The warehouse loomed up in front of them. Seven black storeys. The grime of centuries caked on. Row upon row of iron-shuttered windows. Every shutter at a different angle, as though signalling in semaphore. A giant Advent calendar in black and rust. The first hint of eastern sunlight playing across the surface, picking out a gigantic G and a faded C. Troy thought of all the wartime films he’d seen over the last few years, it almost didn’t matter which – the fighter plane coming out of the sun.
He shrugged off his jacket and threw it into the back of the car – bloody and shirtsleeved once more. Mary McDiarmuid backed the car off and Troy and Shrimp Robertson stood at the gates to the dockyard.
Troy had no time for it but the look on Robertson’s face was the same one he had been wearing that night they had fished Rork’s body from the canal basin. The urgency of something that might burst within him that had eventually led to his account of Troy’s first – and so far only – encounter with the Ryan twins.
‘Whatever it is, save it,’ Troy said.
‘Can’t. Gotta speak.’
‘Mr Robertson, we haven’t got the time.’
‘Gotta. Gotta ask. Sir, why am I stuck out here and you going in alone?’
Robertson’s speech had rattled out with the rapidity of a machinegun. Troy heard the cry go up from the other side of the building. The corny melodrama of ‘This is the police!’
‘Why? Because it’s not six weeks since you were a cadet at Hendon.’
‘You mean if they, like, come out shooting? Cos I bet I’ve had weapons training more recently than any of us.’
‘You’re staying here.’
‘Remember the Derek Bentley case, sir? They teach it in college now. Don’t approach an armed man alone.’
‘You’re staying here.’ Troy checked the gun.
‘Metropolitan Police guidelines state, sir, that. . .’
Safety off.
‘This is no time to be quoting me the rule book.’
Six .357 bullets in the chamber.
‘. . . that an unaccompanied officer -’
Troy stepped through the gate into the yard, but Robertson followed, undeterred.
‘Go back, Mr Robertson. It can’t be long now.’
‘- an unaccompanied officer when in pursuance of—’
‘Stop. Stop right now!’
Troy pushed Robertson, and pushed him again.
Troy pushed Robertson. The push saved both their lives.