“Come on, you must have seen something,” Mr Merry said. “Speak up. I’ll look after you.”
Blakers stood with his hands on the counter. His glance moved from one to another of the two policemen. Weldon saw the deep interior calculation and thought that the man was going to talk. But— “I never saw nothing. Heard a bit o’ shouting. You get that round ’ere. Never even bothered to look.”
“Marvellous,” Merry said. He looked keenly at Blakers. “One chap’s in hospital, broken ribs and a perforated lung, Keogh’s laid up with a bad arm, neither one of them remembers how it happened.”
“You want to ask them that was out of doors,” Blakers said.
Merry laughed softly. “Oh, everyone’s blind down here. Aren’t they, Weldon?”
“Never see a thing,” Weldon said. “Nobody saw when the stalls were overturned. Nobody saw this time. Marvellous. Marvellous.” He lapsed into silence and stood leaning on his tightly rolled umbrella, shifting his gaze over the shelves laden with stock. He broke silence. “Been buying any cheap lines lately?”
“Cheap lines, Mr Merry? I try an’ get a bit o’ discount. It ain’ often. You know what it is for the little man.”
“Yes —” Merry was still looking over the stock. “That’s hard lines. Few thousand fags on the cheap’s a big help. No luck that way? Ever?”
“All legitimate stock ’ere, Mr Merry.”
Merry swivelled on his umbrella to look directly at Blakers. “You want to think twice about annoying me, you know.”
Blakers only sighed and returned his gaze. Merry said, “I’ll look after you.”
Blakers said, “I live ’ere all the time. You don’t.”
The two policemen went out. In the street Weldon said, “That’s it, then.”
Merry said, “I think we’ll have a word with Peach before we go.”
Weldon started off alongside. “Peach? He’s laughing.”
“He who laughs last — You know what they say.”
Weldon said, “I don’t see it’s worth all the boot-leather. Let ’em smash each other up. You ever lived in the country? Country born I am. The vermin in the fields keep each other down.”
Merry stopped and lifted the tip of his umbrella like a teacher’s pointer. “Let me tell you something. If we want these people to respect us there’s only got to be one God Almighty round here.” He jabbed the point of his umbrella towards the sky. “And not that one.”
They walked on. Merry said, “And another thing. We both know what happened. It’s only evidence we lack. From now on Peach’ll start getting too big for his boots. If he gets away with this. Which he looks like doing.”
“At least he’s no thief,” Weldon said.
“He’s a street bully. You mark this if you want to get on. Nothing worse than a street bully. He lives idle, he reckons the world owes him a living. Sooner or later he’ll thieve. Like Harry Murchison.” He paused outside Number 34. “In the meantime, the more convictions on his sheet, the better. Come on. Might get something out of the womenfolk.”
A bell jangled as Merry opened the shop door. In the shuttered, gaslight gloom a small woman with grey hair was stooping over a mound of rags. She rose to face them. Merry had never spoken to her before but he could see that she recognised him. He said gently, “Mrs Peach?”
She stared for a second, then before he could stop her she darted to the door of the kitchen and opened it. She called, “Dido! Dido!”
Merry grimaced wryly to Weldon. The two men heard heavy footsteps.
Dido came into the shop. He looked them over as if unaware why they might be here. “Afternoon.”
“Afternoon. Taking it easy?”
“Doin’ a bit in the yard. For ’er.” He indicated his mother who stood with hands clasped looking at the mound of rags.
“Thought you might be resting after this morning.”
“Why? What happened this morning?”
Merry chuckled. “Ah! I’m not going to waste my breath. Just wanted to take a look at you.”
Mr Merry saw the mother staring at him. There was fear in her eyes. He shot, “Where were you at ten o’clock this morning, madam?”
Her lips moved. He heard only the faintest frightened sound. Dido said, “She was shopping.”
“Let her speak for herself.”
She said faintly, “I was shopping.”
“Till nigh twelve o’clock,” Dido said. “Then she made dinner.”
A glance at her decided Merry to cut his losses in that quarter. He said to Dido, “And you?”
“I was out as well.”
Through the open door to the kitchen Merry saw the side door of the kitchen open. A girl entered the room as Dido spoke. She was in a dressing-gown and she walked as if recently asleep. She glanced into the shop at the sound of Dido’s voice but she did not appear curious about the two well-dressed strangers talking to her husband. She went towards the stove but Merry called to her, “Mrs Peach.”
She came to the shop doorway, her look questioning but still dull with sleep. He said, “I am a police officer —” The question in her eyes became astonishment. She looked at Dido. She started, “What —?”
Dido said, “Go back in the kitchen.”
Merry had not seen the wife before. She looked a nice girl. It was odd the way these brutes got hold of nice girls. He began to feel a more intense and personal dislike for Dido out of pity for her. He said, “Mrs Peach, I wonder if I might have a word with you alone.”
Dido said, “No, you can’t.”
She said, “What is it, Didy? What do they want?”
Dido said to Merry, “Any special reason why she should?”
Merry said, “Mrs Peach, there was an affray in this street, at ten o’clock this morning. Where were you?”
She said, still wonderingly, “In bed.”
“Didn’t you hear anything?”
“I was asleep. I only just woke up.”
She was obviously speaking the truth. Merry said, “Do you know where your husband was?”
Her lips parted in bewilderment. “He goes out on business. Why are they here, Didy?”
Dido said, “It’s routine enquiries. They’re calling all down the street. Isn’t that right, Mr Merry?”
Merry said. “Then your husband was outside the house?”
She said, “Well, of course. Didy, why is he asking me?”
Dido said, “Mother, take her in the kitchen.”
Mrs Peach came out of her frightened trance. She put her arm behind Grace and led her into the kitchen. Merry did not intervene. Dido shut the door. He said, “Anything else, Mr Merry?”
Merry said, “No. You were out on business. Your wife said.”
“That’s right. Anyone say different?”
Merry went to the door, and turned back. “Dido — do you know? This is a bad day for you.”
“Is it, Mr Merry.”
“Yes, Dido. Today I’ve decided that you’re not a nice man.”
“I’m very sorry about that.”
“Not as sorry as you will be, Dido. There’s going to be law and order round here.”
“I believe in law an’ order, Mr Merry.”
“Do you? It all depends whose, doesn’t it?” He went out, with Weldon.
In the street, Merry said, “We shall deal with that fellow now. He’s had his run.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dido made a round of the shops to collect his toll. All paid and none made any comment on what had happened. Keogh was laid up in bed with a bad arm and they would submit to whoever was in power. Nevertheless all the street was speculating about how Keogh would decide to strike back when he was up. Dido expected him to. Mrs Peach knew well from the talk in the shops what had taken place and went about the house without a word, hunted by her own fears. Only Grace remained in innocence. She had seen the police calling at other doors. There was no reason for her to doubt Dido’s assurance that the visit of the detectives to their shop was onl
y one of many.
After a week the news went round that Keogh was out of bed. Dido walked warily again. But unexpectedly another and longer reprieve came.
One night the people of Rabbit Marsh were brought to their doors by the sound of shouting and the clatter of tins beaten like drums. They swarmed to the comer, to see the whole tribe of Jaggs Place streaming along Brick Lane, men, women and children. The howling troop brandished iron bars, hatchets, eight-inch hatpins, nailed slats torn from packing-cases — any object that would serve as a weapon. Keogh marched at their head.
The first to witness this procession were struck with panic. But the band straggled past without a glance at Rabbit Marsh. It was no vengeful invasion. It was (the word quickly travelled) one of those legendary events, a slum war party. A boy of eight, marauding through a window incautiously left open in an alley off Brick Lane, had been fallen upon by a mob of all ages. He was in hospital with an eye knocked out. The Jaggs Placers did not often grieve over the knocks and bruises of their prowling young, but this was too much.
After a drunken corroboree in the Brick Lane pub they had marched forth in a frenzy.
Some venturesome spectators followed at a safe distance and were rewarded by the sight of a battle that would long be remembered in the pubs. The inmates of the alley were as drunken and ferocious as Keogh’s army; and they came out to meet the attackers.
It took forty policemen to put an end to the riot. Sixty-seven people were taken to hospital. These included three women whose pregnancy had not kept them from the battle, an old man of eighty-one whose broken bones were never to heal, and a dozen children. Cockeye escaped injury but was among the thirty-two arrested. He was sentenced to twelve strokes of the birch.
One of Keogh’s three henchmen was injured. The other two and Keogh went to jail for making an affray. Keogh received a sentence of four months’ hard labour.
Supper was over. Grace had gone up to bed. Dido was sitting under the gaslight with a newspaper. The boys were out. Mrs Peach was in the shop adding up her takings in a halfpenny exercise-book. Rather, she tried to add them up; every time the figures came out differently. She returned to the kitchen. She put the exercise-book on the table next to Dido. “Dido —” There was more than the usual fatigue in her voice. “Do you mind?”
He folded his paper, put it aside and applied himself to the column of figures. She tried to look upon him with pride. He was a smart boy. He always had been good at his figures. If he’d had his chance goodness only knew what he could have been. But the pressure of terror remained. It had stopped her from adding up properly, made her dizzy in her head. She had been confused and dizzy in her head all the week, choked with the need to speak to him but struck silent by terror.
“There you are.” He pushed the book back to her.
“You are a help,” she said, her voice almost failing.
His eyes flicked up at her. “You’re tired. Why don’t you pack up? Go to bed?”
“I will.” But as she turned and started to shuffle away the fear struck her again and brought her to a halt. She stood with her back to him, her heart thumping to make her sick.
She heard him speak. “What is it, mother?”
She turned. “Dido —”
He was frowning at her, anxious. “What’s up? You out of sorts?”
Ever since those detectives had stood in the shop her tongue had been paralysed by terror. Today the news of Keogh’s sentence had struck her with a new shock, the shock of reprieve. But it had been no relief. She was flooded with new fears, of the future — the future when Keogh came back. She was driven by the fear that she had one more chance to save Dido and that she might not have the nerve to take it.
“Well, come on —” His voice was sharp with disquiet.
“Speak up.”
“Dido, I do wish —”
“Mother,” he said. “I won’t eat you.”
She could not manage more than a mutter. “Those two in the shop. Those police.”
Relieved, he smiled. “That’s all over. I told you.”
Still in a mutter, “We’ve never had the police.”
“Oh go on, it was routine. They went everywhere.”
She made a hopeless grimace, not looking at him. “I don’t know why you want to get mixed up.” He did not answer. She cried, “There were four of them. You could have got hurt.”
He pondered, then sighed. “It was them or me.”
She looked at him now, appealing, and her voice was a cry again. “It won’t end.”
He picked up the folded newspaper as evidence. “’E’s been put away.”
“And then what?”
He put down the newspaper. It was his turn to look away and to murmur, “Time enough.”
She wrestled with her fingers in despair, wrestling for words. “Dido, I don’t want you to.”
“Don’t want me to what?”
“All this money.”
“What about it?”
“You’ve always worked for your money.”
“I’ve always been straight. Anyone say I’m not?”
“You’re a good boy. I know you are. Only —”
He shook his head wearily. “Oh, mother, give over, will you?”
She cried, “You shouldn’t take it.” His gaze at her was perplexed now. She said, “I don’t want you to take their money.” He was silent and her terror of him made the words pour out. “It’s wrong. It’s not like you.” The next words jerked out before she could stop them. “It’s like your father.”
He smiled sadly to himself and shook his head as if in pity. She had gone too far to stop. She was carried on by a kind of ecstasy at hearing herself speak up. “Promise me. Dido, promise me.”
Numbed once more into silence she waited for his anger. All he did was to sit there, elbows on the table, brooding. He said at last, “Got to live.”
Freed and eager again at the evidence that he had at least listened, she said, “You’ve always worked. I don’t know what’s been happening all these months. It’s not like you. I want you to stop. There’s nothing to fear. That man’s away.”
“He’ll come back.”
“You can be gone by then.” She heard her own words with astonishment. Then happiness filled her. She saw herself as the mother sacrificing all. “You can find a nice place and move. He’ll never know where you are.”
His lower lip fell in bewilderment. “Move? Away from here?”
There was no limit to what she could say. It was really ecstasy now. “Why don’t you listen to your wife? She knows. It’s not right for you and her to stay here. You should move somewhere nice. Make something of yourself.”
His frown narrowed as he tried to take it in. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’m all right. I’ve got the boys. I’ve got the business.”
“He might take it out on you.”
“On an old woman? Don’t be silly.”
“Suppose he did?”
He was arguing — he was taking her seriously. She was incredulous that she could stand up to her son and be listened to. “You’ve got a wife and a child to think of. You must think of them first. Your child, Dido.”
“I can’t leave you like that.”
“Then take us later. Help us too. When you’re settled you can look round for a little premises and a couple of rooms, that’s all we want. But you move first. Before that man comes back.” There was no difficulty in finding the words now. “If it’s me you’re thinking of, then do what I’m asking. I can’t stand it any more, the disgrace. Taking money from people. You were never like that before. You must go away.”
He leaned his head in his hand and seemed to forget her for moments. He said, “It’ll take time.”
Near to crying with happiness, she said, “You’ve got four months.”
“Don’t think I’ll get my ol’ job back. That’s filled long since.”
“You’ll get another. There must be plenty of places for a smart man.”
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He sat back and looked at her. “I don’t want her told.”
“Grace? Why not?”
“Not till I’ve got a decent place. I kep’ tally at the wharf. I ought to get a managin’ job somewhere. Wait till I got a place, then I’ll tell her.”
“Oh,” she understood, she understood her proud son. “Of course.”
He said suddenly, “Do you two ’it it off?”
“Grace and me? The idea, of course we do.”
“I wondered sometimes,” he said. “Treat the girl nice, mother. Give her a chance.”
“Oh,” she cried in her ecstasy. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be good to her. Dido — you do promise? You’re not going to take any more money?”
It was his turn to say, “Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Chapter Eighteen
Chas came home from work in good spirits and determined to have it out with Dido. He washed and changed into his good clothes before he sat down to supper; and when Dido, who had already eaten, cocked an interrogative eye at his appearance, he said, “Goin’ out after. Come with? Buy you a drink.”
Dido said, “Don’t know about a drink. Could do with a walk.”
Impatience made Chas eat sparingly and quickly. They set out and walked in a silence broken only by a few commonplaces, till they came to a churchyard. Dido liked to come here on a fine evening and often sat alone for an hour. They went in through the gate and Chas said, “Sit down if you like.”
Dido threw him a quick, amused glance. “Want something eh?”
They sat down. Dido said, “Well?”
Chas said, “I earn good money.”
“Twenty-one bob. What about it?”
“It’s good money for my age. I give it all to ma, nearly.”
“Get your pocket-money.”
“’Alf a crown a week. Not much for a feller my age.”
“You’re all found. You got the price of a pint an’ a packet o’ Woods. You never go out. What more do you want?”
“That’s the trouble.”
“What is?”
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