Riptide by John Lawton Read Free Book Online Page B

Poole to Waterloo he could see nothing. The blackouts were drawn tight, and the compartments packed. Passengers sat four toaside.
    Soldiers in uniform sat on their kitbags in the corridors, and a group of weary, dishevelled NCOs played poker in the mail van. The station porters yelled out the names of the stations at the
tops of their voices – still people missed them.
    He did not know what to say to anyone. Ruthven-Greene said it all. Cal had rarely seen a man quite so affable, quite so banal – a master of inane chat – and he talked without, as Cal
heard it, telling a single truth. Years of practice, he assumed – since Reggie could not tell the truth about what he did in the war he seemed to have achieved a believable cover so plausible
he uttered it without any consciousness of it not being true. The fate of all spies, to believe one’s own lies. Reggie chatted to the district nurse, to the naval lieutenant going home on
leave, to the rural archdeacon going up to town to meet the bishop, and told them all he was an oatmeal buyer for the Highland Light Infantry. An army marches on its stomach, he said, quoting
Napoleon, but a Scottish army marches on porridge, he said, making it up as he went along. And then he asked them a hundred nosy questions, recommended a few nightclubs to the Navy man, asked the
nurse about her family and sang snatches of his favourite hymns for the clergyman. Cal nodded off to the sound of ‘Jesus wants me for a sunbeam . . .’
    At Waterloo Reggie nudged him and said, ‘Shall we share a cab? You could drop me at the Savoy and then take it on to Claridge’s.’
    Cal demurred. He’d trust to the
cabman’s sense of geography. Reggie would tell him the Savoy was on the way to Claridge’s even if it wasn’t.
    In the back of the cab as they crossed the Thames Reggie handed Cal a card with his name and the Savoy’s address and telephone number on it and said, ‘We’ve got tomorrow off. I
suggest you get some rest, see a bit of the town and report to your blokes at the embassy on Monday. I’ll see my chaps and give you a bell before noon.’
    ‘My blokes?’
    Reggie stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out another of his many-folded bits of paper.
    ‘A Major Shaeffer and a Colonel Reininger. D’ye know ’em?’
    ‘I’ve met Shaeffer. On my last visit in ’39. I’ve known Frank Reininger all my life. When I was a teenager he was based in Washington. My father sat on one of the House
Defence Committees – Frank liaised. I guess you could call him my father’s protegé. E pluribus unum. ’
    ‘Well he’s the chap you report to.’
    ‘Reggie – you could have told me that in Zurich.’
    ‘Need to know, old boy, need to know. If Jerry had nabbed you, the less you knew the better.’
    Cal was getting used to the jolts, the sudden reversals of tone and timbre – the instantaneous way the fact of war came home in a blunt sentence. Now, Reggie swung back the other way
    ‘Uncle Sam does you proud doesn’t he? Claridge’s. Pretty damn swanky.’
    ‘You’re staying at the Savoy!’
    ‘No, old boy. I’m living at the Savoy. And I’m paying for it. It’s not the same thing at all.’
    And back again.
    ‘Had a nice little house in Chester Street, round the back of Buck House. Got blown to buggery just before Christmas.’
    The cab swung off the Strand into the north forecourt of the Savoy. Reggie stepped out and took his bag from the front.
    ‘Do you fancy a nightcap?’ he said.
    ‘Thanks Reggie, but I’d rather hit the sack.’
    ‘Are you sure? You’ll find a lot of your countrymen knocking about the place. I saw that newspaperman the other day – Quentin somebody or other. And wotsisname Knickerbocker.
And Clare Booth Luce stays here too. You know, the woman from Time . Oris it Life ?’
    As if by magic, another cab disgorged Mrs Luce exactly as Reggie spoke her name. Cal saw him wave to her. She waved back. A smile. A glimpse of those familiar