Percy Crow

by Daniel Kemp

  “Goat's, soya or coconut milk?”

  “Have you an aversion to cows?” incredulously I asked.

  “I have! Smelly things that fill the atmosphere with farting gas. Can't stand the sight of them. Filthy creatures!”

  I laid a ten pound note on the crumpled blue tablecloth covering a stout wooden table pressed tightly against a window, overlooking a small overgrown yard, as I passed on the offer of tea. She saw it the instant I took my hand away.

  “I hate to call people liars, but you're one. Nor do I like to think of anyone being born stupid, but you pass on that score as well. Do you think I came down in that shower of rain we had last Wednesday? A tenner from a reporter from a top-notch rag such as the Guardian? Show some respect; please! The cost of living is flying through the roof. I don't care where you come from, squire, but I ain't opening my gob for less than fifty quid, or you can piss off.” Her complexion changed in colour as the anger showed clearly on her haggard face.

  Luckily I brought some cash, laying a crisp fifty pound note where the tenner had been.

  “That's better, my mouth's not so dry! Where were we? Ah, yes, the Crow! He told me once that he was the brains behind the Great Train Robbery then next time we spoke, about a month later, said he was the man behind Lord Lucan's escape. A man full of chat with no trousers was Percy Crow. Empty cans make the most noise, if you're following my drift. Always had a tale, did Percy. What's your name, by the way?” I told her, without adding my surname nor any title.

  “Well, Harry, I'm Lily, named after the flower of reincarnation and rebirth. Make sure you write that in your newspaper, it's the only bit of intelligence I know. But I ain't short of brains, or common sense! Odd character that Percy Crow and no mistake! I asked him one day why so many young kids knocked on his door, and you know what he said, well of course you don't, you weren't there. He turned round and told me that they were wannabe models coming for photoshoots for their portfolios. Never did find out what a portfolio was. I expect you would know though. On more than one occasion I saw them kids on the way out counting wads of money. Now, me being me, I thought they would have paid him for taking their photos, not him paying them. Fredrick, that was my late husband's name, was hardly ever here, he being a beer-swilling meat merchant of questionable moral standing, but when he was, he used to drool over some of them half naked girls in their skimpy tops and hot pants.

  Then there was the noise. All through the night sometimes! Sounds like furniture being moved, or doors slamming and shrills of laughter. Heard screaming a couple times, like pain but different. Me and Freddie lived here from the day we married in June 1946. It was his mum and dad's house before that. Percy was already living at number seventeen. I think it was Freddie's mum who told me that he bought his place outright. She was obsessed by the fact that he wasn't renting it from the council like them and everyone else in the square! Freddie took an instant dislike, heavily into the new Labour government of the day was Freddie. Spoke on behalf of them at rallies and the like, or more often in the public bar of The White Horse, round the corner! Never was shy, my Fred. Half his trouble really, couldn't keep away from some of the women he met at those meetings! Said it was their brains that he was after, the git! I began to sleep alone as soon as I found out about his shenanigans and that's when I started to hear all that carrying-on. His other neighbours, the other side, never heard a thing. I think they slept with joints in their mouths. The stench coming over the fence at nights was enough to get high yourself.”

  “How can you be sure that it came from number fifteen and not from Percy's?”

  “He wasn't there all the time, but they were! When he was in, he had a lot of poncey friends coming round, giving me the old hello darling, wonderful to see you routine, when they saw me, but I'm told not one of them attended his funeral. We all need friends like that, don't we, Harry?”

  “How long after you moved in did all those visits begin, Lily?” Her naked feet slapped across the floorboards to the single cupboard mounted on the opposite wall, above ratty.

  “Fancy a scotch? My favourite tipple is the odd glass of whisky. Have to keep my whistle well lubricated. You wouldn't want me to dry up now would you, eh, nor to keep my pockets empty, I hope!” she stated on fetching two glasses to the table.

  I lied, saying that I never touched the stuff, but was amazed as she fetched a bottle of twelve-year-old Glenlivet from the cupboard beneath the sink. I anticipated some home brewed concoction made from semolina! My judgement had not improved since the day I left Yorkshire.

  “Let me see! Must have been quite a while as Freddie's mum had said he'd been off in Spain to fight Franco's lot whenever that was, then he enlisted in the army, so it must have been at the end of the war I guess. No, hang on a mo. I think he moved back in around 1952 as Freddie died the year after, and he'd seen him alright. Percy had a limp, you know!”

  “What killed Freddie off then, Lily?”

  “A stinking great cow! Fell off a meat hook in Smithfield Market and crushed him to death. They said he farted when it hit him. I find that funny now, but didn't at the time. Ironic eh.” A raucous laugh, reminiscent of the rat, tat, tat of a machine gun filled the kitchen causing the rat himself to stop and look up.

  “No, I didn't know about the limp, but sorry about Freddie!” Both were lies, but reality seemed to have vacated these premises a long time ago.

  “Apart from Freddie's mother you must be the only one who is sorry, and she died a year later. His dad had been long gone by then, but I doubt if he'd have cried much.”

  I thought it best not to dwell on Lily's family, as they seemed in more of a muddle than my own.

  “Did you know the man who the police say found the body?” I asked, feeling somewhat miffed on passing up on a glass of Scotch.

  “For a reporter you seem a bit short of a notebook and pen, my friend. Want me to lend you one? Fifty quid from a hack is one thing, hundred pound from a private dick quite another! This stuff don't grow in my backyard, you know.” She held her glass high and swirled the whisky backwards and forwards.

  Whereas George had known me for all of my forty-four years of social life, Mrs Squires had known the Paterson family for all of her fifty odd years of working life, and was acutely aware of their collective lack of worldliness when it came to carrying cash. Without her advice, before I left Eton Square, that discrepancy between the possession of wealth and the ability to use and recognise its usefulness when gadding around London, would now have been a predicament. It was she who had told me to take cash. I withdrew another fifty pound note from my wallet.

  “That does it for me. For a minute there I thought I might have caught you out. Put you down as some long lost member of the Royal Family who never carried money. I dismissed my first thoughts of you being a tramp, as they don't have manicured fingernails like you do!” She refilled her glass before continuing.

  “Percy did say he had friends in high places. I never believed a word of that story either. You're in luck that I'm in a chatty mood. My father used to say that when I was born God injected a gramophone needle into my mouth as I would never stop talking. He also said that I would never need gas and air if I gave birth. He was right about the first, but I never found out if his second opinion was right or not.” She leant back against the sink, and took a large swallow from the very large whisky she had poured.

  “Course I knew the fellow! You trying to make me out as stupid or something? I've been caught in a shower of rain but never came to earth in one!”

  “What did he look like?” I asked.

  “Poncey!”

  “Seen that sort before then?”

  “A million times. Called himself Reginald.”

  “Why did you never tell the police any of this when they found his body, Lily?”

  “They never paid me. Believe in simple trade, does me. I was brought up to mind my own business and tell the law nothing, but if there was something in it for me, well, that's different.
Ain' it?”

  “Ever hear the name Malcolm mentioned, or Frank, same man just a different name he used? Hairdresser chap.”

  “No, don't recall it.”

  “Were there any visitors more regular than others?”

  “There was one, an Irishman with red hair. He stopped coming some time before Percy topped himself. That did puzzle me. I wondered if it was that what tipped him over the edge so to speak, cos before that he was knocking on Percy's door almost every day for weeks.”

  Would you remember what he looked like, Lily?”

  “It's about thirty years ago that he died, so it's hard for an old girl like me, but another fifty smackers might work the trick.”

  “I'll throw in my last twenty as well for a name?” Spreading my remaining two notes out, I offered.

  “In that case I'll pour you a little grog to go with it, as I can see you're gagging for one, my unconvincing reporter friend!”

  Mrs Squires had been right, and Lily Bidden was no old fool. She took both notes but her simple trade was most welcome. An hour later I had a completely different image of Percy from the one I had first assumed, this one was far more varied and inconsistent. When I arrived back at Number 16 Eton Square I had the name of Percy's beneficiary from Probyn & Fellow; Charlie Reilly, born in London of Irish parents. The photograph I later obtained not only confirmed Lily's description, but the name she'd given me. The rest should have been easy.

  Chapter Eight: There Were No Summers

  Charlie Reilly was born in a part of north west London known as Somers Town of Irish parents, but in the year of his birth few rays of hot summer sunshine shone on him or any of the inhabitants of the polluted, sooty slums in which they lived. That year, 1912, saw the beginning of some clearance with the rebuilding of the area, but Charlie was not around long enough for those changes to help in his upbringing. What did help him though was the proximity of three major railway stations and many more hospitals and clinics. By the age of twelve he was an expert at stealing bicycles, or any other kind of unattended property that had value. He was not a discriminative thief, favouring neither patient nor traveller. At fourteen his criminal alertness extended onwards and upwards into housebreaking and……murder. Or, so he firmly believed, and more importantly later told to men of extreme violence, to whom murder was just a commonplace occurrence of everyday life.

  * * *

  On seeing the old, unsteady man leave number 36, Agar Grove, Camden Town, a stone's throw from Somers Town, just after midday that Friday as per usual, Charlie entered the four-storeyed property through the glazed basement door, out of sight of any casual would-be passer-by. The fact that the man lived there alone was well known to our practised burglar, as he had watched the property on and off for three weeks preceding this event. He was tall and heavily built for his age, was Charlie, but the pulled down cap he wore covered the red hair that distinguished him more from others of the same stamp. He ignored the clutter of boxes and discarded used clothes that filled most of that lower room, heading up the open wooden staircase, and then the carpeted one, onto the second floor, and the bedrooms that were there. Experience had shown him that the most precious belongings were usually kept hidden in wardrobes, or the drawers of dressing tables. Occasionally he had found money under the bed in suitcases, but not this time. No suitcases were there.

  On a shelf, in a double wardrobe, he found a small shiny tin inside of which were six folded five pound notes; an absolute fortune in 1926. On spotting a huge, hinged, black oval rusting metal box on the floor of the same place, he almost fainted in delight. He imagined it held more stashed away cash. Perhaps, hundreds of pounds.

  Try as he might, the box would not open. As it was too heavy to carry, Charlie dragged it across the floor then carefully slid it down the stairs to the ground floor. Quickly he rummaged through the kitchen in hope of finding something to prise it open with, but there was nothing suitable there. The basement was where he had left his jemmy. Stealthily his treasure chest was transported down those unsteady steps, as quickly as possible.

  It took seconds with his trusted tool to open it. An old army uniform lay on top. The money is underneath, he silently thought. First came tunics, trousers, shirts, boots, cap, medals and ribbons, but there, at the bottom inside an Army issue blanket, was his special invitation to the big-time league. Not money but a service revolver. At the same moment as he was finishing unwrapping his prize, he heard the footfall of the old man in the hallway above. He had left the door to the cellar open! Fool, quietly he said.

  “Who's there?” A deep, gravelly voice cried out in a reverberating challenge down to where Charlie was hidden in the shadows.

  He didn't think, that wasn't in his nature and seldom in the future did it hamper his actions. He pointed the pistol and pulled the trigger. The recoil sent him flying backwards with the resonating sound deafening him for seconds, leaving a ringing in his ears, but that did not lessen the one scream of agony that came from the body lying in the open doorway. He didn't know it was loaded, but nevertheless, gun tucked into the waistband of his trousers, alongside the pocket holding the five pound notes, Charlie made off through the way he had broken in and back into the street. The gunshot was never heard by anyone, it was covered by the nearby construction works. The gun was never found for two reasons; one, Charlie chucked it into the nearby Regent's Canal, and two, the police had no necessity to look for one, they only looked for a burglar.

  Colonel Joseph Herbert Cartwright, bachelor, aged sixty-three, late of the London Regiment, D.S.O., M.M. and M.S.M. and bar, all gained in the second Boer War, was buried at Highgate Cemetery six days later, having died of a heart attack at his home, 36 Agar Grove; cause unknown. The police never found a bullet in the body, as the gun had been loaded with blanks. By the time of the Colonel's funeral Charlie was in Ireland, having spent one five pound note on a passage aboard a merchant vessel that left West India Docks on the evening of the murder. If Charlie had lost his way in life that fateful day then he never did find the right the person to redirect him.

  * * *

  When the Errington Court eventually docked at Dún Laoghaire harbour, a few miles south of Dublin, eight days after the shooting incident, Charlie was placed in the protective custody of the black-haired, pleasant disposition of Bangharda Darina D'Arcy, who represented the local police presence at the customs point. He told her that he had arrived in search of relatives he'd heard spoken of in London, however, the names he had embedded in his mind never existed anywhere that Darina could look and, being a Sunday, no one was on duty at the local children's welfare department to help. She took the only course open to her.

  The worldwide trade in smuggled children, in the years following the Great War, was at best a scandal, and at worse a humanitarian outrage deliberately neglected for the benefit of those who sought to profit from the misery they inflicted. Much to Charlie's misfortune, Darina D'Arcy, although a woman of high moral standing, was a cog in the wheel of opportunism. She never profited from such trade, she simply never enquired into the truth that by taking him to Saint Mary's Orphanage the wheel would begin to turn. It took less than three weeks, or more precisely three Sundays, for his physique, blue eyes and strikingly good looks to become noticed and remarked upon by several of the regular 'charitable' contributors to the orphans' home. One, however, who was more charitable than the others in his donations to the nuns in charge, was more impressed than the rest. On the Monday evening following his religious instruction with the catechist, Charlie started his thrice weekly visits to Grange Manor, a mile from the orphanage. The walk would do him good, they said, adding that he would learn much whilst there.

  Perhaps the walk did do some good, but it was not a beneficial destination for either of those idealistic reasons. The only real lessons he learned on the hard benches of Saint Mary's, or on the soft mattresses in the cellars of Grange Manor were not the more obvious ones of fear and loathing. The most prevailing was the hatred of all things
English and the Catholic Church.

  At the age of fifteen, when Charlie still had the smell of youth, he left Saint Mary's and was taken on full-time at the Grange as personal house boy to its owner, joining a small elite group who had been selected for their sexual appeal and cooperation. He had little spare time, but what he did have was spent reading every literary article, newspaper report or reference book he could find on the political situation of Ireland involving the conflict between the Republicans and the English government. When twenty, and relocated away from the Grange, he entered politics, passing the examination to enrol in the Department of External Affairs. It was at that time he secretly started his life-long affiliation with the Irish Republican Army.

  The nightly terror that Charlie, and the others, experienced in the hands of his abusers turned his fear into a fixation of causing pain to all he sought to tyrannise and at every opportunity that presented itself. One person that was neither a tyrant nor a bully was the older boy he fell in love with whilst under Lord Montague's roof, the Lord's special companion; that boy was Percy Crow, ten years Charlie's senior. The one in charge of the all-important renting book engagements. It hadn't taken me long to find out who owned Grange Manor.

  Chapter Nine: Burn Out

  Mrs Squires had, in her own words, found some strange photos amongst Maudlin's collection.

  “His Lordship was very meticulous in keeping an indexed catalogue of all his photographs. Names, places and dates. He was the same in all matters. These ones are not indexed, and not his usual subject matter. I found them in an open well-thumbed envelope in the back of a partially full album. As you can see they are all of buildings. The only ones of that kind! I wondered if perhaps he was going to start a new collection, when I found this, my Lord?” It was a rough sketch of a crow.