The Crack In the Teacup

by Michael Gilbert

  “We ought to go to France next year,” Eric said, breaking a long silence.

  “’Tisn’t much when you do get there.” This was Dennis, a thin, bitter boy, with black hair. “I went with a crowd last summer. We went over for the day. It wasn’t any different from England, not that I could see. Tea shops, fish and chips.”

  “What about the girls?”

  “You’re joking. You can pick up all the girls you want in the Borough High Street, can’t you? You don’t need to go to France to pick up a girl, do you?”

  “If you wanted to date up a French girl, what’d you say to her, eh Denny?”

  “Better ask Trev, he talks French.”

  “That’s right, Trev. You tell us.”

  Trevor, who was polishing his horn-rimmed glasses with a folded silk handkerchief, considered the matter.

  “What you’d want to say to her would be Je t’adore.”

  The other four boys dissolved in laughter.

  “Shut the door,” said Colin. “That’s all right. You got the right ideas, Trev.”

  “You’re exposing your ignorance,” said Trevor. “What I gave you just then was the French for ‘I love you’.”

  “That’s not what I’d say to a girl if I was trying to date her,” said Dennis. “It’s the last thing I’d say. You don’t want to go round telling ’em you love ’em. That gets you nowhere. But fast.”

  “What’s your technique then, Denny?”

  “The best thing I’ve found is to start off by insulting them. You get talking to a girl and you say something like, ‘Why don’t you buy your own clothes? You ought to stop borrowing ’em from your elder sister.’ Then she gets mad, and says, ‘I haven’t got an elder sister. And I do buy my own clothes’. And you say, ‘Well, that dress looks as if it was made for someone a bit bigger round the top than you’, and, boy, does that start them off.”

  “It’s a fact,” said Colin, his brown, monkey face wrinkled in thought. “You can say anything you like about a girl, like she’s dead stupid, or mean, or she smells, but you tell her she isn’t as big round the top as the next girl, and whammo.”

  “I don’t follow that,” said Trevor. “I don’t mean about girls being bust-conscious. Any idiot knows that. I mean about this technique of insulting them. If you want to get along with a girl, what’s the object of insulting her?”

  “You set up a love-hate relationship,” said Dennis.

  Eric knocked the ash off the tip of his cigar, shouted to the smaller of the two small boys to hurry up with the grub, they were all bleeding well starving, couldn’t he carry two boxes at once, ignored the answer, which sounded distinctly mutinous, and said, “We’ve got serious things to talk about, so take your minds off girls for a moment, if you please, and let’s discuss something a bit more to the point.”

  His four companions fell silent. It was clear that Eric was leader of the Sunshine Boys, in fact as well as in name. Authority shone from his pose and his accent, and was reflected back by the deference with which the others listened to him.

  “What you’ve got to grasp,” he said, “is that what really matters in this life is money. If you haven’t got money, everyone treads on you. If you have got money, everything else follows.”

  Lord Baden Powell himself could not have been listened to with closer attention.

  “What we’re down here for is to lay our hands on a bit of money. Some of you kids may think Barhaven’s a stupid place to come to, but that’s where you’re wrong. There’s more money to be picked up in a place like Barhaven than there is in London or Southend or Brighton. And why? Simple. Because there’s less competition. All you’ve got to do is keep your eyes open, and play it quiet. That’s what people forget when they’re young – play it quiet.”

  Eric paused to draw on his cheroot, and his face looked at the same time charming and ageless.

  “When you’re young you like to go round in crowds and make a noise. It’s natural. I’m not saying it’s wrong. But it’s a stupid way of trying to make money.”

  “What about pop groups?” said Dennis.

  “You feel you’ve got a talent in that direction, Denny?” asked Fred. He was the biggest of the boys, a full-blooded eighteen-year-old with curly black hair and the shoulders of a boxer.

  The two small boys had opened a cardboard box, and were handing out sandwiches. Trevor took a packet of tea and emptied about a quarter of it into the dixie, which was now boiling.

  “You want to put a chip of wood in, too,” said the smaller of the small boys. “It stops the tea getting smokey.”

  “Who taught you that?”

  “A Scoutmaster.”

  “Was that the only thing he taught you?” said Dennis.

  “You’ve got a horrible mind,” said Eric. “Get that tin of condensed milk open. You can put it all in. Thicken it up nicely.”

  Conversation was suspended, whilst seven pairs of jaws munched contentedly. When the meal was finished, Eric said, “What we were talking about before. If any of you have got any ideas, I’d like to hear ’em.”

  Colin said, “There was a thing we did at Southend. Four or five of you go into one of those amusement arcades. One of you keeps the attendant busy. Best way is to give him a quid and ask for the change in pennies. The other four pick up one of the fruit machines and bounce it. Sometimes you can get the jackpot out that way.”

  “Another thing we did,” said Fred, “was stopping up telephones. All you have to do is push a lump of rag, or something like that, up the return coin hole. Then when people press Button B, they don’t get their money back. You come back later with a bit of wire and pull the stopper out. I got four and tenpence out of one telephone that way.”

  “If we could get hold of a couple of arm-bands,” said Trevor, “—or we could make them – something like ‘Corporation of Barhaven’ – we could collect money hiring out deckchairs. All you’ve got to do is keep ahead of the man who’s meant to be doing it.”

  “Pennies,” said Eric, with benevolent contempt. “Pennies and sixpences. You’ll never get rich on pennies and sixpences. If you’re going to get on in this life, you’ve got to think big, lads. You’ve got to dig down to fundamentals.”

  “Such as what?” said Dennis.

  “Sex,” said Eric. “And you two kids can get on with the washing-up.”

  “Don’t be soft,” said Ernest, the larger of the small boys. “We know all about sex. Don’t we, Arthur?”

  “In this troop,” said Eric, “washing-up comes before talk. If you two don’t do what you’re told, and quick, you’ll be on jankers for a week.”

  When the washers-up had departed, muttering, Eric lit another cheroot.

  “Now take sex—” he said.

  They took sex in all its fascinating aspects, whilst the sky paled, and the sun descended, a huge ball of crimson fire, into the waters of the English Channel.

  Chapter Twelve

  Arthur Ambrose Writes a Leading Article

  “Mr. William Law to see you,” said Ann. “He’s got a big parcel under his arm. It could easily be title deeds.”

  “Tell Arnold to bring him in at once,” said Anthony. “And what’s this you’ve put in my diary for eleven o’clock? It looks like apple sauce.”

  “Hand-writing was never my strong point. It’s meant to be Ambrose.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He rang up, in a flap, about five minutes before you got here. It’s something about an article in the Barhaven Gazette this morning.”

  “For God’s sake! Who’s he libelled this time?”

  “The police.”

  When Anthony said nothing, she looked at him. The smile which she had expected to see was not there.

  “Nip out to the stationer’s at the corner,” he said, “and buy me a copy of the Gazette. Buy two whilst you’re at it. Come in, Mr. Law.”

  Willie Law laid a brown paper parcel on Anthony’s desk and unfastened the string. Inside were three bulky en
velopes.

  “That’s the lot,” he said. “The big packet’s the farm and farmhouse. I bought it off Scranton at auction – way back in the thirties. I misremember the date. It’ll be on the papers. That’s the upper fields – I had them just after the War. The little one’s the fields I bought off old Colonel Kidd, last year. I paid him too much, but I needed ’em.”

  Anthony ignored the first two packets, and opened the third. It contained, he saw, an ‘abstract’ of title consisting of twenty or thirty closely typed pages of brief, a few old local search certificates, and a solitary conveyance.

  “There aren’t any more deeds,” said Law. “Just that one. Mr. Mentmore explained it to me at the time, but I’ve forgotten what he said.”

  “You bought a small piece of the Kidd Estate. The earlier deeds refer to the whole estate. You wouldn’t get them. Just an acknowledgement of your right to their production.”

  “That’s correct. He said I could see them any time I wanted to.” Anthony was unfolding the parchment. He looked first at the plan. The property conveyed was a long, roughly rectangular plot, comprising six or seven different Ordnance Survey numbers, and, sure enough, it ran right along the northern edge of that wedge-shaped piece which Counsel had called “the red land”.

  Anthony ran his finger along the boundary.

  “What about that bit to the south of your property? Those three fields, between you and Castle House School—”

  “I only rent that. It doesn’t belong to me.”

  “It was Kidd property too, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. The old Colonel and his family had everything down to the road.”

  “And when was that particular bit sold? Do you know?”

  Willie Law scratched his crop of sun-bleached auburn hair, and said, “It was some time before I bought my last piece. It was sold to a London company, so I heard.”

  Anthony was skimming through the body of the deed. He gave a little sigh of satisfaction. “That’s just what I was hoping for,” he said. “Do you see? There’s an easement reserved for water-pipes over your land in favour of your neighbour’s.”

  “That’ll be to the ram in the top corner of my field. He’d take all his water from there. Is that all you wanted to know? I could have told you that, without bothering to get all the deeds out of the bank.”

  “What I wanted to know,” said Anthony, “was in whose favour the easement was reserved.” He scribbled something on a note-pad, and started packing the deeds back into their long manilla envelope.

  “And now you do know?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What good’s it going to do you?”

  “Not a great deal, by itself, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

  Law stretched out a big brown hand as Anthony was about to put the conveyance back with the other papers.

  “Show me,” he said. Anthony placed the tip of his pencil on a line of typing about halfway down the second page—“Reserving therefrom the running of water through the two-inch pipe indicated by the blue dotted line on the said plan as at present enjoyed by Carlmont Property Limited their assigns and successors in title.” Law spelled out the words slowly.

  “And that’s what you wanted to see.”

  “That’s it.”

  “It doesn’t look much to get excited about.”

  “It may be only a two-inch pipe,” said Anthony, “but there’s no saying how far it’ll lead.”

  Willie Law thought about this for a moment, then he said, “Wherever it leads you, don’t you go pulling me into it.”

  “Now I know the name of the Company there won’t be any need to mention you at all.”

  “I’ll be obliged if you don’t.”

  “But why?”

  Willie Law said, “When I stand on Long Bank, at the top of my fields, and I see a lot of that thick cloud – it’s got a scientific name – what do you call it?”

  “Cumulus.”

  “That’s it. When I see this cloud coming up from the east. I don’t bother to read weather reports. I just go home and make sure I’ve got everything lashed down tight. I’ll take the deeds with me, if you’ve finished with ’em. My bank manager gets fussed if they’re out of his sight too long.”

  When Law had gone Anthony asked for a Holborn number and found Dudley Powell at his desk.

  “Could you do a personal search in the Companies Registry for me,” he said. “The name of the Company is Carlmont Property Limited. Carlmont. I’ll spell it for you—that’s right. Would you see what you can find out about it.”

  “You shall have anything that’s in the Register,” said Powell, “but you realise it mayn’t be a lot. If this is a Trojan horse company, you can be sure it’ll be pretty well camouflaged – nominee shareholders and so on.”

  “What about the directors?”

  “Nominee directors, too, probably.”

  “What about their other directorships? Mightn’t that give us a line?”

  “It’s a thought,” said Powell.

  “And another thing. I’d like to know the name of the solicitors who formed the company. Their name’ll be on the file somewhere, won’t it?”

  “If it is, you shall have it.”

  The internal telephone burped at him.

  “Arthur Ambrose,” said his secretary, “has arrived. He is ten minutes early, and pregnant with great, unspoken troubles. Would you fancy him or your coffee first?”

  “My coffee.”

  “If we don’t see him immediately, do you think he’ll burst all over last year’s Tatlers?”

  “We’ll have to risk it,” said Anthony. “And is that the Gazette? Good girl. Give me five minutes.”

  Ambrose started talking as soon as he got inside the door.

  “We stand,” he announced, “on the edge of a volcano. If a match lit by me can start the eruption, I shall be a proud man. I’m aware that that is a mixed metaphor. Journalists are encouraged to mix their metaphors. I’ll put my hat here, if I might. The papers are in my briefcase. Before you read them—”

  “I’ve read the only paper that matters,” said Anthony. He nodded towards the copy of the Gazette on his desk. A headline set in great pica said “A Call to Men of Conscience”. “It is said that a nation gets the government it deserves. This is no less true of a town—”

  “I wrote it myself,” said Ambrose.

  “It’s good, rousing stuff,” said Anthony, “and unless you can justify it to the hilt, you’re going to get into very serious trouble.”

  “Naturally I can justify it.”

  “With witnesses?”

  “With any number of witnesses.”

  Anthony turned back to the article, and read: “The most serious responsibility placed on a Borough Council is the control of its own police force, through its Watch Committee. How many people know this? How many citizens of Barhaven could tell you, if challenged, the names of their own Watch Committee. Let the Gazette enlighten you. They are, ex officio, the Mayoress, Mrs. Lord, Mr. Raymond Southern, the member for Victoria Park, Miss Planche, Member for the Connaught Ward, General Crispen, Member for Splash Point, and, last but not least, Jolly Jack Crawford, the member for Marine East.

  These are the five people in whose hands, in the last analysis, the responsibility for law and order in Barhaven rests.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “All right so far,” said Anthony.

  “I was going to say something about Crawford getting tight and kicking up a row in the Country Club – and setting a good example, etcetera.”

  “But you thought it wiser not to?”

  “I’d have done it like a shot, but it didn’t fit in very well with the rest of my article.”

  Anthony returned to his reading.

  “And what of the force that these ladies and gentlemen control? We in this country are apt to assume, as an article of faith, that our police are wonderful. It follows that any reflection on them is heresy.
But is this true of Barhaven? And if you really think it is true, ask yourself a few questions.

  “Why do motorists regularly get booked for parking offences on the front except when they are using the Pleasuredrome?

  “Why were five licensees in the town prosecuted for serving alcoholic drinks after hours – in one case, the Victoria Tavern, the alleged offence was serving a drink two minutes after the legal closing hour – when it is common knowledge that the bar at the Splash Point Country Club is open to non-members until one o’clock in the morning? Could this be in any way connected with the fact that three of the five members of the Watch Committee are members of this Club?”

  “Can you prove that bit about the bar?”

  “Certainly.”

  “How?”

  “A junior member of the Gazette staff – he isn’t yet eighteen, by the way – walked in at half-past midnight, and got served without difficulty.”

  “He did it on purpose I suppose?”

  “Of course. On my instructions.”

  “Courts aren’t very fond of agent provocateur evidence. But it might stand up. It’s this last paragraph I’m nervous about. It reads like a personal attack on Inspector Ashford.”

  “If it reads like that,” said Ambrose, with satisfaction, “it shows that my hand has not lost its cunning, because that’s precisely what it’s meant to be.”

  “We are quick to condemn other countries, America in particular, where we see the police force subordinated to its political masters. As the Bible pointed out, we perceive a splinter in the eye of another, and ignore a sizeable beam in our own. When you see a police force which appears to protect certain private commercial enterprises at the expense of their rivals; when you see a force which represses certain types of wrong-doings and turns a blind eye to others; when, in short, you see a force which operates one law for one section of the community and a different law for another section, you are bound to take a second look at the people controlling that force. Our Chief Constable, Mr. Davy, is a genial and popular character. He is also, incidentally, within one year of his compulsory retirement age; and it may be that his recent devotion to culture and the arts has not left him sufficient time for active oversight of his force—”