out of the hat. When I saw who Mr
Smith was, I knew they were going to pull everything.’
‘Who?’ said Troy. ‘Who did they send?’
‘As a rule it would be some anonymous bugger from the Secret Service. I think they got to think of it as an office freebie – “Who’ll be lucky this year and get a long
weekend in sunny Beirut giving old Charlie the once over?” Just reviewing my case, they’d call it. Making me sweat a bit, letting me know I wasn’t off the hook yet. Different
bloke every time. For all I knew they really could have been called Smith. They were none of them very important, because they were none of them very good at it. I think the point should have been
to screw more out of me, at which, to a man, they were useless. This time. This time, they rolled out the big gun. Tim Woodbridge MP, Minister of State. Number two at the Foreign Office. As soon as
I saw him I knew I was a busted flush. Good old Tim. Lied through his teeth for me and the honour of the Service in ’57. Cleared me in the House when everybody knew I was guilty as sin. Made
the London Globe print an apology. God, it was rich. I was grinning from ear to ear even as they booted me out. Lies, lies and more lies. But here’s the rub – prove it or not,
old Timbo knew everything. For them to send him instead of one of the spooks meant trouble. I thought he was going to sit me down and tell me they’d finally got all the evidence they needed.
I thought I’d find my life and treasonable times laid out neatly in one of those colour-coded foolscap folders they have depending on the nature and degree of one’s treachery –
yours was buff as I recall, which means they’re pissing in the wind. I should think mine was dick-end purple by now. Not so, not so. Tim and I have a fairly decent lunch for two laid out on
one of the upper floors of the embassy, away from prying eyes. No folder, just a fairly simple statement. “Something new has come to light,” he says. “What?” I say, and
I’d genuinely no idea what he’d come upwith. “A body,” he says, “we have found a body.” At first he was tacking so slowly I thought he was using a metaphor
– you know, along the lines of “know where the body’s hidden”. That sort of thing. But he wasn’t. “Whose body?” I said. And then you could have knocked me
over with a fan dancer’s fanny feather. “Norman Cobb,” he says. “We have found the body of Inspector Cobb. We know you killed him.”
Troy looked at the two inches of vodka in the bottom of his glass, and took a sip. Bought himself a quick moment of silence and then looked at Charlie.
‘Where did you dumpthe body?’
‘Thames marshes, way out somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Out past Purfleet. God knows, I couldn’t find the place again if they gave me a map. Jacob’s Reach, Esau’s
Point. Something biblical. I weighted the bugger and watched him sink. And if it took seven years for the fat fool to surface, then I can’t have done too bad a job of it. I admired the bluff.
They have nothing but circumstantial evidence to show I killed Cobb. Of course, I denied it. And Tim duly called me a liar, and said they knew I’d killed him, and it was the last straw.
Something had to be done. I did see that, didn’t I? I had to see how far beyond the pale this was. “You can’t blow away coppers on the streets of London and expect to get way with
it.” Then I laughed till I damn near bust. He took humpat that. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’
Troy did not find it funny, but he could see the irony. The last straw. Something must be done. Of all the sins of Charles Leigh-Hunt, and they were many, this was the worst. But he was
innocent; he had not killed Norman Cobb. Troy had killed Norman Cobb. Of course, Cobb had been trying to kill him at the time. And had Troy been a slower or a poorer shot, Cobb most certainly would
have killed him, and it would now be Troy’s bones, picked clean by
Smith was, I knew they were going to pull everything.’
‘Who?’ said Troy. ‘Who did they send?’
‘As a rule it would be some anonymous bugger from the Secret Service. I think they got to think of it as an office freebie – “Who’ll be lucky this year and get a long
weekend in sunny Beirut giving old Charlie the once over?” Just reviewing my case, they’d call it. Making me sweat a bit, letting me know I wasn’t off the hook yet. Different
bloke every time. For all I knew they really could have been called Smith. They were none of them very important, because they were none of them very good at it. I think the point should have been
to screw more out of me, at which, to a man, they were useless. This time. This time, they rolled out the big gun. Tim Woodbridge MP, Minister of State. Number two at the Foreign Office. As soon as
I saw him I knew I was a busted flush. Good old Tim. Lied through his teeth for me and the honour of the Service in ’57. Cleared me in the House when everybody knew I was guilty as sin. Made
the London Globe print an apology. God, it was rich. I was grinning from ear to ear even as they booted me out. Lies, lies and more lies. But here’s the rub – prove it or not,
old Timbo knew everything. For them to send him instead of one of the spooks meant trouble. I thought he was going to sit me down and tell me they’d finally got all the evidence they needed.
I thought I’d find my life and treasonable times laid out neatly in one of those colour-coded foolscap folders they have depending on the nature and degree of one’s treachery –
yours was buff as I recall, which means they’re pissing in the wind. I should think mine was dick-end purple by now. Not so, not so. Tim and I have a fairly decent lunch for two laid out on
one of the upper floors of the embassy, away from prying eyes. No folder, just a fairly simple statement. “Something new has come to light,” he says. “What?” I say, and
I’d genuinely no idea what he’d come upwith. “A body,” he says, “we have found a body.” At first he was tacking so slowly I thought he was using a metaphor
– you know, along the lines of “know where the body’s hidden”. That sort of thing. But he wasn’t. “Whose body?” I said. And then you could have knocked me
over with a fan dancer’s fanny feather. “Norman Cobb,” he says. “We have found the body of Inspector Cobb. We know you killed him.”
Troy looked at the two inches of vodka in the bottom of his glass, and took a sip. Bought himself a quick moment of silence and then looked at Charlie.
‘Where did you dumpthe body?’
‘Thames marshes, way out somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Out past Purfleet. God knows, I couldn’t find the place again if they gave me a map. Jacob’s Reach, Esau’s
Point. Something biblical. I weighted the bugger and watched him sink. And if it took seven years for the fat fool to surface, then I can’t have done too bad a job of it. I admired the bluff.
They have nothing but circumstantial evidence to show I killed Cobb. Of course, I denied it. And Tim duly called me a liar, and said they knew I’d killed him, and it was the last straw.
Something had to be done. I did see that, didn’t I? I had to see how far beyond the pale this was. “You can’t blow away coppers on the streets of London and expect to get way with
it.” Then I laughed till I damn near bust. He took humpat that. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’
Troy did not find it funny, but he could see the irony. The last straw. Something must be done. Of all the sins of Charles Leigh-Hunt, and they were many, this was the worst. But he was
innocent; he had not killed Norman Cobb. Troy had killed Norman Cobb. Of course, Cobb had been trying to kill him at the time. And had Troy been a slower or a poorer shot, Cobb most certainly would
have killed him, and it would now be Troy’s bones, picked clean by
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