London Belongs to Me

by Norman Collins

  Mr Wassall: ‘Was he alone?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘Had he got another man with him?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘Then his companion was a woman?’

  Mr Josser squirmed. If Mr Wassall was going on like this he seemed to have forgotten that it might have been a child.

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘Did you notice what the driver was wearing?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Only that he was wearing a tweed cap and had his coat collar turned up.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘And about the woman?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘She had fair hair, sir.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘What was the woman doing? Was she sitting there with her hands in her lap?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir. She appeared to be struggling.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘She appeared to be struggling!’ Mr Wassall ran his tongue across his lips. ‘Was she struggling with the driver?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘She was pulling at his arm and the driver was thrusting her away from him. He had his elbow in her face.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘And what happened after that?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘The car drove straight on and the lights were switched off.’

  Mr Wassall: ‘I see. You were nearly hit by an Austin car No. PQJ 1776 driven by a man who was struggling with a fair‐haired girl…’

  There was a movement on the bench and Mr Justice Plymme raised his small white hand.

  ‘Mr Wassall,’ he said. ‘I am quite capable of making any summing up that the jury may require. Do you wish to examine the witness further?’

  Mr Wassall: ‘I am finished, m’lud.’

  Mr Justice Plymme: ‘Ah!’

  Now it was Mr Veesey Blaize’s turn. He had a warm, rather friendly manner when he started. He might have been discussing a recent round of golf. But his friendliness fell from him in chunks as he proceeded.

  Mr Vaisey Blaize: ‘What sort of weather was it on the night in question?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Rather foggy, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘What does “rather foggy” mean? I want to know if it was foggy, or if it wasn’t.’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘There was ground mist, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘But you said just now that it was fog. They’re not the same thing, you know. Which was it – mist or fog?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘I don’t know, sir. The papers called it fog.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘I’m not interested in what the papers called it. I want to know what you call it.’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Fog, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Was it dense!’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Could you see your hand in front of your face?’ P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Did you try?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize turned towards the jury. There was something at once helpless and appealing in the gesture: it asked mutely how, with witnesses like P.C. Lamb, they could ever hope to get anywhere. Then Mr Veesey Blaize resumed.

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Could you see a mile away?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘No, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘You’re sure?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘What was there a mile away from where you were standing? What was there if you had been able to identify it – a mile away exactly, remember?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Then how could you know whether you could see it or not?’

  The police constable was growing sulky and Mr Veesey Blaize took full advantage of the break. He gave again that you‐see‐the‐kind‐of‐difficulty‐I’m‐in glance in the direction of the jury.

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Was the car in question travelling fast?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Really fast – speeding, I mean?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘It bore down on you suddenly out of the mist or fog or whatever it was?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘And you jumped out of the way?’

  P.C. Lamb: ‘Yes, sir.’

  Mr Veesey Blaize: ‘Even so, out of the back of your head as it were, you noted the number, the person who was driving, his companion and what was happening inside the car. All that in the fog, remember. I congratulate you…’

  There was a lot more like that only Mr Josser lost count of it. The one thing that consoled him was that Mr Veesey Blaize was certainly giving them their money’s worth: Mr Wassall and his witnesses looked as though they were in for a whacking. And then, into the midst of these new surroundings, stepped Percy’s Big Surprise of the police court. It was a Mr Jack Rawkins.

  It was Percy’s turn to stare now and, for a moment, he couldn’t place him. And then he remembered him perfectly. Remembered every button about him in fact. He was the man who had been saying good‐bye to the Blonde just when Percy had spotted her. But what was really very remarkable was the amount, under examination by Mr Wassall, that the silly little soak remembered about him. He was able to identify him, to swear that he had seen Percy and the Blonde get into the car together, and to be sure that it was an Austin 12. He had known the Blonde for a number of years, he said; adding only professionally, however. He was a traveller in pin‐tables and had met her in the way of business. On the morning in question he had gone along to the Duke of Marlborough to see two men friends and had run into the Blonde purely by accident.

  This last piece of evidence was not strictly connected with the case and Mr Wassall had to arrange for it to be slipped quickly over Mr Justice Plymme’s head. Not that it wasn’t important. It was. The tall plain woman in the public gallery was the pin‐table salesman’s wife.

  There were a lot of other witnesses, too. There was the policeman who had found the Blonde in the roadway. The policeman who had found Percy’s snap brim trilby. A bone‐specialist out of Harley Street. A mechanic to testify that he recognised the spanner … Mr Wassall was still fiddling about with these odds‐and‐ends of witnesses when Mr Justice Plymme, an inner radiance seeming suddenly to suffuse him, adjourned the court for lunch.

  They resumed promptly at 2 o’clock. Mr Justice Plymme took his seat looking more pink‐and‐white than ever and kept putting his hands together in front of his stomach as though his lunch had been a good one. From the front row of the gallery, Connie was looking down on him. Though Mr Justice Plymme didn’t know it she was feeling sorry for him. She wondered whether, like herself, he was too short for his feet to reach to the floor, and if he was just sitting there with them dangling.

  This time the witness called by the prosecution was a very nasty customer. It was someone whom Percy hadn’t seen before. But when he did see him he couldn’t take his eyes off him. ‘Mr Sidney Parker’ was called, and a dark evil‐looking man with flat hair and dropped side‐whiskers stood up in the box and said that he was the Blonde’s husband. He had married her at Portsmouth in 1937, and they had separated ten months afterwards. The Blonde’s other name turned out to have been Edith Soper and she’d been in domestic service when Mr Parker met her. There was a child of the marriage in an orphanage at Wanstead. The marriage had broken up because of the Blonde’s friends. Despite his appearance, Mr Parker was apparently very strict about his wife’s friends. Since December, 1937, he had not seen or heard of his wife until he saw her picture in the papers at the time of the murder.

  The mention of ‘murder’ brought Mr Veesey Blaize bouncing to his feet.

  ‘M’lud,’ he said, ‘this is intolerable. I protest. The witness has just sought to poison the minds of the whole jury against my client. He has used a word that I could not bring myself to repeat in these circumstances.’

  Mr Justice Plymme seemed pained. Badly pained. There had been no indication that he had even noticed th
at anything was amiss. But he immediately turned to the clerk.

  ‘The objection is sustained,’ he said. ‘Pray see that the word “murder” is erased from the evidence.’ Then he turned to Mr Wassall. ‘Mr Wassall, I must ask you to control your witness. This lapse has been deeply unfortunate.’

  Having spoken, he picked up his pencil and went on with what he had been doing. He was drawing cats and he was half‐way through a large round tabby.

  But Percy had scarcely noticed the interruption. The word ‘murder’ didn’t seem to concern him in the least. What had happened to him was far more serious. He’d just had a whole part of his life shattered – shattered by the nasty piece of goods who looked like an Italian waiter. More than once, the Blonde had as good as hinted that she was married but she’d said that ‘he’ – they’d never got as far as using his name – was something in the Indian Army, and had let her down. She’d said that she was from an army family herself and that her name was Evadne St Claire. It may have been that she had thought that he doubted it, because she had showed him her initials in silver on a packet of mauve notepaper as proof. But that wasn’t all. Mr Nosey Parker had suggested that the Blonde had been unfaithful. She might have been to him. But not to Percy. The Blonde was the sort of girl who would stand by any man who was ready to stand by her. Or at least he had thought of her that way. He’d never caught her out. And he didn’t like to hear of her being spoken about like that. He’d been in love with the Blonde. If things had been different, he would have been in love with her still.

  Mr Veesey Blaize’s temporary defeat of Mr Wassall had no discernible effect on him. He continued, just as he had done after the last interruption, in the same massive voice as before, only louder. He was booming right across the court when he called his next witness.

  This time it was a rather shabby old lady who took the stand. She had been the Blonde’s landlady. The Blonde had lodged there for about six months, she said. On at least two occasions, she declared, she had seen the prisoner go upstairs – her room was at the top of the house – with the Blonde. On the night when she didn’t come home the old lady had sat up for her.

  As Percy listened it all came back to him. He recalled now that he had once on the stairs met someone wearing a very dirty apron and carrying a pile of what might have been washing. But he hadn’t taken much notice of her – the Blonde had simply said that she was ‘some old girl.’ And it surprised Percy that the old girl should have noticed him. But apparently every one had noticed him. He must have been about the most conspicuous man in London, without knowing it. And what made the landlady’s evidence so unreal and puzzling was that she kept on referring to the Blonde as ‘Miss Watson.’ At first Percy hadn’t been quite sure whom she meant by it. But it turned out that Evadne, or Edith, or whatever her name was, had been using a nom‐de‐plume. But what was wrong with that? She was free to call herself whatever she wanted to, wasn’t she?

  He was still defending her in his own mind when to his astonishment he heard the judge saying that the Court would be adjourned until tomorrow. Just like that. Adjourned, and he hadn’t been given a chance to say a single word. He might just as well not have been there. The sheer injustice of it made him see red. He wanted to shout out things, and tell the judge what he thought of him. If They thought that They could treat him like that They’d very soon find out where They got off. He wasn’t going to bring his harp to any party and then not have anybody ask him to play …

  His blood was right up when one of the two warders behind him tapped him on the arm and jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate that Percy was to follow. Percy got up and followed as obediently as a choir‐boy.

  It seemed to Percy as the Black Maria took him back to the prison that he’d been sold a pup in Mr Veesey Blaize. Only two interruptions in the whole day and letting that big battle‐axe on the other side get away with everything. He supposed that it would be Mr Veesey Blaize’s day to‐morrow.

  It’s a lovely day to‐morrow, he said to himself over and over again as the car trundled back to Wandsworth.

  4

  So to‐morrow had come. He hadn’t slept much because of the sick, excited feeling in his stomach. That, and the dreams. He’d just been going round in circles all night. And now that he was awake and dressing, he realised that this was the day that he’d been looking forward to. He must have been balmy last night. This wasn’t any sort of birthday‐party that he was going to. He wished that it was still yesterday.

  And then he remembered the papers. They’d be something. He’d be headlines all right. Splashed right across the page. ‘Bandit Murderer’ and all that sort of stuff. And he would be able to look out for bits of himself without being afraid of what he found. It was funny. The cold sweat of seeing something about It – how the police had got hold of a new clue, or how They expected to make an arrest shortly – all that was over now. He was quite calm inside himself. Had been ever since They’d showed their hand and run him in. No more worries about being picked up, simply because it had happened. It was as though from the moment when the inspector had slipped the handcuffs on him while he was still in a faint on the floor a deep new peace had descended on him. It was the waiting period that had been so killing.

  When he’d done his hair and got his coat and tie on he went over to the door of the cell and rattled his fingers across the grille to call the warder. There wasn’t any waiting because the man was only just outside.

  ‘Gimme the daily papers,’ he said. ‘The whole lot o’ ’em. I want

  ’em all. My s’lic’tor’ll pay.’

  Then he went back and combed his hair again. He had to because he couldn’t get the right sort of brilliantine, and he couldn’t get the proper glossy finish. Even if Mr Veesey Blaize didn’t mind turning up in court looking as if he’d just had a night out, Percy did. And that was silly, wasn’t it. Because a night out was the one thing that he couldn’t have had at the moment.

  The warder let him have the papers. Or at least all that he could get. There was a Daily Mail. And an Express. And a Daily Mirror. His hands were trembling as he reached out for them. And then… and then… and then – nothing. He wasn’t on the front pages of even one of them. It was just war, war, war, war, wherever you looked.

  He felt almost like crying as he put them down. It was all right keeping a stiff upper lip and that kind of thing. But there are limits to what any one can stand. Especially without acknowledgment. It would have helped a lot to find that the papers were taking a decent interest in the case. A photograph, for instance, would have made him feel somebody. If you’re a public figure, you can afford to take things on the chin.

  Of course when he went through the papers thoroughly he was there all right. Quite nice little headings, in fact. And a photograph in one of them. It was only the placing, the sense of proportion that was wrong. Didn’t News Editors know that it was a strain having to stand up in court and fight for your life?

  He was interrupted by the warder, who came in very officiously and told him that it was time to get cracking. Time to get cracking, indeed. He was ready to bet that they would be half an hour too early, same as yesterday. They seemed to think that he’d got nothing better to do than sit around with a policeman at each elbow until other people were ready.

  But it wasn’t only of himself that he was thinking on the ride to the Old Bailey. Or at least not directly. He was thinking of the war. It had all gone on over his head and he felt out of it. Of course he’d known it was coming. Some of his friends had been buying up good secondhand cars for more than a year now, getting ready for the day when there wouldn’t be any more new ones and the prices would start rising. If only Percy had been outside he too could have done something to help his country. But it just hadn’t worked out that way.

  Naturally, when the trial was over he could look around. But by then all the fat would have gone. He’d have to content himself with the pickings. Unless conscription came along. He’d missed what the
y’d said in the papers about conscription. And he was worried. It wasn’t going to be any fun for a man of his abilities to have to footslog it with a lot of rookies for a shilling a day. Then, he remembered, and he gave a little laugh – on the ride down to the Old Bailey for the second day of his trial he gave a little laugh. He wouldn’t have to do any footslogging. Not likely. He’d be at a premium. They’d be all over him. Skilled motor mechanic – he could choose his job just like peace‐time. The R.A.F. couldn’t have too many men like him.

  The line of thought was attractive, and he pursued it. By the time the big blue gates had been opened the van drew up in the closed concrete yard of the Old Bailey, he wasn’t with them any more. He was miles away. Over Berlin. His bomber was caught in a searchlight beam and the guns were firing at him. But he wasn’t worried. Not him. This was his sixtieth raid and he was bearing right down on his target ready to drop the secret bomb that he was trying out. Pushing the joystick forward he went into a shrieking power‐dive…

  ‘Come along there. Look lively,’ someone was saying to him. ‘Can’t stand here all day.’

  Not that he need have hurried himself. Mr Wassall was still fitting the bits together the way he liked them. And when he’d finished Mr Veesey Blaize began tearing them apart again. Balmy, wasn’t it? Because Mr Veesey Blaize was there to prevent awkward questions.

  But Mr Wassall soon gave him something else to think about. This was the cross‐examination party.

  It had given Percy a funny feeling, taking the oath. Perhaps that’s why They made you do it. To unnerve you. And when you were at the business end of Mr Wassall it wasn’t so nice. He had a cold, superior way with him as though he’d given up even trying to be a human being. He made it quite clear that hanging people was his job and he meant to get on with it.

  At first he just asked a few general questions about how long Percy had known the Blonde and that sort of thing. And Percy told him the truth as well as he could remember. But it was difficult even in little things like this. He hadn’t really got a head for dates and he’d never kept a diary. Then Mr Wassall pulled a fast one on him when he wasn’t expecting it.