by John Lawton
Thesiger had sent for both Stilton and Leigh-Hunt and was tut-tutting to himself as he leafed through a sheaf of papers and they sat waiting – Stilton looking idly around the room, Leigh-Hunt even more idly jingling the coins in his pocket.
‘I’m not happy about this, really I’m not.’
‘Not happy about what, old man?’
Leigh-Hunt never used ranks. Not once had Stilton heard him address Thesiger as ‘sir’.
‘I have to let Walter go.’
‘What?’ Leigh-Hunt and Stilton said together.
‘Don’t panic, chaps. It isn’t permanent. Better not be anyway. Just when I thought we’d got the team up and running . . . but the Branch want Walter back in the East End for a spell.’
Thesiger put the letter flat on his desk, looked straight at Stilton.
‘You don’t mind do you, Walter?’
‘Mind, sir? It’s not for me to mind. But as you say, I thought we’d just got up and running . . . and now we’ve no troops on the Continent and Jerry’s overrun it . . . we’ll have our work cut out. Everyone who can nick a rowing boat in Belgium or Holland will do it . . . and Jerry’ll put spies in among ’em sure as eggs are eggs.’
‘Quite,’ said Thesiger at this brief summary of what they all knew. ‘But it won’t be for long. They want you to help with the internment of enemy aliens. You do know London, you speak German and you’ve probably more experience of working with foreigners than nine out of ten coppers. They’re putting together a three-man team to take charge. You’ll answer to Chief Inspector Steerforth . . .’
Stilton realised he had winced slightly at the name, and hoped Thesiger hadn’t noticed. Steerforth was a good copper, but was also Stilton’s idea of a ‘bit of a stickler’ and a ‘pain in the arse’.
‘. . . And you’ll have under you a sergeant, name of Troy, Frederick Troy . . . who is some sort of wunderkind at the Yard.’
‘I’ve met Troy, sir.’
If he’d let his feelings about Steerforth show, Stilton wouldn’t give a flicker over Troy – of whom his personal opinion was ‘a bit wet behind the ears’.
‘Me too,’ Leigh-Hunt chipped in. ‘We were at school together. Matter o’fact, he’s my oldest friend. Do give him my best, won’t you, Walter?’
It was at moments like this that Stilton always failed to summon up the ‘one nation’ feeling that he knew was the only patriotic position in wartime. It was bollocks and he knew it, and the old school tie always yanked the old class issues out of whatever box he had dutifully crammed them into. There might be pleasure in this assignment, but he doubted it, and given a choice between catching enemy spies in the company of these two toffs, whose talents he respected, and rounding up the poor, beleaguered immigrants of Stepney with a toff whose talents he didn’t much respect . . . then Burnham-on-Crouch won hands down. On the plus side, being back in Stepney meant well-rounded platefuls of his wife’s cooking and a well-rounded bedful of his well-rounded wife.
‘Fine, sir,’ he said simply.
‘Okey-dokey,’ said Thesiger with a flippancy that Stilton could never quite get used to. ‘Six o’clock, Leman Street Police Station. And, Walter, don’t worry, old man . . . we’ll still be here when you get back.’
§ 78
They stood in Troy’s old office at Leman Street, cooling their heels. Troy hadn’t set eyes on Inspector Stilton in a while. He hadn’t known him well in his Stepney days, although he was always a ‘figure-on-the-Green’, big, fat even, moustachioed, friendly. But Stilton was Branch and it was Branch policy not to mix. But for George Bonham, he doubted he’d be on more than nodding terms with the man. Bonham and Walter went back at least as far as 1910, and he rather thought George had known Mrs Stilton a hell of a lot longer. Walter was a northerner – another ‘immigrant’ just like Stanley Onions . . . big and bluff and Derbyshire . . . but lacking in the machiavellian streak that made Troy and his boss so alike and so wary of one another. Walter was, by common consent of those that knew him, ‘a good bloke’. You’d prop up a bar with Walter Stilton. You’d never do that with Stanley Onions. And if you did, Stan would always have a hidden motive.
Stilton took out a cased silver pocket watch from his waistcoat, popped the lid and looked at the time.
‘What do you make it, Mr Troy?’
Troy pushed up the sleeve on his right arm.
‘Six thirty. I think we can call this the privilege of rank, sir.’
‘Indeed we can, lad. And we’re going to be on the same team, call me Walter. It’s Walter unless there’s brass around.’
Brass appeared. Steerforth burst in – a diminutive figure in a tasteless, ill-fitting brown suit – slapped a full briefcase on the desk, set his hat next to it – all the pretence and palaver of man-in-a-hurry. Troy knew at once he was not going to like Chief Inspector Steerforth nor he Troy. Onions would never do this, it was his habit to pass off the important almost lackadaisically – to seize the attention of his subordinates by a slow deliberation – the odd bout of temper notwithstanding. He’d never bother with this ‘I’m a very busy man’ routine.
‘Right. I don’t have a lot of time to waste.’
A sheaf of papers was pulled from the briefcase and all but thrown down in front of Stilton.
‘We’re stuck with this. Rounding up a bunch of Yids and Krauts. Ought to be kids’ stuff. Waste of Branch time. God knows, we’ve done it before. But . . . there are a few do-gooders in parliament whingeing about the hows and whys. So there’s two ends to play off against the middle. There’s a quota and there’s a time limit. I don’t care about the pace, suit yourselves. Just get everyone on that list collared by the end of the month. And the other end is . . . some of these buggers have been here a while. Let’s just avoid any letters written to MPs, shall we? I don’t want to hear a peep from the Commissioner. So if you have to get heavy, just make sure it’s with someone who doesn’t know enough English to do anything about it. You have to thump some bugger, make sure nobody sees you.
‘Now you two are in charge – ask for all the paddy wagons you need. Just get this lot carted off. Collar the lot. Some names have a destination against them. Most don’t. There’ll be a bus to Lingfield race course every morning from outside the nick, and another to St Pancras for the ones going north. After that they’re not our problem. And I wish to God they weren’t now.
‘Now if you’ve no questions . . .’
He stared at Troy and Stilton, daring them to speak.
‘. . . I’ve got bigger fish to fry.’
‘No sir,’ Stilton said calmly and politely. ‘No questions.’
‘Right.’
Steerforth grabbed his case and hat. He’d not been in the room five minutes. He turned in the door, looked at Troy with the first hint of acknowledgement in his eyes.
‘You’re Troy, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘From Stanley Onions’ team?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘One o’them Troys?’
‘That too, sir.’
‘Fine. Just remember. This is the Branch. It’s rank that counts on this team, not privilege.’
Troy made no answer. None was expected. It had been an audience with the headmaster. Steerforth banged down the corridor, a small man trying for a large presence. A weasel wanting to be a fox.
Stilton picked up the sheaf of papers off the desk, a dozen or so pages, double-spaced.
‘Do you think, sir, that we just got shafted?’
‘I do, lad. And like I said, it’s Walter.’
‘Do you think we’ll never see the Chief Inspector again?’
‘We won’t be that lucky.’
Stilton turned a few pages, sucked air like a plumber offering an estimate and said, ‘Y’know, lad, I don’t feel much like disturbing the evening meals of “Yids and Krauts” tonight. What say we go down the Brickie’s Arms and go over the list with a pint or two in our hands?’
§ 79
The Bricklayer�
��s Arms stood at the corner of Hannibal Road and Redman’s Road. A stonesthrow from Stepney Green, and roughly halfway between Stilton’s house in Jubilee Street and George Bonham’s flat in Union Place. Troy had almost grown used to the idea of having a ‘local’ during his time as a beat bobby, but could never quite get used to the idea of a public house in the first place. To him they were grim and joyless, and the explanation for this no doubt lay in matters of class. He’d known his presence as a copper take the fun out of any pub. Given that the Brickie’s was frequented by two local coppers anyway, the job alone would not stun this pub to silence. But he’d known his accent do that. A few sentences in received pronunciation and voices would hush and heads would turn. Or maybe it was the landlord – Eric the Grim. A northerner, too stingy ever to redecorate, hence the pub had long ago assumed a permanent nicotine hue. The only splash of colour came from the two union jacks, either side of a portrait of Winston Churchill over the bar. Troy was prepared to bet that the portrait had only been up since Dunkirk. He tried to remember who Eric had had in the place of honour before Churchill. He rather thought it had been the exiled King Edward VIII. Or was it Gracie Fields? Eric was as likely to put a musical comedy star in the place of honour as he was a king or a prime minister. And if a nag on which he’d bet five bob each way came in before the British Army next won anything, then Troy had no doubt that Winston would be replaced by the winner of the 2.30 . . . the 3.30 . . . at Newmarket . . . Redcar . . . Sandown Park.
Stilton brought drinks from the bar. Troy went over the papers Steerforth had left them. An alphabetical list of the flotsam and jetsam of Europe, wave upon wave of refugees going back, he guessed, to the turn of the century, now beached in the East End of London – a list that some dull mind in Whitehall had assembled into a potential Fifth Column. Bum fodder.
‘Oh hell,’ said Troy.
‘What is it?’
‘I’ve just got to the Js. Jakobson. 11a White Horse Lane.’
Stilton supped and thought for a moment.
‘Funny. I don’t think I know a Jakobson in White Horse Lane. I know a couple of Jakobsons, but none in White Horse Lane. There’s a family in the Commercial Road, and another in Ben Jonson road. But I don’t know of any in White Horse Lane.’
‘Well, Abel Jakobson, which is what we’ve got here, is the name over Billy Jacks’ shop in the Mile End Road, and 11a White Horse Lane is where he lives.’
‘Odd. I thought Billy was as English as me. What nationality does it give?’
‘German. Born Danzig, 1898. Admitted 1902.’
‘What? Billy?’
‘It’s here in black and white.’
Stilton mused.
‘I think I get your drift.’
‘Quite. Which of us wants to go round and tell Billy Jacks he’s nicked.’
‘Worse, lad. Which of us wants to go round and tell him he’s German. I’ve known Billy thirty years. Since he was a lad, and he’s always had “Light Blue Touch Paper and Stand Well Back” tattooed onto his forehead. As they say in these parts . . . he’ll do his nut.’
‘Worse . . . he’ll write to his MP. If anyone can make Mr Steerforth’s nightmare come true, it’s Billy.’
Stilton thought again.
‘Let’s bump him down the list a bit. Leave him till later, and try and give him a bit of notice.’
‘We give him notice, who’s to say he won’t put pen to paper?’
‘Do you really care about that?’
‘Not a damn.’
‘Me neither. Billy may be the most irascible bugger on the Green, but he’s also what’s called a pillar of the community. Chamber of Commerce, Parochial Committees, that sort of malarkey. I bet he’s in the Rotary Club or summat like that. Let’s show him a modicum of respect.’
‘Does the Rotary Club admit Jews?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest. But . . . let’s cut him some slack. Let’s put off that encounter as long as we can. God knows we’ll catch enough abuse doing this without him going off like a Roman candle.’
Troy pretended to drink his half of bitter. He couldn’t abide beer – he accepted or bought it in the cause of sociability and usually managed to leave most of it unnoticed.
However – they weren’t going unnoticed. Over at the bar Bonham was in conversation with a young woman whose head turned every few seconds to look at Stilton. Titian-red hair bouncing off the collar of a greenish military style macintosh, all epaulettes and buttons. It seemed to Troy there were too many shades of green – the green of her eyes, like wine bottles, the combat green of her mac . . . the lurid tint of green cordial in her gin and lime.
‘That young woman’s been looking at you ever since we got in,’ he said.
‘Doubt it,’ Stilton said.
‘She’s looking away now.’
‘First off, you’re thirty years younger’n me – I’ll bet it’s you she’s looking at. Second off, she’s my eldest daughter, our Katherine.’
It was odd that Troy had never set eyes on her before. If he had, he would surely have remembered? Kitty Stilton had gone through Hendon a year ahead of him and left a fierce reputation for outspokenness and tenacity in her wake. After Hendon she had asked for a posting ‘up West’ and got it. Stilton read his mind.
‘Must say, I’m surprised you don’t recognise her. Mind, last few years she’s had her own place in Covent Garden. Doesn’t treat Stepney like home any more. I can see why . . . her mother can’t.’
Now both George and Kitty Stilton were looking their way. Bonham had a hand in the air, pointing towards a side table where two other men were setting out dominoes.
‘Do you fancy a game, Sergeant Troy?’ Stilton said.
‘I’ll be fine where I am,’ Troy replied.
Troy didn’t fancy a game. Troy fancied Kitty Stilton. Kitty Stilton was a stunner. Fat chance.
Stilton joined Bonham. For a minute or so Troy and Kitty simply looked at one another. Troy wondered at what point in the scale of decency looking became staring, then she picked up her gin and lime, walked over, put a hand on the back of Stilton’s chair and said, ‘My dad not coming back?’
Troy said nothing.
‘Then you won’t mind if I sit here, will you?’
She slipped off the macintosh – Troy had thought it unnecessary, given the weather – and he realised its purpose. Kitty was still in uniform, the blue-black of the Metropolitan Police Force – three bold stripes on each arm. He’d have worn a mac too rather than go for a quiet drink dressed like that.
His first words to Kitty were, ‘Congratulations. I hadn’t heard.’
‘I got me own station. Bow Street. First and only woman station sergeant in the Met. It’ll be in the gazette next month.’
She downed her gin and slid the empty glass across the table to him.
‘Just one more. I’m driving.’
Troy obliged, still managed to leave his half of bitter untouched.
‘You working with Dad now?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t figure out why we haven’t met before. I mean, we haven’t have we?’
‘I’d remember,’ he said.
‘I mean. I know you by sight. I seen you about when you was a beat bobby.’
‘Then you had the advantage of me.’
Kitty thought about this upper-class euphemism, and decided it meant nothing.
‘And o’course everybody sort of knew you.’
‘They did?’
‘O’course . . . toff on the beat. You could hardly expect that not to be good gossip now, could you?’
‘I suppose not,’ Troy said, and then blundered on with, ‘What other gossip was there?’
‘Gossip?’ she said, as though she herself had not uttered the word. ‘Gossip?’
She leaned in closer. Troy had little choice but to follow and join her in this spurious confidentiality, already regretting he’d asked.
‘Well, there are those that think a posh voice goes with bein’ a bit
of a poof. But you’re not are you?’
Troy said nothing.
‘I know you’re not.’
The pause was a killer. Troy was sure he could hear his heart beat.
‘Me and Judy Jacks is good friends. So I know.’
Troy’s heart sank. ‘Big’, ‘mouth’ and ‘shut’ struggled for space in his thoughts. This was not the conversation to be having with someone he’d met a matter of minutes ago.
‘Would you say that was common knowledge?’
‘Wot? You an’ . . . ?’
‘Yes’
‘No. I wouldn’t. Like I said – me and Judy’s good friends.’
‘So Billy doesn’t know.’
‘If Billy knew he’d have clobbered the livin’ daylights out of you.’
So he would.
Walter Stilton was right – Billy Jacks was best left as long as they could.
§ 80
Afterwards Troy could remember very little of what they’d said to one another. He’d aimed for small talk, anything small enough to prevent a return to the matter on which she’d kicked off. At the point when she was ready to leave, Troy was only too happy to leave too.
The domino players were still hard at it. Kitty said goodnight to her father, and Stilton looked up at Troy and said, ‘An early start, wouldn’t you agree, lad? Six thirty, my house?’
‘Of course,’ Troy said. He hated mornings. He’d catch the Underground home now and get his head down. With any luck he could be asleep by ten o’clock.
Outside Kitty said:
‘You got your car, Sergeant?’
‘No . . . no . . . I haven’t. I came on the Underground. I’ll go back the same way. District to Charing Cross, and then it’s just a short walk.’
‘Where do you live then?’
‘Goodwin’s Court, just off St Martin’s Lane.’