Mr Love and Justice

by Colin MacInnes

  ‘It’s not quite as you think,’ said Edward carefully – doubly so because he was keeping an eye on Frankie for sudden violence, and had his whistle handy.

  ‘Oh, no?’ said Frankie. ‘Go on – tell me your fairy tale.’

  ‘What happened,’ Edward said, ‘is that a senior of mine who doesn’t like me got hold of the box and turned it in, and made things very awkward for me, too, I can tell you.’

  ‘For you! Well, listen to that! I dunno, son! You coppers really are a bunch of horrors.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes, man, I do. A bunch of narks in uniform.’

  ‘Have a fag,’ said Edward.

  ‘“Have a fag! Have a fag!” Listen – skip it, officer. Now, tell me. What’s the charge?’

  ‘There may be several.’

  ‘Thank you! And there may be lawyers, too! And some bloody expensive ones! I’d just like to make that clear. And there may be an affidavit about your visit to me – with a witness present, don’t forget. No one will believe two ponces, I’m well aware of that, but it won’t sound very nice up in the Sessions – because that’s where we’re going, let me tell you, you’re not getting away with a magistrate’s court and no publicity.’

  ‘I understand how you feel,’ Edward said.

  ‘You kill me, son. Honest you do! And what about this tale of yours? Why should a colleague of yours do the dirty on you?’

  ‘Don’t you see?’

  ‘I think I do: you’ve invented the whole damn thing.’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t. The reason my colleague made it difficult for me was that he hoped you’d do exactly what you’re doing now – and that is attack me.’

  ‘You’re saying I’ve laid hands on you? Is that what you’re concocting now?’

  ‘This man hoped you would, once you thought I’d deceived you.’

  ‘You ask me to believe that?’

  ‘No, not particularly: I’m just telling you what happened.’

  Frankie accepted, nevertheless, the ritual fag. ‘The Force!’ he said quietly. ‘The Force! I really feel pity for you all. And if all that’s so,’ he continued, ‘why did you come down chasing after me to Stepney?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Listen …’

  ‘You listen, please. I didn’t chase after you. I checked at your address because it was the very least I could do. Then I came back here and made no further enquiries. It’s you, isn’t it, who’s got yourself foolishly arrested through no fault of mine.’

  ‘You didn’t send that bastard out looking for me?’

  ‘I sent no one. It was your own carelessness that caused it, as you must know.’

  ‘Thank you! And what happens now? You still holding my girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re going to bring charges against us both – is that it?’

  Edward now sat down on the bench-cum-lavatory and said to Frankie, ‘Please do listen to me. I’m not asking you to do anything I say because that’s your business, obviously. But I am asking you, please, just to listen.’

  Frankie sat down too. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘From my point of view,’ said Edward carefully, ‘– and I do wish you’d realise this – the lighter you and your girl get off the better I’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Why? You like us?’

  ‘Do please just listen. Because now that the box has been turned in, the less said about my part in trying to recover it the better.’

  ‘Yeah. Corruption and bribery. Very nasty. My heart bleeds for you.’

  ‘On the other hand,’ Edward continued, ‘if you and your girl don’t want to help me, well, in for a penny in for a pound, I may as well help press the charge hard and get you both sent away as long as possible.’

  Frankie looked sideways at Edward. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if you’d had any sense you’d have offered to split the price of the box with me, and just said you couldn’t trace it.’

  ‘I might have done,’ said Edward, also looking sideways, ‘if you’d seen me alone and not been so damned unpleasant and suspicious.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean. It’s a great pity. You could have bought yourself a nice new fridge, and I’d have bought myself some valuable protection.’

  ‘Well, there it is,’ said Edward. ‘The thing’s now as it is. Now, I’m asking you for no promises: I’m not a fool. But all I will say to you is if you leave out the part about my not wanting to turn it in – which no one will believe much anyway – then I’ll say I believe your girl thought she had it as a present, and that you offered to co-operate with the authorities.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yes. Now, I don’t ask you to credit this, of course, before you see it happen. But I would point out this. I’m willing to take a chance on you that you don’t have to at all on me. Prosecution evidence comes first at any trial and can’t be altered afterwards. When your turn comes to speak, you can make it dependent on whatever it is you hear me say.’

  Frankie threw his fag-end in the pan and pressed the automatic flush which sounded off like six Niagaras. ‘Well obviously,’ he said when the waters had subsided, ‘I’ll think that over. And that’s really all I’m going to say just now.’

  ‘I can’t ask for more. Another fag?’

  ‘Well, I don’t mind. What about bail? What are the chances?’

  ‘Oh, quite good, I’d say, for one of you at any rate …’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got to bring a charge of theft: you do understand that, don’t you? Unless we hear the owner – the original owner of the thing – saying to us it was a gift, then a charge must lay. But it needn’t necessarily be on both of you.’

  ‘Who will it be on?’

  ‘The girl.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Look. You didn’t sleep with this man, did you?’

  ‘Take it easy, son, or I may smack you. And what about me?’

  ‘Aiding and abetting – but with, of course, my favourable statement, in certain circumstances, coming later … and a charge against you might even not be made.’

  ‘And no bail for my girl: is that it?’

  ‘Well, it’s up to the magistrate: but I’d say probably no.’

  ‘I see.’

  They smoked a moment in silence. Then Frankie said, ‘You’re shacked up with one too, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes … You know I am.’

  ‘I might have something to say to the court about that as well.’

  ‘You’d be wasting your breath. She’s already told everything to my superiors.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It came up as a result of all this: on account of you giving her the box, and not me as you should have done if you’d had any sense at all.’

  ‘Dear, dear, dear. So I’ve landed you in the shit, too! Well, well. You like that girl?’

  ‘I want to marry her.’

  ‘You do? Now why? Is that a thing coppers do?’

  ‘Because I love her.’

  ‘You believe in that crap, son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not just sex?’

  ‘Without love there is no sex.’

  ‘Well! And you tell me that!’

  Edward paused then said, ‘You won’t mind my saying so, I hope, but I think what you do is just disgusting. Not because it’s illegal – don’t misunderstand me. But because it destroys the best thing there is in any man and woman.’

  ‘“Not because it’s illegal”! You don’t believe in the law, then?’

  ‘Of course I do. But the law isn’t perfect and entire like love can be.’

  Frankie arose. ‘Well, are you sure of that?’ he said. ‘Because me I’ve found it’s women and sex that are imperfect – just a game. But as for the law – if it’s a real law, a true law like you get on board a ship, why! then it’s really something! A thing you can respect and live for.’

  ‘I don’t know about ships,’ s
aid Edward, ‘naturally. But here on land it’s all made up of human beings struggling with one another, and that means imperfection. There are rules, of course, and they’re mostly very clear: laws that have been laid down for centuries, I mean. But there’s no such thing as law, like there is love.’

  ‘Well, son. You may be right, of course, but I think you’re wrong. There’s three laws in the world here as I see it: the rules you speak of, the way you bastards alter and interpret them, and then – way on beyond and right in the centre of things – there’s just … the law.’

  Edward got up too. ‘I don’t really know,’ he said, ‘what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You may not,’ said Frankie Love. ‘Because if you did, you wouldn’t be a copper.’

  ‘Well,’ Edward said, smiling a bit sourly. ‘I may not be one before all that long, any more.’

  ‘Oh? You retiring on your winnings?’

  ‘No. My girl’s pregnant, and the Force may not let me marry her.’

  ‘You’ve not thought of an abortion?’

  ‘She doesn’t want one.’

  ‘Good for her! She’s too good for a copper – tell her so from me. And to marry her you’d have to resign?’

  ‘It looks like that.’

  ‘You’re a fool, mate. No woman’s worth a job – even yours – if your heart’s in it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I may stay on.’

  ‘And if you do, and she has the kid, she loses you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she cares for you, this woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well yes, she’s quite a girl! She really is. I must try and get her away from you when I get out.’

  ‘You’d better look after your own, hadn’t you? It’s she who’ll be needing you – not mine.’

  ‘What does that one mean?’

  ‘If you get bail I suppose you’ll try to skip, won’t you?’

  ‘You ask me to tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t ask you for an answer …’

  ‘So what should I do, according to you? Stay and try to take the rap for her? Say I forced her to pinch the thing or something lunatic like that?’

  ‘That’s what she’s quite ready to do for you.’

  ‘What d’you say?’

  ‘When I saw her earlier on she said she was only prepared to make a statement if you weren’t implicated.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look – I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Ask her some time.’

  ‘She really did say that?’

  ‘I’m telling you.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be fucked! Well, I bloody well never!’

  In the surprise of his emotion Frankie turned, spontaneously, to make brief use of the adjacent pan. This action transmitted (as is its wont) a similar desire to Edward, who after a casual ‘You don’t mind?’ followed his prisoner’s example.

  ‘Well, well, well, well!’ said Frankie. ‘These chicks! They’re packed with surprises!’

  ‘They certainly are,’ Edward said reflectively. ‘They do things that impress you – even the worst of them.’

  ‘You’re not referring to my girl, I hope – I mean, when you say “worst”?’

  ‘No … she’s still a woman.’

  ‘She’s very much one, let me tell you.’

  ‘I don’t doubt your word …’

  Frankie, in his dishevelled garments, looked at the neatly uniformed cop and said, ‘I suppose you think that they and we men are a lot of anti-social parasites.’

  ‘Yes. As a matter of fact I do.’

  ‘Just about what we think of you. Isn’t that crazy?’

  ‘I suppose so …’

  ‘Well, let me tell you one thing, copper. We may be that, but there’s one thing we’re not which you are, and that’s hypocrites puffed up with spiritual pride.’

  ‘I don’t see you’ve got much to be proud of anyway.’

  ‘I said spiritual pride. We’re free from that, most of us easy-money boys. And I wouldn’t change that freedom for your prim self-righteousness!’

  Edward said nothing: as matter of fact he was (being very tired) getting a bit bored with Frankie and had decided to bring the interview – already somewhat excessively unconventional – to a close.

  ‘Although,’ Frankie continued with the passion for conversation induced by even a short stay between four closed walls, ‘I dare say you could maintain we have one thing in common, you and I: in the upside-down world we both live in we’ve got a certain kind of freedom that none of the mugs outside will ever know. Neither of us conforms to the accepted pattern: so that we boys are free in spite of all our heart-beats, as I dare say you are in spite of all your discipline.’

  Preparing for his departure, Edward had introduced a more formal note in his demeanour. Frankie noticed this and his tone altered. ‘Just one thing, officer,’ he said. ‘You’ve not told me how you knew I was at Stepney.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It wasn’t my girl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then the only other person I can think of who did know is the Bengali, who it can’t be, or … yes! My fellow ponce! Is that it?’

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘So it is. Thanks, I’ll remember! And one more thing.’ Frankie came close to Edward and said to him, ‘I promise you – if I lie, I die – I’ll keep your name out of it if you do all you can to free my girl.’

  Edward paused and said, ‘You’ve changed your mind about her, then?’

  ‘Not about her but about her position. I got her in this mess by making her give me the box, and I ought to get her out if I possibly can. So I want the charge to be put on me and only me. You’ll do what you can?’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Edward. ‘But you’ll realise I can’t promise.’

  MR JUSTICE

  Edward, who with an instinct similar to Frankie’s could no longer bear the thought of the Kilburn flat, and who’d decided after his late night up on duty to play truant from the section-house, had camped with the older man’s permission at the house of his girl’s dad in Kensal Green. And when he awoke it was to the most delicious of situations – his girl bending over him holding a brimming cuppa, and looking down at him with love and a total preoccupation with their joint well-being. He reached up and hugged her and upset most of the tea.

  ‘I love you, Ted,’ she said, reaching an arm backward with the crockery and slops in search of an invisible piece of furniture.

  ‘Me, too. Even more. Listen, dearest. I’m going to have it out with the Detective-Sergeant.’

  ‘How, Ted? How can you?’

  ‘Reverse the process: turn the tables on him: go over to the attack. Either he helps me fix our marriage, or all right I resign and he loses a good man.’

  ‘And you think that’ll work, dear?’

  ‘It might do. I’m sick of caution and of secrets anyway. What about your dad? Is he all set to go?’

  ‘Any time now. He says it’s up to us to send him the balance he needs as soon as ever we can. If not – well, he says he’ll come back.’

  ‘He won’t! I’ll see to that.’

  She’d sat down on the bed. ‘I wish, Ted,’ she said, ‘that just at this moment I felt better.’

  ‘You’re not ill are you, dear?’ said Edward, gently pressing his hand upon her body.

  ‘A bit: you know how it is for me just now: and today I do feel queer.’

  ‘Step up to the pre-natal clinic, darling. See what they have to say.’

  ‘I mean to.’

  He kissed her all over.

  ‘You know, dear,’ he said, ‘that ponce was most impressed with you making up your mind to keep the baby.’

  ‘He was? I thought they didn’t like kids, those people.’

  ‘Well – he’s all for female children being born, I dare say. Is that what
ours is going to be?’

  ‘No, a boy. Has his woman ever had one, then?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so … But she’s certainly got guts – she stuck to him, and now he’s going to stick to her.’

  The girl shook her head vaguely, not in denial of what he said but to show how important matters prevented her thinking clearly of whatever he was saying. He kissed her again – neck this time, a favourite spot (women were so tough there, so everlasting yet so fragile and so downy) – then said, ‘Out of it, dear, we’re not hitched up yet and you know I’ve never liked you to see me dressing till we are.’ She smiled at his prudery, took the cup and went away.

  Edward decided not to check in at the section-house, and thus when he reached the station found his colleagues in that state of glee in which colleagues are when one of their number – especially one talented and fairly virtuous – has committed an offence of which he is as yet unaware. ‘You’re for the high jump,’ someone said. ‘The Detective-Sergeant’s been chasing after you all morning.’

  When he came into the office, Edward found his superior relatively benign. He was standing by the window, which looked out on nothing, and he turned round to Edward and said, ‘Well, there have been developments.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘With one man sick and the other – well, a bit involved – I’ve taken over this whole Madam case myself.’

  ‘Yes, sir …’

  ‘Now, from what I can make out this client, this eminent individual who the bloody box belongs to’ (the officer showed some dentures in a rather ghastly grin) ‘thinking – and he’s quite right – he might get involved himself in court proceedings, is going to make no charge and in fact is going further – he’s going to say he did give the girl the snuff-box. These were only the Madam’s words, and I’ll check of course, but I’ve no doubt she’s got full authority for them from her principal.’

  ‘Well! He’s caused us a lot of trouble over nothing, sir.’

  ‘Hasn’t he just! The public’s always calling us in a tizzy and then when we get their man for them refusing to co-operate in a prosecution.’

  ‘So that puts the pair of them in the clear, sir?’

  ‘I’m coming to that … But first of all, my lad, a word in your little red ear. The Madam also says you offered to get the box back for a bribe: “reward” she called it. But I prefer “bribe”. Well?’