Trouble

by Michael Gilbert

  Sandra turned up her nose, as far as a small nose can be turned up and said, “I don’t want to pry into your precious secrets.”

  “Liar.”

  Sandra grinned at him in the way that had turned his heart over five years before and said, “All right. I’m a liar. Naturally I want to know all about it. But I’m not going to plague you to tell me.”

  “I only wish Brace was as reasonable as you are,” said Anthony gloomily. “I’m in his bad books all right. And it’s a nuisance, because it makes my job just that bit harder. I don’t want to fight with him. As a matter of fact I think he’s got a lot on his plate right now. The Special Branch have been ferreting round in his manor and there’s nothing he can do about it. Orders from higher up.”

  “You talk about ferreting. What do you mean? Who are they? What are they doing?”

  “According to Monty, who met them down at Scotland Dock, they’re a couple of real toughs. More like villains than most villains he’d met, Monty said. They’ve been hanging round the riverside pubs, chatting people up, and pretty free with their drinks. They seem to be interested in firms that use or operate wharfs.”

  “Wharfs, not docks?”

  “That’s right. It’s wharfage firms they’re interested in. Brace is getting very edgy. He’s beginning to wonder what it’s all about. And if it’s something serious, oughtn’t he to know?”

  “That’s his bed of nails,” said Sandra. She didn’t like Chief Superintendent Brace. “It needn’t worry you. It’s nothing to do with the boys. The chances are, now they’ve been bound over, they’ll behave themselves.”

  “I’m not sure. Remember, it’s only the two leaders who’ve been bound over. If they keep clear of mischief themselves there’s nothing to stop the others stirring things up.”

  Sandra sighed. She said, “For goodness sake, why should anyone want to stir things up? It doesn’t get them anywhere. Me, I’m for a quiet life.”

  At about this time the Kahn boys and their friends were considering the same problems from a different angle. Javed Rahman said, “I heard something yesterday which you will find amusing, perhaps.”

  “Then let us laugh at it, Jay,” said Salim.

  “Ted Drummer has been taking lessons in boxing.”

  This was received in thoughtful silence.

  “Where?” said Salim.

  “And why?” added Rahim.

  “Why he is doing it is obvious,” said Sher. “He hopes, if he can continue the lessons for several years, that he might have some chance of being able to stand up to Salim in fair fight, for a few seconds, without getting his head knocked off.”

  The words ‘fair fight’ seemed to register with Salim. He said, thoughtfully, “Where is he getting these lessons?”

  “At Tubby Pinnock’s gym. Where you used to go in the old days.”

  At the age of sixteen Salim had been a very promising boxer, a prospect for the professional ring. He had only given it up when his father had objected, with some reason, to the company it was forcing him to keep. He said, “Isn’t your father a friend of Pinnock’s, Sher?”

  “If you mean that he owes my father a good deal of money and finds it difficult to pay him, yes, that has made him very friendly indeed.”

  The others laughed, but Salim seemed to be pursuing a private train of thought. He said, “That would have been the work your father did for him when he was building the annexe to the gym. The one with the smaller ring in it.”

  “I expect so. I think there was some other work as well. It’s quite a lot of money. Nearly a thousand pounds. He keeps promising to pay. He says, when his ship comes home.”

  “Then that means if your father asked him a special favour, he’d be likely to say yes.”

  “I should think so. What have you in your mind?”

  Salim explained what he had in mind. The others listened attentively. They knew that they were treading on dangerous ground and would have to move very carefully.

  “Ted goes in the evenings,” said Javed. “Perhaps he is a little bashful about the progress he is making.”

  “Then one of us must be on watch, to pick the right moment. And the others must be near a telephone, so that he can get hold of them.”

  What Javed had said was quite true. It had needed a great deal of resolution on Ted Drummer’s part to present himself at the Pinnock gym. He had done so because he had realised the unpalatable truth. The Pakistani boy was a better fighter than he was. Not just better; much better. It had been the chance of the slip that had put them rolling on the ground and enabled him to mask his inferiority. This was galling. He had been brought up in the creed that white men were superior to coloured men, black, brown or yellow. Not only cleverer, but braver and more skilful. He knew that Salim had, at one time, taken lessons in boxing at that gym. All right. This had given him a temporary advantage. So, what he had to do was have a few lessons himself and the advantage would be cancelled. Then his natural superiority as a white boy would assert itself. Incidentally he also realised that he had taken very little exercise since he had left school and that standing about all day behind the counter of a shop was a poor way of keeping fit.

  On the first occasion, he had gone to the gym in the afternoon. Two young professionals had been sparring in the small ring in the annexe. In the main gym half a dozen youths were exercising silently; throwing the heavy medicine ball to each other, skipping and assaulting one of the punch bags which hung from the girders.

  Ted had changed, rather self-consciously, into his old school gym kit, had been equipped with a pair of large padded practice gloves and set to hitting a bouncing punch ball. On that occasion he had done no boxing.

  On other occasions he had come later, when the gym was emptier, and had a few simple lessons in the art of self-defence. Pinnock, who could see that he was never going to be much use, had dealt kindly with him.

  On this particular evening he was later than usual and the only other person there was a three-quarter-witted youth, known to all as ‘Bim’, who helped around the place and cleaned up when the customers had gone. Ted hurried into the changing-room and got into his gym kit.

  When he came out, the five Pakistani boys were sitting on the bench by the door.

  Pinnock said, “I’m told as how you’d ‘ad a difference of opinion with one of these boys. The best way of settling something like that is in the ring. Yes?”

  Ted saw that Salim was taking off the raincoat he had arrived in. Under it he was wearing boxing kit which looked a lot more professional than his own. He realised, with a cold feeling, that he was in a trap and that there was no easy way out of it.

  “Orright?” said Pinnock.

  “Oh, all right, yes.”

  “Then suppose you get weaving. And if anyone comes in, Bim, you tell ’em it’s a private match and they can wait till it’s over. See.”

  Bim said, “OK.” He said it unhappily. He would have liked to have seen it.

  They moved into the annexe. Pinnock had two pairs of gloves laid out. Ted noticed that they were thinner and felt much harder than the practice gloves he had used before.

  Could he refuse? Could he simply walk out? They could hardly keep him there by force. The idea had only to be thought of to be rejected. It would have been an impossible lowering of the standards he had been brought up to believe in. Better a one-sided fight, than to creep away with his tail between his legs.

  Three minutes later he was wishing he had quit and run. He had never been hurt so much in his life. Salim, who could hit him wherever he liked, had started on his body; heavy punches which landed on his chest and his arms; none of them heavy enough to give him an excuse for falling down, but all of them painful.

  When Salim saw that one of the blows he had landed on the muscles of Ted’s arm had hurt him badly, he concentrated on this spot measuring out repeated punishment. In desperation, Ted swung round, presenting his right shoulder and leaving his body open. Salim, instead of hitting him in the bo
dy, as he could have done, concentrated on his right arm. After a minute of this treatment Ted was so weakened that he could hardly keep his hands up. Salim backed him into the corner of the ring and having pinned him there turned his attention to his face.

  To start with, they were flicks with the half open glove more than actual blows. One of them made Ted’s nose bleed. He could feel the blood running into his mouth and down his chin. When he put one hand up to wipe it away on the back of the glove Salim hit him, hard and deliberately, first in one eye, then in the other. Half blinded, he went down on his knees and stayed there.

  “You will now admit, perhaps,” said Salim, who seemed scarcely to be out of breath, “that I am a better fighter than you.”

  Ted said nothing.

  “Then perhaps you would prefer to continue the contest?”

  Ted kept his mouth wedged. He was not going to crawl to a foreigner.

  “That’s right,” said Salim. “That’s good. The stiff upper lip of the Sahib. We appreciate that. Let us go.”

  The five boys filed out. None of the others had spoken. They had not even laughed. They were a jury. They had found him guilty. Guilty of being a poor fighter. That was all.

  Bim helped him to his feet. He said, “Cor, I wish I could’ve seen that. He’s useful that Kahn boy. Better clean you up a bit, hadn’t we?”

  “You look after him, Bim,” said Pinnock. “We’re locking up now. No more for this evening.” He didn’t sound entirely comfortable about what had happened.

  By the time Ted got home his nose had stopped bleeding and the only visible damage was his eyes, but he was sore and aching all over; desperately sore in body and in mind, a soreness which was not improved by his father who soon got out of him what had happened.

  “The bastards,” he said, “the cunning low-down bloody brown shits. They’ve fixed us, don’t you see?”

  “I don’t see anything,” said Ted and this was almost literally true. Both eyes were beginning to swell up.

  “They’ve fixed us properly. If they’d set on you in the street we could have thrown the book at them. Assault, public disturbance, the lot. Can’t do that now. If we tried to bring the thing to court, guess what the beak’d say: good boys. That’s the way to settle your differences. In the good old British manner, with gloves on, in the ring. The Kahn boy’d get a pat on the back. Example to youth.”

  “All right,” said Ted. He was tired of his father. “It was clever. No need to go on saying it.”

  “It’s not what I’m saying. The question is, what you’re going to say when people see your face.”

  “Tell ’em I ran into a lamp post,” said Ted and went out, slamming the door behind him.

  “It’s difficult to find out exactly what happened,” said Anthony to Mr. Norrie. “But Ted Drummer is going about looking as if he exchanged his eyes for blacked-out headlights.”

  “What does he say about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Has he complained?”

  “No.”

  “What about his father?”

  “I managed to have a word with him. It’s fairly obvious that he knows what happened and that it’s something to do with the Kahn boys. And that he’s absolutely livid about it.”

  “Then why haven’t we had an official complaint?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out,” said Anthony patiently.

  Mr. Norrie considered the matter, turning over the papers on his desk without looking at them. He said, “I can smell trouble. If the Kahns ambushed Ted and beat him up and Ted has decided to take the law into his own hands, we’re going to have exactly the sort of trouble we were trying to avoid.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Anthony.

  “I’m not blaming you. You’re not a nurse-maid. You can’t keep a twenty-four-hour watch on those two gangs of hooligans. It’s just that it’s a bad moment. Brace has been telling me about those two louts from Special Branch who are poking their noses into things up and down the south bank of the river. He’s had one complaint from Lethbridge, the big paint manufacturer, who owns Ponds Wharf. And another from Croft at the Albion Wharf – that’s the sugar people. Both highly respectable firms. They want to know what the police are playing at and if they’ve got any questions to ask, why don’t they send an officer to see them? The PLA police are getting edgy, too. They say that crime in the Port of London is their pigeon. And in the normal way of course they’re right. They don’t see any reason for Special Branch men – if these prize characters really are Special Branch – to be sneaking round behind their backs questioning crane-men and wharfingers.”

  “What does Brace say?”

  “All he can say is that it’s orders from higher up. Which doesn’t please them at all. Lethbridge said, ‘All right. If that’s all you can tell me, I’ll go higher up myself and see if I can find out the truth.’ He’ll do it, too. He’s got some political pull.”

  “And that,” said Anthony to Sandra that evening, “is just one more ingredient in what looks like a first-class mess.”

  “If they’re clever,” said Ted, “there’s no reason we shouldn’t be just as clever ourselves.”

  He had given his allies a modified account of what had happened. In his version it had been a sudden assault, more than a planned fight. Five to one, as he put it, and if he had succeeded in getting the better of Salim, no doubt the others would have carried on the good work.

  “Wish I’d been there,” said Len-the-Lump, flexing his considerable muscles. “I’d have given them something to take home.”

  “So what’s the plan?” said Andy Connors.

  “It’d better be good,” said Norman Younger. “I mean – I’ll join in anything you say, only I’ve been promised a first team place next Saturday, so I wouldn’t want to be in any bad trouble.”

  “There’ll be no trouble,” said Ted. “We’re planning this as a military operation. First thing we’ve got to know is whether the police visit the garage at night. Our own shop has an arrangement with the man on the beat. He looks in at midnight and four a.m. If there’s anything like that we could still do it, but it would need very accurate timing.”

  The others were looking worried. Even Robin, who normally supported his brother, said, “Risky, innit?”

  “Certainly it could be risky, but we’re not going to take any risks. That’s why we’re giving it a dry run. We’ll watch the place from midnight till five. That gives us an hour each. Any objections?”

  “Yes,” said Len. “If the old Bill do come along and find you hanging about in the street they’ll run you in on suss. Loitering with intent is what they call it.”

  “No one’s going to hang about in the street. Hand us down that map, Boy. The only way into the yard is on the north, from the Blaydon Road side. What we’ve got to do is get into the sports ground and lie up along the hedge – there—” He marked the map with a chinagraph pencil. “Norm, you’ve got furthest to come. You’d better take first watch. Then Andy. Boy and I can get out together. We’ll do 02-00 to 04-00. Len, 04-00 to 05-00. OK?”

  The war staff considered the plan. There were one or two administrative details to be fixed, but in general the idea seemed to be tactically sound.

  “Then, if we find there is no police inspection, we go in two nights later. Meet at the same place in the sports ground at 01-00 hours. We don’t want axes and hammers. Too noisy. Wrenches and levers should do the job. And wear your oldest sneakers.”

  “And gloves,” said Norman. “Don’t want to leave fingerprints all over the place.”

  The telephone pulled Azam Kahn out of his bed at three o’clock in the morning. It was the police.

  “Better come down at once, sir.”

  “There is some trouble then?”

  “There’s a fire. At your garage. No panic, it’s nearly out.”

  Azam was there inside five minutes. He ran all the way from his house, down Blaydon Road, and arrived out of breath and deeply worried. He had a
lot of inflammable stuff in his garage and workshop.

  There were two police cars, a fire engine and tender and a thin sprinkling of spectators. Azam was relieved to find that the fire seemed to be confined to the shanty which his sons had built at the far end of the yard. This was a blackened, damp, smoking ruin.

  “Can’t be certain till we go through it properly,” said the police sergeant. “Can you tell us what was in the shed?”

  “A few sticks of furniture. My sons and their friends used it as a meeting place.”

  “It looks as if the people who got in broke up the furniture, made a sort of bonfire out of it, and set it on fire. Must have done it quietly, too.”

  “That’s right,” said one of the spectators. Azam recognised him as the owner of the newspaper shop which fronted on the garage on the Plumstead High Street side. “Never heard a sound. It was the fire which woke me up. I had the brigade here quick. Didn’t want it to spread.”

  “Quite right, Mr. Foulkes,” said Azam. “You did quite right.”

  “If it had spread to the garage,” said the fire brigade officer, “we’d have had a real blaze to deal with.” He sounded faintly disappointed.

  “Nothing much more to do now,” said the police sergeant. “We’ll be round in the morning to make a proper examination. I suppose you’ve got no idea who might have done a thing like this?”

  “None at all,” said Azam firmly.

  He said the same thing to his two sons who came down to examine the damage.

  “We don’t want this blown up,” he said. “Let the newspapers get hold of it and you don’t know where it’ll stop.”

  Salim looked thoughtfully at the heap of charred wood. A few thin wisps of smoke were coming out of it and coiling up into the November air.

  Azam said, “It wouldn’t cost a lot to build you another one. And a better one. I’d do that for you.”

  “I’ll have a word with the others,” said Salim. “I think, perhaps, we’ll move our headquarters. We’re too exposed here.”

  The council of war was held in the front room of Salim’s house that evening. Much to her surprise Shazada was invited to attend. Normally she was excluded from their deliberations.