by John Gardner
‘We’ve got too close to something nasty. Too close for someone’s comfort.’
‘Well, let’s keep away now. There’s surely no problem? After all, the paper’s dropping the story.’
There was no point in alarming Poppy. ‘No, there’s no problem,’ I said, wrapping my arms around her. ‘To hell with them.’
Inside, I boiled at the indignity. Everyone it seemed was giving me warnings — Fox, Guy, these brutally smooth men with their educated voices and rough manners. Even the bodies that littered the Hensman story were a kind of warning.
I rang the office, only to be told that there was nothing more for me tonight, though Guy wanted to see me at about eleven in the morning. I guessed he had decided on my marching orders. This was no time to be out of London, so I would have to tread with care, defend my position in a way which would be unassailable.
We spent the evening making wedding plans — while we dined at a small Italian restaurant in Dean Street, with big ornate oil paintings on the walls and obsequious waiters, their glace hair kinked like their smiles; and later in our room echoing with the exciting rumble of London traffic coming up from the Strand. The date was settled for the third week in August, and for a girl who wanted a quiet and composed wedding, Poppy appeared to have a great deal to arrange. By mutual consent, she rang her mother in Paris to break the news. After five minutes it became apparent that Mrs. Cooke was in command, arranging for Poppy to go over, talking about trousseau and guests and where the honeymoon would be. Cap Ferrat seemed to be a favourite choice. I spoke with her briefly and got the impression that I was not so much a prospective groom as a small firm about to be enveloped by a large combine.
‘There’ll be no honeymoons at Cap Ferrat,’ I said firmly, once the last twittering goodbyes had been said.
‘Oh, Sim, but it would be lovely — and it wouldn’t cost much. Uncle Arthur’d let us have his villa. He’s never there in August.’
‘Sorry, old dear, the groom provides the honeymoon.’ I had seen too many marriages go on the rocks because of parental interference. ‘Torquay is nice.’
‘It’s awfully middle class.’
‘Love me, love my honeymoon.’ Softness with Sarah had brought domestic chaos: it wasn’t going to happen a second time. ‘Maybe I haven’t got Uncle Arthur’s money, or Mummy’s circle of friends, but it’s me you’re going to marry and I am middle class. My father was a bourgeois doctor, and I’m a bourgeois journalist working for a bourgeois newspaper. I have standards and beliefs. It’s like marrying a Catholic, Pops, you accept my standards.’
She pouted, prepared to wheedle, like all women when they want their own way. ‘You’re very firm,’ she said.
‘Try me.’
It was a pleasant end to what had been a frightening day.
I told Guy about my forthcoming marriage before mentioning the incident at Piccadilly tube station. His initial bonhomie changed to one of serious resentment.
‘I don’t like my journalists being threatened, Sim,’ he said, a shade too loud, the veins on his face crimson. ‘In any other circumstances ...’ His hands lifted and dropped to his side in a gesture of hopelessness.
‘Did they warn you off like that, Guy?’
‘Warn me? By threats?’
‘No, there are more gentle ways with important editors.’
He nodded slowly. ‘My warning was more a legal hint. This smacks of street gangs and brute force.’
I thought of Graham Greene’s Pinkie in Brighton Rock: the razors and mob rule on the racetrack; then of the brownshirts in Berlin. You could not reason with razors or half-bricks, knuckle-dusters, bombs and bullets.
‘But it’s all connected with the Hensman business.’
‘It would seem so. If I call attention to it — a leading article perhaps — then you or Poppy might be in worse trouble. Let’s leave it be, Simon. Let it all find its own level.’
We talked for some time about my future assignment. He had been all set to ship me off to look at the situation in France and maybe Berlin.
‘You won’t want to be away with the old nuptials imminent,’ he mused.
‘I’m a journalist first.’
‘Well, perhaps one trip to Paris. Human interest piece on how the French people feel.’ That would fit in with Poppy’s projected trousseau-buying spree. ‘We’ll see,’ he added absently. ‘There’s plenty to be done here. There have been some nasty things going on in Soho. Bit of gangster stuff by the sound of it. Get their ideas from the moving pictures, I expect. You could nose around that for a while. See Jack, tell him I want some articles, features, from you on the crime wave. Gang violence.’
I arranged time off for the honeymoon.
‘Going abroad?’ he asked.
‘Torquay.’
‘That’s abroad for some people.’
‘I want a favour, Guy.’
‘Depends.’ The office smelled of cigar smoke, as though he had not opened the window all morning.
‘The pieces Evans wrote about Nazi influence. Can I read them? The ones they’re not letting you print.’
He hesitated, not really thinking about my question, but covering the possible angles of repercussion. ‘Ask him. He’s got copies.’ Then, as though he had been able to dispel doubt, ‘Yes, why not? Read them, Simon. You’ll find it interesting.’
Over on the crime desk they were not exactly ecstatic that I was to do the articles on gangsterism in the West End, but they filled me up with enough information to send me on my way. What it amounted to was that a couple of rather unpleasant personalities, both with attendant henchmen, were out to carve grubby little empires among the street ladies and bookmakers. The Flying Squad had been active and there was a lot of current material. One of the villains appeared to be highly amenable to the Press, which meant that he was gregarious and flash, and would probably be the loser for that. I would call on him in due course. In the meantime, I wanted Evans’s articles and a good browse through our files.
Evans handed over the small cardboard folder containing his pieces with a good deal of mock modesty. ‘My sources are impeccable,’ he sneered, as though I was out to refute every word. ‘I find it hard to understand some people’s thinking.’ He tapped the folder, leaving a clean forefinger touching the cardboard. ‘The public should know these things now. It’ll be no good crying when the balloon’s gone up.’
‘I’m very interested.’
‘Let me know what you think. Perhaps we could have a chat about it sometime. There’s a lot I’ve missed out.’
The newspaper’s library was a long room in the bowels of the building. In all probability it did not really belong to our ultra modern block at all — a remnant of the original offices which our present owner’s grandfather had taken over. It smelled of old wood, paper and dust, while two ancient hot water pipes ran its length and served for heating all the year round. They made a habitual noise, a kind of unearthly whine which occasionally rose to a rattling bubble, known among the messengers, office lads, and copy boys, as ‘The Thing in the Basement’. Some credited it with supernatural powers, and new lads were often told gory stories about a youth found dead in the room after being accidentally locked in over night. There was some truth in the story, but the youth had in fact been nearly seventy years of age, dying from a heart attack brought on by panic. The file copies of the paper were kept in huge bound volumes which reached back over ten years — one year’s copies being removed to another store each New Year’s Eve. Next door an elderly porter looked after the photograph library. I wanted things from there as well.
I came up for air, food and Poppy, but apart from one quick dance down to Soho to make things look normal, I remained with ‘The Thing in the Basement’ for the next week. I was checking and cross-checking: dates, issues, pages, features, from our imps file (imps for Important Persons). When I finally emerged, complete with photographs from the room next door, I had a pretty good working knowledge of Sir Charles Ramsey, William Nett
lefold and Sir Hubert Trim. Michael Hensman’s file and photograph were already in my desk drawer.
It was all to do with something I had read about knowing your enemy. These four men had something in common with me. Death and intimidation was the denominator, and, while I had seen neither Miller nor Puxley lying dead, I had experienced the two roughs coming at us from the lift, the shadows in the Alvis, the broken and ransacked flat, and the look on Poppy’s face as they dragged her off in the tube station. Particularly vivid was my image of the man in the bowler raising his gloved hand, clenched and then open. I could no more stay away from the Hensman story than voluntarily stop breathing, and I needed to steep myself in the immediate facts concerning these four.
The bare essentials were easy. Ramsey and Trim had both inherited their titles while they were in their twenties. All three civil servants were much of an age. Trim and Nettlefold had been together at Eton, Ramsey came from Harrow. They had all cut short their time at Oxford because of the war, but only two of them had seen service in France — Ramsey and Nettlefold. Trim had been considered political material, going immediately into the Foreign Service. He had spent some time in Berlin after the armistice, and again in the late twenties. You might say that Germany was his forte.
Ramsey was a staff officer with Haig for a time; then quite suddenly, in 1917, he had come off the active list, seconded to special duties. Officially he turned up again in the twenties at the War Office, though there were hints that he had served abroad. Nettlefold was wounded in 1916, but back on active service the following year. He was out and at the Home Office by 1921. There he had remained climbing the power ladder rung by rung. Ramsey had married well, as had Trim. Nettlefold was a bachelor with rooms in Albany. But I needed more than the bare bones: I wanted to know how they thought and spoke, what were their tastes and habits. You didn’t get those things from newsprint, though you could hold on to small detail, like the wart on the side of Nettlefold’s nose, the impeccable dress of Hubert Trim (always to be seen with a buttonhole, a bit of a dandy), and Ramsey’s moustache and pipe: if he had been a politician, the pipe would have been a trade-mark for the cartoonists.
At the weekend I took Poppy down to the hospital to see my mother. She really made a big effort and bought a huge bunch of flowers and a box of Cadbury’s Assorted, because I had mentioned the old lady had a sweet tooth. There was no change and she was as vague as ever.
‘Is it Sarah?’ she asked, peering, as though almost blind. Her eyesight was perfectly all right.
‘No, mother, it’s Poppy.’
‘Do I know her?’
‘You know her now. I’m going to marry her, mother.’
‘Oh, won’t Sarah object, dear? I would have thought she’d be most put out.’
‘I’ve told you before, Sarah and I are divorced.’
‘So you have. I don’t know whether I approve of it. I know your dear father wouldn’t have.’ She smiled at Poppy, though and thanked her for the flowers and chocolates.
‘Put them in my cabinet here,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘You have to watch out with the nurses. Terrible, you daren’t leave anything lying about. They take things, you know.’
‘I don’t think so. Not really, Mrs. Darrell.’ Poppy did as she was asked.
In the next bed a very old lady slept, her mouth open, the flesh on her face sunken inwards like a collapsed meringue; the eyes closed and set in deep sockets. At the far end of the small ward, nurses were tending to another old thing who looked all skin and bone.
‘I think they’re getting ready for the party,’ said my mother.
‘What party, Mrs. Darrell?’ asked Poppy, forgetting my warning.
‘I don’t really know, but there’s going to be one. They’ve been making jellies all morning, and there are oranges, and I think the nurses are going to do one of their tableaux.’
‘About India, I expect.’ It was hard to resist.
‘Oh, they told you.’ The old lady looked quite pleased. ‘They had monkeys the last time. I think there may be lions at this one, but of course they’ll have to be in a cage. I don’t know what I shall wear.’
Poppy was quite upset when we got back in the car. ‘Is there nothing they can do?’
‘Not really. All the hallucinations are self-imposed. The doctor says that it’s a kind of defence mechanism of the mind.’
We were entering Putney when I caught sight of the Alvis in my mirror. I did not tell Poppy, but guessed that she saw as they overtook us. The man in the bowler, seated in the front passenger side, raised his hand in a kind of greeting. We did not discuss it, using our own defence mechanisms to push it out of the way. I wondered if they knew the colour of the wallpaper Poppy was choosing for the flat, or the amount of time I had spent with the files. That night, when Poppy had dropped off to sleep, I took the notebooks and photographs out of my briefcase and ranged them up in the bathroom, spending an hour sitting on the lavatory looking at them. Hensman’s lean smiling face, Nettlefold’s wart, Ramsey’s moustache and pipe, Trim’s pompous, rather lecherous, features.
On the Monday morning there was a stroke of luck. Guy had been asking how the Soho investigation was getting along, so I knew it was time to go out and see for myself. I was leaving the office when Evans came in, copy clutched in his fingers, held away from his body as though disease might be contracted through the paper.
‘Did you like the pieces?’ he asked, and I realized that I had not even removed the folder from my case.
‘Haven’t quite finished.’ I lied comfortably, like a tart spinning some yarn about her reading habits.
‘When you have, don’t forget — we’ll have a pint and a pie. Talk about them.’ There was no warmth in his voice, no sincerity of manner, as though he was really above being involved with other humans.
The garrulous villain I wanted to interview could often be found in a basement drinking club called Billy’s Grotto, near Greek Street. The most colourful characters were not usually to be seen there until after ten at night, or in the small hours, but the place was normally open for business and Kasher, the reigning crime baron, was known to spend lunchtimes there. I arrived just before one negotiating the stairs with care as one needed to adjust from the daylight to that strange subterranean glow in which the round-the-clock fringe of crime brethren preferred to live.
There was a sallow youth with dark circles around his eyes doing duty at the door.
‘You a member?’ he asked, surly.
‘No, son, I’m Press. I don’t need a visa, same as the Sweeny.’
‘Right-oh, guv’nor.’ His manner altered slightly. These boys always read their reviews. ‘You looking for someone special?’
‘Kasher.’
‘Mr. Kasher ain’t in.’
‘I’ll take a look.’
‘Crime reporter, are you?’
‘Sort of. I write the home hints on Fridays, but I take in crime on a Monday.’
He didn’t seem to have a sense of humour but he was right about Kasher. There was a lethargic barman leaning over the little counter in the far corner, talking to a girl in a dress which was too tight in all the right places. She took one look, thought she had spotted a mug, and broke out her smile. She looked terribly young, and again I remembered what they said about policemen and whores.
‘Save your time, darling,’ called the boy at the door. ‘It’s bloody Hannen Swaffer.’
‘Hallo, Mr. Darrell, fancy seeing you here.’
I peered through the murk towards the table from which a disembodied voice seemed to be coming. A scruffy, middle-aged man emerged.
‘Topher Poole,’ I said. ‘When did they let you out?’
‘Been out nearly a month,’ he said, removing the dog-end from his lower lip and crushing it into a bowl which served as an ashtray. ‘Got a packet of time off for good behaviour.’
‘I’d almost forgotten you existed.’
The last time I had seen Topher Poole was on the day he was sentenced to f
ive years hard labour for theft. Twenty quid he’d taken, from the wallet of a senior employee at his place of work; and lest you should think this was a heavy sentence for twenty pounds, it should be pointed out that he also lifted the man’s cheque book and tried to issue six forged cheques to the value of some seventy pounds. In many ways, Topher Poole reminded me of a slightly older Puxley, with one notable exception: he had still managed to retain a small spark of the military bearing which had once been his.
At the time of his trial — of little interest in the normal way — I had done a piece about him, drawing attention to the depths to which some heroes could sink. For Topher Poole had been a private in the Grenadier Guards and won a decoration in France for bravery. Until his untimely incarceration he had, in post-war civilian life, been one of those black-uniformed porters who wear gold crowns on their lapels and guard places like the War Office or, as in Topher’s case, the Foreign Office, against intruders.
The Foreign Office. I was a shade slow, here in the semi-darkness with the girl’s pseudo seductive smile still lingering from the bar. Topher had spent a good few years at the Foreign Office.
‘You want a drink, Topher?’ I tried not to sound over eager.
‘Well, I don’t mind if I do, Mr. Darrell. You were always a gent to me.’ Prison had given him a new habit, that of speaking quietly out of the corner of his mouth. In the gloom I couldn’t see if he was still afflicted with that odd grey-yellow look that men have when they are sprung back into the hostile world.
‘You get them,’ I smiled, passing a pound note over the table. ‘Gin for me. Gin and It.’
He scurried over to the bar, dropping his voice so that I couldn’t hear all that passed between him, the barman and the girl; though I caught words like, ‘Proper gent ... do you proud ... his back, he’ll scratch yours.’ I think they were words I was meant to hear. The girl, possibly thinking she was still in with a chance, disappeared into one shadowy corner and a moment later music began to fill the cellar from some hidden gramophone. An unidentified lady was telling us that smoke got in her eyes, and the girl, reappearing from the darkness, did some little dance steps back to her bar stool, her eyes on me the whole time. She was about as appetising as cold porridge. Maybe she looked better after a few drinks on a bad night. Topher sidled over with the drinks, sat down and took the proffered cigarette.