The Crack In the Teacup

by Michael Gilbert

  “You said a quid,” agreed Sturrock. He was balancing easily on the balls of his feet. “I been thinking about it. And I came to the conclusion ten bob was enough. Of course, if you don’t want it—”

  “Gimme that money,” said the driver, grabbing. Sturrock swayed back, holding the note just out of the driver’s reach.

  “If you take this, it’s all you get.”

  The driver swore.

  Sturrock said, “Five seconds to make your mind up.”

  The driver said, “All right. Give it to me.”

  Sturrock flipped the note into the cab, and walked away with Trevor.

  “Where we come from,” he said, “he wouldn’t have started unless I’d paid him first.”

  “There’s a lot of soft touches down here,” agreed Trevor.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Anthony Discovers a Gimmick

  When Anthony got back to his house he went upstairs to change. The blood had caked into a small, black patch on the front of his trouser leg. There were two livid bruises on his leg, each with a jagged cut in the centre. He cleaned the places carefully with disinfectant, and put a square of plaster over each. Then he put on an old pair of flannel trousers and went down to tea.

  The real trouble was, there was no one to talk to about it. He saw himself going to the police.

  “I wish to report that I was attacked by a man in the train this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir. What did he do?”

  “He kicked me.”

  “Why did he do that, sir? Was he trying to rob you?”

  “No. He didn’t try to rob me.”

  “Did he make any suggestion to you?”

  “He suggested I took a fortnight’s holiday.”

  “I see, sir. And why didn’t you report it at once?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  That was it. Whichever way round you went, whatever side roads you took, that was the spot you came back to in the end. He had been afraid.

  It wasn’t so much the pain. In a week he would have nothing to show but a couple of blue bruises, less than he might have got in a game of football. It was his manhood which had been threatened. He had been afraid.

  Suddenly he found it impossible to sit still. The tea tasted bitter on his tongue. He pushed it aside, grabbed a walking stick of his father’s from the stand in the hall, and went out.

  He had a favourite walk, which took him through the back streets of Barhaven, across the by-pass, up a farm track, and straight up on to the downs. He connected it in his mind with James Sudderby, who had first taken him that way on birds-nesting expeditions.

  He walked fast. By the time he reached the top he was out of breath, but happier. Looking down he could see a little cluster of tents on Caesar’s Camp and the smoke of a camp-fire going straight up into the evening air. There was a group of boys clustered round the fire. They would be Sudderby’s camping friends. He found himself envying them the carefree joys of youth and managed to laugh at himself. Twenty-three was a bit soon to start posing as an old man. He turned right and set off along the ridge-way path which ran along the top of the downs, and which would take him, eventually, on to Storm Head. From there it was a half-hour scramble down to Splash Point. When he finally reached the Country Club it was eight o’clock and the bar was nearly empty. The early evening crowd had gone home and the after-dinner bridge-and-snooker contingent had not yet arrived.

  Anthony ordered himself a pint of shandy and was paying for it when he saw Ann coming in.

  She hesitated, for a moment, in the doorway and he turned and waved to her.

  She said, “This has always seemed to be a ‘men only’ sort of place. I was nervous about coming in. All I wanted was something cool and long, like lime-juice and soda.”

  “Are you on your own?”

  “I was playing squash with Molly, but she had a date and had to get back.”

  “Well now you’ve got a date,” said Anthony. “To have a drink with me. Did you say a lime-juice and soda?”

  “I did,” said Ann. “But I’m not at all sure that this is the best place to drink it, after all.”

  “Why not?”

  “It gets full of old tabbies, of both sexes. Have you got a car?”

  “I’m afraid not. I walked here—by rather a roundabout route.”

  “Well I have. And if you’re firm on that offer of a drink, I know a nice little pub out on the Romney Road.”

  “Good idea,” said Anthony. It was only when they were in the car that it occurred to him that it was all wrong. He ought to be taking her out. It ought to be him driving the car, and knowing the place to go to, and taking the initiative.

  “I used to come here with daddy,” said Ann. It was a tiny pub, just off the coast road, down a short lane.

  “When you think of the millions of motorists,” said Anthony, “who drive from Hastings to Folkestone on a hot summer day, with their tongues hanging out for a drink, and none of them guessing this place exists. Why don’t they put up a sign-board at the end of the lane?”

  “Because they don’t want a million motorists, I expect,” said Ann. She turned her little car competently into the yard behind the pub, said, “Hallo, Tina” to a small girl who was sitting on an overturned wheelbarrow picking her nose, and led the way into the public bar.

  Anthony said, “Are you dead set on that lime-juice. It doesn’t look to me like the sort of place for drinking lime-juice.”

  “I’ll drink beer,” said Ann, “if I can have half-pints when you have pints. I’ve learned to like it – though why should you have to learn to like a drink, for God’s sake?”

  The place filled up gradually. It was mostly men, and a lot of them seemed to know Ann, but to be chary of saying anything to her when they spotted Anthony. A game of darts dispelled this constraint. First Anthony partnered Ann, against two young men called Ron and Ken, and lost. Then they split up, and Ron and Ann beat Anthony and Ken. Then a very old man appeared, partnered by the landlord, and beat everyone very easily. After each of these games Anthony bought beer for everyone, and at one period in the evening they ate a lot of bread and cheese with green tomatoes.

  It seemed far too soon when the landlord said, “Time gentlemen, please. Drink up please. Act of Parliament”; and in no time at all they were in the car, and driving out of the warmth and friendship, into the cold world.

  At the top of the last rise before Splash Point, Anthony said, “Do you mind if we stop for a moment?”

  Ann looked quickly at him. He could see her face dimly in the light from the dashboard. She said, “All right”, and swung the car into one of the little lay-bys provided by the Council for sightseers. By day it was usually crowded with cars. At that moment, it was empty.

  He had no idea what to do next, but a sound instinct told him that it would be fatal to speak. As Ann switched off the engine and pulled on the brake he put his arm firmly round her shoulders, and pulled her towards him.

  The steering-wheel got badly in the way. Ann said, quite calmly, “Hold it whilst I get out from under this damned wheel. There’s more room in the back seat.”

  A few minutes later, she said, “You’d find it much easier if you took your glasses off,” and some time after that, “It’s nicer if you open your mouth.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Anthony is Frustrated

  When Anthony arrived at the office next morning Ann was slitting his letters open. She gave him a cool, amused look as he came in. It was a look which said “Business only” in black type. She said, “Ambrose has already been on the telephone twice.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants to see you. I told him you couldn’t possibly manage it. I don’t think that’ll hold him though. And you’ve got Colonel Barrow at ten-thirty.”

  “I’ll have to look up that drainage point before he gets here. Ask Bowler to borrow Lumley for me. Mr. Pincott’s got a set in his room. And if Ambrose really is going to descend on us
, we’d better have a copy of today’s Gazette, too.”

  “I tried to get one on the way here, but the two paper shops in our road were sold out.”

  “That big newsagent in Victoria Avenue is bound to have one.”

  Anthony glanced through the post. There was a lot to do, but none of it was particularly urgent. He put a call through to the Town Hall and asked to speak to James Sudderby. After the usual frustrating delays he learned that the Town Clerk was not in his office; and that nobody quite knew where he was; but if the matter was urgent, he could be asked to ring back. Anthony said that the matter was extremely urgent and left his number, but without much hope.

  Ann reappeared. “It’s an extraordinary thing,” she said, “but Pollocks haven’t got a copy either.”

  “I refuse to believe that the Gazette could be sold out at ten o’clock on the morning of publication.”

  “I tried two other newsagents on the Parade. No dice.”

  Anthony looked at his watch.

  “If I’m going to work out an answer for Colonel Barrow before he gets here, it’s obvious I shan’t have time to do any letters. Why don’t you nip up to the station? They’re bound to have a copy. Get two whilst you’re at it.”

  Ann departed and Anthony settled down to study the stout red volumes of Lumley’s Public Health Acts (12th Edition). By the time Colonel Barrow arrived he was ready for him.

  “It’s a swindle,” he said, “but a legal swindle, if you follow me. All the proper steps have been taken. But there was no real reason to take them—except to get at you.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “When a local authority constructs a sewer, you, as a resident, have a right to connect to it. But it’s only a right. It’s not an obligation. That’s perfectly clear from Section 39 of the Public Health Act 1936.”

  “Then why is the Borough Council telling me I’ve got to hitch up to their wretched sewer? I’ve told them repeatedly that I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

  “Because they didn’t proceed under the Public Health Act at all. That piece of road running along the boundary of your playing-field isn’t a ‘highway maintainable at the public expense’, so they were able to invoke a section of the Private Street Works Act, 1892. Under this section any work they carry out in the street is chargeable to the frontagers. Which means you – all along one side – and that row of terrace houses on the other. You pay half, they pay half.”

  “Why do you call it a swindle?”

  “Because they could have put in exactly the same sewer under the Public Health Acts, and if they had chosen to do so, you wouldn’t have had to join up to it if you didn’t want to, and you wouldn’t have had to pay any part of the cost.”

  “I see,” said Colonel Barrow. “Then there’s no way out of it, and I’ve got to pay.”

  “There’s no way out of it as it stands at the moment. But if the Council could be persuaded to ‘adopt’ Castle Road – which, in my view, they ought to have done years ago, anyway – they couldn’t rely on the Private Street Works Act, and they’d have to pay for the sewer themselves.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “Not with the present lot,” agreed Anthony, “but you’re going to get a chance to change them next week. Which Ward are you in?”

  “Ward?” said Colonel Barrow. “I don’t follow you.”

  “Voting Ward.”

  “Oh that. I believe I got a paper about it.” He searched in his briefcase, and produced a crumpled blue paper. “Would this be it?”

  “Marine East,” said Anthony. “That’s right.”

  “This says, ‘Vote for Jack Crawford, your Independent Candidate’.”

  “That’s just what you mustn’t do. Vote for Arthur Ambrose. He’s the Progressive Candidate. He’s very keen on the Council adopting more roadway. He told me so.”

  Colonel Barrow jotted down “Ambrose” in his diary. “You really think it’s important,” he said. “I’ve never bothered to vote at one of these things before.”

  “It’s vital,” said Anthony. “Tell any of your staff who are on the voters’ list to do the same. And the parents of all the day boys.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Colonel Barrow. “And what’s more, I’ll let some of the older boys act as canvassers. We’re supposed to teach them Civics. I should think canvassing for a Borough Council election would be Civics, wouldn’t you?”

  “No doubt about it,” said Anthony.

  He was in the middle of a second attempt to contact James Sudderby when Ann came back. She had a paper in her hand.

  “Have a look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s your client, Christopher Sellinge’s election manifesto, and if I’m any judge of British character, it puts paid to his chances of re-election.”

  Anthony read the pamphlet through once, and then again with growing horror. In tones of hectoring arrogance it ordered – there was no attempt at persuasion – it ordered the voters of Marine Ward West to cast their votes for Sellinge “if they know on which side their bread is buttered”. This incredible expression was actually used. It went on to say that if Barhaven would elect a Council with a Progressive majority, the present development schemes would be switched from the eastern to the western end of the town (“in which I have a personal interest”), and concluded by pointing out that although such a change of plan would cost money, and might lead to a considerable increase in local rates, ultimately it would produce a brighter and better Barhaven.

  “He must have gone mad,” said Anthony. “There’s no other explanation. How did you get hold of this?”

  “They were distributed from door to door last night.”

  Anthony gave up the Town Hall, who were still, apparently, looking for their Town Clerk and dialled Sellinge’s office. His secretary said that he had just gone out. Anthony left a message that he was to be rung, and had started to dictate the first of his morning’s letters when Bowler announced the arrival of Mr. Ambrose.

  “Tell him I’m engaged.”

  “He said, if you were engaged, he’d wait.”

  “Tell him I’ll be engaged all morning.”

  “He’s in a terrible state.”

  “Oh dear,” said Anthony. “All right. But when he’s been here for ten minutes I want you to come in and say ‘Major Ponsonby has arrived’.”

  “I’ll try,” said Ann. “I’m not a very good liar.”

  Anthony could hear Ambrose declaiming as he came down the passage. The words “scandal”, “corruption” and “freedom of the press” floated ahead of him, like flags in a following breeze.

  “What’s happened now?” said Anthony. “Do sit down.”

  “Were you able to get a copy of the Gazette this morning?”

  Anthony stared at him. “As a matter of fact, no.”

  “Nor was anyone else in Barhaven – unless they had it on order. And even some of them didn’t get it.”

  “What on earth—”

  “A gang of boys went round every newsagent’s shop in town, as soon as it opened, and bought up every single copy.”

  Anthony restrained an idiotic inclination to laugh, and said, “How many copies did they get?”

  “Between seven and eight thousand. The whole thing was very carefully organised. They had an old car and a trailer. They went from shop to shop, bought the whole stock, dumped it in the trailer, and carted it off.”

  “Someone spent some money on that little lark,” said Anthony. He was making a quick calculation. “You sell at threepence. If they got eight thousand, that cost them a hundred pounds.”

  “It cost them more than that,” said Ambrose. “In most cases they simply waylaid the boy who was going out with his papers for delivery and paid him a fiver for the lot.”

  “It sounds like a pretty skilful bit of sabotage,” said Anthony, “but surely your next move is perfectly simple. You reprint another ten thousand. Once this story gets round, they should go
like hot cakes.”

  “That was the first thing I thought of, naturally,” said Ambrose, impatiently. “But I’m afraid I can’t do it. I’m out of paper.”

  “Out of paper?”

  “There’s been some hitch at the mills. I can’t understand it. I’m going over to see them today. Normally they’re quite happy to let me have a month’s supply on credit. We always pay them at the end of the month, when the distributors pay us. It’s the normal arrangement. Now, quite suddenly, we’ve been told the system’s changed. It’s cash on delivery.”

  “And you haven’t got the cash?”

  “The bank will let us have it, but it’s going to take a day or two to fix.”

  “Curious,” said Anthony, “that it should have happened just at this particular moment. Who are your suppliers?”

  Ambrose gave him the name, and Anthony jotted it down.

  “I should get moving fast on this,” he said. “You want next Friday’s issue to come out, don’t you? That’s the polling-day issue. When they hear what happened this morning, I should think your readers will be waiting for it with their tongues hanging out. You’ll never write a more influential editorial in your whole life. Do you realise that?”

  “By God, you’re right,” said Ambrose, his eyes shining. “The Barhaven Gazette cannot be gagged.”

  “I’ll see if I can check up on your suppliers. If someone has been getting at them, it may call for drastic action—”

  Ann opened the door at this moment, but instead of announcing Colonel Ponsonby she said, “It’s Mr. Sellinge – in a hurry,” and stepped aside to prevent herself being knocked down by the infuriated estate agent.

  He had a crumpled paper in his hand.

  “Have you seen this?”

  “If it’s your election manifesto, yes. I read it just now.”

  “My election manifesto,” said Sellinge, his voice rising to an alarming pitch. “I never saw the bloody thing before in my life.”

  “You didn’t write it.”

  “Do you think I’d write a lot of—a load of—”

  “I think you’d better go,” said Anthony to Ann. “I have a feeling that Mr. Sellinge wants to express himself more freely. Take Mr. Ambrose with you. I’ll ring you up later if I have any news for you, Arthur. Now—what’s all this about?”