Having invited the jury to convict the unfortunate housewife, Charles resumes his seat and allows his opponent to rise. Charles listens with interest and approval to the speech for the defence. Michael Levy QC, a recently appointed silk with a soft Glaswegian accent and a deviated septum (the result, variously, of a fight in an Edinburgh pub, a car crash or a cricket ball, depending on which story Levy is telling at the time) is an old friend of Charles’s. They met during pupillage, recognised each other as kindred spirits, and shared their respective horror stories and examples of anti-Semitism over the cheapest glasses of red wine sold by El Vino on Fleet Street. Although the two men are less close now than during their pupillage year, Charles is still very fond of Levy, his inexhaustible supply of almost-believable stories and his tendency to irrepressible giggling, even when in court.
The Glaswegian makes the most of a bad job and a difficult case, on several occasions making the members of the jury laugh as he attempts to fan a smouldering ember into the steady flame of “reasonable doubt”. However, within ten minutes of the judge starting his summing up of the evidence, the judicial boot has been so firmly put into the defence case that Charles knows the faint hope of acquittal has been extinguished. And so it proves. Little more than an hour later, the jury having convicted the accused and she having been tearfully remanded into custody for social reports, Charles makes his way back to the robing room.
‘Well done,’ say a number of colleagues as he passes. ‘Another good win.’
It doesn’t feel merited.
As he is about to push open the door of the robing room, Charles hears a young voice behind him.
‘Sir?’
Charles turns to see a bright and spotty-faced youth, the most recent addition to Chambers’ clerking team, his arm outstretched.
‘Afternoon, Clive. What’re you doing here?’
‘I went on my first tea party, sir,’ replies the lad with pride, referring to the High Court afternoon listing appointment at which clerks attempt to get their guvnors’ trials listed at a time when they’re available, thereby avoiding having to return their best cases. ‘Barbara asked me to pop along and give you this.’
He proffers a folded slip of paper which Charles takes.
‘Thanks,’ says Charles, and the clerk turns and runs back down the steps.
Charles opens the piece of paper and reads: Prospect tomorrow, 19.00. It is signed The other one-armed bandit. Charles pockets the note.
It is dark by the time Charles parks his beaten-up Austin Healey in Oswin Street and walks down the service road leading to the doors of the Kennington Institute. He almost trips over a man sitting on the kerb in the shadows, his feet in the gutter and his head in his hands, vomiting noisily. Charles skirts round him and reaches to open the familiar sheet-steel-and-chipboard doors of the gym and is surprised to see that they’ve been replaced over the course of the weekend with wooden doors displaying a new part-painted sign.
As he pushes the doors open he is greeted by a strong smell of cut timber and fresh paint. The short corridor leading to the locker room is also part-redecorated and is narrowed by a collection of dust sheets, tins of paint and folded ladders. In many ways it’s an improvement — Charles can’t remember the place having been decorated at all since before the War — but the smell is all wrong. Stale sweat, disinfectant and liniment are the proper odours of the Institute, and Charles loves them and their reminders of his youth. Charles has been a member of this boxing club, or the Rupert Browning Youth Club which preceded it, since 1938 when he was first taken there by his father and uncle at age thirteen. The old smell meant ‘home’; the new smell means “modern” and “change”, which is fine, but less comforting.
It is a Friday night and there are few people still training, so Charles slips into the locker room without meeting anyone, although he can hear the repeated doof-doof of fists thudding into a heavy bag through the gym doors. Charles drops his rucksack onto the stained wooden bench and opens his locker. He likes both the congruence and the contrast of his two lockers, separated by a mere mile or so of London streets. They symbolise his life and his journey: the varnished oak locker bearing his copperplate stencilled name in the Old Bailey robing room contains his court robes: the symbols of the professional, Establishment persona that is now Charles Holborne. This tatty pre-war metal locker with its dented door and broken lock contains worn, soft leather boots, a head guard and boxing gloves: symbols of his first life as Charlie Horowitz, the East End Jewish boy dabbling in minor crime and major dreams.
As always, Charles looks up at the gallery of faded black and white photographs of young men in boxing poses above the bench and winks at himself, second from the end, taken when he was fourteen and had just won his first title, the London Schoolboy Championship.
He has almost finished changing when he hears footsteps approaching from the front doors. A tall skeletal man in a stained gym vest and jogging bottoms appears in the doorway, and Charles recognises him as the man who was vomiting outside on the pavement. From the flattened nose and the eyebrows that disappear in a tangle of scar tissue Charles sees immediately that the man was once a boxer, but he looks ill, or drunk, or both. Skin hangs in papery folds from his neck and the underside of his upper arms, testament to sudden and severe weight-loss, and it has an unhealthy yellow pallor. His eyes are feverishly bright. He leans on the door jamb for a moment trying to focus on Charles. Charles continues to lace his boots, glancing across every now and then at the entrant.
‘Seen Duke?’ the man eventually gets out.
Charles shakes his head. ‘Not seen anyone yet.’ Charles inclines his head in the direction of the gym from whence can still be heard the sounds of training. ‘Try the gym.’
The man propels himself away from the door and Charles hears his unsteady feet proceeding down the corridor and the double doors at the far end banging closed.
Charles picks up his towel and head guard and follows the man to the end of the corridor and through the doors. Two men spar in the ring, watched by Duke who leans on the top rope at a neutral corner and bellows instructions. In the far corner two men work punch bags hard. The skeletal man stands at the foot of the ring, holding onto its edge to prevent himself from falling. He’s staring at Duke, trying to make eye contact, but Duke ignores him.
Charles has known Duke for twenty years. Now in his early sixties, he has been part-owner, manager, principal trainer and general dogsbody of the club for almost two decades. He was a useful heavyweight in his day, but his knees were ruined when he parachuted into the Caen Canal during the D-Day landings in June ’44 and that was the end of his career as a boxer. He met Charles when he visited the club, still on crutches, in ’45, and offered Charles some unsolicited advice about his footwork. When the previous manager of the club distractedly walked under a bus crossing Lambeth Road, Duke was offered his job and then, a couple of years later, a stake in the club where he was in any case spending sixteen hours every day. A firm friendship has developed between him and Charles over the years.
Duke waves to Charles and jumps down from the ring, but as he steps away to meet Charles the skeletal man grabs at his shoulder.
‘Please, Duke,’ begs the other.
‘I’ve told you, Dave, the answer’s no,’ replies the trainer, removing the man’s hand. ‘Now get out. You’ve had your last handout from me.’
‘But —’
‘No buts,’ says Duke, firmly.
Dave looks from Duke to Charles and back again, pleading in his watery eyes. Duke is unyielding. After a moment Dave realises there’s no hope and his bony shoulders slump. He sets off back towards the doors. Charles and Duke watch him depart and Charles raises his eyebrows in interrogation.
‘Not met Dave before?’ asks Duke. Charles shakes his head. ‘Look up David E. Wilson when you next have a chance. Light heavyweight with whip-like hands.’
‘What happened to him?’ asks Charles.
‘One lucky punch. I was the
re, ringside in Liverpool in ’58. Right at the end of the twelfth. ’E’d won the fight by a mile, barring accidents, but one lucky punch and ’e was out cold before hitting the canvas. Fractured skull, bleeding on the brain, all that. Four weeks unconscious. No one could believe it when he woke up, but he was never the same. Kept getting into fights, in pubs, on the buses, everywhere. And drinking, my God he could put it away. Used to be as fit as a butcher’s dog, never touched a drop, and all of a sudden we were scraping him off pub floors all over the East End. Sorta lost his “Off” button — couldn’t control himself, the temper or the drinking — and so the licence went, and that was that. Sad.’
Charles jerks his thumb over his shoulder towards the club entrance. ‘But there’s something more than just that, isn’t there? He looks really ill.’
‘His liver’s shot, they say. He won’t be troubling us much longer, I guess. Keep that right hand up, Spencer!’ Duke shouts at the two men sparring. He turns back to Charles. ‘You’re in late.’
‘I know. Nearly gave it a miss actually, it’s been such a long day. But I need a good workout.’
‘Yeah? Why dontcha get yourself home to that lovely girl? All alone in that big new ’ouse of yours?’
‘Sally’s fine, thank you very much, Duke. I’ll tell her you remembered her. Now,’ continues Charles, firmly changing the subject, ‘any news?’
Duke shakes his head sadly. ‘No, Charles, nothing. I can’t match you. There’s no one in your weight class, almost no one your age, and definitely no one who won’t take your ’ead off.’
Charles prods Duke in the chest with his forefinger. ‘Don’t you worry about the last. I can look after myself. But I want that fight, Duke, and if you won’t get it for me, I know plenty of less reputable folk who will.’ Charles says this with a smile but there’s no doubting his seriousness.
‘I’m doing what I can, Charlie, but it ain’t easy. I still don’t understand why this is so bloody important.’ Duke moves away back to the ring and Charles follows him.
‘It just is. I’ve only got a year or so, and I want one more fight before I hang the gloves up.’
Duke’s eyes are now on the two men sparring in the ring. There is a long pause before he answers. ‘I’ve told you, no one comes back after twelve years. I don’t care how much you train, I don’t care how much you spar. Nothing’s going to get you ring-fit. You made the right decision to retire from boxing; stay retired.’
‘I’m running nearly six miles every day; I can jump rope for half an hour. You’ve seen me on the heavy bag and I can spar with anyone here. Fuck it, Duke, there’s no one left who will spar with me.’
‘And whose fault’s that?’ demands Duke, swinging his scarred face round to Charles angrily.
Charles nods in acknowledgement. It was indeed his fault.
To make best use of a sparring session you can’t go all out against your opponent; you’re supposed to punch at no more than fifty per cent full force, maybe, on occasion, a bit more. But within the last six months Charles has broken one opponent’s rib and knocked another senseless. He remains very well liked at the club — he knows everyone from the youngsters who he’s helped train, right up to the men his age and older who are now starting to bring in their own sons — but he’s caught the odd wary glance in his direction, and now no one is keen to spar with him.
‘Can we do some mitt work when you’ve finished here?’ asks Charles, nodding towards the fighters in the ring.
Duke glances up at the clock. ‘Sorry cocker, I’ve got to get away early tonight. Sylvester’s locking up.’
‘You’re not trying to stand in my way, are you, Duke?’ asks Charles suspiciously. ‘It’s quite a schlepp to the Elephant, and there’s at least one club nearer to home I could use if you’re not keen. I’m sure they’ll find me a fight.’
Duke shakes his head. ‘Don’t get like that, Charlie. I ain’t being difficult. I do really ’ave an appointment. But I still don’t understand this meshuggas.’
Charles smiles at Duke’s perfect use of Yiddish. ‘I’m not crazy,’ he says, pulling his gloves over his knuckles. ‘You just get me a fight.’
Charles takes a couple of steps towards one of the heavy bags, now vacated by the boxer before him. He turns with an afterthought. ‘What’s with the painting?’ he asks, pointing back to the corridor.
‘The whole club’s being done up,’ calls Duke, his eyes still on the men in the ring. ‘The partners decided to splash the cash. They got some big event coming up and we’re to expect some guests.’
‘Guests?’
Duke shrugs. ‘So they say. Don’t ask me who.’
‘And when you say the partners…’
‘Yes.’
Duke needs say no more. Charles knows the partners only too well: those well-known local philanthropists and paragons of politesse to the East End’s elderly: Messrs Ronald and Reginald Kray.
CHAPTER TWO
This evening, Mo has taken particular care with his appearance; it’s not often one meets a peer of the realm. He wears a tailored blue shirt and tight grey slacks, a matching cravat tied at his neck and has a linen jacket slung over his shoulder. He is accompanied by a striking young man whose name, curiously, is Teddy Behr. Teddy claims to be fifteen but looks at least two years younger than that. He is beautiful, with a soft creamy complexion, long-lashed brown eyes and golden curls. Teddy has been completely silent for the whole journey from East London, his eyes wide with wonderment at the milling crowds, the advertisements and the buskers.
He follows Mo from Victoria Station until they enter Eaton Square. It takes a few moments for Mo to realise that the youngster is lagging behind.
‘What’s up?’ Mo asks, half turning but still walking.
‘Who did you say we were visiting?’ asks Teddy.
Mo stops. In the soft evening sunlight Teddy resembles a Michelangelo angel. Mo’s heart lifts as it does every time his eyes land on the youngster. ‘A friend,’ he replies gently. ‘Well, sort of a business friend. Come on, we’ll be late.’
Teddy remains stationary on the pavement. ‘I don’t know, Mo,’ he says uncertainly. ‘Can’t I just wait outside?’
Mo retraces his steps. ‘Nah, don’t be silly,’ he reassures in his friendly Cockney voice. ‘They want to meetcha.’
‘Why would they want to meet me?’ asks Teddy perceptively. ‘I’m no one.’
‘You ain’t no one,’ replies Mo with a confident and reassuring grin. ‘You’re my mate.’
This is almost true. Mo picked up the runaway a few days earlier at Walthamstow Stadium, the greyhound track known by the cognoscenti as ‘the Stow’. Mo and a few other lads, some of them members of the Firm, were being entertained by Bob and Tom, those greying purveyors of young male flesh, when Mo’s eye was caught by a grubby boy slipping in and out of the crowds, trying to steal food. Excusing himself quietly, Mo followed, pushing his way through the tic-tac men signalling the odds, the shrieking office parties and the dozens of Brylcreemed Tony Curtis lookalikes queuing for beer and hotdogs. By the side of the track, surrounded by excited punters — race cards in their hands and copies of Sporting Life tucked under their arms — Mo befriended the boy and bought him his first meal for a week. Then he took him back to his bedsit, where Teddy has shared his bed ever since.
Teddy still hesitates.
‘Look,’ says Mo, taking the other’s hand, ‘we’ll be ten minutes, twenty at most. Then we’re off to a place I know. You’ll have a great time, I promise. You don’t have to say nuffink, right? Just keep schtum and be polite if anyone says anything to yer. He’s a lord, you know, but he’s OK. Promise.’
‘A lord?’ repeats Teddy, his face contorting into a frightened frown.
Mo, cross at himself for making Teddy even more nervous, loses his patience and starts pulling the boy along the pavement. ‘It’s fine, I tell you. Now come on.’
No. 1 Eaton Square, Belgravia is one of the best addresses in London. A wide five-s
torey terraced property of beautifully proportioned rooms, its portico is supported by three ionic columns surmounted by a first-floor balcony that runs the length of the square. The property overlooks the gated and tree-filled garden forming the centre of the enclave, around which are parked dozens of expensive motorcars. Within the portico of the dwelling itself there rise five white marble steps culminating in black front doors gleaming with polished brass furniture.
Mo moves lightly up the steps, still gripping Teddy’s arm. At the front door he releases his hold, pausing to check Teddy’s appearance. He brushes the blond curls off Teddy’s forehead and smiles to reassure him. Mo turns and presses the doorbell, a white porcelain button the size of a half-crown surrounded by polished brass. They hear a bell echoing beyond the door. After a few moments an interior door opens and voices can be heard as footsteps approach them. The front door swings open.
A slim young man with brown hair and sharp features faces them. He wears a check green-grey sports jacket, tight cream trousers and an open-necked shirt.
‘Wotcher, Mo,’ he says in greeting. ‘How’s tricks?’
‘Not bad, Les. Not late are we?’
‘Nah. Just taking a few snaps for Ronnie’s album. Come in.’
He stands back to let the two newcomers enter.
Corrupted: Murder and cover-up at the heart of government (Charles Holborne Legal Thrillers Book 4) Page 2