Old Flames by John Lawton

own.
    ‘And lastly—’
    Lastly? Troy must have missed something.
    ‘Lastly. These.’
    Cobb opened his case and tipped out six police-issue Browning automatics in their shoulder holsters. It was an odd moment. Troy had not seen a gun in a while. It had been well over a year since
he had last had to request issue of one. They sat uneasily with his notion of ‘copper’.
    ‘Sign here. You get two extra clips of nine mill. And you account for every shell spent.’
    Troy watched as Beynon, Beck and Molloy slipped into their shoulder holsters like practised gunmen. He fumbled at his. Clark fumbled. Milligan fumbled. It slowly dawned on Troy that the shoulder
holster could not be used left-handed. It went under the left armpit or nowhere. Clark managed to sling it around his neck, with the butt of the gun dangling across his sternum. Mulligan was all
but making a cat’s cradle of it.
    Cobb looked at them, making no attempt to disguise his contempt.
    ‘Jesus Christ. Amateurs. Rank bloody amateurs. Beynon, you show ’em!’
    He stormed out. Beynon gave Troy a look that said ‘sorry’.
    ‘It goes like this you see, sir.’
    He whipped off his own holster and slowly put it back on for the benefit of all three, exaggerating each gesture—the patient Scoutmaster teaching the dimwits a useful knot or two.
    ‘Left arm first. Down, around the back. Right arm through the elastic side, straight out and pull in. See?’
    They saw. Mulligan got the hang of it. Troy and Clark looked like the last of the clowns.
    ‘S’cuse the thought, sir’, said Milligan, ‘but if I ever get Mr Cobb behind the bikesheds …’
    ‘After me in the queue,’ said Troy. ‘If I knew how this thing worked, I’d shoot him myself.’
    He put the gun into the holster and put his jacket back on. It felt awkward and it felt silly. It stuck in his armpit like a cucumber. He’d have to live with it. God help Nikita Khrushchev
if he ever had to draw it.
    Guns boomed in the dockyard. Over and over again. Troy did not need to count. There would be thirteen blasts, as tradition demanded, followed by a Soviet reply of twenty-one. It meant the
Russian ships were docking—or World War III had begun. Troy put his overcoat back on and joined the others in the yard.
    ‘You’re in luck,’ Cobb yelled at them over the sound of the guns. ‘You get a personal introduction. We stand in line and the Foreign Office bloke will introduce you in turn as personal bodyguards. Whatever they say to you, for pete’s sake look as
though you don’t understand and don’t answer until the FO have translated for you. As far as the Russians are concerned you’re ordinary coppers—just how ordinary I shudder
to think. Right, follow me.’
    Cobb led off under the worn brick arch to the berth set aside for the Russian ships. The sun shone, but as they cleared the arch a salt wind came up off the sea to remind Troy that it was still
only the middle of April and the weather could turn any minute. The quay was crowded: a horde of pressmen, the gentlemen of Fleet Street, standing around in groups smoking and joking; a horde of
Foreign Office bigwigs and littlewigs, the gentlemen of Pall Mall, standing around not smoking and not joking. And, as Cobb had said, the unmistakable presence of Special Branch in its Sunday best,
belted trench coats, bowler hats and big feet. There could scarcely be a phone tapped or a skull cracked the length of Britain this morning, there was no one to do it. They were all here looking
like they were auditioning for the role of Chinese policeman in a seaside production of Aladdin. Troy did a quick head count of his own party, realised they were seven, and tried not to
think of Snow White.
    The Royal Navy provided a guard of honour, and the Marines a band to play the round of dreary national anthems. Under the vast grey shadow of the Soviet Navy’s battlecruiser Ordzhonikidze, the dignitaries lined up in precedence to prepare to greet the