Second Violin

by Lawton, John

  He found her under the white lamps of Bow Street nick – white because Queen Victoria would not have those ugly, garish blue lamps opposite the Royal Opera House if it were to be truly royal; the queen had been dead thirty-nine years, but the lamps remained white. Kitty slid in beside him, leaned over to kiss him, found her gas mask case jammed painfully between them and slung it on the back seat, as symbolic as a discarded item of clothing.

  ‘Glad you’re free. I’d no idea how long Dad would keep you.’

  Troy slipped the car into gear and set off up Bow Street and into Long Acre.

  ‘Do you and your father not talk?’

  ‘Not shop we don’t. I’m just uniform I am. A plonk. He’d no more tell me Special Branch business than he’d tell me how to nick the crown jewels in the Tower o’London. It was just like that when I was a nipper – “Where you goin’ Dad?”. “See a man about a dog.” I got fed up hearin’ that.’

  ‘I’m not Branch. So I can tell you . . . we spent all day rounding up Germans and Austrians, mostly middle-aged and middle class, Herr Doktor This and Herr Professor That, banging them up in Leman Street and then watching them get shuffled off to St Pancras or Lingfield.’

  ‘Wot they done?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So it’s distasteful. I’d sooner be chasing murderers. That’s what I do. And as for the crown jewels . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The ones in the tower are fake, so I wouldn’t bother. The real ones haven’t been on display since the days of Captain Blood.’

  He parked in Bedfordbury. She slipped an arm in his and they walked along New Row and up as far as Seven Dials.

  ‘I know a nice little Italian place. Gepetto’s. Not much of a regular menu, but an astonishing array of specials on the blackboard every day, and a decent wine list. It’s usually jammed, but I’ve known Gepetto for years, he’ll fit us in.’

  ‘I never drunk wine.’

  Troy supposed there was a first time for everything. Perhaps most English women had never tasted wine? He had grown up with wine. His parents had settled in England after a few years in France. Almost the first thing the old man had done was stock his wine cellar.

  Outside Gepetto’s the blackboard was bare. Inside Gepetto’s Gepetto was seated alone with a bottle of wine and a glass, his head in his hand.

  Troy tapped on the window. Gepetto looked up, a sad-eyed seventy-year-old, brimming with tears. He beckoned to them to come in. Turned over two more glasses and poured.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Ah . . . Freddie . . . Where I begin?’

  ‘At the beginning?’

  ‘After lunch today . . . two coppers come . . . they ask for Gepetto Zocchi . . . when I say that’s me they say “no, it must be your son”, and my son my Joe, my cockney Joe, he come out and he talk to them, and he say you buggers got to be kidding and next thing I know he got his hat and coat and they take him down nick and put him in chokey and say he not be back . . . he is . . . how you say . . . impermed.’

  ‘Interned,’ Troy said.

  ‘Impermed. Interned. Still chokey, yes? An’ I say what he done, and they say he a wop and that enough . . . they say they are coppers on the wop, Kraut and kike run. And they laugh and they take my Joe away. So I got no cook, no customers . . . so I go walk and I go over to Soho . . . and I ask around and they nick also Gobbi from Mario’s and Spinetti from Quaglino’s, and the bloke from the Café Royal, and those two blokes at the ice cream parlour in Old Compton Street . . . I tell you, Freddie, this night you cannot get a good Italian meal this side of Milan!’

  Troy took out his notebook, said, ‘Jot down Joe’s full name for me, date and place of birth, and let me look into this. I can’t make any promises. But I can at least find out where he’s gone.’

  Gepetto scribbled.

  Troy felt a hypocrite.

  Troy felt unclean.

  Troy felt a liar.

  Troy took up his glass of wine, hoping he could hide behind it or anything. The sooner he got out of here the better.

  He sipped. It was superb. It sapped at his sense of hypocrisy. He felt it begin to wane almost at once. He turned the bottle to see the label. Gepetto had chosen to drown his sorrows in a Bruno di Monticello 1926.

  ‘You good copper, Freddie. Not like these bums who come today. You never lock up bloke just cos he a kike or a wop. I tell you what. Let me feed you and your young lady.’

  Hypocrisy, good wine and the prospect of food fought for space in Troy’s conscience.

  ‘It not be much. Just a little pasta and putanesca.’

  He vanished into the kitchen.

  Kitty was staring at him, her glass untouched.

  ‘Try it,’ Troy whispered. ‘You’ll like it.’

  ‘How can you not tell him?’

  ‘No . . . that’s the wrong question. How can I tell him?’

  ‘It stinks, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I told your father as much earlier on . . . but the wine doesn’t and nor will the meal. And when did you last dine in an empty restaurant with the proprietor?’

  Kitty tasted the wine, pulled a face just like the one she’d pulled at Art Tatum.

  ‘I could get used to it . . . anyway . . . pasta . . . that’s spaghetti . . . pasta and what?’

  ‘Putanesca.’

  ‘Wossat mean.’

  Troy wished she hadn’t asked.

  ‘Lady of the night.’

  ‘Oh, nice.’

  ‘Less literally, Whore’s Sauce.’

  ‘Thanks a million, Troy.’

  ‘It just means olives and tomatoes and . . .’

  ‘Troy . . . just shut yer gob.’

  § 83

  Afterwards. A warm night. The window open. Kitty lying with her red mane spread across his chest, he said, ‘I had my fortune told today.’

  ‘Wot? Who by?’

  ‘Dora Wax.’

  ‘Dora Wax reads tea leaves She couldn’t tell you the Titanic had sunk or Mafeking been relieved.’

  ‘She said a wicked woman was about to enter my life.’

  Kitty’s head rose up, a glint in her green eyes.

  ‘Wot . . . your putanesca? Your Lady of the Night?’

  ‘Yes . . . but it’s not you.’

  ‘I should think not. And one more crack about whores and I’ll thump you.’

  § 84

  Every day Troy worked on the wop, Kraut and kike run with Walter Stilton. Every day tasted worse. Every night he met up with Kitty Stilton, and whether they went to a restaurant, a pub or a cinema they always ended up in his bed. Every day tasted better.

  Came Friday.

  Steerforth appeared at Leman Street at lunchtime. Neither Troy nor Stilton had set eyes on him since Monday evening.

  ‘I need you two in Hampstead this afternoon. Finish what you’re doing . . .’

  They were drinking tea and eating sandwiches in Troy’s old office. Stilton never lost an opportunity for food or tea, and Troy had grown used to the fact that each morning Stilton would cajole a second breakfast out of whichever household they invaded first.

  ‘. . . And be outside Hampstead Library at two thirty.’

  Steerforth left without another word to them.

  Stilton bit into his bacon sandwich, spat crumbs and said, ‘Do you want to guess or shall I?’

  ‘Book burning,’ Troy said. ‘He’ll have us tipping books off the shelves and burning them in the street.’

  Later, Troy wished he had put more imagination into his answer.

  They arrived at Arkwright Road to find three Black Marias and a couple of dozen uniformed coppers lined up outside. Steerforth was bristling. It seemed to Troy that what passed for his moustache was twitching with anticipation. He picked two uniforms from the ranks and told Troy and Stilton to follow him inside.

  Inside, the library was full of people, almost entirely men, some snoozing, most bent over books and newspapers, some even taking no
tes. It was a typical Hampstead Library Friday afternoon. Troy had come here as a boy to change his library books after school. The watchword had been silence. One disturbed nothing in Hampstead Library. Fingers pressed to lips and whispered ‘hush’. The librarians even wore rubber heels. One librarian sensing impending trouble came up and asked if she could help. Steerforth ignored her, went over to the counter, raised the access flap and slammed it down three times, until every head in the room had turned to look at him.

  ‘Everybody up! Everybody stand!’

  Confused, people obeyed slowly and sporadically. Suddenly, Troy had worked out exactly what Steerforth was up to. The more obedient they were, the more they gave themselves away. Troy could spot the Europeans just by looking at them. No Englishman would leap to his feet just because a policeman said so.

  ‘Mr Stilton, take the left-hand side of the room, Mr Troy the right. I shall be centre.’

  So saying he walked up to a tall, elderly, bespectacled man who had risen slowly to his feet by the first table and said, ‘Repeat after me – “Heil Hitler”.’

  ‘Certainly not,’ came the reply. ‘Bugger off.’

  Steerforth didn’t bat an eyelid, moved on to the next man.

  ‘Repeat after me – “Heil Hitler”.’

  The only right answer to this preposterous request was indeed ‘Bugger off’, but this time the ‘Heil Hitler’ was all but whispered back to him in accented English.

  Steerforth put his face only inches from his cringing captive’s and said, ‘Now say “God Save the King”!’

  ‘Gott Save de King.’

  ‘You’re nicked! Mr Stilton, Mr Troy! Nick anyone who can’t say it right.’

  Stilton looked at Troy in disbelief. He hadn’t twigged. Then he said as gently as he could to the first man in his aisle, ‘Would you mind just saying “Heil Hitler” and “God Save the King” for me?’

  Steerforth roared, ‘Don’t ask them! Tell ’em!’

  Troy walked out.

  Five or six minutes passed, then the remaining bobbies lined up to form a corridor and thirty-odd men were hustled out of the library straight into Black Marias. As the first van moved off Steerforth caught sight of Troy standing by the Riley and strode purposefully over.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

  Troy said, ‘Mr Steerforth, what you did in there was disgusting –’

  Steerforth punched him in the mouth. Troy tasted blood. Steerforth pulled back for a second blow and found his arm held by Stilton.

  ‘Remember what you told us, sir – nobody gets thumped while there’s witnesses.’

  Stilton pointed back at the crowd they’d drawn. Steerforth shrugged him off, glanced quickly round at the staring faces on the pavement. But for them Troy was sure he’d hit him again. Then the finger wagged in his face.

  ‘You ever . . . You ever disobey an order of mine again and I’ll see you busted back to pounding the beat.’

  He turned his back on Troy and strode off.

  Troy wiped the blood from his lip.

  ‘It was also illegal,’ he said to Steerforth’s back. Steerforth turned and ran at Troy. Stilton, almost twice his girth, got both arms around him and said, ‘For Christ’s sake, sir. Not in public!’

  Steerforth freed one arm and a finger to wag with.

  ‘Cross me again, son, and you’re through. Gettit? Through! You won’t be worth dogshit on the pavement!’

  Stilton said nothing until the street had begun to chatter. Then, blending authority and civility, said, ‘Do you want to be a copper when you grow up?’

  Troy looked down, spat blood onto the tarmac.

  ‘I’m right, Walter. This . . . this farrago is illegal.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you’re right. You’re the educated one. But you work for Stanley Onions. I thought you’d have learnt by now that if there’s one thing brass hates it’s a barrack-room lawyer and that’s just what you came across as to Steerforth. You waved a red rag at a bull. Worse, you just made a powerful enemy.’

  An old woman stepped out of the crowd. Took a fancy, blue-edged hanky from her sleeve and pressed it to Troy’s split lip.

  ‘Diese englische Polizei, ist nicht besser als die deutsche. Nur die braunen Hemden fehlen noch.’

  Troy understood little of what she’d said. ‘Police’ and ‘brown’, and not much else. He took the hanky from her, looked to Stilton for a translation.

  ‘You won’t like it. She thinks you’re the one we’ve nicked and told you coppers’re no better than the Brownshirts.’

  ‘Just thank her, would you, Walter? Don’t tell her I’m a copper. I think I’m ashamed to be one for once.’

  Stilton obliged, and as she walked away said, ‘Well, at least we’re not locking up the women.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Troy said. ‘But Steerforth’ll have us doing that if we don’t get off this assignment.’

  § 85

  That night Kitty touched the scab on his lip, slipped a finger in his mouth to see if his teeth wiggled.

  ‘I can’t believe he did that.’

  Troy said nothing but ‘mmm’ and sucked gently on the finger.

  She pulled it out and said, ‘What did my dad say?’

  Troy told her.

  ‘But you’ll report him – the bastard – won’t you?’

  ‘No,’ said Troy. ‘No I won’t.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘And have to call your father as a witness? Against Steerforth? He’d hate that.’

  ‘Yeah – he would. He’d absolutely hate it. Steerforth – I could just murder him!’

  ‘My experience with crimes of vengeance and murder – which is not inconsiderable – has led me to think that it’s far better to let someone else do the deed for you. Murder Steerforth and who knows . . . It might land in my in-tray.’

  ‘What? You? Investigatin’ me?’

  She kissed the injured lip, ruffled the injured pride.

  ‘I can twirl you round my little finger any time I want.’

  So she did.

  § 86

  What does one do after the revolution? So long in coming, those who planned and achieved it have their roles mapped out from the first. The Second Under-Assistant Deputy Chief Commissar for Internal State Security (East) has known what his role will be from the night when he and the comrades met in an attic over a butcher’s shop in an alley off a back street in some nameless provincial town far from Moscow ten and more years ago. But what of those who did not plan the revolution, opposed it or simply had no idea it was coming? After the failed revolution of 1905, Alex Troy, who had part-planned part-participated and part-exploited the event, scarpered. After 1917 – revolution or putsch? in either case Troy was not party – all he had to do was stay put in London, run his newspapers, expand his publishing empire and wonder (not that he did) how to spend all the money. Admiral Wolkoff, the Tsar’s naval attaché in London in 1917, had also chosen to stay put . . . but not owning any newspaper, let alone a string of them, what was he to do? His choice was an odd one. He opened a café-restaurant – he called it a tea room, in fact quite specifically the Russian Tea Rooms, but café-restaurant it was – on the corner of Harrington Road and Thurloe Place in South Kensington, directly opposite the Underground station (Circle, District and Piccadilly).

  The Russian Tea Rooms appealed primarily to right-wing exiles known as Whites, of which there were plenty, several of whom had been all but blackmailed into pro-Bolshevik activity – but for exiles of the Left it presented an irresistible, if often resisted, opportunity merely to drink tea from a samovar and to listen to the seductive susurrus of their native tongue. Troy couldn’t give a toss. He liked to hear Russian spoken, but few things bored him more than a bunch of old Russians sitting around banging on about the old country (one to which he had never been and to which he had no expectations of ever going). His Uncle Nikolai, youngest of his father’s brothers, twenty years younger than Alex himself, the only one to make the
journey westward, who had escorted Troy’s grandfather, Rodyon Rodyonovich, to safety after the death of his mentor Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy in 1910, felt differently. He liked the place, politics notwithstanding, and every so often badgered the young Troy into accompanying him.

  Hence, the next day, the Saturday lunchtime, Troy found himself with a day off and emerging from the Underground station to see his uncle, short and stout and very Russian, waving at him from the other side of the street.

  ‘Ah . . . dear boy . . . I smell the scents of Old Russia!’ Nikolai said.

  ‘Really?’ Troy replied. ‘I smell petrol fumes and the blocked drains of old Kensington.’

  ‘For that you pick up the bill.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Troy. ‘Lead me to it.’

  Inside it was Saturday-packed, a sea of nodding, babbling heads. A liquid hubbub of Russian speech. At a corner table near the door, the stately figure of old Admiral Wolkoff himself, bushy white beard, head turning slowly to look briefly at every newcomer. At the counter his daughter, Anna, a frumpish woman in her late thirties whom Troy thought charmless but whose familiar broad slav features somehow put a twinkle in his uncle’s eye.

  On a quiet day, and he hardly ever seemed to be there when it was quiet, Troy thought the Tea Rooms might even be a relaxing place to take tea – dark-panelled, highly polished, elegant in its way and in winter often with a welcoming, roaring open fire. But they were too popular. People came in droves. It was said that the Tea Rooms served the best caviar in London. There were plenty who probably came here just to try it, but, to Troy’s dismay, his uncle always opted for peasant fare, for food associated with his childhood. His favourite stank. Troy could not abide the smell, but knew as he saw his uncle scanning the menu that he would settle on a disgusting soup made from kidneys and sour cream, called roscolnick. No matter what they did to it it always reeked of offal.

  Predictably, he lowered the menu, his eyes smiling at Troy across the top.

  ‘Roscolnick today!’