Blue Rondo

by John Lawton

  ‘But we did. And justice was done. And he hanged.’

  ‘So he did.’

  § 37

  When the phone rang three days later, in the middle of the morning, it was Paddy Milligan, divisional detective inspector at Stepney. Troy and Milligan had been friends for two or three years only, and he was the kind of man Troy felt it would be easy to lose touch with. ‘A bit of a loner’ was the way Paddy was often described, and despite the fact that it might easily have applied to Troy himself, he thought it an obstacle to the job Milligan did.

  ‘It’s been a while.’ Troy stated the obvious.

  ‘Been back home. Liverpool.’

  Milligan paused. Troy heard him breathe in as though embarking on a topic his instincts told him to avoid.

  ‘It’s my dad. He’s got the cancer in his lungs. Truth is, Freddie, I don’t think the old man’ll last long.’

  Troy and Milligan were about the same age. How old would the man’s father be?

  Milligan read his mind.

  ‘He’s sixty-nine. No great age.’

  ‘Cigarettes?’ Troy asked.

  ‘Mustard gas,’ said Milligan, and Troy felt utterly stupid that he had not seen at once that in giving him his father’s age he had fixed the old man as a Great War veteran.

  ‘It’s taken up a fair bit of my time, I can tell you. I’m all he’s got. I’ve used up all me holiday time, and a fair whack of compassionate. However, that’s not why I’m calling. There’s a young chap name of Robertson just coming through Hendon College, wants to work out of my nick. George says the two of you know him.’

  ‘Well, George has known him all his life. I wouldn’t be amazed if he’d been there with the midwife. I think we can both endorse the boy. He has good local knowledge, and he’s not just rushed into being a copper because of some childhood notion of glamour. We turned him down a few years back. He’s done his National Service and he still wants to be a copper. I call him a boy, he must be twenty-three or four. He’s had time to find his way first. I think that’s admirable.’

  ‘Suits me,’ said Milligan. ‘I’ll stamp his papers and get him down here. An extra bloke would be good right now.’

  ‘You mean you’ll still have to go back to Liverpool?’

  Another breathy pause. Milligan was not a man easy with his own emotions. ‘Were you there when your old man died, Freddie?’

  ‘I was, as a matter of fact. He had me and my brother read aloud to him in the last few days. I was there when he spoke his last words.’

  ‘Then I’ll say no more. I have to be there. If the job came first, if he died while I was down south, I’d never forgive meself.’

  § 38

  For ages now Troy had resisted running Foxx to earth. But if she wouldn’t talk to him on the telephone, what choice did he have? He’d walked across Soho, almost to Regent Street, across the bottom of Berwick Market, along Broadwick Street and zigzagged the west Soho maze into Kingly Street. ‘Street’ was an overstatement. It was a long alley. One car wide. Running parallel to Regent Street on one side and Carnaby Street on the other. Unlike its neighbours, it was dark and sunless, dwarfed by the backs of the department stores in Regent Street. It was rag trade without the rags, the tailors preferring the lighter shop fronts of Carnaby Street. When Foxx had come into a small fortune three years ago, Troy had been mildly surprised at her practicality. There had been no spree. She had bought a long lease on the shop, and set up her own business importing and selling the clothes and accessories she liked. In this one crowded shop in Kingly Street you could buy ‘Americana’, and he was not at all sure whether that was a real word or one he’d made up, that was obtainable nowhere else in London – blue jeans Foxx insisted were called Levis, leather jackets like Marlon Brando wore in The Wild One, sunglasses like the ones James Dean wore in he forgot what film. It was, he readily conceded, a good idea. Perhaps a little ahead of its time, but a good idea. What he’d never been sure of was the street. It seemed the wrong street. Nonetheless, her business had prospered, and they had lived together as a couple of wholly independent means. Her money was her money. And apart from her fights to the United States two or three times a year to stock up the shop, they had not been apart until now.

  There was a neon sign, a blue flicker in the shop window, ‘Grapes and Wrath’ (Troy had always liked the wit of this: most would have settled for the corniness of ‘Stars and Stripes’), and in the room above the dim orange glow of a reading lamp behind the curtain. Next to the trade bell for the shop was a new bell marked simply ‘Flat’. He pressed it several times, but there was not a sound from above nor the slightest movement of the curtain. He stood for ten minutes, telling himself every time he looked at his watch that he would go in thirty seconds, but stood an hour or more. Then he walked to the top of the street, as far as the London Palladium, then he walked back to the bottom, as far as Beak Street. When he had done this a couple of times he noticed a beat bobby watching him and realised that he, too, would regard this as slightly suspicious behaviour in anyone he did not know. But the bobby did know him, saluted, asked after his health and moved on. It was nearly midnight. He was tired. He stepped out into Regent Street, fagged a cab and went home.

  When Troy got in he found a large man asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The arm had been let down at either end and still the man hung off it. Head over one end and feet over the other. Feet, in all accuracy, was foot. One foot stuck out from under a blanket, at the other end a ginger head snored whisky snores, and in the middle of the carpet stood the other foot, attached to a tin leg. Also attached to the tin leg was a note:

  Strange woman in your bed.

  Yrs

  Angus

  James

  Montrose

  Tobemory

  Pakenham.

  PS you appear to be out of Scotch.

  What, thought Troy, was the mad bugger doing here? It seemed logical that Angus might not want to go home to his wife, Anna, but why here? Why me?

  Not putting the light on he groped his way upstairs and from bathroom to bedroom. As he slipped into bed Kitty woke and wrapped an arm around him. ‘You saw the guy on the couch?’

  ‘I could hardly miss him. He’s six foot four. Did you have to let him in?’

  ‘He seemed lonely. Said he was a friend.’

  ‘He is. After a fashion. Couldn’t you have packed him off to your room at Claridge’s?’

  ‘Like I said, he seemed lonely.’

  Troy weighed this one up. Angus never looked lonely. Angus always looked like what he was: a crackpot. War hero, decorated war hero, survivor of Colditz et cetera – but a crackpot. No, if loneliness was an issue it was far more likely to be hers than his, and loneliness was not what Troy would have called it.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘I might have.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Kitty!’

  ‘What harm does it do? You weren’t here. You didn’t have to watch.’

  ‘In my bed?’

  ‘’S OK. I changed the sheets.’

  ‘But. . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘He’s only got one leg.’

  ‘That’s OK too. He can still get the one leg over.’

  ‘What would you do if you met a man with no legs?’

  ‘Inventiveness would come to my rescue. Where there’s a will and all that malarkey.’

  ‘I don’t bloody believe this!’

  ‘Troy, could we go to sleep now? You’re making my brain ache.’

  § 39

  In the morning Troy woke to find Kitty had slipped out. The banging and rattling coming from the kitchen could not be her, accompanied as it was by an off-key baritone rendition of ‘Danny Boy’.

  Troy dressed quickly and went downstairs to see what the madman was up to. He was rambling and scrambling. Philosophy and eggs with brown-bread toast. Troy accepted breakfast and ate while Angus fluffed up more eggs for himself.

  ‘Glad you were in. I’ve been meaning to c
ome round for a –’

  ‘You mean,’ said Troy, ‘that you’re glad I was out.’

  ‘– bit of a chat. And don’t go bearing grudges. Do I pout and go sullen when I catch you in bed with the wife?’

  ‘You have never caught me in bed with Anna. And the last time you even suspected I might be you threatened to take off your tin leg and thrash me with it.’

  ‘Ah . . . I was younger then.’ Angus dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.

  ‘It was only a couple of years ago.’

  Angus stirred his eggs with a wooden spoon. ‘It’s the last couple of weeks that concern me now. I have had, for want of a better word, a revelation.’

  Angus found a neat pause in cooking and leaned over the table like a preacher with a lectern.

  Oh God, thought Troy.

  ‘You will agree, old son, that we are middle-aged?’

  Troy said nothing.

  ‘And that middle age itself requires a survival strategy?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The necessity is a plain one – to reinvent the self. To change from the man I am to the man I would be.’

  ‘And what would you be?

  The toaster pinged. Angus turned, caught the two slices deftly in mid-air, slapped them on to a plate, scooped up his scramble and, in what seemed to Troy to be a bit of flashy kitchen choreography, pivoted on his good leg, and sat down opposite Troy with his breakfast steaming up his nose. Only the clunk as his tin leg collided with the table spoilt the effect.

  Angus winced. ‘You won’t believe how much that hurts.’

  ‘You were saying . . .’

  ‘Indeed I was . . . I’ve given it a lot of thought. One must see to the heart of the age in which one lives. Changing oneself is merely—’

  ‘Angus. You cannot change yourself.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You can change. But you can’t change yourself. You can’t will it.’

  ‘I do hope you’re wrong there. I was going to say that changing oneself is just the prelude to changing society. And to do that you must know where your society is, where its heart is.’

  ‘OK. So what do you mean to do?’

  ‘Simple, really. Weighed it up. Looked at it from all angles. Pros, cons, you know the score. As I see it, either I join a skiffle band or I stand for Parliament. Since I can’t – as you may have gathered – keep a tune for more than about five seconds and as I do not own a tea chest or a washboard . . .’

  ‘You want to be an MP!’

  ‘Quite. Which is why I needed to see you. I was wondering if you might have a bit of a chat with your brother. No point in beating about the bush, is there? Could be an election any minute. Rod could be Home Secretary any day now. Got to get meself a safe seat.’

  ‘Angus, are you even a member of the Labour Party?’

  ‘Details, Troy, mere details.’

  ‘I think you’ll find Rod will not agree. And the answer’s no. You want Rod to pull strings for you, call him yourself.’

  When would people stop using Troy as an earpiece to get to his brother?

  ‘Have you considered standing as an independent?’

  ‘Buggers never stand a chance. Party system runs the whole shebang.’

  ‘That rather depends on where you stand. Why do you think Rod stood for Hertfordshire? Because he was local. Local connections can still count for a lot. An English public-school accent notwithstanding, weren’t you brought up in Scotland?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I’m from the Western Isles. My old dad cut quite a figure there before the war. I take your point. There’d be a bit of kudos in standing where I’d be known as old Hector’s son, but it’s an urban constituency I want. The belly of the beast.’

  There was no way Angus was ever going to get the belly of the beast. There was no way Troy would ever mention this loony request to Rod. He got up to push the plunger on the cafetie`re. The action seemed to break the spell of Angus’s obsession, and he changed the subject. ‘About the wife.’

  ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘This new bloke of hers.’

  Troy feigned innocence. ‘Anna has a new bloke?’

  ‘Good God, Troy, do the two of you never talk?’

  ‘About men? Hardly at all.’

  ‘Well, I thought she might have mentioned this one. It’s your brother-in-law, that git Lawrence Stafford from the Sunday Post.’

  So – he knew after all.

  An hour or so later the two of them stood on the doorstep. Troy had been edging him towards the door ever since breakfast. Angus took one step into the yard, and said, ‘Just a jify. I owe you this.’ He rolled up his trouser leg. The sun glinted on the tin as he flipped open a door in the leg to reveal a full bottle of Scotch, held in place by an ingenious system of straps and flanges. He unhooked it and handed it to Troy.

  ‘Got the old boy in Colditz village to make me the cubby hole when I lost the leg in ’42. Used to hide trowels and hammers in there during the war, goons never found ’em, and for a whole month I had the camp wireless tucked away in there, with the leg acting as an aerial. It’s probably one of life’s rarer experiences to feel the buttocks vibrate to the rhythm of the BBC Home Service. Nowadays I have better uses for it. This is the business. None of your blended muck. A good single malt from Skye. Talisker. Goes down like nectar. Try to save some for me.’

  He legged off, swinging his tin prosthesis like a cricket bat. Out, side, forward, down, clank. At the end of the alley Troy caught sight of a figure beating a hasty retreat. It looked to him remarkably like Gumshoe.

  § 40

  It was three days before he heard from Gumshoe again.

  ‘I was wondering if I could buy you lunch.’

  ‘OK,’ said Troy.

  ‘But this time I get to pick the joint.’

  ‘That’s OK too. Where did you have in mind?’

  ‘You heard of a street called Strand?’

  ‘Mr Rork, there are Malay bandits in the eastern jungle, there are Bushmen in the Kalahari, there are pygmies in the darkest reaches of the Belgian Congo who’ve heard of the Strand.’

  ‘Oh – so it’s kind of like Fifth Avenue?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Okey-doh. Meet me at a joint called Simpson’s. I hear it’s the best burger bar in town.’

  The maître d’ greeted Troy by name. Troy hardly ever ate at Simpson’s, but it had been a haunt of his father’s – and it was the memory of the old man they were greeting rather than the living son. Troy did not have to ask for Gumshoe. He had bagged a corner booth to the right of the great fireplace. He was facing the room, waving at Troy, and wearing that little-short-of-salivating look that Troy had known overtake aged members of the aristocracy to the detriment of heart, liver and life. Many a toff , Troy thought, would doubtless choose not to die unless he could take it with him – although it was the doctrine of the Anglican faith that you could take it with you– but if he had to die at all he would prefer to die in Simpson’s, fork in hand, ready to meet his Maker on a gastronomic high.

  ‘Swell, huh?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Troy replied. ‘Or if you had a talent for half-way decent prose you could say it was a Temple to Food. At least, I think that’s what P. G. Wodehouse called it.’

  ‘Wodehouse?’

  ‘The writer.’

  ‘Oh, yeah . . . H. G. Wodehouse, like War of the Worlds?’

  ‘That was Wells.’

  ‘Right. Orson Welles. Y’ know, I was in New York when he did it on the radio. All those Martians landing in New Jersey. Scared the bejasus out of the whole city. Now – to business. What would you recommend?’

  ‘Well, you won’t get whelks or eels.’

  ‘Everything in its place,’ said Gumshoe. ‘And I was thinking of something more in the beef line.’

  ‘In the beef line? OK. Flag down the carver and see if he has any beef Wellington.’

  ‘Why’s it called that?’

  ‘After
the Duke, I would imagine. Can’t say I’ve ever given it much thought.’

  ‘Right. Duke Ellington. Very American. He’s from Washington, y’ know. Saw him play Carnegie Hall, Christmas of ’47. Johnny Hodges did this great sax medley – “Junior Hop” . . .’

  Troy raised a hand and fagged the carver.

  ‘. . . “Jeep’s Blues”. . .’

  The carver, so fagged, wheeled his carnivore’s cart to their table.

  ‘. . . “The Mood to Be Wooed”. . .’

  Troy stopped the flow of reminiscence –

  ‘. . . nobody is as mellow as Hodges, not even Ben Webster . . .’

  – and pointed out the beef (W)Ellington.

  Gumshoe looked from the beef to the waiter and back again. Troy thought he might be in danger of drooling. Perhaps suggesting one thing was a mistake. Why not let him order the whole smoking carvery?

  ‘What’s the white stuff on the outside?’

  ‘Pastry, sir.’

  ‘So it’s like . . . cow pie?’

  The waiter looked to Troy in something close to despair.

  ‘Only Desperate Dan eats cow pie.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A cowboy of sorts – shaves with a blow-lamp, lives off cow pie, always leaves the horns on the side of the plate. Bad manners not to, after all. He’s very popular with children over here.’

  ‘So it is American? Great. Beef Ellington it is. And for my guest?’

  Troy ordered a few slices of rare roast. Wondered how much more of Gumshoe’s chit-chat he could take.

  But Gumshoe headed him off at the pass. Slapped down another packet of snapshots. ‘Now, tell me, Topcop. Do you still say Daniel Ryan is kosher?’

  Troy said nothing.

  ‘Take a look.’

  Troy slid the first few photographs on to the tablecloth. Angus – leaving Troy’s house in Goodwin’s Court.

  ‘She’s seen him since, you know,’ Gumshoe said, with more man-to man than Troy found tolerable.

  Angus leaving Claridge’s.

  ‘I mean, what does she see in a gimp?’