by Mike Hollow
Most of the Saturday lunchers had gone by now, but the café was still busy. Rita had the wireless on as usual, and beneath the customers’ chatter he could make out the mellow voice of Hutch, crooning that it would be a lovely day tomorrow. All part of the national drive for cheerfulness, no doubt, he thought. But on a day like this it was almost possible to believe it. A week into September already, and still unseasonably warm: real seaside weather. Not that anyone was allowed within miles of the coast any more.
Cradock came into view at last.
“Come along, lad, I’m starving,” said Jago. “What were you doing in there? I thought you’d set up camp for the duration.”
“Sorry, guv’nor,” said Cradock.
“Well, sit down. Your tea’s on its way.”
Moments later Rita arrived with their order and carefully set out the cups and saucers, tea pot, and strainer on the table, followed by two large rock cakes, each on a white china plate.
“There you are, gentlemen,” she said. “Give me a shout if there’s anything else you need.”
She gave Jago a theatrical wink and departed. Jago saw the look of alarm on Cradock’s face.
“Don’t worry, she’s only joking. Rita and I go back a long way.”
He poured the two cups of tea and pushed one across to Cradock, then spooned sugar into his own from the chipped glass bowl in the middle of the table. He’d cut down from two sugars to one in January, when the rationing came in – doing his bit for the war effort – but his first taste of the drink was still agreeably sweet. He smacked his lips and gave a satisfied sigh.
“So how’s your cheerfulness today, Peter?” he said, with a sideways nod towards the window.
Cradock followed his gaze and spotted the offending slogan.
“Reckon I’d feel cheerful if I was in the poster business, sir,” he said. “Whoever prints them must make a packet. There’s always some who do in a war, though, isn’t there? It’s an ill wind that blows no one a silver lining.”
Jago inclined his head and stared into Cradock’s face.
“And in English?”
“Sir?”
“Never mind: I got the gist.”
Cradock took a bite of his cake.
“You were right about these rock cakes, sir,” he said. “Very tasty, very sweet.”
Jago rolled his eyes. “Leave the catch-phrases to the comedians,” he said. “You’re a police officer, not a music hall act. Do try to remember that. Too much time listening to the wireless, that’s your trouble.”
Cradock seemed to be concentrating too hard on pushing cake into his mouth to notice what his boss was saying. Jago picked up the Express and studied the front page. A couple of minutes later he tutted and lowered the paper to address Cradock again.
“Have you seen what the local rag has to say about those air raids last weekend?”
Cradock shook his head, his mouth still full.
“They make it sound like an entertainment. Listen: ‘On Saturday and Monday afternoons many people had the thrilling experience of witnessing aerial combats in the district.’ Thrilling experience? They won’t find it so entertaining if the Germans start bombing us properly. And here: it says, ‘An Anderson shelter in which five people were sheltering was blown to pieces.’ Very nicely put. What it means is that five people were blown to pieces in their own back garden, but they don’t say that. What are they going to say when it’s five hundred people a night being blown to bits?”
“You don’t think that’ll really happen, do you, guv’nor?” said Cradock, trying to catch the crumbs that fell from his mouth as he spoke. “I heard something on the news yesterday about Mr Churchill saying the air raids haven’t been half as bad as expected and the sirens don’t actually mean anyone’s in real danger. Something like that, anyway.”
“So you think we’re past the worst of it, do you?” said Jago.
“Well, I’m not sure, sir, but it sounds quite positive.”
“Yes,” said Jago, “like that Ministry of Information advert they had in the papers. Do you remember it? ‘I keep a cool head, I take cover, and I remember the odds are thousands to one against my being hurt.’ So all we need to do is keep a cool head, and everything will be fine. And be cheerful, of course. It’ll be some other poor soul who cops it, not me.”
He gave a contemptuous snort and leaned closer across the table, lowering his voice.
“All I’m saying is I think things might get worse before they get better. Churchill may be right, the raids may not have been as bad as the government expected – I mean, before the war some people reckoned we’d have fifty thousand dead on the first day. But that doesn’t mean they won’t get worse in the future, especially now Hitler’s only twenty miles away across the Channel.”
“Well, best to look on the bright side, wouldn’t you say, sir?”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” said Jago. “Undoubtedly.”
He folded the Express and laid it on the table. It was hard work educating Cradock. The boy wasn’t a patch on Clark, but then everyone had to start somewhere. He blew onto his tea to cool it and took a sip, gazing thoughtfully up at his new purchase on the wall.
Definitely a good investment, he thought. Being able to choose what he wore was still one of the best things about plain-clothes work. Two years in the Army and then more as a PC on the beat was enough uniform for a lifetime, as far as he was concerned. It took a bit of effort, of course. A hat, for example, could either work for a man or against him. The fedora, he was sure, worked for him.
The same couldn’t be said, he thought, of the man who caught his eye across Cradock’s right shoulder. He was a broad-shouldered type, hunched in conversation over a table a few yards away. Jago only had a back view of him, but he could see that the man’s hat, a trilby of sorts, was a very poor choice. Too narrow in the brim for his ears, the only effect it achieved was to draw attention to the way they stuck out on either side of his head. Like handles on a vase, thought Jago.
To compound the offence, the man was wearing his hat while sitting at a table and eating. Rita’s might not be the Ritz, but even so, that sort of behaviour marked him out as someone with a severe deficiency in taste, or perhaps in upbringing. Jago began to watch him, and noticed the aggressive gestures he was making towards the man sitting across the table from him. Whoever he was, the trilby man was no shrinking violet.
The other man presented a very different picture. He was facing Jago, so his expression was clearly visible. This one seemed to have better manners. He’d removed his cheap-looking black bowler, but he clutched it to his chest, both hands gripping the brim. It made him look as though he was praying, thought Jago. He was chubby, with blotched skin, and he looked uncomfortable in his very ordinary-looking dark suit and stiff collar. A junior bank clerk, perhaps, not far into his twenties. His face was that of a scared rabbit.
Cradock’s voice cut through Jago’s observations, curtailing them.
“What time’s the kick-off, sir? For the football, I mean.”
Jago shifted his gaze from the two strangers back to Cradock.
“Quarter past three,” he said. “No need to rush your tea. We’ll be there in good time. The crowds are so small these days they probably won’t start till we get there.”
Cradock looked relieved: he was still busy with his cake.
“And that reminds me, Peter. Here’s another tip for you,” said Jago.
“Yes, sir? What’s that?”
“It’s this: always take the lady’s seat, unless there’s a lady with you.”
He was amused to see the puzzled look that crossed Cradock’s broad face.
“I’m not sure I follow you, guv’nor. You don’t get seats at a football ground, not unless you own the club.” He thought for a moment. “You don’t get ladies either, for that matter.”
Jago gave him a patient smile. “Not at the match: I mean here. It’s something my father told me. If ever you take a lady out to dinner, give her the s
eat facing into the restaurant. Or the café, for that matter.”
“Why’s that, sir?”
“To give her the view of the room. I think it’s what he regarded as gentlemanly. Mind you, I don’t think he ever had enough money to take ladies out to dinner, certainly not his wife. What I mean is, if you want to know what’s going on in a place like this, take the lady’s seat. That’s how I know everything that’s happening behind your back and you don’t know anything.”
Cradock was about to turn round, but the inspector motioned him to stay put.
Jago was focused again on the timid rabbit-face, who now looked even more agitated. The trilby man was moving to rise from his chair. Jago did the same.
“Stay where you are; I’ll be back in a moment,” he said to Cradock, and slid out from behind the table. He timed his move so that he crossed the man’s path and brushed against his shoulder.
“Very sorry,” he said to the stranger. “Wasn’t looking where I was going.”
The man turned for a moment and uttered an indecipherable grunt that Jago took to be an acknowledgment of the apology, then walked on. Apart from the ears, and a scar on the left side of the man’s face, there was nothing particularly conspicuous about him. But Jago took a mental photograph of his face nonetheless. Old copper’s habit, he supposed.
He walked on past the agitated rabbit. Left alone at his table, the young man was staring straight ahead, still clutching his hat, but now as if it were the steering wheel of a car, out of control and heading for a smash.
CHAPTER 2
Not so long ago she’d have given him a clip round the ear for talking back. But not now: working down the docks had changed him. She edged through the gap between the back of his chair and the kitchen wall and picked up the bottle, then wiped away the circle of milk with her dishcloth.
“Not on the table, Robert,” she said. “You know I don’t like it on the table.”
He looked at her as though she had just landed from another planet.
“What’s the matter with you, Mum? Who cares where it goes?”
“It’s manners,” she said. “Putting the milk bottle on the table like that is common.”
“So? What’s wrong with being common? That’s what we are. We’re working people, Mum, not a bunch of idle toffs putting our feet up in a palace.”
Irene pulled a chair back from the table and sat down.
“I do wish you wouldn’t snap at me like that, Robert,” she said. “If your father were here –”
“Yes, well he’s not, is he?” said Robert. “Perhaps if he had more sense he would be.”
“Don’t talk about your dad like that. He’s risking his life out there, serving his country.”
“No he’s not, Mum. He’s just doing what he’s told, so some fat capitalists can get richer, that’s what it is. They’re the ones feathering their nests out of this war, not the likes of us.”
“You think you know it all, don’t you? Is that what you really think? You sound like one of those leaflets you bring home. It’s not right. It’s not respectful. How can you talk like that when you’ve got your dad at sea and Joe in the Army? They’re doing their duty.”
“More fool them, if you ask me,” said Robert. “It’s just one bunch of imperialists fighting another, and the sooner we get rid of the lot of them the better. I’ll have no part in it.”
“You won’t say that if you get called up.”
“But I won’t get called up, will I? Reserved occupation. They need people like me to keep the docks working.”
Irene wiped the edge of the table. He had an answer for everything.
“So what about this evening: are you in?”
“No.”
“Where are you going?”
“Never you mind, Mum: just out with some friends.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. “They’re not the sort of people you should be mixing with. They’re trouble, and they’ll get you in trouble.”
“If there’s any trouble it won’t be me who comes off worst.”
He pushed his plate away and stood up to go. Irene felt a familiar ache in her legs: she’d been on her feet too long.
“Get Billy in, will you, love?” she said. “He’s out in the back yard fiddling with his bike.”
Robert went to the back door and summoned his younger brother. Billy came into the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag.
“Yes, Mum, what is it?”
“Just want to know whether you’re in for tea tonight, love, that’s all,” said Irene.
“No, I’m going out as soon as I’ve got the bike fixed. I’m on duty tonight too.”
Irene looked at him but said nothing. There was no point saying she was worried: that was something mothers did and boys didn’t understand. But she was. In different ways, she was worried about all her boys. She ruffled his hair. He was sixteen now, but he still let her do that.
“OK, love. Thanks,” she said finally. Billy went back to his bike.
She cleared the table and took the dishes through to the scullery to wash them. It was four o’clock, and hot. The sun glared through the open window. She felt tired. She missed Jim, and it wasn’t easy, what with work and the boys to look after and everything else.
From the scullery she heard a loud knock at the front door. She walked back the length of their cramped terraced house to see who it was. The windowless passage was gloomy but refreshingly cooler.
She opened the door. Like all the others in Westfield Street, the house opened straight onto the narrow street.
“Oh, hello, Edna,” she said. She was surprised to see her neighbour there. If Edna wanted her she’d normally call over the back fence, not knock on the front door. “What are you –”
Her voice faded as she saw the expression on Edna’s face. It was strained. As though she were about to cry.
Irene thought Edna must be in some kind of difficulty, in need of help.
“Is everything all right?” she said. Her neighbour made no reply.
Then Irene saw the boy standing behind Edna on the street. Younger than Robert, not even shaving yet, but wearing a uniform. Not in the forces, though. She saw the letters GPO on his badge: a Post Office telegram boy. He was holding an envelope and looked scared.
Edna forced herself to speak.
“I’m ever so sorry, dear,” she said gently, stepping forward. “This lad knocked on my door and asked if I’d come round with him – he was worried you might be on your own. He’s got a telegram for you.”
Irene let out a soft gasp and bit her lip. She felt faint, and steadied herself with her left hand on the door frame as her head began to spin.
She was aware of Edna reaching for her as her knees gave way, and then nothing.
CHAPTER 3
A camel trying to get through the eye of a needle. DC Peter Cradock had always thought this an odd expression. He had never had occasion to use it himself, but it came to mind now.
Jago had led the way from the café, threading through a maze of side streets until they reached the Barking Road, and then turning off it into Priory Road, where a terrace of small Victorian houses stared bleakly at the back of the football ground. The afternoon sunshine did little to enliven the rust-pocked sheets of corrugated iron that perched on drab concrete to form the back wall of the east stand.
The two men joined the crowd of spectators edging towards the entrance gates, slots in the wall just wide enough to allow one person through. The eye of the needle. Cradock followed Jago into one of the slots. It was dark and dank inside, like a prison. They shuffled through the restricted space in single file until they reached the turnstile. Jago paid for both of them, handing the money into a gloomy booth. The turnstile clanked as they pushed through, and they were into the ground.
“Welcome to the Chicken Run,” said Jago.
Cradock could see why people called it that. The stand was decidedly unimpressive: a flimsy-looking timber structure, just one storey, roof
ed with more of the same corrugated iron. Over on the far side of the pitch, however, he could see a grander affair: a two-tier stand that towered over the rest of the ground, with an overhanging roof to protect those standing below from the rain. It looked as though that was where the money had been spent, and it seemed to Cradock that it was like the whole of London. The west side was all wealth and fancy accommodation, where you could look down on the rest, but over in the east people had to make do with a run-down old shack that looked as though it would collapse if you sneezed at it.
They found a place to stand on the wooden terracing where they could get a good view of the pitch. It wasn’t difficult: the place was almost deserted. Down at the front, boys draped their arms over the low wall that bounded the stand a few feet from the touchline, impatient for the match to begin. Here and there a younger one stood on an upturned wooden orange box, a relic of the days when greengrocers still had oranges to sell, thought Cradock. The detective constable had little interest in football, but even he knew this was nothing like the number of people who would have been at a match before the war, even in the second division. Everything had been cut back now, with the country split into northern and southern leagues so the teams didn’t have to travel so far, which was how West Ham came to be playing Tottenham for the second week running. Even the football was rationed now, he thought.
He turned round and looked at the patchy crowd behind him: flat caps and frayed clothes in all directions, the uniform of the hard-faced men who worked in the maze of grimy docks and factories that sprawled north from the Thames. He wondered whether it was the risk of air raids or the lure of overtime in these difficult days that was keeping the rest away.
The match kicked off on time at a quarter past three, and the crowd, such as it was, soon became animated, providing a raucous vocal accompaniment to the ebb and flow of play. Cradock watched dutifully. He’d identified himself as a Tottenham supporter back in June, but that was just to show interest when Jago seemed so pleased that West Ham had won the War Cup. Now, though, he wasn’t sure whether his guv’nor was passionate about football at all. Even here at a match he was just standing there, watching thoughtfully. At one point Cradock even fancied he’d detected a hint of sadness in Jago’s expression. However, when West Ham took the lead in the first half he noticed a quiet smile of satisfaction crossing Jago’s lips. Cradock wondered why he didn’t jump and shout like some of the men around them, but he felt it wasn’t his place to ask.