Troy hoped the ballyhoo of what his brother had mercilessly dubbed the “Threadbare Olympics” would pass him by. It did. As Rod joined the king and half the government at Wembley for the opening ceremony at the end of July, the job wrought one of its grisly miracles in the shape of a body on the railway tracks just south of Vauxhall station, and for ten days he and Jack pieced the case together until they found out which Surrey commuter—Wicked of Weybridge or Evil of Esher—had thought so little of a fellow traveller as to shove him out of the carriage door. While the names of Fanny Blankers-Koen or Emile Zatopec filtered through to them, they were spared the spectacle. By the 11th of August they had a prisoner in the cells, booked and charged, the case of André Skolnik on the back burner, and a fine, sunny day on which to take a cheerless lunch in the park: grey bread—the national loaf, as an idiot in the government had labeled it in an attempt to evoke pride where only guilt would suffice—and Spam. Troy was not entirely certain what was in Spam, but if he had to eat tinned meat he would probably have killed for a slice or two of good Argentine corned beef.
“Sorry, old man. Gonna have to scratch. There’s this new WPC down on—”
“Jack, we have an hour for lunch. What can you possibly do in a hour?”
“Freddie, when it comes to women you have no imagination.”
So Troy ate alone.
The choice of parks was limited. He could eat in the Victoria Embankment gardens, practically next door and stretching along the river all the way to the Savoy, but carrying the risk of meeting other coppers just when one wanted a half an hour without them; or there was a delightful little spot, a sort of tarmac park, on top of the Temple Underground station, but farther than he wanted to walk; or there was St James’ Park—out the back, a short walk along Whitehall, cut through Downing Street, and over Horse Guards . . . St James’ Park with its echoes of Lord Rochester’s verse—he could never sit there for long without hearing Rochester whisper in his ear—and the lesser risk of coppers and sandwiches, leavened by civil servants and sandwiches, politicians and sandwiches, or even spooks and sandwiches.
The spook standing in front of him wasn’t carrying sandwiches. Troy thought better of offering him any of his when he opened his jacket long enough for Troy to see the Tokarev TT-33 automatic in its shoulder holster.
“And just in case you have any doubts, Inspector Troy . . .”
The spook tilted his head to the right—“Jan”—he tilted his head to the left—“and Jiri.”
They were thirty feet away, right at the water’s edge, but they turned to make eye contact with Troy as their names were called.
He was not a handsome creature. He was about 5’9”, fortyish, balding, squarely built, big in the chest and shoulders, and had old scars on his top lip and his chin as though he’d been in a knife fight twenty or so years ago.
“How can I help you?” Troy asked, not rising from the bench he had chosen, setting his sandwiches carefully to one side and wondering about the accent.
“I would like to ask you questions about André Skolnik. You answer my questions and there will be no trouble. You go your way I go mine, you finish your lunch if you like.”
He wasn’t Russian. Troy would have spotted that at once. After years of listening to Kolankiewicz he didn’t think he was Polish, either. What kind of a name was Jan? Universally Eastern European? A name you could take anywhere? Jiri? Jiri sounded Czech or Hungarian.
“Ask away,” said Troy.
“Who killed André Skolnik?”
“I don’t know. If I did he’d be in custody.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you been told not to get too close?”
“Now who would tell me that?”
“Don’t play clever dick with me, Mr. Troy. Were you told to drop this by MI5?”
“No, I wasn’t. In fact I haven’t dropped it. It’s an active case. It’s just that it’s a case going nowhere for lack of new evidence. Unless, of course, you’re the new evidence.”
“I do not understand.”
“I mean . . . Skolnik worked for you, and I assume you work for Russia—”
“Of course. You think I come all this way just to eat fucking Spam?”
“Well, you may congratulate yourself. Whatever it was Skolnik did for you, our boys hadn’t noticed. In fact they’re quite convinced Skolnik was bumped off by a jealous lover or someone he’d quarrelled with over money.”
“Bumped off?”
“Killed.”
“You believe that?”
“I was getting ready to believe it until you boys showed up. I’m now quite conviced Skolnik was killed by secret agents. Our secret agents, or your, as it were, no-longer-quite-so-secret agents.”
Troy gestured beyond the man, in the direction of Jan and Jiri—two look-alike blonds, younger and taller than their spokesman. Jan and Jiri watched the paths, every so often they watched each other, and every so often they looked into the distance, focused somewhere behind Troy.
The gesture was more provocative than he’d ever intended or imagined. His interrogator stooped slightly to lean over Troy, lowered his voice to a snarl.
“These men can break your legs with their bare hands. These men will bite off your balls if I tell them.”
Troy did not doubt it.
“I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know who killed Skolnik. And if I did, I’d tell you. It might be a feather in my cap if I did. If I find the jealous lover or the aggrieved creditor, I’ll be a hero. But if it’s you, or worse, if it’s our lot, then I’d just be pissing in the wind.”
The man smiled. The phrase resonated with him.
“Peessing in the wind. Yes. Well put, Mr. Troy. You very funny man. This very funny man, boys! Peessing in the wind. Yes. You would be peessing all over yourself.”
He looked over his shoulder, translated what Troy had said for his henchmen. A language Troy did not recognize. They laughed. All three laughing so vigorously a woman passing by with a poodle on a lead could not help but smile broadly at what she took to be the warmth of their bonhomie.
His chuckles subsiding but a big smile still bending his scars upwards, he said, “You know what, funny man? I think maybe you do tell me truth. Peessing in the wind. Exactly so. So, we go now. Just never forget.”
Before Troy could ask what it was he should never forget, he was treated to another glimpse of the Tokarev in its leather shoulder holster. When he looked away from it, Jan and Jiri had gone, and their leader was buttoning his jacket and, still chuckling to himself, walking away in the direction of the Buckingham Palace as though he had not just engineered a diplomatic incident.
Troy, finding he had no appetite, threw his lunch to the ducks and went back to the Yard.