“In a way, perhaps he had.”
“In what way?”
Kay seemed undecided whether to go on or not. Petrella said, “Come on, Charlie. Let’s have it. You can’t leave it like that.”
“All right. Here it is. You know that young Lee Morrissey was on the phone here for this operation?”
“Yes. He told me.”
“And did you know that she was Lampier’s girlfriend?”
Petrella stared at him. A cold wave of possibilities rendered him speechless.
“When I say girlfriend, well, you know what young people are these days. At one time they’d been close. Very close. After he ran into that bit of trouble it seems to have cooled off. But they were still meeting from time to time. Behind Dad’s back, no doubt.”
“Are you telling me,” said Petrella, speaking as though the words choked him, “that Morrissey’s own daughter gave the game away to Lampier and that he passed it on—”
“Hold your horses,” said Kay. “It needn’t have been as bad as you’re thinking. Suppose one evening Lampier says to Lee, ‘I’ve got two tickets for a show.’ Something like that. Or maybe suggests they went out dancing. Lee says, ‘Can’t manage tonight. I’m on the phone, seven to ten. In fact, I’m on most evenings. Special job.’ Lampier knows she’s working at the Yard, doing odd jobs for her father. He wonders what this seven to ten lark is all about. Hurries round to report it to the Boys – part of his effort to prove himself useful after his spell inside, no doubt. The Boys think there may be something in it, so they have all their stringers watched. They notice that Flower is on the blower most evenings between seven and ten, from a different call box each time. Quite enough to set their nasty little minds working.”
Petrella had heard him out in silence. He said, “Have you explained your ideas to Morrissey?”
“I haven’t, because I thought that if I raised the subject at all he’d blow his top. He isn’t very easy to work with these days.”
“If he’s thinking what I think he’s thinking,” said Petrella, “you can’t blame him really, can you?”
That same afternoon Poston-Pirrie was summoned to the office of the Sentinel’s news editor, a sardonic Scotsman. He had the pages of PP’s latest contribution spread on his desk. Looking at them upside down he saw that they were liberally slashed with the green ink which was the news editor’s speciality. ‘Green for Danger’ as one of his predecessors had put it before leaving the Sentinel and starting to write scurrilous novels about Fleet Street.
“It won’t do,” said the news editor. “I’m sorry, but really it won’t. I mean, it’s well written and all that sort of thing, but this is a newspaper. What its readers want is news.”
“Topical stuff, surely,” murmured Poston-Pirrie.
“That’s my point. Is it really topical? Is it new? Ever since the Policy Studies people did that thing—you remember?—Police and People in London, and that was nearly ten years ago – people have known about the police slanging West Indians and subjecting them to unnecessary stops and checks – the last volume was full of it.”
If Poston-Pirrie had been the sort of man who was easily embarrassed, he might have blushed since a substantial amount of his latest piece had been taken, almost verbatim, out of that useful volume. Instead of blushing he decided to attack.
He said, “I went down there, none too willingly, when your last man was scared out by the police. So what did you expect me to do? Write a piece saying they were all angels with harps and wings?”
The news editor softened his approach. Poston-Pirrie was, after all, a well-known name and it had been a feather in their cap to get hold of him. He said, “There are two lines you might hunt. To start with, we’d like to find out more about this new Superintendent Petrella. Odd name, odd man. Seems his father was a top Spanish cop, with a European reputation. His mother was an English lady. And I mean lady. He’s come up from the ranks and come up pretty fast. If he’s starting to throw his weight around, we could do a story on that, running it along with our views on this bullying sergeant of his.”
“Dod Stark? Now he is a tough customer.”
“When you put it like that you seem to be suggesting that Petrella isn’t a tough customer. Our records department has turned up one or two things that might change your mind. For instance, when he was in Q Division he nailed the younger brother of a very unpleasant character called Augie the Pole. Augie badly wanted his kid brother out, so he lifted Petrella’s six-year-old son and told him that unless he played ball he’d get his son back without his skin.”
“For God’s sake—”
“So Petrella went after Augie. The next bit’s a trifle obscure, but our medical editor managed to get a sight of the pathologist’s report on Augie.”
“Then Petrella killed him?”
“No. Actually he was killed by two Irishmen, who were after his blood that same night. They opened up at short range with two shotguns. But the point is that immediately before this happened Petrella had taken Augie away, to somewhere quiet, and persuaded him to tell him where he’d put the kid.”
“Persuaded him?”
“The pathologist’s report mentioned extensive cutting and burning which might, of course, have been part of the shot-gun damage. Or might have been Petrella’s Spanish side coming out. I’m telling you this so you won’t imagine you’re dealing with a boy scout.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said Poston-Pirrie thoughtfully. “You had another suggestion?”
“Go after the youngsters. Children are always news.”
Petrella meanwhile was pursuing a line of enquiry he had decided on some days before. He declined Gwilliam’s offer of the station runabout. He said, “I’ll go on foot. Get my legs out from under this desk.”
“Please yourself,” said Gwilliam. “It’s not my idea of walking weather.”
Although it was not yet nine o’clock the heat was already building up. Relief only came when the evening breeze began to blow up river. Until then the stew-pot of East London simmered around boiling point.
He made his way south, down Harford Street, passing the headquarters of C Division (Sheep’s Arse! Really!) down White Horse Road, across Commercial Road and into Cable Street. Here the church of St Barnabas looked down on the river; no product this of Hawksmoor or Wren, but a modern building, in square white blocks, with its rectory alongside.
He had seen, as he went past, that there had been a service that morning; an unusual feature on a weekday in a church in this area, which suggested that Father Freeling was an enthusiastic and successful evangelist. He found him finishing his breakfast.
“Have a cup of coffee, Superintendent. It is Superintendent Petrella, isn’t it? I thought as much. Only instant coffee, I fear, but drinkable.”
“I’m not a coffee snob,” said Petrella. “I’d love a cup.”
The rector bellowed, “Martha,” and a wizened old woman with a hook nose appeared. She was carrying a broom in one hand. Petrella wondered if she had just alighted from it. She was clearly deafish, but able to understand, or lip-read, the rector. She deposited her broomstick in one corner and disappeared.
“Stabling her horse,” murmured Petrella.
The rector laughed. He said, “Not much more than a hundred years ago old women round here were credited with all sorts of powers. It’s a very primitive part of London.”
“Full of primitive people.”
“Certainly. That’s its attraction. My first job was in Putney. Respectable folk. First-class citizens. But goodness, how dull! Different here. Lots to do.”
“Our community officer tells me that you run a club for the youngsters.”
The light of enthusiasm kindled in Father Freeling’s eye. “The Athletic Club,” he said. “I didn’t found it, but I run it and get a lot of pleasure out of it. Boys are the same anywhere, you know. White, brown, black or yellow. Equal proportions of saintliness and devilry.”
“It seems you manage to keep th
em happy.”
“A lot of the time, yes. It’s mostly darts and table-tennis. And swimming in the summer and football matches, when we can arrange them.”
“Easy enough with the good kids. Do you have any trouble with the lunatic fringe?”
“The real bad lads.” The rector smiled. “When I first came, yes. Not now. I was lucky. They had an all-comers boxing night at the local stadium. It started with some sparring exhibitions. After that, they threw it open to the audience. You know the sort of thing: ‘Is any gentleman prepared to oblige us and see if he can stay on his feet for one round?’ I was waiting for that. I’d boxed for Cambridge and I’d come along in my lightweight boxing boots, so all I had to do was take off my coat and roll up my sleeves. My opponent was a professional. Much too clever for me to put down, but I landed one or two good punches and at the end of a brisk two minutes I believe he was more uncomfortable than I was.”
“The perfect way of making friends and influencing people,” agreed Petrella.
At this moment the coffee arrived. When the old crone had hobbled off, Petrella said, “Tell me about the trips you organise for the boys. If you go to places like Rome and Paris they must cost money. I don’t suppose the boys’ families can foot the bill.”
“I don’t ask them to.” Father Freeling went across to his desk and took out a folder. It was a glossy production with a three-colour picture of the Cnidian Venus on the front. It was entitled Educating Our Children for a Better Life.
“You can skip the verbiage,” said the rector. “It’s the list on the back I wanted you to see. They are our patrons. Keep it. I’ve got plenty of copies.”
It was an impressive list. Petrella recognised, among others, the names of the vice-chairman of an oil company and the head of a nationally-known hotel chain. There were accountants and solicitors, whose names had been in the papers in connection with the unending guerilla of take-overs which had enlivened the City in the past few years; a merchant banker, George Granlund of Granlund Brothers and Ray Glenister of Angus, Hardy and Glenister who had held the English ring in the computer fight against the Japanese.
“With backers like these,” he said, “you must be able to lead some interesting expeditions.”
“I have, in the past,” said the rector unhappily. “But I’m far from sure that I shall be able to continue them.”
“Oh? Any particular snag?”
“Last time, I couldn’t go myself. So I sent the party off in charge of two ladies from our Dorcas Society. Don’t misunderstand me. Excellent people in every way. But this particular party got out of hand. Some of the boys went off one evening and didn’t get back until the early hours. Four o’clock in the morning. And they wouldn’t say what they’d been up to.”
“Where was this?”
“Amsterdam. A pity. As a cultural centre it’s got a lot going for it.” The mention of Amsterdam touched off a spark of memory. Petrella tried to fix it, but, for the moment, it eluded him.
“If I could go myself,” said the rector, “I’d do it. I went there once, as a boy, and I remember the Rijksmuseum – not only its paintings, but its wonderful collection of model ships, which pleased me even more than the pictures. The trouble is that as my congregation here increases – which, I’m glad to say, it is doing quite fast – I’m finding it more and more difficult to get the time off. What I really need is a strong-minded, strong-armed escort who’d guarantee to keep the boys in line.”
“Someone like Sergeant Stark?”
“Yes,” said the rector with a smile, “the sergeant’s reputation has reached my ears. But I fear he’s even busier than I am.”
That evening Poston-Pirrie, in search of the sort of copy his editor had wanted, set out to look for the Athletic Club. The telephone directory gave its address as Commercial Road, a lengthy thoroughfare which stretches from Aldgate Pump to Limehouse Broadway. He planned to strike it at its mid-point and with this in mind left the tube train at Aldgate East and set off towards Commercial Road, confident that he must hit it somewhere.
By the time he reached White Horse Road he was beginning to wonder if he had overshot the mark. He was also extremely warm and the doors of the White Horse public house looked inviting. He decided to deal with his thirst and to ask for directions.
The saloon bar, which opened onto the road, was empty and there was no one behind the counter, but he could hear laughter and voices from an inner room which he took to be some sort of private bar. He opened the door and went in.
If he had realised that this particular room, although theoretically open to the public, had become, through long usage, a sort of private club for HC Division, whose station was a few yards away, up Harford Street, he might have hesitated. Not knowing it, he advanced confidently to the bar and demanded a pint of ginger-beer shandy.
The landlord served the drink, but said, as he pushed it across the counter, “I think, sir, you’d be more comfortable in the other room.”
Poston-Pirrie, who had lowered half the pint in one grateful gulp, said, “I’m quite comfortable here, thank you. And anyway, I wasn’t planning to stop. All I wanted to do was to ask the way to a place called the Athletic Club.”
The men who were in the room had stopped talking and before the landlord could say anything one of them, a large character with a white face and brownish-red hair clipped short, said, in a surprisingly gentle voice, “Aren’t you a bit old for juvenile athletics?”
This produced a rumble of laughter.
Poston-Pirrie, realising that the atmosphere was unfriendly, reacted by saying stiffly, “It was not my intention to join in the activities of the club. It is simply that I was interested in the boys.”
“Interested in boys, eh?” said the large man. “Well, that’s a frank admission, wouldn’t you say, Lofty?” This was to the tall thin character standing beside him.
“Practically a statement of intention,” said Lofty. “In my experience men who are interested in boys keep quiet about it.”
“And hope the boys will keep quiet, too,” said a third man.
Poston-Pirrie was beginning to lose his temper. He said to the big man, “You wouldn’t be Sergeant Stark by any chance?”
“Your fame has gone ahead of you,” said Lofty. “Next thing, he’ll be asking you for your autograph.”
“And the rest of you? All policemen, I suppose. Or, in the vulgar language of the neighbourhood, pigs.”
“That’s right,” said Stark, unruffled. “You’ve fallen among a herd of swine.”
“I see. Then you may be interested to know that what I’m looking for is information. Information about how you treat the youngsters – particularly the coloured boys – in this neck of the woods.”
“Are we to take it, then, that you’re a reporter?”
“A newspaper man.”
“We had one of them here before. But he got the impression that he wasn’t popular. Right, Lofty?”
“He seemed to get that impression somehow. A sensitive sort of man, I should have said.”
“I see,” said Poston-Pirrie. “I suppose that means that being six to one you were bold enough to threaten him.”
“No threats were offered,” said Stark. “Someone might have pointed out that the river could be dangerous. Particularly on a dark night. Muddy verges, slippery steps. That sort of thing.”
“Being sensitive, you see,” said Lofty, “he might have taken it in the wrong way.”
“That’s how bullies always talk,” said Poston-Pirrie. Temper and discretion had gone together. “I hope the time is coming when you’ll be shown up for what you are.”
“Why not?” said Stark. “Let’s have all the cards on the table. You say what you think of us. We say what we think of you. Right?”
There was a growl of agreement. What had started as banter was developing into something more dangerous.
“Gentlemen,” said the landlord. “Really, now—”
No one took any notice of him. Stark
said, “Tell us. What do you really come down here for? To make a bit of easy money by rubbishing the police, who are trying, as best they can, to keep you and your sort safe? What would you do if we all marched out and took cushy jobs on a building site?”
“Or cleaning out the sewers,” said Lofty. “It’d be a nice change to dispose of the shit instead of having it chucked at us.”
Stark brushed this aside. The full force of his personality was concentrated on the newspaper man. He said, “It’s not such a wild idea, either. Less than two hundred years ago there were no police. Most men carried weapons and looked after their own skins. Would you like to go back to that?”
“I don’t think—”
“Of course you don’t think. Your sort never think. They just spit and run away.”
By this time Poston-Pirrie was at the door, which the landlord was urgently holding open. He said, “What I was going to say when you interrupted me, was that no one in their senses attacks the police as a body. But they reserve the right to point out the occasional people who defame it by their actions. Men who have got so little control of themselves that they’ll shoot an unarmed and innocent man.”
By this time the landlord had managed to get him out of the room and the door shut. Poston-Pirrie realised that he wasn’t only upset. He was frightened.
“You shouldn’t have said that, sir. That thing that happened in Ireland. The sergeant doesn’t like being reminded of it.”
“So what?” said Poston-Pirrie. He was in the street by now. “I’m not afraid of that big ape. If he doesn’t like what I say, he must lump it.”
He was annoyed to find that he was shaking. Partly it was anger, but there was a small, uncomfortable deposit of fear in it. He became aware that a policeman in uniform was coming up the road towards him.
“Is there something I can do for you, sir?”
“No,” said Poston-Pirrie. “I’m quite all right – I mean, yes. There is something. You could tell me how to find the Athletic Club.”
“Go on to the end of the road and turn left. It’s a few hundred yards along, on the left.”
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