He let the Fat Man collect Westcott, let him prep a thoroughly London, utterly urban copper with pig tales. Westcott was impossible to intimidate—the Garrick had proved that—but it might just be possible to divert him, confuse him, disorient him in much the way the Larkin family did with the tax inspector in The Darling Buds of May. Troy had had many a moment when he had wished the Fat Man would just shut up. This was not one of them.
Westcott stepped from the car, trying to smile, poorly concealing his boredom and his bewilderment.
“I’ve just heard all about raising pigs in the middle of Chelsea, during the Blitz.”
“I know,” said Troy. “Just when you think you’ve heard every Blitz tale, along comes one you’d never expect.”
“I was in the Home Guard. I thought I’d seen everything.”
The Fat Man winked at Troy from behind Westcott’s back.
“I’ll go and nudge cook along, young Fred. I’ll give you and yer pal a shout just before she dishes up the jubbly.”
Westcott looked around. The long, winding drive lined with leafless trees, the lawn gently rolling to the river, still wet with dew, and the house itself, rendered ramshackle with the accretions of many owners and many generations.
Then he turned to Troy.
“I feel I have to ask, Mr. Troy, but we are alone?”
“My brother, you mean? No, he won’t be joining us. It would be quite wrong for two police officers to talk as we must talk in front of a man to whom both of us might be answerable after the next election. And, who knows, the Prime Minister might call one any day now. After all, we’ve never had it so good, have we?”
“And …”
“Miss Foxx is out shopping. The only other people are the driver who just picked you up—he’ll take lunch with us but then vanish into his potting shed—and the cook. She goes home before two, so yes, we’ll be alone.”
He showed Westcott into his study. It had been his father’s study before it was his, and in almost fifteen years Troy had left next to no mark on it. It was still a room belonging to another century, another man, but most certainly not another country.
He’d lit a fire, and they sat on either side of it, much as they’d done at the Garrick.
“You seem to attract trouble, Mr. Troy?”
“I know.”
“In fact, people seem to die around you.”
Yes, this was going to be a much tougher session.
“I’m not even sure where to begin,” Westcott said.
Of course he was sure. He hadn’t even bothered to take out a notebook. Just his packet of full-strength fags. He’d got Troy’s track record off by heart. Asking to be coaxed was just a ploy.
Troy pushed an ashtray along the hearth to him.
“Try chronology.”
“In 1940, you were part of a team responsible for the internment of aliens, led by Chief Inspector Steerforth. His report doesn’t show you at your best.”
“Steerforth was an unconscionable bastard. He assaulted me twice in the course of that operation. I made no complaint, but I was glad when it was all over and I could get back to the Murder Squad. I was only on Steerforth’s team because I speak a couple of foreign languages, neither of which I got to use, and because I’d been a beat bobby in Stepney, which is where most of the aliens were at that time.”
“Steerforth disappeared without trace shortly afterwards.”
Indeed, Steerforth had disappeared, but not without trace—Troy knew exactly where he was. Under the remains of an East End synagogue. One day they might find what was left of him, but as several magnesium incendiaries, capable of igniting steel, had followed Steerforth into the pit, Troy doubted they’d find so much as a tooth.
“As I recall, he disappeared during the Blitz. So many people did.”
“And you worked with Walter Stilton on the same operation. In ‘41, Stilton was murdered.”
“Walter was shot by a German agent, whose cover was that of an American officer attached to their embassy. I investigated Walter’s death, but the case was solved by another American officer, a Captain Cormack. All of which was in my report.”
“In ‘44, Detective Sergeant Miller of Special Branch was shot in Manchester Square.”
“I investigated that too. If people die around me, as you put it, don’t you think it might seem that way because my job is to investigate suspicious death? And if you intend to bring up every case I’ve ever investigated we’ll be here till midnight.”
“I’m focussing on the deaths of fellow officers. And you were told not to investigate Miller’s death.”
“Only by your people. Onions had other ideas. I can quote him word for word. ‘Nobody shoots coppers on the streets of London and tells me to look the other way.’ I followed orders. Took awhile, but I arrested the killer in 1948.”
“And caused some diplomatic ripples.”
“John Baumgarner had no diplomatic immunity, and since I could never be certain he’d pulled the trigger in person, I charged him with the murder of one Sydney Edelman, tailor of Stepney Green—a crime to which Jack Wildeve, who is now a chief inspector under me, was a witness—not the murder of Sergeant Miller. If you feel so inclined, that case is still open.”
“In ‘56, you were part of the team monitoring Khrushchev’s visit. A team led by Inspector Cobb. Cobb also disappeared. This time without the cover of an air raid.”
“I gather that was some time after Khrushchev went home. I was on other cases by then. Cases, I regret to say, that are also still open two years later. Cobb’s disappearance never was my case. It would only be my case even now if a body turned up, and if your people asked me in.”
Of course, Troy had killed Cobb. He had no idea where the body was and as long as it never turned up, he didn’t care. Cobb had been another “unconscionable bastard”—so many of them were.
“To single out my involvement with dead coppers, particularly coppers killed in wartime, may be a way of cataloguing my sins, but it is to lose focus on what I do. I catch killers, Mr. Westcott, and while one or two have slipped through my fingers, my track record is better than most.”
“I can’t dispute that, Mr. Troy, nor would I want to, but as the issue at hand is, as you might put it, ‘yet another dead copper,’ in the shape of Mr. Blaine, you’d expect me to review your cases in that particular light, would you not?”
“I most certainly would expect, but I can hear that dirty word ‘coincidence’ muttering in the wings—”
The Fat Man appeared in the doorway. “Grub’s up.”
“And now I expect you to eat lunch.”