by Mary Gibson
She closed her eyes until she felt Tom placing the drink in her hand. He sat opposite, sipping at his whisky while the fire crackled and spat its light around the two of them.
‘What was it that Mr Minetti said? People always get what they expect? Perhaps a part of me knew Frank wasn’t dead... and didn’t want him to be?’
‘You haven’t got it on your conscience, at least.’
The gin and the fire began to warm her. ‘It would have been a lot to live with, Tom. And now I’ve got a second chance, whatever we do, I don’t want it to end up with him...’
‘Brown bread,’ Tom finished, using Sugar’s slang, forcing a smile from Matty.
‘Not him, not anyone.’ She put the empty glass on to the side table, knowing that she needed to pull herself out of the lethargy that had descended on her. It would have to be one step at a time.
‘All right, tell me this plan you’ve been cooking up behind my back.’
‘Basically it’s a sting. We’re going to convince Frank to sideline the Clerkenwell mob and come into business with the Bermondsey mafia. We’ve got a scam going to lift a fortune in silver and gold ingots off a boat coming into Surrey Docks.’
Matty looked alarmed but Tom held up his hands. ‘Don’t worry, we’re not really stealing it. It’s just a way of getting Frank to double-cross the Sabinis, then we’ll tip them off when the exchange takes place.’
Tom repeated his promise that the plan wouldn’t involve more violence. ‘We’ll just hand him over to the Sabinis, let them deal with him – believe me they won’t take kindly to being cut out. After that, I don’t think he’ll be troubling you any more, Matty. I’ve not wanted to tell you about it, until I knew I could get all the players. It would have been a bit like starting to film a ‘Modern Woman’ without the extras... or the star. Wouldn’t do, would it?’
She shook her head.
He explained that they would need the cooperation of quite a few of the Bermondsey wide boys and confessed he’d already recruited Nellie’s brother, Freddie Clark, and his friend George Flint, more commonly known as Wide’oh.
‘Is he the one we saw nicking electricity from the lamp post with Freddie?’
‘That’s Wide’oh. Anyway he’s agreed to let us use his lock-up on Bermondsey Wall for the first meeting with Frank. He’s got the place stacked to the brim with hooky stuff, booze and cigarettes. Runs a dodgy drinking club there too. Just the sort of place to set up a meeting with the “Bermondsey mafia”.’ Tom grinned and again she felt she was in the middle of a boys’ game.
The Italian contingent necessary to complete the illusion would be made up of the barber Minetti and their local grocer, Joe Capp, who like Minetti had come to Bermondsey from Italy forty years earlier and considered it his home.
Tom hesitated, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘There’s just one thing, Matty. It’s hard for me to ask... But to make sure Frank goes for it, we’ll have to offer him some bait he can’t refuse – you’ll have to see Frank again.’
Though his face was ruddy in the firelight, she thought she saw the colour deepen as a blush passed over it. She paused for a beat and said, ‘I’ll do it.’
27
‘Gold, Silver and Gold’
September–October 1932
When Tom walked into the Angel, Matty knew something was wrong.
‘Didn’t he go for it?’ she asked, as he slipped into the seat beside her.
He’d been at the first meeting of the newly formed ‘Bermondsey mafia’ with Frank and his men at Wide’oh’s lock-up. It had taken some delicate secret negotiations, with Sugar as the go-between, but today they had put their plan to Frank.
‘Oh, he went for it,’ Tom said, with an edge to his voice that made Matty uneasy.
‘You don’t seem very pleased. Did something happen?’
‘It went perfectly.’
‘Tell me, Tom! What did he say?’
Tom raised his eyes, as if struggling to remember.
‘Well, his exact words were I’ll pay your price for the ingots, but her I don’t pay for... I never did before, so why should I start now.’
Matty’s face burned and she put cold hands to her face. ‘I’m sorry, Tom.’
‘I’ll tell you the rest later. I’ll walk you home.’
Outside she slipped her arm through his, wishing he would speak. Eventually the silence was like a cord tightening around her heart. She had to break it and she blurted out, ‘Tom, what he said about paying...’ She felt his arm stiffen. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘I want to explain.’
‘What’s to explain? He was pretty clear.’
‘Tom, please.’ She pulled him round to face her and they stopped by the river wall. He turned away, leaning his elbows on the parapet. She stood silent now, waiting for him to say something. She couldn’t look at him. Instead she gazed out over ranks of moored lighters, across the inky river to the lights on the Wapping side.
‘Matty, it’s better if we just leave it. We need to concentrate on seeing this through and making sure you’re still alive when it’s done.’ His voice was tight with hurt.
‘If I could do it all again, Tom, I would never have left you. I would never have gone with Frank... believe me.’
Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. She’d often wondered why she’d so resisted becoming Tom’s lover before going to America. It was something she’d never regretted, until now. For Tom would have been forever and, back then, forever felt like too long a time.
He sighed. ‘You believe it. But I don’t. None of us get to do it all again. If you could have stayed with me, you would have. You had to fly, I know that. But what I’ll never understand is why him?’
He was right. It was the Matty of today who would give herself to Tom in a heartbeat, not the Matty of yesterday. She struggled to remember the person she was when she first fell in love with Frank. How could she explain why she’d so easily fallen into his bed? She knew the irony of it now, but at the time it had felt somehow safer than being with Tom. For her heart had known that however fierce Frank’s passion, it would one day burn itself out and she would be free again. Or so she’d thought. It seemed impossible now that she hadn’t been able to tell what he was, that all her instincts had so completely deserted her.
‘I thought he was someone else,’ Matty said finally. ‘He was charming, he said words that made him seem kind and did things that made him seem thoughtful. He looked like a film star and I was going to the land of dreams to meet film stars, wasn’t I? I know it sounds stupid, but I was stupid and I believed him. It was like all my dreams coming true.’
It wasn’t enough, she knew it, but it was all the explanation she could give. She stood beside him, mesmerized by the swift running tide. If only she could toss all the faded flowers of her past mistakes on to its oily stream, like an offering to the river god, who would float them away, down the wide estuary and out to the all-forgiving sea.
***
The SS Artemis docked, carrying its load of silver and gold. River mist curled in pewter wreaths about its bows so that the top of the crane high above the cargo hold was almost invisible. When the first coiled rope basket landed on the quayside the dockmaster was waiting to check its contents. Bright silver ingots were tumbled haphazardly inside it. They might as well have been a bushel of bricks for all the care that had been taken in loading them. But however they were unloaded, they would be counted and double-checked against the manifest and then checked on the lorry by the dock police as they went out of the main gates.
They were virtually impossible to steal, but somehow the Bermondsey mafia had convinced Frank otherwise. And the ship’s arrival at the docks signalled the final part of their plan.
Tom had closed the subject of her past and along with it his heart, or so it seemed to her, and she felt his coolness like an icy knife in her own. He’d concentrated on going over the details of her handover. He’d told Matty s
he would only need to see Frank once and then it would be over. It would be at Neville’s bolt-hole by the Angel that she would finally come face to face with Frank again. They’d persuaded him the best place to exchange Matty was when she was feeling safe and unsuspecting at one of the soirées Neville often hosted before they left for the Blue Lotus. Tom had insisted she’d be in no danger, that the Sabinis were interested in taking Frank, not her. But though she put on a brave face to Tom, she made a mental note to wear Queenie’s hat on the night – just in case.
***
The night was thick with fog and the dockside business of daylight hours had been replaced by an echoing silence as they made their way along unlit cobbles to Neville’s bolt-hole. Bermondsey Wall was a long canyon of a road, hugging the meandering Thames on its way through Bermondsey. On one side of the street, a low river wall punctuated with piers and river stairs was faced with slab-sided warehouses on the other. He took her hand as they hurried up the dark street. Splashes of light spilled from occasional riverside pubs or ancient houses like Neville’s, remnants of a time when sea captains made their home along this stretch of the river. She shivered and hugged herself as they walked, feeling a slick veneer of damp river mist on her evening coat. As they entered the house, she heard a piano and recognized the snatch of a song Neville was playing.
Dreams broken in two can be made like new, on the street of dreams.
Gold, silver and gold, all you can hold is in a moonbeam...
It was from ‘Street of Dreams’, one of Billy’s favourites.
‘Oh good, we’ve got a soundtrack!’ Matty announced as she and Tom entered the room. ‘We let ourselves in. Thanks, Neville – thanks for leaving the door ajar, not as if there’s any dangerous men on the loose tonight!’
‘Matty, darling!’ Neville greeted her. ‘With all the visitors I’ll have tonight I thought it would save me endless trips to the front door! Don’t worry I’ll shut it before our guest of honour arrives. Champagne?’
He left the piano and gave her a glass of champagne and a kiss, as if this were no different from any other night they’d met up before going to the Blue Lotus. As Neville took her black cape and fedora, he joked nervously, ‘I’ll have to be careful with this, I hear it’s deadly!’
‘I’m not planning to use it! It’s my lucky charm,’ Matty said.
‘We won’t need luck,’ Tom murmured.
‘Ah, Tom, I think you’re meant to stand over there by the drinks cabinet, aren’t you?’ Neville said, taking charge as if he were the director rather than Tom, who had planned every step of the operation with meticulous care. ‘I believe you’re supposed to be one of my friends tonight, so you might as well help yourself! I’ll take care of Matty.’ He put his arm round her and she noticed Tom bristle slightly. Tonight he was hardly recognizable as the respectable council employee that he was. He’d dressed in a flashy suit, which Matty thought must have been hired for the purpose, and had slicked back his hair with Brylcreem so that it looked almost black. He had, to Matty’s surprise, an almost sinister air as he took up his planned position.
The room was illuminated by a couple of small table lamps and its usual exuberant amount of candles. Their flickering light bouncing off the deep bow window exerted its magic on Matty, in spite of her nerves. Neville had staged the scene well.
‘So, Matty, you come here with me, let me pose you in the window seat.’
Two chairs in the bay were placed either side of a delicate side table, in the centre of which was a slender silver candelabra. Matty sat still, allowing Neville to arrange her long evening dress so that its silver and gold brocade fell in folds around her legs. The ill-fitting windowpanes let in a cold draught that Matty’s spun silver stole did nothing to shield her from. Neville stood back admiring his work.
‘Now you look suitably composed – and irresistible, my darling... as always, don’t you agree, Tom?’
Tom was pouring himself a glass of water and nodded stiffly, but she could see the slight tremble in his hand as he lifted the glass to his lips. She wished she could go to him; instead she smiled encouragingly, though she doubted she looked less nervous herself.
She shivered, glancing out at the dark river. The opposite bank was invisible tonight, veiled in a shifting silvery brume that hung above the waters. Smudged paths of golden light from the Angel pub’s windows unfolded in rippling columns over the fast-running river. She imagined carefree drinkers inside the pub, warm, safe and unaware, wishing for a moment she could be one of them. She turned away. She would have preferred to sit by the fire, but that place had been reserved for Minetti and Frank.
They had gone over the scene again and again, as closely as if it were to be played out in the skeleton room under the watchful gaze of Plum’s camera. Tonight she was playing the role of sacrificial lamb, supposedly unaware that she was about to be betrayed by Neville and her Bermondsey friends. The story they had spun Frank was that she would be meeting Neville for a drink at his bolt-hole, as they usually did before going to the Blue Lotus. Matty would suspect nothing wrong and all Frank had to do was come along and pluck her like a piece of ripe fruit.
As if on cue, Minetti and Wally arrived, and they brought with them the smell of river fog. Minetti was a slim, tall man, but whether it was a trick of light and shadow or that he was already inhabiting the part he was playing, he seemed to Matty bulkier now, more imposing, and all his usual mobility of features had turned to stone. When Wally greeted her, his mouth was dry and she sensed a whiff of stage fright, noticing a telltale sheen of sweat on his forehead. The two took their places by the fire, Minetti seated, Wally standing to one side of him. Wally wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and caught her eye.
‘Break a leg, eh, Matty?’ he said, with a fixed smile.
When Sugar arrived Neville closed the front door and then ushered him into the bedroom. Sugar would stay there out of sight just in case anything went wrong. The plan was for the Sabinis to take Frank as he emerged with Matty from Neville’s. Freddie was outside, tasked with signalling the Sabinis’ arrival and making sure the handover went smoothly.
Tom looked at his watch and Neville gulped his champagne. Minetti straightened his tie and Wally unbuttoned his coat. The room was silent, apart from the ticking of the elaborate rococo-style clock perched on the mantlepiece. Matty looked round at the men, all here taking risks with their lives – for her. Matty broke the silence.
‘Thank you.’ She looked at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such good friends, but thank you.’
Minetti, taking the role of godfather to heart, answered for them all.
‘Like Mrs Minetti said, Matty, you’re family.’
The others nodded in agreement as a loud knocking came from the front door.
Neville smiled at Matty, put down his champagne glass and said brightly. ‘Curtain up!’
*
She had ruined his beautiful heavy-lashed eyes. His face was shadowed by a wide-brimmed fedora, but the array of candles scattered about the room offered no hiding place for Frank’s destroyed features. A raised, livid scar sliced through both eyelids, crossing the bridge of his prominent nose in an unbroken, angry line.
Her gasp of fear as Neville showed him into the room was unfeigned, for Frank had always been so vain about his good looks and Matty could well imagine what venom had been stored up for her each time he’d looked in the mirror.
‘This gentleman says he’s a friend of yours, Matty darling.’ Neville played the innocent party very well. ‘I wish I’d known he was coming!’
Neville offered to take Frank’s hat, but Frank shrugged him off.
‘Let me offer you a glass of champagne!’
‘I ain’t stopping. Where is she?’
Frank’s henchman whispered something into his ear and Matty realized what other damage she’d inflicted with Queenie’s fedora. Though she was sitting in a blaze of candlelight, dressed in glimmering gold and silver brocade,
he was obviously having trouble seeing her. Now he lifted his chin, tilting his head, squinting from beneath his slashed eyelids.
‘Ah, there she is, il mio piccolo canarino!’ His feigned delight at her presence was chilling. ‘I don’t see too good no more, Matty.’
‘Neville! What’s he doing here?’ She loaded her voice with shock and terror. ‘Who told him I’d be here?’
‘Sit, Rossi! Let’s have a drink to seal the deal,’ Minetti invited Frank from his place by the fire. He glanced at Neville’s ormolu clock. ‘Besides, your second consignment ain’t even ready to collect yet.’
‘OK, gentlemen. I’ll drink to our new business arrangement.’ Frank looked over his shoulder and his bodyguard stepped in front of him. Frank followed with that deliberate, light-footed walk she would have recognized anywhere, almost like a dancer’s glide. Today, however, his progress was more hesitant than usual. He halted, feeling for the chair next to Minetti’s. Tom poured him a drink with a steady hand that Matty could only admire. He handed the drink to Frank and moved deliberately to one side.
‘Cheers, gentlemen.’ Frank raised his glass, then looked in Matty’s direction. ‘What d’you know? Your Bermondsey friends ain’t so friendly when it comes to business!’ Frank gave a mirthless laugh. ‘They threw you in free with a couple crates of silver and gold!’
For a moment the room was a frozen tableau. Nobody stirred, nobody spoke; only the shimmering candle flames moved, guttering as chill river air blew in through warped windows and lopsided doors. Each of the men kept their appointed place as if waiting for a signal. Then Matty stood up, looking ready for flight.
Frank raised a hand to his henchman. ‘Get her.’
The man took two lumbering steps across the room and grabbed her arm. Tom gave the smallest nod towards the clock. It was too early to leave. She had to stall until Freddie gave the signal that the Sabinis were waiting outside to take Frank.