Snow Hill

by Mark Sanderson

  With working days that sometimes didn’t finish till after midnight, it had been difficult for Johnny to keep up with the rest of the group even though he was a quick learner. But he’d persevered, and armed with his shiny new diploma he’d secured a job on one of the local rags in Islington. Not that there seemed much call for a diploma; his tasks ranged from listing jumble sales, weddings and funerals; reporting committee meetings and company outings; casting horoscopes; concocting letters to the editor; compiling easy-peasy crosswords; and, most important of all, making tea. In the end it paid off though: his efforts got him the coveted position of junior reporter on the Daily News.

  Much to his dismay, it turned out that his new role entailed doing exactly the same things.

  Fortunately for Johnny, he’d been taken in hand by Bill Fox. An old hack with nicotine-stained fingers to match his yellowing short-back-and-sides, Bill had been in the business for more than forty years, working his beat even through the war years, asthma having kept him out of the army.

  Perhaps Bill recognised something of himself in the eighteen-year-old human dynamo, or perhaps he was impressed by Johnny’s sharp mind and fierce ambition, then again, maybe he was just won over by the cheeky grin. Whatever the reason, Bill had begun teaching the newcomer everything he knew, ranging from the intricacies of the News’ house style to the tricks of the trade: how to grab a reader by the lapels and not let him go, how to cut and cut until every word was made to work.

  Each time Johnny delivered a piece of copy, Bill would lean precariously back in his chair and deliver words of wisdom, punctuating his speech by stabbing the air with the 2B pencil he kept behind his ear: “Remember, Coppernob, with the honourable exceptions of wine and women, less is more.”

  But Bill’s advice went beyond the craft of writing and fine-tuning copy. He had covered subjects that Johnny’s Technical College diploma hadn’t touched upon. For him, journalism meant pounding the streets, ferreting out facts and stirring things up. While others his age had opted for a managerial role, sitting behind a desk telling others what to do, Bill preferred a more hands-on approach. He’d been delighted to have Johnny tag along as he demonstrated how to make the most of a lead, and to watch Bill in action was to enjoy a master-class in the art of interviewing reluctant witnesses and worming the truth out of those who were determined to bury it. Persistence, patience and curiosity were his watchwords.

  As a result of this apprenticeship, Johnny learned how to turn to advantage the very things that might have worked against him: his deceptively young looks and short stature. He no longer minded being underestimated—if anything, he encouraged it. His job became so much easier when others lowered their guard.

  Fox himself was prone to be underestimated by colleagues who judged him on his lack of promotion or love of booze, but to Johnny, he was a hero. Bill was the only person Johnny would tolerate calling him Coppernob—even though his hair was quite obviously strawberry blond.

  The crime desk was, in reality, made up of six desks pushed together in a cramped corner of the third floor. These were occupied by a junior, four reporters—two for the day shift and two for the night—and the crime correspondent. Having made his way up from junior, Johnny was determined to gain his next promotion as soon as possible—preferably before his twenty-third birthday. Under a different boss, he would have been moving up the ladder much faster, but Gustav Patsel was a little bully in an age of bullies. While Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain and Mussolini in Italy ranted and threw their weight about, Patsel swaggered and held sway in the newsroom. Everything about this cantankerous, capricious bore was round: his piggy-eyes peered out from behind round, wire-rimmed glasses. His white bald head was reminiscent of a ping-pong ball. His belly seemed to bulge more by the week: probably a result of too much bratwurst. Proud of his German heritage, Patsel was not shy of vaunting the führer’s galvanising effect on his homeland: the Volkswagen “people’s car”, designed by Ferdinand Porsche and launched in February, was the best car in the world; the Berlin Olympics in August had been the best games ever und so weiter—though he’d been strangely silent back in March when the Nazis invaded the Rhineland.

  His colleagues had unaffectionately dubbed him Pencil and ridiculed him behind his back, but Patsel survived by virtue of a Machiavellian grasp of office politics. Even so, it was an open secret that the humourless Hun was looking to jump ship—he had been at loggerheads with either the night editor or the editor-in-chief ever since Johnny had joined the paper.

  As much as he longed for Patsel’s departure, Johnny was terrified by rumours that Simkins might be poached to replace him.

  The sooner Johnny got promotion, the more secure he’d be. However, to achieve that he needed to make a splash—and that meant a spectacular exclusive. The one that had made his name was a piece exposing a drugs racket at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. A senior pharmacist had masterminded a scheme whereby he and his cohorts were making a fortune on the black market, selling drugs from the hospital’s pharmacy. At a time when patients were struggling to pay for every pill, his cut-price rates had, he claimed, been an act of charity —a noble motive undermined by the fact that not many people needed addictive painkillers in wholesale quantities.

  The whole thing had been going on under Johnny’s nose for a while before he smelled a story; back then, his mind had been on other things. It was during a visit to his dying mother that he had been surreptitiously offered cheap morphine by a member of the medical staff. He would have accepted, except that the drug was useless when, as in this case, the patient had bone cancer.

  Johnny used his rage at his mother’s imminent death to work tirelessly—with Bill’s help—to expose the racket. The finished piece had raised questions in Parliament and renewed demands for the establishment of a National Health Service. However, apart from a few more prison cells being filled, nothing came of it all.

  Johnny’s reward had been promotion from office junior to fully-fledged reporter. Unfortunately, thanks to Patsel, that had translated into the dubious distinction of reporting from the Old Bailey.

  Court reporters—not to be confused with those that dealt with the affairs of the once German residents of Buckingham Palace—were afforded little respect because their authors were spoon-fed the copy. They did not have to sniff out stories, follow up leads or track down witnesses. They only had to get off their backsides when the judge stood up. Trials dealt with the aftermath of crime in a calm and clinical fashion. There was none of the excitement of the hunt, no vying to get ahead of the pack in pursuit of your quarry.

  To make matters worse, Simkins—who was not confined to the courtrooms of the Old Bailey—had just landed a scoop that had eclipsed Johnny’s drug-ring effort, being simpler and juicier.

  On the very morning that the police released details of the murder of Margaret Murray, a nineteen-year-old girl who worked for a firm of solicitors, the Chronicle had run an interview with the killer’s wife. It was an excellent piece of reporting—except, in Johnny’s indignant opinion, it should never have been written at all. Simkins had come by his exclusive using dubious means.

  The moment the tip-off came in from his source inside the Metropolitan Police, Simkins had got on the phone to Scotland Yard. Realising that no information would be forthcoming if he identified himself as a reporter, he’d passed himself off as the concerned spouse of the man in custody. Though his normal speaking voice was tainted with the trademark drawl of an Old Harrovian, Simkins was a master of verbal disguise. Shortly after their first meeting, he had taken to calling Johnny at the crime desk with bogus complaints about his latest report or cock-and-bull tip-offs delivered in a variety of accents ranging from a thick Irish brogue, Welsh lilt or stage Cockney. His ability to mimic women’s voices as well as men’s was uncanny. Nevertheless, Johnny, who was not that wet behind the ears, soon caught on. The pranks had, however, taught him a valuable lesson: it was always advisable to meet informants face-to-face. In the flesh it was ea
sier to be certain that someone was who they said they were, and he could watch for the tell-tale clues that revealed when they were lying.

  Unfortunately the dozy detective Simkins spoke to at the Yard had fallen for the ruse and told him everything he needed to corroborate the story. Having winkled out the address of the arrested man—“He’s told you where we live, has he, officer?”—Simkins had gone straight round there.

  Turning up on the poor woman’s doorstep ahead of the local constabulary, he’d given her the impression that he was a plain-clothes detective, and then delivered the news of her dear husband’s arrest.

  Until that moment, Mrs Shaw had believed her Arthur, a travelling salesman for a toy company, was away on business in Newcastle. Within minutes she had learned that he’d been unfaithful to her, that he’d got a young secretary not even half his age in the family way and, in the heat of a furious post-coital row about a backstreet abortion, had strangled the poor girl to death. Mrs Shaw had thought the worst she had to fear was a visit from the tallyman. That was before Simkins came along and revealed that her husband of seventeen years was destined for the scaffold.

  Simkins’ exclusive had not stinted on the woman’s shock, anger and grief. He had captured in minute detail every aspect, right down to the dreary landscape reproductions on the wall of the spick-and-span parlour where she sat sobbing uncontrollably; the ember-burns on the hearth rug; and the half-excited, half-fearful reactions of the neighbours who, alerted by her cries, had gathered in glee by the railings, peering through the open door for a glimpse of whatever misfortune had befallen the Shaws.

  Part of Johnny admired Simkins’ skill and brass neck, but he’d vowed he would never stoop to such underhand methods. It wasn’t that he was a prig: he simply refused to inflict such pain on another human being—especially when it was for no better cause than the amusement of others. Bill’s motto when it came to composing a report was “titillation with tact”. Well, Simkins had no tact. If he had stopped for one moment to imagine how his mother might have felt if she’d found herself in Mrs Shaw’s position, then Johnny was sure his conscience, however atrophied, would have silenced him.

  Johnny had lost his own mother two years ago. Watching her die a long and painful death had knocked the stuffing out of him. An only child with no near relatives, he’d had no one to turn to but a few close friends, like Bill and Matt and Lizzie. It was only afterwards that he’d learned how much they’d been worried about him. Somehow, he’d bounced back. Instead of letting the bitterness overwhelm him, he’d managed to maintain his cheery outlook—in public, at any rate. He had learned how to conceal his emotions. Professional callousness, a prerequisite of the job, often clashed with personal compassion, but the two were not mutually exclusive. The best journalists were those who managed to bring both detachment and compassion into play when writing their copy.

  Wiping away the last crumbs of his lunch, Johnny shook off all thought of Simkins and returned to studying the typewritten note that had been delivered by the District Messenger Company soon after eight thirty that morning. He had no idea who had sent it. The thin white envelope was sealed and stamped with thick black letters: PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL. The tip-off inside could not have been more succinct:

  A SNOW HILL COP HAS SNUFFED IT.

  Johnny had checked all the news agencies for bulletins on a dead or missing policeman and drawn a blank. He’d tried calling the press bureau at Scotland Yard and the desk at Snow Hill but in both cases the response was the same: they had no idea what he was talking about. The messenger company claimed they had no record of who had paid for the message to be delivered. Now he pulled out his notepad and drew a line through Rotherforth and put a question mark next to Matt.

  He stared at the piece of paper. Those seven words hinted at so much and revealed so little. Mishap or murder? True or false? Could it be one of Simkins’ tricks? Johnny dismissed the idea; it wasn’t Simkins’ style. Besides, even though he had so little to go on, there was something about this tip-off that made his nerves tingle. Something told him this was genuine.

  “What you got there, Coppernob?”

  Startled, Johnny looked up. Bill was swaying down the aisle towards him.

  “Something or nothing. I can’t decide,” he said, handing over the flimsy slip of pink paper. “For your eyes only.”

  “Say no more,” said Bill. A blast of beery breath hit the back of Johnny’s neck. “Very interesting.”

  “I’ve just asked Inspector Rotherforth if he’s lost a man, but he said the suggestion was—and I quote—‘balderdash’.”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” said Bill.

  Johnny could almost hear the liquid lunch sloshing around in his stomach.

  Bill handed back the message. “I’ll make a couple of calls.”

  “Thank you.” Johnny checked his watch and began gathering up his things. “It’s time I got back to court.” His voice was heavy with resignation: the mere thought of sitting in those punishing pews made his backside ache.

  “Very well.” Bill dropped into his battered chair. As always, it rocked alarmingly, on the verge of tipping over backwards, then somehow defying gravity to remain upright. “Off you go then.” He sighed heavily. “You know where I am if you need me.”

  Putting his feet up on the desk, Bill watched as his protégé scurried out of the office. A frown spread across his crinkled face. As soon as Johnny was out of sight, he picked up the telephone receiver.

  THREE

  Monday, 7th December, 8.30 p.m.

  Lizzie was waiting on his doorstep. This was a pleasant surprise. His thoughts had been taken up with Daisy, wondering whether he should nip round to explain face to face that he’d arranged to spend tomorrow evening with Matt instead of taking her to the show, debating whether she could be persuaded to let him make it up to her tonight. Seeing Lizzie, he felt a stab of guilt and then mentally scolded himself: you could not be unfaithful to a fantasy. Mrs Matt Turner was, and always had been, strictly out of bounds.

  “Come on! Open the door,” she said, brushing off his attempt to kiss her. “I’m half-dead with cold, standing out here. Been at that flea-pit again?”

  She meant the Blue Hall Annexe on the corner of Packington Street. The cinema had started life as a district post office before being converted into the Coronet. Twenty-five years on, its four onion-domes remained but the blue-and-gold tiled façade had worn as thin as the velveteen covering the oversprung seats inside. The only thing the new owners had changed was the name.

  The little cinema was a favourite haunt of Johnny’s, his mother having introduced him to the delights of the silver screen back in the days when talkies were still a novelty. As a boy, he’d been fascinated by the actors who’d sometimes appear during screenings, striking up conversations with members of the audience. He remembered one paid stooge who always seemed to mangle his lines and would invariably end up being pelted with peanuts. It wasn’t until years later that Johnny learned the man had a habit of preparing for his appearances by nipping into the Queen’s Head next door for a quick one, or two, to steady his nerves.

  Lizzie made her way straight through to the kitchen and Johnny followed, turning on lights and through force of habit switching the wireless on. “The Way You Look Tonight” came warbling out. He filled the battered kettle, lit the gas and set it on the stove.

  “What did you see?” she asked, sitting down at the table with her coat still wrapped around her for warmth.

  “Bullets or Ballots. A gangster pic. Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell and Humphrey Bogart.”

  “Any good?” She was toying with her gloves. Johnny could see she was nervous. Why? Was it because she was uncomfortable being alone with him nowadays? She knew his feelings for her had not changed when she’d married Matt.

  “The action sequences were great: tommy-guns spitting fire everywhere. Robinson plays a detective called Johnny Blake who feigns dismissal from the force so that he can go undercover to
smash a major crime ring.”

  Johnny had been a fan of Robinson’s ever since he’d seen him in Five Star Final, playing a ruthless editor whose investigation of a murder case drives two of those involved to suicide. Earlier that year he’d gone along to see the remake, Two Against the World, with Bogart in the starring role, but it wasn’t a patch on the original. The focus had been shifted to the goody-goodies who thought the story should not be published, and the worthy result had only provoked yawns.

  Hollywood had nurtured Johnny’s ambition to be a journalist. It set him dreaming of a global exclusive where he’d interview Al Capone through the bars of his tiny cell in Alcatraz. He did not care if cinema was “neither art nor smart”: it offered a picture window into other people’s lives. Movies could provide an escape from reality or turn powerful searchlights on it. The same could be said of the press—and Johnny’s sense of fair play made him determined to use that power to right wrongs. Social inequality made his blood boil. What was so bad about making breakfast stick in the throats of the bourgeoisie when many children did not have their first meal till midday?

  “You might as well tell me the ending,” said Lizzie. “It’ll save me going to see it.”

  “Robinson gets a bullet in his belly.”

  “Now there’s a thing—especially since I’ve got something in mine. Well, more or less. I’m pregnant.”

  Johnny, who was spooning tea into the pot, froze. He turned slowly. Lizzie was regarding him quizzically, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “Lizzie, that’s wonderful news!” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. This time she did not shy away.

  “Is it?” Her brown eyes blazed.

  What was she so angry about? Even as he registered her mood he couldn’t help thinking how beautiful she was. No one else made his heart leap the way she did.

  “Of course it is. Unless…you don’t you want it?”