‘Blimey!’ Tommy recovered an upright stance, his confidence intact.
The occasion had begun to go with a swing and, by the end of the morning, Dolly was congratulating Annie on a good show. ‘Just like the old Coronation days,’ she said. ‘And we need a good get-together since they closed you down, Duke.’ She nudged his arm. ‘We miss our Saturday night sing-songs, don’t we, Arthur? The Lamb and Flag, it ain’t a patch on the Duke.’
‘The Prince of Wales,’ Annie corrected her with a pinched look. ‘You could always try there when they open up them brand-new doors.’
‘Ha!’ Dolly countered. ‘Over my dead body, Annie. Over my dead body.’
At Annie’s insistence, the police had begun a desultory investigation into the circumstances behind Wiggin’s death. A few days before the funeral, they’d come down the court, a fresh young constable and the cynical desk sergeant from Union Street. They intended to poke around in Wiggin’s old room and to speak to the other inhabitants of Eden House.
‘Who cleaned up the mess?’ the sergeant asked Bertie Hill, who let them into the room with his key. It was bare except for the bed, the trunk and a hessian sack full of what seemed like rubbish; paper, broken bottles, stale food.
Hill shrugged. He didn’t like having police oh the property, or having his time wasted. But he knew, as an ex-copper himself, that they had a job to do. ‘Maybe it was Annie, the old girl what kept an eye on him.’ He thought a bit longer. ‘No, come to think, it was Rob Parsons from the Duke-that-was. The pub on the corner.’ He explained to the two policemen the tangled connection between Wiggin, Annie and Rob, taking trouble to point out the things the family would have against the old tramp.
‘And Rob Parsons cleared up the evidence?’ the sergeant repeated. He paced the room in his shiny boots and came to a standstill by the hearth. ‘Looks like he did a proper job.’ He looked at the faint stain under his feet and bent to-take a closer look.
The enthusiastic constable, whose short blond haircut and smooth face under a too-big helmet gave him the air of a scrubbed schoolboy, surmised that the stain was blood and that a fight must have taken place in the room. ‘Broken glass. Blood stains. It could’ve been the end of a broken bottle what finished him off. Looks like the job was done right here, then they lugged the guts up the Embankment and dropped it off the bridge.’
The sergeant ignored him and turned to Bertie Hill. ‘You say you didn’t hear nothing?’ He knew of the man’s reputation. Everyone in the force had heard how, a couple of years before, the whiff of scandal had pushed him back into Civvy Street before a proper investigation could get started. Two or three coppers in Hackney had been taking money from the protection gangs to steer clear of their patches. They’d been dropped in it by a notorious gang member called Gyp the Blood, whom police had hauled in on other, more serious charges. Hill, like his two colleagues, had made a sharp exit from the force.
‘Not a dicky bird.’ Hill knew the ropes. He didn’t want to get involved.
‘And when did you last set eyes on him alive?’ The sergeant sniffed and stared up at the ceiling.
‘I never saw him.’
‘Never? How did he pay his rent?’
‘He never. The old lady did. She did all his shopping and cooking. He never went out.’
The sergeant sniffed again, as if the smell was bad and it was emanating from Hill. ‘You never got on with him, then?’
‘I never had the chance. His rent was paid, that’s all.’ Hill stared steadily back.
‘Ain’t never had no visitors and such like, I don’t suppose?’
‘No.’
‘Just his old lady?’
‘His ex-old lady, like I was saying.’
‘And what about this Rob Parsons?’
Hill laughed scornfully. ‘No, he ain’t no angel of mercy coming to help a poor sinner. That’s more his sister, Hettie.’
‘So he weren’t fond of Wiggin neither?’ The sergeant got round to the only line of investigation on offer. After all, Parsons seemed to be the one who’d interfered with the room. If the old woman wanted an investigation, they’d give her one. He liked to inject a touch of irony into life.
Hill frowned, seeing an opportunity to lay it on thick. ‘He only said he’d like to do the old bloke in.’
The young constable looked downright eager. ‘How’s that?’ The sergeant turned down the corners of his mouth and poked at the bag of rubbish with his toe.
‘In the Duke. I heard Rob Parsons swear he’d cheerfully strangle Wiggin. Him and Tommy O’Hagan from upstairs, they was always on about it. They all think it was Wiggin turned in Rob’s old man, see. For serving after hours. The old man lost his licence over it.’
The two policemen considered this. They thanked Hill and set off up the court, noticing the renovations underway at the pub. That part of Hill’s account was true, at least. ‘No chance of a quick one in there,’ the sergeant commented about its locked doors and empty windows. ‘How about the Lamb and Flag?’
‘Ain’t we going to question this Robert Parsons?’ The keen young officer was disappointed.
The sergeant looked at him with a sigh. ‘Where’s the rush? I reckon Annie Whatsername will soon stop bleating about a proper investigation once she hears her stepson’s in the frame.’ He saw no point in putting much energy into the case; when it came to it, who could care less what had happened to the old tramp? He would go through the motions of an investigation, but that was all.
Sadie Parsons guessed rightly that Rob would take time off to go to Wiggin’s funeral. Hearing long-distance of all that was going on, usually through Hettie, she knew they’d all be gathered at Annie’s house for the morning of the eighth. So she applied for a half-day’s holiday through her supervisor, Turnbull, and though he frowned and prevaricated, she pleaded compassionate grounds over the funeral, and he was forced to agree. This lie was the first and least obstacle the day held for her, for she had no intention of attending the service to bury Wiggin.
‘Ain’t you going into work today?’ Richie asked from under the sheets. It was eight o’clock on the morning of the funeral.
Sadie was dressing in a V-neck dress without sleeves, part of the cream outfit which Jess and Hettie had made up for her that spring. ‘It’s Wiggin’s funeral, remember.’ She offered no further explanation.
‘You ain’t going to a funeral dressed like that.’ He sat up to light a cigarette.
‘Says who?’ She put on a small cloche hat and pulled it firmly down. ‘It ain’t nothing formal. Annie don’t want it that way.’ She smiled briefly. ‘How about you?’
He shrugged. ‘Ain’t no use going down the Labour Exchange and joining the queue again.’
‘Well, it’s too late for the docks.’
‘I know that.’ He inhaled deeply. ‘Ain’t no use going down there neither, not with these lay-offs building up.’
Sadie forced down a bubble of anxiety. ‘Never mind.’ She went to kiss him before she left. ‘Something will turn up.’ This morning she was keen not to upset him, so she hid what she wanted to ask; how were they to go on paying the rent, which had just gone up by five shillings a week, or make the place decent and buy food and clothes on her wage only? She knew Richie was trying hard to find work, but wishing and hoping didn’t pay the bills.
‘When will you be back?’ He made much of the kiss, reluctant to let her go.
‘Usual time. I’m going on to work after.’ She pulled away at last.
He released her and watched her head for the door. She was edgily bright, as if she was hiding something from him. He had an uneasy feeling that the funeral was not where she was headed.
Sadie walked herself into a calmer frame of mind. She timed it to arrive at Meredith Court as the mourners gathered in the next street. She expected to find Walter all alone in the taxi depot.
Her daring deviousness made her heart beat rapidly as she entered the yard. Both cars were parked, and she spotted Walter in his shirt-sleeves
, resting against one of the taxis. He was reading a newspaper. She hurried up to him with an awkward admission to make, and a request that would hurt her pride.
Walter looked up as he heard her quick footsteps. She caught him completely off guard. ‘Sadie!’
She laughed nervously. ‘I ain’t a ghost, Walter.’ She stood beside him, hands clasped, looking up from under her hat.
‘Rob’s at the funeral.’ He folded his paper, trying to collect his thoughts. In her cream dress she looked slim and girlish.
She nodded. ‘I came to see you. I got something to ask, but I’ve been trying it all ways, and I can’t get it right. The words, I mean.’
‘What is it?’ Her confusion shot down all his defences and made him take her by the arm to lead her into the office. He sat her down and took the phone off its hook. ‘Fire away,’ he invited, looking intently at her.
‘First off, is Rob still mad at me?’ she began awkwardly.
‘He don’t say.’ Walter knew better than to upset the applecart by prying into Rob’s private affairs.
‘Are you mad at me?’
He shook his head.
‘And are you still upset with Richie?’
‘Ah!’ He looked down at his desk and spoke softly. ‘Ain’t Richie got himself fixed up yet?’
Sadie sat opposite him, swallowing her pride, battling to keep both hands and voice steady. ‘He ain’t, Walter. Things ain’t easy.’
‘You want us to give Richie his old job back?’
She took a deep breath, pushed on to the offensive by a crowd of uncomfortable feelings. ‘He’s good at what he does, ain’t he? And it weren’t fair, what Rob did. I wish you’d talk him round for me.’
‘It ain’t that easy.’ Walter took a few seconds to dampen his own reactions and put them to one side. He tried to look at the problem with clear vision. ‘You know what Rob’s like as well as I do, Sadie.’
‘That’s what I’m doing, here with you now. Ain’t no way I can talk Rob round. But you might. You go over it again with him; tell him Richie didn’t do nothing wrong, asking me out. Tell him you ain’t bothered about me no more.’
‘That ain’t true,’ he said simply.
‘Only in the friendly way, then!’ Sadie grew desperate. ‘You see, Walter, Richie’s tried for work, and it’s a strain on him. I can’t bear to see him low. He needs this job!’
Walter put his head to one side, looking warily at her now. ‘Does he know you came here?’
She jumped. ‘No. It was my idea. He’s not to find out.’
Walter weighed this up. ‘That’s something, at any rate. Now, the way you see it is, I talk Rob round. I say, “Let’s get Richie Palmer back to work on the cars. We need him here.” Rob says yes. We go straight to Richie without mentioning your name in all this?’
Sadie nodded. ‘It’s asking a lot, I know. But you and me are good friends, ain’t we? We’ll always be that.’
Walter knew Sadie inside out: impetuous, kind, the petted youngest child. She sat there full of torn loyalties, battling with things she couldn’t control. ‘I’ll have a go,’ he promised.
Sadie grasped the edge of the desk. ‘Thanks, Walter. I knew you’d help.’ She stood up, relief flooding her dark eyes. ‘You’ll telephone me at work?’
‘If I get anywhere with Rob, yes. But not today. You gotta give me a couple of days. It ain’t likely I’ll get the chance to talk to him over the weekend. It’s our busy time.’
Sadie nodded and impulsively kissed him on the cheek. Then he watched her rush out across the cinder yard, a sense of loss rekindled in his heart. He put the phone back on its hook, smoothed his newspaper flat on the desk and walked slowly into the yard, where he leaned a forearm against the side of his cab and gave the tyre one hefty, heartfelt kick.
‘Temper!’ a voice said. It was the cropped constable, hot on Rob’s trail. He’d seen a young woman looking hot and bothered dash out of the gates. ‘A case of cherchez la femme,’ he smirked.
Walter stood up straight. ‘What’s that?’
The policeman strolled across. ‘Robert Parsons, is it?’ Confidence oozed from him. He stood, feet wide apart, hands behind his back.
‘He’s out,’ Walter said, wary now. ‘What’s it about?’
The policeman ignored his question. ‘You’re Walter Davidson, then? The partner.’ After the visit to the tenement earlier in the week, the sergeant had more or less dumped the Wiggin murder case in his young colleague’s lap. Diligently he set about gathering information on their one and only suspect. Parsons was part-owner of a small taxicab business down Meredith Court. There was a mixture of interesting things in his background. He was sent home wounded from the war with a chip on his shoulder. His brother was had up for murder, but got off. There was a strange coincidence, for a start. He’d been something of a boxer in his day, before the war, and was known for his hot temper.
Slowly Walter nodded. ‘Shall I tell Rob you came looking for him?’ He glanced over the constable’s shoulder. ‘No need. Here he comes now.’
Rob had left the funeral and cut along the back way, down a narrow alley running the length of the factory wall from Paradise to Meredith Court. So he came across the yard from an oblique angle and stopped suddenly in mid-stride. The sight of a copper talking to Walter gave him a start. But he soon came forward with a clear conscience. ‘There ain’t been an accident, I hope?’ he asked. He was feeling relaxed. The funeral had gone off better than expected.
‘No. I’m looking into the death of William Wiggins. I have to ask you a few questions, sir, if you don’t mind.’ The policeman drew himself up to full height.
‘Cor blimey!’ Rob threw down his cigarette butt, amused by the young copper’s punctiliousness.
‘This is a serious matter.’ The policeman recognized the attack on his fragile authority. He’d only been in uniform for six months. ‘I have to ask you to think back to where you was on the night of Wiggin’s death on the third of August.’ He sounded stiff and mechanical, even to himself.
‘How the bleeding hell should I know?’ Rob hadn’t been expecting this. As far as he was concerned, the policeman was taking a liberty.
Walter shot him a look.
There was a short pause, then the policeman cleared his throat. ‘That don’t sound too good, for a start.’
Rob took a step towards him. ‘What the hell’s it got to do with you where I was that night?’
‘I’d think about it if I was you, never mind why.’
But Rob saw only me absurdity of it all. ‘You ain’t saying I . . . I ain’t one of your suspects?’ He laughed at the idea.
‘Just answer the question. Where was you on the night of the murder?’
‘Not at home, for a start. Ask him.’ Rob nodded towards Walter. ‘I’m staying at his place: Go on, Walt, tell him I was out. All night! But it ain’t against the law, so far as I know.’
The policeman turned to the more respectable-looking partner. Reluctantly Walter had to agree.
‘Where then, exactly?’
‘I ain’t checked my diary, I can’t say.’ Rob’s face set into a sarcastic scowl. This was beginning not to be funny. He dug in his heels. In any case, the coppers twisted everything you told them.
‘But you must have some sort of alibi,’ the policeman objected.
‘Well, I ain’t. Sling me in the nick for it if you like.’
Walter walked across the yard to remonstrate with him. ‘Give the man an answer, Rob. Just tell him what he wants to hear and then we can get rid of him.’
‘Let him find it out,’ Rob scoffed. ‘Ain’t that what he’s paid for?’ He gave the stiff-looking officer a look loaded with scorn. ‘I ain’t saying a dicky bird!’ He went into the office and slammed the door.
Walter shook his head. The young constable gave in and went off up the court, tight-lipped. He’d been well and truly got at, but that wasn’t the end of the matter, as Rob Parsons would soon see.
Chapter Fifteen<
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Richie’s Friday was spent fruitlessly wandering the streets of Mile End in search of work. ‘No Vacancies’ was the word everywhere he went.
He trudged on in the August heat, hearing children wail from high in the tenement blocks, and the strains of blues musk issuing through coffee-house doorways in the insalubrious back streets. The slow, decadent notes captured his mood and drew him towards the windows. Inside, there would be women sitting round tables under a haze of cigarette smoke, their eyebrows arched, their lips painted blood-red.
Richie looked, but never entered. Everything cost money. Charlie Chaplin’s white face, with its bowler hat and black wedge of moustache, stared down from a billboard over the entrance to a picture-house. These days he couldn’t afford to take Sadie to see a film, even if he wanted to. He went home with empty pockets, and was already there, curtains drawn, stretching his legs out across a chair, when she came in from work.
‘Here I am, I’m back!’ She flung down her bag and whisked back the curtains’ to let in the sunlight. ‘Ain’t it hot? I couldn’t half do with a cup of tea.’ She waltzed round the room, picking up his jacket from the floor, lifting his legs and putting the chair back under the table. ‘But first off, what wouldn’t I give for a kiss!’ She perched on his knee, pecking at his cheeks with friendly little kisses.
‘Steady on.’ He almost overbalanced backwards in his chair, letting her tip off his knee, then pulling her upright, ‘What’s got into you all of a sudden?’
She laughed. ‘Nothing. The sunshine, that’s what. Ain’t it a beautiful day?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what? Oh, I’m sorry, Richie. Ain’t you had a good day?’ Excitement at what she’d dared to do on his behalf had made her ignore his slog to find work. She kissed him more softly, this time on the mouth.
He let her cuddle up. ‘How come?’ he asked.
‘How come what?’
‘How come you ain’t miserable? Ain’t funerals meant to make you cry?’ He stroked his broad rhumb against her smooth cheek, his hand cupped around the nape of her neck.
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