Second Violin

by John Lawton

  ‘That’s right by me. I got a place in Henrietta Street. I could give you a lift if you like?’

  The lift surprised him. An Ariel Square 4, four-cylinder 1000cc motorbike and sidecar, in fire engine red.

  ‘I just got it. I’m thinkin’of unboltin the sidecar, but that can wait till me brothers are home on leave. Meantime, you got a choice, chair or pillion?’

  Troy knew he’d feel a fool doing either and muttered something about being quite alright on the Underground. But, as arguments with his Uncle Nikolai had proved in the past, bikers were a species of lunatic not known to take no for an answer. Pressed again, he chose pillion, marginally less silly than sitting in a dolly tub with plastic curtains and being whizzed along at gutter level.

  ‘You just hang on tight and I’ll have you home in a jiff.’

  He hung on tight. Hands on her waist. A not altogether unpleasant experience.

  Kitty stuck just within the speed limits all the way to Trafalgar Square – and Troy could only assume his nervousness had seeped through to her. She pulled up the bike by the rear entrance to Goodwin’s Court in Bedforbury.

  ‘O’course . . . without the sidecar I’ll be able to let’er rip.’

  ‘The speed limit in the blackout is twenty miles per hour.’

  ‘Yeah – but we’re coppers.’

  ‘Silly me.’

  ‘O’course . . . I could walk home from here,’ she said.

  ‘We both could.’

  ‘Yeah, but ain’t you gonna stick the kettle on? It isn’t even half past nine. It’s still light. You can’t be thinkin’ of callin’ it a night when it isn’t dark yet. That’s what night is. Dark.’

  It was irrefutable logic.

  Troy left her in the sitting room while he made tea.

  ‘Look through the records,’ he said. ‘Find something you like.’

  Just before the kettle blew he heard the steel twang and wooden creak of the gramophone being wound, and Art Tatum’s ‘Sweet Lorraine’ crackled out of the brass horn. When he got in she was seated on the floor by the unlit fire, shoes off, legs tucked under her. He rather thought she was pulling a face.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I put this on ’cos I liked the name of the song . . . you know, girl’s name, “sweet” . . . but . . . don’t you have any dance bands?’

  ‘Yes. I think you’ll find Duke Ellington fits that description, officer.’

  She smiled at this, said, ‘No . . . I mean . . . dance dance bands. British dance bands. This is . . . well you couldn’t dance to this could you? I mean it’s all twiddles.’

  ‘Actually, they’re called arpeggios . . . it’s what Tatum does when he improvises.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Makes it up as he goes along.’

  ‘Makes it up? Then why does he bother with a tune in the first place?’

  ‘It’s somewhere to start, I suppose.’

  ‘Still can’t dance to it. He doesn’t leave you enough of the tune.’

  Tatum rippled out. The only sound was the needle orbiting in the final groove. If neither of them stopped it it would do that until the spring wound down.

  Troy compromised. Riffled through the records he kept in the cupboard under the stairs – not much listened to any more, but more probably to his guest’s taste.

  He called out the names of bands from the cupboard door.

  ‘Billy Cotton?’

  Someone must have given him that – he would never have gone out and bought it.

  ‘Wot? “Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner”?’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘Strictly for the mums and dads. It’s the sort of stuff my mum plays when she’s feelin’ sentimental.’

  ‘The Waldorfians?’

  ‘Who’s singin’ with ’em?’

  ‘Doesn’t say. Carrol Gibbons? “Night and Day”.’

  ‘The one with Al Bowlly?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Great. Anything with Al would be fine.’

  Troy flipped through the pile, and picked out records by Roy Fox and Lew Stone – Al Bowlly had fronted both bands for a while. He found a good half dozen – ‘Isn’t It Heavenly’, ‘Just Let Me Look at You’, ‘My Woman’, ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’ and ‘Fancy Our Meeting’. They weren’t to his taste any longer – indeed he wasn’t at all sure they ever had been, but when he was eighteen they had been ‘all the rage’. Bowlly’s voice was not pleasing. He ‘crooned’, which meant he was one of the new singers whose vocal technique had been developed for the electric microphone. So had Bing Crosby’s – the difference was Crosby’s voice pleased.

  But even Al Bowlly couldn’t quite ruin ‘Night and Day’. After Kitty had gabbled through her career since Hendon, and they’d played the lesser Bowlly side for side, he put ‘Night and Day’ on one more time meaning it to cue the evening’s end.

  It was, he thought, Cole Porter at his best. A song he thought of as starkly romantic – a song delivered without jollity or flippancy – obsessively seductive. Designed to draw you in.

  She kissed him. Leaned over and kissed him, halfway through the song. He thought he might be blushing. His response was not half-hearted, but it was inadequate.

  She pulled back to look at him. It was getting dark now – time to black out the windows – and whilst he couldn’t see for certain, he knew she was staring, big green eyes locked onto his.

  ‘You think I’m a bit previous, don’t you?’

  Troy had been baffled by her attentiveness. He’d been ready to write the evening off as copper talk – the wish to talk shop with someone who knew the job, but wasn’t on the same team. Coppers got that way. It was one reason they spent too much time with one another, and one reason they became such ready bores. Now, he couldn’t believe his luck, and lacked the courage of his desire.

  ‘Forward might be the word,’ he said.

  ‘But it’s not forward if a bloke does it.’

  ‘You’re not a bloke.’

  ‘So you noticed?’

  She kissed him again. He got the better of his nerves and kissed back.

  ‘That’s better. You’re not so shy now, are you?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ he said truthfully.

  ‘Get used to it, Sergeant Troy. London’s full of forward women. Who’s gonna wait on a bloke plucking up the nerve or polishing his chat-up lines when we might be blown to kingdom come tomorrow?’

  ‘“The grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace.”’

  She’d been poised and pouting, ready to kiss him again. The word ‘grave’ pulled her up sharply.

  ‘Did you just make that up?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t improvising. It’s an old English poet called Marvell.’

  ‘How old? Like Shakespeare?’

  ‘Give or take fifty years.’

  ‘We ain’t got fifty years. There’s a war on.’

  She kissed him again. The record spun into its final groove, the needle clicking back and forth – click, schtuck, click, schtuck.

  Kitty took it up.

  ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on – click, schtuck. Don’t you know there’s a war on – click, schtuck.’

  ‘I noticed that too.’

  ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on – click, schtuck. Come on, Sergeant Troy. We ain’t gonna live forever.’

  She stood up, stretched out a hand to him and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘This place does have an upstairs, doesn’t it? A bedroom, I mean. That other “fine and private place”.’

  It was blatant. He’d never heard a woman talk like this before. Women didn’t talk like this.

  ‘I’m on early tomorrow,’ he bleated, running away from what he wanted one more time. He was being pathetic and he knew it. ‘You heard your father. Six thirty, Jubilee Street.’

  ‘I’m not on till noon.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Tiptoe past the end of the bed and I’ll let meself out around ten.�
��

  Blatant.

  ‘Do you always get what you want?’

  ‘Not always, no.’

  ‘But you find it pays to ask.’

  ‘I don’t bother with askin’. There’s a war on. Haven’t you heard? Click, schtuck.’

  Blatant.

  § 81

  At six thirty in the morning, Troy, never a morning man, felt elated. It was as though he’d been reborn into a better body. He hoped her father did not notice. He hoped the afterglow of sex did not show in his flesh like stigmata. He hoped never to have to own up to last night.

  Troy left his Bulinose Morris outside the Stiltons’ house in Jubilee Street. Stilton said they’d use his Riley Kestrel.

  ‘You’re looking bright and cocky this morning?’ he said as they got into the car.

  Troy’s heart sank. Did he have to say ‘cocky’? Surely ‘breezy’ went better with ‘bright’?

  ‘Nothing like a good night’s sleep,’ he lied.

  ‘Aye, well, I reckon today’ll ruin a few nights’ sleep for the poor buggers on that list. There are days when I hate this job – far outnumbered by the days when I love it but I wish there were none at all. Now . . . who first?’

  ‘Franz Hermann Neuberg. From Dresden. Lodges with a family called Wax in Aylward Street.’

  Stilton slipped the Riley into reverse, turned the car around and headed south.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Wax?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Oh yes. If she’s taken to Herr Neuberg she’ll give us an earful.’

  ‘And if she hasn’t?’

  ‘Then she’ll like as not pack his bags for him.’

  Mrs Wax, stout and fifty-ish, hair tucked under a mesh net, pinny on, slippers bulging bunions, nose bulging veins, folded her arms and stood squarely on the threshold when she saw who had knocked at her door at a quarter to seven in the morning.

  ‘Spit it out, Walter. I’ll not make this easy for you.’

  ‘Mornin’ Dora. You took a shine to Mr Neuberg then?’

  ‘It’s Professor Neuberg to you. He’s an educated man. Deserving of a bit of respect.’

  ‘He’ll get it, Dora. Now, I need to talk to him. How good’s his English?’

  ‘Talk to him? You mean nick ’im, don’t you, Walter Stilton?’

  ‘Just ask him to come to the door.’

  She turned around and bellowed, ‘Professor!’

  Troy wondered if it were possible to be quite so loud and show respect at the same time.

  ‘He’s havin’ his breakfast. Getting ready to go to work. He’s at a college up west. You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Could we wait inside?’

  ‘You just want to scrounge a cup o’ tea, that’s what you want.’

  ‘Well, Dora . . . it’s not as if it’s rationed is it?’

  Troy was amazed at the warmth and charm Stilton put into a simple statement. Like daughter like father. He would never have thought of charm as a Special Branch secret weapon. There was nothing special about the Branch, they were the most ordinary of coppers – but he was beginning to think there was nothing ordinary about Walter.

  ‘It will be, Walter Stilton, you mark my words!’

  Her belligerence vanished. She wasn’t smiling, she might even be a long way from smiling, but she led them into the back room of the house and told them to sit down.

  Troy found himself facing a little man with wisps of white hair spiralling up off his head – standing at the oilclothed table in shirt and braces, a collar half attached to his shirt sticking out like starched wings, paused in a breakfast of poached eggs and toast by Dora Wax’s warning roar. He was getting their measure, doing nothing until he knew them for what they were – standing almost to attention, straining, Troy thought, to appear obedient, respectful and compliant. No direct eye contact. A man who’d been arrested before. Troy saw this and clearly Stilton did too.

  ‘It’s OK, Professor,’ Stilton said, smiling. ‘We’re not wearing jack-boots.’

  ‘Do I have time to pack?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Time to finish my meal?’

  ‘That too.’

  The professor sat down again. The norms of the transaction so established, he seemed to Troy to be no further perturbed and in no hurry – which suited Stilton. Dora Wax set out tea for the two of them. Stilton eyed the full rack of toast, standing on edge by the professor’s plate.

  ‘Any chance of a bit of toast, Dora?’

  ‘Wot, ain’t your missis fed you today?’

  ‘Of course . . . but that was over an hour ago.’

  She took a slice of toast off the rack, slapped it on a plate and pushed it towards Stilton.

  ‘Help yourself. Go easy on the butter. That is rationed – or hadn’t you heard? Now, Professor, knock back yer tea and let me have the cup.’

  She spun the dregs of tea around, upended the cup over the saucer and then peered into the pattern she had made around the inside.

  ‘Ooooh . . . I see a journey,’ she said.

  Troy and Stilton looked at each other. Stilton grinned over a mouthful of buttered toast.

  ‘A car journey. Not a long one. Then a dark place.’

  ‘Where, Dora?’ Neuberg said simply without looking at her. ‘And will there be light enough to read?’

  ‘Dunno. Hard to say. Just dark. Then another journey. A long one this time. Far, far away. Then . . . ’Ang on . . . Yeah . . . I see water . . . a sea crossing . . . . Professor, you’re going overseas!’

  Neuberg finished his eggs, stood up, said, ‘Right now, Dora, I am going upstairs. You will excuse me, gentlemen. I will not keep you long.’

  Troy found Dora Wax towering over him.

  ‘Drink up, young copper, and I’ll do you next.’

  His heart sank. Stilton was close to giggling into his tea. Troy obeyed and handed her the cup. Swirl, tip, peer.

  ‘I did you, young copper, ’cos I know wot a septic Walter Stilton is. And you know what I see? I see a woman in your life.’

  Stilton was holding in the laughter now by force of will. Oh God, Troy thought, let not this woman have red hair. He couldn’t bear the end of Stilton’s ‘septicism’. He couldn’t bear to have to explain.

  ‘Oooh . . . A dark woman – lots of thick black hair and coal-black eyes . . . wicked woman! A wicked woman is going to enter your life!’

  Good, thought Troy. He was a policeman . . . from his point of view the world was full of wicked women. Dark or otherwise.

  Neuberg appeared in the doorway. A briefcase under his arm, a small overnight case in one hand, a homburg on his head.

  ‘Gentlemen, I am ready.’

  Troy drove. Stilton sat in the back of the Riley with Neuberg.

  ‘Do you know where this dark place is?’ Neuberg asked.

  ‘Probably just the cell at Leman Street. After that you will be going on a journey. Dora was right about that. I just don’t know where.’

  ‘Away from Dora.’

  ‘’Fraid so.’

  ‘Ach! The woman could drive a man mad, you know. She no longer believes in the God of her forefathers and seeks faith in the random arrangement of tea leaves in a cup. She looks in, states what is obvious and is falsely reassured by the illusion of her own wisdom. Of course I’m going on a journey. I’m a refugee. When are we not in transit? The woman could drive me mad. What she does not realise is that everything is numbers. If she wants the secret of the universe, it lies in numbers.’

  ‘Does it?’ Stilton said, sounding incredulous.

  ‘Trust me. I am – was – Professor of Mathematics at University College. Numbers are everything.’

  He tapped Troy on the shoulder. Relaxed enough now to treat him as though he were no more than a chauffeur.

  ‘Would you pull up at the corner? I would like to buy a newspaper. Who knows how long I shall be in your dark place.’

  § 82

  If there was a pattern to the day’s work, thought Troy
, it lay only in that initial sense of caution the men displayed. No one jumped to conclusions, no one assumed anything about the nature of them as coppers until it became self-evident, as though each and every one of them suspected that somewhere in the hidden heart of England Churchill had been saving his storm troopers for a day such as this. Once they were certain they were dealing with nothing more than a couple of unarmed London bobbies, the full gamut of reaction was possible. Herr Schwartz in Jamaica Street had wept buckets, as had Herr Franzen in Commercial Road and Herr Bernstein in the East India Dock Road. Herr Tauber of Ropemaker’s Fields had made a run for it – Stilton had left it to Troy to mess up his suit and rugby tackle him, and Herr Musil of Wapping Lane had adopted Gandhiesque tactics and lay rigid on the floor of his landlady’s sitting room in an act of civil disobedience. The landlady had helped carry Herr Musil out saying, ‘If you wasn’t behind with your rent it’d be a different matter. I can let yer room to some bugger wot pays proper.’

  By the end of the day Troy had seen little opportunity for his supposed local knowledge or Stilton’s grasp of German to be much use, and said so to Stilton.

  ‘It’s a shabby job.’

  ‘It’s a job like any other, lad,’ Stilton said. ‘And who knows what the Chief Inspector has in store for us?’

  Troy called in at the Yard on his way home to check his in-tray. There was one note:

  ‘Station Sergeant at Bow Street called. 6.12 p.m. Asked if you would return call.’

  For a moment he had no idea who the Station Sergeant at Bow Street was or why he might be calling. Then he remembered.

  ‘Kitty Stilton, please.’

  She came on the line.

  ‘I get off at eight,’ she said. ‘We could . . .’

  ‘What? We could what?’

  ‘We could go out for a bite to eat. Make the most of the light nights.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Before we make the most of the dark.’

  Troy thought. He could not be taken aback at any of this. He had called her. It had been perfectly possible not to call her, but he had. And her initial suggestion was a good one – proper though it was. Dining out might take away the shabby taste of the day.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going anywhere on the back of your bike. I’ll pick you up in my car in five minutes. We’ll drive to my house, and then we’ll walk.’