, ‘by definition a female who courts the company of an organised body of men in the hope of procuring and offering sexual favour. I think you will find it has become a national pastime among the British.’

  The American paused, somewhere between curiosity and anger.

  ‘What d’he say?’

  Before the waitress could answer, Troy slipped between them and took Kolankiewicz by the elbow, forcing him to stand up.

  ‘He means,’ he said, ‘that he’s very sorry to have troubled you both, and hopes that this will cover our bill.’

  Troy slapped a florin on the table and steered Kolankiewicz to the door. Behind him he heard the waitress declaiming in predictable terms of ‘damn cheek’ and ‘don’t come back’.

  Kolankiewicz shook free of Troy’s grip and went through a showy display of realigning his hat. Troy knew that he might look more like a policeman if he too wore a hat. He might also look as silly as Kolankiewicz did now, standing on his injured pride and rearranging the visible symbol of dignity.

  ‘The bullet that killed your German. What was the bore?’

  ‘Bullets, schmullets. Don’t ask me, Troy. I’m a flesh-and-blood man. The details of calibres and twists stay in my head long enough to dictate to Anna. Ask me about the state of a man’s liver two years after I cut it out, chances are I will remember.’

  ‘Did you have a chance to look at the cartridge case I left you before you came down?’

  ‘Forty-five for sure.’

  ‘Forty-five automatic? There’s a Colt forty-five automatic that’s a standard issue American-forces weapon.’

  ‘Yes – but the black market these days. I know a pub in Mill Hill where you could buy a Howitzer over the counter.’ Kolankiewicz gestured at the café window. ‘Most of your colonial cousins would sell you anything from a pair of nylons to a half-track. You need a second-hand Flying Fortress? Try the Railwayman’s Arms in Mill Hill. And the money they get they spend monopolising the buttered scones of Olde England!’ The Arkansian smiled through the glass, easy grace letting good manners get the better of his temper. It was wasted on Kolankiewicz, who promptly turned his hand around and gave the man two fingers. Taking it for a Churchillian gesture, the American waved back with a Victory V. Kolankiewicz stomped off down the pavement. Troy felt he had witnessed some major national confrontation in miniature.

  14

  It was Thursday morning before Troy got back to the Yard. Kolankiewicz had not spoken to him for nearly three days. Wildeve was out, but there was a message on his desk – ‘Anna Pakenham called. Still can’t find files. We have more German refugees than sheep in these islands. JW.’

  Troy called Anna.

  ‘What was the verdict?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t wait to find out. Kolankiewicz’s evidence made me look like a fool.’

  ‘No, Troy, he’s the fool. He’s going to have to explain how a full dossier can just vanish. All I’ve got are my shorthand notes and I’m afraid they don’t make too much sense. I use a pencil, which can look rather grubby twelve months on, and I only learnt when we lost the regular girl to the ATS.’

  ‘The calibre of the bullet would help.’

  ‘Forty-five. Numbers always go down in plain English.’

  ‘Automatic?’

  ‘Can’t be sure. And before you ask the bullet was with the clothes and personal effects, such as they were, and they’ve gone too.’

  ‘Kolankiewicz didn’t mislay anything,’ said Troy. ‘Doesn’t this sound more like they’ve been stolen?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve been burgled once and I put that down to a moonshiner. All we lost were fifteen quarts of pure alcohol. There’s no value in the dossier on an unidentified man.’

  ‘Unless of course you want to be certain he stays that way.’

  15

  The weather broke. January had been unseasonably mild, February the aberrant frost, and now March seemed to offer the promise of an early spring and a wet one. At City HQ Troy sat in a damp basement while the desk sergeant burrowed into the stacks for 1943’s file on an unknown man found dead on Tower beach, and watched the winds of March blow the rain in sheets down the dirty glass, thick as milk-bottles, set high up the wall at pavement level, while the snows of winter dissolved and ran in clanging streams down iron pipes en route to the Thames.

  He heard the heavy uneven step echoing down the stacks long before Sergeant Flint limped into sight.

  The man stopped by the table where Troy sat and set down a bundle of foolscap folders nearly a foot thick. He was breathing heavily and slumped into his chair sighing with relief.

  ‘You weren’t limping the last time we met,’ said Troy.

  ‘Bit o’shrapnel,’ the sergeant replied. ‘1941. Doctors said I’ll never walk right again. Afore the war o’course that would’ve been the end of bein’ a copper. But . . . things bein’ what they are.’

  He cut the stack in two like giant playing cards.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind . . . I’ve narrowed it down, but I just couldn’t lay me hands right on it. Odd that, seein’ as ’ow it’s recent. Good job Mr Malnick is gone. Stickler for order he was. I let something slip he’d give me a rocket.’

  Troy was already tearing halfway through April, setting files aside at three times the speed the sergeant could muster.

  ‘Where did Mr Malnick transfer to?’ he asked.

  ‘It wasn’t a transfer. He got accepted for the RAF.’

  ‘What? At his age? He must be fifty. He was turned down by the RAF when I was here during the invasion of Poland.’

  ‘That wasn’t the first time neither. His wish was granted.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think someone pulled a string for him. He was out of the force with a speed that took everyone by surprise. I remember the Super commenting on it. He was a copper on Friday and a flight lieutenant on Monday.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Straight after the case we’re looking for. I suppose it must have been May last year.’
/>   Troy had finished his pile and watched as Flint picked over May. He was painfully slow, as though to look and talk at the same time were beyond him.

  ‘It surprised all of us, I can tell you. Mind, I wasn’t sorry to see him go. I worked with him for eight years. Well, you saw what he was like yourself that time they sent you over when you was still wet behind the ears.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Troy.

  ‘Aunt Fanny we called him. A fusspot. Not even a good fusspot. Couldn’t find a truncheon in his trousers without a torch – well, you know how they talk in a locker room.’

  ‘But meticulous?’

  ‘Oh yes. That all right.’

  Flint had resorted to licking finger and thumb to get a better grip, and was slowly working his way down towards the end of May.

  ‘Anything Mr Malnick left would be in good order?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  Troy waited, trying to show patience with a man clearly not in the best of health, trying not to rush the obvious. After all, it was not so far away.

  ‘Odd,’ said Flint, ‘it’s not in your bit . . . ’

  ‘And it’s not in yours.’

  ‘Stripe me.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, but I am curious. What kind of power, what kind of access does it take to make all trace of a man disappear?’

  Flint sucked in his breath, pretending appraisal of a situation that was beyond his experience.

  ‘You don’t,’ Troy ventured, ‘by any chance know what airfield Mr Malnick is serving on?’

  ‘As it happens I do. He sent us a card this Christmas just gone. Said he couldn’t tell us where he was, but to let us know he was engaged on work of national importance.’

  ‘Aren’t we all.’

  ‘But it had a postmark. Bradwell in Essex. An’ I know there’s an RAF outfit there, ’cos my sister’s boy ‘Enry is on it. Mostly Poles and Canadians he reckons. A few English to . . . liaise . . . I think he calls it.’