Read Online Black Out by John Lawton - Free Book Online

hand as he had seen the ASMs do to the comedians at the Windmill when they overshot their allotted time.
    ‘My Lord,’ Sir Willoughby began, ‘I believe Sergeant Troy has other, pressing cases at Scotland Yard. The court can hardly expect—’
    ‘But the court does expect, Sir Willoughby,’ said the judge sharply. He looked at Troy and added, ‘You will remain, Mr Troy, and I need hardly remind you that you will still be under oath, and that you will not discuss this case with anyone.’
    Out in the waiting room Troy cursed aloud, and a small man in a grubby mackintosh and a Homburg looked up from behind a copy of the
News Chronicle.
It was Kolankiewicz. Troy looked around for the duty officer, who was peeking into the court through the gap in the doors and sat down on the bench, next but one to Kolankiewicz. It would not do to be caught talking to another witness if the duty officer turned out to be a stickler for protocol.
    ‘What are you doing here? I thought the forensic report was done by the local chap?’ he whispered.
    ‘Wrong side,’ said Kolankiewicz cryptically, not even looking in the direction of Troy.
    ‘What do you mean wrong side?’
    ‘Here for defence.’
    ‘What? You’re the Police Pathologist!’
    ‘I can take private cases just like Harley Street. Leahy didn’t do it. That hand of his been useless for years. He caught it in a machine of some sort ten years ago. He couldn’t have strangled anybody. And we should not be having this conversation as damn well you know.’
    Kolankiewicz made a show of putting up his newspaper and pretended to be reading as a duty officer passed by them. The doors to the main court opened and there was a rush of trilbied, spotty-faced young court reporters looking for telephones that still worked.
    ‘They’ve broken for lunch,’ Troy said. ‘Let’s find a place for a cup of tea and a chat.’
    Troy chose the third café they passed, far enough away from the court. Like everywhere else it was full of off-duty GIs, chainsmoking and flirting with the waitresses. Ahead of him in the queue, a blond, handsome infantryman was complaining pleasantly about the cold, learning the English habit of talking about the weather as a preface to anything – he had never seen his breath freeze in the air indoors before. His accent rolled along melodically, not quite a drawl.
    ‘Where you from, dearie?’ Troy heard the waitress ask, as he stood at the counter.
    ‘Guess,’ the soldier said.
    The girl fired blindly at a map, ‘Dodge City?’
    ‘Fort Smith, Arkansas, ma’am.’ And she was none the wiser.
    Troy found his way back to the table with two half-pint cups of weak tea.
    ‘I need to ask you something,’ Troy said, as Kolankiewicz tipped the spillage from the saucer back into his teacup and slurped loudly.
    ‘Most improper.’
    ‘Sod Leahy. It’s not him I’m talking about, and if you don’t believe he’s capable of strangling anyone you should have seen the bruises on my arms where the bugger grabbed hold of me when I was nicking him. I had the imprint of his hands on me like stigmata for days. He fought well enough for a man with a useless hand.’
    ‘You have the foresight to photograph these bruises?’
    ‘No – and Leahy’s not the point.’
    ‘So you keep saying, but we keep talking about him. A pervert’s conspiracy, isn’t it?’
    ‘What you mean is conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. And it’s that German I’m on about.’
    ‘Ah, the late Herr Cufflink.’
    ‘Precisely,’ said Troy. ‘How did you know the cufflink was German?’
    ‘I told you. It had a Munich Guild mark on it,’ replied Kolankiewicz. ‘Miss,’ he waved at a passing waitress, ‘there would not be such a thing as a buttered scone?’
    The girl looked at him for a fraction of a second as she squeezedby, clutching a plate of buttered scones. ‘Quite right,’ she said, ‘there wouldn’t.’ And she plonked the whole plateful in front of half a dozen