I laughed out loud. I realised that part of my amusement was relief—relief that I had managed to get away before the situation had turned nasty, or nastier than it had been. I imagined the man telling his mates in the pub all about the incident the next day:
‘Well, me and the missus fancied a bit of the old lovemaking on the way home from the boozer the other night. Like we used to do in our courtin’ days. Well, we came upon this empty doorway, like. That’s nice I thought. Doing it there would give it a bit of an edge, a bit spicy like, you know what I mean. So we set to and I was in the middle of givin’ her what for, if you get my meanin’, when this geezer comes along and shines a torch on us like he wanted a front-row seat. It’s a good job he hopped it before I managed to pull me trousers up or I’d have given him what for. Bleedin’ pervert. I ask you, what’s this country comin’ to when you can’t have a bit of the how’s your father without some bloke coming along to take a gander at you at it?’
That night I went to bed smiling.
*
The next day I returned to Manchester Square. I walked through the invisible magic curtain and once more entered the enchanted land of serenity and elegance. Even the hubbub of nearby Oxford Street seemed muted and was hardly discernible.
As I approached the premises of the Britannia Club there was already a stream of visitors passing through its discreet entrance, each person flourishing a purple ticket before being admitted. I wasn’t sure what kind of people I had expected to attend one of these meetings, but to my surprise, none of them exhibited two heads or sported bolts in the neck. In fact they seemed to represent a cross-section of the great British public: housewives, soldiers, men in business suits, shop-girls and those well-heeled souls who do not need an occupation. Normal folk in other words. To be honest, I think I would have preferred it if they had had two heads and bolts in the neck. It would have been easier to understand. And more comforting.
There were two sturdy unsmiling heavies stationed either side of the door, ready, no doubt, to repel boarders. With stern, no nonsense expressions, they scrutinised the visitors as they made their way up the steps.
I walked up nonchalantly and gave them a smile. They returned it unused. A little man with slicked-down hair wearing Arthur Askey glasses examined my ticket.
‘Lady McLean invited me,’ I announced loudly so the bully-boys on guard could hear.
I was ushered in by Arthur Askey and directed to the meeting-hall beyond the hallway. The room was more than half-full and yet everyone sat in silence. Whether this was out of embarrassment, apprehension or some kind of dutiful worship, I could not tell. However, apart from the occasional cough, the air was stiff with silence. It was like the waiting-room at Madame Tussaud’s. All eyes were focused on the raised dais at the end of the room. Here four people sat behind a long table, chatting in hushed conversation. I recognised only one of them: Lady McLean. She was dressed in the same blue dress that she’d been wearing the day before and was in engaged in what appeared to be an earnest discussion with a tall, rosy-cheeked, silver-haired man wearing a tweed suit. I wouldn’t have placed a bet on it, but I was fairly confident that this was her husband, the Right Honourable Fascist Swine MP. He certainly looked the type: narrow of eye and with a stiff, overbearing nature. This was a snapshot observation and based, to some extent, on biased pre-knowledge. But I was convinced that I was right.
I assumed that one of the other two men was our anti-Semite prophet for the day, Guy Cooper, the guest speaker.
I took a seat near the back on the aisle. I wondered if there were any observers in from MI5. If so I hoped they didn’t clock me and put me down as a genuine sympathiser. Unfortunately, wearing a black eye-patch does make one stand out in a crowd. I’d hate anyone to think I was there in support of the cause. In fact, I wasn’t sure why I was there at all really. Curiosity, I suppose—and we know what that did to the cat.
By 12.30 the room was almost full. And the doors at the back were closed. The fellow who carried out this task was none other than the little tough who’d had a go at Benny in the café, the arrogant strutting fellow with the slicked-back hair.
Heavens, I thought, if he sees me there could be ructions. As he made his way to the front of the hall I dropped my hat on to the floor and ducked down to retrieve it, scrabbling around, face out of sight, until he had passed. When I got up again, I heaved a gentle sigh of relief when I saw that he had taken a seat on the front row.
I was surprised at myself for being so nervous but these people, those sitting around me like wax dummies and those arrogant so-and-sos on the dais were so alien to me, alien to my beliefs and my understanding of the war and the causes of the war that they terrified me. I suppose part of me wondered whether perhaps they were right and I somehow had got it all horribly wrong. In reality, Hitler really was a nice chap and the Jews were the rats in the wainscot, nibbling away at the structure of Europe. But, more important, I saw myself as so very vulnerable in their midst, like a black at a Ku Klux Klan meeting. If someone could see under my sheet I was done for!
Suddenly there was movement on the dais which helped to shake me out of my paranoiac reverie. The white-haired chap in the tweed suit rose, came round the front of the table and smiled benevolently at the audience.
‘Good afternoon. I am Sir Howard McLean, President of the Britannia Club, and I bid you welcome. It’s so encouraging to see so many of you here at this private meeting. I know that amongst you there are those already committed to our cause but there are also those who have yet to be fully convinced. You are equally welcome because I am certain that after you have listened to our speaker today no doubts will remain in your mind as to which path to take, which cause to support, which course of action to follow in order to restore this country’s greatness, this country’s purity, to make Britain great again.’
His voice rose passionately and his pale features flushed as he reached the climax of his rally call. Sporadic applause broke out, which he acknowledged with a gentle wave of the hand.
‘I would now like to introduce to our guest speaker for today, Mr Guy Cooper. Guy has been a silent but powerful force within the Fascist movement since the early 1930s. He fought in the First World War as a captain and was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery. So it is fair to say that he knows all about the horrors and futility of war at first hand. For a time he was on the committee of the British Union of Fascists and he has worked tirelessly for our cause since the outbreak of the current conflict. I sure that in listening to him you will be enlightened and enthused. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Guy Cooper.’
We all applauded this time, including me. Well, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I was already feeling like a mouse in a cat’s home. In such situations you ‘miaow’ and hope for the best.
Guy Cooper came to the front of the stage and waited for the applause to die down. He was a tall, good-looking man in his early fifties, with an easy, relaxed manner. His long, intelligent face was topped with a thinning mop of blond hair. He smiled benevolently at us with a sweet Father Christmas smile. He could have been addressing a meeting of the Women’s Institute on dead-heading your roses to encourage more luxuriant summer blooms. And then suddenly the face grew stern. A cloud had drifted across the sun.
‘Friends, fellow countrymen…and countrywomen, of course…’
An embarrassed ripple of laughter.
‘…What I am going to say this afternoon is probably the most important message you’ll ever hear. It concerns your lives, your well-being and your future. It concerns the kind of country you want to live in. The kind of country you want to call yours. The kind of country you wish to be proud of. Let me make one thing clear from the start: I speak to you today as a patriot.’
He paused, allowing the import of this statement to sink in, pacing up and down the dais, stroking his chin as though in thought. It was a precisely timed, calculated and well-rehearsed performance. Eventually, he turned to face us again.
‘There are some people who say that Hitler is mad. I ask you, is it a madman who in seven years has been able to restore Germany to its position as one of the foremost nations of the world? Is it a madman who is leading his forces across Europe and who is even now knocking at our door? Let me ask you this question: who are the real benefactors of this war? Mmm? Look around you on the streets of London and you will see damaged, crippled soldiers returned from the conflict, invalided out of the army, left to survive by their own means in a crumbling society. Cast aside. Thrown on the scrapheap. Have they benefited from this war? I think not. They have been used as cannon fodder in a conflict that we should never have begun.
‘So who is the real enemy? I will tell you: the Bolshevik and the Jew. They were the enemies of Germany and now they are Britain’s enemies. They are the only beneficiaries of this.
‘I say again, this is an unnecessary war and not our war. That is the truth the British government is determined to hide. And because I hold this belief I am pilloried by the establishment and called a sympathiser, an agitator. Well, believe me, I am not a violent man, this organisation, the Britannia Club does not believe in violence…’
‘Liar. You bastard liar.’
The cry came from a young woman sitting several rows in front of me. It stopped Guy Cooper in his tracks. This wasn’t part of the performance.
The woman jumped to her feet. ‘You’re evil lying bastards, the lot of you,’ she cried. ‘If it wasn’t for you my brother would still be alive.’
All heads turned in her direction. And a sense of disquiet filled the room. I saw the heavies on either side of the dais make a move towards the woman, but they stopped in their tracks when she pulled a revolver from her handbag and aimed it directly at Guy Cooper.
8
Inspector David Llewellyn read PC O’Connell’s report again as he waited for the constable to arrive. It did not take him long: it was very brief. It did not make encouraging reading. According to O’Connell, every landlord of every pub in the vicinity where the two murders had taken place had claimed that they knew nothing of prostitutes operating on their premises, and to a man, on being shown photographs of the murder victims, had failed to recognise them. As O’Connell observed in his notes: ‘They were, no doubt, frightened of losing their licences.’
‘Brilliant bit of deduction, Watson,’ Llewellyn muttered under his breath as O’Connell entered.
‘Sit down, lad,’ the inspector said wearily.
The constable did as he was told.
‘Not very inspiring reading, this.’ Llewellyn held up O’Connell’s report and dropped it down again on his desk.
‘No, sir. I seemed to have drawn a blank.’
The inspector ran his fingers through his hair. ‘You saw no chink of light at all? Didn’t you show the pictures to the regulars, likely-looking potential punters in the bar?’
It was clear from O’Connell’s expression that he hadn’t thought of that.
‘What about instinct, then? Did you at any time feel that you’d hit a nerve, made someone a little uneasy? Averted glances, twitching, sweating a bit? Anything?’
The constable struggled to come up with something. ‘Well, it may be my imagination…’
‘Yes, yes.’ For God’s sake use your bloody imagination, thought Llewellyn, desperately. Even a straw in the wind would be welcome now.
‘I did think that the feller at the Barley Mow was rather uncomfortable when I showed him the picture of Molly Yates, the second victim. He hardly glanced at it before he came out saying he’d never seen the girl.’
‘The Barley Mow is on...?’
‘Boynton Street. Landlord’s name is Peter Walker.’
Llewellyn rubbed his chin. Meagre though this lead was, it was something, he supposed. ‘Anything else?’
O’Connell looked back at him blankly.
‘OK, lad, get back to your duties.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry I was not more successful…but you can’t manufacture evidence, can you?’
Llewellyn could have said a lot in response to the constable’s lame excuse, but he was too tired. It was quite clear that this dim-witted excuse for a copper was destined to remain a constable for the rest of his career. Initiative, foresight and intuition were all missing from his make-up. Well, it was partly his fault for sending O’Connell in the first place, although he hadn’t realised just quite how dull the lad was. He should have sent Blackstock instead. He had more about him. Still, he’d know in the future. He dismissed O’Connell with a curt nod and a wave of his hand.
Left alone, he consulted the map on his desk with a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass. The Barley Mow was less than a quarter of a mile from where young Molly had been found. It was a possibility. What the hell, he grimaced, one had to start somewhere.
He went to the door of his office and called in his sergeant. ‘Sunderland, boyo, if you have any plans for this evening, cancel them.’
Sunderland frowned. He certainly did have plans, which involved going to the pictures with his girl, but he knew better than to admit that to his superior. ‘Something come up, sir?’
‘You and me are going for a quiet pint at the Barley Mow.’
9
With a gun pointing directly at his heart, Guy Cooper lost all his confidence and his relaxed savoir-faire. His face suddenly becoming shiny with perspiration, he just stared at the weapon, open mouthed, while his hands flapped nervously at his side.
The heavies had halted in their tracks like a movie image when the film sticks in the projector. They could see that if they rushed the girl with the pistol she might panic and fire, and there would be one less fascist in the room. The audience, too, had become paralysed, whether it was with shock, amazement or some other fleeting emotion I couldn’t say, but they just sat there, static shadows in the silence.
However, on the dais Lady McLean showed no such reticence. She rose from her chair and addressed the young woman directly.
‘My dear, whatever is troubling you, the answer is not violence. I’m sure it can all be sorted out if you’ll just put the gun down.’ She spoke in quiet, controlled, even tones but she was not able to remove the patronising note in her voice and that sense of command in her delivery. She was obviously a person who was used to getting her own way. Her confident stance and her unwavering glance told me that.
‘Nothing can be sorted out. You can’t bring back the dead. Now sit down or I shoot now,’ came the curt reply.
Lady McLean hesitated for a moment as though she was going to respond, then she thought better of it and with a careless shrug she did as she was told.
This interchange had been a convenient diversion, allowing me to slip quietly from my seat at the back. Crouching low, I crept swiftly and quietly down the aisle towards the girl without her being aware of me. Her attention was firmly focused on the group on the stage. The gun she held in her hand did not waver.
I had to stop her before she did something stupid. To be honest, I wasn’t terribly bothered about an arch-fascist getting his head blown off, but I didn’t want this angry, determined but sadly misguided girl to do something she would regret for the rest of her life. These people were not worth it.
On the stage Captain Guy Cooper, hero of the First World War, was showing his true colours—various shades of yellow. ‘Please don’t shoot,’ he moaned, finding his voice at last.
‘I’ll give you the same chance as my brother got,’ cried the girl. ‘That’s no chance at all.’
Cooper shook his head desperately. ‘But…I
don’t know your brother. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re a member of the Britannia Club, aren’t you? Then you’re responsible for his death. All that stuff you were spouting…that makes you guilty and it’s just your bad luck you’re the one I’ve got in my sights.’
I had come almost level with the girl now. She was on the aisle seat, second row from the front, about five feet in front of me. She had obviously planted herself here to get a good shot at her target. As I edged my way closer I could see that despite her tough stance she was terribly nervous. Her eyes were moist with tears of anger and frustration and the hand that held the gun was shaking with nerves. In such a state she could fire at any time, I thought, and then, as if to prove me right, she cocked the pistol.
Cooper emitted a guttural croak but seemed transfixed, rooted to the spot by fear.
If she was going to shoot him, she would shoot him now. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to act or it might be too late. I flung myself at the girl, pushing her to the ground with all my weight, while at the same time knocking her arm upwards, spoiling her aim. The gun went off as we crashed to the floor, the bullet ricocheting somewhere up in the rafters. We hit the ground with some force, wooden chairs skittering in all directions. This seemed to break the spell and suddenly there was a cacophony of noise: shouting, screaming and a stampede of footsteps as people rushed to escape from the mad gunwoman. I heard Guy Cooper telling everyone to ‘Leave now, leave as fast as you can.’ They didn’t need a second telling.
Just as I snatched the gun from the girl’s limp hand, I was hauled to my feet by one of the heavies. The other took hold of the girl.
I shook myself free and pushed my assailant away.
Comes the Dark Page 4