I burst out laughing.
“It’s not funny, you know! Rooms are hard to come by.”
“My place is no palace. You’ve seen it. But it’s snug.”
Her neck flushed again. “We need to go slow. We’ve got work to do. It’ll just get in the way.”
“What will?”
“This! Us. I told you, I don’t have time for men.”
“We could read to each other.”
“Shut up, Danny.”
It wasn’t till the day after we’d gone looking for trouble at the White City dog track that I could persuade her back to my place. I’d scrubbed my bedroom and changed the sheets just in case, but it still seemed cheap and tawdry when I showed her in. I wanted an Arabian tent filled with cushions and wafting silks for her. She didn’t seem to mind brown lino and faded carpet. Nor that I kissed her and helped her off with her clothes.
Afterwards we lay together with my arm under her head, nearly asleep.
“You must think I’m easy,” she said.
“I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re funny and brave.”
Her head shook in denial. Her shrub of hair tickled my nose. I calmed it down.
“I don’t do this.”
“What, go to bed with Scotsmen?”
She punched my chest. “With anyone.”
“So this is special?”
She shifted her head so she could look at me. Her eyes were anxious. “This is lovely, Danny. But it’s just fun. It’s not anything else. Right?”
“Sure, Eve. It’s whatever you want it to be.”
Suddenly she sat up, supporting herself with her arm. “Danny, listen. This isn’t anything. It’s not going anywhere.” She was fierce.
“OK, princess. Message received.”
She studied my face, looking for the truth. I don’t know what she saw, but she lay down again, and we held each other tight. Just for fun.
A pattern emerged over the next few days. We would keep up the professional faзade while I helped her find new stories, but when the work was done – or sometimes when we couldn’t wait a second longer – we’d make for my place. There, the only guardian we had to contend with was the moggy, and Eve soon had her purring round her legs. Me too for that matter.
Each time Eve would try to resist the temptation and each time she’d give in.
And after each time she would say we had to stop. And we did, till the next time.
Guilt that we might be using her column as an excuse to leap into bed spurred us to put more effort into her work. Of course it would take something special to top the Tommy Chandler story, and I had nothing lined up that needed the unique skills of Midge, Cyril and Stan. So we began to frequent the seedier dives and haunts of the underclass looking for trouble. Sniffing around and catching the mood. So as not to kill the golden goose, Eve made it clear to anyone who asked that names and addresses would be changed to protect the guilty. Just as well, for she wrote about the dog fixers at White City, the protection rackets in London restaurants, and the stolen goods for sale in every open market in town.
To read her exposйs was to imagine a London corrupt from top to bottom, a festering swamp of thieving and cheating. She wasn’t far wrong. It sometimes made me wonder how I kept myself clean. And why.
She took me into her newspaper one day when I showed interest in the process.
I’d thought about becoming a journalist after uni, but there was more money in the police. She started me in a room swamped with papers and reporters. A haze of smoke swirling above the jumble of desks. Journalists sat talking together or pounding at typewriters. It was late in the afternoon and there was a sense of mild desperation in the hangar-like room as they fought to put the next edition together. We passed an office just as the door crashed open and a grey-haired man with broken veins on his pock-marked face emerged shouting.
“Where’s the bloody lead? That lead was to be on my desk twenty minutes ago.”
The sheer volume of his voice was offset by the clean vowels of northern Scotland. I placed him from Inverness.
A shout from the depths of the hubbub came back: “Coming, Jimmy! Just coming!”
The man turned his glowering eyes on us, and his face softened. “It’s yourself, Eve. Nice piece today. We’ll run with that. But a wee bit too much alliteration.
We’re not a poetry magazine. Who’s this?” he demanded scrutinising me.
“Jim, this is the man who’s been helping me with those scoops. This is Danny McRae. Danny, this is my boss, the editor, James Hutcheson.”
“You’ve been costing me a wee fortune, Mr McRae. But so far it’s been worth it.
Any more adventures like that warehouse job in the offing?” He raised one of his huge grey eyebrows in inquiry and reached out a hand to shake mine.
“Not this week, Mr Hutcheson.”
“In that case my expenses will be lower, eh?”
There was more than a hint of seriousness in his comment, but he suddenly softened.
“Look, come on, Danny. Call me Jim. You’re an interesting character. Come and have a dram. You’ll take a malt, I trust.” His back was already retreating into his den as he said this. Eve shrugged and smiled, and we followed him into his nicotine cave. He cleared a two-foot pile of old papers off a chair and dumped them on an already tottering stalagmite of newsprint. He unearthed another chair and dipped into the top drawer of a dented filing cabinet and triumphantly hooked out a whisky bottle. His desk drawer yielded tumblers of uncertain cleanliness and we were off.
It was an entertaining half hour punctuated by bellows at his staff and splashings of Scotch. But no matter how much he drank, it didn’t seem to affect his ability to scan a draft. He flourished his blue pencil with deadly skill and loud scorn for the English education system.
The rest of Eve’s tour was thankfully less whisky-fuelled. My head was already buzzing by the time we reached the bedlam in the foundry. It was like a blacksmiths’ convention: benches lined with men hammering lead type on to metal sheets and feeding discarded slugs back into the melting pot for re-use. I wondered what it did to your brain to be writing backwards and upside down all the time.
In the next room, they slid the still-hot plates into the presses, and inked the typefaces before feeding through the first of the sheets from the giant rolls.
Eve handed me the first edition, still hot and wet. I glanced at the headlines and the cartoons, then up and around at this Vulcan choreography. I shook my head – metaphorically; I didn’t want to hurt Eve’s feelings; such industry and effort for something so slight.
NINE
Eve announced she wanted to move upmarket. In the three weeks we’d been working together she’d written about warehouse theft and dog doping at White City. Now she wanted to tackle corruption among the toffs, bearding them in their fancy gambling dens.
“The one in Mayfair,” she said. We were walking in her lunch hour through Lincoln’s Inn, sidestepping blokes in wigs and winged collars. It was like the movie set for David Copperfield.
“Carlyle’s? Start at the top, why don’t you? How do you know about that?”
“Danny, it may be illegal but any cabbie will take you. All I need is an escort.” She took my hand and gave me her most winning smile. She knew that I knew she was conning me. She also knew I was a sucker for her smile.
I tried to be practical. “You also need a sponsor. It’s a very private club. No coppers, no press. Especially no press.”
“Jimmie Hutcheson has it all arranged,” she said gaily. “A friend of a friend who didn’t want her name in the papers. Divorce can be so messy.”
“You folk have the morals of an alley cat.”
She waved the notion away. “As Jimmie says, it’s all bread and circuses. The baying crowds want blood. And if it’s the blood of wealthy spivs or the ruling class so much the better. It makes our fellow citizens feel less guilty about buying that extra sausage without a coupon.”
I laughe
d and agreed we’d put on the glad rags and enter the den of iniquity on Thursday night.
In honour of the occasion I spent an hour at the slipper baths in Camberwell and came back glowing and gleaming. As I scraped my face with my razor I thought of the night ahead with a mixture of excitement and apprehension. The fact that everyone had heard of Carlyle’s should have meant the place was closed down years ago. But everyone also knew of the existence of two laws in this country: one for folk who take the bus and one for those who ride in the back seat of a Rolls. Places like Carlyle’s existed in a parallel universe in which the police wore blinkers and the judges were kindly old men with unlimited reserves of tolerance and compassion. But only for the weak and foolish members of the moneyed class. Or blokes they went to school with. Usually the same thing.
It was also said that in the case of Carlyle’s, illegal didn’t have to mean squalid. Behind the reinforced doors was a set-up as lavish as anything this side of Monte Carlo. Which meant we had to dress the part. I was renting a tux for the first time in my life. I plastered my hair down, crammed my neck into a winged collar, and spent ten minutes wrestling a bow-tie into submission. I felt both an idiot and a prince as I sauntered into the American Bar at the Savoy where we’d agreed to meet. It would put us in the right mood, Eve said.
My mood was controlled panic. This was a different species of watering hole from the George. The floors had carpets, not sawdust. Smart waiters in white gloves served you, not a fat-chested blonde with black roots and a fag in her mouth.
The pianist was playing Irving Berlin, not Knees up Mother Brown. And I was supping a Tom Collins, not a pint with a chaser. If my dad could see me now, or his pals from the working men’s club.
As the alcohol hit and my panic subsided, I began to speculate how I could live like this on a permanent basis. Then a vision walked in and stole a dozen men’s hearts. Mine had been purloined weeks ago. I got to my feet, collar suddenly too tight, as she walked down the four stairs into the lounge bar. Two flunkeys were at her side in a flash, taking her cape and throwing rose petals in her path.
The dress was silver and ankle length. It clung to every curve like the skin of a salmon. Her neck and shoulders were bare except for a silver chain with a small amulet pointing into the magnetic groove of her bosom. Fine white gloves clothed her hands and arms up to above her elbows. How does a reporter afford such finery? Her jungle of russet curls had been twisted and tamed into a soft crown of red and gold. For a second I was jealous; other men’s eyes could make out the lines I had grown to love so well. Then I felt fear; how could someone this beautiful and smart want someone like me? Then she was with me and I could tell the flunkeys were disappointed in her choice. Her eyes – wider than I ever remembered them – looked hesitant and anxious.
“Is it all right? Do I look all right? Not too…?”
“… lovely? Absolutely. You are far too lovely for this shabby place and this poor suitor.”
Her face broke its serious mask and she grinned. “And you look very distinguished.”
“I feel a prat. What will you drink?”
“Same as you, darling.”
My insides melted at the word. I nearly called for the bill and a cab to whisk us straight back to my hovel, but this lady deserved to be on show. We took our cues from the other smartly dressed drinkers and reclined gracefully in our chairs, pecking at our drinks and smoking, as though we did this for a living. I tried not to look too smug, or to catch the eyes of the men that kept staring at her.
“The Trumpet pays better than I thought.” I indicated her ears. “Are those real pearls?”
She touched the little clusters that hung from her lobes. Her neck coloured again.
“Family heirlooms. My mother’s. I’m sure they’re artificial.”
“And the dress? A jumble stall in Petticoat Lane?”
“Mum again. I had it taken in.”
“I hope Carlyle’s has polished the silver.”
We left after our second drink and before our heads became too fuddled. I need to approach gambling sober, before I start believing a three-legged nag is a sure-fire bet just because it’s called Scottish Warrior or Highland Miracle. The flunkeys grovelled all the way to the door and into the cab.
As we moved off into the Strand I glanced casually around. I let my eyes slide off him. He was reading a paper on the corner, and in the wing mirrors of the cab I saw him fold it and wave to someone behind him. A minute later a car settled behind us, not too close, but not so far away as to lose us.
“Anything wrong, Danny?”
“What could be? Just watching your loyal subjects out there. Wave to them, princess. They expect it.”
She laughed and took my hand and I wished to god that my mind was playing tricks. But I knew better. There had been watchers on us for two weeks now.
Correction: not us; her. I never saw them when I was alone. They were tailing her. A team of four. They were good, but I was better. I tried to put it out of my mind. I didn’t want to spoil the evening. And for a while it worked.
I was prepared to be turned away at the door, but old Hutcheson’s blackmail had worked; that and the five guineas a head. They checked us off a list at the door and we passed through into what must have been an old ballroom. Now it was aglow, with chandeliers sparkling in resonance with the diamonds on the women’s throats. Short-skirted cigarette girls wound their way through the crowds at the tables, dispensing free cigars and cigarettes. Waiters offered a constantly refilled tray of cocktails and champagne. Our entrance fee began to seem less exorbitant; it covered everything except the chips on the tables.
My initial sense of being out of my depth soon left me, and it wasn’t just the booze. A closer look at the gamblers, and some eavesdropping, made me realise what a motley group this was. The men were all in tuxes, but some wore them easier than others. The accents strayed from Chelsea to Stepney. And there was a coarseness and a flashiness to some that suggested that the money they were throwing around hadn’t necessarily been the result of twenty generations of careful husbanding of the family heirlooms. Mind, even the best families started out through some act of skulduggery. On which subject; one or two of the faces were familiar from dodgier venues I’d dragged Eve to. Villains rubbing shoulders with stockbrokers. Gambling: the great leveller.
We could have left within half an hour having got what I thought we came for:
Eve had all the material she needed to describe the workings of the flashiest illegal gambling den in town. But she seemed in no hurry to leave. She bought some chips and I lost them at baccarat. She didn’t mind; the paper was paying.
We strolled about watching others at play, but I could see she was looking around, looking for someone.
It was nearly midnight, way past my bedtime. I didn’t begrudge Eve her night of glory, but she ignored my warnings of pumpkins and abandoned glass slippers.
Just as the clock struck the hour, there was an eddy at the door. A party of three entered: two hulking outriders shielding a smaller character in a white dinner jacket. A big cigar was clamped in his jaw. The trio walked straight across the floor parting the crowd like a spoon through porridge. They disappeared through a door on the far wall. I caught a glimpse of a room, softly lit, with a card table and expectant croupier. A private room within a private club. This was for high rollers. Eve had seen him too. Her eyes were alight and she gripped my arm hard enough to leave a bruise. This was what she’d been waiting for. Or whom.
Next thing, she’s walking away from me, fast, following the man in white. I charged after her, but got involved in a quickstep with a waiter and a cocktail tray. By the time I was on the move again, Eve had reached the door and was sweet-talking the six-foot thug in a too-tight tux who stood guard. She must have been convincing for he leaned down and opened the door. She slipped through and for a long few seconds she was inside. I stopped my headlong rush and sauntered casually towards the door, lighting a cigarette as I went.
I was within ten yards when the door shot open and Eve was bundled out by a muscleman with her hand rammed up her back. Her face was contorted. They were closely followed by the man in the white tuxedo. The thug at the door grabbed her other arm and pulled. She was stretched between them, two heavy paws on each slim wrist. They looked like they were going to make a wish. I closed the gap in a heart beat.
The SOE taught me how to disable an opponent. It’s easy, one-on-one, in the dark, coming up behind with a knife in your hand. This time there were two of them, facing me in the full glare of the chandeliers. Fortunately Eve was making enough of a fuss to distract them. But the odds were still worse than on any of the card tables around me. This was no time for Queensbury Rules or the variations thereon at Les’s boxing academy.
I went for the one on the right. He was standing feet well apart and legs straight to take the strain of holding Eve. I ran directly at him, got within three feet, pivoted on my left leg, drew my right up towards me and lashed out low and hard. My heel drove into his knee cap and I felt it give. Knees don’t normally bend backwards. The big guy squealed and fell like a tree hit by an axe.
I followed through on my pivot to end up facing the second goon. He’d dropped Eve’s arm and moved into a crouch. His right arm was already digging inside his jacket. I didn’t think he was reaching for his fags.
I kept my momentum going. His head was now level with mine and I took one big step forward and lunged. The human skull is a helmet coated in skin and hair. It does a great job of protecting the brain, as my own scars can testify. The strongest area is where the forehead rises to the hair line and slopes back. The most vulnerable point is the nose. It juts out, bone and gristle, just asking for trouble. It’s why the Normans and their ilk had a flap of steel hanging down from their helmets. This bloke wasn’t wearing one.
My forehead hit his nose with the power of a mallet. I felt it burst and explode, and he went down with blood erupting from his face. Adrenalin made the whole action take place in slow motion. I bent over, slipped my hand inside his bloodied jacket. and pulled out a smart little Beretta M1935. Semi-automatic.
The Unquiet heart dm-2 Page 7