‘Even one in uniform?’
‘I might not always be in uniform. Now-you goin’ to ask me in, or do I have to stand here all night?’
Cal swung back the door. Closed it behind her. She dropped the envelope and helmet on an armchair, stood in the window for a second, looking out as he had done.
‘It’s a bad habit,’ he tried to explain.
She turned, her face entirely in the shadows-visible only from the buttons on her tunic, downwards.
‘Wot is?’
‘Looking out for the planes. Expecting to see them. Wanting to see them.’
‘Oh. We all do that. If you see ‘em you’re torn between the thrill and the knowledge that some poor sod’s copping it, and if you don’t you think Hitler’s saving it all up for the big one.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
Kitty picked at the buttons of her uniform. Sloughed off the tunic, scraped off her lace-up shoes, heel to toe.
‘I was wonderin’,’ she said, ‘if you fancied a bit?’
‘A bit?’ he said, not understanding.
‘Well. To be honest, I was wonderin’ if you fancied the lot.’
A zipper slid at one hip and the blue skirt pooled at her feet. She stepped lightly across the floor in stockinged feet and a slip. Locked her hands behind his neck. Even barefoot, she was only a couple of inches shorter than he-and just a couple of inches away.
‘The lot?’ he said, understanding perfectly.
‘The works,’ she said, and smooched him.
§ 25
In the morning Cal woke early. He lay in bed, Kitty asleep, one arm stretched across his chest, red head buried in the sheets, and wondered again about the famous English reserve. After the third bout, when he had begun to think her inexhaustible, he had put the question to her.
‘What happened to the famous English reserve?’
And Kitty had answered, ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’
But then, he had learnt in less than a week that that was pretty much their answer to everything.
The telephone next to the bed rang. Cal slid from under Kitty’s arm and picked it up.
‘Captain Cormack? Chief Inspector Stilton in the foyer for you, sir.’
Cal looked at Kitty. Looked at his watch. Good God, it was only seven thirty. Did the man never sleep?
‘I’ll be down in ten minutes,’ he said.
‘Kitty, Kitty.’
He shook her.
‘Kitty, wake up. For Christ’s sake, wake up.’
She opened her eyes, the lids fluttering blearily.
‘Wossatime?’
‘It’s seven thirty.’
‘Zatall? I’m not on till noon.’
She pulled a pillow over her head. Cal snatched it away.
‘Your father’s on now!’
‘Wot?’
‘He’s in the lobby right now.’
She sat upright, hands flat on the mattress, breasts swaying.
‘He’s never coming up?’
‘No-but I’ve got to go down.’
‘Fine-bung out the “do not disturb” and I’ll get some kip.’
She took back her pillow, pulled up the sheets and ignored him.
Cal took the lift down to the lobby, showered, shaved and dressed in less than seven minutes, rubbing at his chin and knowing he looked about as shaved as a singed pig. He wondered about the Stilton sense of ‘manners’-a word so potent both Stilton and his wife had used it as a one-word reprimand last night-the cockney equivalent of ‘good form’? What was good form when greeting a man whose daughter you’d just spent a long night fucking? What if sex inscribed itself on your forehead like the mark of Cain? From the open lift doors he could see Stilton at one of the tables, a large map spread out in front of him. On either side of the Atlantic, the moment had only one clearly good form-deceit. Lie and hope nothing showed.
Stilton was eating-toast and jam-cup of tea stuck on top of the map. A young woman sitting opposite him-asses, hair up, a pleasing smile and intense eyes.
‘Hope you don’t mind,’ Stilton said. ‘We ordered breakfast on your room number.’
‘That’s fine. I hardly ever eat breakfast.’
‘Nor me,’ said the woman.
‘I was forgetting meself. Captain Cormack, Miss Payne. Our sketch artist.’
‘Sketch artist?’
‘We don’t have a photo of our man. We can’t go around London expecting to find him on a description, now can we?’
Cal sat down in the third chair. A waitress asked him if he wanted anything and he asked for black coffee. He brushed away the mark of Cain and waited for Stilton to explain.
‘It’s dead easy,’ he began. ‘You tell Miss Payne what Stahl looks like and she’ll draw him.’
Instinctively, Cal looked around. He’d never get used to this-is public airing of things and names he’d learnt to see as secrets. Perhaps it wasn’t just Stilton, perhaps it was the British? The habitual cry of ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’ was a necessity-st of them seemed to forget so readily. Perhaps it was all of them? Miss Payne hadn’t batted an eyelid, just sipped at her tea.
‘How long will this take?’
Miss Payne answered, ‘About two hours.’
Stilton set down his cup, wiped his lips on the back of his hand, stuffed the crumpled map into his mackintosh pocket and got up.
‘I’ll drop by about eleven.’
That was more like three hours.
‘You mean you’re going without me?’
‘Got my Czech bloke to find, haven’t I?’
‘Walter?’
Cal followed him to the door. Caught up with him in a few strides and buttonholed him.
‘Walter. I didn’t come all this way to sit by while you chase-‘
He couldn’t say it. It went against all his training to utter Stahl’s name out loud.
‘Walter, we have to do this together.’
‘Aye, lad. And we will. We’ll get stuck in. We will. Straight after lunch. We’ll get right on it. But we do need that sketch.’
He clapped Cal on one shoulder with the flat of his hand-avuncular brush-ofF.
‘Wot larx, eh?’
Wot larx? What was the man talking about?
He went back to the table. A silver pot of coffee had been set out for him. Miss Payne had her sketch pad propped against the table. A row of sharp pencils. A vicious looking penknife. A huge, putty-coloured india rubber eraser. She smiled at him. A silent ‘ready-when-you-are’. Cal sighed a silent sigh. Poured himself a coffee. Miss Payne was following the movements of his hands, like a cat at a tennis match.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Cal asked.
‘I don’t suppose your coffee would run to two, would it? I’m not really a tea sort of person.’
‘Of course,’ he said, and she slopped her tea into a handy aspidistra and stuck out her cup.
‘Walter’s a tea man. Could drink it all day, I’ve no doubt. But I do so miss a good cup of coffee. And that really does look like a good cup of coffee.’
She sipped and sighed. A look of real pleasure on her face.
‘Why didn’t you just order coffee?’
‘Reserved,’ she said, looking at him across the top of her cup.
‘Reserved for whom?’
‘For Americans.’
‘For Americans?’
‘Coffee isn’t actually on the ration. After all, most English people don’t care for it, anyway. And generally one can have as much as one wants. But just lately it sort of comes and goes. A bit of a bean famine. Especially since Jerry flattened the coffee stores in Old Compton Street on Sunday morning. One hears rumours-there’s coffee to be had in Barnsley or Bakewell or Banff, the sort of places one wouldn’t go to more than once in a lifetime if at all. Quite why is baffling-I mean, why Barnsley? Why not Highgate or Chelsea? When it last got short, about three weeks ago, your embassy took to supplying coffee beans to those hotels that billet embassy staff. A bit goes to the Savoy, but most of it comes here. Officers only, of course. Those of us that can’t swallow the taste of dandelion and roast barley-what the Ministry of Food laughingly calls ersatz coffee-are terribly envious of life here. I have a girlfriend who’s hung around here since the end of April trying out every accent from Mae West to Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. Never works. I almost got arrested. I tried to do Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again-forgot she was German, you see. When I called her “dollink” the waitress called the police.’